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More Speed
by Stan Fraser 07 May '04

07 May '04

Thanks for all the help. It was just an experiment so may relegate it to windows 3.1 or try using it as a firewall with "smoothwall" or as a doorstop. ------ This mail box is protected by SpamWeed. http://www.spamweed.com

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New news and a Tux too!
by Steve Purkiss 07 May '04

07 May '04

Hiya, There's new news and a Tux too on www.open4.org so be sure to visit soon. The site is as everything in this industry, entirely what you decide to make of it. I sell sites based on XOOPS and OSCommerce with hosting and support, plus some official distros and some not-so-official steve compilations... The 'other' site is launching next week which will be providing coach loads of tourists, so feel free to come have a look around and I will be providing more in the way of 'furniture' over the next few years. Anyone see value in a member homepage editor? Would provide a "shopfront" for anyone FOC. Thanks -- Steve Purkiss Open for Organisations supporting open source software www.open4.org

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Webcam help
by Wayne Stallwood 06 May '04

06 May '04

I have found my 3Com Home Connect camera under a pile of other rubbish. When I plug it in all looks good, I get..... May 6 20:17:41 linux kernel: hub.c: new USB device 00:07.3-2, assigned address 2 May 6 20:17:41 linux kernel: usb.c: USB device 2 (vend/prod 0x4c1/0x9d) is not claimed by any active driver. May 6 20:17:45 linux kernel: usb.c: registered new driver vicam May 6 20:17:45 linux kernel: ViCam based webcam connected May 6 20:17:45 linux kernel: ViCam webcam driver now controlling video device 0 May 6 20:17:45 linux insmod: Using /lib/modules/2.4.21-215-athlon/kernel/ drivers/usb/usbvideo.o May 6 20:17:45 linux insmod: Symbol version prefix '' May 6 20:17:45 linux insmod: Using /lib/modules/2.4.21-215-athlon/kernel/ drivers/usb/vicam.o So far so good, now if I cat /dev/video0 the little led on the front of the camera lights up and loads of data'ish garbage appears in the console window. Here is where it starts to go wrong The application I want to use the camera with (gnomemeeting) starting that gives me a "Error while setting the frame size." message when I select /dev/ video0 as the video device. So now I want to hook up some sort of viewer to see if there is actually a picture comming out of the camera. So I tried xawtv and that just gives me a blue screen (not of death), I figured that it needs v4l to function. So I ran v4l-conf v4l-conf: using X11 display :0.0 dga: version 2.0 mode: 1280x1024, depth=24, bpp=32, bpl=5120, base=0xd0000000 /dev/video0 [v4l2]: ioctl VIDIOC_QUERYCAP: Invalid argument /dev/video0 [v4l]: no overlay support Here is where I start getting lost. Is there some step to process the stream from the camera I am missing, I thought that was the job of the Vicam driver. How do I set up v4l if it is incorrectly configured ? and do I need v4l to use the camera in gnomemeeting or does it access it directly....Or is there a better way to control/view the camera.

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sshd and PAM
by Tim Green 06 May '04

06 May '04

I appear to be suffering the riddle of sshd and PAM on one of my Debian Stable boxes. Both boxes have ssh_1%3a3.4p1-1.woody.3 (i386) installed, but only one of them has the stuff in /etc/ssh/sshd_conf about "UsePrivilegeSeparation" (yes), it has decided today to nolonger allow ssh connections with interactive keyboard password entry. Also in sshd_conf the "PAMAuthenticationViaKbdInt" is set to "off" to be compatible with the privilage separation. If I invert these two settings I still can't loggin after it asks about 6 different ways. The maddening thing is even "ssh 127.0.0.1" doesn't work on the bad box - returns "Permission denied, please try again." What should I change to restore normal connectivity? Ta. Tim.

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Suse kernel updates
by Wayne Stallwood 05 May '04

05 May '04

Is it me or does SuSE seem to release lots and lots of Kernel updates to 2.4.21 YOU is inviting me to download 2.4.21-215 to replace the -202 that I updated to only about a month ago, this one apparently fixes "Various security related bugs have been fixed inside the Linux kernel which could allow local attackers to either elevate their privileges or to cause a DoS attack. The fixes consist of - a fix for the memleak in do_fork() - a fix for the MCAST/setsockopt() buffer overflow (CAN-2004-0424) - a fix for the permission problem on /proc/scsi/qla2300/HbaApiNode - a fix for the buffer overflow in panic() (CAN-2004-0394)" I am sure I am getting offered at least one kernel update a month (it certainly feels like that sort of frequency) I cannot remember applying any kernel updates to my previous installation of SuSE 8.0, is it that SuSE are just very good at offering updates to relatively minor flaws or is it that 2.4.21 is ridden with security flaws. I wouldn't mind too much but currently my kernel is a little tainted by both the Nvidia drivers and VMware modules, both of which I assume may need to be compiled against the new kernel, also it just ruins my uptime score :o) What do other users who are less fortunate and on 56k dial up do, persevere the lengthy download or simply ignore most of which seem to be local vulnerabilities ? Do other distros have such an aggressive kernel update schedule ?

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Next Syleham meeting
by John Woodard 05 May '04

05 May '04

I have booked Syleham Village Hall for a Sunday meeting on 30th May. As per usual kit welcome; installs, trouble shooting and general prodding of bits that do not work will be available. More details to follow and I will try and find time to update the wiki real soon. Cheers, BJ

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Warning: Spam Blockers
by MJ Ray 04 May '04

04 May '04

If you install a challenge-response spam block and do not exempt the ALUG lists, I will unsubscribe you. You need to exempt the list and the address that sends subscription pings. So, if you send an email telling the list admins they must reply for you to get a service that you chose to subscribe to, I will verify your address and then reply by removing you. The list admins have enough to do already, without that. Challenge-response spam blocks are broken and a pain in the back side. Look up "C-R considered harmful" for some of the reasons. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing

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Odd Kmail behaviour
by Wayne Stallwood 04 May '04

04 May '04

I am getting a funny behaviour in the fancy headers of kmail. If I look at any post from MJ Ray with fancy headers enabled I get the text (Very poor) appended to the end of the from address So I looked at the full headers, and I see Organization: Very poor Very funny, but it had me baffled for a bit

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Travel share to AFFSAC
by MJ Ray 04 May '04

04 May '04

Hi all, The AFFS Annual Conference takes place in Birmingham on Saturday 15 May. Once again, it should be a collection of talks on free software applications and practical promotion. Some details are online at http://www.affs.org.uk/affsac.html and so is the sign-up form (hint hint, only 10 quid membership fee required, which should also include a year of newsletters). Someone would like to travel share from mid-Essex. If you can do that, please email me and I will put you in touch. -- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ for creative copyleft computing

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Re: [ALUG] Hello! LUG in Chelmsford...
by Steve Purkiss 04 May '04

04 May '04

:0) Thanks for cheering me up while I figure out VMWare! Steve On Mon, 2004-05-03 at 12:49, Chris Walker wrote: > On Mon 03 May, Steve Purkiss wrote: > > > > Hi, > > > > Firstly a big "Hello"! I joined up recently after conversations with > > MJR. I investigated the old Essex LUG but that seems to be dead and > > buried, so I was thinking of setting up a Chelmsford LUG (comedy name > > yet to be thought up) > > Has to be LUGE with TUX sliding through the snow on one :-) > > Sorry. I'll get my coat.

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