- main - earth.li

X Window - Which One?
by Simon Royal 29 Apr '06

29 Apr '06

Hi I have installed VectorLinux 4.3 on my ThinkPad 380ED. It comes with a number of x managers. Which one is the best. Obviously this is no beast of a machine and I have DSL running FluxBox which looked great, but FluxBox on VectorLinux looks rubbish. Any advice. Simon

3 2

Re: [ALUG] Mysterious ethernet problem
by Peter 29 Apr '06

29 Apr '06

I'm not sure what the board is, but probably Intel? Its in a compaq deskpro and the lan chipset is intel 82558. Mandriva assigns an eepro 100 driver to it. The funny thing is, it works well enough to do a Mandriva network install - which is just as well, since no CD in it. And I have three of these I'm trying to get working reliably! The yellow light. Yes, I think it must be related to wake on lan, but evidently the way its working with mandriva, it would not wake. We start from the situation where the machine has been shut down from the keyboard. The light goes out. If power to the machine is turned off at the mains, paused, and then turned back on, then the yellow light comes on again. If the machine is then turned on at the power switch and booted, all is well, and the yellow light stays on. However on keyboard shutdown, the yellow light goes off again, and then does not come back on even on reboot. So wake on lan would not work I suppose. The yellow light seems from the manual to mean 'reception of link pulses' or 'scrambler lock' in 100mbps mode. Something must be happening at software shutdown to cause this not to work any more. Something must be restarted at mains power on to get it up again. But what? I've glanced through the near 300 page manual with no real enlightenment. Perhaps I should try Debian on the second one, and maybe Windows 2K as well, and see if there's any difference. Peter On Saturday 29 Apr 2006 10:47, main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk wrote: > My experience of Intel motherboards over the past 5 years > is that the ethernet connect light shines when connected to a network > even when the PC appears to be off. I'm guessing this helps with Wake > On Lan. > > Perhaps the Linux driver is telling the ethernet adapter to power > down, and then nothing turns it back on again until you cold boot. > > What make is your motherboard? > > Regards, > Tim.

2 1

Spam, flames, toast et al.
by Bob Dove 29 Apr '06

29 Apr '06

Come on Guys, Some-one asks for help with a reasonable charitable do, some of you immediately clog the ether with complaints! A gentle reminder to the transgressor (of which there is at least one in my inbox) is sufficient. No need to get carried away with a running argument - life's too short! Bob Dove.

3 2

Re: [ALUG] Network problem (Update)
by Barry Samuels 29 Apr '06

29 Apr '06

On 2006.04.28 19:42, Wayne Stallwood wrote: > On Fri, 2006-04-28 at 11:38 +0000, Barry Samuels wrote: > > The traceroute problem mentioned in the previous post was caused by > the firewall which has now been updated. > > > > Traceroute lists computer A as line 1 then the printer as line 2. > > > > Computer B still won't send the print job though. > > Still sounds very much like a firewally thing to me. > > Out of interest are you able to access the Jetdirect web admin page > from Computer B ? > > You could also try opening a telnet session to the printers port > (9100 I > think) > > Try telnet printeraddress 9100 > > It won't do anything useful of course (unless you can speak Jetdirect > IP protocol) but it will either fail to connect if it's a firewall > issue or either print garbage on the screen or just sit there blank > if it's ok. > Compare this to the results you get if you do the same thing on > Computer A Some more progress. The problem was caused because there were two copies of lpd running. I've no idea why. Since stopping both and restarting everything works. EXCEPT... I can't print from either Firefox or OpenOffice using Computer B. I've used spadmin to set up the new printer but the output does not appear in the spool directory and Firefox does the same. Strange. I can print from Gimp though. Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

1 0

USB WiFi
by Peter Hunter 29 Apr '06

29 Apr '06

Just a follow up from my last message. I have done a bit of searching and found that I can use something called NDISWrapper (as mentioned in an earlier reply), I'm not too sure how to use it though. Anyway, it seems that this comes pre loaded in Linspire 5. I have looked on the CD, in the drivers folder, for the Belkin F5D7050, for the .inf file. It seems to be listed as rt73???.inf. There is also a .sys file. Before I attempt to use this can someone tell me HOW to do it please? Also, there are two folders, one for Win9x and one for 2kxp. Does it matter which one I use? They seem to have the same .inf / .sys files in them. Regards and thanks Peter

4 9

Re: [ALUG] Mysterious ethernet problem
by Peter 29 Apr '06

29 Apr '06

Adam wrote: >I've had that before with some network hardware, it appears that the >kernel driver either doesn't leave the network hardware in a nice state >at reboot or the hardware doesn't like playing ball after a reboot, >possibly a combination of the 2 things. The way I fixed it was either >upgrade the kernel to a later version or stick a pci card into the >machine and disable the onboard lan. Thanks, I'd thought of trying an add-in card, and turning off the onboard lan, so I'll do that now to confirm. It would be nice however to be able to use the built in. Is there anything one could add to the startup or shutdown procedures? That would have the same effect on the built in ethernet as a mains switch off? Peter

2 1

no dvd playback
by robertj35＠tiscali.co.uk 29 Apr '06

29 Apr '06

Hi it's Robert here, i was just wondering how i could get dvd playback on Kaffeine and whether it's possible to be able to play my Xbox without the need to have a tv card(or tv license).Yours Robert ___________________________________________________________ Tiscali Broadband from 14.99 with free setup! http://www.tiscali.co.uk/products/broadband/

3 2

ThinkPad & Wireless
by Simon Royal 28 Apr '06

28 Apr '06

Hi I have decided to buy a cheap PC laptop and run Linux on it. I was going to buy a Mac laptop - being a Mac fan, but I can get a second hand PC laptop with higher specs cheaper than a Mac one. And as it is going to run Linux it doesn't matter. I have been told IBM Thinkpads are good for Linux can anyone recommend anything in particular? Also I want to buy a wireless PCMCIA card that will work on a laptop and under Linux, any suggestions? Kind Regards Simon Royal ---- www.simonroyal.co.uk The box said requires Windows 2000 or better, so I bought an Apple Mac

6 12

Mysterious ethernet problem
by Peter 28 Apr '06

28 Apr '06

Has anyone heard of anything like this, and if so what did you do? The machine is a Compaq deskpro SFF, PIII. It is running Mandriva. The IP address is manually assigned, and its not connected to the Net, this is just for internal printing. You plug the machine in, boot up, and everything is fine. You can reach other addresses, print on a network printer, log into the network printers admin over the web browser (the printer itself, not CUPS on localhost). You can do file transfers from other machines. You then turn off using the gnome power control. System goes down, screen goes blank. Little light on back of network card goes out. Reboot, and network is unavailable. Do ifup eth0, comes up, however ping doesn't work in either direction and the other machines are not there. Connection refused is the message. The little light is still off. After much headscratching, shut down, turn off at mains, wait 20 secs, turn back on at mains. Little light comes back on, boot up, everything works.... What obvious thing am I missing? I would expect that it should go off at shutdown, and go on at bootup. The only other oddity is that Mandriva seems to think there are two network interfaces, one the card which really is in it, and another interface called sit0 or something like this. You can delete this without it affecting the eth0. I don't understand where this is coming from, if it matters, or what to do about it. Any suggestions gratefully received. Peter

2 1

Guinea Pigs required for Linux VPS trial..
by Martyn Drake 28 Apr '06

28 Apr '06

Hello, Long time no post :) Time for another crazy idea of mine. In an effort to help part-fund my shiny new dual core dedicated server (some of it's already funded by a web site I run), I'm contemplating using VMWare Server to "partition" the machine up into several segments and rent out a Linux virtual server for those wishing to experiment, host their own sites, or whatever. Suggested charging for 128Mb VM would be around the £25 per month mark. However, before I do ANY of that, I want to try different distributions with different applications and thus if anybody is interesting in testing such a beastie, I would be very grateful. Initally I'm looking to offer Debian and CentOS (4.x). Each VM would be equal share CPU. If anybody is interested, please can you drop me an email off-list. Regards, Martyn

6 8