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Desktops
by Peter Hunter 01 Jul '05

01 Jul '05

Hi everyone, Two questions that I know you can all answere for me! I have just installed Suse 9.2 pro, and for a change I decided to install and run Gnome, but I don't like it too much and want to go back to KDE. I have installed KDE from the suse DVD but how do I now change desktops? Maybe I should download the latest version of KDE first and install and run that? Anyway, that's the first question. The second is, if I download the latest Kernal, how do I install and run that? Oh, just one other, how do I re-boot the GUI without having to re-boot the computer? Many thanks. I await the flood of replies (Pleaseeeeeeee!!) Peter

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CD Audio Autoplay
by Wayne Stallwood 01 Jul '05

01 Jul '05

Not being that used to Gnome I am hoping that someone can help me with this small problem. I am currently ripping my entire CD collection to store on a little Media Server I have built myself. I am using Grip which is fine. However every time I insert an Audio CD Gnome launches a player and starts playing it. I then have to stop this before I can rip the contents. How do I disable this behaviour ?

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Ubuntu
by Andy Trevor 30 Jun '05

30 Jun '05

Guys quick question about kernels in Ubuntu. Can anyone see any major issues with running Ubuntu with a 2.4 kernel ? We are working on a solution that use Suns Sunray terminals and the Sunray server software only runs on a 2.4 kernel so we need to look at this as an option. The only other route open is to go fully Solaris 10 (which throws up a stack of other issues) Thanks in advance -- Regards Andy Trevor Technical Director Cutter Project Limited www.cutterproject.co.uk

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G5 vs X68-64 and OSX vs Linux
by Wayne Stallwood 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

A while ago I was complaining on list that I couldn't find a decent comparasion between Apple hardware running Linux and an x86 machine. Another thing I was interested in was the comparative performance of running services such as apache or mysql. Anybody else interested should read this http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436 (use the "Print this article" at the bottom to get it on one long page)

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[ALUG Announce]Help! iCON - Norfolk CC club directory
by MJ Ray 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

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 asked on the main list and had no reply: would someone else who lives in Norfolk please be the second listed contact for ALUG on Norfolk County Council's iCON listing? Email me or see http://lists.alug.org.uk/main/2005-June/021852.html for more details. Thanks, -- MJ Ray (slef), K. Lynn, England, email see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ ----- 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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Help! Software Freedom Day 2005
by MJ Ray 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

Could anyone interested in organising an event for Software Freedom Day on Saturday 10 September 2005 please email me? If >5 are interested, I'll set up a mailing list and we can start to organise things like who does what where and when. I hope that we can accommodate all participants' ambitions for it, but if we split for some reason, so be it. More info: http://softwarefreedomday.org/ -- MJ Ray (slef), K. Lynn, England, email see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/

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Hamachi (P2P VPN) OSS equivalent
by Mark Rogers 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

I don't know if anyone here has played with Hamchi: www.hamachi.cc Essentially its a closed source (but free as in beer) VPN system which uses a peer-to-peer infrastructure. Effectively it allows anyone to join a VPN (with the right passwords, etc) without any of the normal "fun" associated with VPN configuration. It has two major downfalls: 1. It's Windows only at present (a Linux client is coming, though) 2. As I said above, its closed source. The second point is the one that concerns me most. Security software which is not open source basically just bothers me. Of-course point 1 is also a side effect of point 2 (it's not the developer's priority, so it's not been done, where with the OSS model I'm pretty sure it would have been by now). Since I'm new to Hamachi, its quite possible that there are similar OSS projects. Does anyone here know of anything like it? [I will say that on Windows platforms Hamachi is very effective at what it does.] Mark Rogers, More Solutions Ltd

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Sharp Zaurus
by Darren 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

Im off to Spain in a few weeks and will be taking the laptop + Mobile to stay connected etc.. But I was looking at various Sharp Zaurus's to take and use when I don't want to have the laptop with me. Does anyone have one who can say ya or na to using one? Thanks Darren

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Apple to use Intel chips
by Martyn Drake 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

No doubt you've all probably read this by now: http://news.com.com/Apple+to+ditch+IBM%2C+switch+to+Intel+chips/2100-1006_3… If this is really true, it'll be interesting to see how this is going to affect existing Mac users (who will have probably invested lots of money in software already) and existing PC users assuming that Apple opens up and allows anybody to run Mac OX for x86 processors. M.

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Adventures with USB storage!
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 29 Jun '05

29 Jun '05

Greetings! Here be a tale or two. Red Hat 9, by the way, on a Compaq Armada 1750 laptop with USB port. To begin at the beginning. For some time I've had a Disgo 256MB USB memory stick. I have had no trouble using this, able to remove it and re-insert it at any time, mount it, and access the files. I set up an entry in /etc/fstab for it which says: /dev/sda1 /flash auto noauto,suid,dev,exec,user 0 0 so, once I've inserted it and something-or-other goes through a detection process, I can 'mount /flash' and all is well. Or was. Yesterday, I spotted a Fujifilm FinePix F440 digital camera on sale at a very interesting price. After checking out reviews (all pretty favourable for general usage) I went back and bought it. A bit speculatively from the Linux point of view, but I reckoned that a similar approach to the USB stick would work. Since it has been some time since the USB stick was last used, the laptop has been rebooted a time of two since then. Having taken a few test photos, I then connected the camera to the USB port, switched it on, waited for the "detect", and then as usual ran 'mount /flash'. Again, all went well, I could download the picture files (JPG) and they were good. Then ran 'umount /flash' and disconnected the camera. Then I tried its "video" function: you can take up to 60 secs of video (with sound) with this camera, which gives you a 4MB AVI file. Again, no problem re-connecting the camera and down- loading the AVI file. (And, by the way, 'xanim' plays these files well). So far so good, and I repeated the above tests a few time (again, disconnecting and reconnecting the camera to the USB port, with 'mount /flash' and 'umount /flash' each time). It looked as though this arrangement would work just the same as for the USB memory stick. But then, to try to explore the reason for something unexpected (see "FINAL INDEPENDENT QUESTION" at end), I inserted the USB memory stick. Unusual and unpromising messages on "autodetect", and 'mount /flash' gave message "mount: No medium found". FAILURE!! So I then explored with happens if I reboot. It's a long story, but this is the summary: A. Repeated connection disconnection of same device following a reboot. 1. Reboot. Insert USB memory stick. It works fine first time, as above. Remove USB stick, reinsert. FAILURE. And it fails every time I re-try unless I reboot. 2. Reboot. Connect camera. Works fine, as above. Switch off camera, disconnect. Re-connect, switch on, and it works fine. Ad infinitum without reboot. B. Alternating connection of the two devices following a reboot. 3. Reboot. Insert USB memory stick. Works fine as at (1). remove USB stick, connect camera. Camera fails (message "no medium found" on 'mount /flash'). Disconnect camera, insert USB memory stick, stick fails (message "/dev/sda1 is not a valid block device" on 'mount /flash'). Exactly the same failure for Camera as previous camera failure. Exactly the same failure for Stick as previous stick failure. Ditto ad infinitum with Camera/Stick/Camera/... 4. Reboot. Connect camera. Works fine as at (2). Disconnect camera, insert Stick. Stick fails with "no medium found". Remove stick, connect camera. Camera OK as at (2). Disconnect camera, insert stick. Stick fails again in exctaly the same way. Camera OK. Stick fails. Camera OK. And so on. SO: Whichever device is first in following a reboot works fine first time. If Stick is first in, it only works first time, and fails subsequently, and Camera always fails. If Camera is first in, it works first time and every time, whether Stick has been used or not; but Stick always fails. So that's the situation. If I only use the Camera, there would be no problem. But I would have to reboot each time I want to use the Stick, whether I have used the Camera or not! Any ideas? (I suspect I may have tickled Red Hat's "kudzu" in some way it didn't like, but I've never managed to disentangle what goes on with kudzu). FINAL INDEPENDENT QUESTION: This is what got the above saga rolling (though I'd have hit it some time anyway). I wanted to transfer the Camera files directly to a different machine networked to the laptop (since I usually keep stuff like photos on the other). Rather than download from Camera to laptop and then ftp them across, I thought I'd try downloading to Machine 2 direct from the camera via NFS. So, with the Camera connected to the laptop and mounted on /flash, from machine 2, I (as root) NFS-mounted the laptop's root directory machine 2. The directory of the Camera memory chip was visible on the laptop, type VFAT, and 'ls .flash' etc. showed all the files on the Camera. However, while the laptop's file system (including the presence of /flash, and files in other directories) was visible from Machine 2, 'ls laptop/flash' showed an empty directory on machine 2. This was unexpected, so I wondered if it had something to do with the fact that what was mounted on the laptop's /flash directory was a USN storage device, was a peculiarity of the camera, or whatever.. Hence I thought I would experiment by trying to NFS-mount the laptop with the Stick in instead. So I plugged in the stick, did 'mount /flash', and then found myself in the above Saga! Therefore, is anyone can answer this independent question as well (or instead of) the business about Stick/Camera conflict, I'd be interested! Thanks, and best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 26-Jun-05 Time: 14:50:31 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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