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How to diagnose heavy system load at power up?
by Chris G 16 Jan '10

16 Jan '10

I recently noticed that if I log in to my xfce GUI straight after powering up my computer it takes an inordinately long time. Like it takes four or five minutes from when I enter my name and password to when the desktop appears completely. After suspecting that there was something awry with my X startup (such that it was doing something odd the first time it was run) I realised that it was simply that the system was very heavily loaded by something during/after boot. Watching the load average during the X startup it went over 8 whereas if I login to X after the system has been running for some hours the load average reaches the giddy heights of 0.14. With a load average of 8 things almost grind to a halt, some processes retry starting (I get more than one xfdesktop for example) and update-notifier times out trying to access repositories which it has no problems at all with if I log in later. Another symptom is that some nfs mounts haven't completed before the terminal windows appear on the desktop so when I run mutt (mail program) which uses one of the NFS mounts it fails to see its mail directories. That's seriously wierd. I've tried to analyse what's going on by running top (and 'w' and ps) in a console window while the system starts up but I really can't see anything obvious that's hogging any resource. One noticeable thing apart from the load average being so high is that my 8Gb of memory gets eaten up too, but there seem to be no particular processes using either lots of CPU or lots of memory. Can anyone suggest further ways of trying to diagnose this? -- Chris Green

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Problem with anacron and cron *never* running jobs
by Chris G 15 Jan '10

15 Jan '10

I have a backup job that (should) be run daily. There is a script called 'backup' that is in /etc/cron.daily. If the computer is shutdown regularly then anacron does its job and runs backup a few minutes after the computer is powered up again. If, on the other hand, the computer is on all the time then cron runs the job at 07:30. However, and this is the problem, if the computer is Suspend[ed] and isn't running at 07:30 then the jobs in /etc/cron.daily never get run. Is there any way around this? -- Chris Green

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 14 Jan '10

14 Jan '10

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- The monthly "Third Monday" ALUG Ipswich Social Meeting is back this Monday 18th January, at 20:00: P J McGinty & Sons 15 Northgate Street Ipswich Suffolk IP1 3BY Tel: 01473 251 515 Map/Directions URI: http://maps.google.co.uk/?q=IP1+3BY WWW: http://pjmcginty.moonfruit.com/ McGintys pub is in the centre of Ipswich, not far from our old haunt - The Milestone. It's directly opposite the town's central library and has a reputation for good Irish beer. All are welcome, novices and experienced users. Feel free to ask for further information on the Main ALUG mailing list. After the successful Christmas meal we had earlier in the month, we resume with our first traditional meet of the new year. We didn't get any volunteers for a tutorial this month (surprise!), so we'll see what can be knocked up last minute. We've been doing well attendance-wise for the last couple of meets, so let's continue with a strong start to the new year. :D Remember to call (mail me in advance for my mobile no.) or email me, if you're arriving later and want to ensure I don't wander off, which might happen if the turn-out hits rock-bottom ... Hope to see you there, Peter. ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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[ALUG Announce] Norwich Thursday Pub Meet
by Wayne Stallwood 14 Jan '10

14 Jan '10

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- This months second Thursday social meeting of ALUG will take place on 14th January 2010 at The Coach and Horses (82 Thorpe Road, Norwich, NR1 1BA http://www.thecoachthorperoad.co.uk/ ) There should be people there from 8pm, If you are unsure you will recognise us then make yourself and your intent to attend known by either posting on list or via IRC so we can look out for you rather than hiding in the corner. ----- Send discussion replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk (Reply-To set) Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Another Lunx vs Win issue!
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 14 Jan '10

14 Jan '10

Greetings Folks! A friend recently sent me the following URL: http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php?sitepal What *should* happen (and happens when I open it in Win IE) is that the main box (with the panel of boxes below it) should show a face (female in the first instance) which is animated (e.g. if you move the mouse-pointer over that window the eyes will follow it); and, when you enter some text in the "Enter Text:" box then click "Say It", the mouth-parts move and you will hear that text spoken. (The other boxes below the main window let you choose the regional accent and speaker, etc.). However, on my Debian Linux (Etch or Lenny) with Firefox there is no face in the window, and when I click on "Say It" all I get is a pop-up which says "It is not ready yet". Does any of you succeed in getting this to work as described in Linux? If not, I wonder why not. I wo9nder whether I have sufficient resources of Java or PHP installed, but not having hit such a problem before I'm not sure whdether that is a good direction to be hunting in. Any comments or advice welcome! With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 13-Jan-10 Time: 20:27:40 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Re: [ALUG] Programs that use dbus appear not to work as remote X clients
by phil.ashby＠bt.com 13 Jan '10

13 Jan '10

> From: Chris G <cl(a)isbd.net> > On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 05:08:16PM +0000, Chris G wrote: > [snip tale of woe] >> >> So am I missing something or is the whole dbus thing completely broken >> if you're trying to use X in the classic way with remote applications? >> I've done a few Google searches and didn't find anything very obvious >> about this so *maybe* there is something vital I'm missing, or maybe >> no one now uses remote X (at least not with Gnome). >> > Further Google searching has revealed the answer, simple but decidedly > not obvious. I need to enter 'dbus-launch planner' at the remote > prompt, this apparently tells the remote system that the dbus it needs > to talk to is on my desktop. > > Anyway, it works now. According to 'man dbus-launch' this doesn't connect said program to the dbus session bus on your desktop, but starts a fresh session bus on the remote machine - thus your application config (in the case of Yelp) and other dbus connected services are stored on the remote machine. Said man page also indicates that a dbus session should be started automatically by the libdbus client if there isn't one running however this seems to fail in your case. P

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introduction
by Ian Porter 13 Jan '10

13 Jan '10

Hi all.. My name is Ian Porter and I have been using linux for about 10 years now.. and cannot say that I am resetting that choice :).. I would class myself as a developer (c++/c#/java/php/sql etc ) and also server person. I did join before xmas and think that I posted my introduction then.. but allot has happened since then, Scotland and back in snow etc.. which is always fun sliding around on for 400 miles.. :) Anyway, just thought that I would say hi since I have seen a couple come though. Catch up with you all sometime. Ian Mysite: http://www.codingfriends.com

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Software patents, and a petition
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 12 Jan '10

12 Jan '10

Hi Folks, ComputerWorldUK have an article describing the resurrection of the European Software Patents issue: http://www.computerworlduk.com/toolbox/open- source/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=2721&blogid=14 There is a link therein to a petition, which you may wish to consider signing. Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 09-Jan-10 Time: 07:19:28 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Programs that use dbus appear not to work as remote X clients
by Chris G 12 Jan '10

12 Jan '10

I have been trying to use Gnome Planner running as an X remote client application running on another computer on the LAN. I.e. I am logging into another computer using ssh from a terminal window on my desktop (using 'ssh -X <remote> so X is allowed and DISPLAY is set) and then entering 'planner' at the command prompt. It's totally broken as far as I can see, planner tries to connect to a local (i.e. on the remote system) dbus which isn't there because the X session it needs to talk to is on my desktop computer. The symptoms in planner are a huge delay starting up, a failure to find saved data and a wierd pop-up error box when it finally appears on the screen. I also tried running yelp as a remote X client and it too failed miserably with a load of similar dbus errors:- (yelp:2860): Yelp-WARNING **: Cannot find dbus bus GConf Error: Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-nrMIzFk9Y7: Connection refused) GConf Error: Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-JTLaNQBBPo: Connection refused) (yelp:2860): Yelp-WARNING **: Failed to load config file: No such file or directory ** (yelp:2860): CRITICAL **: atk_object_set_name: assertion `name != NULL' failed ** (yelp:2860): CRITICAL **: atk_object_set_name: assertion `name != NULL' failed (yelp:2860): Yelp-WARNING **: An error occurred getting the gconf value /apps/yelp/use_system_fonts: Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://projects.gnome.org/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Failed to get connection to session: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-4gA9VDJgu5: Connection refused) (yelp:2860): Yelp-WARNING **: An error occurred getting the gconf value '/apps/yelp/variable_font' ... plus loads more in similar vein. Other remote X client applications (which, presumably don't attempt to use dbus) work perfectly OK. I even have synaptic installed on the (headless) remote system and run it on my desktop to do upgrades to the remote system (I usually use apt-get but sometimes synaptic is easier). So am I missing something or is the whole dbus thing completely broken if you're trying to use X in the classic way with remote applications? I've done a few Google searches and didn't find anything very obvious about this so *maybe* there is something vital I'm missing, or maybe no one now uses remote X (at least not with Gnome). -- Chris Green

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New list member
by Mark Wilson 12 Jan '10

12 Jan '10

Hi all, Just thought I'd introduce myself. I've been subscribed to this list quite a while but this is my first post. I'm a Norwich resident who has been using Linux for probably 3-4 years now. I'm into programming (C++, Java) as an amateur hobbyist. Mark Wilson

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