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Re: Damn Small Linux & Vector Linux (Nick Daniels)
by Peter 21 Apr '06

21 Apr '06

DSL now is coming out with a less minimalist alpha, bundled with Gumeric and Abiword, 80+Mb. Might be worth a try? I found apt-get problematic on quite a few applications in the original DSL. I found even Vector too slow on a K6. Roll your own minimalist Debian is quite good. I used it with Windowmaker and found it perfectly adequate. This was on a 200MMX. Alas, trying this makes you wonder why, on this old hardware, you really want to replace W98. Security maybe. But the combination of Office 98 and W98 on a really old machine, its hard, maybe impossible, to get the same combination of performance and features... Peter

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Damn Small Linux & Vector Linux
by Simon Royal 20 Apr '06

20 Apr '06

Hi As you know I am still trying to setup a machine permanently with Linux. I have gotten very cheaply a Thinkpad 755CX and a Thinkpad 770. I have been playing with Damn Small Linux, which you probably are aware is aimed at very low-end machines. On my wifes 1.3Ghz Duron it screams along. I have read that it is very good with hardware and even with wireless cards. All I want this machine for is wireless surfing and to tinker with Linux. I know it would be easier to run Windows 98 or something, but I can't stand the fact of owning a Windows machine - having my wifes is bad enough. I was also looking at Vector Linux also aimed at low end machines. Any way, has anyone used Damn Small Linux or Vector Linux and offer any advice. The Thinkpad 755CX is a Pentium 75 with no CD and no USB and cost me £1.50 The Thinkpad 770 is a Pentium 350 with CD and USB and cost me £20 I am probably going to strip some of the parts from the 755CX to put in the 770 and bought it basically because it came with an IBM power pack which the 770 didn't. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Regards Simon Royal -- >- Visit my website www.simonroyal.co.uk >- The box said Windows 2000 or better, so I bought a Mac

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Damn Small Linux & Vector Linux
by Simon Royal 20 Apr '06

20 Apr '06

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Backup internet access via dialup 'pay as you go' providers
by Ashley T. Howes, Ph.D. 19 Apr '06

19 Apr '06

I want to be able to use a backup provider for my internet access via dialup when I have problems with my current ISP (NTL). Are there companies still around which do dialup internet access where you only pay for the phone call when you use it, and are member using such services? If so, please let me know who you use and why? I'm planning to use dialup as a backup instead of an ADSL line from someone else in order to keep the cost down. Thanks in advance for your help. -- Ashley T. Howes, Ph.D. http://www.ashleyhowes.com/ "A martial art is like a mirror in which you look at yourself before you wash your face in the morning. You see yourself simply, the way that you are." - Bira Almeidai

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Thinkpad 755CX
by Simon Royal 18 Apr '06

18 Apr '06

Hi Does anyone know any information on the IBM Thinkpad 755CX or where I could get some. The IBM site is useless unless you already own a thinkpad and can provide a number of it. Regards Simon Royal -- >- Visit my website www.simonroyal.co.uk >- The box said Windows 2000 or better, so I bought a Mac

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 17 Apr '06

17 Apr '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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Meeting report: 2nd Thursday Norwich pub meet, 13th April
by Jonathan McDowell 15 Apr '06

15 Apr '06

To make up for forgetting to send a meeting reminder this week, here's a brief meeting report. Despite the lack of a reminder there was a good turn out. Richard Lewis, Steve Engledow, Dave Reynolds, Becca Sibley, Paul Corner, Rob[0] (no idea about surname), Neil (again, no idea about surname), Adam Bower, Brett Parker, Eli and myself where all there. We were happily ensconced in our usual corner to the left of the door. A game of Frustration (which appears to be renamed Ludo) was played, though I'm not sure if it was ever completed. Likewise Steve kept starting random games of Pontoon. More on topic discussions included Neil talking about his Zaurus (I no longer have mine), comparisons of recent AMD/Intel chips (in particular with respect to power consumption) and the difficulties of producing a document management system when all you've got is Word (with an interesting diversion into how UK deers got briefly blamed for BSE in Chile). I've no idea what went on at the other end of the table though. A good night I think with a good turnout. Hopefully we'll get an equally good result at the Syleham kit meet in a couple of weeks (Saturday 30th April). J. [0] Dave claims Rob looks like Noel Fielding of the Mighty Boosh, as seen at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8586532516895205430 -- Revd. Jonathan McDowell, ULC | umop 3pisdn w,I u3ym hx3s os w,I

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Slax and network?
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 13 Apr '06

13 Apr '06

Hi Folks, I thought I'd toy with Slaxkware in the shape of the "Slackware Live", or "Slax", CD for which an ISO can be downloaded from http://slax.linux-live.org/ It seems very nice! But there's a network problem which puzzles me. I tried it on a laptop, whose normal LAN address is 192.168.1.5, using as gateway another machine on that net is 192.168.1.3 and which also connects to an ADSL router which has address 192.168.1.1; and has a second NIC for local subnet 192.168.0.0 So, once I'm logged in to Slax (which defaults its network to 192.168.0.0), I ifconfig -a eth0 192.168.1.5 which seems to do that job OK; then route del default eth0 route add default gw 192.168.1.3 eth0 which also seems to do that job OK. When I now do ifconfig and route the results are identical to what that laptop has in normal use. However, while I can ping 192.168.1.3 [the gateway nachine] ping 192.168.1.1 [the router] any attempt to say ping 192.168.0.1 [a third machine on the other subnet] or any external IP address such as ping 130.88.200.20 fails. It's as though the gateway is not acting as a gateway. I can't make out why this should be so, since the laptop setup looks the same as it does in normal use, and nothing has been changed on any other machine. Any ideas, anyone? With thanks, and best wishes, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 13-Apr-06 Time: 11:26:03 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Firefox foreign characters problem
by Chris Green 12 Apr '06

12 Apr '06

When I run Firefox on Solaris (and I think Slackware, so it is a Linux question, sort of) I get odd funnies in the character display when displaying Polish characters such as:- a with a cedilla l with a line through it etc. These are characters which don't have 'west' European equivalents. I have no problems with French accents or German umlauts. If I run my Windows copy of Firefox the characters display correctly. Under Solaris/Linux the characters are displayed as the right character but either too large, or too small or in a different font. It's not the View - Character Encoding setting, that is correct (and if you change it the characters in question change to funny symbols). So, what do I need to do to get these characters displayed correctly? -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Thinkpads
by Syd Hancock 11 Apr '06

11 Apr '06

Just a note to agree with the recommendation for the T23 Thinkpad. Got one from a seller in Ipswich via ebay a couple of years ago and it still serves me very well - very good value for money. Just about everything works in linux including sound and ethernet - out of the box on a stock mandriva 2006 install and no doubt just as easy on other distros. All those handy function keys for volume, screen brightness, switching to external monitor, suspend to ram etc all work although 'hibernate' to disk using acpi doesn't work for me yet. I use a wireless card in the card-bus slot and it switches cleanly and automatically from ethernet to wireless and back again. Using the GUI tools to setup ethernet and wireless networking was very simple - has to be as I'm no techie. Not a 'desktop-replacement' and no 3D graphics in the X driver but in general it does everything that you need from a laptop on a day-to-day basis. Handles KDE, OpenOffice.org, Firefox etc with no problems. I added a DVD-ROM/CD-writer and K3b works fine. I take it to school sometimes and connect to the overhead projector and sound system to play music DVDs to the kids as a special treat - helps me to enjoy work more too :-) Syd

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