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Irony....
by Peter Onion 27 Feb '06

27 Feb '06

"We don't want customers to be forced into buying something that isn't going to meet all their needs," said Barry Goffe, Microsoft's director of Windows client product management. Strikes me as ironic ! Peter

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Brett Parker 27 Feb '06

27 Feb '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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Once again I try - and fail!
by Barry Samuels 25 Feb '06

25 Feb '06

I had some help from the group a little while ago when I was trying to get my Thinkpad to boot from an external (USB/IDE) drive and, with various peoples' help I finally suceeded. Now I'm trying to do the same thing with a drive from another computer. I'm part way there but during boot I see: pivot_root: No such file or directory /sbin/init: 431: cannot open dev/console: No such file kernel panic: Attempted to kill init! Then the process proceeds with a few more lines about USB and SCSI until: Attached scsi disk sda at scsi1, ... etc Attached scsi generic sg1 at scsi1, ... etc and here it stops. I don't remember seeing these errors on my previous attempt. Any suggestions (in the nicest possible way of course) would be appreciated. Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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[ALUG Announce] Autistic GNU/Linux User Group http://autisticlug.org/
by MJ Ray 24 Feb '06

24 Feb '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 ----- From: Steve Parkes Like many Linux users and contributers I am on the Autistic spectrum. Over the last few years I have ranted over and over at friends and colleagues about how existing LUGS are failing their membership I took the logical next step and formed a LUG for people on the Autistic spectrum or with co-morbid communication and self esteem issues. The Autistic GNU/Linux User Group is open to anybody on the Autistic Spectrum, with other communication or social issues or who wishes to be a friend of people with these problems. Membership is open to anybody using or interested in using a Unix™ like system with particular emphasis on Free and Open Source Software. We have a mailing list where people can geek out and no question or comment is considered off-topic from the uber deep geekery of kernel development to the newbie questions about ls, a wiki for knowledge management and hope to provide a link to local LUGS via our membership so our members can reach out into the wider Linux community and meet like minded people. With the support of mailing lists from lug.org.uk we hope to provide a worldwide virtual LUG with a membership stretching around the glode making visits to events and meetings anywhere in the world an enjoyable experience for people on the spectrum. http://autisticlug.org/ Please forward this message to anybody you think may be interesting in joining the LUG or helping support autistic Linux users when visiting your LUG. cheers sparkes ----- 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

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Icon editor - any ideas?
by Chris Green 24 Feb '06

24 Feb '06

I am looking for a simple icon editor for my Slackware system. The only two Linux icon editors I can find are babygimp (which almost works on my system but I get a perl error when it runs) and kIconEdit which seems to want an ancient version of QT for it to build. Does anyone have any other ideas (like should I just use gimp?). -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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That old SCO chestnut.
by Ten 24 Feb '06

24 Feb '06

I'm sure a lot of us have spent a fair amount of time reading about and discussing this matter, so if you've been living underground and don't know what the heck I'm on about, I shan't recant at length about it - a swift google or a look at http://www.linux.org/news/sco/timeline.html will see you right. So anyway, I expect people have heard about this, but here's some links anyway: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060221220214214 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060223040825533 Ignoring the unnecessary crowing for a minute, I'm skeptical about how IBM are going to make anything of this, but wouldn't it be marvellous if they did? I'll bet the direct subpoena to MS is nothing more than an empty gesture evidence-wise, but there might just be a chance of catching them by the BayStars. I'm not of the ilk that wring their hands and chant at night over the fate of Microsoft, but I can't help thinking that if their supreme arrogance dropped them in serious guano over a silly legal feint like this, the line of sympathisers would be mighty short. Ten. -- There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary, and those who don't.

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[ALUG Announce] Monitors
by Laslett Studio 22 Feb '06

22 Feb '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 have several monitors that need a good home -- I can't guarentee they all still work -- but they did when they went in the garage -- I am in Norwich You can call me 01603 617632 Patrick ----- 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

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Convert a photo (.JPG) to an icon - how?
by Chris Green 22 Feb '06

22 Feb '06

This is probably a trivial question, but still.... How can I convert a photograph (probably stored as a JPEG file) to an icon file that I can use as my favicon? It would be useful if, on the way, some sort of tone separation process was available to make it work better as an icon too. -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Bash script to test serial ports
by Stuart Bailey 22 Feb '06

22 Feb '06

HI, I'm trying to test serial ports using a bash script. Currently I have: DATA="1234567890abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz" stty -F /dev/ttyS0 ispeed 115200 ospeed 115200 stty -F /dev/ttyS1 ispeed 115200 ospeed 115200 echo -n " Sending data from /dev/ttyS0 to /dev/ttyS1:" ./send_data.sh /dev/ttyS0 $DATA & exec 3</dev/ttyS1 while read -t 2 -u 4 RESULT do if [[ "$RESULT" == "$DATA" ]] then echo " PASSED" else echo " FAILED" fi done I repeat this script for data in the other direction. This seems to work fine if a cable is connected between the two ports, and data transfers are successful. However, if the first time round, but if no cable is connected between ttyS0 and ttyS1, the first test reports FAILED, and then the script hangs. BTW the send_data script is a follows: sleep 1 echo $2 > $1 2>/dev/null I thought the read -t 2 ... should timeout after 2 seconds if no data is received. Any idea why this hangs? Also, is there a better way to test these ports? The system I am trying to test is limited - perl and awk are not installed. Many thanks, Stuart. -- --------------------------------------- Stuart Bailey BSc (hons) CEng CITP MBCS LinuSoft (Proprietor) Linux Specialist (01953) 601294 (07778) 383739 http://www.linusoft.co.uk ----------------------------------------

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64bit computing on the cheap
by Wayne Stallwood 20 Feb '06

20 Feb '06

Anybody interested in mucking about with an Alpha box ? I have a spare one now due to an upgrade, AlphaServer 1000 Big unit but not as noisy or power hungry/space heating as it looks. 1GB of RAM, complete with ECC parity modules. 266 Mhz Alpha processor (a bit faster than it sounds) 7 hot swap bays ( a selection of drives will be supplied to go in these, mostly 2.1GB units but I do have at least one 4.3 to go in there) Dat drive (untested) Had it running the Debian alpha port...it can also run OpenVMS (hobby licence is available for free still I think) and Tru64 (again you'll need a licence) or Windows NT (not much point, there are hardly any binaries available) or BSD Unit is currently set to a local (VGA monitor PS2 KB/mouse) console but I can reconfigure for serial console if required. ECU floppy included for hardware configuration and I'll shove in a Ethernet card that Debian understands easily. Any offer considered...otherwise it is going on Ebay Also may have a DSSI disk array/host adaptor and disks, depending on if I get time to wipe them...However these need the Array controllers reconfiguring (which requires a special serial lead) and I have never been able to get the adaptors to play on Debian anyway. Also they are 6x2.1GB which hardly seems worth the effort.

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