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Anyone got a spare monitor / swap shop wiki page
by Joe Button 08 Nov '04

08 Nov '04

Hi. Does anyone else think it might be worth making a wiki page with a list of kit people have available? If people think it's a good idea I'll start one. Which is my way of introducting the cheeky question: Does anyone have a spare monitor they could sell me cheap? Mine died a while ago and I'd rather not buy a brand new one due to a combination of environmental concern and meanness. They seem to go pretty cheaply on ebay but I'd like to avoid the postage cost if possible. Also, can anyone recommend something to do with my old one? As far as I can tell no-one wants to repair it. Cheers, Joe

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 08 Nov '04

08 Nov '04

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. 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 tkirc, bitchx, xchat 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://freshmeat.net/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

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mdk 10.1 Off. and nvidia
by Syd Hancock 07 Nov '04

07 Nov '04

Never forget - google is your friend :-) Especially groups.google.com From alt.os.linux.mandrake: >Exactly the same problems here. Then I used the rpm on the December >Linux Format DVD version (media/drivers/) subdirectory. > > nvidia-kernel-2.6.8.1-10mdk-6111-1mdk.i586.rpm >instant success. >There is one dependency. Can't rember whether it was >dkms-nvidia-6111-1mdk.i586.rpm >or >nvidia-6111-3mdk.i586.rpm >either way both are in the /media/drivers/subdirectory >so urpmi nvidia-kernel-2.6.8.1-10mdk-6111-1mdk.i586.rpm >will sort it HTH Syd

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lastlog puzzle
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 07 Nov '04

07 Nov '04

Hi Folks, On one (A) of my 3 running machines, I noticed that 'ls -ls' on /var/log shows: A: 44 -r-------- 1 root root 19136220 Oct 30 10:52 lastlog which is inconsistent: 44K according to $1, but 19136220 bytes (19MB) according to $6. The latter is enormous! However, it seems that it has some validity, since # cat lastlog | wc -c 19136220 gives the same result, here obtained by byte-counting the output of 'cat'. This first got me wondering if the lastlog file or its inode contents were corrupted. (For reference below: I don't have a file /var/log/faillog on this particular machine, A). Interestingly, however, when I look at 'ls -ls' for my two other machines (B & C), I get B: 3 -rw------- 1 root root 12216 Nov 6 15:32 faillog 3 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 16128 Nov 6 15:32 lastlog C: 8 -rw------- 1 root root 12072 Nov 4 13:17 faillog 16 -rw-r--r-- 1 root tty 146876 Nov 4 13:17 lastlog and for both machines, and also for both 'faillog' and 'lastlog', I see the same sort of discrepancy between $1 (size in KB) and $6 (size in bytes), the latter being distinctly too big compared with the former. I do not see this discrepancy for any other files in /var/log, on any of the three machines. This suggests that there's something a bit weird about 'lastlog' and 'faillog' as files, and that this is deliberate! And I'm wondering how on earth a 19MB lastlog file could arise (this machine, A, has been in use for a shorter time (about 1 year) than C (about 3.5 years) and much shorter than B (about 7 years); yet the sizes of 'lastlog' are in the reverse order!) The output of the 'lastlog' *command* in all cases is just a few dozen lines; but, again interestingly, doing it on machine (A) (the one with the 19MB lastlog) induces semi-paralysis and much swapping for a while. I'm puzzled! Comments welcome. Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 [NB: New number!] Date: 07-Nov-04 Time: 11:15:56 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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linux laptops
by Syd Hancock 07 Nov '04

07 Nov '04

(Sorry it's not threaded but only reading via online archives at present). The HP offering was disappointing. Very half-hearted effort especially not having the wi-fi configured. One suggestion: get an IBM Thinkpad from ebay and install a mainstream distro. The T series is good (I use a T23) and I have heard good things about the more recent X series as well. Good build quality. Thinkpads are sturdy. Three year warranty so it is easy to get one with a long warranty period remaining - mine came with 2.5 years remaining. Good support under linux with all mainstream distros - I use Mandrake 10.0 Official (although there is a gotcha with the X-windows config that you need to know about before installing). A linux-thinkpads mailing list and plenty of support and advice can be found via google etc. Lots of support for on IBM websites including linux-specific info. Did I say good build quality? :-) I added a wi-fi card and a second battery which swaps with the DVD/CD-R. It is an excellent general-purpose machine. ACPI is apparently problematic with recent 2.6.x kernels. I use APM instead and it works well. HTH Syd

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Trying to install apache2 and PHP5 on slackware9.1
by Chris Green 07 Nov '04

07 Nov '04

I'm trying (as per the subject line) to install apache2 and PHP5 on slackware 9.1. I've uninstalled PHP4 and apache1.3. I've installed the apache2 and PHP5 .tgz packages. I've installed the extra library dependencies that apache2 needs. Now I get the following error when I try and start apache:- Syntax error on line 8 of /etc/apache2/mod_php.conf: Invalid command 'AddType', perhaps mis-spelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration All seems in order to me. There is a line above the line 8 of mod_php.conf which loads the PHP5 library, i.e.:- LoadModule php5_module lib/apache2/libphp5.so No errors are reported for this line. All the lines were produced by script so typos are unlikely. Are there any old libraries in slackware 9.1 that may need updating to get apache2 to work? (I.e. libraries that aren't missing but are too old). Any other ideas? -- Chris Green (chris(a)areti.co.uk) "Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence."

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Mozilla vs Firefox + Thunderbird
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 06 Nov '04

06 Nov '04

Hi Folks, Some questions about Mozilla vs Firefox & Thunderbird. Mozilla is an integrated web software suite: browser, mail client, Web page (HTML) editor. Firefox is a web browser (supposed to have HTML editor as well but I couldn't find one in the firefox I recently downloaded). Thunderbird is an email client. Details of all three at http://www.mozilla.org/products For Firefox and Thunderbird, the above website emphasizes enhanced security available in each. Security is not mentioned in the description of Mozilla. It also recommends that, rather than go for Mozilla, one should go for Firefox + Thunderbird. It is stated that Mozilla is not a combination of Firefox + Thunderbird. This leaves me somewhat pondering what the pros and cons may be. There's some advantage, in princple, in having it all rolled into one (as in Mozilla). On the other hand, if there's a distinct security advantage in FF + TB, then that's very tempting. But I have some concern that I couldn't find a Web Page editor in Firefox: as a browser, it seems to have less in it than Mozilla does. It also seems that the download size of Mozilla (12MB) is much less than Firefox (8MB) + Thunderbird (10MB). So if space were an issue, then Moz might be prefereable to FF + TB. On the other hand, the extra space may represent extra and valuable functionality. Any comments? 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 [NB: New number!] Date: 06-Nov-04 Time: 20:43:06 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Wireless network problem
by bjsamuels＠beenthere-donethat.org.uk 06 Nov '04

06 Nov '04

I am having some problems with my very small wireless network. I have ADSL via a 4-port Netgear DG834 router to which is connected my floor-standing machine running Debian Sarge (up to date). Connected to the router is a Netgear WG602 wireless access point. I also have a Dell Latitude (fairly old at 400 MHz) and a Netgear WG511 PCMCIA wireless network card. I bought the WG511 because I'd seen on the web that it worked well with Linux using the Prism54 drivers. I discovered shortly after the purchase that there were two versions of the card - one made in Taiwan and one made in China. The Chinese one didn't have the Prism chipset and would not work with the current Linux drivers. I, of course, ended up with the Chinese version. I then discovered 'ndiswrappers'. This Linux software acts as a translation layer between the Windows XP drivers, on the CD that came with the card, and Linux. I installed that and have a working card. That's where the problems start. I can connect to the Internet and get data transfer speeds which are the same as I'd expect with the eth0 PCMCIA network card in the laptop connected to the router by cable - about 60kb download. If I try to mount a directory on the floor-standing machine everything slows down. It takes around 7 seconds to mount the directory compared with instantaneous over the cable network, the 'ls' command takes 2 secs and 'ls -l' takes 50 seconds. During that 50 seconds the data transfer light on the WG511 flickers slowly and intermittently - the time when there is no data transfer is much greater overall than the time when data is being transferred. There is no great CPU activity either. Connecting from the floor-standing machine to the laptop is just as slow. Trying the same with X running makes it even slower. Screen repaints are also very slow under X. I just tried copying a small file from one machine to the other and typing and screen painting was very slow but the actual copy was almost instantaneous. It appears that just mounting something on the remote machine slows the laptop down and, once disconnected, every thing goes back to normal. This all makes communication between the two computers via wireless virtually unusable. Any suggestions would be gratefully received. I'm out of ideas (I never had many in the first place). Output of iwconfig: wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"mynet" Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:08:5B:67:03:8D Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power:32 dBm RTS thr:2347 B Fragment thr:2346 B Encryption key:off Power Management:off Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-38 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0 Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

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Anyone want Mandrake 10.1 CDs?
by Joe Button 06 Nov '04

06 Nov '04

Hi. I downloaded Mandrake 10.1 a few days ago - I'm posting this from it. Would anyone like a copy? It's four CDs, and so far it all seems to work pretty well. I'm in Norwich if you'd like to collect them, or I could probably make it to the next meeting (Thursday at the City Gate?) if people would like me to bring them. Joe x

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Mandrake 10.1
by Syd Hancock 06 Nov '04

06 Nov '04

> Later, and as a Mandrakeclub standard member, I downloaded and > installed the 4 x CD 10.1 Official, and was a bit cheesed off. > There's no NVIDIA driver supplied as default, no flash player, no > acrobat reader, no Sun Java runtime or SDK - in fact none of the > "commercial" apps. That is probably because (AFAIK) it is the free download version, 100% Free and free software, available to anyone. "Standard" membership gives access to some extra support forums, ftp servers and early access to new versions a few weeks before they go public but not to licenced non-freebeer software. AFAIK you have to pay a little more for the so-called "Silver" level or above to get access to the "Powerpack" edition which includes the fifth CD containing the commercial apps and via mandrake Club. They are then installed automatically during normal install - 10.0 Official worked fine for me and included all the apps you mention (apart from nvidi which I didn't need). An alternative way to get the non-free stuff is to purchase a boxed edition. HTH Syd

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