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[ALUG Announce] Norwich Thursday Pub Meet, March 11th (this Thursday)
by Jonathan McDowell 08 Mar '10

08 Mar '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 ----- This months second Thursday social meeting of ALUG will take place on 11th March 2010 at The Coach and Horses: 82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA http://www.thecoachthorperoad.co.uk/ There will be people there from 8pm (possibly earlier). If you are unsure you will recognise us then make yourself and your intent to attend known by either posting on list or via IRC so we can look out for you rather than hiding in the corner. J. - who plans to make an appearance this month. -- Most people are descended from apes. Redheads are descended from cats. ----- 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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Vintage Computer Festival at Bletchley Park: 19-20 June 2010
by samwise 08 Mar '10

08 Mar '10

Hi, I don't know if this floats anyone else's boat but just an FYI - there's an event coming up in June at The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. More info here: http://www.tnmoc.org/36/section.aspx/131 First confirmed speaker is Sophie (nee Roger) Wilson, co-designer of the BBC micro and developer of the RISC/ARM processor. I heard Prof. Steven Furber give a good talk last year about the development of the RISC processor so I'm hoping this should be as entertaining. I reckon this one looks quite interesting and more all-round than the usual gaming-type events I've been to so if anyone was considering a trip to Bletchley Park this year (a good place to visit, at any time), it might be worth coinciding it with this event. If you can't get that far but have an interest in old computers, the Centre for Computing History is based in Suffolk and at some point this year, I have intentions of arranging a gathering off-list. If anyone wants in on that, drop me a mail. Peter. Full Disclosure: I know at least one of the guys who's involved on the periphery with the organising of this event, but he's involved more with organising other exhibits like the working Acorn setups e.g. there should be a BBC Domesday Project running; that sort of thing.

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Samba share permissions
by Mark Rogers 08 Mar '10

08 Mar '10

I have a Samba share setup thus: [projects] path = /var/flexshare/shares/projects comment = Projects Drive create mask = 664 directory mask = 775 force group = user public = no valid users = @user browseable = yes writeable = yes This has files written to it by a number of users on Windows, and myself from a Linux desktop. When the Windows users create files, they're group writable (ie any of us can modify them), but when I create them nobody else gets write access. I am accessing the share through a cifs mount, as follows: //10.0.0.14/projects /smb/projects cifs credentials=/smb/.credentials,dir_mode=0775,uid=1000,gid=1010 0 0 (word-wrap added for email). Any ideas what is wrong? Something to note is that all users exist on the file server, and if I look at the directory listings in the shares from the file server then files are all owned by <user>.user (eg mark.user) depending who created them (to be clear, the group name is "user", the user name is that who created the file). However, if I list /smb/projects from my local machine, then all files are shown as owned by me (mark.user) regardless of who created them. This isn't a problem in itself, I only mention it in case it is relevant. -- 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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simple file and web server
by Peter Alcibiades 07 Mar '10

07 Mar '10

What would you use for a very simple file and web server? I have looked at freenas, and it seems to fit the bill quite well, but no web server. Looked at Clear, which seemed unduly complicated and comes with apache, which is probably beyond me. Looked at voyage which promptly froze amid complaints about respawnings as soon as it was started up. Where I'm ending up is to do a basic debian install, then add nfs and one of the very simple stripped down web servers. Sensible? Its strictly for internal use, and all I need is central file storage, and very limited internal web sites, mainly photo galleries. Minimal traffic. By the way, the answer to the previous question, apps locked to specific machines, discovered after some work and consultation with a friend who only emerges from his basement after dark, seems to be to virtualize the app. A lot of work, but that's the answer. It all keeps blood flowing to the brain! A powerful preventative against intellectual infirmity, or so we hope. Peter "The best medicine we have for the heart is liberal quantities of sweat, taken externally " -- Eminent Cardiologist.

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Strange permissions problem with NFS, works from one system but not another
by Chris G 06 Mar '10

06 Mar '10

I have one home directory which is shared across our SoHo LAN, the /etc/exports file on the server has:- /home/isbd chris(rw,all_squash,anonuid=1002,anongid=1002,no_subtree_check) /home/isbd maxine(rw,all_squash,anonuid=1002,anongid=1002,no_subtree_check) On 'chris' mount shows:- server:/home/isbd on /home/isbd type nfs (rw,addr=192.168.1.2) ... and on 'maxine' mount shows:- server:/home/isbd on /home/isbd type nfs (rw,addr=192.168.1.2) ... and one the server /var/lib/nfs/etab is:- /home/isbd chris.isbd.net(rw,sync,wdelay,hide,nocrossmnt,secure,root_squash,all_squash,no_subtree_check,secure_locks,acl,anonuid=1002,anongid=1002) /home/isbd maxine.isbd.net(rw,sync,wdelay,hide,nocrossmnt,secure,root_squash,all_squash,no_subtree_check,secure_locks,acl,anonuid=1002,anongid=1002) I can happily create, write and read files in /home/isbd from chris@chris, I can only read files on /home/isbd from maxine@maxine when I try and write anything I just get "Permission denied". So what's the difference? Both chris and maxine systems are running xubuntu 9.10, everything looks the same but one works and the other doesn't. (Oh, for information, isbd is UID 1002, GID 1002 on the server system) (I think it's the gods getting their revenge because I said I preferred the simplicity of NFS!) -- Chris Green

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Does synchronization mean something different to other people?
by Chris G 06 Mar '10

06 Mar '10

After having a hard time trying to 'synchronize' a couple of applications which use iCalendar .ics files I had a little Google around to see if I could understand the problems I'm having. I think quite a lot of the problem is that what I call synchronization is quite different (and rather more than) what everyone else means by the word. For example I found several places with quotes like the following:- How to sync your google calendar with Evolution The access is read-only which means you cannot add events in Evolution and have them show up in your google calendar, but your events in google calendar will be available in Evolution for you to read. That's not even *remotely* synchronization! What I'm actually trying to do is to allow two people on a LAN to share a .ics file saved on a server, hardly hi-tech, but I'm really finding it well nigh impossible. A section of a whiteboard would be easier at the moment. If anyone has any ideas for implementing a way to share a calendar stored on a server than they'd be very welcome. One end will probably be using Evolution (but doesn't absolutely have to), the other end is very flexible and can use any available application really. -- Chris Green

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comparing two drives at very low level
by Peter Alcibiades 06 Mar '10

06 Mar '10

We have a sort of iTunes type of software, which loads up a compact flash card. It is proprietary to the very expensive device which uses the content on the card. The expensive device has not yet arrived, so I am trying out loading cards. This software will run under Wne, and it appears to format and load the content onto the card. However, when the supplier gets the card, he says its not recognised by the equipment. This is really funny, since when he then reformats and reloads the card i Windows, it is still not OK. He is going to send me back a working card and mine so I can compare the two. At the moment, its hard to see is it just a bad card, or is there something about what the software did in Wine (or maybe what mtools did when formatting it to FAT16) that makes it unusable even when reformatted. It seems unlikely, but maybe it is the boot sector that is a problem. Wine running as an end user will probably not be able to rewrite boot sectors? Question: is there any software which will do a diff at a low level on two cards, the one he sends me, and a new one I generate using Wine? If they are different, we could tell how and maybe even hex edit and correct it. Or I could take an image of both, and is there any way of doing a diff on images? Peter

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Is it me, or BBC?
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 04 Mar '10

04 Mar '10

Greetings all! I have just been trying to "Listen Again" to File on Four (BBC Radio 4, 8pm Tuesday 2 March): I got the message "Insufficient bandwidth to play this programme, click here to find out more" So I did that, and the Beeb put me through a series of speed tests, with results: 1. Your connection 3028 kbps Your available bandwidth is 3028kbps. 2. TV - HD 3500 Uses 115% of your available bandwidth.kbps [with "Red Cross"] 3. TV 1500 kbps Uses 49% of your available bandwidth. [with "Green Tick"] 4. TV 800 kbps Uses 26% of your available bandwidth. [with "Green Tick"] 5. Radio 128 kbps Uses 4% of your available bandwidth. [with "Green Tick"] And this was on "Low Bandwidth version", tried after "Normal Bandwidth" had hung. So, on the face of it, it looks as though the Beeb are saying I can't listen to a Radio programme (for which I have 25 times the required bandwidth) because I don't have enough bandwidth for HD TV!!! Any comments? (And, by the way, were shall we be after the Beeb have halved their website?) Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 04-Mar-10 Time: 11:41:17 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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ThinkPad... Xubuntu... Maxxed Out Memory
by Simon Royal 03 Mar '10

03 Mar '10

Hi I have been running my ThinkPad 600 300Mhz P2 with 160MB of RAM with Xubuntu 9.10. It has been an ok experience. Better than you think. Better than Windows XP. I ordered another 128MB RAM stick and it arrived today. So it is now maxxed to 288MB and I must say it runs a lot better. It boots a lot faster and web browsing is a lot better. It doesn't seem to be accessing the hard drive so much, which is a good thing. It is nowhere near as sluggish and is quite nice to use. On a whole Xubuntu at such a low spec runs very well, but I recommend using the alternative CD which has a text based installer rather than the pretty Ubiquity installer from the regular Ubuntu/Xubuntu CD. As it installs a lot faster. I have gotten quite attached to this little beast and with the extra RAM it makes it a lot nicer to use. I shall be keeping it a lot longer. Simon Royal --- Catch me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype: Simon-Royal _________________________________________________________________ Tell us your greatest, weirdest and funniest Hotmail stories http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/

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Train Tickets for Sale
by James Bensley 03 Mar '10

03 Mar '10

Got some unwanted train tickets between Norwich and Nottingham. Two adult returns booked for this Friday, they are non-refundable but I can reschedule them. If anyone wants a pair of adult return tickets between Norwich and Nottingham for any date other than this Friday I can have them rescheduled, sent to me and then I will post them to you? They were £50 so if anyone wants to make any sort of offer (even though its most unlikely anyone wants to go between Norwich and Nottingham) just let me know! -- Regards, James ;)

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Xubuntu vs Ubuntu
by Simon Royal 02 Mar '10

02 Mar '10

HiI am a big fan of Ubuntu. It got me really interested in Linux and gave me the push to leave Mac and Windows behind. I had Ubuntu 9.10 running on a Samsung A10 1.1Ghz Duron and loved it, then the laptop died. I then was given an IBM ThinkPad 600 and after running a few ' lightweight' distros have been quite impressed with Xubuntu 9.10 on it.A few people said not to both with Xubuntu, some even said it was more RAM intensive than Ubuntu. So I am beginning to wonder whether my ThinkPad would run better with Ubuntu rather than Xubuntu.I tried Xubuntu with LXDE window manager and didn't like it and didn't find it very fast. I like the Xfce as it is very close to Gnome. Is it more than just RAM that would pose a problem with Ubuntu as opposed to Xubuntu.I know a bit more RAM would help whatever distro I use, but 160MB seems to handle the basics under Xubuntu, but would it be enough for Ubuntu - even though there are reports Xubuntu is more RAM heavy than Ubuntu.According to the specs Ubuntu only requires a 300Mhz and Xubuntu requires 333Mhz, but I have Xubuntu running on a 300Mhz just fine.Ultimately my question is, would Ubuntu run better than Xubuntu? I am trying to squeeze every ounce of power out of this beast.Regards Simon Royal --- Catch me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype: Simon-Royal _________________________________________________________________ Do you have a story that started on Hotmail? Tell us now http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/

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Xubuntu nm-applet
by Simon Royal 01 Mar '10

01 Mar '10

Hi I have been running Xubuntu for a while and loving it. I finally sorted out sound on my ThinkPad 600, but I have one more thing I cant get round. When I boot up I get faced with a keyring password request box. It is to do with Network Manager or nm-applet. It appears because my ThinkPad automatically connects to my wireless network which is WPA protected. However, I cannot find out how to stop this box coming up. I need some kind of auto authentication to stop it asking everytime I boot. I have searched the net and can find instructions for Ubuntu and early versions of Xubuntu, but not Xubuntu 9.10. Any ideas? Simon Royal --- Catch me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype: Simon-Royal _________________________________________________________________ Do you have a story that started on Hotmail? Tell us now http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/

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Plain Text Test
by Simon Royal 01 Mar '10

01 Mar '10

Hi. Ignore this please or at tell me if this email is coming through as plain text. I use Windows Live (the new Hotmail) and it was sending all my mail out in rich text which ALUG seems to moderate. I have just changed it and just wanted to make sure it works. Regards Simon Royal --- Catch me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype: Simon-Royal _________________________________________________________________ We want to hear all your funny, exciting and crazy Hotmail stories. Tell us now http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/

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Text insertion point - do others find it irritating?
by Chris G 01 Mar '10

01 Mar '10

I am *forever* getting text inserted at the wrong place because it's inserted at the mouse cursor rather than the text cursor. This happens particularly in web textareas but the problem is common to most/all GUI applications I think. (I just tried in OpenOffice and it's the same there). Surely by default one would expect text to be inserted at the *text* cursor, not where you've moved the mouse cursor to which is often out of the way to avoid it obscuring what you're typing. My editor (xvile) manages to do it right, it's a GUI application but text inserts where I'm typing. Is there a setting somewhere to say "insert text at the text cursor"? -- Chris Green

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Xubuntu... Or Something Else On TP600
by Simon Royal 26 Feb '10

26 Feb '10

Hi. I have been running Puppy Linux on my ThinkPad 600 for a few days. It is the best distro I have tried on it in terms of speed, but it is a little limited. The software repositories are small and getting sound to work is a pain. It is a 300Mhz ThinkPad 600 and at present it only has 160MB of RAM. When I first got it, I wanted to run some kind of *buntu distro. I know Ubuntu probably will never run on it, so I was looking around at lighter versions. I ran Crunchbang for a little while, but even that struggled. Would adding another 128MB of RAM make a lot of difference or is it more of the processor speed that is making this machine slow? The hard drive in it is a 4200RPM drive, would upping it to 5400 or 7200RPM drive make any difference? It did in an Apple PowerBook I had about a year ago. Would Xubuntu run comfortable on a 300Mhz with 288MB of RAM? What would your advice be. What do you lot recommend. I don't have any money to buy a new laptop so I need to get as much out of this as I can. Regards Simon Royal --- Catch me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype: Simon-Royal _________________________________________________________________ Tell us your greatest, weirdest and funniest Hotmail stories http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/

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Apache configuration test on Ubuntu
by Mark Rogers 26 Feb '10

26 Feb '10

In recent Ubuntu versions (no idea if this is inherited from Debian or not), the apache user is set in /etc/apache2/envvars, which is processed when Apache is [re]started via /etc/init.d/apache2 [re]start. However, running apache outside that script will then cause errors. So for example, apache2 -t .. which should test the configuration without restarting, instead generates errors "bad user name" errors because the environment variable relied upon in apache2.conf is not being set. So, is there a "correct" way to test the configuration? (The solution I always end up with is editing apache2.conf to set User/Group to www-data directly.) As an aside, is there any way to make logrotate not kill Apache if there's an error in the apache configuration file? -- 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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Xubuntu... On 300Mhz... Not Bad
by Simon Royal 26 Feb '10

26 Feb '10

Hi Well, yet another day and a different distro. This poor little ThinkPad is being put under a lot of work, I have tried about 8 distros on this thing. I was running Puppy Linux and while it was nice and fast, it was a bit basic. I tried Fluxbuntu last night and after getting past the dodgy screen res, I just didn't get on with it. It might be Ubuntu based but it is still quite ropey. So I downloaded the Xubuntu 9.10 alternative installer - as the standard Xubuntu disc wouldn't install - and started the install last night. It took about 90 minutes which was ok. I must say I am quite impressed. It gives the ease of use of Ubuntu and all the software packages it comes with and are available for it. I know a couple of people said not to install it because it would run quite badly, but it isn't too bad. Booting is a little slow - although quicker than I thought it would be and there isn't too much lag navigating around the system. I only use this machine for surfing and writing, so nothing too intense. With only 160MB of RAM it isn't going to do anything too processor intensive, but with a little more in it could be quite a capable machine under Xubuntu. I have just installed Google Chrome browser and it is whizzing along surfing pages. Simon Royal --- Catch me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype: Simon-Royal _________________________________________________________________ Do you have a story that started on Hotmail? Tell us now http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/

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CSS question, paragraph margins/padding etc.
by Chris G 26 Feb '10

26 Feb '10

I have some generated HTML which is as follows:- <div class=level1> <p> This is the playground </p> <p><a class="folder" href="#folded_1"> Test</a></p> <div class="folded hidden" id="folded_1">This is the text that is hidden or shown</div> <p><a class="folder" href="#folded_2"> Test1</a></p> <div class="folded hidden" id="folded_2">This is some more hidden text</div> <p><a class="folder" href="#folded_3"> Test2</a></p> <div class="folded hidden" id="folded_3">And this is still more</div></div> <span id="folded_reveal" style="display:none;"></span> <span id="folded_hide" style="display:none;"></span> I want to pack the "Test", "Test1" and "Test2" closer together vertically and I'm having little success. I was expecting that setting the following would do it:- .folder { margin-top: 0; padding-top: 0; font-weight: bolder; border-width: thin; border-color: blue; background-color: cyan; padding-left: 2px; padding-right: 9px; background: url(closed.gif) no-repeat right center; } The font-weight CSS is having its effect, changing it does change the font weight, but the colours (e.g. the background colour) have no effect at all, and nor do the margin/padding/border settings. What am I doing wrong? Is there some 'outer' CSS that has priority over these settings? If so how can I override it? -- Chris Green

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Network Monitoring Tools
by John Herd 25 Feb '10

25 Feb '10

Dear all, I've got some linux experience and thus far have managed to get a credible helpdesk/auditing setup with GLPI and OCS-NG. I like both of these as tools because they're pretty light on admin and very recoverable should a problem occur. Now I'm looking for a good network monitoring tool that would enable me to graph bandwidth use on switches, disk use on servers etc. I've got a mix of Windows servers and a pile of Cisco kit. There's a profusion of network monitoring tools out there, so I'm after advice on what kind of setups folks in ALUG have experience of, and actually like, rather than a best of breed run down. I should add that the "some linux experience" extends to Ubuntu server and a reasonable knowledge of apt-get, so go carefully with me here. :-) Regards John Herd

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Of the website, backups and the mailing list...
by Brett Parker 25 Feb '10

25 Feb '10

Hi, I've just plonked a few more scripts about on my vps and added some useful hostnames to it... so, here's what I've got backup wise: * A read only copy of our wiki, updated daily from Noodle's backup: http://wiki.alug.itshall.be/ * A different interface to the mailing list archive (searchable) http://alug.itshall.be/ (Updated rougly hourly) (I've also got the normal pipermail archive sitting on disk, that's what I feed to lurker). So, the only thing that I'm missing, basically, is the users/subscribers for the wiki/mailing list... but this should put us in fairly good stead. Thanks, -- Brett Parker

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New Alug wiki/website
by Adam Bower 24 Feb '10

24 Feb '10

Hi people, Due to the unfortunate disappearance of our old wiki and inability to contact anyone at the old hosting provider Noodles has very kindly changed over the DNS and pointed it at a new wiki hosted on his server. (thanks Noodles!) A side effect of this is that we have lost all the old wiki content so please visit the new wiki, create an account and get rebuilding! You can find the new wiki at http://www.alug.org.uk/ for those that didn't know. Thanks Adam -- New signature required, suggestions on a post card please.

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Nagios
by Mark Rogers 22 Feb '10

22 Feb '10

Does anyone here know if Nagios is something I need to install on every server I wish to monitor? Can I combine the results of multiple sites into single reports or do I just need to have multiple reports? -- 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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Spreadsheet (Gnumeric or other) - how to insert a page break in printout?
by Chris G 21 Feb '10

21 Feb '10

This is a stupidly trivial question but I can't find out how to do it. I have a wide spreadsheet (currently in Gnumeric) and I simply want to tell it where (i.e. at which column) to start printing on a new page. I can't find *anywhere* that even seems to think that's something you'd want to do, let alone how to do it. If I could simply insert a fromfeed character into the first row cell in that column it would do but I can't even do that. Help!!! -- Chris Green

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What 'conversion' changes those = and =E9 in text to the proper characters?
by Chris G 21 Feb '10

21 Feb '10

I have some text which has lots of '= ' and '=E9' strings in it which should be just spaces and è. What would convert this text to properly readable text? Mutt seems to manage it OK (it's a mail message) but I want to do it myself to display it elsewhere and it doesn't seem to be just a simple iconv() conversion as what seems to be in the message are actual '=E9' strings not iso-8859-1 characters with more than 7 bits. Presumably it's encoded to fit in strict 7-bit ASCII but how do I unencode it? -- Chris Green

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Puppy Linux... Wow!
by Simon Royal 20 Feb '10

20 Feb '10

Hi. I tried the Puppy Linux live cd yesterday and I was impressed but I couldn't get wireless to work even though the Puppy forum said my devices should work out of the box. Well, I decided to install it to see how well it ran and whether the wireless would work. I am pleased to say it absolutely screams along even on a P2 300Mhz with 160MB RAM. It is amazing to watch. No other distro I have tried performs anywhere near as well. Also, my wireless devices work and after a bit of configuring - more of a way Puppy configures rather than how difficult it was to sort - I am pleased to say I am writing this email within Puppy running a Buffalo WLI-CB-G54A wireless PCMCIA card. I think I have found the best distro for such a low spec machine. It is amazingly fast and blows Windows 2000/XP out of the water. Simon Royal --- Catch me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype: Simon-Royal _________________________________________________________________ Do you have a story that started on Hotmail? Tell us now http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/195013117/direct/01/

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