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gunzip/tars
by Ricardo Campos 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

When you get a file such as file.tar.gz , do you need to do gunzip file.tar.gz tar -xvf file.tar Or can u go straight to: tar -xvzf file.tar.gz I have been doing the latter, but *all* of my compiles have gone wrong. What's the difference between the two? Ricardo _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Debian Difficulties
by Earl Brannigan 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

Hi all, Following a few late nights I fianlly have a nice debian 2.2r3 installation. Quite pleased as it goes. However it is not without a number of difficulties so if anyone can offer any input I'd be very grateful. Sorry that these may be quite simple, no doubt I'll find solutions eventually by the usual methods (read alot of stuff, try a few ideas, undo those ideas, try some more.... rejoice at 4:00am that it finally works!!) 1)pppd is happily installed but doesn't work. I'm using wvdial to connect (from my old config file) which seems to work fine. A connection is established then wvdial goes quiet for a few secs (no activity) then it complains that it cannot get a carrier so messages : 'starting pppd and hoping for the best' before giving up. I imagine that for some reason wvdial is not able to hand over to pppd. I also have to be root to get this to work. I have changed the permissions on /dev/modem to allow users rw access but I don't trust this setting.... any ideas on how to enable wvdial/ppp for all users. In the past /dev/modem has always been crw-rw-r-- root root with no problems so there must be something else (elevating privs or something... quite frankly I'd rather not elevate unless the relevant proggie(s) drop privs after initialising modem... 2)I can only run X as root. If i try to run it as a general user I get error "User is not authorised to Run XServer". I have checked the permissions on all of the binaries I know of and they all have lowest order execute bit set (I haven't changed them - that is how they were installed). Is there an X Setting I'm missing? 3) I have libjpeg installed but I cannot display jpeg images. If i attempt to open one in electric eyes - nothing, gimp - nothing, mozilla - the jpeg info (but not the image...). I dunno. 4) Adding menu items to gnome doesn't work. Programs are shown in the menu editor but don't appear in the menus themselves. Most (but not all) gnome/x apps I install from apt-get do not show up in the menus (hence the menu-editor). 5) How do I change my default window-manager (red hat had a useful thing called switchdesk so I never learned where this was defined.. maybe .xsession/ or something. 6) Sound : I have a Creative Soundblaster 128 which I can't seem to get working, again red-hat always made my life easy here with sndconfig. In the absence of that I need to find and load the correct kernel module. Buggered if I know how. Intended to re-use the lines from my old modules.conf - actually its conf.modules but now I find that that is deprecated - and the format has changed and i need to run some utility to add new lines to it (name escapes me at the moment) which means I need to find the module - which I can't.... grrrr. - so : 7) Kernel Compile : thought it would pay to do a kernel compile instead, specifying the modules I need and get around things that way. So, make xconfig was fine, found a useful sound driver among other things, make bzImage dies when compiling boot.c. Error : as86 command not found, the makefile for the relevant directory specifies AS86=as86. I have no program called as86, changing it to 'as' gives another error : as - unknown option -O (which suggests to me that I am missing a binary called as86, does anyone know anything about this or how do i find which package has this binary. I have had no luck finding anything called as86! Is there something debian that I should know ? (Martyn mentioned in a previous mail Any thoughts - any at all - gladly appreciated Cheers Earl

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Bad News again..
by Martyn Drake 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

Hi folks, More doom and gloom. The deal that I thought would happen has fallen through, and to make matters worse, I've been made redundant (thanks Internet Assist - just before my wedding!). Therefore, I will need to start arranging transfer of the domains (anglian.lug.org.uk and alug.org.uk) to whoever can host them. Now, the details for the web site and lists are:- 1) The web site occupies less than 27Mb. It runs a CVS server, but Mark Ray will need to confirm anything else that needs to run. 2) The mailing list is powered by Mailman 2.05 (and the whole thing is less than 8.7Mb). Those are the only requirements I'm aware of, but someone will need to run a DNS server for alug.org.uk as I will no longer have such luxuries at the end of the month. Regards, Martyn

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USB floppy disk drives
by Adam Bower 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

Hello all, Does anybody on the list own a USB floppy disk drive? If you do and you either live in North Norfolk or are coming to the Alug meet on Sunday then please let me know. I am currently struggling to update the Bios on my Vaio with not much success as it was designed to be updated from a USB floppy, my current plan of action has been making a bootable CD with a floppy image on which almost worked but when the Bios update utility ran it demands you have to save a backup of the working Bios which is a little difficult when you just booted from CD! I may have another fight with it later but if anyone has a USB floppy it will save me from going totally mad, or if you have any other suggestions then let me know. Many thanks Adam -- This message is Copyleft - all rights reversed Adam

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Re: [Alug] XSL Formatting Objects Question - Setting Document Defaults
by MJ Ray 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

Steve Fosdick <fozzy(a)pelvoux.demon.co.uk> writes: > I now have FOP installed though I am little disapointed that > the only Java VM it seems to work with is a non-free one, but > it now seems to be working. Is there any JVM which is both current *and* free? -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Java Support in Windows XP
by Earl Brannigan 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

Hi all, received this this morning, thought it might interest a couple of you. Remember a few discussions recently about MS no-longer shipping a JVM. Well here is a statement (legit) from Sun.... like it! Cheers Earl PS Sorry its a bit long, but I didn't want to snip it down > -----Original Message----- > From: JDJ [mailto:editor@sys-con.com] > Sent: 09 September 2001 03:23 > To: Java Developer's Journal > Subject: Your Feedback to Scott McNealy, CEO, Sun Microsystems > > > THE PLATFORM OF CHOICE > by Scott McNealy, CEO, Sun Microsystems > > http://www.sys-con.com/java/articler.cfm?id=1155 > http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/010831/01031380.html > > It's becoming more obvious to me every day that Java technology is the > platform of choice -- in more ways than one. > > In the traditional sense of the phrase, it's the answer to the questions > all developers ask themselves: Which platform should I develop to? Which > has the biggest market, the most influence? Which provides me with a means > to demonstrate my skills and creativity? There's a second meaning as well > -- another question to answer: Which platform provides developers, > customers, and users with more choice? > > In this new meaning, "platform of choice" indicates a platform that runs > on multiple operating systems, addresses a wide spectrum of hardware, and > can spawn multiple implementations so users are free to select the one > that works best (yours, of course). > > By either definition, Java technology is still the platform of choice, and > this works to your benefit -- big time. The Java platform addresses > opportunities ranging from the biggest servers available to the desktop to > millions of new client devices -- smart cards, mobile phones, pagers, > PDAs, TV set-top boxes, and automotive systems. (Clearly the definition of > "client" is due for an update, too.) > > Java technology is really hitting its stride now. In six months, more than > six million phones enabled with Java technology have been sold in Japan, > where the three largest wireless providers -- NTT DoCoMo, J-Phone, and > KDDI -- have deployed interactive wireless services. One analyst estimates > that between now and 2005, more than 700 million JVMs will be deployed on > these new devices. > > In the server market, we're seeing unprecedented choice. There are 17 > different applications servers available today that are compatible with > the Java platform. Some are the underpinning of IDEs, but even then IT > professionals can choose the implementation that best suits their needs. > > And if the ISV they choose falls behind,they can replace one app server > with another at a dramatically lower cost. > > More than 400 major corporations are working together through the Java > Community Process to innovate, enhance,and expand Java technology. > Offerings from Sun, IBM, HP, BEA, and Oracle,to name a few, are all built > around the platform of choice. > > The lonely exception, of course, is Microsoft. Unless you've been totally > out of touch since mid-July, you're aware that Microsoft is not shipping a > JVM with Windows XP. The reason? Microsoft has used every excuse from "the > lawsuit settlement required us to do this" to my personal favorite, "We > don't want Windows to have too much code." The real reason, I suspect, is > that Microsoft is anti-choice. > > But at the end of the day, you'll want to know whether this move will > lessen the market for your products and impact your livelihood. Rest > assured that we will provide XP support. > > It will be the latest Java technology, not something old. We'll distribute > it via PC manufacturers, Web sites, ISVs -- whatever it takes to ensure > that your Java apps run anywhere. > > So keep on writing to the platform of real choice, the one that's here > today: the Java platform. > > Scott McNealy is the chief executive officer of Sun Microsystems. > > > *** > > > Add Your Feedback: > http://www.sys-con.com/java/articler.cfm?id=1155 > > Read Reader Feedback: > http://www.sys-con.com/java/articler.cfm?id=1155

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

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.openprojects.net in the #alug channel, you can take a look at www.openprojects.net to get more info on the openprojects network. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server uk.openprojects.net" or "/server eu.openprojects.net" 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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FW: Help us fight the EUCD by leafletting about copy-protected CDs
by Martyn Drake 09 Sep '01

09 Sep '01

Just forwarding this announcement that came in for the group. BTW, potential good news about the list and web hosting, but I can't say anything as yet until early next week until everything has been agreed (if agreed!). To those that are currently offering hosting - my humble thanks to all, and hopefully we should know next week where things are heading. Regards, Martyn (aren't weddings a bugger to organise) Drake -----Original Message----- From: Jim Peters [mailto:cd@uk.eurorights.org] Sent: 09 September 2001 17:26 To: Martyn Drake Subject: Help us fight the EUCD by leafletting about copy-protected CDs CAMPAIGN FOR DIGITAL RIGHTS, UK ACTION DAY, SATURDAY 15th Please help us fight the EUCD and avoid more cases like that of Dmitry Sklyarov by distributing leaflets outside major record stores in your local town centre this Saturday. I'm writing to all the UK Linux user groups to invite them to join us in this action. We are planning a nationwide leafletting campaign to raise public awareness about the new copy-protected CDs that the major record labels have started to sneak into the UK, and to use this issue to raise awareness about the EUCD, the DMCA and the case of Dmitry Sklyarov. Check out our leaflet, which we hope will make the man in the street and his family say "Enough is enough!": http://uazu.net/cd/ Here is some background on all of this, in case any of these issues are unfamiliar to you: Dmitry Sklyarov: --------------- I hope you have already heard about the case of Dmitry Sklyarov, the Russian cryptographer who was arrested in the USA after presenting a paper at DEFCON in which he exposed weaknesses in Adobe's eBook encryption. He faces up to 25 years in jail if found guilty. Check out the campaign in support of him: http://www.freesklyarov.org/ http://www.freedmitry.org/ He was arrested under America's new controversial DMCA laws. The Campaign for Digital Rights: ------------------------------- This is a UK group that formed to handle action in support of Dmitry here in the UK - it is linked off the freesklyarov site. Already two protests have taken place in London. Check out the web-site for details of these, and for mailing lists, flyers and other materials: http://uk.eurorights.org/ Soon after its formation, it became clear that the case of Dmitry Sklyarov was just the tip of the iceberg, and that the CDR could usefully campaign on much broader issues. For one thing, coming soon are the European equivalents of the DMCA laws, known as the EUCD, which have yet to be passed into law (they must be passed in each country individually). There is a chance that we may be able to make a difference here before it is too late. The new copy-protected CDs: -------------------------- These are the record manufacturer's latest ploy to put an end to MP3s and digital copying of CDs. They have developed a format which intentionally corrupts the error correction code on a CD, forcing a normal CD player to error-correct constantly, and even to interpolate and fabricate parts of the sound. They have been releasing these into the shops to see if anyone notices the difference, hoping that by claiming that there was no increase in the rate of return of these CDs, that they can justify putting all CDs into this format. They have released one million of these CDs into the UK alone. When ripping tracks from one of these CDs using a computer, naturally the CD drive complains about all these badly corrupted blocks, so it is impossible to rip the CD in the normal way. It might be possible to extract digital audio from CD drives that have SPDIF outputs, but in any case the audio quality of the CD can never be full CD-quality due to all the intentional corruption. Our campaign: ------------ We believe that the public will be outraged if they learn what the manufacturers are trying to do, and so we hope to give the public this information, and encourage them to act on it. That is the purpose of the leaflet. If there is enough public pressure on the record stores, this will be an extremely embarrassing situation for them, and they will be forced to choose between supporting the public (who keep them in business) or supporting the manufacturer. I'm sure you can see how this could be a potent force to help improve the situation. In addition, the media attention this would generate will allow campaigns against the EUCD to have much more credibility, giving us a chance to make a difference before it is too late. How you can help: ---------------- Even a single person handing out 500 leaflets in their local town centre this Saturday can make an enormous difference. If a group of you can get together, you could cover all the major record stores in your locality. If there are even more volunteers, you could make placards and get even more public attention. It's up to you. Apart from organising action in our own localities, we hope to help you by providing materials and a central point for coordination. We have the leaflet mentioned above ready for you to print out and take to a copy-shop, with another more general flyer coming soon to print on the reverse. On the CDR site there are also further EUCD and DMCA-related materials that might be useful for larger protests: http://uazu.net/cd/ http://uk.eurorights.org/ If you're thinking of leafletting in your area, check out the following page to see if anyone else is planning to do so as well. You could get in contact, and pool resources: http://uazu.net/cd/volunteers.html If there isn't someone already listed there for your locality, and you'd be willing to put up your contact details, please E-mail me this information at the address below. I need: the location you intend to cover, your name or the name of your group, plus some contact details (E-mail address and/or phone number): mailto:cd@uk.eurorights.org If you're not available on that day, but you know someone who might be, or some other group I might not have contacted, please forward this message to them. Particularly, user groups, if you have a mailing list, please let everyone know about this. The more people we can get involved, the better. If you want to keep in touch with further developments after this weekend, please join either the announce list or the discussion list at the CDR site: http://uk.eurorights.org/ Well, thankyou for reading all of this. I really hope that we can make a difference this Saturday and start to turn the tide against these extremely unpleasant plans from the media giants. Jim Peters -- Jim Peters (_)/=\~/_(_) Uazú (_) /=\ ~/_ (_) jim@ (_) /=\ ~/_ (_) www. uazu.net (_) ____ /=\ ____ ~/_ ____ (_) uazu.net

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XSL Formatting Objects Question - Setting Document Defaults
by Steve Fosdick 09 Sep '01

09 Sep '01

After the responses to my question about publishing in both print and HTML format I decided to have a go with XML, XSL and FOP. I now have FOP installed though I am little disapointed that the only Java VM it seems to work with is a non-free one, but it now seems to be working. I now have a mostly complete stylesheet for print which just needs some tuning to make it look prettier but it also seems that I am forever having to repeat font attributes in various different bits of the stylesheet. What I would like to do if I can is to define some defaults for the font attributes to apply to the whole document and then the style template for the each of the various XML elements can just override the ones it needs to. Does anyone know how to do this? Steve Fosdick.

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kernel version 2.4.9 problems
by Adam Bower 08 Sep '01

08 Sep '01

Hi all, maybe this is just me but kernel 2.4.9 seems to be almost as broken as a copy of windows ME!! last night I decided to get all my machines up to 2.4.9 (they were on a mix of 2.4.*) The first machine I have to downgrade was my NFS server, I can't remember the exact details but I was first having trouble getting the NFS to compile as a module but when I built it into the kernel it compiled. I then restart my box and the NFS clients start complaining that they can't get request slots etc. I put this down to some kind of 2.4.9 problems so restored the old 2.4.7 image and the NFS starts working again. The next machine that got 2.4.9 was my Vaio, this time 2.4.9 compiles nicely and there were no problems until I try and use my 3Com network card, the driver loads dmesg says everything is all nice and lovely, even the flashy light on the side of the card lights up! but does it work, the short answer is no. The final machine to get 2.4.9 (well I was compiling on all 3 at once) is my main workstation, and everything appeared to be ok until just now when I noticed lots of apps are segfaulting! Anyway rant over, I will check out the kernel mailing lists etc. to see if it is a problem at my end or Linus has decided to break the vm again. Has anyone else had any similar problems? I am looking at the FreeBSD cds in a very different light just now though, maybe I will be doing an install fest to BSD very soon ;-) Adam -- This message is Copyleft - all rights reversed Adam

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Re: [Alug] kernel version 2.4.9 problems
by MJ Ray 08 Sep '01

08 Sep '01

xsprite(a)bigfoot.com writes: > hmm? > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/synching.html > http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/makeworld.html "make world" is not a clean entire upgrade, nor does it claim to be. Last I checked, there was no nice way to install security patches to installed software either. The engineering of BSD lags some way behind Debian, sadly. -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Re: [Alug] kernel version 2.4.9 problems
by MJ Ray 08 Sep '01

08 Sep '01

Adam Bower <abower(a)thebowery.co.uk> writes: > Anyway rant over, I will check out the kernel mailing lists etc. to see if > it is a problem at my end or Linus has decided to break the vm again. Has > anyone else had any similar problems? I doubt it's a conscious decision, but I still can't quite bring myself to trust 2.4 kernels with machines I need until they get development on 2.5 underway. OK, cock-ups do happen in a stable series (2.2.17/18 OOM nuttiness, anyone?), but 2.4.x still hasn't been allowed to stabilise. > I am looking at the FreeBSD cds in a very different light just now though, > maybe I will be doing an install fest to BSD very soon ;-) Oh, any infatuation with FreeBSD will soon wear off when you try to upgrade between versions. No "apt-get dist-upgrade" there. Not even a clean upgrade option. -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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FREE to a good home
by Paul 08 Sep '01

08 Sep '01

One dual Pentium (slot 1) motherboard with onboard graphics (looks like ATI Rage), 10/100 network, SCSI, floppy, along with the usual serial, printer keyboard etc.. But no IDE. This came out of a Dell server, beyond that I have no other details. There is no guarantees or manuals to go with it. Free to the first person that can collect in Norwich. Regards, Paul.

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Dual head displays
by Paul 07 Sep '01

07 Sep '01

Hi Folks I'm back after some months of absence (been else where on other projects). I now have XFree86-4.10 and KDE2.2 installed on a spare 40Gig drive (I know, it's only a baby), and am trying to get a dual head display running. The graphics card has two GD5462 chips on board, but I'll be b***red if I can work out how to get both of them to work. Has anyone succeeded in running a dual display, and if so, do you have any pointers ? Regards, Paul.

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Syleham Meeting
by jh Atkinson 06 Sep '01

06 Sep '01

Greetings! Those of you who were at the last Syleham meeting may recognise me, if I describe myself as 'Ancient John' (whose wife made the biscuits), for I am well past my sell-by date, possibly past my display-until date, but I hope not past my use-by one. I do articles for a technical magazine. That magazine, like others, including Linux ones, uses Apple Macs for publishing. You could save the magazine's type setter from being murdered - and me from life imprisonment for that murder, if you can help me with (at Syleham) conversion of a postcript file to a pdf one. I had this demonstrated to me (but not on my Linux box), using the Linux command, ps2pdf, but I did not succeed in making it work when I got home. I am fed up to the back teeth with having symbols, such as degree signs, proper dashes and greek letters which I have carefully put in, being stripped out and not replaced or not replaced properly. My main reason for trying to use Linux is that I am working on communication for the deafblind. Many of the blind have not a hope of learning Braille. I understand that less than a quarter of the blind in the USA are literate in Braille. Computer technology that can work fast and efficiently is necessary for my project. If Linux is the operating system to go for, and I believe it is, I am hampered by a singular lack of expertise. Apart from configuration of zip drive and card for two additional serial ports I am stumped by configuration of the SCSI card, and so the scanner. It looks as if no appropriate module is being loaded. Scanning is an essential. The idea is for the deaf blind user to secure an opened book to the scanner. The scanner scans, feeds its output to the best OCR software to be had. The output from that is fed to a special shorthand system which I am developing. In turn, this is fed to a chord system reader. This latter (though not in its final form) is up and running, and I am learning to read on it. The time is rapidly approaching when I shall be really hampered by lack of a scanner that I can use. My Linux box's RAM figure is 128. Processor speed 500. Linux kernel 2.0 Linux flavour SuSE 7.0 Hard disk 20G I do hope there may be someone at Syleham who can come to my aid. I may bring the prototype chord reader as well as a couple of strange keyboards, if interest warrants. Ancient John (Atkinson)

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Bad, Bad news..
by Martyn Drake 06 Sep '01

06 Sep '01

Rackspace (who are my current hosting providers) have seriously mucked up in the billing stakes last month. I can no longer afford to run my server on such a (censored) way that's going to cost me more money than I ought to be spending each month. The long and short of it is that I'm terminating my dedicated server with Rackspace. Preferably ASAP (before the end of the month). Therefore, is there any kind people with a spare server out that that would be willing to handle hosting (either permanent or temporary - I'm attempting to see if my bosses would be willing to sponsor Alug by providing some space on their server) The term, "oh bugger!" springs to mind and I sincerely apologise to everybody about this. In particular to Mark Ray and David Freeman who are the current list moderators. I would like nothing better to scream and shout at Rackspace's accounts department for well and truly cocking things up. In July they took the best part of $1,156 dollars instead of $315 due to a muck up with their records. It's been fixed, but this latest incident does not impress me. I'm eyeing up a DSVR account as a potential new home for all my bits and bobs (I'm using Fasthosts for the time being for drake.org.uk - yeah, I know they're crap, but they're okay for a short period while I find something better), but nothing has been decided yet. Regards, Martyn "shafted by Rackspace, Webfusion and Pogolinux" Drake

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crash!
by Ricardo Campos 06 Sep '01

06 Sep '01

I was forced to use a hard reboot last night- grrrrrr! I installed Enlightenment, which went fine until I tried to load a certain theme. Then it came up with "config file missing lines" and asked me to restart or quit E (there was another choice-I don't remember). So I restarted E- it locked my computer up totally, no amount of key-bashing worked. After making a cup of tea, I decided to hard reboot. Unfortunately, now every time I start Gnome, it goes through this process, even though Sawfish is my WM for E!!! (This has locked the computer up too). I reinstalled E, but this didn't help. Has anyone had the same/similar problem? Incidentally, another thing that occurred just after that was that my computer CAN connect to the 'net, but for some reason cannot transfer any data at all, meaning I had to reboot into windoze to get online. grrrrrrrr.... >:| Ricardo _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Re: [Alug] Debian is my friend .... I think
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 06 Sep '01

06 Sep '01

David Casal wrote: >wehey! good to hear... there's hope for the linux musician yet! doesn't >Jenny Hopkins get up to this kind of stuff too? I'd love to hear more about >what stuff, and how... What's this I get up to? I deny it all! I'm only a linux musician in the sense that I run linux and make music, I don't use the linuxbox for music. Any music I do have on computer is in cubase, which I think is windows only. Let me know what you find for linux though. There was a discussion on various linux music programmes on the list last year. Want me to send them? I wrote >It's my life's ambition to get so i can do something faster in linux than > windows. Which caused Simon Jude to write: >Lots of things are quicker to do in Linux than Windoze. Just think of how >many times you have to reboot when making small system changes or >installing software. And just think of the free time from not having to >restart a crashed machine. Don't worry - it was only a joke. Takes me so long to get anything insttalled/configured/whatever I could usually have done it several times with a wooden wheel. Thanks to Jonathan for the PGDEBUG hints..I replaced the f*****d graphics card, tweaked my postmaster.init file and all is as good as new. Back to trying to get php working ;) Jenny.

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Bad, Bad news..
by Martyn Drake 05 Sep '01

05 Sep '01

Rackspace (who are my current hosting providers) have seriously mucked up in the billing stakes last month. I can no longer afford to run my server on such a (censored) way that's going to cost me more money than I ought to be spending each month. The long and short of it is that I'm terminating my dedicated server with Rackspace. Preferably ASAP (before the end of the month). Therefore, is there any kind people with a spare server out that that would be willing to handle hosting (either permanent or temporary - I'm attempting to see if my bosses would be willing to sponsor Alug by providing some space on their server) The term, "oh bugger!" springs to mind and I sincerely apologise to everybody about this. In particular to Mark Ray and David Freeman who are the current list moderators. I would like nothing better to scream and shout at Rackspace's accounts department for well and truly cocking things up. In July they took the best part of $1,156 dollars instead of $315 due to a muck up with their records. It's been fixed, but this latest incident does not impress me. I'm eyeing up a DSVR account as a potential new home for all my bits and bobs (I'm using Fasthosts for the time being for drake.org.uk - yeah, I know they're crap, but they're okay for a short period while I find something better), but nothing has been decided yet. Regards, Martyn "shafted by Rackspace, Webfusion and Pogolinux" Drake

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Re: [Alug] Debian is my friend .... I think
by David Casal 05 Sep '01

05 Sep '01

> > Anyone have any experience on win2k/Debian dual-booting? Just how hard > > would it be to get an almost-risk-free system running that? > > Yup, do it all the time. win2k/debian appears to be a far safer option > than win98 (I've lost my hard disk twice to 98 but never to 2k). As long > as things are backed up, it shouldn't be a problem. wehey! good to hear... there's hope for the linux musician yet! doesn't Jenny Hopkins get up to this kind of stuff too? I'd love to hear more about what stuff, and how... > > Sound config on it would be OSS, since I bought the drivers.Yummy. > > Also not a problem... I use OSS on my fileserver (well, with all those > disks it seemed silly not to use it as an mp3 jukebox too!) and that works > fine. How very, very nice. Planning to use an SQL object in PD to query FFT routines, hopefully for a bit of machine listening (Rowe, 2001) stuff. The idea would be to have small, well-defined samples stored in some kind of SQL place (PostgreS?), and have the routines from what I play (on shite keyboard) query them. A kind of AI sampler...Rowe wrote the neural network routines in C++ for MAC (yuk), but I reckon it could be ported to the PD environment (extremely well-commented .h), in C. Planning to learn that at the weekend...;~} Cheers, David

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Re: [Alug] Debian is my friend .... I think
by Ricardo Campos 05 Sep '01

05 Sep '01

I think it shouldn't really matter which distro you use. All you need to do is defrag then partition the HD, and make sure LILO/GRUB is installed on the 2nd partition (probably hda6) rather than the boot partition, with a very short wait before booting the default (unless you like waiting or typing). Then you need to install a bootloader (I use XOSL www.xosl.org) on the first partition (i.e. c:/), and that'll give you the choice. I'd have to say, I'd kill you if you touched one of MY companies laptops (even for Linux!!!) :P Ricardo _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Debian is my friend .... I think
by Earl Brannigan 05 Sep '01

05 Sep '01

Hi all, been a while since I posted something along these lines but here goes... Last night I finally ditched a DeadRat 6.2 installation (needed cleaning up anyway) and moved to a debian potato installation (bargain from Linux Expo..... free beer as well!). Install was nice and easy except : 1)loved the way apt can just plough through your CDs and catalogue all the packages (during the install), but how do you get it to do this in normal running (I thought I had the idea but ended up breaking apt!), ie I want it to now search through the rest of my catalogue of CDs. 2)Having broken apt by replacing the file:/file/binary/for/install/disk1 line with something that doesn't work is there a quick way to get it back. Or can I just tell apt to go search my CDs again (re: 1). 3)dselect is all very well but I would prefer a nice way to group say all X Packages together. Perhaps I'm missing something. 4)Where is XConfigurator ? I tried to be a bit clever last night but think I would have been better to play novice - quiet at the back!! ;o) and let debian do everything. Anyways, any thoughts, experiences or hints and tips to assist in making my transfer to the king of Distros as painless as possible much appreciated. Pllllllease no "RTFM"s, I am reading it but time is a pre-requisite, so if you just write and say "RTFM under apt section on blah" I'll still be grateful for the pointer. Cheers, Earl

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Re: [Alug] Introduction
by MJ Ray 05 Sep '01

05 Sep '01

"Ricardo Campos" <corez23(a)hotmail.com> writes: > My name is Ricardo, I work for local government as a Windoze NT Network > Admin (and a Lotus Notes Admin)(oh, and as a MS SQL Server admin), and I was > attracted to Linux once I saw the license costs for MS products! Heheh... pleased to welcome you to the group! > [...] Unfortunately our beloved government has decided exactly what > OS's and which products to use, and I cannot change that [...] Where is that policy set? I still don't understand why the government is apparently trying to get every company in the land to buy at least one operating system from an American company. > When is the next meet? Both my machines have network cards, and I might be > able to borrow a hub or two. On 16 September at Syleham, near Diss, Suffolk. See the web site (URL below)... I guess we should put more details on there. -- MJR This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Re: [Alug] Introduction
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 05 Sep '01

05 Sep '01

Hullo Ricardo. >(that means working on it after the pub till 3am just to do something that >would have taken me about 4 seconds to do in Windoze) It's my life's ambition to get so i can do something faster in linux than windows. >....we are not allowed to upgrade from Lotus 4.6 to R5 We call that a downgrade here at work. Next meeting is Sun 16 Sept, unless I am as wrong as i usually am. Where are you based? Jenny.

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Introduction
by Ricardo Campos 05 Sep '01

05 Sep '01

Hi, like it says in the "welcome to the list" e-mail, I'm meant to introduce myself... My name is Ricardo, I work for local government as a Windoze NT Network Admin (and a Lotus Notes Admin)(oh, and as a MS SQL Server admin), and I was attracted to Linux once I saw the license costs for MS products! Seriously, though, I have been frustrated at the lack of security and general lack of affordable network resources for this OS, Windows scripting is poor etc. etc. You get the idea. Unfortunately our beloved government has decided exactly what OS's and which products to use, and I cannot change that (for example we are not allowed to upgrade from Lotus 4.6 to R5, senseless!). However, we are soon going to have external access to our WAN so we need a firewall..... I'm much more into the ethos of free software and I've started learning C programming, and would like to contribute once I'm competent enough. (I think maybe making .rpm's for newbies will be one of my main tasks when I'm not one) I'm currently getting to grips with Linux-Mandrake 8 on my desktop computer (that means working on it after the pub till 3am just to do something that would have taken me about 4 seconds to do in Windoze) , and have Zipslack on my knackered laptop- I got it 2nd hand and it didn't come with any CD's at all (not that it has a CD-Rom!): I'm not sure that I'd risk replacing the OS entirely just yet. (My desktop box has lots of USB devices which aren't supported, so I'm currently struggling with a triple-boot system! [Win 98 for games & periphs, Win 2k as my productivity station due to stability, and Mandrake]. Hopefully I can get Linux to replace Windows 2K on my desktop for ever! Currently D/l ISO's for progeny debian, Smoothwall, Slackware, maybe fiddle around with them too. God bless free kilostream connections! When is the next meet? Both my machines have network cards, and I might be able to borrow a hub or two. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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