Re: [Dorset] Getting programs on to the 'Application Launcher' menu

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

On 03/02/2023 11:39, Peter Merchant via dorset wrote:

On 03/02/2023 09:39, Terry Coles wrote:

On 03/02/2023 09:26, Peter Merchant wrote:

I recently installed a program to my Kubuntu 20.04 system called Microblocks. 
It is a scratch-like program for things like an ESP-32.

The problem is that it doesn't appear anywhere in my application launcher, but 
if I type the name in on the 'search' bar of the AL, it finds it. Does anybody 
know how I can add it to the Application Launcher?  I am having the same 
problem with the Arduino IDE.


Peter,

There are two ways to do this; one for the main Application launcher as you 
requested and one for the Widgets on an Activity.

I can't give you a step by step, because it depends on the program concerned.  
For the main Launcher; right-click the launcher icon and select 'Edit 
Applications...'.  This launches the KDE Menu Editor.  Click on the appropriate 
Menu Item, eg 'System', right=click on that and select 'New Item'.  Then fill 
in the blanks including the command that launches the program.

Ah, herein is the rub. I don't know where the program is stored. And with the 
Arduino one, I have installed and  removed it so many times trying to find a 
version that works for me that I am sure that my computer is full of junk. PS 
Arduino IDE vn.2 I couldn't get on with trying to find the hardware that i 
needed. It has a known bug.


To do it as a Widget you need the Widget 'QuickLaunch' installed then simply 
right-click within the QuickLaunch area and proceed as with the main App 
Launcher.

Not interested in this.


Let us know how you get on.





So far so Not so good.

Tried Whereis to find it - no luck

Tried which to find it - no luck

Tried Locate - /usr/share/applications/MicroBlocks.desktop

So I edited the application launcher,    but when I tried it - nothing happened.

.still working on it.


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Re: [Dorset] Getting programs on to the 'Application Launcher' menu

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

On 03/02/2023 09:39, Terry Coles wrote:

On 03/02/2023 09:26, Peter Merchant wrote:

I recently installed a program to my Kubuntu 20.04 system called Microblocks. 
It is a scratch-like program for things like an ESP-32.

The problem is that it doesn't appear anywhere in my application launcher, but 
if I type the name in on the 'search' bar of the AL, it finds it. Does anybody 
know how I can add it to the Application Launcher?  I am having the same 
problem with the Arduino IDE.


Peter,

There are two ways to do this; one for the main Application launcher as you 
requested and one for the Widgets on an Activity.

I can't give you a step by step, because it depends on the program concerned.  
For the main Launcher; right-click the launcher icon and select 'Edit 
Applications...'.  This launches the KDE Menu Editor.  Click on the appropriate 
Menu Item, eg 'System', right=click on that and select 'New Item'.  Then fill 
in the blanks including the command that launches the program.

Ah, herein is the rub. I don't know where the program is stored. And with the 
Arduino one, I have installed and  removed it so many times trying to find a 
version that works for me that I am sure that my computer is full of junk. PS 
Arduino IDE vn.2 I couldn't get on with trying to find the hardware that i 
needed. It has a known bug.


To do it as a Widget you need the Widget 'QuickLaunch' installed then simply 
right-click within the QuickLaunch area and proceed as with the main App 
Launcher.

Not interested in this.


Let us know how you get on.




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Re: [Dorset] Kubuntu hanging

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

Consider this sorted. I changed the monitor for another LG Flatron from our old 
computer, and it is behaving well. I guess  the old monitor is giving up.

Peter

On 14/12/2022 18:30, Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty wrote:

I think it's more likely that you have a bad display cable, perhaps?

Hamish

On 14/12/2022 12:28, Peter Merchant wrote:

I seem to remember a discussion some time ago about changing screen firmware 
from NVidia to Nouveau. Is it possible that doing this would fix my problem?

Peter( this time using his correct email address!)

On 13/12/2022 21:50, Peter Merchant via dorset wrote:

Just now when this occurred, I switched off the monitor, and after a few 
seconds switched it back on and the screen came back to life. So the problem  
isn't with Kubuntu, unless there is something in the graphics causing it. Maybe 
my screen is getting old.  It's random because it didn't occur at all 
yesterday, and has happened a few times today.

Peter


On 11/12/2022 12:55, Peter Merchant wrote:

If I leave my  Kubuntu 20.04 for awhile, I have usually left Thunderbird and 
Vivaldi up, and when I come back and try and do something the computer goes off 
into never-never  land, the screen goes blank, and I can hear the HD crunching, 
and it needs the power button hold down to shut it down.

I think that this has happened after a boot up, if I have left it for awhile 
and I hit T'bird and Vivaldi  one after the other to bring them up.

Any thoughts on where I should look to track this problem?

I am tempted to bleachbit the computer, or to replace Vivaldi with Opera on the 
offchance that Vivaldi is the cause.

Cheers,

Peter














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Re: [Dorset] Kubuntu hanging

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

Just now when this occurred, I switched off the monitor, and after a few 
seconds switched it back on and the screen came back to life.  So the problem  
isn't with Kubuntu, unless there is something in the graphics causing it.   
Maybe my screen is getting old.  It's random because it didn't occur at all 
yesterday, and has happened a few times today.

Peter


On 11/12/2022 12:55, Peter Merchant wrote:

If I leave my  Kubuntu 20.04 for awhile, I have usually left Thunderbird and 
Vivaldi up, and when I come back and try and do something the computer goes off 
into never-never  land, the screen goes blank, and I can hear the HD crunching, 
and it needs the power button hold down to shut it down.

I think that this has happened after a boot up, if I have left it for awhile 
and I hit T'bird and Vivaldi  one after the other to bring them up.

Any thoughts on where I should look to track this problem?

I am tempted to bleachbit the computer, or to replace Vivaldi with Opera on the 
offchance that Vivaldi is the cause.

Cheers,

Peter





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Re: [Dorset] Links from 2022-12-06's Pub Meet.

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

Thanks for this.



The Segger J-Link EDU and EDU Mini are cheaper versions of the J-Link
BASE JTAG-and-SWD debug probe aimed at the hobbyist for non-commercial
use.
https://www.segger.com/products/debug-probes/j-link/models/j-link-edu/
https://www.segger.com/products/debug-probes/j-link/models/j-link-edu-mini/


I had discovered https://www.xjtag.com/about-jtag/what-is-jtag/ to try and find 
out about this.



Software bugs kill but software testing tends to only check things work,
not how things can break.  Competent code inspection can spot the
latter.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25

When I was teaching my thing about testing was that it was not just about 
testing to see that it did what it was supposed to, but also to see that it 
didn't do what it was not supposed to. The example of this was software  from 
my previous employer that only accepted valid dates, and the stuff we got from 
the Americans that would accept 00/00/00 and 99/99/99 for dates.


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Re: [Dorset] Does anyone have an old PC with PCI and/or ISA slots in need of a new home?

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

I have three in the garage, two of which can go to a good home. None ISA, and I 
don't know offhand how many PCI slots.  I just nicked a CD drive from one of 
them, and noticed in my collection a couple of old CD drives (Non-SATA).

I live in Colehill, not far from the famous hamburger roundabout/junction.

Peter


On 09/12/2022 14:08, Hugh Frater wrote:

Hamish,

I might well have something, let me have a look this weekend.

Hugh

On Fri, 9 Dec 2022 at 13:52, Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty 
wrote:


Hi all,

On our last call, someone was talking about older PCs being sat in a
garage. As it turns out, it would be useful for me to have a system with
2+ PCI and/or ISA slots and/or an AGP slot for use with some older
hardware.

If anyone happens to have one they don't need, I'd be happy to pay for
it/exchange it for some other stuff I have waiting to be listed on eBay.
I could make a note of what those are here, but I'm not sure if that
would constitute list spam :)

Hamish


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Re: [Dorset] New laptop

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

Sorry about the double posting. The first one was sent from an email address 
that I don't use for the LUG, and I didn't expect it to get through. And T-bird 
lets you send emails from any of the address accounts that you have. I didn't 
check before posting.

peter M



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Re: [Dorset] New laptop

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

On 20/09/2022 17:26, Peter Merchant wrote:

A friend of mine is wanting a new laptop and asked if I would post his request 
here - Yes he uses Linux.

Does anybody know of a good source for him?

I've looked at Linux built laptops including Dell and all seem to be overpriced 
compared to popular Windows orientated companies.
I had a beautiful Huawei Al chassis, fingerprint and a good spec at a marvelous 
price from Amazon under £500. I dual booted Ubuntu 22.04 but could not get 
Sound, microphone or fingerprint to work! All I got from Ubuntu was criticism 
of my post and no solutions offered. I tried at least a dozen links from Google 
and made no progress, I returned the laptop on the last day of returns and got 
refunded 2 months later.
I've looked at reconditioned from Amazon sellers but reductant to trust their 
service/guarantee.

I wonder if you could ask the group for any suggestions around ,£500. 256 /512 SSD 
8GB memory i3/5 or AMDr3/5, Al chassis, 14"+/- , fingerprint and backlight UK 
keyboard.

Over to you guys.
Peter


Thanks everybody for your help and advice. Here is a  response to me from 
Walter, which he says he has posted here, but I didn't see it.

  

Thanks for keeping me on the mailing list which I gladly receive. I have not 
posted for a long while so i thought I should get back on stream and clear 
things with yourself first.

Peter kindly put my request up recently Under "New Laptop" attached below, and 
I would like to reply to that stream. Would you kindly assist and post this for me and 
I'll follow the procedure thereafter,

Thank you kindly, Walter Reed

"New Laptop"

Thanks all the contributors to this thread which Peter kindly posted.

I looked at the various options and after my first and only disappointment at 
not getting the Huawei Matebook D15 to fully install so I had to return back to 
seller..

I had looked at a couple of suitable offers and decided I better choose an 
option that I could readily return locally if I was out of luck again.

I decided an on-line order at Argos and have since managed the get this Asus 
Vivobook fully installed and running merrily. I had read up various articles an 
believed they claimed were mostly compatible and I was warned about a possible 
wifi problem. Well, I took the risk and this was my progress:-

Wifi driver for Asus VivobookA516JA

My trouble installing Ubuntu on new Asus Vivobook-15 A516JA" was with a missing 
 wifi driver. 'lspci' showed the Network controller was Realtek but no correct 
driver was installed.  This is a serious lack of external communication needed 
during installation.  I overcome the lack of ethernet or wifi connection using a USB 
cable hotspot tethered to my mobile phone. This idea which was new to me and it took 
sometime to resolve but immediately connected to the internet and allowed me to 
fully tweek  a new installation (also thanks to Youtube) however still no wifi!

I installed and updated Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and knowing the driver was missing 
went to Software Updater/Settings/Additional Drivers and and there it was 
waiting for me to accept a restricted driver for Realtk rtl8821ce-dkms. Reboot 
and all sorted.

Thanks again for all your help and suggestions.

Cheers Walter.
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Re: [Dorset] Dark Side

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

Will this new laptop work with Linux. Eventually i'll find out.

What make is it?


*17" Laptop - Now Only £199 + Vat !!! *Be Quick - Only 9 Available
*HP 17-cn0041na Pentium Gold 7505*
*17.3"* Full HD 1920 x 1080, 4GB Ram, 128GB SSD,
USB-C, WiFi, HD Webcam, Win 11S
HP Renew, As New, 1 Year HP Warranty - Only *£199 + Vat*
_Full Spec Here 

_

 No CD Player, so I am going to make a bootable memory stick of Kubuntu 20.04

Peter
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Re: [Dorset] Mailing List Support in Thunderbird

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

I have a tab on emails to the LUG that says 'Reply List'  It is not present on  
non-lug emails. I don't know how it got set up.
I have another group that I also filter off, and it's emails are also 'Reply 
List'

At the top of the email it has tabs: Reply/reply 
List/Forward/Archive/Junk/Delete/ and More.

It is not something new, It has 'always' been there.
Peter



On 21/09/2022 10:51, Terry Coles wrote:

As you may recall, I recently switched from KMail to Thunderbird and so far so 
good.

There is one point that I hadn't realised about it though.  KMail provided 
Mailing List Support in that an Account could be marked as containing a Mailing 
List and henceforth all replies would go to the Mailing List and not the 
Sender.  (It didn't always work, especially if the Sender CCd me) but it meant 
that I only had to hit reply to get the message to go to the list.

This doesn't appear to be the case in Thunderbird.  Is that so or have I missed 
something?




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Re: [Dorset] Thunderbird duplicating messages in sent folder

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

Have fixed it in T'bird settings. Untick button to save a copy.

P.

On 07/09/2022 21:40, Peter Merchant wrote:

I have three accounts using Thunderbird, and it is only the Hotmail one that 
has this problem. The yahoo and Netscape  accounts are OK.
Peter

On 07/09/2022 19:29, Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty wrote:

All the sent messages are duplicated in Thunderbird for me too, always have 
been AFAIR. Let me know if you figure out why, I've never really spent the time 
to find out.

Hamisb

On 7 September 2022 18:06:11 BST, Peter Merchant  
wrote:

I have just noticed that all the messages in my sent folder are duplicated. I 
think we discussed this problem some time ago, but cannot find it.

As I cleaned out that folder recently I cannot tell when this started 
occurring. It seems to be just in my Hotmail account.


Any idea why?

Peter


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Re: [Dorset] Migrating from KMail to Thunderbird

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

Just wondering if you ever overcame the Aliases problem.
Peter
On 30/07/2022 12:01, Terry Coles wrote:

Hi,

I've stuck with KMail through thick and thin ever since I first used KDE in the 
early noughties.  The main reason for this is that I make considerable use of 
forwarded addresses to the half dozen mailboxes that I maintain on my Mail 
provider's servers.  If I get a lot of spam then it's only one address that I 
have to change to stop it.

However, the time has come I think to migrate away from KMail. There have been 
a number of irritating bugs tthat simply don't seem to be getting fixed and 
bugs that I've reported get no response.

The only problem is that I can't find a way of exporting all my KMail aliases 
into Thunderbird identities.  There are references out there to exporting 
emails but not aliases.

Can anyone help?




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Re: [Dorset] OT: Keeping costs down

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

using those figures and the cost of electricity from my latest bill (27.10 
p/Kwh ) using the kettle costs 1.49p which isn't a lot more than using the hob 
(1.125 p).

It's not really a game changer, so thanks everyone for contributing.

I will now try and investigate why my gas boiler keeps on firing up when it 
kicks in, even though I have used solar to heat my tank. It has been suggested 
that the solar heats the top part of the tank via the immersion heater, and the 
gas heats the bottom part of the tank via the heating coil.

Peter.

On 29/08/2022 13:24, Ian Morris via dorset wrote:

So I just boiled my kettle (500ml, fresh from tap). Mains here = 242 volts, 
Kettle takes 12.3 A (pretty much constant) Power taken = 0.055kWh (so pretty 
close to my calculation!) I allowed the kettle to trip using the steam 
generated by the then boiling water (so addressing both the loss and latent 
heat aspects of the question.)

On 29/08/2022 12:28, Peter Merchant via dorset wrote:

I had considered that, but it's so long ago in my ancient past that I studied 
thermodynamics, I didn't look into calculating it. My concern about it is the 
cost of raising the temperature to 100 deg, then the latent heat of 
vaporisation to actually boil it.

Peter M.   [ Applies to any form of boiling water of course. ]

n 29/08/2022 11:31, Ian Morris via dorset wrote:

500ml of water = 500g water.  let's assume you want to go from 20-100 C => 
increase of 80C
Specific heat capacity of water = 4.184 J/g-K
=> 167,360 J = 0.0465 kWh Electricity @27p/kWh = 1.2552p

So rather similar (OK, I don't know efficiency of electric kettle ... but 
heating elements are 100% efficient... sure there will be some losses to both 
the kettle and the wider environment, but i doubt somehow that they are 
huge) Of course this is about cost for the consumer ... I'm totally 
ignoring the ineffeciency of turning gas into electricity and transmitting it 
around the country in the first place.


On 29/08/2022 09:33, Peter Merchant wrote:
I was curious, so I took the water from the kettle and put it in a pot on the 
stove. It was very close to 500ml.

Watching the gas meter while it boiled it used 0.014 m(cubed) of gas, which 
converted to 0.15788Kwh and at my current rate of 7.123p/Kwh cost me 1.1.25p to 
boil up.

Unfortunately I can't see my electricity meter easily to see what it costs me 
to boil that amount in the kettle or by Microwave. Does anybody have that 
facility?  And also there is always other electricity being used.

Cheers,

Peter










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Re: [Dorset] OT: Keeping costs down

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

My 1965 'Basic Tables in Electrical Engineering' gives the Heat of Vaporization 
of Water as 972 Btu/Lb   so there is quite a bit of conversion required!

P.
On 29/08/2022 12:28, Peter Merchant via dorset wrote:

I had considered that, but it's so long ago in my ancient past that I studied 
thermodynamics, I didn't look into calculating it. My concern about it is the 
cost of raising the temperature to 100 deg, then the latent heat of 
vaporisation to actually boil it.

Peter M.   [ Applies to any form of boiling water of course. ]

n 29/08/2022 11:31, Ian Morris via dorset wrote:

500ml of water = 500g water.  let's assume you want to go from 20-100 C => 
increase of 80C
Specific heat capacity of water = 4.184 J/g-K
=> 167,360 J = 0.0465 kWh Electricity @27p/kWh = 1.2552p

So rather similar (OK, I don't know efficiency of electric kettle ... but 
heating elements are 100% efficient... sure there will be some losses to both 
the kettle and the wider environment, but i doubt somehow that they are 
huge) Of course this is about cost for the consumer ... I'm totally 
ignoring the ineffeciency of turning gas into electricity and transmitting it 
around the country in the first place.


On 29/08/2022 09:33, Peter Merchant wrote:
I was curious, so I took the water from the kettle and put it in a pot on the 
stove. It was very close to 500ml.

Watching the gas meter while it boiled it used 0.014 m(cubed) of gas, which 
converted to 0.15788Kwh and at my current rate of 7.123p/Kwh cost me 1.1.25p to 
boil up.

Unfortunately I can't see my electricity meter easily to see what it costs me 
to boil that amount in the kettle or by Microwave. Does anybody have that 
facility?  And also there is always other electricity being used.

Cheers,

Peter








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Re: [Dorset] OT: Keeping costs down

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

I had considered that, but it's so long ago in my ancient past that I studied 
thermodynamics, I didn't look into calculating it. My concern about it is the 
cost of raising the temperature to 100 deg, then the latent heat of 
vaporisation to actually boil it.

Peter M.   [ Applies to any form of boiling water of course. ]

n 29/08/2022 11:31, Ian Morris via dorset wrote:

500ml of water = 500g water.  let's assume you want to go from 20-100 C => 
increase of 80C
Specific heat capacity of water = 4.184 J/g-K
=> 167,360 J = 0.0465 kWh Electricity @27p/kWh = 1.2552p

So rather similar (OK, I don't know efficiency of electric kettle ... but 
heating elements are 100% efficient... sure there will be some losses to both 
the kettle and the wider environment, but i doubt somehow that they are 
huge) Of course this is about cost for the consumer ... I'm totally 
ignoring the ineffeciency of turning gas into electricity and transmitting it 
around the country in the first place.


On 29/08/2022 09:33, Peter Merchant wrote:
I was curious, so I took the water from the kettle and put it in a pot on the 
stove. It was very close to 500ml.

Watching the gas meter while it boiled it used 0.014 m(cubed) of gas, which 
converted to 0.15788Kwh and at my current rate of 7.123p/Kwh cost me 1.1.25p to 
boil up.

Unfortunately I can't see my electricity meter easily to see what it costs me 
to boil that amount in the kettle or by Microwave. Does anybody have that 
facility?  And also there is always other electricity being used.

Cheers,

Peter





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Re: [Dorset] OT: Keeping costs down

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

Terry, I only received one message, as you can see timestamped 9:51

I did wonder if a smart meter could give you a reading on that, but acknowledge 
that electricity usage is continuously fluctuating, so unlikely.

I might have to borrow my neighbour's in-line device and test the kettle/ 
microwave.

Thanks John for that link.

Peter

On 29/08/2022 09:51, Terry Coles wrote:


On 29/08/2022 09:33, Peter Merchant wrote:

I was curious, so I took the water from the kettle and put it in a pot on the 
stove. It was very close to 500ml.

Watching the gas meter while it boiled it used 0.014 m(cubed) of gas, which 
converted to 0.15788Kwh and at my current rate of 7.123p/Kwh cost me 1.1.25p to 
boil up.

Unfortunately I can't see my electricity meter easily to see what it costs me 
to boil that amount in the kettle or by Microwave. Does anybody have that 
facility?  And also there is always other electricity being used.


Peter,

I have a SMART Meter with associated In-Home Display (IHD) which is telling me 
that my current electricity consumption is 85W, however, it is continuously 
varying between ~25 W and ~220 W. Presumably, I could see how much the 
consumption increases when I boil the kettle but I would then have to calculate 
the total consumption against minutes and convert it to KWh and even then the 
result would be a bit iffy.

You can get gadgets that measure the electricity consumption at the 'incomer' 
(at the meters).  ( I have one which I use to measure the amount of juice being 
generated by my solar Panels) and you can also get ones that do the same for a 
single socket. If anyone has such a beast, then I think that the most accurate 
result could be obtained that way.

Of course if we know the efficiency of the kettle we could calculate it!




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Re: [Dorset] Next Meeting - Tonight at 8 pm

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

Yup,
forgot to mention that the Model Town was on South Today news last night 
celebrating 70 years. And they had a scale model of the model town there too, 
3D printed.

P.

On 02/08/2022 12:52, Terry Coles wrote:

All,

The next Online Meeting is tonight at 8 pm using Jitsi.

Simply click on the following link and you will be taken to the Meeting
using your default browser:

https://meet.jit.si/dorset-lug

Chrome or Chromium are probably better than Firefox for using Jitsi.  An
alternative to installing one of those two is to obtain it bundled especially
for Jitsi from:

https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet-electron/releases

This should be as simple as

    wget -qhttps://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet-electron/releases/latest/
download/jitsi-meet-x86_64.AppImage
    chmod +x jitsi-meet-x86_64.AppImage
    ./jitsi-meet-x86_64.AppImage

and then entering ‘dorset-lug’ as the meeting ID.

Hope to see you all this evening.





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Re: [Dorset] Next Meeting - Tonight at 8 pm

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

I am not going to be able to participate either tonight.  I'm dead tired.

My main challenge in computing at the moment is updating the firmware on my 3D 
printer, which I need a couple of hours straight on, and I never get, or am too 
tired to concentrate on in the evening.

Have fun,
cheers,
peter

On 02/08/2022 12:52, Terry Coles wrote:

All,

The next Online Meeting is tonight at 8 pm using Jitsi.

Simply click on the following link and you will be taken to the Meeting
using your default browser:

https://meet.jit.si/dorset-lug

Chrome or Chromium are probably better than Firefox for using Jitsi.  An
alternative to installing one of those two is to obtain it bundled especially
for Jitsi from:

https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet-electron/releases

This should be as simple as

    wget -qhttps://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet-electron/releases/latest/
download/jitsi-meet-x86_64.AppImage
    chmod +x jitsi-meet-x86_64.AppImage
    ./jitsi-meet-x86_64.AppImage

and then entering ‘dorset-lug’ as the meeting ID.

Hope to see you all this evening.




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Re: [Dorset] Electricity power usage

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

One device not on standby is my router (TalkTalk) which consumes 6 watts, so 
costs about $15/yr in electricity
P.

On 09/07/2022 09:53, Peter Merchant wrote:

I borrowed an electricity power meter  for a few days and went around the house 
measuring everything. A couple of interesting discoveries:


Total standby power of devices in the house  = 28.5 watts  This is sort of  
invalid because the monitors on my 2 tower PC's are on a switch that turns them 
off when the PC is off so their standby power is less then. Also the meter 
seemed to register in increments of 0.5 watts.

My new washing machine consumes 0.5 watts when not in use so have to switch it 
off at the plug in future.

My old gas oven consumes 4 watts all the time - for a clock?

My two Humax PVR's also each consume 3 watts on standby.

In use the PC's consume 49 and 79 watts each, but in sleep/suspend mode about 
2.5.

The washing machine consumes 0.5watts when it is not in use. This means  1Kw 
every 2000  hours.   2000 hours is 83 days.

365/83.333 = 4.38  Kw/yr.  My current rate is 28.445p/KWh, so it costs me  
£1.25 a year  just leaving it plugged in and not using it.


So just my thoughts on saving some money. A rough calculation gives a cost of 
£62.5  per year keeping the house on standby.

Peter




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Re: [Dorset] Wimborne Model Town Routing Problem

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

 Not sure about this, but from the 'bottom' network, you are trying to access a 
webserver that gets it's IP address from itself as you have Hostapd and dnsmasq 
running on the machine.  So does the VPN server not know the address of the 
Webserver as this address has been obtained by DHCP?

But if you go by VPN link into another device which is on the 'public' side 
this device does know the Webserver (fixed) address.

Peter


On 16/04/2022 13:09, Terry Coles wrote:

Hi,

Sorry to raise this again but *some* progress has been made with the access 
issues that
I've been having at the WMT.  There is a diagram showing the physical 
arrangement of the
devices on site (and in my local test rig) at:

https://hadrian-way.co.uk/Misc/Network_Configuration.png[1]

As well as the Webserver, the Pi at 192.168.0.1 includes a DNS Server (created 
using
dnsmasq).  This serves up the hostnames of all the devices on the WMT Network.  
 Here is
a synopsis of the current situation:

*  The Webserver content is accessible to Visitors on site without any reported 
issues to
date. This means that Nodogsplash is doing what it should do.

*  The Webserver (and all other networked devices) may be accessed from a 
laptop logged
into the WMT Network via the on site Antennas.

*  The DNS Server works properly for all devices logged into the WMT Network 
from the
site.

*  The Webserver is inaccessible to clients logged into the VPN Network via VPN 
unless an
intermediate device is used as a 'stepping stone'. (eg, log into another Pi and 
then log in to
the Webserver from there.

*  The DNS Server does not work for clients logged into the VPN Network via VPN.

I have had multiple conversations with the author of pistrong. Despite numerous
suggestions, nothing seems to work in respect to getting direct access to the 
Webserver
or the DNS Server remotely.

There has been one new thing discovered; there doesn't seem to be a route 
between the
VPN Server and the Webserver. It seems to me that would account for the 
behaviour I'm
seeing but I can't see why the routing isn't working at the moment.  If I query 
iptables, the
routing seems to be there:

sudo iptables -L
[sudo] password for vuser:
Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source   destination

Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source   destination
ACCEPT all  --  10.1.10.0/24 192.168.0.0/24   policy match dir 
in pol ipsec reqid 1
proto esp
ACCEPT all  --  192.168.0.0/24   10.1.10.0/24 policy match dir 
out pol ipsec reqid 1
proto esp
ACCEPT all  --  anywhere anywhere state 
RELATED,ESTABLISHED
ACCEPT all  --  anywhere anywhere

Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source   destination
If from my client PC with VPN Active I do the command:

*terry@OptiPlex*:*~/Useful*$ systemd-resolve --status
*Global*
   Protocols: -LLMNR -mDNS -DNSOverTLS DNSSEC=no/unsupported
resolv.conf mode: foreign
*Link 2 (eno1)*
Current Scopes: DNS
 Protocols: +DefaultRoute +LLMNR -mDNS -DNSOverTLS DNSSEC=no/unsupported
Current DNS Server: 192.168.1.1
   DNS Servers: 192.168.1.1

I can't see the DNS Server on 192.168.0.1:


This problem isn't the end of the world; it's just plain inconvenient.  If 
anyone can see
anything that I should check (or better still the deliberate error in the 
system), I'd be
extremely grateful.




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Re: [Dorset] Brother Laser Printers on (K)Ubuntu

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

On 05/04/2022 17:57, Terry Coles wrote:

On Tuesday, 29 March 2022 10:30:48 BST Terry Coles wrote:

At Which? there are three best buy colour Lasers; the HP Color LaserJet Pro
M255dw at £799, another HP printer that only does manual double-sided and
the Brother HL-L3230CDW, which does everything that I need.  However, I've
never owned a Brother printer.

This arrived this morning and i can confirm that it appears to work well on
Linux, Android and iPadOS.  I haven't got a Windows PC (although my son has),
but he hasn't installed the driver yet.


Good. Enjoy.

Peter


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Re: [Dorset] Debugging dnsmasq and dhcpd

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

On 29/03/2022 15:14, Terry Coles wrote:

Hi,

The system that I've been talking about for a few days seems to have a problem
with WiFi.  It generally works OK the first time a user connects, but after
that the message 'Obtaining IP Address' is displayed for ever.  What I can't
work out is how to debug this.  Can anyone tell me where to find the log file(s)
for dnsmasq?


A quick search gets me:

Ok then your are using hostapd and dnsmasq. For the clients informations you 
can parse the 'leases' file of dnsmasq in|/var/lib/misc/dnsmasq.leases|

|I don't know whether the logfiles are close to it. |

|In dnsmasq.conf I found:|

|# For debugging purposes, log each DNS query as it passes through # dnsmasq. 
#log-queries # Log lots of extra information about DHCP transactions. #log-dhcp 
|

|But I can't find any logfiles in rootfs partition. |
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Re: [Dorset] Brother Laser Printers on (K)Ubuntu

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

On 29/03/2022 10:30, Terry Coles wrote:

Hi,

I currently have an excellent HP A3 Inkjet printer which does scan, copy and
print very well, but costs an arm and a leg for ink.  Not only does it appear
to drink the stuff, a full set of cartridges are currently well over £100.

My Birthday is coming up, so I thought that I would use that as an excuse to
get a Laser Printer.  I initially looked at HP, because their HPLIP package
pretty much guarantees that any of their printers will work on Linux.
However, at the cheaper end of the market they are all monochrome only and /
or don't do double sided printing automatically.  I print a lot of documents
with coloured diagrams, so need both colour and double sided printing.

At Which? there are three best buy colour Lasers; the HP Color LaserJet Pro
M255dw at £799, another HP printer that only does manual double-sided and the
Brother HL-L3230CDW, which does everything that I need.  However, I've never
owned a Brother printer.

So what are the gotchas?  Do Brother Printers generally work on Linux?  Does
anyone already own or have experience of this printer?

Alternatively, can anyone recommend a laser printer that meets my requirements
and also works well on Linux?


I have a Brother HL 1212W wireless laser printer and have never had any trouble 
with it. It is only black and single sided. I seem to remember having to 
download the drivers from the brother support site but I have had it for a few 
years now.

Peter M.


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Re: [Dorset] Moving POP3 Suppliers with Thunderbird.

[peter Merchant via dorset]

If you never hear from him again, it didn't work.  If successful, he
could move the emails back from the holding folder to the inbox (Copy,
not move!)

Copy or move?  Is there some reason he'd prefer those few emails to
reside on the new server rather than sit on his own Localhost machine
with the others?


I only said 'copy' as a precaution in case it didn't work.

P.


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