- main - earth.li

[Alug]Announce digest, Vol 2 #4 - 2 msgs
by announce-request＠lists.alug.org.uk 23 Apr '03

23 Apr '03

Send Announce mailing list submissions to announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to announce-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk You can reach the person managing the list at announce-admin(a)lists.alug.org.uk When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Announce digest..." --------------.--------------------------------------------.------------ alug-announce | Newsletter of the Anglian Linux User Group | Weekly(ish) --------------'--------------------------------------------'------------ ** Please send articles for this letter to announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk ** *** Please send replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk, not announce... *** ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Today's Topics: 1. Fwd: [Alug]Elmswell meeting on the 27th of this month (MJ Ray) 2. Fwd: Re: [Alug]newbie desktop distros (MJ Ray) --__--__-- Message: 1 To: announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 16:01:11 +0100 (BST) From: mjr(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk (MJ Ray) Subject: [Alug Announce] Fwd: [Alug]Elmswell meeting on the 27th of this month From: Adam Bower <abower(a)thebowery.co.uk> Subject: [Alug]Elmswell meeting on the 27th of this month Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2003 22:40:28 +0100 Hi all, Just a confirmation that this meeting *is* going to happen. I will update the webpage when I get a chance. The venue is near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk IIRC. The other meetings at Syleham (also Suffolk) are also still arranged for the same dates as before (Sun May 18th, Sun Aug 17th and Sun 23rd Nov.) Norwich dates are still to be confirmed, I will let everyone know more later. Adam --__--__-- Message: 2 To: announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 16:47:51 +0100 (BST) From: mjr(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk (MJ Ray) Subject: [Alug Announce] Fwd: Re: [Alug]newbie desktop distros Subject: Re: [Alug]newbie desktop distros From: jmb(a)paston.co.uk (John Billings) Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 13:46:15 +0100 Greetings, On Wed, Apr 16, 2003 at 06:59:23AM +0100, Syd Hancock wrote: > Has anyone used xandros, lindows or any similar distro? Yes - See below. > Very interested in any comments/experiences. > > I do realise all the disadvantages etc for the more knowledgable > user - so pardon the heresy :-) Heh. My mum and dad both now use free-er software than they did when using Microsoft based systems, and both are happy with the increased reliablility. Dad is reasonably eager to learn more about the unlying system - mum cares as little about the under lying system as she did when using windows. Either way i'd score it as a win for Free Software, or at least a scoredraw. I've installed/used Desktop/LX (www.lycoris.com) which is RedHat based, and also the Debian based Xandros (www.xandros.com) Desktop/LX - Downloaded a CD image and burnt it. - Installer: Pretty reasonable. Has auto detected everything on all but one machine i've installed it on - it screwed up on a fairly new and very poor embedded graphics card to the point where i went and got Xandros, of which more later. Partioning was easy enough. IIRC you could choose your user level, and the sorts of things you were likely to want, from which it chose to install various utils and environments. A nice touch is the game of solitare it gives you to play while you wait for the installer to finish. Better than looking at endlessly looping billboards anyway. Desktop: KDE based, with a different icon set - a fancy looking windows XP-alike one. The familiar (to existing users) cogwheel of the KDE 'start' menu is replaced by a flower, and there's a 'My Linux System' type icon on the desktop, which gives access to drives and other bits and pieces. The Kontrol Center has had a new interface added, to make it more XP-ish, grouping the settings panels into wider catagories. Quite friendly if you don't know exactly what you're looking for. By default I think you get 4 desktops, each of which can obviously have different proggies running on them. The default web browser is Mozilla, and the KOffice suite is also provided, IIRC. Updates: Via a graphical interface, but you need to pay to play it seems. I did, and it didn't - this may be because of my downloaded version of the software tho. Novice (linux) User Comments: Dad: "Comfortable looking - obvious where things are." Mum: "Looks like what i used to use." Housemate: "I managed to install it in 40 mins - woah" Windows: If you're interested in windows compatibility, it's not bad - you can easily mount samba shares, and talk to samba printers - you can also run some windows proggies with the supplied version of wine, but in order to get a couple of bits of my dad's software installed I had to download and install a new RPM with the latest version in. License: IIRC, it's entirely Free, but I could be wrong. Xandros - Bought from a UK supplier, who's name i've now forgotten. - Installer: Fantastic - Have yet to trip it up, even on my dodgy new Toys-R-Us laptop everything was detected. Looks slick, and on a blank system with an express install only asks 5 questions before installing the system. An expert install allows more control over partitioning and software to install. One note on partitioning is that the installer does not (yet) allow the resizing of windows partitions, which is contrary to what is said on the box and on the website. Either that or i'm missing something. Which is possible. No game of solitare here either. Desktop: Another KDE clone, this time with a 'Launch' button with the xandros 'X' symbol on it - fairly familiar layout of icons, including a 'My Computer' clone, and a 'network neighborhood' clone. The Xandros File Manager (XFM) is quite cool as graphical file managers go - windows users will be quite at home with it. One interface can be used to copy files between CDs, floppys, HDs, Samba and NFS shares and FTP sites. I also merrily recognised and displayed my Fuji Camera, which acts as a standard USB Mass storage device. You can also do such wonderful things as right clicking on folders in XFM and go to properties, in order to update permissions and share things as samba shares. Internet dialup was easy, once we gave up on an internal winmodem, alltho I have to say that the support we got in trying to get this to work was fantastic. There are 4 desktops set by default, each with a different colouration to let you know where you are easily. Mozilla is the default for web and mail. Koffice and abiword are supplied, and OpenOffice can be easily downloaded from the Xandros Archive, or from a standard Debian repositry. Updates: From xandros or debian apt archives, via a very usable graphical apt tool. Could do with a little bit of interface tweaking to make it a bit more intuitive, but it was worked out fairly quickly. Novice (linux) User Comments: Dad: "Fantastic - very professional looking - wouldn't be out of place in a corporate workplace" Mum: See above Housemate: "no solitare on this installer. that sucks" Windows: Xandros is available in it's more expensive form with Crossover Office, which pretty flawlessly runs a given set of normally windows based software. Once we'd installed a version of wine from deb unstable (which wasn't as hard as it sounds, using the graphical tool) we also managed to run a plethora of dad's accounting and office manager type software. License: This is the sticker - it's not all Free, specifically the Crossover Office and XFM bits. In terms of installation you're allowed to install it on any number of home PCs, and 1 business PC. Hope this helps. Cheers, John -- This space intentionally left blank --__--__-- _______________________________________________ Announce mailing list Announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce End of Announce Digest

1 0

RE: [Alug]Netbox
by Adam Bower 22 Apr '03

22 Apr '03

> From: Wayne Stallwood [mailto:wayne.stallwood@btinternet.com] > Hacking it is not going to be so easy. > > A Nmap scan shows no ports within the ones that nmap scans, > trying to telnet > to the box results in a connection refused. > Does anybody know of a way to scan all 65535 ports on a host > (yes I know this > is going to take hours) But I am wondering if there is a > useful service > running on a non standard port (thinks of the Zaurus running > it's ftp server > on a strange port) nmap -sU -sS -p 0-65535 -O -v -oN logfile.log netbox.ip.address should give you an udp scan (-sU) and tcp scan (-sS) on all ports (-p 0-65535) with os fingerprinting (-O although you know its linux already) and verbose reporting (-v) and log to a file logfile.log (-oN logfile.log) Should be what you are looking for, note udp scanning against linux could take a very very long time :) Adam

2 1

RE: [Alug]A file system puzzle
by Adam Bower 22 Apr '03

22 Apr '03

> From: Barry Samuels [mailto:barry@beenthere-donethat.org.uk] > > > I want to replace one of the modules (98k) within the file > > > system with > > > one of my own (68k) but always end up with a compressed > file system > > > that is larger than the original and won't fit on the disc. > > > > > > Could someone please explain, to a 'bear of little brain', > > > what I must > > > be doing wrong? > > > > Sounds like the "smaller" module is making the archive less > > compressable. > > That doesn't explain why deleting a file and not replacing it > makes the > resultant compressed file system larger. <stabbing at clues in the dark> Hmmm, ok what could be happening is that the file is being deleted from the directory indices but the space on disk is never overwritten with blank data but still has the original file there just no longer referenced by the filesystem. This change in the indices etc. causes the compression algorithm to make a bigger file as there is still data at the same point on the disk. You could perhaps try creating a new "empty" loopback filesystem and then copying the data between the two and trying to compress that to see what happens. In short thats a guess, apart from that I don't know you could always try asking on a compression newsgroup :) > > Try gzip -9 for the best compression (and slowest) and see if that > > helps it > > fit. > > I've been using -9 all along. Ummmm, try -8 ;) actually you could try all of them to see if the archives to get smaller with greater levels of compression. ISTR that in some cases using a "greater" compression ratio can cause a file to end up bigger than using a lesser one. Adam Adam

1 0

[Alug]Norwich evening meeting announcement.
by Syd Hancock 22 Apr '03

22 Apr '03

First Norwich evening meeting will be held on thursday 1st May in the Forum coffee bar from 8pm. Everyone welcome of course. Don't worry if you're not a techie, neither am I. No particular theme, just an opportunity for linux users in the area to begin to connect face to face. Hopefully this will become a regular monthly occurrence although day and venue may well change over the next few months. If you are intending to be there, please would you contact me off-list to give some idea of numbers? I think my kids have a toy penguin somewhere to act as a rallying point - if they'll let me borrow it of course :-) Syd

1 0

RE: [Alug]A file system puzzle
by Adam Bower 22 Apr '03

22 Apr '03

> From: Barry Samuels [mailto:barry@beenthere-donethat.org.uk] > If I delete a file when the file system is mounted then unmount and > re-gzip I end up with something that is larger than the > origianl which > doesn't seem to make sense to me. > > I want to replace one of the modules (98k) within the file > system with > one of my own (68k) but always end up with a compressed file system > that is larger than the original and won't fit on the disc. > > Could someone please explain, to a 'bear of little brain', > what I must > be doing wrong? Sounds like the "smaller" module is making the archive less compressable. Try gzip -9 for the best compression (and slowest) and see if that helps it fit. Adam

2 1

RE: [Alug]RH9 Opinions?
by Adam Bower 22 Apr '03

22 Apr '03

> From: Martyn Drake [mailto:martyn@drake.org.uk] > In my industry we have little choice over what distros we can > use, simply > because when you purchase expensive things like Maya or > Pixar's Renderman, > you're tied to what they support and both these products will > only support > Red Hat 7.2 and 7.3 at the time of writing. People have > tried Debian with > RenderMan only to have been told that it's not supported in > any way shape or > form. Of course, it's not just the industry that I work in > that has this > problem. I'm sure that most commercial Linux software Not supported doesn't mean it won't work though :) The Matrix was rendered with renderman (and other bits) running on FreeBSD through the Linux compatability system. What I found with the movie industry was that people were unwilling to try things which were "unsupported" as they equated it with "not working". Adam

2 1

[Alug]A file system puzzle
by Barry Samuels 22 Apr '03

22 Apr '03

I am trying to change the contents of a bootable floppy to include a specific module. On the floppy is a file 'miniroot.gz' which I have copied to my hard drive. I can gunzip the file and mount the resultant file system 'miniroot' using mount -o loop. If I unmount, without changing anything, and re-gzip the file the result is the same as the original. If I delete a file when the file system is mounted then unmount and re-gzip I end up with something that is larger than the origianl which doesn't seem to make sense to me. I want to replace one of the modules (98k) within the file system with one of my own (68k) but always end up with a compressed file system that is larger than the original and won't fit on the disc. Could someone please explain, to a 'bear of little brain', what I must be doing wrong? Barry Samuels http://www.beenthere-donethat.org.uk The Unofficial Guide to Great Britain

2 1

[Alug]booting Gentoo install
by Glen Tyler 22 Apr '03

22 Apr '03

wanting to try a new configurable linux I have been sent a gentoo x86 1.4 rc3 CD. At the top level there is one file livecd.cloop and two directories gentoo - (containing the three level tarballs) and isolinux (with initrd and gentoo.lss files in it among others). I'm guessing that the livecd.cloop file should be a boot.img or something like it as I don't think that gentoo can be installed unless you can boot from the CD. Normally (i.e. never before) I have no problem booting from CD's. Can anyone give any pointers? Glen

4 4

[Alug]Netbox
by Wayne Stallwood 22 Apr '03

22 Apr '03

I was at an Auction in Ipswich today and I spotted two boxed Netgem Netbox's (A Web/eMail Set Top Box thingy) Nearly walked past them but then a Penguin on the box caught my eye (They run Linux 2.2.something) Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that they were an unsold lot from a previous auction waiting for collection by the seller. Anyway a quick chat with the Auctioneer afterwards had me getting them for reserve (£15 each) One is missing it's Smart Card (and they seem to need this in some way) but the other is booting fine. I have no interest in STB's but given that these have Linux, an ethernet interface, sound, TV out and a remote keyboard. I figure that as a toy to hack around with they may fill a rainy night (not that we seem to be getting those at the moment) I am away for the weekend so can't play until sometime next week, but would the list be interested in me posting details of what I find ?

5 6

[Alug]Spell checking greyed-out in Sylpheed-Claws
by Ian Douglas 21 Apr '03

21 Apr '03

Hi folks, I have just installed sylpheed-claws 0.8.11 on my PC but the "spelling" option is greyed out in the compose window. If I type "which aspell" (or ispell) my system confirms that they are installed in /usr/bin so I am not sure why the spell checking function is not available within Sylpheed. Does anyone have any ideas about what I need to tweak in order to get this function working? Ian.

4 10