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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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Re: [ALUG] Installing Linux Without CD/USB
by mark fernandes (IFR) 05 Aug '10

05 Aug '10

Thinkpad 240 and 240X have PCMCIA network cards so PXE unlikely. And as said by Simon earlier - no USB or CD boot (Windows install by special boot floppy that mounts IBM PCMCIA CD drive and gets the party started). Putting drive in another PC is usually the way to go but for a mixed OS environment I suspect Wubi and it's ilk is the most likely to succeed. Thinkpad wiki http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installation_instructions_for_the_ThinkPad_240 Regards, Mark (Who used to own and use a TP240) >From: Ricky Bruce <rickybruce(a)gmail.com> > >On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 1:45 PM, Simon Royal <simonroyal(a)live.co.uk> wrote: >> My next trick is to get Linux installed and this is where you guys come in. I would like to install Linux Mint LXDE or >>possibly Xubuntu. How can I do it without a CD drive, without being able to boot via USB and without messing up my >>Windows installation? >> > >I have never tried it, but would a network based install work? PXE >seems to ring a bell > >Ricky > >*************************

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Installing Linux Without CD/USB
by Simon Royal 05 Aug '10

05 Aug '10

Hi Well, I got my ThinkPad 240X and after a bit of a struggle got the drives partitioned and XP Home installed, all without a CD drive or floppy drive for this machine and it doesnt boot from USB. Long story, but it involved taking the drive out and copying install files across via another laptop. In terms of speed compared to the ThinkPad 600, 600E and Umax I had, this is very quick. XP rips along, but it has no Linux installed at present. My next trick is to get Linux installed and this is where you guys come in. I would like to install Linux Mint LXDE or possibly Xubuntu. How can I do it without a CD drive, without being able to boot via USB and without messing up my Windows installation? I have partitioned the drive. I have XP installed on one, a small one containing the XP installer files which could easily be replaced with the Linux install files, plus a spare partition ready for Linux. So any advice on how to do it. I have googled it and there are plenty of different ways although a lot of them assume you can boot via USB. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad 240X running Windows XP & Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4.

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Re: [ALUG] Installing Linux Without CD/USB
by Simon Royal 05 Aug '10

05 Aug '10

Marcus I looked at Wubi earlier. I got the impression it would install Ubuntu just like any other Windows app a bit like virtualisation rather than a seperate bootable linux on a seperate partition. I will give it another look. Simon ---------------------------------------- > Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2010 13:57:21 +0100 > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Installing Linux Without CD/USB > From: runlevelten(a)gmail.com > To: simonroyal(a)live.co.uk > > Hi Simon, > > Try Wubi. http://wubi-installer.org/ > > I recently used this in similar circumstances and it went fine. - You > can download the iso to the machine and use that without burning it to > a CD, then run the installer from your windows desktop. > > Another thing you can do is a manual frugal install of puppy by > copying some files into a directory on the windows root - which isn't > perfect but results in a distro that may be appropriate for your > hardware, and really quite snappy. Instructions on their website > (somewhere I don't have bookmarked) - a search for "manual frugal > install" should do it. > > Good luck!

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Re: [ALUG] Installing Linux Without CD/USB
by Marcus Harris 05 Aug '10

05 Aug '10

Hello Simon, Try Wubi. http://wubi-installer.org/ I recently used this in similar circumstances and it went fine. - You can download the iso to the machine and use that without burning it to a CD, then run the installer from a "windows" desktop. Another thing you can do is a manual frugal install of puppy by copying some files and creating a directory on the "windows" root - which isn't perfect but results in a distro that may be appropriate for your hardware, and really quite snappy. Instructions on their website (somewhere I don't have bookmarked) - a search for "manual frugal install" should do it. Good luck!

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Copying SD cards
by Chris Walker 04 Aug '10

04 Aug '10

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? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:cdw_alug@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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Awaiting My 240X
by Simon Royal 04 Aug '10

04 Aug '10

Hi Thank you all for your advice and I did take it on board. However, I needed a laptop now and it did only cost me £15. I am awaiting the arrival of a ThinkPad 240X. It is a P3 500mhz model, so not too bad spec and better than my previous ThinkPad and the Umax. It will suffice for now. I dont need to shell out any money on it, I have any additional upgrades I need for it in my spares box. I will begin saving for a newer machine, probably a netbook of some sort. At present I only have my phone for web and emailing so I needed a laptop quick. I have a hard drive pre loaded with XP and Linux Mint LXDE so I will be up and running pretty much straight away. Simon --- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum. (Sent using Sony Ericsson P990i).

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Compaq CQ5306uk - good bet for Ubuntu?
by Mark Rogers 03 Aug '10

03 Aug '10

I need a new PC for work use. I'm looking at: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/186618 which is: - Core-2 Quad Q8300 - 4GB RAM - Intel GMA X4500 graphics, onboard sound (not sure what chipset, presumably something from Intel) Anyone have any good reasons why this would be a bad bet for Ubuntu? Should I go 32-bit or 64-bit install? Usage is day-to-day stuff (web browsing, email, etc) but also running virtual machines would be good (using VirtualBox). Seems like a good price for the spec (<£350+VAT) but no point if I'm going to have to problems with it. Any good partitioning suggestions for its 1TB drive? -- 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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Gnome Panel Problem!
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 02 Aug '10

02 Aug '10

Hi Folks (apos for X-posting!) I've hit a problem with the gnome panel. The top panel on the desktop is the Menu Bar. This is OK. The bottom one is where the problem is. Normally, this shows the "workspace switcher" with a little box for each workspace; switch by mouse click or Ctrl-Alt-Arrow. No problem with that bit. It also used to show, for each window that is open in the current workspace, a rectangle with part of the window title in it. If you click on one of these, the corresponding window is minimised; click again, and the window reappears. I don't know what this feature is called. Every time you open a new window, a corresponding rectangle appears; when you close the window, the rectangle dispperas. Suddenly, without warning, this latter feature has disappeared! I have tried right-click + "add to panel" but cannot find anything that corresponds to it. I want to restore this feature. Can enyone tell me where to look? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 01-Aug-10 Time: 20:41:59 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Used PC hardware for sale (running Debian)
by mick 31 Jul '10

31 Jul '10

I have recently replaced/upgraded some of my kit and I now have two older machines surplus to requirements. Before I advertise on e-bay (or cheapcycle) I thought I would offer then to ALUG members. The machines are both full tower systems and have new clean installs of Debian 5 desktop. (Before OS installation both machines were DBAN'd so I'm reasonably comfortable that I am not leaking any private information.) Specs are: Machine 1 ECS P4M800 PRO motherboard Pentium 4 650 (3.4GHz dual core) 2 Gig DDR2 RAM 1 DVD writer (with integral additional 2 USB ports and multicard reader) 2 * SATA Disks (1 at 200 Gig, 1 at 320 Gig) ATI Radeon 9550 Graphics card 1 additional PCI 10/100 ethernt card Machine 2 MSI 7253 Motherboard AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 2 Gig DDR2 RAM 2 * DVD writer 2 * IDE disks (1 at 150 Gig, 1 at 250 Gig) Nvidia Geforce 7300 graphics card 1 additional 802.11 PCI wifi card Neither machine is blindingly fast by current standards, but either would make reasonable second use desktop machines or file/print/web servers. I am asking £75.00 for machine 1 and £65.00 for machine 2. Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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Re: [ALUG] ThinkPad 240X & Compaq Armada M300
by Wayne Stallwood 31 Jul '10

31 Jul '10

On 31/07/10 15:39, Simon Royal wrote: > My ThinkPad and Umax both ran XP and Linux Mint LXDE at a reasonable pace even with their low specs and low RAM Heh, I think we might have different expectations when it comes to a machine running at a "reasonable pace". Personally I don't consider XP (with antivirus and being used for anything other than looking at the desktop) usable below 512MB and certainly wouldn't want to spend much time on anything with less than 1GB...on any Processor. Maybe I am just getting old and impatient :)

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ThinkPad 240X & Compaq Armada M300
by Simon Royal 31 Jul '10

31 Jul '10

Hi I am looking at two laptops, finishing today on eBay. The two models above. They are both similarly specced, both feature external optical drives, both max at the same amount of RAM. Does anyone have any experience with these and Linux? Ive used Linux on another older ThinkPad and it was pretty easy. Im not sure of the Compaq Armada M300. Any help? Any suggestions? Simon --- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum. (Sent using Sony Ericsson P990i).

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Fwd: Re: ThinkPad 240X & Compaq Armada M300
by Simon Royal 31 Jul '10

31 Jul '10

Martin The 240X is higher specced than the 240. The one I am looking at is a P3 500. The size of it is what drew me to it. I do like ThinkPads. I loved the 600 I had, amazing and quite fast for its specs. Simon --- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum. (Sent using Sony Ericsson P990i). ________________ Reply Header ________________ Subject: Re: [ALUG] ThinkPad 240X & Compaq Armada M300 Author: Martin Collins <mobile.sea(a)gmail.com> Date: 31st July 2010 12:29 I had a thinkpad 240 a long time ago and therefore haven't used any recent distrubutions on it. I think it had a Celeron 300MHz processor. I was using it with SuSE Linux 7.3 and 8.0, possibly up to 8.1 before I sold it. From what I remember it wasn't very fast. The 240 is small and has a small screen so you might be better off buying a 2nd hand netbook as it would be a lot faster and will run such recent distrubutions as UNR, etc. Rgds, Martin On 31 July 2010 09:47, Simon Royal <simonroyal(a)live.co.uk> wrote: > Hi > > I am looking at two laptops, finishing today on eBay. The two models above. > > They are both similarly specced, both feature external optical drives, both max at the same amount of RAM. > > Does anyone have any experience with these and Linux? Ive used Linux on another older ThinkPad and it was pretty easy. > > Im not sure of the Compaq Armada M300. > > Any help? Any suggestions? > > Simon > > --- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum. (Sent using Sony Ericsson P990i). > > > _______________________________________________ > 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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Fwd: Re: ThinkPad 240X & Compaq Armada M300
by Simon Royal 31 Jul '10

31 Jul '10

Wayne I see your point. I havent lost any money so far on the bits I have bought on eBay. A P3 500 is quite an improvement over what I have. I know both have a fairly low RAM ceiling. My ThinkPad and Umax both ran XP and Linux Mint LXDE at a reasonable pace even with their low specs and low RAM, so these two machines while being old are still a considerable improvement and for around £20 plus the spares I have kicking around I can have a machine almost twice as fast as I have. My question was does anyone have experience with them. I like ThinkPads and they have a good reputation with Linux but not heard anything about Compaq machines. Simon --- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum. (Sent using Sony Ericsson P990i). ________________ Reply Header ________________ Subject: Re: [ALUG] ThinkPad 240X & Compaq Armada M300 Author: Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist(a)digimatic.co.uk> Date: 31st July 2010 11:45 In all honesty I think you are wasting your time and money. I didn't check out the Thinkpad but the Compaq maxes out at what 320MB ? Even if you go for a distro with a lightweight desktop environment you still probably want to run a modern browser etc, that laptop is still last century's technology and to be honest needs to go in the bin. Another problem with these machines is that nobody is testing the modern distros against them because they are so old they are off the radar now, so you have to expect issues with buggy ACPI etc as the foo that made that machine work might have fallen out of the kernel and nobody cared. At least with modern hardware there is a high chance that someone else has tried to run the same distro on the same machine and reported bugs etc. I mean I know you said you have very limited funds to work with..but what you have spent on that umax plus buying either of these and did you buy the original thinkpads ? You wouldn't be that far off from a 2nd hand Netbook or sommin else a bit more recent. I mean even if you are managing to stuff what doesn't work back on ebay and sell for what you paid you are still losing postage costs and sellers fees no ? I don't mean to sound overly negative here, but I just can't stand seeing someone with limited funds waste more money. I'd say try to save up £100 and see what that gets you...If you dump what you have so far back on ebay you might get halfway there. _______________________________________________ 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] Used PC hardware for sale (running Debian)
by Anthony Anson 30 Jul '10

30 Jul '10

mick wrote: > On Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:38:44 +0100 > Anthony Anson <tony.anson(a)girolle.co.uk> allegedly wrote: > >> He got a new one - all singing, all dancing. >> >> It won't be long before he wants an upgrade... >> > > Apple fanbois seem to be particularly prone to this problem. Apple pie doesn't hang about either. Don't know if I ever asked here, but my old box of tricks (full tower AMD 900, caddy with 4 trays - Lenny, early BeOS, Win 98SE, Win 2000) suddenly refused to play with Win 2000, Worked perfectly AFAICT with Debian, BeOS and Win 98. Tried to reinstall Win 2000, but it wouldn't do so. Got about halfway through the process then stubbornly refused to play any more. Borrowed an XP disc, and that wouldn't load, same symptoms as the 2000 CD. Put an old NT HDD in the BeOS tray, and that wouldn't work, so tried an old Win 98, and that was OK, as was the 98SE. Tried to creep up on it by installing Win 95 and upgrading to 98, 98SE, Win 2000, but it got just so far, and spat 2000 out. DOS 6.22 works, as does any flavour of Penguin AFAICT - but it won't have anything to do with NT-based stuff. Now, I'd like it to work with XP or 2000, but I have misgivings about trying to run Virtual Box under Debian to host 2000, which I would guess, will fall over. The motherboard looks OK - no corrosion or leaky electrolytics AFAICS, and I haven't guddled about in the BIOS for ages before it had its spat - and that only to change the boot order. Anyone any thoughts? (Apart from buying Machine No 1...) -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Resolve Install Problems
by Simon Royal 28 Jul '10

28 Jul '10

Hi Im still trying to sort out these problems getting Linux installed on this old Umax laptop. Ive tried booting Limux Mint 9 LXDE and it ran the live CD once and part installed. Since then no success in getting back to the Live desktop. It just sits on the boot screen doing nothing. The same thing happens with Lubuntu. I did successfully boot the Ubuntu alterntaive installer and it started installing no problems, but I cancelled it as Ubunut is a bit too heavy for this hardware. I dont think it is a hardware fault as it runs XP no problems. Also I did have Linux Mint 9 LXDE installed on another hard drive and it booted to it and ran, also it has booted to the live CD once and all hardware including sound works. So any ideas? Simon --- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum. (Sent using Sony Ericsson P990i).

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Libretto 50 and 110 & Linux
by Simon Royal 28 Jul '10

28 Jul '10

Hi A mate of mine has a Libretto 50 and a Libretto 110. I have always had a fondness for these pint size puters. The 50 is a 75Mhz Pentium and the 110 is a 166Mhz Pentium. I know which versions of Windows will run on them and how to do it without a CD drive, but what about Linux. I use a lot of older hardware (as you might have guessed), but even this is stretching it for me. I was thinking Puppy Linux or DSL might be good for these beasts. The 50 has 16MB RAM maxxing at 32MB RAM. The 110 has 32MB maxxing at 64MB RAM. Neither has floppy or CD drives. I think the easiest thing would be to pull the drive - I have a 4GB spare sitting here - and either install it via another machine or put the install files on a partition on the hard drive. Any help. I might be able to get these beauties from him. He is moving and doesnt want to take the clutter with him. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- Umax ActionBook 347T running Linux Mint 9 LXDE & Windows XP & Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4.

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Re: [ALUG] Umax Laptop & Linux Mint LXDE Problems
by Simon Royal 28 Jul '10

28 Jul '10

Marcus I left it for over half an hour and it still just sat on the boot screen, occasionally accessing the disc. I am now burning a new copy on different media. Simon --- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum. (Sent using Sony Ericsson P990i).

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Umax Laptop & Linux Mint LXDE Problems
by Simon Royal 28 Jul '10

28 Jul '10

Hi I picked up my Umax laptop. It has been a traumatic 24 hours. Hard drive was tiny so that needed replacing. It had very little RAM so that needed upgrading. Then the CD drive was on its last legs so I had to swap that out. Then it turns out it only displays at 800x600 despite being told it would display at 1024x768. I had trouble installing Windows XP but that was down to the CD drive being old and my disc being scratched. The combo drive I had worked fine. This morning I am trying to install Linux Mint 9 LXDE and I am not having much luck. The machine boots to CD every time no problems. Then most of the time it will sit on the 5 coloured dots screen for ages. Some times it will then go to a black screen with a mouse pointer. I did get to the live desktop this morning and started the installer, but it hung on the partition creating section and I havent been able to get back to that process again. It is infuriating, I had no problems installing it on my 600E. The combo drive spins up and down all the time. You can hear it accessing the disc sometimes, but then it will spin down and do nothing for ages, just the 5 coloured dots changing colour. This is so annoying, any ideas. Is this laptop broken, am I doing something wrong. Spec is: AMD K62 475Mhz, 256MB RAM, 15GB hard drive, combo drive. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- Umax ActionBook 347T running Linux Mint 9 LXDE & Windows XP & Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4.

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Re: [ALUG] Umax Laptop & Linux Mint LXDE Problems
by mark fernandes (IFR) 28 Jul '10

28 Jul '10

Simon, This site is often useful for linux on archaic laptop hardware However I only found two Umax entries (neither the same as your beast) and people were using Mandrake... The Mint install experience sounds similar to mine (on a saintsong espresso pc) where I got a blank display and then on/off access of CD. That put me off Mint :-( There might be some hardware that installer doesn't know what to do with e.g. when creating X settings. AFAIR my beastie did install with other distros e.g.Fedora. If you can get another live distro (e.g. knoppix) to boot the umax then maybe you can scope out some hardware clues? However, this might be a long trek.... http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/umax.html Hope that this helps, Mark

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Re: [ALUG] Umax Laptop & Linux Mint LXDE Problems
by Simon Royal 28 Jul '10

28 Jul '10

Chris I got round the CD drive problem buy putting in a spare combo drive I had laying around. I dont want to give up. At present I am trying Ubuntu alt installer to see how that goes. I need a laptop as I dont have any space for a desktop. 3 kids and another on the way means very little space or money to myself. Simon --- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum. (Sent using Sony Ericsson P990i).

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Wow!!!
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 25 Jul '10

25 Jul '10

Good morning, Folks! An "Advertorial Feature" (yes, that's what they call it) just seen on the Mail On Sunday's website: Internet Explorer 8 Download the new Internet Explorer 8 customised for the MailOnLine Wow! That's everything we ever wanted! Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 25-Jul-10 Time: 10:36:55 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Linux On Umax Laptop
by Simon Royal 23 Jul '10

23 Jul '10

Hi Does anyone have any experience of using Linux on a Umax laptop. I am awaiting the arrival of a Umax ActionBook 347T of which I will run Linux Mint 9 LXDE and Windows XP. I can find very little information about them in general nevermind with Linux. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad 600E running Linux Mint 9 LXDE & Windows XP & Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4. _________________________________________________________________ http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/197222280/direct/01/ Do you have a story that started on Hotmail? Tell us now

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Freelance work - what price
by Ian Porter 23 Jul '10

23 Jul '10

Hi All, I have been doing some work for a old company, but because of the current climate I am going to start looking for freelance work. So the main question is since I am not a hardened freelance person, what sort of prices per hour / per day are the base / mid / high for such ? I am more than capable of developing in most languages and also systesms, if the job was web developer software developer service developer kernel developer etc what sort of prices has anyone on this list charged ? or been charged as such. -- King regards Ian Porter www: www.codingfriends.com

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Freelance work - what price
by Ian Porter 23 Jul '10

23 Jul '10

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