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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 05 Jun '06

05 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!)

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open database format
by Peter 05 Jun '06

05 Jun '06

I'm working at a charity where we have moved from assorted W9x machines to mandriva. There is a W9x database application which has the peculiarity of allowing the user to create multiple identical field names per record, and thus has variable record lengths. I'm being told that exporting this to csv and consolidating the data in multiple identically named fields will lose data. (1) Is this plausible? I've done it, audited, and there is no doubt that every bit of data in every field has moved across. I cannot find any sort of grouping or sorting that can be done in the W9x app that I cannot do in Tellico. What could I be missing? The thing that is hard to see is, if the field labels are identical, how can you do things with the data split up into two, that you cannot do with them in one? Doesn't having multiple identical field labels limit rather than expand one's ability to manipulate the data? Is this something about xml as opposed to csv in databases? (2) Is it really possible that there are data structures which require multiple identical field labels and variable length records? Like, what and why? And could a collection database be one of them, and why? (3) Is there a good source on open database format? The recent BECTA publication mandates odb or csv export for databases in the education sector. Where would you go to get a good account of odb? With particular reference to the moveability of a database from one platform to another. Peter

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Re: [ALUG] First ALUG competition of 2006
by Steve 04 Jun '06

04 Jun '06

> And the winner is.... > > Stilvoid (Steve Engledow) > > Speech! Das w00t! *ahem* I'd just like to say a big thankyou to all of the people that have supported me along the way and especially to work for allowing me the flexibility to spend a while pondering my entry ;) This is the first competition I've ever won *sob* I'm so proud!

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font conundrum
by Peter 03 Jun '06

03 Jun '06

Many thanks to Wayne for the hint on spadmin. On investigating it, in spadmin, in the printer tab, it turns out that font substitution had been turned on, and it was referrring to fonts that the printer did not have. Consequently what must have been happening is that instead of using the fonts on the computer, the printer tried to use fonts it did not have, and defaulted to this strange spidery computerish font. Why it happened, no idea. I certainly had never enabled any of these substitutions. spadmin may have a mind of its own which gets triggered when you install OO2. At any rate, delete all the font substitutions and the computer fonts are used and work perfectly. In hope this may someday rescue someone else from a couple of days scratching their heads, Peter

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[simon.morris@cmtww.com: [Gllug-announce] GLLUG Summer Expedition]
by Adam Bower 02 Jun '06

02 Jun '06

Hi, I just noticed this from the GLLUG announce list, I know some aluggers were talking of organising a day out to Bletchley, perhaps you want to join up with the GLLUG'ers too. ----- Forwarded message from Simon Morris <simon.morris(a)cmtww.com> ----- From: Simon Morris <simon.morris(a)cmtww.com> To: gllug-announce(a)gllug.org.uk Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2006 13:25:04 +0100 Subject: [Gllug-announce] GLLUG Summer Expedition Hello, I am trying to organise a GLLUG Summer Expedition to Bletchley Park, Cambs. for Sunday 9th July. "Bletchley Park was the centre of the Allied cryptanalysis and code breaking efforts during the Second World War. The most notable achievement was the breaking of the German Enigma cipher which is said to have brought the war to an end 2 years early. It was home to a number of famous mathamaticians and cryptanalysts including Alan Turing - the father of modern computer science." At the park there is a Computer history museum, World War 2 exhibits and a Churchill exhibition. One this particular day there is also a vintage car and motorbike show and a WW2 fly-past as well as the regular attractions. The plan is to arrive at Bletchley, visit the attractions and then have a group picnic later in the afternoon. That Sunday is also the World Cup Final (No, England won't be playing in it *duck*) so those who care could find a local pub or race back to London to watch it. Kickoff is at 1900. I need to track numbers of people who are going to attend. Once I have 20 interested people we can claim a group discount for entry of £8 each. Please discuss the trip on the GLLUG Social list... http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/social ... to keep the noise off of the main discussion list. Email me if you are interested in going and I am going to maintain a web-page to inform you of train times, more information etc. http://www.gllug.org.uk/index.php?/archives/18-GLLUG-Summer-Expedition.html Families and other hangers-on are more than welcome. Hope to see some of you there.. ~sm -- Gllug-announce mailing list - Gllug-announce(a)gllug.org.uk http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug-announce ----- End forwarded message ----- -- jabberid = quinophex(a)jabber.earth.li Avoid ID cards, renew your passport: http://www.renewforfreedom.org/

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Some weirdness
by Wayne Stallwood 02 Jun '06

02 Jun '06

Not exactly a Linux question, but the answer may equally apply and it's confusing the living daylights out of me so- I have a client with a SCO box...the application it runs is sometimes made to generate a file that has to magically appear a bit later on another (Windows) box. Due to visionFS (sort of like Samba but not as nice) not being completely happy talking to Windows Server 2003 (or vice versa) the method that was chosen when this was implemented by whoever was FTP. So there is a cron job that looks roughly like this #!/bin/sh userid=foo pword=bar host=windowsbox file=transferfile.csv if [ -e $file ] then ftp -i -n $host <<putfile user $userid $pword cd /location/on/windows/box lcd /file/location put $file putfile echo file transferred mv $file $file.sent else exit The odd thing is that the file is nearly always truncated...I thought at first we were getting unlucky and the script was transferring it before app had finished writing it. So I tried inserting a wait in the script just before the ftp transfer bit...So then it looked for the file and if it existed waited 2 minutes (plenty of time for the app to finish with the file) and only then transferred it...If anything this seemed to make things worse!!! Also interestingly the $file.sent (ie the moved copy of $file) is always complete. But I am guessing because it's a move it would be because the unlinked filename handle would be working until the app let go of it right ? oh and it's not the ftp transfer that's causing the problem because I can do the transfer manually and all is well. Can't help thinking that there is a better way of doing this...but any ideas on how to re-implement or fix the current method are very welcome.

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squashfs and lzma
by Mark Rogers 01 Jun '06

01 Jun '06

I'm trying to play with the firmware of a router, which is basically a squashfs filesystem. If I create a squashfs filesystem and look at it with a hex editor it does look very similar to the one I have for the router, but I have been unable to mount the firmware on my test box. I think this is because it has been compressed with lzma to improve the compression ratio, and this is not compiled into squashfs by default. So: Does that sound plausible? Are there any good distros for this kind of thing (eg a live CD I can experiment with), or should I try and set something up myself? I'm thinking probably a VMWare virtual machine would do what I need. (Basically I want to extract the firmware and hack the HTML, then recompress it and use it to break^H^H^H^H^H tweak my router.) Anyone here done this kind of thing? -- Mark Rogers More Solutions Ltd :: 0845 45 89 555

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Ooops! Another Debian Etch cods up
by Barry Samuels 01 Jun '06

01 Jun '06

I recently upgraded my Debian Testing/Etch system and today I tried to write to a DVD using K3b. The error I got was: System ----------------------- K3b Version: 0.12.15 KDE Version: 3.5.2 QT Version: 3.3.6 Kernel: 2.4.27 Devices ----------------------- ASUS DRW-1608P2S 1.37 (/dev/sr0, /dev/sg1) at /cdrom [CD-R; CD-RW; CD-ROM; DVD-ROM; DVD-RAM; DVD-R; DVD-RW; DVD-R DL; DVD+R; DVD+RW; DVD+R DL] [DVD-ROM; DVD-R Sequential; DVD-R Dual Layer Sequential; DVD-R Dual Layer Jump; DVD-RAM; DVD-RW Restricted Overwrite; DVD-RW Sequential; DVD+RW; DVD+R; DVD+R Double Layer; CD-ROM; CD-R; CD-RW] [SAO; TAO; RAW; SAO/R96P; SAO/R96R; RAW/R16; RAW/R96P; RAW/R96R; Restricted Overwrite; Layer Jump] Used versions ----------------------- growisofs: 6.1 growisofs ----------------------- Executing 'builtin_dd if=/mnt/storage/makedvd/newdvd.iso of=/dev/sr0 obs=32k seek=0' :-( write failed: Invalid argument growisofs command: ----------------------- /usr/bin/growisofs -Z /dev/sr0=/mnt/storage/makedvd/newdvd.iso -use-the-force-luke=notray -use-the-force-luke=tty -use-the-force-luke=dummy -dvd-compat -speed=4 -overburn -use-the-force-luke=bufsize:32m Is it me or is it them? Any suggestions for putting this right would be welcome. -- Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Auto-switching desktop/workspace
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 30 May '06

30 May '06

Hi Folks, To set the scene: On the machine I usually work at I have KDE, with several "desktops" (KDE-speak) or "workspaces" (Gnome-speak). Say I have Mozilla or Firefox running in one of these. Now I ask the browser to access a web page. This seems to be taking its time, so I switch to another desktop and do something else while I'm waiting. Then the browser times out. So up pops a window with the message that it has timed out. BUT:-- I find that in so doing it has automatically switched me from the other desktop I was working on while waiting, back to the desktop where the browser is being displayed. SO:-- some software at least knows how to automatically switch between desktops. THEREFORE:-- I would like to know too! I can find uses for this phenomenon -- e.g. if I am running a program in one desktop which from time to time draws graphs in a window on another desktop. When it draws a new graph, I would like it to automatically switch to the desktop with the graph. So what's the secret to auto-switching of desktops? And is it at all specific to the "Desktop Environment" (e.g. KDE)? With thanks, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 28-May-06 Time: 00:59:52 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 29 May '06

29 May '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!)

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