- main - earth.li

Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 12 Jun '06

12 Jun '06

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. Historically, these used to be the only time a lot of us would be about, now the channel has some usual faces that are there most of the time (except at silly o'clock, when we might be sleeping, or on the second thursday of the month, where we might be drinking in the Reindeer), so don't feel limited to visit during this time, come visit us when ever you feel like it! The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.alug.org.uk in the #alug channel. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server irc.alug.org.uk" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include xchat, irssi and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://www.irssi.org/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

1 0

OOo
by Bob Dove 11 Jun '06

11 Jun '06

Hi folks, >From some-one who has embraced Open Office since ever - 'cos it's not Uncle Bill's, I'm happy that it opens and keeps most of the formatting of MS docs. I use it in preference - but for 'serious' work will use a page setter. Much easier to place graphics and have them stay put on page, so 'Office' is not an imperative. I get docs (from Scout Leaders) using stone age pooters with Office 3 (or so it seems) down to Cub Scouts who really are on top of things with the very latest! Compared with 'doze. 'ux is too complicated for a pointy pressy clicky user but I can cope with 'ux and OOo. God forbid that 'ux and OOo should be clones of doze but 'ux ain't doing much to win doze users over (in my humble opinion of course!) The desktop looks a bit enthusiastic amateur to me - probably why you guys like the command line so much! Personally, I'd like an OSX type desktop - seems cleaner somehow - and it works. Of course, now that clever clogs has ported OSX to PC!!! Cheers, Bob Dove.

4 5

Cuddly Toy Anyone?
by Keith Watson 09 Jun '06

09 Jun '06

http://www.free-penguin.org/ Regards, Keith ____________ Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together.

5 4

Office 2007
by Wayne Stallwood 09 Jun '06

09 Jun '06

After playing with the beta a bit, I am hoping that OpenOffice doesn't follow the same trend. This new user interface may look slick on a Windows Vista box (BTW Public beta is available for that too) but take it from someone who has been trying to use it in a productive manner for the last few days, it's not that slick to use. I've dumped some screenshots here http://digimatic.plus.com/office/ So the question is, Given that OpenOffice is supposed to be as compatible and familiar as possible for a MS Office user. Will it be forced to adopt this in a similar way...For openoffice what is more important, compatibility and familiarity or getting it "right" ?

3 5

[ALUG Announce] 2nd Thursday Norwich Meet : Reindeer, Dereham Road
by MJ Ray 08 Jun '06

08 Jun '06

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- (I'm still having some problems deferring posts if I discard any, so here's a repost of roughly what I think the lost mail said:- ) From: noodles at earth.li (Jonathan McDowell) Subject: [ALUG Announce] [ALUG] 2nd Thursday Norwich Meet : Reindeer, Dereham Road The monthly "Second Thursday" ALUG Norwich Pub Meet is this Thursday, 8th June. It's at the Reindeer pub on the Dereham Road, just opposite the City Gate. People will be there from 8pm-ish, though there may be a few people there earlier. Topics for discussion will no doubt be as varied as ever. The Reindeer has a reasonable selection of beer as well as decent coffee (with biscuits, if you're lucky). Directions to the Reindeer can be found at: http://www.alug.org.uk/venues/reindeer.html Pictures of some of the regulars, and irregulars, and, well, just some pictures of people that might or might not turn up are available from: http://www.earth.li/~noodles/Photos/2006-02-ALUG/ http://the.earth.li/~noodles/stilvoid-alug/mp20050811/ http://www.earth.li/~noodles/Photos/2005-01-ALUG-Xmas/ http://www.earth.li/~noodles/Photos/2004-08-ALUG/ Which should hopefully aid those of you wondering who to look out for. We're /normally/ just to the left of the main entrance, though sometimes we've ended up at the far end of the pub beside the pool table, as there are comfy seats at that end. J. -- ] http://www.earth.li/~noodles/ [] Where are we going? And WHY ARE [ ] PGP/GPG Key @ the.earth.li [] WE IN THIS HANDBASKET?!! [ ] via keyserver, web or email. [] [ ] RSA: 4DC4E7FD / DSA: 5B430367 [] [ ----- 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

1 0

Gtk2 and fonts
by Barry Samuels 07 Jun '06

07 Jun '06

Since I last upgraded my Debian Testing/Etch system some GTK applications, Endeavour2 for example, display a fairly awful font which I cannot change and some others, gFtp for example display a perfectly acceptable font. I have installed the Gtk Theme Engine package which gives me, in theory, the ability to change font/theme for GTK in the KDE Control Centre but whatever I do the font doesn't change. All the KDE fonts are fine. I have both GTK 1 and GTK 2 installed. Some suggestions as to how to fix this would be very welcome. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

3 5

Evolution
by Mark Ridley 07 Jun '06

07 Jun '06

Howdy all, anyone using Evo in a corporate Windows 2003 OWA style environment? I have a fairly massive mail archive and Evo just constantly hangs. I've tried multiple versions with the same effect. I'm not normally so concerned with the graphical side of Linux, but would love to be able to defend the non-dependance of Windows, and would love to swing a few colleagues over to the dark side. But without a little "it's almost Windows/Office" I'll just be wasting my time. I'm happy with pine, but I'm not sure that'll work for everyone! :) Cheers. -Mark

2 2

Hard Drives
by Bob Dove 06 Jun '06

06 Jun '06

Hi folks, Silly quezzie time - what is the best orientation for a hard drive? My son in law has just had his office and network moved, and the IT specialist (their term/claim) re-installed with all the towers horizontal rather than vertical. Now I know that there are some vertical external HD cases but thought they might have contained 'special' HDs. Presume some gyro force generated so no silly angles - but otherwise? Any wise old owls out there with the definitive??? Cheers, BD.

6 5

[ALUG] [ALUG Announce] Linux 2006 Conference and Tutorials, Brighton, 29 June - 2 July
by Alasdair G Kergon 05 Jun '06

05 Jun '06

ALUG Announce Please send announcements to Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Unsub, change settings via http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce ----- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Linux 2006 Conference & Tutorials, Brighton, Thur 29th June - Sun 2nd July ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Full details at http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2006/ * Early-bird discount is available only until Thursday 8th June * The event begins with a choice of tutorials on Thursday. Then the twin-track 3-day conference runs from Friday to Sunday. Tutorials on Thursday 29th June ------------------------------- Full-day: Building and Maintaining Software Packages with RPM - Jos Vos Morning: Optimising MySQL Databases - Mark Leith (MySQL) Afternoon: Using SystemTap and kdump to diagnose kernel-related problems - Richard Moore (IBM) Introductory talks: Saturday 1st July ------------------------------------- This section of the conference is aimed at people who are relatively new to linux and is free of charge. Lunch is included if you register on the website before Thursday 15th June. Programme so far: * An introduction to Networking - Antony Stone * Getting Started with Apache - Jim Kissel (OSM Ltd.) * Securing Linux - Nils Magnus * What are all these distributions and how should I choose one? - Stuart Yeates (OSS Watch) * Creating DVD videos on Linux and Unix systems - Ben Hutchings Further talks to be confirmed - watch the website. Provisional Conference Programme: Friday 30th June - Sunday 2nd July -------------------------------------------------------------------- Advocacy * Towards an All-Party Parliamentary Open Source Group - Leslie Fletcher * State of Play: Free Software, ready or not? - Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton * Introduction to the politics of Linux - Andrew Nicolson (S'hampton Inst) * Advocating Linux - Jono Bacon (OpenAdvantage/LUGRadio) Case Studies * Apache at The Register: Building a Large Website from mod_rewrite and mod_include - Aaron Crane * 30 million and counting: An insight into a enterprise level open source systems - Neil McGovern (Fotopic.net) * How does OSS stack up? - Mark Taylor & Duncan Gibb (Sirius Corporation) * The State of Open Source in Higher and Further Education - Stuart Yeates * OpenStreetMap: The First Year - Steve Coast * Linux at Home - John Pinner (Clockwork Software Systems) * User Controlled Virtual Curtains - Torsten Spindler (ETH Zurich) Clustering and Virtualisation * Linux HA v2: One CRM to rule them all - Lars Marowsky-Bree (SuSE Labs) * How Hardware Supported Virtualization in Xen works - Mats Petersson (AMD) * A low-cost Linux based graphics cluster for cultural visualisation in virtual environments - Aidan Delaney (University of Brighton) Desktop and Applications * Desktop Linux Innovation at Novell - Ted Haeger (Novell) * SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop: Under the Hood - Ted Haeger (Novell) * (Free)NX - Remote Desktop Access, Present and Future - Fabian Franz * OpenOffice.org beyond 2.0... - Michael Meeks (Novell) * Kubuntu Dapper and KDE 4: The GNU/Linux Desktop - Jonathan Riddell (Canonical) * MySQL Roadmap - Mark Leith (MySQL) * Settling on decent Python Web Technologies - Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton Grid * ROOT and PROOF - Ruediger Berlich (Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe) * The Interactive Europen Grid project (int.eu.grid) - Marcus Hardt Kernel * Porting uCLinux on a Coldfire processor: Writing Frame Buffer Drivers - Craig Duffy & Edwin Langley (Bristol UWE) * Flash memories and MTD Subsystem under Linux Networking and Internet Software Group - C-DAC, Pune University * The Linux Error Detection and Correction subsystem (EDAC) - Tim Small Platforms * Hardware hacking on a budget; the Amstrad E3 - Jonathan McDowell Productivity * Sed: more than just s/foo/bar/ - Tethys The programme is subject to change - check website for up-to-date information. If you book on or before Thursday 8th June you can take advantage of the Early Bird rates e.g. 65 pounds for the 3-day conference instead of 100. or just 25 pounds for students. (If you're not already a UKUUG member, you'll need to add the membership fee to this - details on website.) Conference rates also include a ticket for the Conference Dinner on Friday evening (subject to capacity), sponsored by The Positive Internet Company, and a copy of the conference CD sponsored by Novell. There are also still opportunities for sponsors and exhibitors: contact office(a)ukuug.org for details. Web: http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2006/ Email: office(a)ukuug.org Tel: +44 1763 273 475 -------------------------------------------------------------------- | Event sponsored by Novell, The Positive Internet Company and IBM | -------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- 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

1 0

Fwd: First ALUG competition of 2006
by sfr 05 Jun '06

05 Jun '06

I posted this on alug-social, but it seems unfair to exclude all those who subscribe to main but not to social. ----------- first email - While we're waiting for the announcement of J's next serious and on-topic contest of brains and programming skill, we shall offer you some light entertainment. And the tease is that I'm not telling you what the competition is, yet. Just a little clue: it's a Caption Competition. ------------- and then - First ALUG competition of 2006 - Part II The photo which awaits your inventive and witty caption is at http://sfr.itshall.be/stuff/tuff.jpg ------------- next will come a voting system... when Brett finishes it... -- sfr

8 21