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ALUG library
by Wayne Stallwood 25 Oct '10

25 Oct '10

I am still looking to rid myself of having to store the ALUG library. The fact is that since being librarian (2003ish) we have lent exactly no books. Most of it is now horribly out of date...a long time ago I abandoned the magazines. There are a few newish titles I have added and a recent donation of "linux in a nutshell" from O'Reily. The online catalogue is offline due to the hosting it was on being broken. I have backups but it was pretty crufty anyway. More donations can be sought..but to get more out of O'Reily they were wanting us to do online and open access reviews and comments about the donated titles. I no longer have the time or the enthusiasm to do this. I see two potential futures. Somebody takes it over and tries to resurrect it by getting a book review section up on the wiki and therefore hopefully attracts more relevant donations..clears out the crud and tries to resolve the logistical issues of free book lending to remote members. or we disband it.... If this was decided then I would post a catalogue and members could claim anything they wanted to keep for themselves. After a time I would take whatever is left and donate to a charity shop or similar. Please can you respond and let me know your ideas...I don't want to go giving it away without approval from those that helped build the collection or if anyone sees a potential future for it. At the same time however it has long been a burden for me to store and I need the space in my study back...currently it consists of about 3 stackable boxes full of books. Many Thanks Wayne

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Re: [ALUG] free or cheap web hosting
by Peter Alcibiades 24 Oct '10

24 Oct '10

Thanks, guys. Turns out on investigation that 1and1 has a much cheaper basic package than I realized, at around 2.50 a month for the entry level one, but he seems most impressed with the daily.co.uk package. The year in advance is a pretty decent deal. Thanks. Peter

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free or cheap web hosting
by Peter Alcibiades 23 Oct '10

23 Oct '10

A penniless artist asked me to suggest free or cheap web hosting. Obviously he will not have a lot of traffic, and what he wants to do is put up his pictures for view, but not particularly high res. So it does not have to have a lot of space. I don't know whether own domain is important or not. Might be nice. Any suggestions? I had thought of 1and1, which seems to do a basic package for around £120 a year including domain. But if there is anything anyone would recommend thats cheaper and still decent, the pennies would help. Peter

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Netbook Dual Boot Distro-Hopping Grub/MBR Recovery Solution
by S 21 Oct '10

21 Oct '10

Hi I have a non-standard Netbook HP 2133 which for now anyway I want to be able to Dual Boot XP MCE and a Linux Distro. The Mini has a VIA Chip and none of the distros have yet fully got to grips with maximising the Graphics though I read that Ubuntu is getting closer to seamlessly building in a new open-source driver from Via (don't drivers end up in the kernel though?). Bottom line is I hop distros to try to find one that has mastered the trick of all forms of video and flash so that I can finally dump the Windows. In doing so I recently installed Jolicloud in place of Linux Mint. I made a mistake in thinking I could just delete the mint & related swap partition and get "Error 15". I know I can sort it by hooking up an external DVD and doing full reinstalls of Windows and Jolicloud or whatever and maybe next time I'll do the Express install of Jolicloud which I think uses Wubi making uninstallation easy (it says) Whilst I'd like to learn to avoid these messes in the first place, I'd like to know how to fix them much more quickly too. I read on Lifehacker of Wintoflash and thought that would speed re-installations of Windows (maybe it doesn't like MCE version of XP) or maybe the cross disk installation process caught out the software (as it didn't ask me to swap disks) but it doesn't get to an installation/repair type screen, though it will start windows from a grub like menu but doesn't fix boot on restart. I've also tried super grub disk on systemrescuecd-x86-1.6.2 and can access and fully use either of the OSs on the hard disk fine. Having the usb stick in to do this each time is of course daft. GRUB/MBR and Xorg seem to be two that really I need to get to grips with but i've yet to build confidence or even familiarity in digging around much in Linux - kinda just want it to work. Lots (& lots!) of info online but are there some golden rules / infallible-simple-quick sources to go to prevent & sort my problems. Is there a master tool kit on a usb stick. I'll try and get along to one of the meetings sometime. Er, I think that's quite enough Steve >

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multi function photo printer advice please
by mick 21 Oct '10

21 Oct '10

My HP Photosmart (C5280) has finally irritated me enough to want to get rid of it. It currently refuses to print at all using "recycled" cartridges (always tricky with HP printers in my experience) and is now also flaky with HP branded cartridges. I am also thoroughly pissed off with the cost of Vivera ink and the fact that I have to replace the entire colour (or photo) cartridge when just one colour is depleted. So I have been researching Epson MFPs which have 6 seperate ink cartidges. My needs are classic home user: - scanning 1200/2400 - photocopying - monochrome and colour printing up to A4 - photo printing up to A4 - ideally printing direct from assorted flash memory sticks (I have both sony and SD cards). The Epson photo PX 650 looks as if it would fit the bill, but it does not appear in the linux openprinting database. There is a driver quoted for it which appears to require the installation of the lsb packages but I'm not sure how well supported this might be. Does anyone here have any experience of this printer? And if not, what other epson (or non HP printer which meets the above requirements) can people recommend? The main reason for using HP in the past is the fact that they are pretty good at supporting linux through HPLIP. Shame about the extortionate running costs. Mick (Anyone want a C5280 which /might/ be fixable) --------------------------------------------------------------------- The text file for RFC 854 contains exactly 854 lines. Do you think there is any cosmic significance in this? Douglas E Comer - Internetworking with TCP/IP Volume 1 http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Android Readers
by Martin Collins 21 Oct '10

21 Oct '10

Hi, has anyone any experience of some of these new Android E-Readers? I was looking for something to read pdfs, things like Full Circle Magazine (http://fullcirclemagazine.org/downloads/) Linux Format pdfs and some programming manuals I've got - all Linuxy Languages of course. However, these are mostly 7" in size and although probably ok for text, I'm a bit unsure whether they would be big enough for fixed format pdfs? Anyone used one yet. Next do a 10" one but it's a bit pricey (£180) - http://www.next.co.uk/shopping/electric/carryover/10/13 I'd feel better with that one but for that price I could buy a cheap Netbook - maybe that would be the best option. Any opinions greatly received before I splash my cash. Rgds, Martin

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Android phones and Linux, any experience?
by Chris G 20 Oct '10

20 Oct '10

Does anyone hare have an Android based phone and use it with Linux on their desktop? -- Chris Green

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scanners part the second
by Bev Nicolson 18 Oct '10

18 Oct '10

Hmph. Not because Adam was right but because I have been trying to change permissions for this scanner (I need root permish) and it isn't playing ball. Nautilus claims I already have it. Terminal won't let me. (I've tried chmod) The scanner itself does work, btw but only when I fire up VueScan. Help, please. TIA. Bev.

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 18 Oct '10

18 Oct '10

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 tonight, Monday 18th October, at 20:00: P J McGinty & Sons 15 Northgate Street Ipswich Suffolk IP1 3BY Tel: 01473 251 515 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP1+3BY WWW: http://www.pjmcgintys.co.uk/ McGintys pub is in the centre of Ipswich. It's directly opposite the town's central library and has a reputation for good Irish beer. We're usually to be found in the lowest section of the bar, near the library entrance to the pub. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. Hopefully, see some of you there! Peter. ----- 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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Re: [ALUG] Intel 2200BG wireless
by Richard McLellan 15 Oct '10

15 Oct '10

I got it all sorted now. I was using Mint Isadora on my laptop but changed over to Xubuntu and it works no problems in there.Thanks for the help on this.

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Kindles - Was Android Readers
by mark fernandes (IFR) 13 Oct '10

13 Oct '10

I can confirm that Kindles are good bit of kit. I've got cheaper version (without 3G) for work. Wifi and browser works well with limitations of e-paper (no flash - not necessarily a bad thing :-)) I go to lots of meetings for my sins and get issued with lots of docs (=76 pages of dead tree) and our group travel a lot (so baggage limits)- so am trying out Kindle as a solution to these probs. So far, so good - screen is really good, readable in bright sunlight (sadly less of a problem at the moment...). Used also to read my OU Maths course books (formulae etc quite clear). Only time so far I've had to charge battery was when it arrived - it's seems to get by with my USB transfers of books to feed itself. Also, can back it up that way as it is a 'standard' USB storage device on PC. Since you invited it Mick - You're a luddite :-) Seriously, I've always loved books but e-readers enable me to cart my library about when travelling, are searchable and so are v. useful. Both have their place. I've got problems browsing local HTML files and need a program to reformat 3 column scientific paper PDFs into e-reader friendly single column form but despite that am content with the device. See http://codingscience.blogspot.com/2010/10/kindle.html for the ups and downs so far Like so many things, e-readers are horses for courses - if it does what you need then that's the sweet spot. Been quite interested in the debate so far (Will especially try out the debug mode...) All the best, Mark Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton: Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.

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Audio input for laptops?
by ted.harding＠wlandres.net 13 Oct '10

13 Oct '10

Hi Folks, Unlike desktop sound cards, which usually have a "Line In" socket for headphone/speaker output (aka "Line Out") from audio devices, most laptops seem to have only microphone input (though they do have "Line Out"). Now one can of course simply plug a mike into the laptop, play the audio device through speakers with the mike near the speakers, and record to the laptop that way. But it's not fully satisfactory, and one may need to experiment a bit before it's acceptable. (And you will need to move around silently, avoid slurping coffee or saying "b****r" when you spill it, and above all don't flush the loo ... ). So it would be nice to have a means of putting a cable between the "Line Out" and the mike input on the laptop, but I've not managed to work out a way of doing this! Does anyone have a good solution? With thanks, Ted. PS: I have just heard that the Good Lord has finally finished marking your exam papers (He has been having a lot of intray crashes, which tend to happen at times of high prayer input -- He shouldn't leave His admin to Archangel Gabriel, who seems to spend a lot of time just flapping around). Anyway, the result is that you have all got 10/10/10, on this date. Congratulations! -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <ted.harding(a)wlandres.net> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 10-Oct-10 Time: 19:02:51 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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[ALUG Announce] Alug Norwich 2nd Thursday Pub Meet 14th October @ The Coach & Horses
by Srdjan Todorovic 12 Oct '10

12 Oct '10

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Dear ALUG, This months second Thursday social meeting of ALUG will take place on 14th October 2010 at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA http://www.thecoachthorperoad.co.uk/ ). The Coach and Horses offers food (really great burgers!), a good selection of real beer (including takeouts!) and reasonably good connections for travel and parking. There should be people there from 8pm (I'm hoping to be there from 6:30pm), hopefully I'll remember to bring my small foam Tux to aid people in recognising us. We are usually at the back of the pub. I look forward to seeing you on Thursday. Regards, Srdjan ----- 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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IRC channel configuration change
by MJ Ray 12 Oct '10

12 Oct '10

I've had a request to give quinophex on #alug more admin power. I've not been there much, so I don't know the context/motive, so I'm emailing the list. Is everyone OK with that? On- or off-list replies OK. Thanks, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. Webmaster, Debian Developer, Past Koha RM, statistician, former lecturer. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire for various work http://www.software.coop/products/

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Just a quick shout out...
by Brett Parker 11 Oct '10

11 Oct '10

Has anyone heard from/seen Ruth Bygrave recently... I was recently hitting the archives and noted that we don't appear to have seen anything on list from her since Feb 2009. She was never a very active poster, but we did usually see a message from here at least once every 4 months, just want to check that she's doing alright. Thanks, -- Brett Parker http://www.sommitrealweird.co.uk/ PGP Fingerprint 1A9E C066 EDEE 6746 36CB BD7F 479E C24F 95C7 1D61

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Intel 2200B/G wireless
by Richard McLellan 11 Oct '10

11 Oct '10

Hi folks, I have a Dell Inspiron with the Intel 2200B/G wireless card. After reading the destructions that came with the linux drivers, it goes on about building it with the kernel or something close to that. I have no idea what/how to do this. Would this have to be done regardless of linux version or might there be a linux version with these drivers already in the distro? ThanksRich

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Can one get rid of Desktop?
by Chris G 07 Oct '10

07 Oct '10

Is it possible to get rid of the (IMHO) stupid Desktop directory and the concept that goes with it? If my screen is anywhere I want it to be my home directory, not ~/Desktop. I can delete ~/Desktop but it just gets recreated whenever I do anything like open a terminal 'here'. Why can't I just get a terminal to open at /home/chris when I right click on my screen? (Not to mention the silliness of all those directories like Pictures, Videos, etc. starting with an uppercase letter) -- Chris Green

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Co-lo and VM hosting
by Laurie Brown 06 Oct '10

06 Oct '10

We find ourselves in need to some tertiary DNS and other services, and am looking at either using a VM, or some co-lo. In the case of the former, can anyone on-list recommend a Linux-supporting VM company, either Ubuntu or Gentoo (the latter fairly important)? In the case of the latter, does anyone know and can recommend a local (to Ipswich) co-lo company with reasonable rates? Bandwidth is an issue in each case, as we need to keep the servers current, and there's a fair amount of traffic flowing through. Cheers, Laurie. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurie Brown laurie(a)brownowl.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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'ssh -X' doesn't seem to work, any alternative ways to do the same?
by Chris G 06 Oct '10

06 Oct '10

I'm currently away from home and I'm trying to get a GUI application running on a machine at home with the display here in N. Wales. Normally I would connect from the remote location using 'ssh -X' so that the DISPLAY environment variable would be set up to work through the ssh 'pipe' and a GUI app run on the remote machine (at my house) would use the display on the machine where I'm sitting currently (in North Wales). For some reason (possibly security on intermediate machines, this isn't a single hop ssh connection) the -X parameter in ssh isn't working for me in this case so I'm looking for alternatives. Can anyone suggest alternative ways of achieving my goal? The *real* aim is to allow me to get at my router configuration from here in Wales so I can change it to allow direct ssh access from this IP address. The router's web configuration uses so much bad/arcane javascript that you can't access it using lynx/links/w3m and the telnet access to its configuration is far too difficult to attempt to use remotely, the chances of screwing it up so that access is completely denied are very high. I have full root access to the server machine at home if necessary so can install/configure stuff as necessary, similarly at this end I'm running Linux on the laptop I'm using and can do whatever's needed. Thanks for any help and suggestions. -- Chris Green

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fetchmail and MS Exchange 2010
by Mark Rogers 05 Oct '10

05 Oct '10

I can't persuade fetchmail to collect mail from an Exchange server on our LAN (fetchmail and Exchange are both on the LAN). The errors I am getting are: fetchmail: Server CommonName mismatch: myoffice.mydomain.co.uk != 192.168.11.10 fetchmail: Server certificate verification error: unable to get local issuer certificate fetchmail: Server certificate verification error: certificate not trusted fetchmail: Server certificate verification error: unable to verify the first certificate fetchmail: Error exchanging credentials fetchmail: Authorisation failure on user(a)192.168.11.10 fetchmail: Query status=3 (AUTHFAIL) myoffice.mydomain.co.uk resolves to the office's external IP address, although I think (from Googling) that the first line is a warning not the reason for the failure. My fetchmailrc is fairly simple: set daemon 60 set invisible set no bouncemail set no syslog set logfile /var/log/fetchmail.log poll 192.168.11.10 protocol pop3 username "user" password "password" mda "/usr/bin/rt-mailgate --queue general --action correspond --url http://localhost/rt/" no keep You'll see from the last line that I'm trying to set up Request Tracker (RT), and it needs to be able to collect mail from our office mailserver. This guy seems to have the fix: http://berqnet.blogspot.com/2009/11/exchange-2007-fetchmail.html .. but I don't know what he means by "the fingerprint of the Exchange 2007". [We've had nothing but problems like this since moving to Exchange, but it does a reasonable job of keeping Windows users in check so we're stuck with it.] -- 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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Numbered Lists
by Richard Parsons 04 Oct '10

04 Oct '10

Hi folks, I'm trying to choose a good text markup language (e.g. markdown, restructured text etc). I want it to be able to deal with nested numbered lists. So something like this: # Dog # Kitten # Fish # Goldfish # Haddock # Elephant would produce something like this: 1. Dog 2. Kitten 3. Fish 3.1. Goldfish 3.2. Haddock 4. Elephant Anyone know a text format that would fit the bill? Many thanks, Richard

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Analogue bonanza
by Anthony Anson 04 Oct '10

04 Oct '10

The PDSA charity shop near the Norwich Bus Station has a table full of pooterbooks, new, but some of them admittedly have whiskers. At first glance there's not a lot which is obviously for Linuxoi, (I've had those innit), but there are piles and piles of useful-looking books on the multitude of programming tools. They've all been reduced from their oiginal prices to three squids, and from there to a pound, nicker, quid or oncer. -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Scanner woe
by Bev Nicolson 04 Oct '10

04 Oct '10

I've taken charge of my first scanner (a freebie from a friend) but I'm having trouble getting it installed. If I go to XSane it says "failed to open device snapscan :libusb:001:002 " . I have since installed every XSane extra there was via synaptic but it's still won't play ball. I'm very reluctant to give in though so how do I investigate what's up? And even more to the point, how do I fix it? It knows it's there I'm sure. [Ubuntu 8.04] Bev.

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Computery/Linuxy stuff for sale/free
by Adam Bower 03 Oct '10

03 Oct '10

Hi people, I'm having a bit of a clear out at the moment and have the following for sale/free, all stuff has to be collected from Little Plumstead which is about 5 miles East of Norwich. If you do want something email me offlist. Prices are rough guides to what I want, if you can convince me something is worth less than my guide price then I will quite happily accept it. Classic XBOX softmodded with XBMC = Free. Ok, there's a reason this is free, the dvd drive is sort of broken, it won't open unless you give the xbox a good thump on the top. Of course if you just want to use it as a network media player then this won't be a problem. I CBA to try and fix it, it comes with a controller and a couple of component video leads and the power lead. I no longer have the scart lead for it. This will also run linux if running on a 700Mhz pentium 3 with 64Mb of RAM is your thing. If it isn't claimed by 10th October it's going to the recycling centre. IBM Thinkpad X32 Laptop = £100 My trusty X32, replaced by a newer and faster (but much heavier!) model. This is a 1.8Ghz Pentium-M powered machine with 1GB RAM and a 160GB hard disk. It also has built in wireless lan and bluetooth. Comes complete with 2 power supplies (1 might be a bit temperamental and not always like giving power). 1 Car power kit so you can plug this into the 12V cigar lighter on your car and do your thang. 1 External CD-Rom drive and 1 Tom Bihn "Buzz" sling bag. It also has a Windows XP license key on the bottom and the Windows recovery disks if that's your bucket of biscuits but isn't something I'd recommend! The battery on this is roughly half good, last time I tried I got 2 hours of usage out of it but I won't guarantee that you will get that much out of it, also, it appears that either a thunderfly or bit of dust/dirt has got under part of the screen about 3cm up from the bottom in the middle of the screen and is a couple of mm long which is annoying but cosmetic. Currently this is running Ubuntu 10.04 (or will be when the install finishes). Was my main laptop for some years so almost exclusively ran Linux. Old AMD Athlon XP 2800+ Desktop computer = £70 This is a 2Ghz Barton core AMD Athlon, with 1.5GB RAM and 2 (yes count them 2!) 300GB IDE hard disks. It has a Ge-Force 6600GT 128MB AGP GFX card with extra zalman cooler on it, ASUS A7V8X motheboard, HP Lightscribe DVD Burner all wrapped up in an Antec Sonata 2 case which if you are of the alternate persuasion has a Windows XP license key attached to it so you can use software from the dark side. It also has a rather bling case fan with green leds on it (don't ask how it got there) and a Zalman quiet cpu cooler. At the moment it's not running any OS at all as I ran DBAN over both the disks. I reckon by having a quick look on ebay that if you parted it out and sold all the bits on ebay you could make a profit! Was my main desktop for some years so almost exclusively ran Linux but on retirement was used as my Windows test box. Thanks for reading. Adam -- New signature required, suggestions on a post card please.

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Re: [ALUG] Scanner woe SOLVED
by Bev Nicolson 02 Oct '10

02 Oct '10

Ignore this question now. It was as Peter suggested. Bev. (Who did check the manual before posting, honest. Sorry if I irritated anyone.) On 2 October 2010 09:34, Bev Nicolson <lumos60(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Another question. How do I unzip VueScan so that it is installed as a > program rather than a folder? (I have the bash command, btw.) > > Bev. >

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