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Mystery "su" by root
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 26 Aug '10

26 Aug '10

Good morning! I just (and I hardly ever do this ... ) had a look at /var/log/auth.log on a Debian Etch running in a VirtualBox VM. Almost all the entries are simply references to CRON, e.g. Aug 26 03:17:01 localhost CRON[26804]: (pam_unix) session opened for user root by (uid=0) Aug 26 03:17:01 localhost CRON[26804]: (pam_unix) session closed for user root However, there is a short sequence of root su-ing to "nobody": Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30229]: Successful su for nobody by root Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30229]: + ??? root:nobody Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30229]: (pam_unix) session opened for user nobody by (uid=0) Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30229]: (pam_unix) session closed for user nobody Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30232]: Successful su for nobody by root Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30232]: + ??? root:nobody Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30232]: (pam_unix) session opened for user nobody by (uid=0) Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30232]: (pam_unix) session closed for user nobody Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30234]: Successful su for nobody by root Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30234]: + ??? root:nobody Aug 26 07:35:05 localhost su[30234]: (pam_unix) session opened for user nobody by (uid=0) Aug 26 07:37:52 localhost su[30234]: (pam_unix) session closed for user nobody These are the only occurrences of such things in about 80 oepn.close entries over 24 hours (the others being like the CRON one above). Anyone know what "nobody" has to do with anything? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 26-Aug-10 Time: 08:13:26 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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keystroke?
by Anthony Anson 26 Aug '10

26 Aug '10

I've been experimenting with the function keys and the odd letter, to no avail. Is there a keystroke for minimising a pane on the page of a GUI - in Gnome and in KDE? -- Tony Anson www.girolle.co.uk/

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Upgrade Ubuntu 8.10 -> 10.04 broke RAID config
by Mark Rogers 24 Aug '10

24 Aug '10

I have just upgraded an Ubuntu desktop 8.10 to 10.04 The drive configuration is a single drive with the O/S, and two pairs of disks on software RAID1. When I reboot the server, I get error messages on startup telling me that /dev/md0 and /dev/md1 are inaccessible; I have to skip mounting them in order to proceed. However, if I use Syetem -> Administration -> Disk Utility once I have logged in, I can see the drives and if I tear down the two RAID devices and bring them back up again they both come back healthy. The problem only seems to be bringing them online on startup. Any suggestions? -- 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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Newbie Meeting & Repo Question
by Steve 23 Aug '10

23 Aug '10

Thanks for the feedback and the invite to the meetings. I guess that much of the content of these emails is soo far above my head I assumed the meets would be the same. To clarify my question about repos, my understanding was that "mostly" linux is a core kernel that at some particular point is basically the same, some distros use the cutting edge version others stay back a bit. If there's broadly a common basis and one overcomes the packaging differences (why can't they all be the same?), and the dependencies work themselves out shouldn't the bits basically all work. Anyways I don't really need a further response re repos as I have got the message from you guys that its best not to mix it up, and I suppose that the mainstream packages will appear in all the main repositories. It comes from not wanting to miss out on stuff it's the same thing that leads me to try different distros, Peppermint currently. Anyways, I didn't really get what the stuff about SFD was, but as I live near Syleham that location would get my vote for a meeting. Cheers Steve Card

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Where (and how) are the default mouse actions set?
by Chris G 23 Aug '10

23 Aug '10

I'm trying to find out where the default mouse actions are defined. By that I mean what is it that says that when (for example) I double click the left button the word under the mouse pointer is selected. I know that the mapping of button physical numbers to logical numbers is done deep down in X by the function XSetPointerMapping and can be retrieved with XGetPointerMapping but this just sets up the mapping from the physical buttons such that, if one wants, one can make physical button 3 the 'Left' button and physical button 1 the 'Right' button (thus making the mouse 'left handed'). However the above mapping doesn't affect what actions occur when the (logical) buttons are clicked. So Left (logical 1) button always grabs things or selects text, Right (logical 3) tends to open menus and such. Is it really down to every individual application to map the button events to actions or is there a common library (gtk maybe) which defines default actions for button events? If it's gtk what/where should I look to find the relevant code? What I'm after doing is to change the mapping so that I can use a different button (button 9 in my case) to select text with a single click rather than a double-click of button 1. The normally recommended way of doing this (getting button 9 to emulate two clicks of button 1) has stopped working for me since an upgrade from ubuntu 9.10 to 10.04 and anyway it strikes me as a clumsy way of doing things. There should surely be a mapping somewhere that links all the possible types of button click to actions:- click left - select click middle - paste text click right - .... CTRL + click left - soemthing else etc. ... or, as I said, is it really down to each individual program? -- Chris Green

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Any git users here - need beginner help
by Chris G 23 Aug '10

23 Aug '10

I want to use git to download a development version of some software. I have downloaded and installed git onto my system, so far so good! :-) However all the man pages tell me that I should read the "Git User's Manual" to see how to download something. However nowhere is there a clue as to what/where the "Git User's Manual" is. Can someone point me in the right direction please. -- Chris Green

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Easeus Partition Manager Home Edition
by Simon Royal 23 Aug '10

23 Aug '10

Hi IF you need a free non-destructive partition tool, check out Easeus Partition Manager Home Edition. http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm I have used it a number of time to resize Windows before installing Linux. I also just used it to remove Linux and resize Windows larger. Brilliant. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad 240X running Linux Mint 9 LXDE & Windows XP Home - Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4.

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Moving from Xubuntu 9.10 to 10.04, sharpness seems to be worse
by Chris G 21 Aug '10

21 Aug '10

I have just upgraded my system from Xubuntu 9.10 to Xubuntu 10.04, it seems to me that the sharpness seems to have subtly deteriorated. I have checked some of the obvious things (like the screen resolution hasn't been changed). It was most immediately noticeable in my terminal windows but, on looking carefully, I think the effect is general, it's just that I use smaller font sizes in my terminals than elsewhere. Has anyone any ideas what I should maybe be checking to see what might have caused this? It could of course be that I'm getting older and my eyesight is failing! :-) -- Chris Green

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How do you set X resources for a remote client application?
by Chris G 20 Aug '10

20 Aug '10

I'm running a GUI editor (xvile) on a 'remote' (i.e. not my desktop) machine and I need to be able to set its X resources. For xvile run on the local machine it's easy, I just put them in .Xresources and when X starts up it automatically loads any resources it finds in .Xresources (and/or .Xdefaults). So how do I do the equivalent when xvile is running on a remote client? Do I have to install xrdb on the remote client and run it before running xvile? It somehow seems wrong as its the display machine (X server) which actually needs to set the resources, can't I somehow tell the local (server) machine to set resources for a remote client app.? -- Chris Green

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PHP tools
by Peter Alcibiades 19 Aug '10

19 Aug '10

A friend asked me what he should use to write PHP in. Never having done any of this stuff, I had no idea, except that maybe Geany or Kate would work. What do you guys use? Also, he is setting up Linux for the first time. I recommended Mandriva to him, as being more familiar than some of the alternatives. But if he wants to run his PHP, once he has written it, what does he need to install? I am guessing that Apache would work, but is there something simpler and lighter for him to get started on? Peter

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