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Debain transition
by Mike Lincoln 12 Feb '02

12 Feb '02

Hi all, I've recently tried out Debian (woody) and was very impressed. I'm new to debian, but not Linux/GNU. I've lived with various distributions in the past, Slakware, Redhat, then SuSE. I found myself with a few problems under debian, for example getting my usb keyboard and mouse working. I know how to hack them into submission, but I'm sure it's not done it the "Debian way". I'm missing /dev entires for most usb devices, I get the impression there must be a .deb for this ? keybdev also needs to be modprobed (so I added it to /etc/modules). (I'm running kernel 2.4.x) I have many other little niggles, so I guess I should RTM. Anyway, my question is: Is there a good website/book that is aimed at experienced users who wish to migrate from other distributions to Debian? Thanks, Mike

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Re: [Alug] Debain transition
by MJ Ray 12 Feb '02

12 Feb '02

Mike Lincoln wrote: > [...] I'm missing /dev entires for most usb devices, I get the impression > there must be a deb for this ? I have the fstab line none /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs defaults 0 0 Maybe that helps you? It's not devfs (yet), so the devices are in /proc/bus/usb I guess. > Is there a good website/book that is aimed at experienced users who wish > to migrate from other distributions to Debian? You've seen the produce of the "Debian Documentation Project"? Another handy site for keeping up to date is http://www.debianplanet.org/ Other than that and the usual mailing lists etc, I'm not sure what to suggest. -- MJR

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VNC problems
by tom potts 12 Feb '02

12 Feb '02

I would imagine the problem here is due to the firewalls. Can you VNC on to machines outside your firewall? If so your firewall is configured to map the VNC connections correctly. If not you'll have to configure your firewall to do that before you arrange for the clients to be configured - if they'll allow it cos its a bit of a security hole apparently. It shouldnt be difficult - if you/they can browse then there will be mappings for port 80 so they just need to be copied for whatever vnc uses. If you're doing work fro them I would recommend at the very least that VNC is not run as an autostart service but when you need to connect they start the listening service and the service is terminated when you have done to prevent any unwarranted intrusion. Ideally you should get them to disable the VNC access through the firewall when its not required just in case someone 'clocks the wrong button' and leaves someone else in charge on a PDC! Tom __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com

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Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 12 Feb '02

12 Feb '02

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.openprojects.net in the #alug channel, you can take a look at www.openprojects.net to get more info on the openprojects network. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server uk.openprojects.net" or "/server eu.openprojects.net" 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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Long-range wireless LAN
by Ted.Harding＠nessie.mcc.ac.uk 11 Feb '02

11 Feb '02

Come to think of it, ALUG should be a damn good place to ask this question ... A friend of mine, much knowledgeable, tells me that with directional antennae a line-of sight range of 10-15 miles should be attainable for wireless LAN. But it's equally a question of finding hospitality at the far end. Well, out here in the midst of optically flat nowhere, line of sight to almost anywhere is no problem. Problem is, almost everywhere is uninhabited. Nearest place which might have an accommodating college or such is Ely (10 miles, but on a nice mountain which boosts line-of-sight visibility). So there you are. I'm groping. But there must be some of you who've at least thought about this in similar terrain; so if anyone has any comments or suggestions I'd be most interested to hear! It might lead to an improvement on my current 33.6k bit rate ... and, come to think of it, converting Ely Cathedral to a LAN hub is a tempting notion. Best wishes to all, Ted. -------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)nessie.mcc.ac.uk> Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 167 1972 Date: 11-Feb-02 Time: 20:08:30 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------

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Hardware problem?
by Ian Thompson-Bell 11 Feb '02

11 Feb '02

I am experiencing an intermittent problem with my linux box. It has started to occur over the last few days while I was adding a USB zip drive to my system. At one point, as I was having problems with unmounting the zip drive, I thought I would switch to windoze, load the drivers and just check the problem was not with the drive itself. Well after a whole bunch of blue screens of death I gave up on windows and decided to reboot linux and delete windoze entirely. That;s when the first problems occurred. I seemed to have a corrupt file system. I ran the RedHat 7.2 CD in rescue mode, fixed things with e2fsck and I thought all was OK. Then this afternoon, playing around with rc.local and modules.conf to get USB up, running and mounted automatically, I started experiencing problems. I rebooted to try a new configuration and suddenly got lots of errors during booting and a freeze. Even the RH rescue CD crashed - it kept getting SIG 11 and shutting down and when it occasionally did run, e2fsck would seg fault. Now, a couple of hours later, it boots up perfectly first time and I am happily typing the email. So, what do you think the problem is most likely to be? Ian

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RE: Debian install from parallel CD-Rom
by Ricardo Campos 11 Feb '02

11 Feb '02

*oops* I meant that I CAN'T find any documentation!(Before you RTFM me) Ricardo -- Get your free email from www.linuxmail.org Powered by Outblaze

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Debian install from Parallel CD-ROM
by Ricardo Campos 11 Feb '02

11 Feb '02

I'm trying to load Debian from a parallel CD-Rom, but cannot find an appropriate image for a boot floppy. The Installation CD-Rom seems to have a rescue.bin, but I'm not sure if this'll work or in fact how to make a boot floppy from this. I can find any documentation on this! :( Erm... help! Ricardo -- Get your free email from www.linuxmail.org Powered by Outblaze

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"Reverse" VNC
by Laurie Brown 11 Feb '02

11 Feb '02

I use VNC a lot for both Linux and 'Doze support work, but there's a shortcoming as far as "hidden" machines are concerned. What I need is a sort of reverse VNC for accessing machines where I don't know the IP address. Let me explain what I want to do: Run a VNC-type "server": a remote client connects to it, and I can then, from my "server" control the client machine. For dial-up/DHCP/NAT situations where I can't reach a client directly, I need the client to be able to initiate the connection, but thereafter it to behave as if I'd done a normal VNC connect into it. Does anyone have any ideas? Where better to ask? It needs to support Linux and 'Doze, and at least 'Doze... Cheers, Laurie. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Laurie Brown laurie(a)brownowl.com PGP key at http://pgpkeys.mit.edu:11371 ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: [Alug] march meeting
by MJ Ray 11 Feb '02

11 Feb '02

Syd wrote: > Sorry everyone, I had volunteered to hold the march meeting at my > place but due to varioius difficult circumstances I willhave to > cancel. I'm sorry to hear that. Best wishes to you during the difficult times. Rob, can you have us at Elmswell in March? That'll give me enough time to try to sort out something around here (West Norfolk) for April (no time for March) and give a nice ping-pong between Norfolk and Suffolk. -- MJR

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