- main - earth.li

NetworkManager (Mangler?)
by Mark Rogers 12 Aug '10

12 Aug '10

Now I have my new PC up and running it of-course comes with NetworkManager, which I've always avoided in the past but maybe it's improved? My problem is that it seems inflexible and buggy; I just got into a right old mess by not making sure I had "disconnected" my LAN before making some changes (result: NM reporting that I'm connected using a configuration that no longer exists, and refusing to connect to my new one even though it said it was). On the other hand, having a GUI interface to LAN/WLAN/VPN/etc would be nice and I'd prefer to make it work if it can be done. So, ditch it or keep it? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

5 14

ATA secure erase
by Mark Rogers 11 Aug '10

11 Aug '10

Does anyone have any experience of using the ATA secure erase commands from hdparm? My understanding is that a BIOS can lock the drive from responding to the commands, and that some do and some don't. Mine appears to (hdparm -I /dev/sda shows "frozen" in the "Security" section), but I don't know how common it is to find a BIOS that allows this to work. I have several drives to wipe and I'd certainly consider building a PC for the job but I have no idea how to find out if a BIOS will let me do it before I buy it. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

5 10

xcompmgr help
by Simon Royal 11 Aug '10

11 Aug '10

Hi I am still experiencing Linux Mint 9 LXDE graphical problems. ALUG member Martin suggested it was an OpenBox problem and not an LXDE problem. I have kind of sorted the problem, but not permanently. If I run 'xcompmgr' from the terminal the graphical glitches and blips disappear and everything is fine. However, the minute I close the terminal it must stop xcompmgr running as the problems come back. So, firstly how do I run it without having terminal open all the time and how do I automatically run it - I read something about autostart.sh. Regards 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.

2 6

Date formatting in OOo writer
by Mark Rogers 11 Aug '10

11 Aug '10

Does anyone have an idea how to insert a date field into an OOo writer document, and format it along the lines of: Wednesday, 11th August, 2010 It's the "th" (or "st", "nd") I'm having the problem with. Seems unlikely it's not there but the examples don't show it and a Google has so far failed me (I can't even find people asking the question!) -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

2 2

Correct zone file set-up for mail to my home server
by Chris G 10 Aug '10

10 Aug '10

I send (some) E-Mail direct to my home server machine using SMTP, I used to do this using a sub-domain of my domain isbd.net which is hosted at Gradwell. I added a CNAME record for 'home' to the zone file for isbd.net and gave my static ADSL address as the value for this record. Thus mail forwarded to 'chris(a)home.isbd.net' arrived at my home server machine (subject to NAT forwarding and firewall of course) and was delivered by postfix to user chris. I now have a dedicated domain for my home server(s) and I'm struggling to get things working. The new domain is zbmc.eu, I have set up the zone file at the domain hosting as follows:- imap 10800 IN CNAME access.mail.gandi.net. www 10800 IN CNAME zbmc.eu. smtp 10800 IN CNAME relay.mail.gandi.net. pop 10800 IN CNAME access.mail.gandi.net. blog 10800 IN CNAME blogs.vip.gandi.net. webmail 10800 IN CNAME agent.mail.gandi.net. @ 10800 IN A 84.45.228.40 @ 10800 IN MX 10 mws.zbmc.eu. mws 10800 IN CNAME zbmc.eu. (Most of this is unchanged from the default setup of course) The 'www' CNAME entry is working fine, going to www.zbmc.eu shows my web pages (or more my lack of web pages!). I'm not at all convinced that I have the MX record right yet though, nor am I convinced that I actually need that 'mws' CNAME record. Could I just set the MX record to:- @ 10800 IN MX 10 zbmc.eu. Can one of the alug gurus elucidate please. ... and do I *need* a second MX (backup) record or will the sending SMTP server just back off and try again if my server is down for a short while? -- Chris Green

5 9

S-Video poutput port on laptop
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 10 Aug '10

10 Aug '10

Hi Folks, If anyone has info on how to activate the S-Video "mini-DIN" port on the side of my laptop[s] I'd be grateful to hear! The purpose is to connect the video output to a video recorder. I have an appropriate cable. One laptop (the preferred candidate) is a Compaq Presario A900. The other is an Advent 8117. Both are running Debian as native OS.. There is also another Advent 8117 running Debian as guest OS in VirtualBox, host OS = Windows XP. I might be forced to use this one ... Tbanks for any info. Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 10-Aug-10 Time: 22:56:25 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

1 0

Re: [ALUG] Correct zone file set-up for mail to my home server
by Martin A. Brooks 09 Aug '10

09 Aug '10

On Mon, August 9, 2010 15:01, Chris G wrote: > I'm not at all convinced that I have the MX record right yet though, nor am I convinced that I actually need that 'mws' CNAME record. Could I just set the MX record to:- > > @ 10800 IN MX 10 zbmc.eu. > Your MX records should never be a CNAME. > ... and do I *need* a second MX (backup) record or will the sending SMTP server just back off and try again if my server is down for a short while? No, you don't. -- Martin A. Brooks http://antibodyMX.net/ - antispam & antivirus email filtering.

1 0

Simple todo manager
by Mark Rogers 09 Aug '10

09 Aug '10

Any suggestions for a simple to-do manager, ideally for Gnome? I just started playing with gToDo, which isn't bad, but it has a few bugs and it looks like it's not being maintained any more. All I want is something I can add some 1-line "jobs" to, with somewhere I can add more detail if I need to (ie a comment field of some kind), some way to categorise and prioritise, and ideally the ability to set a date/time for jobs that triggers a reminder of some kind. Too many jobs are getting forgotten about, and my old "system" of leaving the relevant email unread in my inbox isn't working.... I think I also need the satisfaction of being able to tick things off to get me motivated to do some of the less interesting jobs! -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0844 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) @ 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

4 5

MMB iPlayer -- no sound
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 09 Aug '10

09 Aug '10

Greetings All! Yesterday I downloaded (with automatic installation) the BBC iPlayer Desktop to a Debian Lennie; this also brought in with it the Adobe AIR (whatever that is). I then used this to download a programme from BBC 2 TV. On playback of the now downloaded main programme using the iPlayer, the video is OK, but the is no sound. Investigation of what has been stored shows a biggish (300MB) MP4 file (30-min programme, 10MB/min). There is also in an adjacent subdirectory a small MP3 file which plays the BBC2 logo (about 10 seconds); this one does play with sound. With iPlayer, it comes up, with sound, just before the main feature with no sound. So sound from the MP3, no sound from the MP4. Playing the MP3 with totem is fine. Attempts to play the MP4 with totem fail. Nothing happens, There is a message: The playback of this movie requires a audio/x-gst-fourcc-enca decoder video/x-gst-fourcc-encv decoder plugin which is not installed. and I cannot find this anywhere (probably built-in to iPlayer). The sound system on this machine seems to be ALSA. This normally works fine. Any suggestions for progress will 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: 09-Aug-10 Time: 10:53:35 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

1 0

Re: [ALUG] Linux Mint Help Please
by Simon Royal 08 Aug '10

08 Aug '10

Martin I shall look for some info for OpenBox rather than LXDE. I did find someone with the same problem on the same machine using Xubuntu, but there is an option in Xubuntu that resolves this, there isnt one Ican see in LXDE. The chipset is a SMI LynxEM+ which is Silicon Motion. I dont think it is a Xorg configuration problem, as I copied someone elses who runs Xubuntu on their 240x and I dont get it in Ubuntu. It has to be a WM/DE thing. Simon Royal PS. Thanks for your help earlier. I have been using it for a couple of hours and it is ripping along without a power supply in. ---------------------------------------- > Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2010 21:24:13 +0100 > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Linux Mint Help Please > From: mobile.sea(a)gmail.com > To: simonroyal(a)live.co.uk > > I have no experience with LXDE but try opening up a terminal and typing: > > compiz --replace > > Assuming compiz is installed that should enable display compositing > BUT here is a quote from a user forum: > > ##QUOTE### > Does Compiz work on/with LXDE? > > Compiz is a window manager. LXDE is a desktop enironment, meaning it's > a collection of software that makes up a 'desktop', including a window > manager, Openbox. Installing Compiz on top of LXDE will simply discard > Openbox in favour of Compiz. Mind you, Compiz will drag som many Gnome > dependencies in with it that you might as well have installed Gnome > but as Troy McClure said to Dolores Montenegro in "Calling All > Quakers": "Have it your way, Baby!!" > ###END QUOTE### > > Maybe you should google again your display problems but replace LXDE > with Openbox. As I assume the display problems are an Openbox issue > rather than an LXDE issue. It could of course be your xorg > configuration. Is it a SiS graphics chip? You could also google on the > chipset as that might give you some xorg parameters to try? > > Good luck. > > Martin > > On 8 August 2010 17:30, Simon Royal wrote: >> >> Martin >> >> >> Thanks for that. Excellent. I found the option in the BIOS and it has sorted it. >> >> >> 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. >> >> >> >> Date: Sun, 8 Aug 2010 09:40:10 +0100 >> Subject: Re: [ALUG] Linux Mint Help Please >> From: mobile.sea(a)gmail.com >> To: simonroyal(a)live.co.uk >> >> The slow down when running off battery is (from distant memory), a power saving function of those IBM 240s where it underclocks the processor to half it's original speed. I think it can be turned off in the BIOS. Many kernels ago there may have even been a driver in the kernel for this. >> >> Rgds, >> Martin >> On Aug 8, 2010 12:30 AM, "Simon Royal" wrote: >> >> >> >> Hi >> >> >> >> Can someone offer some help on my problems using Linux Mint LXDE? >> >> >> >> I installed it on my ThinkPad 240x via another machine. Initially I had some X problems, but I have resolved them. However, I am still getting some odd screen problems where it is drawing multiple icons and buttons - like the maximise/minimise buttons - all over the screen. >> >> >> >> >> You can 'wipe' them off by moving a window, but they randomly pop up. >> >> >> >> I found one other person who had this problem, however he was using Xubuntu. I too had the same problems under Xubuntu 9.10, but not under Ubuntu 10.04. >> >> >> >> He resolved them by 'enabling display compositing' under xfce 4 settings manager, but Mint Linux uses LXDE and I cannot find anything in the menus for this. >> >> >> >> He also mentioned that when running off battery the whole machine was slower - very noticeably slower - than when it is running off power adapter. Everyone else on the forum said this wasn't possible, but I have been experiencing this too. >> >> >> >> >> I would really like to get over this graphics problem without switching distros as I like Mint. >> >> >> >> 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. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> 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! >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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! >>

1 0