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10372 discussions

Flash issues
by Bev Nicolson 15 Aug '10

15 Aug '10

The problem is this. I have Firefox 3.6.6. I have Adobe 10.1.53.64-1 but does video content play? Nope. Either Flash crashes or (for example) the Beeb site tells me my version of Flash is not up to date. Except it is. (I checked.) I have enabled it in plug ins, cleared the cache and the cookies but it's still not working. Anyone got any ideas? Bev.

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Wanted - a phone/PDA than can synchronise calendar/contacts with the desktop
by Chris G 14 Aug '10

14 Aug '10

You wouldn't have thought it was that difficult but it seems to be getting *more* difficult rather than less difficult nowadays. Currently my wife has a Palm Treo 6800 which she synchronises with Evolution. This works reasonably well but does have its problems:- Evolution's calendar is somewhat arcane, has anyone really worked out how those menus in the sidebar are meant to work? It's far from perfect at keeping things 'clean', i.e. we have a problem with duplicate appointments appearing and it's a real pig to get them cleared out. It took me half a day yesterday to sort it out (if I have). This is one of the reasons for this posting. The Treo 6800 is getting a bit long in the tooth and needs replacing soon, since there are no new PalmOS devices we need to move to some other OS and none seems as well supported as the now getting obsolescent PalmOS. So are there any good phone/PDAs available which will synchronise easily with a Linux desktop application? We're quite open to change, it doesn't have to be Evolution (and in many ways I'd prefer *not* to use Evolution), Thunderbird/Sunbird is quite OK for example. We don't want to synchronise via anything 'out there' (like Google) but I'm quite happy to install a web/server application which a PDA and a desktop application can both synchronise with or which provides a reasonable interface itself. -- Chris Green

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 13 Aug '10

13 Aug '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, Monday 16th August, 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. After last time's absence, I should be back in attendance this month. 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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NetworkManager (Mangler?)
by Mark Rogers 12 Aug '10

12 Aug '10

Now I have my new PC up and running it of-course comes with NetworkManager, which I've always avoided in the past but maybe it's improved? My problem is that it seems inflexible and buggy; I just got into a right old mess by not making sure I had "disconnected" my LAN before making some changes (result: NM reporting that I'm connected using a configuration that no longer exists, and refusing to connect to my new one even though it said it was). On the other hand, having a GUI interface to LAN/WLAN/VPN/etc would be nice and I'd prefer to make it work if it can be done. So, ditch it or keep 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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ATA secure erase
by Mark Rogers 12 Aug '10

12 Aug '10

Does anyone have any experience of using the ATA secure erase commands from hdparm? My understanding is that a BIOS can lock the drive from responding to the commands, and that some do and some don't. Mine appears to (hdparm -I /dev/sda shows "frozen" in the "Security" section), but I don't know how common it is to find a BIOS that allows this to work. I have several drives to wipe and I'd certainly consider building a PC for the job but I have no idea how to find out if a BIOS will let me do it before I buy 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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xcompmgr help
by Simon Royal 11 Aug '10

11 Aug '10

Hi I am still experiencing Linux Mint 9 LXDE graphical problems. ALUG member Martin suggested it was an OpenBox problem and not an LXDE problem. I have kind of sorted the problem, but not permanently. If I run 'xcompmgr' from the terminal the graphical glitches and blips disappear and everything is fine. However, the minute I close the terminal it must stop xcompmgr running as the problems come back. So, firstly how do I run it without having terminal open all the time and how do I automatically run it - I read something about autostart.sh. Regards Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad 240X running Linux Mint 9 LXDE & Windows XP Home - Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4.

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Date formatting in OOo writer
by Mark Rogers 11 Aug '10

11 Aug '10

Does anyone have an idea how to insert a date field into an OOo writer document, and format it along the lines of: Wednesday, 11th August, 2010 It's the "th" (or "st", "nd") I'm having the problem with. Seems unlikely it's not there but the examples don't show it and a Google has so far failed me (I can't even find people asking the question!) -- 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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Correct zone file set-up for mail to my home server
by Chris G 10 Aug '10

10 Aug '10

I send (some) E-Mail direct to my home server machine using SMTP, I used to do this using a sub-domain of my domain isbd.net which is hosted at Gradwell. I added a CNAME record for 'home' to the zone file for isbd.net and gave my static ADSL address as the value for this record. Thus mail forwarded to 'chris(a)home.isbd.net' arrived at my home server machine (subject to NAT forwarding and firewall of course) and was delivered by postfix to user chris. I now have a dedicated domain for my home server(s) and I'm struggling to get things working. The new domain is zbmc.eu, I have set up the zone file at the domain hosting as follows:- imap 10800 IN CNAME access.mail.gandi.net. www 10800 IN CNAME zbmc.eu. smtp 10800 IN CNAME relay.mail.gandi.net. pop 10800 IN CNAME access.mail.gandi.net. blog 10800 IN CNAME blogs.vip.gandi.net. webmail 10800 IN CNAME agent.mail.gandi.net. @ 10800 IN A 84.45.228.40 @ 10800 IN MX 10 mws.zbmc.eu. mws 10800 IN CNAME zbmc.eu. (Most of this is unchanged from the default setup of course) The 'www' CNAME entry is working fine, going to www.zbmc.eu shows my web pages (or more my lack of web pages!). I'm not at all convinced that I have the MX record right yet though, nor am I convinced that I actually need that 'mws' CNAME record. Could I just set the MX record to:- @ 10800 IN MX 10 zbmc.eu. Can one of the alug gurus elucidate please. ... and do I *need* a second MX (backup) record or will the sending SMTP server just back off and try again if my server is down for a short while? -- Chris Green

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S-Video poutput port on laptop
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 10 Aug '10

10 Aug '10

Hi Folks, If anyone has info on how to activate the S-Video "mini-DIN" port on the side of my laptop[s] I'd be grateful to hear! The purpose is to connect the video output to a video recorder. I have an appropriate cable. One laptop (the preferred candidate) is a Compaq Presario A900. The other is an Advent 8117. Both are running Debian as native OS.. There is also another Advent 8117 running Debian as guest OS in VirtualBox, host OS = Windows XP. I might be forced to use this one ... Tbanks for any info. Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 10-Aug-10 Time: 22:56:25 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] Correct zone file set-up for mail to my home server
by Martin A. Brooks 09 Aug '10

09 Aug '10

On Mon, August 9, 2010 15:01, Chris G wrote: > I'm not at all convinced that I have the MX record right yet though, nor am I convinced that I actually need that 'mws' CNAME record. Could I just set the MX record to:- > > @ 10800 IN MX 10 zbmc.eu. > Your MX records should never be a CNAME. > ... and do I *need* a second MX (backup) record or will the sending SMTP server just back off and try again if my server is down for a short while? No, you don't. -- Martin A. Brooks http://antibodyMX.net/ - antispam & antivirus email filtering.

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Simple todo manager
by Mark Rogers 09 Aug '10

09 Aug '10

Any suggestions for a simple to-do manager, ideally for Gnome? I just started playing with gToDo, which isn't bad, but it has a few bugs and it looks like it's not being maintained any more. All I want is something I can add some 1-line "jobs" to, with somewhere I can add more detail if I need to (ie a comment field of some kind), some way to categorise and prioritise, and ideally the ability to set a date/time for jobs that triggers a reminder of some kind. Too many jobs are getting forgotten about, and my old "system" of leaving the relevant email unread in my inbox isn't working.... I think I also need the satisfaction of being able to tick things off to get me motivated to do some of the less interesting jobs! -- 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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MMB iPlayer -- no sound
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 09 Aug '10

09 Aug '10

Greetings All! Yesterday I downloaded (with automatic installation) the BBC iPlayer Desktop to a Debian Lennie; this also brought in with it the Adobe AIR (whatever that is). I then used this to download a programme from BBC 2 TV. On playback of the now downloaded main programme using the iPlayer, the video is OK, but the is no sound. Investigation of what has been stored shows a biggish (300MB) MP4 file (30-min programme, 10MB/min). There is also in an adjacent subdirectory a small MP3 file which plays the BBC2 logo (about 10 seconds); this one does play with sound. With iPlayer, it comes up, with sound, just before the main feature with no sound. So sound from the MP3, no sound from the MP4. Playing the MP3 with totem is fine. Attempts to play the MP4 with totem fail. Nothing happens, There is a message: The playback of this movie requires a audio/x-gst-fourcc-enca decoder video/x-gst-fourcc-encv decoder plugin which is not installed. and I cannot find this anywhere (probably built-in to iPlayer). The sound system on this machine seems to be ALSA. This normally works fine. Any suggestions for progress will be most welcome! With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 09-Aug-10 Time: 10:53:35 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] Linux Mint Help Please
by Simon Royal 08 Aug '10

08 Aug '10

Martin I shall look for some info for OpenBox rather than LXDE. I did find someone with the same problem on the same machine using Xubuntu, but there is an option in Xubuntu that resolves this, there isnt one Ican see in LXDE. The chipset is a SMI LynxEM+ which is Silicon Motion. I dont think it is a Xorg configuration problem, as I copied someone elses who runs Xubuntu on their 240x and I dont get it in Ubuntu. It has to be a WM/DE thing. Simon Royal PS. Thanks for your help earlier. I have been using it for a couple of hours and it is ripping along without a power supply in. ---------------------------------------- > Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2010 21:24:13 +0100 > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Linux Mint Help Please > From: mobile.sea(a)gmail.com > To: simonroyal(a)live.co.uk > > I have no experience with LXDE but try opening up a terminal and typing: > > compiz --replace > > Assuming compiz is installed that should enable display compositing > BUT here is a quote from a user forum: > > ##QUOTE### > Does Compiz work on/with LXDE? > > Compiz is a window manager. LXDE is a desktop enironment, meaning it's > a collection of software that makes up a 'desktop', including a window > manager, Openbox. Installing Compiz on top of LXDE will simply discard > Openbox in favour of Compiz. Mind you, Compiz will drag som many Gnome > dependencies in with it that you might as well have installed Gnome > but as Troy McClure said to Dolores Montenegro in "Calling All > Quakers": "Have it your way, Baby!!" > ###END QUOTE### > > Maybe you should google again your display problems but replace LXDE > with Openbox. As I assume the display problems are an Openbox issue > rather than an LXDE issue. It could of course be your xorg > configuration. Is it a SiS graphics chip? You could also google on the > chipset as that might give you some xorg parameters to try? > > Good luck. > > Martin > > On 8 August 2010 17:30, Simon Royal wrote: >> >> Martin >> >> >> Thanks for that. Excellent. I found the option in the BIOS and it has sorted it. >> >> >> Simon Royal >> >> >> --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. >> --- IBM ThinkPad 240X running Linux Mint 9 LXDE & Windows XP Home - Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4. >> >> >> >> Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2010 09:40:10 +0100 >> Subject: Re: [ALUG] Linux Mint Help Please >> From: mobile.sea(a)gmail.com >> To: simonroyal(a)live.co.uk >> >> The slow down when running off battery is (from distant memory), a power saving function of those IBM 240s where it underclocks the processor to half it's original speed. I think it can be turned off in the BIOS. Many kernels ago there may have even been a driver in the kernel for this. >> >> Rgds, >> Martin >> On Aug 8, 2010 12:30 AM, "Simon Royal" wrote: >> >> >> >> Hi >> >> >> >> Can someone offer some help on my problems using Linux Mint LXDE? >> >> >> >> I installed it on my ThinkPad 240x via another machine. Initially I had some X problems, but I have resolved them. However, I am still getting some odd screen problems where it is drawing multiple icons and buttons - like the maximise/minimise buttons - all over the screen. >> >> >> >> >> You can 'wipe' them off by moving a window, but they randomly pop up. >> >> >> >> I found one other person who had this problem, however he was using Xubuntu. I too had the same problems under Xubuntu 9.10, but not under Ubuntu 10.04. >> >> >> >> He resolved them by 'enabling display compositing' under xfce 4 settings manager, but Mint Linux uses LXDE and I cannot find anything in the menus for this. >> >> >> >> He also mentioned that when running off battery the whole machine was slower - very noticeably slower - than when it is running off power adapter. Everyone else on the forum said this wasn't possible, but I have been experiencing this too. >> >> >> >> >> I would really like to get over this graphics problem without switching distros as I like Mint. >> >> >> >> Simon Royal >> >> >> >> >> >> --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. >> >> >> --- IBM ThinkPad 240X running Linux Mint 9 LXDE & Windows XP Home - Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> 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! >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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! >>

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Ubuntu login problem
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 08 Aug '10

08 Aug '10

(I've been having problems posting to the list - apologies if this appears multiple times!) Hi! Can anyone help? I've got Ubuntu 10.04 LTS - the Lucid Lynx installed, and I rebooted it today, because it seemed a bit sluggish, bit sluggish, and ever since I've had problems logging in and/or authenticating. The only thinks I recall changing are there were a few updates downloaded, and I'd tweaked my Samba config file (smb.conf) and also been playing with the nvidia driver settings, enabling it and disabling it. This machine's a server, and it controls it's own logins, i.e. it doesn't authorise them somewhere else. When I reboot it, I see the greeter, I type in my password, and then it sits there for ages - at least a minute, before I see the logged in desktop. I can try switching to a virtual console (alt-f1 etc) and logging in there, and it takes ages and usually times out (timeout after 60 seconds message). It also happens if I try to ssh into the machine. Once the machine has been up for a while, the login response on a virtual terminal seems to be better, but I also get the problem using SUDO. I also get the problem logging in to Thunderbird on this machine, which uses IMAP to get the mail of this machine, and uses PAM to authenticate. I've looked in the logs and can't see anything obviously wrong. ISTM that this is a problem with PAM authentication, but I've not changed anything, nor do I know what to do about it or what to change. I've installed Bootchart, but there's nothing obviously wrong with that. Any ideas? Regards Steve

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Re: [ALUG] Linux Mint Help Please
by Simon Royal 08 Aug '10

08 Aug '10

Martin Thanks for that. Excellent. I found the option in the BIOS and it has sorted it. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad 240X running Linux Mint 9 LXDE & Windows XP Home - Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4. Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2010 09:40:10 +0100 Subject: Re: [ALUG] Linux Mint Help Please From: mobile.sea(a)gmail.com To: simonroyal(a)live.co.uk The slow down when running off battery is (from distant memory), a power saving function of those IBM 240s where it underclocks the processor to half it's original speed. I think it can be turned off in the BIOS. Many kernels ago there may have even been a driver in the kernel for this. Rgds, Martin On Aug 8, 2010 12:30 AM, "Simon Royal" <simonroyal(a)live.co.uk> wrote: Hi Can someone offer some help on my problems using Linux Mint LXDE? I installed it on my ThinkPad 240x via another machine. Initially I had some X problems, but I have resolved them. However, I am still getting some odd screen problems where it is drawing multiple icons and buttons - like the maximise/minimise buttons - all over the screen. You can 'wipe' them off by moving a window, but they randomly pop up. I found one other person who had this problem, however he was using Xubuntu. I too had the same problems under Xubuntu 9.10, but not under Ubuntu 10.04. He resolved them by 'enabling display compositing' under xfce 4 settings manager, but Mint Linux uses LXDE and I cannot find anything in the menus for this. He also mentioned that when running off battery the whole machine was slower - very noticeably slower - than when it is running off power adapter. Everyone else on the forum said this wasn't possible, but I have been experiencing this too. I would really like to get over this graphics problem without switching distros as I like Mint. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad 240X running Linux Mint 9 LXDE & Windows XP Home - Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4. _______________________________________________ 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!

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Re: [ALUG] Linux Mint Help Please
by Simon Royal 08 Aug '10

08 Aug '10

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Bubba2 server
by Peter Alcibiades 08 Aug '10

08 Aug '10

Has anyone any experience with one of these? We have just bought one out of some grant funding at a small charity, and so far have done no more than unpack it. It is about the size of a thick mass market paperback, very solidly made. Its running Debian, Etch apparently, and the main reason we bought it rather than build our own, one is very very low power consumption, and two, it comes totally set up with web server, NAS, picture gallery app and so on. The suppliers intend for you to use it as a firewall/router in addition, but we will be using it strictly as a server. Power consumption is minimal, its meant to be a plug in and forget package. Came with a 500G hard drive. We could have got a bigger disk, but it seemed like it would probably be smarter to have an external usb for the extra storage and greater redundancy. Ours is the non-wireless version, you can get them with wireless also. Price 240 Euro. Peter

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Linux Mint Help Please
by Simon Royal 08 Aug '10

08 Aug '10

Hi Can someone offer some help on my problems using Linux Mint LXDE? I installed it on my ThinkPad 240x via another machine. Initially I had some X problems, but I have resolved them. However, I am still getting some odd screen problems where it is drawing multiple icons and buttons - like the maximise/minimise buttons - all over the screen. You can 'wipe' them off by moving a window, but they randomly pop up. I found one other person who had this problem, however he was using Xubuntu. I too had the same problems under Xubuntu 9.10, but not under Ubuntu 10.04. He resolved them by 'enabling display compositing' under xfce 4 settings manager, but Mint Linux uses LXDE and I cannot find anything in the menus for this. He also mentioned that when running off battery the whole machine was slower - very noticeably slower - than when it is running off power adapter. Everyone else on the forum said this wasn't possible, but I have been experiencing this too. I would really like to get over this graphics problem without switching distros as I like Mint. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad 240X running Linux Mint 9 LXDE & Windows XP Home - Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4.

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a deeply puzzling overheating
by Peter Alcibiades 07 Aug '10

07 Aug '10

Any ideas on this? Its a socket 754 machine, something like a 2Ghz Athlon, 1G memory. Debian Squeeze. It has always worked just fine, and in almost all ways except this still does. What has just now started happening however is that the owner has started to read the papers online. Sometimes, it doesn't seem to matter which paper or which browser, there will be a page with 'the wrong kind' of graphics. Its not clear exactly what the wrong kind is, some are fine, others seem not to be. Gradually, the fan will start to speed up. If you now start up gkrell, you can see that cpu temperature starts to rise quite rapidly to the high 50s, and the fan gets very loud indeed. I don't know how far it would go, because one of us closes the browser fairly soon when this happens, and eventually the temperature falls to below 50. It does not do it when displaying pictures. For instance, one can load in a file of a few hundred, and it will display the thumbnails fine, and then one can page through them repeatedly, they come up an display quite fast, and there's no problem. It does do it when rendering some pdfs. Particularly, it did it with a graphics intensive pdf of some sort. I thought about getting a better cpu cooler, this is the stock one, but there is very little space in these smallish cases. And I can't see why this should be happening. I have other barebones of this sort, Asus, and it never does. Another machine is an old 754, and it does not happen on it. I'm not completely sure if this is new, because I'm not sure whether this sort of graphic content was displayed previously. Meanwhile, there's a Novatech small form factor i3 machine at 400 which is looking more and more attractive.... Bought one for someone else, they are fairly compact, quite quiet, and run very cool. 754 is pretty old hat nowadays, so maybe its time. Peter

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Re: [ALUG] Copying SD cards
by Anthony Anson 07 Aug '10

07 Aug '10

Chris Walker wrote: > On 04/08/10 17:05, Anthony Anson wrote: >> Chris Walker wrote: >>> Apologies if this appears twice - I posted it to the wrong address, >>> having already posted it using the wrong email address! >>> >>> I've copied one 2GB SD card to another 2GB card using the dd command >>> (having copied it to the hard drive as an intermediate step). >>> >>> The original card will load up in the desired device - a TomTom sat >>> nav but the second card won't. Is there any way for me to check that >>> the cards are the same? >>> >>> Also, and I realise that it's a bit OT here (although the TomTom is a >>> linux device!) but does anybody have any ideas what might be wrong >>> with the card? >> >> ISTR having a similar promble with a Kingston memory stick - it had a >> separate partition with uselessware in it, and it waas written in a >> (IIRC) NT format. >> >> Using violent methods under Debian, I deleted the contents of this >> partition then the partition itself. (It wouldn't go, all in one lump) >> >> After that, the copy worked as per original. > > But wouldn't the DD command overwrite everything on the SD card > including the partitions? Strangely, it didn't. I also tried reformatting it, and it ignored the partition. I think it's because the partition has a different drive address. -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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enable display compositing in lxde
by Simon Royal 06 Aug '10

06 Aug '10

Hi I have been having some bizarre graphical glitches in Linux Mint LXDE and so far haven't been able to find anyone else with the same problems nor a fix for it. Until now. 'the minimise/maximise/close window icons appear in random places all over the screen when I roll over them. When I move a window over them they dissapear (as if i was erasing them)' I have this exact problem. He appears to be using Xubuntu - I too had the same problem in Xubuntu last night. Oddly enough it didn't do this in Ubuntu. Anyway, he fixed it by 'enabling display compositing' under xfce 4 settings manager. Great, but I am using the LXDE version of Linux Mint and cant find this anywhere. Can anyone offer help or an alternative way of enabling display compositing? Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad 240X running Linux Mint 9 LXDE & Windows XP Home - Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4.

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Mint Is Working... Few Graphical Glitches
by Simon Royal 06 Aug '10

06 Aug '10

Hi Well, I found a work around. It seems xorg.conf was configured for the machine Mint was installed on. Moving the hard drive confused Mint as it didnt detect the new drivers/graphics. Luckily I found someone else who has Xubuntu installed on their 240X and they posted their xorg.conf online. So I nanoed in safe boot and replaced the contents of mine with theirs. This worked and I am not booted into Linux Mint LXDE on my ThinkPad 240X. It has a few graphical issues where it doesnt redraw things properly, like it hangs onto window buttons and prints them all over the screen. But I am sure this is a problem I can get round. Anyone have any ideas what this is and how to stop it. It is quite hard to describe. When you open up a window that has the close/maximise/minimise options sometimes these are repeated lots of times all over the screen. Fingers crossed I can get this sorted. After the long haul of getting this machine to dual boot I am just about there at having a fully working set up. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad 240X running Linux Mint 9 LXDE & Windows XP Home - Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4.

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Mint Problems
by Simon Royal 06 Aug '10

06 Aug '10

Hi I tried installing Linux Mint LXDE on my ThinkPads hard drive via a different laptop. This seemed the easiest way. It went ok and grub works fine. Back in my ThinkPad XP still works fine. Mint boots but then gets stuck. It sits on a black screen with some white text saying: Exporting directories for NFS daemon. Starting NFS kernel daemon. Starting NTP server ntpd. Starting common unix printing system cupsd. This stays on the screen. Every 20 seconds the whole screen goes black then the writing comes back. It doesnt get any further than this. If I do recovery mode then it will boot to a linux prompt. Any ideas? I am assuming this is something hardware related. Something to do with it being set up for the other machine. Is there a way of getting it to redetect hardware? Simon -- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum. (Sent using Sony Ericsson P990i).

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Distro Oddness Possible Driver Issue
by Simon Royal 06 Aug '10

06 Aug '10

Hi Bear with me this could be a long email. As you know I have a ThinkPad 240X. It dual boots XP and Linux. I originally had Linux Mint on this ThinkPad as it was already installed on a hard drive, but it had graphical glitches. So I installed XP and then put Linux Mint LXDE on it, via removing the hard drive and installing it in another machine with an optical drive. With the hard drive back in the ThinkPad, Mint would boot properly with all sorts of errors. So I took the drive out and put it back in the other laptop and installed Ubuntu 10 using the alternative installer. I put it back in the ThinkPad and it booted perfectly and ran lovely, albiet slowly. So I thought lets try Xubuntu as it is a bit less resource hungry. So once again I took out the hard drive, popped it in my other laptop and installed Xubuntu 9.10 via regular cd. Once done, I took out the hard drive and stuck it back in the ThinkPad. It worked, took a while to boot and has some graphical glitches, such as repeating window icons (like maximise, close etc). I am assuming this is a driver issue. I had the same problem with Mint, but not Ubuntu. Any ideas how I can get round this annoying graphics glitch. I am currently updating Xubuntu to 10.04 (which is going to take about 5 hours apparently) to see if that helps as I got the graphics problems in both Mint and Xubuntu which are buntu 9 based, yet Ubuntu 10 didnt have this problem. Will running the updater update system drivers too? Simon PS. Where is the System Profiler in Xubuntu? --- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum. (Sent using Sony Ericsson P990i).

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pl2303 Serial to USB problem - /dev/ttyUSB0 not created
by Barry Samuels 05 Aug '10

05 Aug '10

I have a CurrentCost electricity usage monitor which is normally connected to my desktop via USB. When the unit is plugged in I get a number of lines in syslog like so: kernel: usb 4-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 12 kernel: pl2303 4-1:1.0: pl2303 converter detected kernel: usb 4-1: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0 I am trying to get this same device working on my laptop but this time I see the following in syslog: kernel: pl2303: Prolific PL2303 USB to serial adaptor driver but nothing else i.e no 'attached to ttyUSB0'. Looking in /dev there is no ttyUSBn Whereas the desktop also loads the pl2303 and usbserial kernel modules automatically when the device is connected the laptop does not and when I load them manually I get only the above mentioned line in syslog. Needless to say the software which monitors the device won't connect. Any suggestions? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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