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Which laptop to buy, help me decide
by Chris Green 29 May '17

29 May '17

Having increased my budget somewhat I seem to have narrowed my choice of laptop on which to run Xubuntu to one of the following two:- A - pcspecialists/novatech/entroware custom system:- https://www.entroware.com/store/orion https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/ultraNoteIV-14/ These are all the same machine built by Clevo and configured by the various companies above. Pcspecialists are cheapest. For my 8Gb, Core I5, SSD machine the cost is around £540. B - A Lenovo Ideapad 510S http://www3.lenovo.com/gb/en/laptops/ideapad/500-series/Lenovo-IdeaPad-510S… Price (if you shop around) a little less than the one above. I've checked and according to Lenovo forums etc. Ubuntu Linux installs on it without problems. Does anyone have any comments about either of these machines that might push me one way or the other? -- Chris Green

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Has anyone heard of Entroware?
by Chris Green 29 May '17

29 May '17

While searching for my new laptop I came across this company:- https://www.entroware.com They build and sell Ubuntu OS laptops and the prices are not unreasonable. Does anyone know anything about them or has anyone here bought one? -- Chris Green

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Nedd new laptop AND seek rcovery of files from VirtualBox
by Ted Harding 27 May '17

27 May '17

Greetings All! Chris Green's recent message arrived as I was about to compose a similar one! My (somewhat ancient but much-loved) Advent 8117 recently crashed. It had Windows XP, into which I installed VirtualBox into which I then installed Debian (Etch, I think; and Ubuntu). It is the Windows, apparently, which crashed. While, after repeated attempts, it is possible to get windows started, many of the applications icons have vanished rom the screen, including the VirtualBox one. So Linux is now inaccessible on this machine. Yesterday I took it to be looked at by a Computer Suppport person I know (very amiliar with Linux), and we did get somewhere -- using a Slackware Live CD it was possible to have a look at the filesystem. However, when I tried to reboot it just now nothing happened: no sign of power reaching the compuyer (and the battery is dead anyway). I suspect that yesterday's 60-mile round trip may have broken a power-supply connection somewhere in the computer. So FIRST: I'm seeking a replacement. No special hardware requirements beyond a good amount of HD space and of RAM, plus the usual ethernet cable, print (via USB cable), USB ockets etc. And a nicely laid out keyboard with very visible labels (letters etc.) would be very welcome. especially if the "delete" key is at bottom right instead of top right. I'd like it to have Linux installed, preferably Debian, but with Gnome 2 desktop rather than later versions (Fermilab's Scientific Linux has stuck with Gnome 2), since the way I work depends heavily on the array of workspaces displayed at the bottom of the screen in Gnome 2. So any suggested offers? (willing to pay a reasonable price). Then SECOND: I really want to recover files in the Linux systems which have accumulated over the years (not fussy about the entire OS's, though some of the system config files are also important). The Linux filesystems are in VirtualBox ".vdi" files on the Windows XP system, which I was able to locate after booting with the Slackware CD. I've been looking around extensively for info about how to set about this. This does not seem to be straightfoward unless the VDI file is transerred (somehpow ... ) to another machine on which VirtualBox is installed. Any help or advice? With thanks, Ted.

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Looking for a laptop as my T430 has died
by Chris Green 27 May '17

27 May '17

My faithful Lenovo/IBM T430 seems to have died so I'm looking for a replacement. A similar specification would be fine, price is the major issue, the T430 is a refurbished one and I'd be quite happy to go for refurbished again. Requirements are:- Third generation core I5 or better processor 14" screen SSD drive (though I could transfer the one from my T430) 8Gb memory USB 3.0 Gbit ethernet There's no need for any OS though I guess it will be bound to have Windows in which case 7 preferred. There's not so many brands, basically Lenovo, HP/Compaq, Dell, Fujitsu, Asus and Acer seem to be it. Does anyone have any comments on good/bad brands? I've been happy with the Lenovo T430 (but it has died!). So recommendations awaited please. -- Chris Green

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Recovering from ext4 corruption, logs & rsync help
by steve-ALUG＠hst.me.uk 22 May '17

22 May '17

Hi gurus! Request for help below. First, what happened. I had made a copy of some music files/directories I wished to copy to my phone using pcmanfm (I think) but mid copy I got errors "Can't write to readonly filesystem". Thinking this meant that probably my main drive had errored somehow and switched to read-only mode, I decided to reboot, via the shutdown menu. OOPS. Machine would then not boot. It tried to do a on-book fsck, which crashed, but if I interrupted the fsck, it also crashed. I found a live cd, booted from it, loaded mdadm and reassembled my raid arrays then fscked my two partitions /, /home. Errors were found and fixed. Basically some inodes multiplly claimed, and a few reference counts were wrong. Files were placed in Lost + Found. Rebooted & booted OK. Worked out all the lost & Found files were jpgs from my photo albums. sorted them all out. Rebooted again, but sometimes my desktop won't appear, & I'm left at a text loging prompt. Q1) If the desktop doesn't appear, which log files to examine? Dmesg & xorg.*.log? Q2) Any ideas which log files I should check to try and work out what went wrong yesterday? I can't see anything obvious in Kern.log - just a few UFW entries then stuff from when I next booted it. I backup my files via various methods, but one is an Rsync to a USB drive. I backup using sudo rsync -av --del / /media/me/USBDrive/ --exclude-from=/home/me/rsynchbackexclude rsynchbackexclude is a text file containing stuff like /sys/* /dev/* /proc/* /media/* /mnt/* /tmp/* /lost+found/* /var/tmp/* *.iso I want to "compare" the backup with the live hard disk and see what, if anything, is missing. If anything is missing I'll restore if from a different backup source though. I suspect that I need to do a "dry-run" copy from the USB drive to the live hard disk q3) Am I right with this command line to do a "dry run" restore, i.e. show me what would copy, which is in effect, what is different between the USB disk and the live drive? sudo rsync -av --dry-run /media/me/USBDrive/ / --log-file=LogToFile -v = verbose -a = -rlptgoD =>r recursive l copy links as symlinks ptgo preserve permissions, times, group, owner D preserve device files & special files --dry-run = do a dry run --list-only = list changes but don't do any --log-file log to file is this right, or should I do i = itemise changes instead of dry-run? Any help/advise welcomed. Thanks Steve

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How to locate bookmarks data in Mozilla/Firefox/Iceweasel ...
by Ted Harding 18 May '17

18 May '17

Greetings all! I'm seeking to rescue important files and other info from a laptop that has just "crashed". I had installed Linux (Debian) on a virtual machine (VirtualBox) installed on windows XP. It's Windows XP which has gone both bottom-up and tits-up. I think I can probably use a CD with Slackware installed to boot from (Ive tried it on another machine, and it works), which should then give me access to the Linux filesystem stored on the hard drive separately from the Windows filesystem. Once there, when it concerns files which I know where to find on the filesystem, there should be no problem reading their contents (though extracting the files themselves for transfer to my working machine may be another issue). However, one important item which I would like to plant on my working machine is the set of bookmarks (hierarchically organised) that I have built up over many years on the crashed machine's Mozilla/Firefos/Iceweasel browser. Presumably this lurks somewhere is a ".filename" in my home directory. But I've not managed to sniff out such a file on my working machine (also Debian), so I wouldn't know where to look on the crashed machine. Therefore, please, can anyone tell me where the file is likely to be, and what it's likely to be named? Then I could transcribe its contents to the other machine. With thanks, Ted.

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Gnome panel?
by Bev Nicolson 09 May '17

09 May '17

Is there any way of adding or removing applets from the Gnome2 panel? I've googled but can’t find any info. The usual advice (alt + right click doesn't work any more, it seems.) Bev

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lappy aboard
by Phil Thane 09 May '17

09 May '17

Thanks for your help guys. Similar answers from both sides, seems to be a choice of either a car adapter or a bare board type converter. The car type is likely to be easier, in fact I think it would be a good idea to fit a couple of 'cigar lighter' type sockets when I do a refit in the winter. Regarding the two battery setup, I will keep them as engine battery and leisure battery, but probably fit a split charging circuit so that the leisure battery is topped up by the engine once the engine battery is full in case the solar panel doesn't supply enough once I add more lights, laptop, audio, shower pump... On the other hand it would be good to have the solar panel keep the engine battery topped up when we don't use it for a while, so will investigate split charging in both directions. Might get complicated unless someone makes a specialist control box for just that scenario, in which case it'll get expensive! -- Phil Thane www.pthane.co.uk phil(a)pthane.co.uk 01767 449759 07582 750607 Twitter @pthane

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lappy aboard
by Phil Thane 09 May '17

09 May '17

This is Linux related, sort of, so I hope ALUG don't mind the apparently random question. (cc'd to my old LUG in Wrexham, they're used to mad questions from me). I have just bought a canal/river boat and want to use my Linux laptop on it. The PSU for it is labelled 19v, 4.7 amps. The boat runs on 12v. The simplest but quite pricy option is to get an inverter to create 220v AC then use the standard PSU but apart from cost it lacks elegance. The boat has 2 completely separate circuits (at present, I'll probably re-wire it next winter). There is a 12v battery charged by the engine that is used for the engine starter and a few ancillaries such as the horn and nav lights. The there is another 12v battery charged by a solar panel on the roof used for cabin lights. If I connect the two in series I should get 24v then I should be able to acquire (or even assemble) a DC-DC voltage regulator to bring it down to 19v. Anyone see any problems with that? -- Phil Thane www.pthane.co.uk phil(a)pthane.co.uk 01767 449759 07582 750607 Twitter @pthane

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Re: [ALUG] lappy aboard
by Noel Galer 08 May '17

08 May '17

>-----Original Message----- >From: main [mailto:main-bounces@lists.alug.org.uk] On Behalf Of Phil Thane >Sent: Monday, May 08, 2017 7:41 PM >To: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk >Cc: relay(a)wrexham-lug.org >Subject: [ALUG] lappy aboard > >This is Linux related, sort of, so I hope ALUG don't mind the apparently >random question. (cc'd to my old LUG in Wrexham, they're used to mad >questions >from me). > >I have just bought a canal/river boat and want to use my Linux laptop on >it. >The PSU for it is labelled 19v, 4.7 amps. The boat runs on 12v. The >simplest >but quite pricy option is to get an inverter to create 220v AC then use the >standard PSU but apart from cost it lacks elegance. > >The boat has 2 completely separate circuits (at present, I'll probably re->wire >it next winter). There is a 12v battery charged by the engine that is used >for >the engine starter and a few ancillaries such as the horn and nav lights. >The >there is another 12v battery charged by a solar panel on the roof used for >cabin lights. > >If I connect the two in series I should get 24v then I should be able to >acquire (or even assemble) a DC-DC voltage regulator to bring it down to >19v. > >Anyone see any problems with that? > >-- >Phil Thane > >www.pthane.co.uk >phil(a)pthane.co.uk >01767 449759 >07582 750607 >Twitter @pthane May I make an alternative suggestion ? There are lots of really inexpensive 'Boost' or 'Step-Up' regulators now available on eBay. These are switch mode and therefore very efficient too. It is a common application to use one of these to provide 24V from a 12V system and 19V would not be a problem as they are mostly adjustable. Here is a link to such an item that might be suitable ( I have no financial or other interest in this item or supplier, it was picked at random ):- http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-DC-Converter-150W-10-32V-to-12-35V-Boost-S tep-up-Power-Supply-Module-/252691490519?hash=item3ad59626d7:g:LxQAAOSw2 41YWsVX This is just an example, there are plenty more, larger and smaller, but this might do the job with a bit more heat sinking as is recommended. There are a few caveats too. Some laptop power supplies, Dell being an example, use an extra wire ( with Dell it's a small signal only pin in the centre ) to provide a power pack identification. If not present, things don't work too well despite supplying the correct voltage and sufficient current. This is supposedly to ensure the correct power rated pack is used, but you and I might just think it is to prevent after market PSUs from being used. If your source battery goes flat ( under 10.5V = zero charge ) a boost regulator will just keep sucking charge out of a lead acid battery and damage it, but then so might any other drain on that battery, e.g. lights. If you connect the two 12V systems in series as you suggest, you will be ok as long as both do not share a common ground line. I have no idea if this might be the case. Also, when one system is depleted, lets face it they are unlikely to have the same capacity, i.e. one goes flat as above ( < 10.5V ) damage could still occur to one system. But if you do, a quick look on eBay for a 'Buck' regulator similar to the link I gave, would do that job. If you decide to use a boost regulator and end up with one that has a Constant Current control, don't be tempted to set this to the current on the laptop power supply. I would set it somewhat higher, in your case 6A or more, or to maximum to handle transients when switching on etc. The laptop will only pull the current it needs. I use these things all over the place including my 'Demonic' WolfLite handlamp that instead of a 3W bulb, now has a 40V 1A LED unit running from 18V of LiPo batteries. Best regards, Noel ( Xorsyst ) _______________________________________________ main(a)lists.alug.org.uk http://www.alug.org.uk/ https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above!

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