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What would give me a high load average when tops reports nothing much?
by Chris G 28 Jun '10

28 Jun '10

I have an odd situation here, after a recent reboot my system seemed *very* slow indeed, took ages to start the X desktop etc. and when I looked at the load average with 'uptime' it was over 5 which is pretty silly considering there is really nothing much happening. While the X desktop was still thinking about appearing I ran a virtual console, logged in (even that was a bit slow) and ran tops. Tops reported virtually nothing consuming processor time. So what's going on, why is my system slow, especially when starting, but nothing actually seems to be doing much. This is a Core 2 Duo Quad core processor with 8Gb of memory so really should be quite quick - especially when doing nothing! Running uptime now (40 minutes after power-up) the load average is 0.03 which is more like what I'd expect to see? Is there any way to see what that load average is indicating? -- Chris Green

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Anyone use a USB Mobile Broadband dongle?
by Chris G 26 Jun '10

26 Jun '10

I've just ordered mobile broadband from Virgin for my wife to use with her laptop (Ubuntu 10.04) when on the move. It comes with an Alcatel X220 USB dongle. Does anyone here use one (same or similar), if so a couple of questions:- What are the chances of it working 'out of the box'? The Alcatel X220 says it has Linux support. If not then any ideas where to go to find useful information? (I've done some Googling and have some ideas but more is always useful) I'm assuming there's a SIM in the dongle because we want to use it in Belgium as well and I'm hoping all I need to do is buy a mobile broadband SIM there and stick it in the dongle. Am I right? Is there some initialisation/configuring needed to activate the SIM? -- Chris Green

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Lubuntu
by Simon Royal 26 Jun '10

26 Jun '10

Hi I just wanted to say thanks for the Lubuntu suggestion. Its fast. Installed it last night only took a couple of hours via normal installer vs Ubuntu and Xubuntu which took about 4 hours via the alternative installer as the normal installer wouldnt run. Lubuntu is fast, even on my P2 300mhz with 296MB RAM. Chromium browser opens within two or three seconds and rips from page to page at an amazing speed. Plus it has all the benefits of a Ubuntu base like all my hardware being detected straight away including wireless card. So far so good. A new install means setting up sound again but so far so wow! Very impressed. Simon --- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://www.tinyurl.com/macspectrum (sent using Sony Ericsson P990i)

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VOIP from the computer - possible? how?
by Chris G 25 Jun '10

25 Jun '10

We have VOIP phones on our home network working completely independently of the computers, the base station just plugs into a switch or router and off it goes. Now, however, I'm thinking it would be useful to be able to use VOIP from a netbook or laptop while travelling around. So, is there a straightforward way to connect a headset to a Linux computer and use it as a VOIP phone? How does one dial a number if so, presumably some sort of on screen interface. Lookin in synaptic (the GUI package manager for Ubuntu) there seem to be a few possibilities - kphone, twinkle, etc. - any recommendations for what works well etc. ? -- Chris Green

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Best OS For TP600
by Simon Royal 25 Jun '10

25 Jun '10

Hi. I have a ThinkPad 600 compliments of a generous group member. Its a 300mhz maxxed with 296MB of RAM. Its no speed demon, but it does ok. Its currently running Ubuntu 10.04 and XP, probably not the best choice for great performance. So what would be good? Is Windows 2000 still viable as a good version of Windows. I only use it for surfing, emailing via webmail and listening to music. Nothing heavy. The apps I use in Windows are Firefox, iTunes, Office 2000. I use Ubuntu most of the time and only use it as it is one of the less nerdy linux distros as my linux skills are not great. Id like a newer machine, but funds are not permitting at present, so I need to get the most out of this one. Is there much performance difference between 2000 and XP? I know I have asked this before. Ubuntu and XP are ok, but are quite sluggish at times and it is frustrating. Simon --- http://twitter.com/SimonRoyal - http://www.tinyurl.com/macspectrum (sent using Sony Ericsson P990i)

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Apache SSL
by Mark Rogers 24 Jun '10

24 Jun '10

I have a site with a cheapie SSL certificate from 123-Reg. It has been working for the past couple of years but they've just sent me a new certificate which is crashing Apache when I try to install it. The Apache config for the virtual host includes: SSLEngine on SSLCertificateFile /blah/blah/mysite.123.cert SSLCertificateKeyFile /blah/blah/mysite.123.key SSLCaCertificateFile /blah/blah/AlphaSSLroot.crt This differs from the instructions on 123-Reg's site: http://www.123-support.co.uk/support/answers/installing-your-ssl-apache-ope… .. but is working. I don't know the reasons behind or the implications of the differences. When I drop in the replacement mysite.123.cert, I get the following error_log: [error] Unable to configure RSA server private key [error] SSL Library Error: 185073780 error:0B080074:x509 certificate routines:X509_check_private_key:key values mismatch Frustratingly, "apache2 -t" does not report any config errors but this problem crashes the server. -- 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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Embedded Linux boxen for VPN access
by Mark Rogers 24 Jun '10

24 Jun '10

Suppose I have a network device (not a PC, but it talks TCP/IP - eg a printer, although in this case it'll be some industrial hardware), and I want to install it on a customer's site in such a way that I want to be able to securely access it remotely with minimal changes at the customer's site. One option is to have a little black box which makes an outbound connection through the site's Internet connection to connect to a VPN, and in doing so providing access to the network device. Any suggestions for that little black box, and for how to configure it? I am assuming of-course that the little black box will be Linux based. I have seen some industrial solutions which (I think) allow both the client (some block in an office at his PC) and the device to set up a small peer-to-peer secure network using a third party mediation server to allow the connections to establish (similar to the ways that stuff like Skype, Hamachi, etc work). However they're very expensive (typically £500+ at each end) and I'd rather have something I have more control over anyway. (If that means running my own mediation server that's not necessarily a problem.) However, there may be simpler options: the black box connects to the office's PPTP VPN, and creates a local NAT'ed subnet with port forwarding through the NAT router to allow device access, etc. (If it sounds like I'm waffling it's because I don't really know what I'm talking about :-) -- 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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Re: [ALUG] Up for grabs...
by Montmorency 21 Jun '10

21 Jun '10

On Mon, 21 Jun 2010, at 12:00 pm, main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk wrote: > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2010 17:27:45 +0100 > From: Wayne Stallwood <ALUGlist(a)digimatic.co.uk> > Subject: Re: [ALUG] Up for grabs... > To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > Message-ID: <4C1E4181.8040108(a)digimatic.co.uk> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > On 20/06/10 16:28, Bellphegore wrote: >> Flexible, roll-up, rubber, USB keyboard. >> >> Red (in case that matters). >> >> Say, and it's yours at the next pub-meet. >> > > (holds up hand) > > Me me me, I might even buy you a pint :) > OK.... katsmeat montmorency(a)ukfsn.org bellphegore(a)nerdshack.com

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Arduino Help
by James Bensley 21 Jun '10

21 Jun '10

Is my Arduino duffed or me? Started a new project today, hooked up a 16x2 LCD, and a potentiometer. To start with the screen is simply displaying the reading from the pot with analogRead("PotPinNumber") but its fluctuating like mad: Here is a video on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgEm7czlUVg YT has cut eh quality so it isn't very clear!), to start with I have turned the pot to max and you can see the fluctuation in the reading, then I unplug the pot from the analog input so it should be reading nothing but it drops to about 450 and fluctuates around there when surely it should drop to 0 (mystery voltage from somewhere perhaps?), then I plug the pot back in the analog input and you can see it go back up and fluctuate. This is the case irrelevant of which port the pot is plugged into and weather it is plugged in or not it still reads something? Is the Arduino dead or am I dead? -- Regards, James. http://www.jamesbensley.co.cc/ - There are only 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand trinary, those who don't understand trinary and those who don't understand trinary.

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Locating duplicate images (fslint?)
by Mark Rogers 21 Jun '10

21 Jun '10

I have an "images" directory with several subdirectories (and sub-sub-directories), one of them called "products". Pretty much every image in the "products" directory is a duplicate of an image in the parent "images" directory or one of its other subdirectories, although with a different filename (binary contents will be the same, and there's a good chance that the timestamp will also be the same although this is not guaranteed). I want to locate the duplicates, and remove them - the ones I must keep are the ones in the "products" subdirectory. Ideally I'd like to move the duplicates into a temporary directory (retaining their sub-directory paths) rather than delete them in case I need to restore them, but deletion wouldn't be too bad (I can take backups first, although it's on a hosted server and the "images" directory is 1.1G, with free space on the server a little less than that, so just duplicating the directory won't be as easy as it might sound - the lack of free space is one of the main reasons I need to do this!). Oh, and there are some sub-directories I'd like to exclude. So: Which tools should I look at? fslint springs to mind but I've never really used it in anger and the documentation seems a bit vague. The GUI option is out because there's no X on the server. Are there other, better (more appropriate) tools? -- 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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