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How to diagnose heavy system load at power up?
by Chris G 16 Jan '10

16 Jan '10

I recently noticed that if I log in to my xfce GUI straight after powering up my computer it takes an inordinately long time. Like it takes four or five minutes from when I enter my name and password to when the desktop appears completely. After suspecting that there was something awry with my X startup (such that it was doing something odd the first time it was run) I realised that it was simply that the system was very heavily loaded by something during/after boot. Watching the load average during the X startup it went over 8 whereas if I login to X after the system has been running for some hours the load average reaches the giddy heights of 0.14. With a load average of 8 things almost grind to a halt, some processes retry starting (I get more than one xfdesktop for example) and update-notifier times out trying to access repositories which it has no problems at all with if I log in later. Another symptom is that some nfs mounts haven't completed before the terminal windows appear on the desktop so when I run mutt (mail program) which uses one of the NFS mounts it fails to see its mail directories. That's seriously wierd. I've tried to analyse what's going on by running top (and 'w' and ps) in a console window while the system starts up but I really can't see anything obvious that's hogging any resource. One noticeable thing apart from the load average being so high is that my 8Gb of memory gets eaten up too, but there seem to be no particular processes using either lots of CPU or lots of memory. Can anyone suggest further ways of trying to diagnose this? -- Chris Green

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Problem with anacron and cron *never* running jobs
by Chris G 15 Jan '10

15 Jan '10

I have a backup job that (should) be run daily. There is a script called 'backup' that is in /etc/cron.daily. If the computer is shutdown regularly then anacron does its job and runs backup a few minutes after the computer is powered up again. If, on the other hand, the computer is on all the time then cron runs the job at 07:30. However, and this is the problem, if the computer is Suspend[ed] and isn't running at 07:30 then the jobs in /etc/cron.daily never get run. Is there any way around this? -- Chris Green

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 14 Jan '10

14 Jan '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 this Monday 18th January, 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://pjmcginty.moonfruit.com/ McGintys pub is in the centre of Ipswich, not far from our old haunt - The Milestone. It's directly opposite the town's central library and has a reputation for good Irish beer. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. After the successful Christmas meal we had earlier in the month, we resume with our first traditional meet of the new year. We didn't get any volunteers for a tutorial this month (surprise!), so we'll see what can be knocked up last minute. We've been doing well attendance-wise for the last couple of meets, so let's continue with a strong start to the new year. :D Remember to call (mail me in advance for my mobile no.) or email me, if you're arriving later and want to ensure I don't wander off, which might happen if the turn-out hits rock-bottom ... Hope to see 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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[ALUG Announce] Norwich Thursday Pub Meet
by Wayne Stallwood 14 Jan '10

14 Jan '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 14th January 2010 at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA http://www.thecoachthorperoad.co.uk/ ) There should be people there from 8pm, 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. ----- 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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Another Lunx vs Win issue!
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 14 Jan '10

14 Jan '10

Greetings Folks! A friend recently sent me the following URL: http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php?sitepal What *should* happen (and happens when I open it in Win IE) is that the main box (with the panel of boxes below it) should show a face (female in the first instance) which is animated (e.g. if you move the mouse-pointer over that window the eyes will follow it); and, when you enter some text in the "Enter Text:" box then click "Say It", the mouth-parts move and you will hear that text spoken. (The other boxes below the main window let you choose the regional accent and speaker, etc.). However, on my Debian Linux (Etch or Lenny) with Firefox there is no face in the window, and when I click on "Say It" all I get is a pop-up which says "It is not ready yet". Does any of you succeed in getting this to work as described in Linux? If not, I wonder why not. I wo9nder whether I have sufficient resources of Java or PHP installed, but not having hit such a problem before I'm not sure whdether that is a good direction to be hunting in. Any comments or advice welcome! With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 13-Jan-10 Time: 20:27:40 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] Programs that use dbus appear not to work as remote X clients
by phil.ashby＠bt.com 13 Jan '10

13 Jan '10

> From: Chris G <cl(a)isbd.net> > On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 05:08:16PM +0000, Chris G wrote: > [snip tale of woe] >> >> So am I missing something or is the whole dbus thing completely broken >> if you're trying to use X in the classic way with remote applications? >> I've done a few Google searches and didn't find anything very obvious >> about this so *maybe* there is something vital I'm missing, or maybe >> no one now uses remote X (at least not with Gnome). >> > Further Google searching has revealed the answer, simple but decidedly > not obvious. I need to enter 'dbus-launch planner' at the remote > prompt, this apparently tells the remote system that the dbus it needs > to talk to is on my desktop. > > Anyway, it works now. According to 'man dbus-launch' this doesn't connect said program to the dbus session bus on your desktop, but starts a fresh session bus on the remote machine - thus your application config (in the case of Yelp) and other dbus connected services are stored on the remote machine. Said man page also indicates that a dbus session should be started automatically by the libdbus client if there isn't one running however this seems to fail in your case. P

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introduction
by Ian Porter 13 Jan '10

13 Jan '10

Hi all.. My name is Ian Porter and I have been using linux for about 10 years now.. and cannot say that I am resetting that choice :).. I would class myself as a developer (c++/c#/java/php/sql etc ) and also server person. I did join before xmas and think that I posted my introduction then.. but allot has happened since then, Scotland and back in snow etc.. which is always fun sliding around on for 400 miles.. :) Anyway, just thought that I would say hi since I have seen a couple come though. Catch up with you all sometime. Ian Mysite: http://www.codingfriends.com

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Software patents, and a petition
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 12 Jan '10

12 Jan '10

Hi Folks, ComputerWorldUK have an article describing the resurrection of the European Software Patents issue: http://www.computerworlduk.com/toolbox/open- source/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=2721&blogid=14 There is a link therein to a petition, which you may wish to consider signing. Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 09-Jan-10 Time: 07:19:28 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Programs that use dbus appear not to work as remote X clients
by Chris G 12 Jan '10

12 Jan '10

I have been trying to use Gnome Planner running as an X remote client application running on another computer on the LAN. I.e. I am logging into another computer using ssh from a terminal window on my desktop (using 'ssh -X <remote> so X is allowed and DISPLAY is set) and then entering 'planner' at the command prompt. It's totally broken as far as I can see, planner tries to connect to a local (i.e. on the remote system) dbus which isn't there because the X session it needs to talk to is on my desktop computer. The symptoms in planner are a huge delay starting up, a failure to find saved data and a wierd pop-up error box when it finally appears on the screen. I also tried running yelp as a remote X client and it too failed miserably with a load of similar dbus errors:- (yelp:2860): Yelp-WARNING **: Cannot find dbus bus GConf Error: Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-nrMIzFk9Y7: Connection refused) GConf Error: Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-JTLaNQBBPo: Connection refused) (yelp:2860): Yelp-WARNING **: Failed to load config file: No such file or directory ** (yelp:2860): CRITICAL **: atk_object_set_name: assertion `name != NULL' failed ** (yelp:2860): CRITICAL **: atk_object_set_name: assertion `name != NULL' failed (yelp:2860): Yelp-WARNING **: An error occurred getting the gconf value /apps/yelp/use_system_fonts: Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-4gA9VDJgu5: Connection refused) (yelp:2860): Yelp-WARNING **: An error occurred getting the gconf value '/apps/yelp/variable_font' ... plus loads more in similar vein. Other remote X client applications (which, presumably don't attempt to use dbus) work perfectly OK. I even have synaptic installed on the (headless) remote system and run it on my desktop to do upgrades to the remote system (I usually use apt-get but sometimes synaptic is easier). So am I missing something or is the whole dbus thing completely broken if you're trying to use X in the classic way with remote applications? I've done a few Google searches and didn't find anything very obvious about this so *maybe* there is something vital I'm missing, or maybe no one now uses remote X (at least not with Gnome). -- Chris Green

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New list member
by Mark Wilson 12 Jan '10

12 Jan '10

Hi all, Just thought I'd introduce myself. I've been subscribed to this list quite a while but this is my first post. I'm a Norwich resident who has been using Linux for probably 3-4 years now. I'm into programming (C++, Java) as an amateur hobbyist. Mark Wilson

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Re: [ALUG] MP4 To MP3 Converter Ubuntu
by Srdjan Todorovic 12 Jan '10

12 Jan '10

Hi, 2010/1/12 Simon Royal <simonroyal(a)live.co.uk>: > Hi > Tried the command you said. First I had to sudo apt-get mplayer, which all > went fine. > However when I run the line you gave me (replacing the filename of course), > I get: > Unknown option on the command line: -aoc > Error parsing option on the command line: -aoc > Any ideas? Yes I think my memory is at fault (though I think mplayer devs changed the syntax of the command line options lately). It should have been -ao pcm:file=somefile.wav Srdjan > --- Catch me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype: Simon-Royal > > > >> Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:56:41 +0000 >> From: todorovic.s(a)googlemail.com >> To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk >> Subject: Re: [ALUG] MP4 To MP3 Converter Ubuntu >> >> On 12/01/2010, Simon Royal <simonroyal(a)live.co.uk> wrote: >> >> > Can anyone recommend a program that will extra audio from an MP4 video >> > file >> > and either convert it to MP3 straight or at least extract to AIFF or >> > WAV? >> > Im running 9.10. >> >> Off the top of my head, something like this should work: >> >> mplayer cool_video.mp4 -vo null -vc dummy -aoc pcm:file=myoutput.wav >> >> You could also use -aoc mp3lame or -aoc lavc to encode straight to mp3 >> but I can't remember the syntax for it right now. >> >> Srdjan >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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! > > ________________________________ > Do you have a story that started on Hotmail? Tell us now

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MP4 To MP3 Converter Ubuntu
by Simon Royal 12 Jan '10

12 Jan '10

Hi. Im fairly new to Ubuntu, been running it for a few weeks now solid and loving it. Can anyone recommend a program that will extra audio from an MP4 video file and either convert it to MP3 straight or at least extract to AIFF or WAV? Im running 9.10. 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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Forwarding Desktop Ports
by Paul Grenyer 11 Jan '10

11 Jan '10

Hi all I've VritualBox running a Win 2003 Server on my 64bit Ubuntu 9.10 desktop installation. And that in turn is running Microsoft SQL Server. I can access SQL server from my ubuntu desktop as http://win2003server:1433. But I want to be able to access it is http://localhost:1433, as if it was actually running on ubuntu. So what I want to know is, is there a way to forward all localhost:1433 traffic automatically to win2003server:1433? Is there a better solution? -- Thanks Paul Paul Grenyer e: paul.grenyer(a)gmail.com b: paulgrenyer.blogspot.com

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AVI & WMV from Linux don't play on Windows
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 11 Jan '10

11 Jan '10

Hi Folks, I'd be most grateful for help with the foloowing puzzle. Background: I VHS-taped an item from yesterday evening's BBC1 "Look East", since it is of interest to people I know. I then copied this onto a "scratch" DVD, to have it readable on my Debian laptop (OK, I know it can probably be done with a cable, but I'm not up to that). I wanted to put it up on my Zen web-site so that others can view it from there (and they will mostly be using WIndows). So I first created an AVI file usingmencoder as follows (following an example in 'man mplayer'): mencoder dvd://1 \ -o denvermilllookeast2010.01.05.avi \ -oac copy \ -ovc lavc \ -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4 The resulting .avi file plays fine using totem. I then ftp'd it to my website, and tried playing it from there using IE on Windows Vista. It failed, saying a codec was missing. However, the file on the website still plays fine on Debian with totem. So I then created a WMV file using "wmv2" format with: mencoder dvd://1 \ -o Denver.wmv \ -oac copy \ -ovc lavc \ -lavcopts vcodec=wmv2 Then I uploaded this one as well. Once again, this played fine in totem both from the file on the Debian laptop and from the copy on the web-site. This time, when I try IE from Vista on the web-site copy, I get the video OK, but no sound. So I'm wondering what the problem is, and how to solve it! In the past, I've had no problems with playing AVI files created by my digital camera using IE (video and sound both OK), though I haven't tried WMV before. So presumably there's some mysterious mismatch between the AVI created by mencoder as above, and AVI as Windows MediaPlayer expects to see it; ditto with WMV. The files in question can be found at http://www.zen89632.zen.co.uk/DenverMill AVI: denvermilllookeast2010.01.05.avi WMV: Denver.wmv and an example of a working AVI (both in totem and IE) at http://www.zen89632.zen.co.uk/Earith/Earith_Crab_2009.10.25.avi As well as the video, there is background noise from the water falling over the sluice, and from passing traffic, which comes through quite clearly both in totem and in IE. For anyone interested: this is probably a Mitten Crab which has found its way some 30 miles upstream from the sea, spotted by me when I was strolling over the bridge above the sluice-gate on the Old Bedford River at Earith, in the shallow water above the concrete sill below the sluice-gate. A still photo is at http://www.zen89632.zen.co.uk/Earith/Earith_Crab_2009.10.25cropped.jpg The location of the photo is marked "A" on: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=52.353953,0.038109& daddr=&hl=en&geocode=&mra=mi&mrsp=0&sz=15&sll=52.353901,0.038023& sspn=0.011586,0.034719&ie=UTF8&z=15 [equivalent: http://tinyurl.com/yb57epr ] Any comments on the problem would 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: 06-Jan-10 Time: 21:38:51 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Wanted, sort of Journal/Blog/Calendar/ToDo all in one, probably web based
by Chris G 10 Jan '10

10 Jan '10

Yes, I know that's a bit of a broad requirement! :-) I'm after an application of some sort that will help me keep track of what I suppose is a project (buying a boat in France). I'm open to any sort of idea really as, at the moment, I'm a bit lost as to how to do it. Straightforward calendar applications don't quite cut it as I want it to be a bit more 'textful' than that, I also want easy ways to link to web pages and other information. I might be persuaded that something like Sunbird/Lightning or evolution is the way to go though. Can one put links into sunbird entries? A blog *might* do what I want but I need easy ways to search and/or browse through entries by date and a way to remind myself to do things. I don't think blogs usually allow one to create future entries and or planning sections do they? I suppose a project planning utility might be what I'm after but they often seem a bit too much oriented towards large multi-person projects. I will go and do some looking on this front though as it isn't a way I've thought of going before. -- Chris Green

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Error writing to /sys
by Richard Lewis 09 Jan '10

09 Jan '10

Hi ALUG, I'm just trying to replace acerfand <http://www.electronpusher.org/~rachel/acerfand> with acerhdf <http://www.piie.net/index.php?section=acerhdf> on my Acer Aspire One. The module comes with my kernel (Debian 2.6.31-1-686), is loaded, and reports the current temperature correctly. However, I can't enable the automatic fan control because, when I try and write "enabled" to /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/mode it says "Permission denied": $ sudo echo "enabled" -n >/sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/mode bash: /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/mode: Permission denied Or, # echo "enabled" -n > /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/mode bash: echo: write error: Invalid argument I even tried switching to runlevel 1 and I still get the "Invalid argument" error. Any ideas why I can't write to this file? Or how to make it work? Best, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis ISMS, Computing Goldsmiths, University of London Tel: +44 (0)20 7078 5134 Skype: richardjlewis JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- +----------------------------------------------+ | Support open access to scholarship | | http://freeculture.org/ http://www.doaj.org/ | +----------------------------------------------+

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Re: [ALUG] Weird rendering of website!
by Anthony Anson 09 Jan '10

09 Jan '10

Anthony Anson wrote: > Chris G wrote: >> On Fri, Jan 08, 2010 at 01:28:11PM -0000, Ted Harding wrote: >>> Hi Folks, >>> Still following up one of my current side-interests, I visited the >>> website >>> >>> http://www.denvermill.co.uk >>> >>> using Iceweasel on Debian Etch. Hopeless rendering of text (massive >>> vertical expansion), much of the page simply missing, and hardly >>> any of the links apparently active and none of them working. >>> >>> On the other hand, if I view it in Windows Internet Explorer then >>> it all seems to work perfectly. >>> >>> What might be the explanation for this difference? >>> >> Looking at the source:- >> >> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 6.0"> >> >> This, plus a total lack of testing, would explain a lot! :-) >> >> Not to mention how does a fairly simple page require such a *huge* >> amount of junk to generate it? Very good question - and I have to wonder what it sends back to M$... Seems to work (FSVO work) OK in Firefox, though. Site written by a complete bloat-happy numpty: all those graphics on the main page... -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Weird rendering of website!
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 09 Jan '10

09 Jan '10

Hi Folks, Still following up one of my current side-interests, I visited the website http://www.denvermill.co.uk using Iceweasel on Debian Etch. Hopeless rendering of text (massive vertical expansion), much of the page simply missing, and hardly any of the links apparently active and none of them working. On the other hand, if I view it in Windows Internet Explorer then it all seems to work perfectly. What might be the explanation for this difference? Best wishes, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 08-Jan-10 Time: 13:28:07 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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UPS + LAN Switches that don't blow up after a power cut!
by stevey.eu 07 Jan '10

07 Jan '10

Having only just got back on after 24hours, I have no end of issues, so am thinking a UPS is in order. That and my LAN switch no longer works. Any suggestions for suitable replacements would be handy right now. Cheers, Steve

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Which way of using rsync will be faster?
by Chris G 07 Jan '10

07 Jan '10

I'm using rsync to copy some files across my LAN. There are various ways I can do this and I'd like to know which is likely to be fastest. The (most obvious) ways I can see of doing it are:- 1 - Run rxvt in conventional fashion across the network to the remote system, e.g. with syntax like:- rxvt -a /thisDir/ thatSystem:/thatDir/ 2 - Use the (already mounted) NFS mount of the remote system and, from rxvt's point of view copy locally:- rxvt -a /thisDir/ /mnt/thatDir/ 3 - sshfs? Doesn't really seem a very sensible candidate. My *guess* is that probably option 1 is best but I'm not really sure. The object is more to minimise system load (and network load) than to get the absolute best speed. The copies (backups) will likely run when I'm using the system so I want them not to overload things too much. -- Chris Green

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Ipswich ALUG Christmas Meal
by samwise 05 Jan '10

05 Jan '10

Final reminder for Adam R, Steve F, David D, Peter T, Keith J and Sean M - the Ipswich ALUG Christmas Meal is tonight. Meet in McGinty's at 19:30 or at the restaurant at 20:00 this evening. Mr Wing 7 St. Helens Street Ipswich IP4 1HE Tel: 01473 212885 WWW: http://www.misterwing.co.uk/ Map URL: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=mr.+wings+ipswich Cheers, Peter.

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Cannot empty trash
by Mark Rogers 05 Jan '10

05 Jan '10

On my Ubuntu 9.10 desktop, I have the trash applet in my Gnome taskbar and it says I have 2 items in trash if I hover my mouse over it. If I open the trash, there's nothing there. If I select the "empty deleted items folder" option it has no effect. There is nothing in ~/.local/share/Trash/(files|info|expunged) I'm guessing that something has been deleted on an external or other mounted drive that has since been removed without emptying the trash properly, but I can't see how to clear the trash so that it appears to be empty. Googling just sends me to endless pointers to ~/.local/share/Trash and/or the trash-cli package, neither of which have helped. -- 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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Online command line info pages?
by Anthony Anson 04 Jan '10

04 Jan '10

I'd be grateful if someone could point me at a page/pages which give the scripts for commands I can type into a 'terminal', so I can make things happen in this awful Kenvironment. Too hurriedly, I bought 'Command Line & Shell Scripting' - at huge expense, only to disover that a) because what the author really meant by the title was 'Shell Scripting in a ommand Line Environment', b) I can't haggle with Borders about exchanging it, -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Here I Am
by Simon Royal 03 Jan '10

03 Jan '10

Hi. Well I have just joined the ALUG and I thought I would share a little about myself. I've been into computing for over 17 years, firstly on Windows. I have spent the last 10 years as a hardcore Mac fan, until a few weeks ago when I decided to give Linux a proper try. It has always been something I have played with on and off. I have a Samsung A10 laptop, it is a 1.1Ghz Duron with 1GB RAM dual booting Ubuntu 9.10 and Windows XP Home. I use Ubuntu 99% of the time and only use Windows as a backup just incase. Ubuntu runs like a dream on it and this latest version has the best hardware support I have ever found, it was easier to set up some of my hardware under Ubuntu than it was Mac OSX. Well that is me. I'm not too experienced in Linux but I am learning on a daily basis and loving everything I find. Regards Simon Royal --- Catch me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal or Skype: Simon-Royal _________________________________________________________________ Have more than one Hotmail account? Link them together to easily access both http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/186394591/direct/01/

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How to find what this /dev/sdc is - I don't have a third disk
by Chris G 03 Jan '10

03 Jan '10

I have been looking at reducing my system's boot-up time and noticed that it seemed to spend quite a lot of time detecting a device called /dev/sdc. I only have two real hard disks on the system, they're /dev/sda and /dev/sdb. However in dmesg I see:- [ 7.681894] usb-storage: device scan complete [ 7.690995] scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access Generic Ultra HS-SD/MMC 1.82 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 [ 7.691402] sd 6:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0 [ 7.707729] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk What is this? I don't have any removable disks that I know about and /dev/sdc doesn't seem to be in any way a usable device. The only USB devices (well, external ones anyway) are a mouse and a scanner. I don't think it's the CD drive either as that seems to be a distinct device:- brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 32 2010-01-02 17:39 /dev/sdc brw-rw----+ 1 root cdrom 11, 0 2010-01-02 17:39 /dev/sr0 So who/what/where is /dev/sdc coming from and can I get rid of it somehow so it doesn't wast boot time? -- Chris Green

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