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Distro Oddness Possible Driver Issue
by Simon Royal 06 Aug '10

06 Aug '10

Hi Bear with me this could be a long email. As you know I have a ThinkPad 240X. It dual boots XP and Linux. I originally had Linux Mint on this ThinkPad as it was already installed on a hard drive, but it had graphical glitches. So I installed XP and then put Linux Mint LXDE on it, via removing the hard drive and installing it in another machine with an optical drive. With the hard drive back in the ThinkPad, Mint would boot properly with all sorts of errors. So I took the drive out and put it back in the other laptop and installed Ubuntu 10 using the alternative installer. I put it back in the ThinkPad and it booted perfectly and ran lovely, albiet slowly. So I thought lets try Xubuntu as it is a bit less resource hungry. So once again I took out the hard drive, popped it in my other laptop and installed Xubuntu 9.10 via regular cd. Once done, I took out the hard drive and stuck it back in the ThinkPad. It worked, took a while to boot and has some graphical glitches, such as repeating window icons (like maximise, close etc). I am assuming this is a driver issue. I had the same problem with Mint, but not Ubuntu. Any ideas how I can get round this annoying graphics glitch. I am currently updating Xubuntu to 10.04 (which is going to take about 5 hours apparently) to see if that helps as I got the graphics problems in both Mint and Xubuntu which are buntu 9 based, yet Ubuntu 10 didnt have this problem. Will running the updater update system drivers too? Simon PS. Where is the System Profiler in Xubuntu? --- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum. (Sent using Sony Ericsson P990i).

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pl2303 Serial to USB problem - /dev/ttyUSB0 not created
by Barry Samuels 05 Aug '10

05 Aug '10

I have a CurrentCost electricity usage monitor which is normally connected to my desktop via USB. When the unit is plugged in I get a number of lines in syslog like so: kernel: usb 4-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 12 kernel: pl2303 4-1:1.0: pl2303 converter detected kernel: usb 4-1: pl2303 converter now attached to ttyUSB0 I am trying to get this same device working on my laptop but this time I see the following in syslog: kernel: pl2303: Prolific PL2303 USB to serial adaptor driver but nothing else i.e no 'attached to ttyUSB0'. Looking in /dev there is no ttyUSBn Whereas the desktop also loads the pl2303 and usbserial kernel modules automatically when the device is connected the laptop does not and when I load them manually I get only the above mentioned line in syslog. Needless to say the software which monitors the device won't connect. Any suggestions? -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Re: [ALUG] Installing Linux Without CD/USB
by mark fernandes (IFR) 05 Aug '10

05 Aug '10

Thinkpad 240 and 240X have PCMCIA network cards so PXE unlikely. And as said by Simon earlier - no USB or CD boot (Windows install by special boot floppy that mounts IBM PCMCIA CD drive and gets the party started). Putting drive in another PC is usually the way to go but for a mixed OS environment I suspect Wubi and it's ilk is the most likely to succeed. Thinkpad wiki http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installation_instructions_for_the_ThinkPad_240 Regards, Mark (Who used to own and use a TP240) >From: Ricky Bruce <rickybruce(a)gmail.com> > >On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 1:45 PM, Simon Royal <simonroyal(a)live.co.uk> wrote: >> My next trick is to get Linux installed and this is where you guys come in. I would like to install Linux Mint LXDE or >>possibly Xubuntu. How can I do it without a CD drive, without being able to boot via USB and without messing up my >>Windows installation? >> > >I have never tried it, but would a network based install work? PXE >seems to ring a bell > >Ricky > >*************************

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Installing Linux Without CD/USB
by Simon Royal 05 Aug '10

05 Aug '10

Hi Well, I got my ThinkPad 240X and after a bit of a struggle got the drives partitioned and XP Home installed, all without a CD drive or floppy drive for this machine and it doesnt boot from USB. Long story, but it involved taking the drive out and copying install files across via another laptop. In terms of speed compared to the ThinkPad 600, 600E and Umax I had, this is very quick. XP rips along, but it has no Linux installed at present. My next trick is to get Linux installed and this is where you guys come in. I would like to install Linux Mint LXDE or possibly Xubuntu. How can I do it without a CD drive, without being able to boot via USB and without messing up my Windows installation? I have partitioned the drive. I have XP installed on one, a small one containing the XP installer files which could easily be replaced with the Linux install files, plus a spare partition ready for Linux. So any advice on how to do it. I have googled it and there are plenty of different ways although a lot of them assume you can boot via USB. Simon Royal --- Twitter: http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - LowEndMac: http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum - Skype: Simon-Royal. --- IBM ThinkPad 240X running Windows XP & Apple iBook G3 running OSX 10.4.

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Re: [ALUG] Installing Linux Without CD/USB
by Simon Royal 05 Aug '10

05 Aug '10

Marcus I looked at Wubi earlier. I got the impression it would install Ubuntu just like any other Windows app a bit like virtualisation rather than a seperate bootable linux on a seperate partition. I will give it another look. Simon ---------------------------------------- > Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2010 13:57:21 +0100 > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Installing Linux Without CD/USB > From: runlevelten(a)gmail.com > To: simonroyal(a)live.co.uk > > Hi Simon, > > Try Wubi. http://wubi-installer.org/ > > I recently used this in similar circumstances and it went fine. - You > can download the iso to the machine and use that without burning it to > a CD, then run the installer from your windows desktop. > > Another thing you can do is a manual frugal install of puppy by > copying some files into a directory on the windows root - which isn't > perfect but results in a distro that may be appropriate for your > hardware, and really quite snappy. Instructions on their website > (somewhere I don't have bookmarked) - a search for "manual frugal > install" should do it. > > Good luck!

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Re: [ALUG] Installing Linux Without CD/USB
by Marcus Harris 05 Aug '10

05 Aug '10

Hello Simon, Try Wubi. http://wubi-installer.org/ I recently used this in similar circumstances and it went fine. - You can download the iso to the machine and use that without burning it to a CD, then run the installer from a "windows" desktop. Another thing you can do is a manual frugal install of puppy by copying some files and creating a directory on the "windows" root - which isn't perfect but results in a distro that may be appropriate for your hardware, and really quite snappy. Instructions on their website (somewhere I don't have bookmarked) - a search for "manual frugal install" should do it. Good luck!

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Copying SD cards
by Chris Walker 04 Aug '10

04 Aug '10

Apologies if this appears twice - I posted it to the wrong address, having already posted it using the wrong email address! I've copied one 2GB SD card to another 2GB card using the dd command (having copied it to the hard drive as an intermediate step). The original card will load up in the desired device - a TomTom sat nav but the second card won't. Is there any way for me to check that the cards are the same? Also, and I realise that it's a bit OT here (although the TomTom is a linux device!) but does anybody have any ideas what might be wrong with the card? -- __ __| |_ __ __ .----------------------------------------------. / _/ _` \ V V / | mailto:cdw_alug@the-walker-household.co.uk | \__\__,_|\_/\_/ |______________________________________________|

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Awaiting My 240X
by Simon Royal 04 Aug '10

04 Aug '10

Hi Thank you all for your advice and I did take it on board. However, I needed a laptop now and it did only cost me £15. I am awaiting the arrival of a ThinkPad 240X. It is a P3 500mhz model, so not too bad spec and better than my previous ThinkPad and the Umax. It will suffice for now. I dont need to shell out any money on it, I have any additional upgrades I need for it in my spares box. I will begin saving for a newer machine, probably a netbook of some sort. At present I only have my phone for web and emailing so I needed a laptop quick. I have a hard drive pre loaded with XP and Linux Mint LXDE so I will be up and running pretty much straight away. Simon --- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://tinyurl.com/macspectrum. (Sent using Sony Ericsson P990i).

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Compaq CQ5306uk - good bet for Ubuntu?
by Mark Rogers 03 Aug '10

03 Aug '10

I need a new PC for work use. I'm looking at: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/186618 which is: - Core-2 Quad Q8300 - 4GB RAM - Intel GMA X4500 graphics, onboard sound (not sure what chipset, presumably something from Intel) Anyone have any good reasons why this would be a bad bet for Ubuntu? Should I go 32-bit or 64-bit install? Usage is day-to-day stuff (web browsing, email, etc) but also running virtual machines would be good (using VirtualBox). Seems like a good price for the spec (<£350+VAT) but no point if I'm going to have to problems with it. Any good partitioning suggestions for its 1TB drive? -- 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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Gnome Panel Problem!
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 02 Aug '10

02 Aug '10

Hi Folks (apos for X-posting!) I've hit a problem with the gnome panel. The top panel on the desktop is the Menu Bar. This is OK. The bottom one is where the problem is. Normally, this shows the "workspace switcher" with a little box for each workspace; switch by mouse click or Ctrl-Alt-Arrow. No problem with that bit. It also used to show, for each window that is open in the current workspace, a rectangle with part of the window title in it. If you click on one of these, the corresponding window is minimised; click again, and the window reappears. I don't know what this feature is called. Every time you open a new window, a corresponding rectangle appears; when you close the window, the rectangle dispperas. Suddenly, without warning, this latter feature has disappeared! I have tried right-click + "add to panel" but cannot find anything that corresponds to it. I want to restore this feature. Can enyone tell me where to look? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 01-Aug-10 Time: 20:41:59 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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