- main - earth.li

Re: [ALUG] EeePC
by Alex Scotton 17 Feb '11

17 Feb '11

I was purely commenting on the irony behind apologising for multiple threads, within a new thread... I have no issue with the multiple threads, I use gmail which groups emails of similar subject anyway so pfft On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 3:32 PM, Simon Royal <mrsimonroyal(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Alex > > Like I said I will not be starting any more threads. > > I don't really understand what the problem is anyway. > > I have a sleep issue - I write a post about it. Someone will reply if > they want to. I have a different problem on the same machine - I write > a post about it. Someone will reply if they want to. > > If all problems are in one thread it makes it hard to follow and check > if things have been resolved. > > I am on a number of groups and they all use separate emails for > separate issues, hence the reason I do it here. > > Simon > > On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Alex Scotton <alex.scotton(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> You've started another thread, to apologise for creating so many >> threads?.... interesting >> >> On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 2:39 PM, Simon Royal <mrsimonroyal(a)gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> Hi >>> >>> First can I start by apologising for mutliple threads. I have started >>> this one, but will keep all future questions within this thread. >>> >>> I am having sleep/suspend issues on my EeePC. It is odd as it works >>> 50% of the time fine. I close the lid, it goes to sleep, I open the >>> lid and press Esc and it wakes fine - sometimes. >>> >>> It is a 701SD running Ubuntu 10.10. >>> >>> I cant replicate it or work out what is causing it not to work other >>> times. Any ideas? >>> >>> Simon >>> >>> -- >>> --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: >>> http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. >>> --- Asus EeePC 701SD running Ubuntu 10.10. Apple PowerBook G3 'Pismo' >>> running OSX 10.4. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro running 2.1 >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> main(a)lists.alug.org.uk >>> http://www.alug.org.uk/ >>> http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main >>> Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above! >> >> >> >> -- >> Alex Scotton >> mob: 07950 524744 >> home: 01603 768361 >> Web Design | Graphic Design | MySQL Design and Optimization | SEO, >> advertising and Marketing Services | Computer Repairs | Network, >> Active Directory and Streaming Services | NLB and Bandwidth Shaping >> http://goo.gl/FIbia >> > > > > -- > --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: > http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. > --- Asus EeePC 701SD running Ubuntu 10.10. Apple PowerBook G3 'Pismo' > running OSX 10.4. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro running 2.1 > -- Alex Scotton mob: 07950 524744 home: 01603 768361 Web Design | Graphic Design | MySQL Design and Optimization | SEO, advertising and Marketing Services | Computer Repairs | Network, Active Directory and Streaming Services | NLB and Bandwidth Shaping http://goo.gl/FIbia

2 1

EeePC Suspend Linux
by Simon Royal 15 Feb '11

15 Feb '11

Hi Well everything is working under Ubuntu on my EeePC 701SD, almost everything. Sound, wifi, webcam and screen worked out of the box, but I am having suspend problems. I have searched the net and cant find any references to new versions of Ubuntu, they all relate to version 7 and 8. When I shut the lid, the EeePC goes to sleep. All the lights go off and the power light flashes which is it sleeping/suspending. When I open the lid it doesnt wake. I got a brief glimpse of the desktop for a spit second but then the screen stays blank. The lights change back to what they were before but no screen. Any ideas. EeePC 701SD and Ubuntu 10.10. Simon -- --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- Asus EeePC 701SD running Ubuntu 10.10. Apple PowerBook G3 'Pismo' running OSX 10.4. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro running 2.1

4 3

Eee Experience
by Simon Royal 15 Feb '11

15 Feb '11

Hi For anyone interested, my EeePC arrived today and I thought I would share my experience. I played with the built in Xandros system and agreed it was rubbish. It lasted about 2 mins before I was installing Ubuntu. I installed it via USB stick and it went on, no problems with the install. It took about 20 mins. So far everything is working out of the box, sound and wifi at least. Screen size seems fine. I have not tried out the built in webcam or mic yet but even if these do not work out of the box I can sort these out later. Mine is a 701SD with 8GB SSD. Simon -- --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- Asus EeePC 701SD running Ubuntu 10.10. Apple PowerBook G3 'Pismo' running OSX 10.4. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro running 2.1

1 0

Sysadmin work, anyone?
by Jenny Hopkins 15 Feb '11

15 Feb '11

Sorry to post to main with this, but if anyone would like a spot of work this guy is looking urgently for someone. I've taken on more work than is comfortable already, so have no time. Let me know if interested and I'll pass on his email etc. Thanks, Jenny Hi Jenny, About 4 months ago my mum passed me your email address about a bit of freelance sys admin work for a site I’ve been building with a friend for the last couple of years. In the next couple of weeks we are finally starting a proper advertising campaign, hence I’m panicking about having absolutely no concept of when/why/if our site will get overloaded/crash/go down. We are currently on a 1GB slice with slicehost.com, running a Django 1.1 site, with a PostGreSQL database and Apache 2/memcached (the memcached thing I am taking on faith from a previous developer who said he’d set it up, but he wasn’t the most trustworthy guy!). the website is www.gayhop.com, and at present have never had more than maybe 10-20 people online at one time (at that was just for a few days when we told friends about it, generally it’s just 2 or 3 of us connected simultaneously). I know from various reading around and asking slicehost support that our options are either to simply throw more servers into the equation (which I guess gets expensive pretty quickly) or go for a setup similar to this: http://rackerhacker.com/redundant-cloud-hosting-configuration-guide/ with a DB server, a static media server, a load balancing server, and an actual app server (or several of each). As you may guess, I know very little about sys admin stuff. I’m a frontend developer mostly, although I’m fairly competent with Django now, having had to write a lot of code to get things working the way we want after our Django developer left in September. But I know nothing of Apache/linux/server setup. I guess what would be great is to know: a) What you think we should do regarding our setup to minimise the chance of going down b) How much you’d charge to advise us and do the work, OR if you’re way too busy – whether you can recommend anybody else? {I asked him for a few more details....} Hi Jenny, thanks for your response. The idea for now would be hiring somebody to do a one-off job of advising us on the best steps to take to cope with higher numbers, and then implementing those. so for now no support contract, although if we find somebody good that would obviously be something we will need in the future. Our slice was setup by our last developer, I did none of it and really do know nothing! It’s running Ubuntu 8.10 (intrepid) according to SliceHost. In terms of user numbers – really no idea! I’d want a setup that can at the very least cope with 100 online users at one time (maybe our current one can – I’ve no clue), though if advertising goes well this would hopefully quite soon get up towards the thousand mark. At that point though I’m sure we would need to re-evaluate our server setup anyway, and get a sys admin to do serious upgrading for us. Thanks again for your help already. Kyle Duncan

1 0

Truths In SSD Writes
by Simon Royal 14 Feb '11

14 Feb '11

Hi I am awaiting the arrival of an Asus EeePC, which is SSD based. Ive been reading about the limited writes on SSD, with conflicting info. Does anyone have a clear info on this. Do they have limited write capabilities? Is this within a normal users/machines lifespan? What happens when it reaches it write limit. There are tricks to reduce write such as use a non-journalised file system like ext2 instead of ext3/4 and do not use a swap partition. Simon -- --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad R31 running Ubuntu 10.10 & Windows XP Home. Apple PowerBook G3 'Pismo' running OSX 10.4. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro running 2.1

3 2

USB Booting
by Simon Royal 14 Feb '11

14 Feb '11

Hi I am awaiting the arrival of my EeePC, which should be here tomorrow. It is still running Xandros - the lightweight Linux distro it comes with - and I would like to run Ubuntu on it. Is there anyway of testing if a USB stick will boot or is bootable if you have no machines that will boot to USB. I made a USB stick of Ubuntu 10.10 using Unetbootin. However, I have a 1.5Ghz PC tower that does not boot to USB, a Toshiba SP A10 that does not boot to USB, a IBM ThinkPad R31 that does not boot to USB and an Apple PowerBook G3 which is not x86 nor does it boot to USB. So, I have no way of testing whether this stick will actually work, although I see no reason for it not to. Simon -- --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad R31 running Ubuntu 10.10 & Windows XP Home. Apple PowerBook G3 'Pismo' running OSX 10.4. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro running 2.1

2 1

EeePC Users
by Simon Royal 14 Feb '11

14 Feb '11

Hi Are there any EeePC users out there running Linux on one? Mine should be here tomorrow and I am hoping to run the full Ubuntu 10.10 - not the Netbook version - on it. Has anyone any experience? It is a 701SD, so it is a 7" model with 8GB SSD. Simon -- --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad R31 running Ubuntu 10.10 & Windows XP Home. Apple PowerBook G3 'Pismo' running OSX 10.4. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro running 2.1

3 2

EeePC users
by Chris Walker 14 Feb '11

14 Feb '11

I've seen a few people here complain about their EeePCs so is this any help for you? - http://www.android-x86.org/ Scroll down a little and you will see this - ASUS Eee PCs/Laptops -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:cdw_alug@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

2 1

Overview
by Anthony Anson 11 Feb '11

11 Feb '11

The link 'Overview of all lists etc on the ALUG website is 404 (I was trying to navigate to a list for a new (Welshish) Ubantu user.) -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

4 5

SD & Flash Drives
by Simon Royal 10 Feb '11

10 Feb '11

Hi How reliable and durable are SD Cards and Flash memory. Im thinking of getting an netbook, one of those little EeePC things but the earlier models have limited internal Flash memory. So, extra storage would be in the shape of Flash drives or SD cards. How reliable are they for storing stuff? I read somewhere about the 100,000 rewrite limitation, but how true is this. Ive got a USB thumb drive that I have had for about 6 years and it is still going strong. It has outlasted some of my newer ones. It used to house my website files so was used on a daily basis, written to dozens of times at once. Simon -- --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad R31 running Ubuntu 10.10 & Windows XP Home. Apple PowerBook G3 'Pismo' running OSX 10.4. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro running 2.1

4 7

[ALUG Announce] Norwich 2nd Thursday Pub Meet
by Adam Bower 10 Feb '11

10 Feb '11

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hi Geeks, This months second Thursday social meeting of ALUG will take place tonight which is 10th February 2011 at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA http://www.thecoachthorperoad.co.uk/ (website is now updated with new menus and booze lists). People will be there from 8pm, If you are unsure if you will recognise us then make yourself known by either posting on list or visiting us on IRC so we can look out for you. Optionally you could ask at the bar if they know where the geeky computer weirdos are and they'll hopefully point you in the right direction. Another possibility is to look for heaps of electronics on a table that look rather like explosives props from action movies, if you see them then you've found us. See you all tonight. Adam -- New signature required, suggestions on a post card please. ----- 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

1 0

Cataloguing a phone
by Chris Walker 10 Feb '11

10 Feb '11

I've just bought my wife a new phone, a Nokia C6 and want to make sure that everything is off the old phone, a Nokia N95. If I hook them both up to the machine and run lsusb, I see this :- Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 002 Device 005: ID 0421:032b Nokia Mobile Phones < - C6 Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0510:0032 Sejin Electron, Inc. Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 005 Device 002: ID 1a7c:0068 Bus 005 Device 003: ID 041e:4052 Creative Technology, Ltd Live! Cam Vista IM Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 008 Device 004: ID 0421:04f0 Nokia Mobile Phones < N95 But how do I see what's on them? My wife tells me that there are some important messages and pictures on the N95 which she doesn't want to lose. Using her Windows XP laptop, I did a backup of the 95 and Nokia PC Suite said that it had transferred everything over but we can't see those pictures anywhere on the C6. I did think that I could run a dd command to make an image of the phone and its associated memory card. The card is less of a problem as I can take that out of the phone and catalogue in a reader, assuming I have one for a MicroSD card. but the phone is not allowing me to talk to it so any help appreciated. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:cdw_alug@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

6 11

Is there any way to prevent those annoying 'share' pop-ups in Firefox?
by Chris G 07 Feb '11

07 Feb '11

Do those 'share' bookmarking pop-ups annoy anyone else? They drive me crazy popping up when the cursor moves over them. Is there any way to stop them popping up? They're obviously not standard pop-up windows because I already have 'Block Pop-ups' ticked in my preferences. -- Chris Green

4 8

Wanted Hardware?
by Chris Walker 07 Feb '11

07 Feb '11

My son has given me 3 IDE Removable Caddy enclosures. If you don't know what I mean, take a look at these item numbers in ebay - 370480425397 or 320605837171 They don't come with drives but they're free if anybody wants them. They're white unlike one of the items I've listed and don't have fans. I'm in Wymondham if that helps but I do come into Norwich on occasions. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:cdw_alug@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

1 0

Re: [ALUG] SD & Flash Drives
by mark fernandes (IFR) 07 Feb '11

07 Feb '11

Hi Simon, My 701 eeepc has had no problems with SD or other USB sticks when hooked upto a Huawei 3G soap-bar. Maybe Tony had a duff one. Interested in distro's too. Have used Multiboot to make a USB sick with multiple distros to check feature support. So far Ubuntu NBR 10.10, eeebuntu and Lubuntu (you may detect a theme here :-)) have been tried and am leaning towards lubuntu (as per my son's desktop PC). That said Xandros has been fine as long as you're using the eeepc as an appliance. USB sticks - I've had 2 fail in about 10 years - mainly corruption of files. As has been said it depends on repeated writes to same block and it is a MEAN time between failures (MTBF) so your mileage may vary (it's the distribution about the mean that matters). Regards, Mark ________________________________________ From: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk [main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk [main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk] Sent: 06 February 2011 12:00 To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: main Digest, Vol 68, Issue 5 Send main mailing list submissions to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk You can reach the person managing the list at main-owner(a)lists.alug.org.uk When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of main digest..." Today's Topics: 1. SD & Flash Drives (Simon Royal) 2. FOR SALE: ThinkPad R31 (Simon Royal) 3. Re: SD & Flash Drives (Anthony Anson) 4. Re: SD & Flash Drives (Wayne Stallwood) 5. Re: SD & Flash Drives (Adam Bower) 6. Re: SD & Flash Drives (Anthony Anson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2011 22:38:03 +0000 From: Simon Royal <mrsimonroyal(a)gmail.com> Subject: [ALUG] SD & Flash Drives To: Anglian Linux User Group <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> Message-ID: <AANLkTik7dfeChRXk1X0psrX1EEsMr4GsK5ecDw0gJmUU(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Hi How reliable and durable are SD Cards and Flash memory. Im thinking of getting an netbook, one of those little EeePC things but the earlier models have limited internal Flash memory. So, extra storage would be in the shape of Flash drives or SD cards. How reliable are they for storing stuff? I read somewhere about the 100,000 rewrite limitation, but how true is this. Ive got a USB thumb drive that I have had for about 6 years and it is still going strong. It has outlasted some of my newer ones. It used to house my website files so was used on a daily basis, written to dozens of times at once. Simon -- --- Twitter:?http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal?- LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum?- Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad R31 running Ubuntu 10.10 & Windows XP Home. Apple PowerBook G3 'Pismo' running OSX 10.4. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro running 2.1 ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2011 23:10:27 +0000 From: Simon Royal <mrsimonroyal(a)gmail.com> Subject: [ALUG] FOR SALE: ThinkPad R31 To: Anglian Linux User Group <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> Message-ID: <AANLkTi==ziQL1qaZo0bvvmqYBQ7Dj4JsCsMQX_eF1jPm(a)mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Hi. I am looking at moving to an ultra portable netbook and to do so would need to sell my ThinkPad to make funds for it. So up for sale is my IBM ThinkPad R31. Celeron 1.1Ghz. 512MB RAM (1GB Max, currently has 1x 512MB) 60GB hard drive. CDROM. Comes with two batteries. One is dead, the other holds charge but is temperamental on charging. Original power supply. The rear USB port is broken, so I have put a piece of electrical tape over it. However, the side USB port works fine. Apart from this, it has no other faults. The screen has some pressure marks. Brilliant laptop currently running Ubuntu and XP. Has XP Pro COA sticker on bottom of laptop. Hard drive will be wiped before sending, so you will need your own OS. Could supply a wireless card if needed. It is a NetGear I think, not sure of compatibility with Linux. I would like to keep the Buffalo one I am using. If you are interested let me know. Make me an offer. Or swap for a netbook. Simon -- --- Twitter:?http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal?- LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum?- Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad R31 running Ubuntu 10.10 & Windows XP Home. Apple PowerBook G3 'Pismo' running OSX 10.4. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro running 2.1 ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2011 01:23:05 +0000 From: Anthony Anson <tony.anson(a)girolle.co.uk> Subject: Re: [ALUG] SD & Flash Drives To: Alug list <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> Message-ID: <4D4DF7F9.9090807(a)girolle.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Simon Royal wrote: > Hi > > How reliable and durable are SD Cards and Flash memory. Im thinking of > getting an netbook, one of those little EeePC things but the earlier > models have limited internal Flash memory. Never had any fail. My oldest one is 64 MB, and I had that when it was state of the art. If you do get an Eee and it has Xandros on it, I'd advise you to install a proper distro on it. I've had xPUD and Crunchbang recommended for the purpose. With Xan-dross on the Eee (or at least, my Eee) you can't use the USB for anything else if you have an internet dongle plugged in. If you then want to use anything else in the USB port(s) you have to remove the dongle and reboot first. The dongle won't work if you have a SD card in the slot either. Other distros installed on the Eee don't suffer from this failing, I'm told. I believe you can get at least 32 GB SD cards - but at a price. (8 GB is currently around ?23, but I am told that it's cheaper on the continent.) > So, extra storage would be in the shape of Flash drives or SD cards. > > How reliable are they for storing stuff? I read somewhere about the > 100,000 rewrite limitation, but how true is this. That's hardly a limitation. Don't forget, your Eee will have similar 'limitations'... -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/ ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2011 01:19:53 +0000 From: Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist(a)digimatic.co.uk> Subject: Re: [ALUG] SD & Flash Drives To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Message-ID: <4D4DF739.5020802(a)digimatic.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed On 05/02/11 22:38, Simon Royal wrote: > Hi > > How reliable and durable are SD Cards and Flash memory. Im thinking of > getting an netbook, one of those little EeePC things but the earlier > models have limited internal Flash memory. > > So, extra storage would be in the shape of Flash drives or SD cards. > > How reliable are they for storing stuff? I read somewhere about the > 100,000 rewrite limitation, but how true is this. > > I think modern and reputable make SD cards/flash memory are now durable to the point that unless you are using them in heavy write scenarios (swap or log files) then the lifetime will exceed the usefulness as technology advances. I have had a few usb flash drives die in my time but most of them have been due to rough handling/water damage/connector damage. I can't remember having an SD/CF card fail on me. Also bear in mind that these figures are talking about writes to a specific block. file allocation,fragmentation and wear levelling in the flash controller all have an effect on this so the real figure will be better. If you are really concerned then making sure you mount with noatime and using a non journalling FS will help prolong life..and improve speed as with flash memory writes are usually slower than reads. ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Sun, 6 Feb 2011 09:51:31 +0000 From: Adam Bower <adam(a)thebowery.co.uk> Subject: Re: [ALUG] SD & Flash Drives To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Message-ID: <20110206095131.GC20675@electron> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 On Sun, Feb 06, 2011 at 01:23:05AM +0000, Anthony Anson wrote: > > I believe you can get at least 32 GB SD cards - but at a price. (8 > GB is currently around ?23, but I am told that it's cheaper on the > continent.) Wow, you must come from the past in a time machine! :) I got a 16GB micro-SD last month for ?18 and a 16GB SD for ?16. On top of that I paid a premium to make sure I got a card from a reliable retailer (so nothing fake) and getting fast cards. 8GB is around ?8-?10 at the moment, it now means that when I fill an SD card up in a camera that all I do is buy a new card and put the old one in the fire safe. Anyhow, as for the 100,000 writes thing. That is 100,000 writes per block (and is quite an old metric from ye olde days of flash). How often will you actually write to the card? I mean, assuming that you do actually do 100 writes a day to the *entire* card that's still nearly 3 years of life at which point you can throw it away and buy a new one that will have 8x the capacity of the same price..... Adam -- New signature required, suggestions on a post card please. ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Sun, 06 Feb 2011 11:58:18 +0000 From: Anthony Anson <tony.anson(a)girolle.co.uk> Subject: Re: [ALUG] SD & Flash Drives To: Alug list <main(a)lists.alug.org.uk> Message-ID: <4D4E8CDA.4080204(a)girolle.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Adam Bower wrote: > On Sun, Feb 06, 2011 at 01:23:05AM +0000, Anthony Anson wrote: >> I believe you can get at least 32 GB SD cards - but at a price. (8 >> GB is currently around ?23, but I am told that it's cheaper on the >> continent.) > > Wow, you must come from the past in a time machine! :) I got a 16GB > micro-SD last month for ?18 and a 16GB SD for ?16. Where? > On top of that I paid > a premium to make sure I got a card from a reliable retailer (so nothing > fake) and getting fast cards. 8GB is around ?8-?10 at the moment, Where? > it now > means that when I fill an SD card up in a camera that all I do is buy a > new card and put the old one in the fire safe. It's this 'reliable retailer' thang - The Swedes (Chapelfield Mall) charge ?23 for 8 giggle, as do various camera shops and allied businesses. I *KNOW* you can et them at sensible prices (a correspondent in Germany does), but apart from buying online *I* can't find anyone - in Norwich, at least. Online's OK unless you want one *now*. -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/ ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ main(a)lists.alug.org.uk http://www.anglian.lug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main End of main Digest, Vol 68, Issue 5 ***********************************

4 3

FOR SALE: ThinkPad R31
by Simon Royal 05 Feb '11

05 Feb '11

Hi. I am looking at moving to an ultra portable netbook and to do so would need to sell my ThinkPad to make funds for it. So up for sale is my IBM ThinkPad R31. Celeron 1.1Ghz. 512MB RAM (1GB Max, currently has 1x 512MB) 60GB hard drive. CDROM. Comes with two batteries. One is dead, the other holds charge but is temperamental on charging. Original power supply. The rear USB port is broken, so I have put a piece of electrical tape over it. However, the side USB port works fine. Apart from this, it has no other faults. The screen has some pressure marks. Brilliant laptop currently running Ubuntu and XP. Has XP Pro COA sticker on bottom of laptop. Hard drive will be wiped before sending, so you will need your own OS. Could supply a wireless card if needed. It is a NetGear I think, not sure of compatibility with Linux. I would like to keep the Buffalo one I am using. If you are interested let me know. Make me an offer. Or swap for a netbook. Simon -- --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad R31 running Ubuntu 10.10 & Windows XP Home. Apple PowerBook G3 'Pismo' running OSX 10.4. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro running 2.1

1 0

Re: [ALUG] EeePC Ubuntu
by John Woodard 04 Feb '11

04 Feb '11

Agreed the 9" Aspire One 150 is okay but the Asus has far superior build quality. Sorry about the top post anyone know how to make mt Blackberry conform? Cheers, BJ ------Original Message------ From: Wayne Stallwood Sender: main-bounces(a)lists.alug.org.uk To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk Subject: Re: [ALUG] EeePC Ubuntu Sent: 3 Feb 2011 22:16 On 03/02/11 16:32, John Woodard wrote: > I have 10.04 running on my Acer Aspire One Although to be clear on that if Simon is looking at 10" models avoid the Acer Aspire One 751 at all costs. The GMA500 gfx chipset is a troublesome beast on linux I have just converted my 751 back to a Windows machine and sold it because I was fed up with potential problems every time there was a kernel upgrade. _______________________________________________ main(a)lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!

2 1

EeePC Ubuntu
by Simon Royal 04 Feb '11

04 Feb '11

Hi Has anyone any experience running Ubuntu on an EeePC machine. I have been very impressed with my ThinkPad and impressed with Ubuntu and have settled nicely into the Linux world. My ThinkPad is only a 1.1Ghz Celeron and with 1GB RAM Ubuntu screams along. Id like something a little more portable and compact and have been looking at these Asus EeePC machines, both the 7" and 10" models. The 7" models are 900Mhz machines, the 10" models are 1.6Ghz Atom machines. I only do basic surfing, listening to music, FaceBook etc and writing. I do YouTube from time to time. So nothing heavy. Simon -- --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad R31 running Ubuntu 10.10 & Windows XP Home. Apple PowerBook G3 'Pismo' running OSX 10.4. Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro running 2.1

4 3

swap partition question
by Peter Alcibiades 03 Feb '11

03 Feb '11

OK, now that we managed to get the installation transferred to the new machine using clonezilla, just one more question. When I did the transfer, of course it duplicated the original partitions, so we had /, swap and home. The swap partition is sized for the old system, so it is only a bit under 2G. However, the new system has 4G memory. What is the right thing to do? Reclaim some space (it would need to be from / which is 20G or so, so it would be possible to take 6G fairly safely? Leave it alone? Delete it - because do we really need a swap partition if we have 4G memory? Peter

3 2

moving debian from amd64 to i3
by Peter Alcibiades 01 Feb '11

01 Feb '11

Finally got around to doing this. I took out the hard drive from the old machine and using a little plug in usb adaptor, really neat, £10 from ebuyer, and clonezilla duplicated it on the new machine. The problem however, and this has happened before with debian, is that xorg now seems impossible to configure if it doesn't work, except by editing xorg.conf by hand, which is not my favourite pastime. Seems it used to be possible to use dpkg and reconfigure xorg, but if its still possible I could not find a way. So I started up from a PCLinux live CD, became root, set up the screen, then copied the xorg.conf file over to the debian installation, started up from the hard drive, and it all works. This an i3 running on an AMD64 image. I am really a bit surprised that it works. But it seems to. Famous last words. Clonezilla is very easy, and reasonably fast considering the size of the partitions. Peter

3 2

Wanted - simple way to check mains power is available
by Chris G 29 Jan '11

29 Jan '11

I'm looking for the simplest possible way for a script (or any sort of program, can be C, Python, whatever you like within reason) to check whether mains power is on. The computer which is going to check this is running off batteries so will still be running (I'm not quite that stupid!). The easiest way I can think of at the moment is to have some sort of hardware with a presence on the LAN powered by mains so that one can ping it to check that mains power is there. However the 'simplest' device I have at the moment is an old router which seems rather overkill for such a simple requirement. Can anyone think of any better way of doing this for which I am likely to have the hardware available or which will cost very little? I'm quite happy to build simple bits of electronics. The computer running the check is an old eeePc so has only USB and ehternet connections as far as I remember. -- Chris Green

10 15

How to copy a file (using rsync or scp) only if the file exists?
by Chris G 26 Jan '11

26 Jan '11

I have an rsync copy command as follows:- rsync --remove-source-files cheddar.halon.org.uk:odin/tempdata ~/odin This copies tempdata from the remote system to the local system and also removes it from the remote. The file tempdata is put there by a cron job and I want to process the data once only and then wait for new data. This is fine as long as the cron job putting data onto the remote system runs every hour and the local rsync also runs every hour. However if the remote cron job fails then, although I don't process the data again, I get a "No such file or directory" from rsync. I suppose I could just throw the error message away but that would throw other error messages away too which might be important ones. Any ideas? -- Chris Green

1 0

Recommendations wanted for simple, command line, webcam capture program
by Chris G 24 Jan '11

24 Jan '11

I'm after a simple webcam image capturing program to run from the command line (well, ultimately from cron). It's to run on my eeePc on the boat so must be simple and lightweight. I am currently trying webcam and fswebcam without much success at the moment. If anyone has any experience of either of these programs then I'd be pleased to know. It seems that webcam is the nearest to working, I'm am trying to get it to store images locally rather than FTPing them anywhere. It seems to grab an image but then when it tries to copy it fails:- root@eeepc:~# mkdir -p /home/chris/public_html/images root@eeepc:~# webcam reading config file: /root/.webcamrc video4linux webcam v1.5 - (c) 1998-2002 Gerd Knorr grabber config: size 320x240 [none] input (null), norm (null), jpeg quality 75 rotate=0, top=0, left=0, bottom=240, right=320 write config [ftp]: local transfer /home/chris/public_html/images/uploading.jpeg => /home/chris/public_html/images/webcam.jpeg open filename: No such file or directory open filename: No such file or directory open filename: No such file or directory open filename: No such file or directory -- Chris Green

2 1

Superblock problem
by Ted.Harding＠wlandres.net 23 Jan '11

23 Jan '11

Greetings All! I have hit a big snag. On an old machine, I have a hard drive /dev/hda. I had to re-set the machine it when it seized up just now. On re-booting, it went of course into fsck and then announced: fsck.ext2: No such file or directory while tryin to open /hda1 The superblock could not be read or does not describe a correct ext2 filesystem. If the device is valid, and really contains and ext2 filesystem ... then the superblock is corrupt and you might try running e2fsck with an alternate superblock: e2fsck -b 8193 <device> ... fsck failed. Please repair manually and reboot. The root filesystem is currently mounted read-only. To remount it read-write do: .... At this point, [**] I logged in with the root password, and ran fdisk /dev/hda1, and I got blanks for all the fields. When I ran fdisk /dev/hda, I got Device Begin Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 1 1 1024 822525248+ 83 Linux Native which looks right. I then ran the suggested "e2fsck -b 8193 /dev/hda1" alternative, and it went through the familiar series of checks and asked for approval for the familiar set of corrections. All semed to go well. Then it came boot to the root prompt "#" and, as usual, I pressed Ctrl-D to log out and reboot. Now, on re-boot, I get the same as before down to [**] above, and this time I do e2fsck /dev/hda1 and this time I get: /dev/hda1: clean, 213963/2058240 files, 3193368/8225248 blocks So it looks as though it succeeded. Now I again do Ctrl-D to reboot. But, on re-boot, I again get exactly the same as first time down to [**] above. So it is as though the superblock has not been fixed (though apparently the alternative superblock was fixed). SO: QUERY: How can I try to fix the superblock and get it booting normally? With thanks for any good suggestions! Bes wishes to all, Ted. ---------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)wlandres.net> Date: 22-Jan-2011 Time: 23:13:49 This message was sent by XFMail ----------------------------------

3 2

Re: [ALUG] Ubuntu help
by Chris Walker 21 Jan '11

21 Jan '11

On 17/01/11 16:06, keithjamieson(a)hotmail.co.uk wrote: > > I'm trying to persuade a Virtual Ubuntu installation to talk to a > > Windows 7 host. > > > > What's frustrating is that one share works but another doesn't and I > > can't see why, other than the 'Protocol error' which is displayed. > > > > Is there somewhere on the virtual machine where this stuff is logged so > > that I can perhaps see what's going wrong? > > Only in the syslog of the virtual machine. I dont think there are > anything in the VM "program" to help. But I'll probably be proved wrong > in the next post! > > > I've looked in the syslog but that doesn't show any networky-type errors. > > Do both have the correct IP addresses AND netmasks? > Can they ping each other ? > Can you install Wireshark to see if packets are being received by the > other machine? > Does this install use the PC host as the NAT address, or the virtual > machine use a similar IP address? > Are there firewalls running on either of the machines? Before I answer those questions, can I just point out one thing that I mentioned above? One share is working fine. It's when trying to create another that it's failing. > Can you try a pre-rolled small VM, like Puppy ? Yes I can and have but didn't try multiple shares. I'll give that a go though to check. I'm writing this under Mandriva. There I can run Windows XP as a guest and despite having multiple shares on the host machine, in XP it will only allow me to have one share to a NAS drive - there are 4 shares to that under Mandriva - so I'm wondering if it's a Windows limitation that's preventing me having two shares to the host machine. I realise that this isn't the place to ask Windows questions so I won't pursue that here. -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:cdw_alug@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

4 6