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WTD: Recommendations for External Tape Drive to backup SUSE server
by samwise 26 Mar '09

26 Mar '09

Hi, As per subject, really. Someone has asked me for any recommendations I can find for external tape drives which could be used to backup the contents of a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server or an openSUSE server. I imagine it just requires something which has usable Linux drivers but as I've never had to do anything in this area, I thought I'd throw it out there and see whether anyone else has ... and could recommend a brand or model. Thanks, Peter.

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Welcome Me... And Wireless Question
by Simon Royal 25 Mar '09

25 Mar '09

Hi I am an experience computer user, who about 8 years ago switched from Windows to Mac and have been a dedicated Mac user ever since - but I have always had an interest in Linux. I have tried a number of distros over the years - Fedora Core, Ubuntu, DSL, DSL-N, Puppy Linux, Vector Linux, Corel Linux - with Ubuntu and DSL being the two I have stuck with the longest. I have an Apple PowerBook at the moment as my main machine, but am now picking up my interest in Linux again, so shall be purchasing an old laptop to develop my knowledge a bit more. Well that is me, I have been a member of ALUG once before, when I was trying out Ubuntu a couple of years ago. I just thought I would introduce myself and will listen in to all your questions. Once I get my second laptop I'm sure I shall be posting questions of my own. Actually, here is my first question. I am probably going to be running DSL or Ubuntu on the laptop - if it all goes well I may well consider quad booting on my PowerBook. I already have Mac OS 9, OSX Tiger and OSX Leopard on it. I would probably run Ubuntu on it. My first question is - which wireless PCMCIA cards work well out-of-the-box, without any driver downloading or ndiswrapper configuring. I have a Buffalo G54 card at the mo which is Broadcom based and Ubuntu isn't too happy with it. Simon --- Visit my Mac site at http://www.simonroyal.co.uk. Or Skype me on 'Simon-Royal'. (Apple PowerBook G4 867Mhz, 768MB RAM, 80GB HD, SuperDrive. Mac OSX 10.5, 10.4 & 9.2.2...)

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How can a user empty their own mail spool safely?
by Chris G 24 Mar '09

24 Mar '09

I'd like to be able to do the following as user cg:- mv /var/mail/cg ~/backup/mail Now I know I can't actually do this because /var/mail is owned by mail and cg doesn't have write permission there. Is there any way that I can set things up so that 'cg' can do it or is there an alternative that produces the same result? I could do something like:- cp /var/mail/cg ~/backup/mail cp emptyFile /var/mail/cg This would have the same effect *except* that it's not atomic so if mail arrives between the cp commands it would get lost. What I'm trying to do is have a crude backup of my incoming mail, I forward all my incoming mail to 'cg' as well as to myself and want to run a cron job to do the above 'move' once a week so that all my mail for the last seven days is in /var/mail/cg and mail for the previous seven days is in /home/cg/backup/mail. I could run the cron job as root I suppose, that would do what I want, but I'm just looking for neater/safer ways of doing it. -- Chris Green

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Hello
by nev young 23 Mar '09

23 Mar '09

Hello, I'm de-lurking to ask what I hope is an easy question. Is there an easy way to tell programatically if the printer connected to the parallel port as /dev/lp0 is physically powered on or not. Thanks Nev

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Playing Roland or Midi files from old game
by Srdjan Todorovic 23 Mar '09

23 Mar '09

Hi everyone, I just installed dosbox and was playing TFX, and remembered how cool the music was from the game. There are some files with .adl, .rld and .scc extensions, but seems xine, mplayer, timidity++ or playmidi won't open the files. These don't seem to be proper MIDI files (header is wrong). Google searches don't really show up anything really useful. I'm guessing the files are Roland sound files, or maybe AdLib, but not sure. Thttp://adplug.sourceforge.net/he game's from 1993, so it would be using technology and file formats from that period. ADL file starts with: 52 41 00 02 (hex) RLD file starts with: 52 41 00 02 (hex) And so does the .SCC file. The main DID.DAT file probably contains more music, if only I can find it (seems to be a whole bunch of game data multiplexed into one file). Each file has instrument names such as "Slow Strings" near the top - http://www.ski.org/Rehab/DBGilden/JWilliams/appxC.html may be relevant. I had a look at: http://adplug.sourceforge.net/ which seemed to find the file format to be ok (but it might be matching only on filename), and then it promptly segfaulted... (ADL file seems to be a Westwood ADL file format) Adplay won't open the .scc nor the .rld files. Any ideas what Linux app can play this? Cheers Srdjan

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Colour Laserjet Printe?
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 20 Mar '09

20 Mar '09

Hi Folks, Some of you seem to know your way well around the hardware jungle, so I'm asking for views on the following. I'd like a reasonably priced colour LaserJet, which performs well and reliably (but would not be getting a heavy load, say some dozens of pages per week), which has builtin PostScript (i.e. will print if it is sent raw PostScript) and which has duplex capability. I'm not fussy about whether the duplex would be under software control (provided that can be done from Linux) or set by hand from a control panel on the printer. Indeed, I think I'd prefer the latter. I've seen an HP CM 1312 MFP at a reasonable price. but online reviews are not all enthusiastic. Also, the best I can find out about the duplex is that it is "manual" -- I can't find out whether that means "manual setting on control panel" or whether it means that you have to manually reverse and turn over the sheets of paper, after printing the odd page numbers, in order to print the evens! (Since that is precisely what I do right now, it would not be an advance). Thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 20-Mar-09 Time: 18:16:42 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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VirtualBox (XP host, Debian client) & shared clipboard
by Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk 19 Mar '09

19 Mar '09

Hi folks (and apologies to any who may be affected by cross-posting). I have VirtualBox installed on a Windows XP machine, and Debian Etch installed as a guest. The Linux Guest Additions have been installed, and generally seem to be doing their job. However, the Shared Clipboard facility apparently does nothing. It is enabled as "Bidirectional" in the virtual machine. If, for instance, I highlight some text in an XP window, and select "copy selection", and then go to a Linux text window in X and middle-click (the usual "paste" manoeuvre) then nothing happens. In the reverse direction, if I highlight text in the X window (the usual "put into clipboard" manoeuvre), and then go to an XP window and "Paste", again nothing happens. If I first highlight text in the Linux X window, then go to the XP window and "copy selection", then when I go back to Linux the Linux text is still there (can be pasted with "right click"), so it has not been changed by the XP operation. I've read some indiciations on the web that this feature has caused such problems, but have not seen a solution. It could also be that I'm not doing the right manoeuvres for copying into the clipboard and pasting out of it, in this context. If anyone has useful comments, I'd bevery grateful to receive them! VirtualBox 1.5.0 (2007-08-31). Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 18-Mar-09 Time: 22:54:56 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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ImageMagick convert
by Mark Rogers 19 Mar '09

19 Mar '09

Any experts in using ImageMagick lurking? I need to resize an image to fit into a 350x350 box. Which means I need to (a) scale the image so no dimension exceeds 350, then (b) centre the image in a 350x350 canvas. Eg for a 700x600 image, (a) creates a 350x300 image which (b) then converts to 350x350 without distorting it (by adding "whitespace". Ideally I want some control over what the canvas colour ("whitespace") will be, in particular transparent would be a good option, but white will do for now. The first bit is easy: convert -resize 350x350 old.png new.png I've tried various ways to do step (b) without success. (A single command which does both would be best, but two separate commands would be a start!) -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG

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Acer Aspire One Wireless
by Richard Lewis 19 Mar '09

19 Mar '09

Hello ALUG, How's anyone else's experience with wireless on their Acer Aspire One? I'm running Debian unstable on mine and wireless is quite dodgey. It's the stock 2.6.26 kernel from unstable along with the madwifi drivers (0.9.4) installed via m-a. Initially, if I do $ sudo iwlist scanning it says: wifi0 Interface doesn't support scanning. ath0 Interface doesn't support scanning : Network is down it's only after I've done: $ sudo ifup ath0 that it'll actually search for networks. This doesn't seem right. This aside, once I've added a suitable configuration to my /etc/network/interfaces it's very reluctant to connect to it. Normally when I do $ sudo ifup ath0 the little wifi LED doesn't flash, it waits for 20 seconds or so while it does DHCPDISCOVER a few times and then gives up. After this iwlist returns no results: wifi0 Interface doesn't support scanning. ath0 No scan results Then occasionally it connects. The LED flashes as normal, it connects almost immediately and reconnects without problems after suspend to RAM or shutdowns. Usually I go all day Saturday without it working and then it starts working on Sunday. (During the week I use ordinary ethernet.) But this weekend the wifi elves seem to have forgotten to visit my computer. I wondered whether being on AC power vs. battery may make a difference but it doesn't seem to. (Thankfully. It'd pretty useless if it needed to be plugged in to connect to a wifi network.) I also tried installing the 2.6.28 kernel from sidux which has the ath5k drivers in it but that doesn't seem to make any difference either. Is anyone else finding their's bad? Or is it just me? Best, Richard -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Richard Lewis ISMS, Computing Goldsmiths, University of London Tel: +44 (0)20 7078 5134 Skype: richardjlewis JID: ironchicken(a)jabber.earth.li http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- +-------------------------------------------------------+ |Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.| |http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html | +-------------------------------------------------------+

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[ALUG Announce] 3rd Monday Monthly Ipswich Social Meeting : McGintys, Northgate Street
by samwise 16 Mar '09

16 Mar '09

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 tonight (Monday 16th March) 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. Tonight reportedly sees the return of a long-time member, and we might end up chatting about VoIP again, and my experiences replacing Office Communicator with open source software. 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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