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10372 discussions

"unwritable" external USB drive
by Ted.Harding＠wlandres.net 23 Jan '12

23 Jan '12

Greetings All. I wonder if anyone can give me some advice! Seeking a device to take backups onto, I bought a Western Digital "My Passport Essential" external USB hard drive (500 GB, USB 2.0 and 3.0). When I plug this in (Debian Lenny) I get a pop-up which says: Cannot mount volume Invalid mount option when attempting to mount the volume 'My Passport' dmesg | tail -35 gives: usb 4-3: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 9 usb 4-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice scsi8 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices usb-storage: device found at 9 usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning usb 4-3: New USB device found, idVendor=1058, idProduct=0740 usb 4-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=5 usb 4-3: Product: My Passport 0740 usb 4-3: Manufacturer: Western Digital usb 4-3: SerialNumber: 575839314138315934373632 usb-storage: device scan complete scsi 8:0:0:0: Direct-Access WD My Passport 0740 1003 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6 scsi 8:0:0:1: Enclosure WD SES Device 1003 PQ: 0 ANSI: 6 sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] Spinning up disk....ready sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] 976707584 512-byte hardware sectors (500074MB) sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 47 00 10 08 sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] 976707584 512-byte hardware sectors (500074MB) sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 47 00 10 08 sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through sdc: sdc1 sd 8:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk ses 8:0:0:1: Attached Enclosure device fdisk /dev/sdc gives: Disk /dev/sdc: 500.0 GB, 500074283008 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60797 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Disk identifier: 0x00038a56 Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdc1 1 60798 488352768 7 HPFS/NTFS Then, as root (remote login): mount -t ntfs /dev/sdc1 /mnt apparently mounts OK, and then: ls -la /mnt gives: drwx------ 1 root root 4096 2012-01-19 13:11 . drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 4096 2009-04-17 19:52 .. drwx------ 1 root root 4096 2011-03-10 00:48 Extras drwx------ 1 root root 0 2012-01-19 13:11 $RECYCLE.BIN drwx------ 1 root root 0 2012-01-19 13:10 System Volume Information drwx------ 1 root root 0 2011-03-10 00:48 User Manuals -rw------- 2 root root 3290480 2011-03-09 22:43 WD Quick Formatter.exe drwx------ 1 root root 4096 2011-03-10 00:48 WD SmartWare -rw------- 2 root root 4246384 2011-03-09 22:43 WD SmartWare.exe drwx------ 1 root root 0 2011-03-10 00:48 WD SmartWare for Mac and I can read the user manual under "User Manuals". However, I want to make a new directory on the USB disk, so as a test I try: mkdir /mnt/Test which gives: mkdir: cannot create directory `/mnt/Test': Operation not permitted (despite the fact that /mnt, and /mnt/Test and all subdirectories, apparently have write permission for root). Also, in /media I have: -rw------- 1 root root 0 2012-01-23 18:37 .hal-mtab-lock which was not there before I plugged it in (well, it was from a previous session, but I deleted it before starting this test). SO: How do I make this thing writeable??? (This is the first time I have had a USB drive so this on me). With thanks, Ted. ------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)wlandres.net> Date: 23-Jan-2012 Time: 18:41:46 This message was sent by XFMail -------------------------------------------------

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A very simple/silly HTML question about 204 response
by Chris Green 21 Jan '12

21 Jan '12

I want to have a CGI script return a 204 response so that the calling page doesn't change but I can't get it to work cleanly such that I don't get an error as follows:- Internal Server Error The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@localhost and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error. More information about this error may be available in the server error log. The CGI script is currently just:- echo HTTP/1.0 204 No Change echo Content-type: text/html echo The apache error log says:- [Sat Jan 21 16:19:24 2012] [error] [client 192.168.1.4] malformed header from script. Bad header=HTTP/1.0 204 No Change: wikiedit.cgi, referer: http://wiki/info:money:jessica?do=edit Removing the "echo Content-type: text/html" makes no difference at all. According to what I can find on Google about "204 No Change" it's all I should need. Any ideas? -- Chris Green

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Wifi access point recommendation for use outside?
by Srdjan Todorovic 21 Jan '12

21 Jan '12

Hi all, I just got a call from my dad asking about a wifi access point that: 1. is good (how does one quantify this?) 2. has a 30m range (wikipedia suggests 32m indoor range, and 95m outside as normal ranges for b/g) 3. can support 10-20 connected peers on the wifi interface (I'm guessing there would be a resource limit, but I don't know what it would be, or what is normal) 4. can be used for yard applications a) either is rugged / waterproof enough to be mounted outside, with power and ethernet pulled outside, or b) would be effective enough mounted on the side of the window indoors and remain hidden from view, and the antenna can still pick up wifi peers, and the wifi peers can pick up the AP signals. 5. secured - most should support WEP and WPA, but I'm not sure what the actual requirements for this are - depends on what encryption the users would have, but I'd hope they'd all support WPA-PSK as a minimum. I suspect most wifi access points would satisfy all of these requirements (except maybe ruggedness in case it was to be mounted outdoors). Does anyone have any suggestions for a wifi access point that would meet these requirements? Thanks, Srdjan

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SQL question - any other way to do this?
by Chris Green 21 Jan '12

21 Jan '12

I have the following typically horrible bit of SQL to get a result I want:- SELECT Date, Description, Credit, (SELECT SUM(Credit) FROM jessica j2 WHERE j2.Date <= j1.Date ORDER BY j2.Date) AS TotCredit FROM jessica j1; This is actually slightly simplifed but illustrates the problem. It works OK if run as shown but unfortunately I don't actually have the ability to create the whole thing in the application where I'm using it. All I can do is specify the SQL for the individual selected colums, I *can't* specify the final "FROM jessica j1", it's actually just "FROM jessica". So, what the application executes is:- SELECT Date, Description, Credit, (SELECT SUM(Credit) FROM jessica j2 WHERE j2.Date <= Date ORDER BY Date) AS TotCredit FROM jessica I can change the (SELECT SUM(Credit) FROM jessica j2 WHERE j2.Date <= Date ORDER BY Date) to anything I want, can anyone suggest a way to get the running total that I want just by adjusting this part of the SQL? -- Chris Green

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Evolution oddness
by Bev Nicolson 20 Jan '12

20 Jan '12

To be honest Evolution's been odd for a while but anyway. Opening it up I wasn't asked for my password (I don't login to my computer now. No idea why. If anyone's got a cunning way of changing that, do tell. The request to put my p/w in comes randomly.) Today I can't open any emails. Essentially it's behaving as though there's not internet access (though as you can see, there is, cos I'm typing this.) I see others have had problems like this with too on the Ubuntu forum. Hmm.

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Text editor that can edit columns easily/well?
by Chris Green 20 Jan '12

20 Jan '12

Does anyone know of a text editor that will edit columns of text well? By this I *don't* mean one that can handle rectangular areas, my preferred editor (vile/xvile) can already do that easily. What I want is a text editor that will maintain existing columns while allowing one to add/edit/delete text within them. E.g. if I have:- Some text in column Text in column two Column 3 column 1 continued and more in here etc etc bla bla bla goo goo goo ding ding ... and I edit it as follows:- Some more text in column Text in column two Column 3 column 1 continued and more in here etc etc bla bla bla goo goo goo ding ding I want it to maintain things as above without me having to delete the four extra spaces between columns one and two. I want to be able to add text to a line in a column and have it expand the whole column down the file. I.e. there is some sort of 'virtual' delimiter between the columns which is kept vertically aligned, I'm quite happy for this to be an actual character although I'd prefer it to be invisible like a TAB if possible. Thus the above *could* be:- Some text in column | Text in column two | Column 3 column 1 continued | and more in here | etc etc bla bla bla | goo goo goo | ding ding ... and I edit it as follows:- Some more text in column | Text in column two | Column 3 column 1 continued | and more in here | etc etc bla bla bla | goo goo goo | ding ding ... then add even more text:- Some more text in column | Text in column two | Column 3 column 1 continued | and more in here | etc etc bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla | goo goo goo | ding ding with the editor keeping the |s vertically aligned for me. The 'table' add-on for Emacs almost does this but it's for a table (as in text in boxes) rather than text in columns. Searching for 'text edit columns' just comes up with loads of editors that can handle rectangular areas which I can already do. -- Chris Green

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Can I switch these off?
by Chris Walker 17 Jan '12

17 Jan '12

The store I'm using is an Edimax NS2502 and I'm connecting to it using lines like this in the /etc.fstab file :- //storage_server/FTP_RAID_C /media/linux_Share cifs user,credentials=/etc/samba/auth.storage_server.Mandriva 0 0 The auth file just contains a userid and password. Like others I've found online, my NAS drive is creating 77 cifsxxx files as soon as I delete them. Is there a way to stop this? One person thinks this is a bug - https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=740572 but that was in 2009 and it still seems to be occurring. Am I doing something wrong here? Perhaps I should explain that these files are in the /media/linux_Share/Linux_Backups/hourly.1/localhost/usr/bin/ directory and I'm trying to remove everything from the Linux_Backups directory prior to initiating a backup procedure using drakbackup.

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Re: [ALUG] cp -a puzzle
by Ted.Harding＠wlandres.net 16 Jan '12

16 Jan '12

On 14-Jan-2012 James Bensley wrote: > rsync has this option Unfortunately rsync is not present on that system (SuSE Linux 8.2 installed in 2003). I should add that I'm doing this for a friend (predominantly a Windows user) who wants to dispose of the machine, but keep the files. I do not have access to the installation disks (and they may well have gone into a black hole by now). Thanks for the suggestion! Ted. > On Jan 14, 2012 9:12 PM, "Ted Harding" <Ted.Harding(a)wlandres.net> wrote: > >> Greetings All, >> I am currently engaged in copying files from a desktop >> machine to an external USB hard drive. >> >> The machine has both Windows 98 and Linux on it, and >> dual-boots. Because Win98 does not recognise the external >> drive, while the Linux installation does, I'm booting >> into Linux to do the copying. >> >> The objective is to transfer every file on the desktop >> onto the external drive. The external drive is mounted >> as /media/sda1 in Linux, and has a vfat filesystem. >> >> The Windows drives \C, \D, \E, \F are mounted, when the >> machine is booted into Linux, as: >> >> /windows/C /windows/D ... /windows/F >> >> With the Windows files, no problem: I make the directories >> /media/sda1/WinLinMachine/C >> (and similar for .../D, .../E, .../F, these being all the >> Windows drives). Then I do the likes of: >> >> cd /windows/C >> cp -a * /media/sda1/WinLinMachine/C >> >> (and similar for D, E and F). This has worked fine. >> However, I now want to copy over all the Linux files >> as well. I have made a directory >> >> /media/sda1/WinLinMachine/LinuxFiles >> >> but now, of course, >> >> cp -a /* /media/sda1/WinLinMachine/LinuxFiles >> >> will not work, because the external drive is mounted >> under / and so will be itself copied and recopied in >> an infinite recursion. There would be no problem if >> there was an "exclude" option for 'cp' (say "-X") so >> that >> >> cp -a -X /media /* /media/sda1/WinLinMachine/LinuxFiles >> >> would inhibit anything under /media from being copied. >> But I can find no such option for 'cp'. >> >> So how to proceed??? >> >> With thanks, >> Ted. >> ---------------------------------- >> E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)wlandres.net> >> Date: 14-Jan-2012 >> Time: 20:49:49 >> >> This message was sent by XFMail >> ---------------------------------- >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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! >> ---------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)wlandres.net> Date: 14-Jan-2012 Time: 22:07:57 This message was sent by XFMail ----------------------------------

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Naive spreadsheet question - how to produce a running total?
by Chris Green 16 Jan '12

16 Jan '12

I'm a total newcomer to spreadsheets but I think/hope a spreadsheet is what I need to fulfil a very simple requirement. I want to maintain a simple balance of income and outgoings, e.g.:- Date Description Credit Debit Balance 1/1/2012 Monthly charge £200.00 -£200.00 5/1/2012 Received cheque £200.00 £0.0 21/1/2010 Miscellanous expense £5.00 -£5.00 .... etc. I can manage the various data entry columns in Gnumeric but what formula do I need in the Balance column? Firstly I can't find the syntax for "all cells to the end", all the Help seems to tell me is how to enter a range, i.e. C2:C12 means the range from C2 to C12, but how do you say "to the end"? Secondly how do you get a running balance without having to re-enter the formula in the Balance column for every row you enter? -- Chris Green

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cp -a puzzle
by Ted.Harding＠wlandres.net 15 Jan '12

15 Jan '12

Greetings All, I am currently engaged in copying files from a desktop machine to an external USB hard drive. The machine has both Windows 98 and Linux on it, and dual-boots. Because Win98 does not recognise the external drive, while the Linux installation does, I'm booting into Linux to do the copying. The objective is to transfer every file on the desktop onto the external drive. The external drive is mounted as /media/sda1 in Linux, and has a vfat filesystem. The Windows drives \C, \D, \E, \F are mounted, when the machine is booted into Linux, as: /windows/C /windows/D ... /windows/F With the Windows files, no problem: I make the directories /media/sda1/WinLinMachine/C (and similar for .../D, .../E, .../F, these being all the Windows drives). Then I do the likes of: cd /windows/C cp -a * /media/sda1/WinLinMachine/C (and similar for D, E and F). This has worked fine. However, I now want to copy over all the Linux files as well. I have made a directory /media/sda1/WinLinMachine/LinuxFiles but now, of course, cp -a /* /media/sda1/WinLinMachine/LinuxFiles will not work, because the external drive is mounted under / and so will be itself copied and recopied in an infinite recursion. There would be no problem if there was an "exclude" option for 'cp' (say "-X") so that cp -a -X /media /* /media/sda1/WinLinMachine/LinuxFiles would inhibit anything under /media from being copied. But I can find no such option for 'cp'. So how to proceed??? With thanks, Ted. ---------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)wlandres.net> Date: 14-Jan-2012 Time: 20:49:49 This message was sent by XFMail ----------------------------------

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