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10368 discussions

Touchscreens for the microwave.
by Paul 01 Dec '01

01 Dec '01

Hi Folks I finally sorted the touchscreen out that I had at the meeting yesterday. A case of not reading my XF86Config notes properly. Had missed the "AlwaysCore" option from the XInput section ! At least the driver I had to write works fine against a fresh install of linux and XFree86-3.3.5. Regards, Paul.

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Re: New Toys questions
by John Seago 01 Dec '01

01 Dec '01

Can I thank all those who responded to my requests for help, both those who responded via the list and those who responded privately. The question on swap space seems to have prompted a discussion which I am watching with interest, but not necessarily understanding completely. On the matter of booting multiple `Linux' distributions it would appear that just continuing with Lilo is enough, which in view of my steep `Linux' learning curve so far, seems far, far too easy........ John

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Wireless networking
by Andrew Savory 29 Nov '01

29 Nov '01

Hi all, As I live just a few streets away from an ADSL-enabled area, I'm pondering going halves with a friend that can get ADSL and then setting up a wireless connection from his house to mine. The trouble is, I know *nothing* about wireless networking ;-) If anyone out there in ALUGland does, could you give me a few hints? I want to know: * what are my options? * what range I can get? * what hardware is required? * likely cost? Looking forward to someone telling me it'll cost 50p and give me gigabytes a second to play with... Andrew. -- All views are my own .... who else would want them?

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Re: [Alug] Re: previous post, Slackware 8 and Debian not `seeing' the CD drive
by Adam Bower 29 Nov '01

29 Nov '01

>From: "Ricardo Campos" <corez23(a)linuxmail.org> >To: abower(a)thebowery.co.uk >CC: main(a)lists.alug.org.uk >Subject: Re: [Alug] Re: previous post, Slackware 8 and Debian not `seeing' > the CD drive >Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 12:51:55 +0000 > > > Not with 2.4.* kernels the vm needs either at least 2x swap to RAM or no > > swap at all, if not you may/will see performance problems on your >machines. > >Hmm... methinks not. I have 512MB RAM (& kernel 2.4.3), and only 133 MB >swap space (to use during the install), and find no performance problem in >any way. In fact the opposite! There is simply no reason for me to use 1GB >of swapspace! Besides which RAM is *much* faster than swap, easier to >upgrade, and just stupidly cheap. I only spent £40 on 512MB (that's >probably expensive now), & don't expect to upgrade anytime soon....... Hmmm, I think this is the thread on linux kernel mailing list that covers it more in depth http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0101.3/1221.html but don't have time to read all of it... there is a comment somewhere in there though that shows that Linus should shoot himself though. Adam _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Re: previous post, Slackware 8 and Debian not `seeing' the CD drive
by John Seago 29 Nov '01

29 Nov '01

Thanks to all who offered suggestions aimed at solving this problem, some time after I posted my query, I found an unlikely answer on one of the newsgroups which was to replace the IDE cables with new ones, (and they had to be new as opposed to different), this worked, (and being both cheap and easy, was most satisfactory), and Chris and I have managed to install both Slackware and Debian now. It has to be said that in my case they are going in at an alarming rate until such time as I get it right! When Chris opened up my case and replaced the cables he found that my rather elderly computer was in fact suffering from old age and neeeded replacing. I am having a `bare bones' computer built to take my new drives, and this raises a question, up to now I have followed advice I read somewhere that the swap space be twice the memory, (RAM?), having 64 whatever-they-ares of memory I have a 128 swap space, having ordered 128 memory, do I need a 256 swap space? All suggestions gratefully recieved, although I may be too old/full of pain killers to understand any explanation. John

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New toys question 2
by John Seago 29 Nov '01

29 Nov '01

Having decided that I can probably do without `windows' it just occurred to me that more important than the swap space is how to get it to boot, (other than using boot floppies), particularly as I wish to boot several partitions. Up to now I have cheated and used a Mandrake 8 or 8.1 installation disk to make the partitions, and reset after it has written them to the partition table. I believe that I will need a partition at the front of the primary master hard disk to boot from, and I can, (as yet), find no information in any of the library of books I seem to have acquired over the past few months. this time I think I may to have to have it explained to me, or understand it, before I start making big mistakes. Can someone point me at a source of information that I can take in at my own pace? John Seago

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Re: [Alug] Re: previous post, Slackware 8 and Debian not `seeing' the CD drive
by Ricardo Campos 29 Nov '01

29 Nov '01

>http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0101.3/1221.html > but don't have time to read all of it... there is a comment somewhere in > there though that shows that Linus should shoot himself though. I read it up until the point that my browser "couldn't find the server". Couldn't really see the comment. BUT I prefer to use the addage: To increase a servers speed- add more RAM, to increase it further add EVEN MORE RAM. Same for desktop, ESPECIALLY since desktops tend to use IDE rather than SCSI(which is still not as fast as RAM). 128 MB (or 256 to be sure) should be fine, unless you use intensive apps such as 3D rendering and GIMP on big piccies. With the advent of large (32MB+) graphics cards, even 3D games don't really dent your RAM that much. I'm not sure if the kernel actually needs a swap partition to be present, but in general losing 128 MB on a HD isn't exactly a great loss (especially as I couldn't find a first-hand IDE drive with less than 20GB), and £50 for 512MB isn't either (of course, that's just excessive, I was just trying to future-proof as much as poss). My bets are: loadsa RAM, small swap. I think the 2xRAM thing was also partly due to RAM being expensive once-upon-a-time. Ricardito "There are several codes, and I know several of them." -Mr. Precise. http://www.rscampos.net -- Get your free email from www.linuxmail.org Powered by Outblaze

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Swap space
by John Seago 29 Nov '01

29 Nov '01

I would like to thank every body who has sent me advice on this matter, I have decided to go with x2 > x4 swap space, (space being of no consequence as I have a total disk space of more than 50 gig). As predicted, this seems to have sparked a technical discussion which I don't understand, I'm glad I didn't ask to have it explained to me! Once again thank you everyone for your advice. John seago

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Re: [Alug] Re: previous post, Slackware 8 and Debian not `seeing' the CD drive
by Ricardo Campos 29 Nov '01

29 Nov '01

> Not with 2.4.* kernels the vm needs either at least 2x swap to RAM or no > swap at all, if not you may/will see performance problems on your machines. Hmm... methinks not. I have 512MB RAM (& kernel 2.4.3), and only 133 MB swap space (to use during the install), and find no performance problem in any way. In fact the opposite! There is simply no reason for me to use 1GB of swapspace! Besides which RAM is *much* faster than swap, easier to upgrade, and just stupidly cheap. I only spent £40 on 512MB (that's probably expensive now), & don't expect to upgrade anytime soon....... I have noticed one thing, though: about 2 mins after my box boots up and I'm into my WM (WindowMaker at the mo'), it pages (oops I mean writes-to-disk/swap?) like crazy for about 5 seconds, then NEVER does it again (until I reboot for whatever reason). This is different to Windoze 2K server on the same machine, for example, which pages like crazy just for the hell of it, inefficient little beasty that it is! Ricardo "There are several codes, and I know several of them." -Mr. Precise. http://www.rscampos.net -- Get your free email from www.linuxmail.org Powered by Outblaze

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Re: [Alug] Re: previous post, Slackware 8 and Debian not `seeing' the CD drive
by MJ Ray 29 Nov '01

29 Nov '01

Adam: > Not with 2.4.* kernels the vm needs either at least 2x swap to RAM or no > swap at all, if not you may/will see performance problems on your machines. I thought the new VM didn't suffer from that? -- MJR

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