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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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Postfix confusion
by Wayne Stallwood 15 Mar '09

15 Mar '09

It doesn't usually give me much trouble but at the moment I am having a bit of strangeness with my media server which uses postfix to send out various alerts etc. My main.cf is below and /etc/mailname is digimatic.co.uk It all seems to work well except it is ignoring .forward files in the user home folders, i.e I have a user 'francis' who has his own email address in the .forward but if I mail 'francis' it gets routed to francis(a)digimatic.co.uk rather than the address in his forward file. Similarly I tried a .forward in my own home dir of info(a)digimatic.co.uk but the mail to me still goes to my username wstallwood(a)digimatic.co.uk myorigin = /etc/mailname smtpd_banner = $myhostname ESMTP $mail_name (Ubuntu) biff = no append_dot_mydomain = no #delay_warning_time = 4h # TLS parameters smtpd_tls_cert_file=/etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem smtpd_tls_key_file=/etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key smtpd_use_tls=yes smtpd_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${queue_directory}/smtpd_scache smtp_tls_session_cache_database = btree:${queue_directory}/smtp_scache smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd smtp_sasl_security_options = myhostname = localhost.localdomain alias_maps = hash:/etc/aliases alias_database = hash:/etc/aliases mydestination = localhost.localdomain, localhost relayhost = mail.digimatic.co.uk mynetworks = 127.0.0.0/8 mailbox_size_limit = 0 recipient_delimiter = + inet_interfaces = all message_size_limit = 10240000

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Printing with lpr
by Richard Lewis 14 Mar '09

14 Mar '09

Hello ALUG, I have a PDF I want to print on two sides per sheet. Often I just use the print dialog from evince for this, but evince is refusing to open this one properly. So I'm trying to use lpr. According to the Web lpr takes a -o switch which allows me to send options to my printer, including duplexing options. However, my man lpr suggests otherwise. No -o switch is documented and, indeed, lpr just shows the usage instructions if I try running it with a -o switch set. e.g. $ lpr -P ISMS -o Duplex=DuplexNoTumble Tymoczko08.pdf usage: lpr [-cdfghlmnpqrstv] [-#num] [-1234 font] [-C class] [-i [numcols]] [-J job] [-Pprinter] [-T title] [-U user] [-wnum] [name ...] $ lpr -P ISMS -O Duplex=DuplexNoTumble Tymoczko08.pdf $ lpr -PISMS -oDuplex=DuplexNoTumble Tymoczko08.pdf $ lpr -PISMS -ODuplex=DuplexNoTumble Tymoczko08.pdf $ lpr -P ISMS -o 'sides=two-sided-long-edge' Tymoczko08.pdf $ lpr -P ISMS -O 'sides=two-sided-long-edge' Tymoczko08.pdf So why does everyone on the Web have a -o switch for their lpr and I don't? Mine is version 1:2008.05.17 from Debian unstable. Any suggestions? -- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 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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How to refer to 'all my files', including hidden ones?
by Chris G 13 Mar '09

13 Mar '09

I often have this problem! :-) How can one refer to all one's own files and directories easily? E.g. I am sitting at /home/chris and, for whatever reason, I want to apply a command to all the files, including hidden files. A command like this for example (where I have moved some files in which belong to someone else), I become root and do:- chown -R chris * Well, that's OK but it doesn't include hidden files, so:- chown -R chris .* That's no good either because it tries to run the command on .. as well as . and the hidden files. There are things like:- chown -R chris .[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z]* but it feels like there should be an easier way. I know there's better syntax than [a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z]* (using + I think), but it's still hardly elegant. -- Chris Green

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