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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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Re: [ALUG] Best mobile phone for Linux nowadays?
by Chris Green 27 Mar '12

27 Mar '12

On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 12:40:16PM +0100, Tim Green wrote: > > Chris Green <cl(a)isbd.net> wrote: > > >My wife's Palm Treo has died (after bing dropped for the umpteenth time) > >so she needs a replacement. > > > >The fundamental requirement is a phone which will synchronise contacts and > >calendar with Evolution or Thunderbird/Lightning. > > > >So what's the best way to go nowadays? > > > >We'd prefer direct phone <--> desktop synchonization but I suppose it's > >not absolutely vital. However I'm happy enough to install a sync server > >of some sort (though my experience with Funambol was not an entirely > >happy one when I was trying the same with my Nokia E71 a year or so > >ago). > > > These days all the cool kids sync with the cloud (e.g. with Android its Google). Is that an option for you? > Sort of, that's what I meant by "We'd prefer direct phone <--> desktop synchonization but I suppose it's not absolutely vital. We defnitely *do* need it to be easy/transparent to keep Evolution (or Lightning) calendar in sync with phone calendar. If this goes via the cloud then so be it but the cloud bit will only be used as a sort of server. So to have to explicitly synchronize Evolution <-> cloud and then separately synchronize phone <-> cloud is out. On the other hand it it can be made to just happen when changing things at either end then that's fine. Something that *relies* on having an internet connection all the time to work is out as we are often out of reliable mobile phone network coverage. At home the mobile coverage is often flakey and when we're on the boat in France it may be non-existent at times. -- Chris Green

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Wanted - command line program for listening to BBC radio streams
by Chris Green 27 Mar '12

27 Mar '12

I'm looking for a command line program to listen to BBC radio live streams. I'm a bit of a newbie with trying to do this and I'm a bit confused by the fact that all of the URLs I can find for 'streaming' are actually playlists. But anyway, be that as it may, I have tried a couple of programs to listen to the .asx streams that seem to be the most readily available BBC streams with mostly rather poor results:- mpg321 - doesn't seem to recognise URLs at all though the man page says it should. mpg123 - recognises some URLs (in particular .pls ones) but doesn't appear to understand .asx. mplayer - this manages to play .asx URLs but it's really a movie player and thus drags in far more bits and pieces than I want, playback is still choppy. How much processor power and/or bandwidth is required to play a basic radio stream? -- Chris Green

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Mail Server
by Paul Grenyer 27 Mar '12

27 Mar '12

Hi all I want to create an email server so that I can send and receive email for a number of my domains. I've tried using postfix, but it's a pig to setup and it appears I need to have a user account on the server for every email address and I can't restrict one user to only one domain. e.g. if I create a user called paul and I have two domains, I get paul@domain1 and paul@domain2. Of course this could be my misunderstanding. So, I would like recommendations for a mailserver to run on ubuntu. Ideally I'd like it to be: 1. Easy to setup 2. Not require a user to be created for each email address. 3. Be able to create email addresses for individual domains 4. Web interface 5. Work with mailman 6. Support pop/imap 7. Support email forwarding. Any suggestions? -- Thanks Paul Paul Grenyer e: paul.grenyer(a)gmail.com b: paulgrenyer.blogspot.com t: pjgrenyer

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