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Re: [Alug] Next Meeting
by brodders＠cwcom.net 11 May '01

11 May '01

Ditto. If Norwich then weekends only (near Ipswich fine during week...) Steve > >>How do people feel about weekday evening meetings? >Personally, living in Burwell, I wouldn't be able to make them. > > > >_______________________________________________ >alug, the Anglian Linux User Group list >Send list replies to alug(a)stu.uea.ac.uk >http://rabbit.stu.uea.ac.uk/cgi-bin/listinfo/alug >See the website for instructions on digest or unsub! >

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Re: [Alug] Next Meeting
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 11 May '01

11 May '01

>How do people feel about weekday evening meetings? Personally, living in Burwell, I wouldn't be able to make them.

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Re: Backing up
by Joss Winn 11 May '01

11 May '01

> > Message: 3 > Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 12:03:32 -0700 (PDT) > From: David Freeman <david_freeman(a)rocketmail.com> > Reply-To: David_freeman(a)rocketmail.com > To: alug(a)stu.uea.ac.uk > Subject: [Alug] Backing up > > All, > > I am thinking it may be a good time to start thinking about backing up > the data on my HDD. I am after a cheap method and I though about > getting a CDRW drive now they are sub 」100. Is this a good idea? can I > just use tar to put it all on a cdrw each week? What would people > recommend? Will any CDRW drive work with Linux? > > Thanks > > D > > This sounds good. It's very roughly what I do. My methods below might sound OTT but it has saved me in the past. Take what you like from it.... I run a nightly cronjob that backs up all the changes in the last 24hrs from my home folder (usually about 20mb). I also run a weekly cronjob that does the same (about 100mb). Those tar files are sent to a partition entirely separate from anything Linux. To my Macintosh partition actually. Then, when that 'backup' partition gets full, like it is doing now, I back up my entire home folder (1gb) and burn the lot onto a couple of CDs. I do this about once a month. Sure, I have multiple backups of a lot of stuff, but I like it that way, because if I make a stupid error somewhere down the line, I can usually just go back to the backup I made the day before the error and rescue those backed up files. It works as a kind of archive of backups. When I feel confident that a set of backups is no use to me any more, I proudly use the CD to put my coffee on. This may well sound like unnecessary repetition, but it's all automated, so I don't do anything except burn a few CDs every month. My CD burner is firewire, so it won't work in Linux just yet, which is why I use a back up partition. I could buy some USB storage, but I'm willing to wait for decent firewire support in Linux. USB is so bloody slow. Like I said, the above very recently saved me from redoing four months of work.... cheers joss p.s. it's a good idea to run the cronjob so it avoids backing up your browser cache. That keeps the tar size down quite considerably.

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Next Meeting
by MJ Ray 11 May '01

11 May '01

Are we still hoping for a meeting at the end of May? Has something been arranged and I missed it? Someone from UEA has suggested that the next meeting at UEA shouldn't be at a weekend. How do people feel about weekday evening meetings? Personally, I'd not be overjoyed and suspect room bookings might be more difficult (Union House not really available because of Ents, so need to use main university buildings), but if it's what people want... -- MJR

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ALUG Library: Librarian and Security stuff
by brodders＠cwcom.net 09 May '01

09 May '01

ALUGL Librarian and Security stuff Hi. Been thinking over things and have some thoughts re Librarian & Security. Librarian =========== Who volunteers for this? The Librarian has to be present at all meets and must oversee all returns / loans, maintain the database, fixe occasional errors, chase people for overdues, carry out stocktakes and bring the current ALUG stock with them to every meet in case a loan is wanted. May need a truck I dont like this would you do it? so Ive been kicking around the idea of allowing casual person-person item passing. These need to be verified transactions on the database otherwise fraud is simple. The protocol I suggest below is good enough?? Comments appreciated. What Ive got is: Stock items are scattered i.e. held by who-ever-has-them-right-now. A potential borrower searches the library database and discovers Item X. They request Item X. The database sends an email to the current holder saying to bring Item X to the next meet. The database generates a random release key for the trade and emails it to the requestor. Eventually Item X and the release key change hands. The old holder enters the release key into the database and the transaction is verified. Kicker: Until the release key is in & verified the old holder is responsible for Item X; responsibility gets passed to the new borrower by entering the key. Further, requests for popular items can be stacked (thats the idea behind having requests as transactions; these can be ordered by item / time sequence making a request stack as well as other very useful life-history stuff). Is this adequate?? There is still a need for a librarian but the job is much less onerous, for it frees them from compulsory attendance, involvement in every transaction & removes the drag-the-stock-about problem. Also, an item swap is not geographically limited to a meet could be down a local pub etc. Again please kick holes in it people! Security =========== Other than people hacking in and diddling the transactions database, items database etc to generally kill the system there is a security issue over the names & addresses and account passwords. I want to encrypt the lot; ideally the entire database. And the transactions from server to client must be secure too otherwise login accounts get compromised. This is a job for an expert. I can get the database functional but I would not put the system live in unencrypted form. Also does this complicate backup/restore/maintenance? Ill databases are tricky; an ill, encrypted database might be quite irrecoverable & un-de-encryptable. Security Expert Needed! Steve

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Spam Blockers
by KEV＠hartmann.dk 09 May '01

09 May '01

Hi, IMHO option 3 should work against most. Kevvy alug-admin@stu .uea.ac.uk To: alug(a)stu.uea.ac.uk cc: 06/05/01 06:26 Subject: alug digest, Vol 1 #223 - 9 msgs Please respond to alug Message: 7 To: alug(a)stu.uea.ac.uk From: MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> Organization: Cat-killingly bad Date: 06 May 2001 01:16:23 +0100 Subject: [Alug] Increasing spam We're getting more spam now. There are a number of options open to us: 1. Can whoever has posted our mailing list address on a web site *please* remove it again and email alug-admin(a)stu.uea.ac.uk to let us know? 2. We can lock the list down so that only subscribed addresses can sent without being approved. 3. We can lock the list down so that only emails with [Alug] in the subject line are allowed through. 4. We can try to fight a rear-guard action and try to block obvious spammers. 5. We can hold anything which looks like it might possibly be spam for approval 6. We can ask Brett to hook the list software up to ORBS or MAPS. Opinions/votes? I hope that option 1 would work, but I quite like option 3 too. -- MJR --__--__--

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Re: [Alug] Increasing spam
by MJ Ray 09 May '01

09 May '01

Neill Newman <neill(a)entora.co.uk> writes: > I think that 4 is a little dificult, you can setup the mail > server to use RBL/ORBS, but in my experience the spammers change addrees > regularly an this becomes a little pointless If the mail server uses RBL or ORBS and adds headers, we could hold any posts with the warning headers for approval. Anyway, we're doing option 2 (restrict free posting to subscribed addresses), so make sure your subscription address (emailed to you last week) matches the address you use. -- MJR

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Increasing spam
by MJ Ray 08 May '01

08 May '01

We're getting more spam now. There are a number of options open to us: 1. Can whoever has posted our mailing list address on a web site *please* remove it again and email alug-admin(a)stu.uea.ac.uk to let us know? 2. We can lock the list down so that only subscribed addresses can sent without being approved. 3. We can lock the list down so that only emails with [Alug] in the subject line are allowed through. 4. We can try to fight a rear-guard action and try to block obvious spammers. 5. We can hold anything which looks like it might possibly be spam for approval 6. We can ask Brett to hook the list software up to ORBS or MAPS. Opinions/votes? I hope that option 1 would work, but I quite like option 3 too. -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] Increasing spam
by Peter Delf 08 May '01

08 May '01

>> The first and easiest is to make subscription into a two step process. >I think it already is. was for me. Peter Delf u9947868 and yes it is technically SYS U1 >-- >MJR _______________________________________________ alug, the Anglian Linux User Group list Send list replies to alug(a)stu.uea.ac.uk http://rabbit.stu.uea.ac.uk/cgi-bin/listinfo/alug See the website for instructions on digest or unsub!

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Re: [Alug] More on spam
by MJ Ray 08 May '01

08 May '01

Laurie Brown <laurie(a)brownowl.com> writes: > relay: relay=catalog.com [207.240.40.4]. I've mailed them several times, > as it happens, I'm a catalog customer myself, but they refuse to do > anything about it. Are there any sanctions I can intitiate? Is there > anywhere to report them to? MAPS and ORBS are the best places. When their email to a significant number of sites starts bouncing, people tend to move. Maybe their upstream provider has something in their AUP against it? It's a lot of work to take it beyond ORBS and MAPS, though. > I'm withdrawing my business from them, not just because of this, but > because I no longer need their services. If you've no compelling reason otherwise, tell them it is because of this. -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] Newbie needs help
by MJ Ray 08 May '01

08 May '01

linux user stuff <linux(a)wymondham.demon.co.uk> writes: > I know I shouldn't but I normally log on as root but I'm the only person > using the machine. Still a bad idea. Can you say "virus" or "trojan"? Permissions are your friends. > It said similar thing about the Ethernet controller with the device ID as 900 > (see above in the bit about the module) and IRQ still as 11 and different > I/O addresses of course. It looks like the sis900 is supposed to discover these by itself. Does "lsmod" show sis900 as loaded? What is the exact error caused by a "modprobe sis900"? It looks like wrong IRQ/IO settings, but it ought to work themselves out. Most confusing. -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] MS Access
by Laurie Brown 08 May '01

08 May '01

"Ashley T. Howes" wrote: > Would you mind sharing the macro (or point me in a direction which > would > help me construct one). This would be very useful for me. > > Thanks for any help you can give. Ashley, Here's one: http://www.slink.net/mpdb/docs/msaccess.html I can't remember if it's the base for the one we use or not, but I do know we made quite a few changes to ours. I don't have ours here, but this will get you started. I found it doing a google search using "msaccess macro mysql" Cheers, Laurie. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurie Brown laurie(a)brownowl.com PGP key at http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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More on spam
by Laurie Brown 08 May '01

08 May '01

Folks, I've set up spam filtering on my servers using sendmail's "access" database, and it workes very well. The only downside is that I need to add new domains to it several times a day, but it is catching spam, no question. You may ask why I don't use the RBL and stuff; it's because I need control: I get a lot of hotmail, yahoo, and suchlike mail, which often includes spam. Anyway, a large amount of it comes through this relay: relay=catalog.com [207.240.40.4]. I've mailed them several times, as it happens, I'm a catalog customer myself, but they refuse to do anything about it. Are there any sanctions I can intitiate? Is there anywhere to report them to? I'm withdrawing my business from them, not just because of this, but because I no longer need their services. Cheers, Laurie. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurie Brown laurie(a)brownowl.com PGP key at http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: [Alug] Newbie needs help
by linux user stuff 08 May '01

08 May '01

On Mon 07 May, Ashley T. Howes wrote: > on 6/5/01 11:11 pm, linux user stuff at linux(a)wymondham.demon.co.uk wrote: > > > Hi, > > > > Following a successful install of RedHat 6.0 on an older machine I have > > recently changed to a Mandrake 7.2 and a quicker machine with all the > > bells and whistles on the motherboard. This includes networking, sound [snip] > Mandrake is normally quite good at picking up the correct sound and network > card during installation. You need to consult your motherboard > documentation to find out what chipset is being used for sound and network. > If you are lucky a module should be available for the kernel to get your > network/sound working. Mandrake has the redhat linuxconf config utility > which makes setting this up easier. There is a GUI to this tool. Logon as > root, KDE session. Double click on DrakConf. I know I shouldn't but I normally log on as root but I'm the only person using the machine. > If your network and sound card are not available as modules then you may > need to compile source code. Check the website of your > motherboard/sound/network card provider for support information wrt using > linux. > If a module is *.o then that's on the hard drive. I get the message /lib/modules/2.2.17-21mdk/net/sis900.o init-module: Device or resource is busy, similarly for sound. I thought I might need to start editing some files to have the system point to the module but plainly it's seeing it. David Freeman said - do a more /proc/pci Did that and it came back with a lot of stuff but the only valid bit was stuff about the vendor - SIS, device ID=7018, IRQ 11 and I/O addresses. It said similar thing about the Ethernet controller with the device ID as 900 (see above in the bit about the module) and IRQ still as 11 and different I/O addresses of course. I've been trying to find some info on the web about sound and it suggested I look at modules.conf. Did that and in that file it says this - alias sound-slot-0 snd-card-trident post-install snd-card-trident modprobe snd-pcm-oss and for the LAN stuff alias eth0 sis900 alias eth1 sis900 So do I edit/delete any of that or leave well alone? ;-) -- __ __| |_ __ __ .------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:linux@wymondham.demon.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |__________________________________________|

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Re: [Alug] List splitting
by MJ Ray 08 May '01

08 May '01

David Freeman <david_freeman(a)rocketmail.com> writes: > d) Alug for general LINUX help and chat, ALUG-announce (announcements > only) and then secret-admirers (for chat about hacking type stuff like No, I think I'm going to side with Andrew here and leave the alug list itself alone. We ought to get -announce back up and maybe add -help or -newbies. > News != good. to much risk of spamming. It's more that in order to allow news posts to forward to the list, we'd need to stop checking for posters being valid list members. There may be a way around this, but I need to look. > 5. upto date archives so people can view the list via the web. 4 surely? Are the archives broken? -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] -newbie list
by Peter Delf 07 May '01

07 May '01

>----- Original Message ----- >From: "MJ Ray" <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> >To: "Peter Delf" <p.delf(a)uea.ac.uk> >Sent: Monday, May 07, 2001 8:12 PM >Subject: Re: [Alug] -newbie list > >SYS U1? u99....? Surely not? ;-) Changed my course from Computer Systems Engineering (4 year) to Computer Science (3 year). Back in first year again. Joy. >-- >MJR

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MS Access
by David Freeman 07 May '01

07 May '01

Yet another email from me. I need a app for linux which is compatable with MS access and provides most of the same functionality as Access. The reason being is my next college assignment is to design a database in access which is handed in in access format. unfortunatly my idea of a shell script using text files and sed/awk/grep didn't go down well :o( So can anyone suggest a suitable app? Thanks D __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/

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Re: [Alug] Increasing spam
by MJ Ray 07 May '01

07 May '01

Steve Fosdick <fozzy(a)pelvoux.demon.co.uk> writes: > The first and easiest is to make subscription into a two step process. I think it already is. -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] ALUG Library ...
by David Freeman 07 May '01

07 May '01

-- Steve Fosdick <fozzy(a)pelvoux.demon.co.uk> wrote: > On Thu, May 03, 2001 at 09:02:08AM -0700, David Freeman wrote: > > > But I've just written my first kernel MODULE!!! and it work, which > was > > a big surprise > > What does it do? Prints Hello World of course, a programmer like you should know that thats the first program you always right :o) Seriously when you insmod it it prints hello world. and when you rmmod it prints goodbye cruel world. > > One language I don't want to learn is C++. > > I am interested as to why you should say that. > > I get the impression that there are many people who think that C++ > isn't a terribly pure language or that it doesn't have a particularly > clean design. It is, however, very sucessful. True, bit like windows :o) > I don't think there is any doubt that a language such as C++ is a > compromise as C was before it, but compromise isn't necessarily bad. Exactly, and a compromise is the worst parts of all solutions. The language I am liking at the moment is java, it just makes sense with the OO design etc... > Considering C, I would suggest that without a language like C there > would be no portable OS like Unix and Linux. Writing in Assembler > would give the required level of run time efficiency and the ability > to talk to the hardware when required but not the portability, and > just about every other language would have been too inefficient, or > unable to access the hardware at the required level. I would agree, C was one of those things which changed history, without it we would never have the computer revolution we have now. It is however over 30 yrs old, which means it's not as modern and good as a language which was designed recently. > When it comes to the emergence of C++ I would suggest that run time > efficiency was still a concern, but there was the added incentive to > use C++ - compatibility with C. Agreed. > As time goes by, run time efficiency is becoming less of a concern > and > p-code and interpreted languages are now quite realistic for > "serious" > applications - even so, someone in our office was complaining today > how > much slower the Oracle GUI tools written in Java (8.1.6) are than the > previous ones (7.3.4) not written in Java (I would guess at C++ but > that is just a guess). Exactly, some of the things which in the past would be written such that they would run fast, but now powerful hardware can coverup alot of bad practice. > > I Am amazed that there is such a holy war about programming > > languages, particully the language people first learnt was there > > favourite and all others are programmed as if they were using the > > first language. > > I'm not sure that this is the case. There is with alot of people I know who program. > The first language I learnt was BASIC on the Sinclair ZX81. All > variable names had to be kept short, there were no blocks, no named > functions or procedures, IF statements couldn't have an ELSE part, > there was no DO WHILE or REPEAT UNTIL so there had to be lots of > GOTOs > and GOSUBs. BBC basic @ 9 yrs old, horrible language, then Visual Basic - I agree with ESR "about as uch fun as a picnic in a toxic waste dump" Z80 assembler and then C. Since learing C I have learnt Java and it makes more sense to me than procedural programming. > I would not be caught programming now in the way that I had to for > that version of basic. Take a look at your older code, you will notice you did very BASIC things in C, I know I have tried these things. > I think it may be the case though that the general methodology that > one first learns becomes the default. Those people whose first taste > was with procedural programming may always find that more natural > than > OO or the kind of thinking required for Advanced use of SQL. Yes I would agree with this. Thanks D > Steve. > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > alug, the Anglian Linux User Group list > Send list replies to alug(a)stu.uea.ac.uk > http://rabbit.stu.uea.ac.uk/cgi-bin/listinfo/alug > See the website for instructions on digest or unsub! __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/

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-newbie list
by Peter Delf 07 May '01

07 May '01

I like the idea of starting a -newbie list to separate the beginners from the hardcore. I think all this talk about PHP/mySQL/XML databases and stuff is enough to scare off anyone thinking of trying Linux. Not quite a linux user, yet. My first post, thankyou. /( )` \ \___ / | /- _ `-/ ' (/\/ \ \ /\ / / | ` \ Peter Delf O O ) / | p.delf(a)uea.ac.uk `-^--'`< ' (_.) _ ) / SYS U1, `.___/` / University of East Anglia, `-----' / Norwich, <----. __ / __ \ Norfolk, <----|====O)))==) \) /====England <----' `--' `.__,' \ | | http://www.uea.ac.uk/~u9947868 \ / ______( (_ / \______ ,' ,-----' | \ `--{__________) \/

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List splitting
by MJ Ray 07 May '01

07 May '01

This list is getting busy now and some people are unsubscribing because of the volume. What should we do? 1. Do nothing. Leave alug@stu as the one list and hope people use digest etc to filter it. 2. Split list. Break certain topics off into other lists. a) alug (LUG traffic only), alug-announce (announcements only), alug-talk (general chatter not necessarily ALUG-related) b) alug (as it has been usually), alug-hackers (in-depth tech talk) c) alug (as it has been this week), alug-help (general help) 3. Gateway onto a private news server somewhere. Should make it easier for people to only download stuff they want, but is possibly incompatible with the previously-discussed spam blocking. 4. Something else. -- MJR

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Newbie needs help
by linux user stuff 07 May '01

07 May '01

Hi, Following a successful install of RedHat 6.0 on an older machine I have recently changed to a Mandrake 7.2 and a quicker machine with all the bells and whistles on the motherboard. This includes networking, sound and USB. I don't have any USB devices but I'm blowed if I can get networking or sound working. The error is similar in both cases. The machine complains that the device or resource is busy. The only book I have refers to RH 4 something and I've lent that to somebody so it's not immediately to hand. Can anybody offer sensible suggestions as to how I can fix these problems? TIA. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:linux@wymondham.demon.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |__________________________________________|

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Re: [Alug] Increasing spam
by MJ Ray 07 May '01

07 May '01

Andrew Savory <a.savory(a)btinternet.com> writes: > > 2. We can lock the list down so that only subscribed addresses can > > sent without being approved. > Seems a reasonable course of action. We don't get many unsubscribed valid > people wanting to post, do we? Until we throw the switch, I can't tell. So, everyone, take this as a warning: make sure *now* that your emails appear to come from the same email address as you are subscribed from. In a few days, the list settings will be changed to allow only subscribers to post without approval. All others will be held for review (not bounced). > > 6. We can ask Brett to hook the list software up to ORBS or MAPS. > Seems fair. Brett, are you out there? Can you make exim add warning headers to matches on the blackhole lists, please? Then I will hold anything generating an ORBS or MAPS-RBL warning for approval. -- MJR

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Weekly IRC meeting reminder
by Adam Bower 07 May '01

07 May '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. Popular irc clients include tkirc, bitchx, xchat and ircII on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.bitchx.com http://www.xchat.org http://freshmeat.net http://www.epicsol.org/ (for Brett!) Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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Re [ALUG] Increasing Spam
by Mills 06 May '01

06 May '01

MJ Ray wrote: > We're getting more spam now. There are a number of options open to > us: [snipped] > 2. We can lock the list down so that only subscribed addresses can > sent without being approved. Do you mean only subscribers can post to this list? In my experience lists that allow non-members to post have spam, ones that don't, do not have spam. I have not been to any of the IRC meetings as an (ex-CWC) NTL user I cannot get free access to the Internet (i.e. call charges). I hope to get a cable modem if NTL hurries up. I was the person at Linuxday (at the UEA) who was given the Debian CD-R that was burned there. I now have installed it successfully. By the way do you think the Donald Knuth books are worth buying? As for the ALUG language debate :-), how about Miranda, which is available for Linux. Another possibility is that you could use Yag assembler which I am developing, perhaps a version LISP could be created for it. As the project is open we could develop clients in whatever languages liked, may be. If XHTML is I could use my web broswer as a client. PS Netscape sent this to Mark by mistake the first time, sorry. Yours Tarquin Mills

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