Lots of useful Linux stuff over at the PC Plus web site.
Go to http://www.pcplus.co.uk/tutorials/default.asp?subsectionid=377
In addition the Christmas edition of PC Plius has an interesting masterclass on getting Linux set up to use broadband. Presumably that will be added to the web site in due course.
Keith
On 2003-11-20 14:04:16 +0000 Keith Watson kpwatson@ukfsn.org wrote:
Lots of useful Linux stuff over at the PC Plus web site. Go to http://www.pcplus.co.uk/tutorials/default.asp?subsectionid=377
Not bad, but the top article seems a bit silly. It is making it a lot more complicated than it needs to be. I'm fairly sure that they don't test hardware out under every point-release of Windows, so why insist on multiple distribution/version combinations? Even a simple classification for drivers (maybe with levels: kernel, contributed (+ URL + licence), manufacturer (+ licence), unknown, unsupported) would be a great help in their reviews section. Am I missing an obvious reason why they don't do that?
In addition the Christmas edition of PC Plius has an interesting masterclass on getting Linux set up to use broadband.
What do they use for that, then?
Two questions for the experts:
1. Is there a way of getting my Outlook Express Address Book into Linux for KMail to use? I have a couple of hundred contacts so going via vCards is likely to get painful. Likewise the messages; KMail only understands OE4 so it gets some but not all of them. Is there a route through MS Outlook?
2. I'm having difficulty getting Windows to print to my Linux printer. It appears as the default print device but absolutely nothing happens when I try to print. No error messages, nothing. I have Samba setup pretty well as it came out of the box, with just the domain name changed. Any suggestions?
-- GT
Answered part 1 myself. If anyone wants to know, here's what I did. An easier way would be nice...
First, KMail is a strange beast. It's fully connected neither with Linux nor with Windows. It can't import Outlook Express 6 properly, and makes a right dog's breakfast of what it does import. But most strangely it can't import from Netscape/Mozilla/Thunderbird either. So I've abandoned it in favour of Thunderbird, which is nearly as smooth as OE and seems do most things quite well. Oddly enough, though, it has no Export feature so how much trouble I'm storing up for the future I can't tell.
Back to the transfer. The first thing was to transfer the address book. The only way I found to do that was using a CSV file. This took ten minutes or so of fiddling with imports and exports at each end but then went smoothly enough.
For the messages, I installed Mozilla on Windows and tried to import from OE6. It failed. So I installed Outlook 2000, copied all the mail from OE6 to that then asked Mozilla to import from Outlook. Eventually I had all my messages in Mozilla. However, with no export feature I had to inspect the Windows and Linux folder structures for Mozilla/Thunderbird and copy the .sbd, .msf and folders (plain text files, mostly) across the network. So now here they are and I'm at last able to relieve Windoze of one more task. Just remains to uninstall Outlook and Mozilla.
-- GT
Graham Trott wrote:
Two questions for the experts:
- Is there a way of getting my Outlook Express Address Book into
Linux for KMail to use? I have a couple of hundred contacts so going via vCards is likely to get painful. Likewise the messages; KMail only understands OE4 so it gets some but not all of them. Is there a route through MS Outlook?
- I'm having difficulty getting Windows to print to my Linux
printer. It appears as the default print device but absolutely nothing happens when I try to print. No error messages, nothing. I have Samba setup pretty well as it came out of the box, with just the domain name changed. Any suggestions?
-- GT
On 2003-11-24 14:36:32 +0000 Graham Trott gt@pobox.com wrote:
- Is there a way of getting my Outlook Express Address Book into
Linux for KMail to use? [...] Likewise the messages;
You could possibly copy the messages to a folder on an IMAP server and back, if you have one handy. I think I remember someone doing that. I don't know about the Address Book.
- I'm having difficulty getting Windows to print to my Linux
printer.
I think I was told that CUPS was pretty good at supporting printing from Microsoft Windows. There's instructions on the CUPS site at http://www.cups.org/sam.html#8_8 about configuring Samba to use it. A common "gotcha" when using Samba+lpr was that you need to tell MS Windows that it is talking to a real Postscript printer, such as the Apple ColorLaserWriter (used to be freely distributable and often already installed) or the CUPS-recommended Adobe one.
- Is there a way of getting my Outlook Express Address Book
into Linux for KMail to use? I have a couple of hundred contacts so going via vCards is likely to get painful. Likewise the messages; KMail only understands OE4 so it gets some but not all of them. Is there a route through MS Outlook?
Hi Graham, I'm no expert, as you know, but I was able to import folders from OE with no problem. Don't know the version but what ever comes with W98SE. In the Kmail help pages it says to always compact folders before importing and also gives a link to various utilities for importing mail at http://kmail.kde.org/tools.html
- I'm having difficulty getting Windows to print to my Linux
printer. It appears as the default print device but absolutely nothing happens when I try to print. No error messages, nothing. I have Samba setup pretty well as it came out of the box, with just the domain name changed. Any suggestions?
Um, dunno, samba needed quite a bit of experimentation when I set it up - you'll recall the pages and/or links I sent you a while back to mandrakeuser.org. There seem to be an awful lot of possible configuration issues. I suggest that you post your samba.conf file for discussion.
HTH Syd
On Sat, 22 Nov 2003 12:42:52 +0000 MJ Ray mjr@dsl.pipex.com wrote:
On 2003-11-20 14:04:16 +0000 Keith Watson kpwatson@ukfsn.org wrote:
Lots of useful Linux stuff over at the PC Plus web site. Go to http://www.pcplus.co.uk/tutorials/default.asp?subsectionid=377
Not bad, but the top article seems a bit silly. It is making it a lot more complicated than it needs to be. I'm fairly sure that they don't test hardware out under every point-release of Windows, so why insist on multiple distribution/version combinations? Even a simple classification for drivers (maybe with levels: kernel, contributed (+ URL + licence), manufacturer (+ licence), unknown, unsupported) would be a great help in their reviews section. Am I missing an obvious reason why they don't do that?
In addition the Christmas edition of PC Plius has an interesting masterclass on getting Linux set up to use broadband.
What do they use for that, then?
The articles are very light weight but are useful if you're starting out in an area where you know sweet FA. The broadband article just points out that there are basically 2 methods of connecting at present in the UK; cable and ADSL. Then briefly summarises where and who provides which.
It then covers the basics of setting up a cable modem, basically setting up an ethernet card to talk to it.
Then talks about the trials and tribulations of setting up an ADSL modem and the various chipsets and whats supported and what's not. It also mentions that you can also use a router and ethernet card to connect to ADSL and that the set-up then is similar to the cable connection set-up.
Finally mentions a few sites that might bre of further use; www.flashtux.org for Globespan based ADSL modems, www.thecaretaker.org.uk/drivers/btvoyager/btvoyagerlinux.htm for someone's experiences getting an early BT Voyager ADSL modem working and finally www.paranoidfish.org/notes/2003/03/02/2113 for info about getting a Telewest USB cable modem up and running.
Keith
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Graham Trott -
Keith Watson -
MJ Ray -
Syd Hancock