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[ALUG Announce] ALUG Norwich Pub Meet Thursday 12th April
by Viperfang 10 Apr '12

10 Apr '12

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- Hello Norwich Aluggers, Our monthly ALUG Norwich social meeting will be held this Thursday, 12th April at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA). The meeting officially starts at 8pm, although some people may arrive earlier. More information on those people can be found on the list and the IRC channel. If you are unsure if you will recognise us then make yourself and your intent to attend known by either posting on list or visiting us on IRC so we can look out for you rather than hiding in the corner. Optionally you could ask at the bar if they know where the geeky computer weirdos are and they'll point you in the right direction (seriously!). Another possibility is look for heaps of electronics on a table that may possibly look like movie props that would used for detonating explosives. Feel free to bring electronics/laptops/gadgets to the meet, you will by no means be alone. Ben Bewick aka Viperfang NB: This mail is automated, please refer to the usual sources for more information. ALUG Contact Details: Website : http://www.alug.org.uk/ IRC : #alug on irc.alug.org.uk List : http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo Twitter : http://twitter.com/anglianlug Identica: TBA Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2381613902 ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Re: [ALUG] Machine won't boot after re-install
by cdw_alug＠the-walker-household.co.uk 05 Apr '12

05 Apr '12

>> Hello Jim, >> >> I've fixed the fstab file but it's still doing it. I *think* the >> problem is the grub configuration. Is there any way I can fix that >> without another re-install? I have to say I'm getting quite adept at >> that now though! >> > Hi Chris, > > Depending on how your installer has managed the disk partitioning, you > will either find the grub configuration in /boot/grub on your root > partition, or on its own boot partition (check in the afore-mentioned > fstab file for an entry mounted at "/boot"). In here you'll have a grub > folder containing menu.lst > > This config file drives your grub bootloader, its possible that the > commands in here are pointing at a uuid or partition thats incorrect - > make a note of all the partitions you've installed to, and ensure they > appear something like the following for your linux boot entry: I've fixed the fstab and grub configs and now I can successfully log in so thanks to both you and Wayne for your help. But I need some more :-( All of the icons on the desktop (I'm the only user) have a red exclamation mark against them and won't run. I've looked at the properties of the icons and they show 'User: 500' and 'Group: chris'. If I look at the /etc/group file, part of it shows this :- chris:x:500: vboxusers:x:502:chris boinc:x:419:chris gnokii:x:418:chris nas:x:501:chris I've looked at various sites online trying to get to grips with groups and users but to no avail. What should I change/add/delete in this file to fix the problem? I think somebody did try to explain this to me in the past but although I kept the mail, I can't get Thunderbird to run so I can't find the relevant mail. The various files in /home/chris show up as 'chris chris' when listed with ls -la I have to confess that it may be caused by a typo on my part! I'm not sure if my account should be Chris or chris so is that likely to be the problem or a red herring?

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Does something happen to a WLAN connection every minute?
by Mark Rogers 05 Apr '12

05 Apr '12

I've spent pretty much a whole day on this.... I have a little (ARM-based) Linux (Ubuntu) box connected wirelessly to my LAN. Every minute (via cron) it runs a script which opens a UDP port, then sends a UDP message every second (for 59s) logging the result. For hours I could not work out why more often than not, the script would lock up to 45s then hang - subsequent runs would fail because the port was still held open, and I had to kill the previous instance of the script to get things working again. If I put delays in the script so it didn't do anything for the first (say) 40s, then it still failed at 45s. If I removed the delays so it ran all 60 requests without gaps, they all completed fine (in a couple of seconds). Then on a whim I rebooted and nothing changed, except that the 45s became 38s. Then on another whim, I plugged in a network cable and it's been stable since. So, what might be happening every minute that would cause an existing UDP "connection"[1] to fail? Looking at syslog, the 38s ties in with when NetworkMangler brought the wireless connection up (with dhcp). If it's likely to be hardware specific then I'll probably just change the hardware, but I'd like this to work wirelessly and if there's something happening behind the scenes that could cause this I'd like some clues as to what it might be! [1] Yes, UDP is connectionless so this phrase is a bit meaningless. Hopefully you know what I mean. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Re: [ALUG] Machine won't boot after re-install
by Jim Rippon 04 Apr '12

04 Apr '12

Re-posting as my reply wasn't to the group at large last time. Grub2 introduces further complications, and I'd have to refer you to your distribution's documentation on the subject, or a search for "grub2 configuration" - wayne's suggestion to not overwrite /boot with your restore is important. Jim > Hello Jim, > > I'm writing this from a webmail account so apologies for not snipping > anything. > > I've fixed the fstab file but it's still doing it. I *think* the > problem > is the > grub configuration. Is there any way I can fix that without another > re-install? I have to say I'm getting quite adept at that now though! > Hi Chris, Depending on how your installer has managed the disk partitioning, you will either find the grub configuration in /boot/grub on your root partition, or on its own boot partition (check in the afore-mentioned fstab file for an entry mounted at "/boot"). In here you'll have a grub folder containing menu.lst This config file drives your grub bootloader, its possible that the commands in here are pointing at a uuid or partition thats incorrect - make a note of all the partitions you've installed to, and ensure they appear something like the following for your linux boot entry: title Arch Linux root (hd0,0) kernel /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda3 ro initrd /initramfs-linux.img The important lines are: * root (hd0,0) -> pointing at the first disk, and first partition as the location for the boot files (the grub files and kernels where you found this config file normally - either your root partition or a seperate boot partition) * kernel /vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda3 ro -> this is the line which starts the kernel from your boot partition and tells it where to mount its root filesystem (in my case here, my system has created an initial ramdisk and its root partition is /dev/sda3 - partition 3 on my first SATA disk). Hope this helps point you the right direction. Jim > > I do have a liveCD - I run Mandriva 2011 - but I want to make sure I > don't > screw up anything else in trying to fix this problem. > > One other source of rogue files is the /run folder as that has a > couple of > files in /run/udev/rules.d/99-root.rules and 99-resume-link.rules but > even > deleting those had no effect so that's when I went looking for other > causes. I've examined the .tgz backup files under Windows (the > machine > dual boots) and that's where I've just discovered the grub files. > > Regards > Chris

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Machine won't boot after re-install
by cdw_alug＠the-walker-household.co.uk 04 Apr '12

04 Apr '12

I did a backup of my machine using tar commands and have then resized the various partitions. I reinstalled the OS from the original DVD and then started to restore the original files, extracting them from the various tar files - I wrote a separate tar file for each of the folders in starting from / such as '/opt-backup.tgz' I took notice of what Brett said last week about not doing a backup of /dev so that should remain untouched from the install. But now having restored everything, it comes up with the message 'No root device "block:/dev/disk/by-uuid/<disk-id here>" found and then 'resume device /dev/disk/by-uuid<another disk-id>' If I start again with the install, which of the various tar files should I *not* restore to avoid this problem ad infinitum? TIA.

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 6th April.
by Viperfang 03 Apr '12

03 Apr '12

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

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Processing power and bandwidth needed for streaming internet radio
by Chris Green 02 Apr '12

02 Apr '12

I'm confused! (so what's new?) My Acer Aspire laptop runs the little dedicated internet radio application I found quite recently with no problems at all when I run it at home. There it has an ADSL connection with something between 3Mb/s and 4Mb/s. However when I try it here (in France) using the WiFi service here it's completely useless, i.e. it produces about one second in five of actual sound. The bandwidth here is quite good though, the BBC iPlayer bandwidth check (which should be vaguely relevant as I'm trying to listen to the BBC) tells me:- Download speed: 1778 kbps Streaming speed 1: 1512 kbps Streaming speed 2: 1958 kbps Streaming speed 3: 1122 kbps Which the BBC says isn't quite enough for HD TV (!) but should manage anything else - all I want is a single radio channel! Does a lower connection speed require a faster processor to keep up or should I be looking somewhere else for what's causing the totally broken up internet radio here? -- Chris Green

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Really odd USB error/failure with Genius mouse
by Chris Green 02 Apr '12

02 Apr '12

I'm not really expecting a solution to this, just ranting/reporting an oddity. It confirms my general distrust/hatred of USB in general! :-) I have a little Acer Aspire netbook that I use (as I am now) when away from home, it runs xubuntu 11.10 (though I'm fairly certain I saw the same problem with previous versions of xubuntu). I use a Genius/Kye Traveller 350 mouse with it rather than the horrible touchpad. This works beautifully as it's actually a trackball rather than a mouse and has a scrollwheel and a fourth button that I have programmed as a double click of button one - bliss! :-) However after a random amount of time the Genius mouse stops working, since this is quite a long time (like hours rather than minutes) it doesn't often worry me too much as I don't spend hours on my laptop. Tonight though I decided to have a play and see if I could work out why it stops working (as the netbook had been left turned on and the mouse had, as usual, stopped working). I have the mouse plugged into the left hand side of the netbook where there are two USB ports as I usually use it left handed (even though I'm actually right handed). Since it had died just now I unplugged it and plugged it back in a couple of times, nothing, dmesg/syslog shows nothing, it's as if the mouse doesn't exist. If I reboot though it will work with no problem. Then I tried plugging it into the USB port on the RHS of the netbbok, and it works! It's still working. I can plug/unplug it repeatedly and it works every time. If I plug it in to the LHS ports there's still nothing happening though. Other devices (e.g. memory sticks) plugged into the LHS USB ports work perfectly though. It's just the mouse that won't work in the LHS ports (until I reboot!). Wierd! I think USB is a creation of arcane beings. -- Chris Green

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Directories to exclude on a backup
by Chris Walker 01 Apr '12

01 Apr '12

I'm about to backup my system as I want to resize the sda1 partition and I didn't think it was possible to do that with an existing system. So I looked online and found a Ubuntu guide to it which suggests excluding the following directories :- /proc /lost+found /mnt /sys/ I intend to backup /home separately so I will also exclude that but is the list reasonable or are there others I should also exclude? TIA

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2600 meeting at 18:00 on Friday the 2nd March.
by Viperfang 28 Mar '12

28 Mar '12

Quick heads up about this months Norwich 2600 meeting, more info at http://www.norwich2600.co.uk

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