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Problems with Linux Mint 17.1
by Chris Walker 05 Jan '15

05 Jan '15

Hopefully somebody can help me with this one. One of sons has given the other son a Shuttle PC. He installed a couple of discs, set up LVM to make them appear as one and installed Linux Mint 17.1. All good so far. He couldn't do all the updates as his broadband wasn't quick enough so I offered to do those as number 2 son is staying with me for a few days. Next I thought I'd install all the usual stuff as he's going to be using the machine to feed content to his tv. That's where the fun begins. VLC went on fine. But If I run get_iplayer (latest version 2.91) it doesn't convert the files to mp3 as my own does. I can't find ffmpeg anywhere so after googling, I found a site that told me to add a repo. Tried doing that but get an error about aptsources which can't find a distribution template for LinuxMint/rebecca. I then tried the solution posted here http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=183099 to add a couple of lines to /etc/apt/sources but I'm still getting the same error. I'm now going round in circles trying to fix various errors so thought it best to ask those who have greater knowledge than I. Hence, here I am! -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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Mir - Wayland
by James Freer 04 Jan '15

04 Jan '15

I gather that Debian is going to go down the Wayland route. Ubuntu is following Mir which I gather has given problems to Lubuntu, Xubuntu and Kubuntu. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mir_%28software%29 I am just wondering what will happen to the Debian derivative family - seems a break up is likely in 2015-2016. Be interested to hear from those in development what the future possibly holds. james

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'bouncing' USB ethernet connection - why?
by Chris Green 02 Jan '15

02 Jan '15

I am trying to use a USB-ethernet adapter to give me a second ethernet connection to an xubuntu 14.04 system. It's detected OK and drivers are loaded but Network Manager goes into a loop repeatedly saying the connection has been established and then saying it's disconnected. It cycles once very few seconds, say 10 seconds or so. It's set up with a static IP on a different subnet from the 'proper' ethernet. Does anyone have any idea what might be wrong? -- Chris Green

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 2nd January.
by Viperfang 30 Dec '14

30 Dec '14

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

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Network drawing tools - any [good] Linux ones?
by Chris Green 15 Dec '14

15 Dec '14

Are there any Linux network drawing tools? I don't really want a full-blown Network Management solution like OpenNMS or Nagios, I just want an easy way to map my home network that doesn't require me to do it all manually. -- Chris Green

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Failed to start Remount Root and Kernel File Systems
by Barry Samuels 15 Dec '14

15 Dec '14

I get the error message in the subject line every time my computer starts. It's running Debian Testing/Jessie 64 bit. There seems, however, to be nothing wrong. If I run 'systemctl status systemd-remount-fs.service' I get the following: ● systemd-remount-fs.service - Remount Root and Kernel File Systems Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/systemd-remount-fs.service; static) Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Wed 2014-12-10 12:23:12 GMT; 6h ago Docs: man:systemd-remount-fs.service(8) http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/APIFileSystems Process: 292 ExecStart=/lib/systemd/systemd-remount-fs (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE) Main PID: 292 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE) Dec 10 12:23:12 dataman1 systemd-remount-fs[292]: mount: /usr not mounted or bad option Dec 10 12:23:12 dataman1 systemd-remount-fs[292]: In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try Dec 10 12:23:12 dataman1 systemd-remount-fs[292]: dmesg | tail or so. Dec 10 12:23:12 dataman1 systemd-remount-fs[292]: /bin/mount for /usr exited with exit status 32. Dec 10 12:23:12 dataman1 systemd[1]: systemd-remount-fs.service: main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE Dec 10 12:23:12 dataman1 systemd[1]: Failed to start Remount Root and Kernel File Systems. Dec 10 12:23:12 dataman1 systemd[1]: Unit systemd-remount-fs.service entered failed state. That seems to indicate a problem with the /usr mount but /usr is mounted and the options in fstab are the same as the /home /usr/local and /var partitions which are 'defaults'. The 'root' partition is mounted r/w. Does anyone understand this stuff? I don't. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 15 Dec '14

15 Dec '14

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back today, 15th December, at 20:00: The Mulberry Tree 5 Woodbridge Road IPSWICH IP4 2EA Tel: 01473 225776 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP4+2EA WWW: https://www.facebook.com/MULBERRYHOSPITALITY The Mulberry Tree, previously known as The Milestone Beer House, is a grade 2 listed building in the centre of Ipswich. It is located at the intersection between Woodbridge Road and the A1156, across the road from the old Odeon cinema and not far from the Regent Theatre. It re-opened on Thursday March 29th 2012 after a major refurbishment, under its original name of The Mulberry House and has already begun to regain a good reputation for its selection of beers and ales. It has a sizeable car park to the rear of the building. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Cheers, Peter. -- I am aiming to run the London Marathon 2015 in aid of the PSP Association. All sponsorship gratefully received. :) http://www.bagshot-row.org/marathonformum ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Firefox 34 and FlashStopper
by Bev Nicolson 11 Dec '14

11 Dec '14

Help. I upgraded to Firefox 34 but since Flashblock doesn't work with it (boo) I've got FlashStopper instead, which I have to say, is not quite as good. How can I stop it auto-playing Vine gifs? I have tried to do this pro-actively without any joy. Ta. Bev.

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 11th December
by Viperfang 08 Dec '14

08 Dec '14

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 11th December at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA). The meeting officially starts at 8pm, although some people may arrive earlier. More information on those people can be found on the list and the IRC channel. If you are unsure if you will recognise us then make yourself and your intent to attend known by either posting on list or visiting us on IRC so we can look out for you rather than hiding in the corner. Optionally you could ask at the bar if they know where the geeky computer weirdos are and they'll point you in the right direction (seriously!). Another possibility is look for heaps of electronics on a table that may possibly look like movie props that would used for detonating explosives. Feel free to bring electronics/laptops/gadgets to the meet, you will by no means be alone. Ben Bewick aka Viperfang NB: This mail is automated, please refer to the usual sources for more information. ALUG Contact Details: Website : http://www.alug.org.uk/ IRC : #alug on irc.alug.org.uk List : http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo Twitter : http://twitter.com/anglianlug Identica: TBA Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2381613902 ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Low powered server machines - I've just bought one
by Chris Green 05 Dec '14

05 Dec '14

You may remember I've been mumbling and muttering about where and how to find low powered motherboards and/or complete systems for use as servers (disk NAS plus other services). I've just bought one of these:- http://www.morgancomputers.co.uk/product_detail/15265/Fujitsu-EsPrimo-P910-… I got an extra 10% off (easy, just look for Morgan promotions) so it cost me about £276. It's excellent, silent most of the time as the fans don't run unless you work it hard and, even better, the idle power consumption is only 24 watts. There's space for several more drives in the case. It would make an excellent little server machine. I'm actually going to use it as my desktop machine, it's quite fast enough for all the things I do. -- Chris Green

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"Simple" awk/sed job (not simple enough for me!)
by Mark Rogers 03 Dec '14

03 Dec '14

I have some Excel files that contain some useful information (hard to believe I know!). I want to extract just that information. Somewhere in the file it will say something like "Location: Blah" and I want to capture just "Blah". I can use xls2csv to turn the XLS into text and then run that through (eg) awk. Because the XLS field in question will now be in quotes, the following gets me the whole "Location: Blah" value: xls2csv myfile.xls | grep -oE '"Location:([^"]+)"' What I want is something like this: myfile: Blah (the filename prefix is because I plan on processing about 100 files this way). I'm sure this can all be done pretty simply within awk but the rate I'm going I'm going to end up with quite a complex script, so any guidance would be very welcome! -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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How to get xubuntu to 'see' an existing Windows 7 when installing?
by Chris Green 02 Dec '14

02 Dec '14

I'm trying to install xubuntu 14.10 on a computer which has windows 7 installed already. I want the xubuntu to resize the existing Windows installation and install alongside it giving me a dual boot system. I've created a standard USB stick from the 14.10 ISO file and it boots OK in the new computer but doesn't 'see' the existing Windows installation. It does see the two existing NTFS partitions OK though. Does anyone have any idea why the Windows installation isn't recognised and/or how to get xubuntu to install as dual boot? -- Chris Green

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Cannot log in with (or su to) new user
by Ewan Slater 30 Nov '14

30 Nov '14

Hi All, I have a situation is driving me round the twist. I can't log in with (or su to) any new user I create. Background: I have had to take over a box built by someone else (who is no longer available to speak with). The easy answer would be to rebuild said box, but we currently have a customer on it, and so that is not an option at the moment. Problem: I need to create a couple of new users. I ssh'd into the box with an existing account, su'd to root and created the new users with useradd, and set passwords for them. If I attempt to log in as one of these users, or from the existing account (not root) I attempt to su - <username> then I get incorrect password (and I have checked what I am typing very carefully). I have checked /etc/passwd and the users have a valid shell (/bin/bash) and a valid home directory. >From root I have used passwd -u to make sure that they are not locked. I had a look at bashrc, bash_profile, /etc/profile and can’t see anything that would cause the user to be locked out. Any ideas gratefully received. Cheers, Ewan

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VoIP/SIP servers
by Mark Rogers 26 Nov '14

26 Nov '14

Has anyone here got any experience of setting up a VoIP server? I have a couple of sip trunks from various places (Sipgate, Enta) which I hardly ever use but would like to start making use of. I have an account at pbxes.org which allows me to aggregate them but I'd rather run something of my own that I can learn something from. I'm therefore thinking about setting up a server running Asterisk (or similar) and some kind of web interface. Preference for Ubuntu server, Debian or CentOS in that order; most of the instructions I've found have been for CentOS (which I haven't yet tried), but the ones I have found for Debian/Ubuntu haven't worked one way or another. I'll try one of the CentOS how-to's next unless anyone here has some pointers? Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Re: [ALUG] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 17 Nov '14

17 Nov '14

Hi, all. I know of at least one attendee to tonight's Ipswich meet that will be there early, from 19:30. I can't get there before 20:00 at the earliest, so if anyone is free to wander down before the traditional start time to rescue them from their own company, then go right ahead ... :) Peter. -- I am aiming to run the London Marathon 2015 in aid of the PSP Association. All sponsorship gratefully received. :) http://www.bagshot-row.org/marathonformum

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : The Mulberry Tree
by samwise 17 Nov '14

17 Nov '14

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back today, 17th November, at 20:00: The Mulberry Tree 5 Woodbridge Road IPSWICH IP4 2EA Tel: 01473 225776 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP4+2EA WWW: https://www.facebook.com/MULBERRYHOSPITALITY The Mulberry Tree, previously known as The Milestone Beer House, is a grade 2 listed building in the centre of Ipswich. It is located at the intersection between Woodbridge Road and the A1156, across the road from the old Odeon cinema and not far from the Regent Theatre. It re-opened on Thursday March 29th 2012 after a major refurbishment, under its original name of The Mulberry House and has already begun to regain a good reputation for its selection of beers and ales. It has a sizeable car park to the rear of the building. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Cheers, Peter. -- I am aiming to run the London Marathon 2015 in aid of the PSP Association. All sponsorship gratefully received. :) http://www.bagshot-row.org/marathonformum ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Amazon Music
by Chris Walker 15 Nov '14

15 Nov '14

Hello, Has anybody here tried to use Amazon Music? My wife wanted to buy the latest Children in Need single but when she bought it, the store insisted she install their software on her machine, a Windows 8.1 laptop. I baulked at that as I hate companies that foist their software on you for no gain. I emailed them and told them that we weren't going to be installing their software and that they should email the file to us. But I did it from my wife's email account! Within a couple of minutes the phone rang. It was Amazon wanting to talk to my wife. I explained that I'd written the email and a couple of security questions - which I answered. So much for security - the guy tried to talk me through the process of downloading the file without installing their software. I said 'What if I run linux?'. 'Not a problem' he replied. 'I run Ubuntu and I can do it'. So I thought I'd have a go on my machine which runs Mageia 4 64 bit. With the support guy still on the phone, I tried. It didn't download the file even though I'd clicked the option. It did work though if I selected the option to play it using VLC. I could then retrieve the file from /tmp so I could at least reassure my wife that she hadn't wasted her money, albeit only 99p. I then rebooted the box into Windows 7 mode and that did offer the boxes to decline the software. After another reboot back into Mageia, I fired up VirtualBox where I have a copy of Xubuntu. That just worked and allowed the download straightaway. So does anybody have any ideas why the download on my base machine doesn't work whereas on Xubuntu it does? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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Why won't it boot?
by Chris Walker 15 Nov '14

15 Nov '14

My machine has recently upgraded itself to a new kernel and now it won't boot. It fails after several seconds telling me that various UUIDs don't exist. But they're the same devices that another kernel does run from. The new kernel which doesn't work is 3.14.18-3 and the one that does work - I'm using it now - is 3.12.25-3. I would have said that if the various partitions do exist, then it *should* work so where do I start trying to fault-find this? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:alug_cdw@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 13th November
by Viperfang 10 Nov '14

10 Nov '14

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 13th November at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA). The meeting officially starts at 8pm, although some people may arrive earlier. More information on those people can be found on the list and the IRC channel. If you are unsure if you will recognise us then make yourself and your intent to attend known by either posting on list or visiting us on IRC so we can look out for you rather than hiding in the corner. Optionally you could ask at the bar if they know where the geeky computer weirdos are and they'll point you in the right direction (seriously!). Another possibility is look for heaps of electronics on a table that may possibly look like movie props that would used for detonating explosives. Feel free to bring electronics/laptops/gadgets to the meet, you will by no means be alone. Ben Bewick aka Viperfang NB: This mail is automated, please refer to the usual sources for more information. ALUG Contact Details: Website : http://www.alug.org.uk/ IRC : #alug on irc.alug.org.uk List : http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo Twitter : http://twitter.com/anglianlug Identica: TBA Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2381613902 ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Weird character swapping during typing
by Mark Rogers 09 Nov '14

09 Nov '14

Either I have lost the ability to type or something else is going on. I'm finding characters swapped around in tetx that I ytpe (that's been happening all the way through this email but I left those in to demonstrate). Seems to be mostly in Chrome (I'm using Gmail to send this). Seems a particular issue on my Ubuntu laptop, but also happens on my Kubuntu desktop. Don't see it elsewhere. Thoughts? It seems very bad today. Chrome is also running like a dog despite CPU and memory looking OK in htop. I tend to assume that characters go into a keyboard buffer and out in the same order no matter busy the PC is? Seems particularly bad around spaces, eg lik ethis. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Getting started with NoSQL
by Mark Rogers 04 Nov '14

04 Nov '14

Everything I am doing here is on Linux but as it has the potential to be cross platform feel free to tell me its off topic and I'll go elsewhere with my tail between my legs. Until last week I had zero understanding of NoSQL. I spent some time going through tutorials (using OrientDB - I have no idea how much of this is generic and how much is DB specific) and now have a broad understanding of a graph database, and the concepts of vertices and edges. I'm hoping for some advice on a sensible schema to get started on a specific application. All I want to do is log data coming from sensors. I haven't decided exactly what yet but assume environmental stuff like temperatures, and other stuff like counters (eg energy usage), speeds, etc. They'll be polled periodically from various devices and stored in the database. In most cases there will be a logical grouping to a set of values (eg they all relate to a single room) but others might be more generic. Once I have the data, there are two things I want to do with it. First: display current data on a web page which is constantly updating and always being displayed. Second, I want to be able to run reports over the historical data. With MySQL I would probably have a script which polled all the sensors and stored everything into one record indexed by time, because it's trivial to dump even large amounts of data into a table that way. Whether or not that was the right way in MySQL I'm sure it would be wrong in Orientdb. My first thought was to create a generic Sample class (type, timestamp, value), and extend that to create new classes for specific types of data (Temperature, etc). Create a new vertex for each sample and (having already created a vertex for each room) link them with edges. However I have no idea how efficient that would be when it comes to extracting all the latest data, or historic data ordered by time. So any guidance would be very gratefully received, Also, I have no idea how well it would perform. A handful of samples every minute would be fine I am sure, but what it if were more like 50-100? And what it they were stored every second? That might not be relevant here but this is a learning exercise and I want to understand this stuff. (50-100 samples per second into a MySQL DB would be no problem even on a Pi, after all, assuming they were stored in a single record as described above.) -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 7th November.
by Viperfang 04 Nov '14

04 Nov '14

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

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Sharing small amounts of data between PCs
by Mark Rogers 03 Nov '14

03 Nov '14

Suppose I have several PCs (call them Raspberry Pis, because they probably will be) each collecting data from local sources (eg temperature data via a local sensor), logging it to a local database, and making it visible via a local display on HDMI and/or via a web browser. If I want to take advantage of the fact that they're all networked and allow each of them to pull the stored data from all their neighbours, what would be the simplest way to achieve this? Database replication etc feels like overkill. I don't really want there to be a "master", I'd like to think of them all as equivalent peers. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Will two NAT routers 'in series' cause any problems/slowness?
by Chris Green 31 Oct '14

31 Oct '14

I've just got a Mikrotik RB2011 router which I am going to use as the main 'hub' router on my home LAN. Since it doesn't do ADSL itself and I don't have any simple 'modem only' (yes, I know they're not really modems) ADSL boxes I'm going to use my two existing ADSL routers to connect the Mikrotik to the internet. This means that there will be two NAT routers between me (well, eveything on the LAN) and the internet. I can't see that this will cause a problem, can anyone else see anything wrong with this? The Mikrotik will do load balancing and it has the advantage that it can handle more than two WAN connections so I can add my 3G and/or WiFi backup connection while leaving the two ADSL in place. -- Chris Green

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Post-processing files recovered using photorec
by Mark Rogers 31 Oct '14

31 Oct '14

I've just recovered several GB of data using photorec from a family friend's dead NAS backup box. So far so good. But as is common with the methods used by photorec it can generate some very large files which are largely rubbish. Eg tiny gif files being recovered as >1GB because photorec hasn't detected the end of the file. I'm looking for tools that can postprocess these files, but looking around I'm seeing people discussing the problem as if it's just one of those things. Does anyone have any experience of this sort of thing? My typical strategy is to use "find" to locate recovered files by file extension and move them to a directory per file type, then hand the results over to whoever's disk it was. But I know I can do better! For example: The 1GB+ GIF file can be "fixed" using convert or mogrify (from ImageMagick): convert recovered.gif fixed.gif As far as I know that effectively loads the file and re-saves it without making any changes (but all the rubbish gets stripped in the process) - can anyone confirm this? If so: cd recovered/gif && mogrify * .. is a safe way to fix the recovered files. Similarly, .zip files (and related files, such as LibreOffice docs) can have this problem; extracting the zip and recreating it fixes it. Any other tricks I should be aware of? Anyone aware of any tools to automate this? Ideally this should happen in tandem with the recovery; all those wasted GB are reducing the capacity of the destination drive, sometimes to the point that the recovery fails to complete. Mark -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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