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Modules - slightly more moderate this time
by cl＠isbd.net 18 Oct '06

18 Oct '06

Well after my rant last night I would like to actually work out how modules are supposed to work as I don't seem to understand them very well at the moment! So, to some rather basic questions:- How do modules get installed (as in attached to the kernel when the system starts up)? In my previous encounters with modules I think it was a totally manual process in that one had to add the required modprobe command to the rc files. Is this still true or is there some sort of automatic process that does this nowadays? What does setting a device to [M] in the kernel configuration actually do? It can't be necessary for a module to work as otherwise one wouldn't be able to add new modules would you? (E.g. I seem to have added my RTL8168 module by just compiling it and installing it, it doesn't appear in the kernel configuration - or does it?) By the way my problems with the RTL8168 module seem to be down to the fact that the rc.modules script was linked to a 2.4.33 version rather than the 2.6.18 version which it should have been linked to. Fixing this seems to have made things work rather better. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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re: Information (or lack of it) about SATA and AHCI on Linux
by den 17 Oct '06

17 Oct '06

Can't you just use a ready made kernel with everything rolled into it, and use information like the modules used along with the information provided by hal about how all the parts of your system are connected to one another ? Just an ignorant guess about how you might investigate your system further, so don't shoot me down to harshly if it's not good advice. dennis

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Information (or lack of it) about SATA and AHCI on Linux
by cl＠isbd.net 16 Oct '06

16 Oct '06

This is a mixture of a comment and a question. There seems to be very little hard information about using SATA drives in Linux yet, in particular I can't find anything much for the *user* on how to set up a SATA/AHCI system. In particular there seems little help on which kernel one should choose to install a SATA/AHCI based system. The SATA drives appear as SCSI drives to the software when they are AHCI ones but nowhere tells you whether you need a SCSI kernel or an ATA/IDE one in this situation. Considering the possible permutations of AHCI on/off and possible kernels one might choose it could take a long time to get it right! I've got my system working OK now but I'm still unclear on how much IDE support I still need compiled into the kernel, I may not need any at all but there seems nowhere to find out. The best information I've found so far is at:- http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Hardware/sata.html ... but this doesn't help a lot on the actual 'how to configure it' front. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Firfox/Mozilla Cache
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 16 Oct '06

16 Oct '06

Hi Folks, Where does Firefox (or Mozilla for that matter) keep its cache? In Netscape it was easy -- a whole slew of directories under ~/.netscape/cache/ But I can;t find abything with "ache" in its name that has anything to do with Firefox! With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 14-Oct-06 Time: 14:58:12 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Linux World Expo, ALUG Trip
by Simon Elliott 15 Oct '06

15 Oct '06

Hey all, Linux World Expo is rapidly approaching.. There has been some chatter at pub meets about a group of ALUGers going along. I've got tickets coming soon, all you need to do is sign up on the website (for free) to get your pass. http://www.linuxworldexpo.co.uk/ All the information you want to know is on the website. What I was wondering is, if people are going to be driving - whether lifts could be arranged or getting the train as a group - if so which one? Etc etc. If anyone has any ideas or thoughts, let us know.. At a rough guess, there will be 4 people travelling- that I know about anyway.

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Networking question
by cl＠isbd.net 14 Oct '06

14 Oct '06

If a system has more than one NIC then what happens by default regarding connecting to thre resto f the local network. Does it simply choose the first NIC that 'appears' during boot to be the one that is used for 'itself'? I realise that one can have multiple NICs and different routes etc. but I want to know what happens if (as I have at the moment) you have a system with three NICs (one real card and two on board ones). I have nothing clever configured, I just told the installation what the system's IP address was, what the default route was and what the DNS server was. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Sharing disks between Linux boxes
by cl＠isbd.net 14 Oct '06

14 Oct '06

What's the simplest way to network disk drives between Linux boxes? I just want to make the drives on my 'old' Linux server visible to the new Linux server so I can copy/merge configuration files, copy /home directories etc. -- Chris Green (chris(a)halon.org.uk)

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Sticky Jelly
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 14 Oct '06

14 Oct '06

Hi Knowledgeable Folks One of you can probably help me. There is a kind of sticky jelly such as is often used to attach a DVD to the cover of a Linux magazine (thus making this post on-topic). I could find handy uses for this stuff, since the attachment is stable, but is easily peeled off, and the jelly can easily and cleanly be removed by rolling it off with a finger. But I don't know what it's called, nor the sort of shop where one might be likely to find it on sale. Any help? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 14-Oct-06 Time: 18:39:02 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Mostly-OT: Strange ADSL issues
by Mark Rogers 14 Oct '06

14 Oct '06

I have two ADSL lines from completely different providers (Demon and The Phone Coop (www.thephone.coop) both behaving the same. The lines are both in the Peterborough area but on different exchanges. Although this isn't a Linux problem I think Linux is most likely to give me the tools to resolve it. Basically, some of the time the ADSL lines just work: I can browse the web, collect email, download ISOs, etc. However the rest of the time (and its becoming increasingly "most of the time") I can't. To all intents and purposes the connection has gone. Except, and this is what's throwing me, connections which were already up will continue to work (eg if I have an SSH connection somewhere it'll still work, I use Hamachi (www.hamachi.cc) as a VPN client and I can still access my home PC from work and vice-versa through it when the connection is otherwise useless, if I'm downloading an ISo using BitTorrent it'll usually continue just fine). The ADSL router isn't showing anything unusual (I have different hardware at home from at work and have swapped both with no effect). All I have managed to do is: (a) Confirm that DNS is not the problem. DNS doesn't work properly during an "outage" but equally I can't access sites/email/etc by IP address either (b) Small packet stuff seems OK. Often (not always) I can ping a site which I can't view. (c) Following on from the above, if I tweak the ping packet size so that fragmentation occurs the ping becomes unreliable. (d) Optimised sites like Google are far more likely to work than non-optimised sites with lots of data. There's no obvious patterns to the time of day/day of week (non-peak times are probably better but its not clear cut). Rain makes things worse (but our office ADSL line has never liked rain, and I think that's a different problem). Any idea what is going on or how to find out? The ISPs so far haven't been much help, but since I have the same problem with two different ISPs I don't think its an ISP problem. A traceroute from my office to somewhere and from my home to the same place don't show any obvious points of commonality until they reach the destination (ie I'm pretty sure that apart from going through BT cables the two ISPs aren't sharing the same hardware/connectivity somewhere). At home my router uses an embedded Linux which I can SSH into, so suggestions for things I can try from there welcome. It uses BusyBox and has limited tools but there may be some useful stuff under /proc if I knew what to look for. PS: This has been going on for a few weeks but is definitely getting worse. -- Mark Rogers More Solutions Ltd :: 0845 45 89 555

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Meeting Report: Thursday 12th Oct 2006
by Simon Elliott 13 Oct '06

13 Oct '06

A short warning before I begin; [02:22:16] <Sionide> my meeting report is going to be rubbish, but nevermind - better than nothing and people can always reply with corrections / more info And so I'll begin... Hello all, Summary: A good pub meet up, with 2 new faces - Jerry and Michael, which is great and is definitely what I like to see... So if you're reading this and haven't been to one of our pub meets, make sure you come along next month! Role Call: Jerry Michael Martjin (mak) Myself, Simon (Sionide) Adam (quinophex) Mike Paul (paul_c) JT (mChicago) Ross (RossF) Richard (ironChicken) Neil (or maybe Neal?) and a late appearance from Joe (Joeboy) I think it was Paul who had the bright idea of reserving the tables at the Reindeer as we've had problems getting decent seats in previous meets. We should probably continue this for future meets... So there we were in the corner by the door, and discussing, as we do, open-source, linux as well as other general rubbish & nonsense.. *coughJTcough* Discussed Topics: (which I heard) -Development of Scouting through the ages. -Adam's new job. -NiLith Batteries, pros and cons. -Lost, the TV series. -Rock Linux. -Can you drive tanks on the road? -The possibility of creating a huge aerial using 4.6km of wire to receive 9KHZ radio signals. -Discussions of Paul's very "flashy" looking camera (haha, I'm so not funny) If anyone remembers anything else talked about or would like to continue any of these particular discussions on the mailing list, feel free! Mak said I had to mention the fact that JT came straight from work, wearing his suit. Hehe... Well, it tickled us at the time anyway. Thanks for coming every body, see you next month! -Simon

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