Re: [Hampshire] List Activity

[Alan Pope via Hampshire]

On Mon, 12 Dec 2022 at 10:43, rmluglist2--- via Hampshire <
hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk> wrote:

> I guess I’m a bit of a dinosaur but I notice that this list (as have many
> other LUG mailing lists I’ve subscribed to) has been quiet for quite a
> while.   I strongly suspect folks have moved onto social media (which I’ve
> yet to really embrace properly) but if so, where can I find you all?
>
>
>
> Or is it that LUGs have been replaced by more subject specific forums?
>
>
>
There's probably a hundred reasons why Linux User Groups are less busy than
they previously were. Including: (warning, generalisations coming)

* Linux being easier to install and use these days, so less need for a
support group
* Web forums, stack exchange, and distro/app specific web properties have
visitors with better depth of knowledge on specific issues
* Many people grow up and have other activities which take their time (such
as children)
* The popularity of Arduino and Raspberry Pi means people are doing more
hardware-related activities
* Those doing anything with software, Linux is just an implementation
detail. They're involved in communities further "up" the stack.
* Older members of LUGs are aging out
* Potential new younger audience don't really care for email (my teenage
Son says "Email is just for resetting your password on websites")
* Tools like Discord, Discourse, TikTok and Snapchat are where younger
people hang out. There are active Linux communities on most of those.

Probably other reasons too.

Cheers,
Al.
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Re: [Hampshire] libgtk-1.2.so.0

[Alan Pope via Hampshire]

Hi Peter,

On 14 May 2018 at 12:18, Peter Alefounder via Hampshire
 wrote:
> How would I do that? I have found moonlite.rpm on an old SUSE 7.3 disk, but
> not at all to my surprise, can't install it:

Maybe it might be easier to get a newer version from their website,
although they haven't done any updates for a while.

I found a tarball on their download page at
http://www.moonlight3d.eu/downloads.html

I downloaded the 64-bit tarball on my Ubuntu 18.04 system running
Unity. I unpacked the tarball and ran moonlite.sh in the download
folder and it worked first time..

Here's what it looks like. https://imgur.com/a/zBCfBmG

Maybe give that a try.

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] Dynamic DNS

[Alan Pope]

On 14 September 2015 at 12:30, Chris Dennis  wrote:
> Which is the best dynamic DNS service these days?  Free would be nice, but I
> don't mind paying a small fee.
>

http://freedns.afraid.org/

I've used that for some time now and had zero issues.

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] Advice on specs for a gaming machine

[Alan Pope]

On 12 August 2015 at 09:26, Gordon Scott gor...@gscott.co.uk wrote:
 I must be getting old or something.
 I struggle with the concept of buying a toy for an 18yo.
 When I reached 16, I was told to get a job and start paying rent.
 From then on, everything I needed I had to buy for myself.

Hoop  stick was a lot less expensive hobby back then, right?

Cheers,
Al.

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[Hampshire] Fwd: [GLLUG] OggCamp 2015

[Alan Pope]

-- Forwarded message --
From: Peter Cannon pe...@cannon-linux.co.uk
Date: 12 August 2015 at 12:10
Subject: [GLLUG] OggCamp 2015
To: GLLUG Mailing List gl...@mailman.lug.org.uk


Its here again! OggCamp 2015

John Moores University
Liverpool, UK

30th October to 1st November

http://oggcamp.org

WTF is it about?
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/oggcamp-explored-inside-the-open-source-event-1113952

Tickets are free or pay what you like. Come and meet like minded
people and get drunk with them. \o/

Please share this email with other LUG's you're members of. If they
moan about spam, blame me. :-)

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https://twitter.com/dick_turpin
http://www.cannon-linux.co.uk
https://plus.google.com/100694334141523232451/posts
Podcast: http://tdtrs.co.uk

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't
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Re: [Hampshire] Advice on specs for a gaming machine

[Alan Pope]

On 11 August 2015 at 16:56, Roger Munford
rogermunf...@parussoftware.co.uk wrote:
 My son has listed his dream machine for 1080p gaming, (maybe 1440p) in
 particular The Witcher 3, FFXIV, GTA V, WoW and Dishonored 2 on its release.

 I have no need of a machine costing more than £200 and am in no position to
 evaluate his choices. My eyes moisten at the thought of a Raspberry Pi 2.
 I was wondering if anybody with experience in these matters could advise. I
 just have a feeling that this is overkill.


Given what he wants to play (I assume he's not really young because
some of those are quite 'adult' games - GTA V specifically - however,
not telling you how to parent :D ) it looks like a fine setup. I'm
coveting that video card for a start! You could go lower, but would
get terrible frame rates at high detail on those resolutions.

Nice setup, I'm envious :)

Cheers,
Al.

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[Hampshire] Website dead, ever coming back?

[Alan Pope]

Neither of these work:-

http://hants.lug.org.uk/
http://www.hantslug.org.uk/

Who's looking after it these days? I would look that up on the website...

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Re: [Hampshire] Website dead, ever coming back?

[Alan Pope]

On 23 June 2015 at 21:50, Alan Pope a...@popey.com wrote:
 Neither of these work:-

 http://hants.lug.org.uk/
 http://www.hantslug.org.uk/

 Who's looking after it these days? I would look that up on the website...

Seems I was too impatient!

It finally loaded some 44 seconds later. http://imgur.com/vDFstIA (top right)

Still, someone might want to take a look at it.

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] Patch your Linux systems (Ghost vulnerability CVE-2015-0235)

[Alan Pope]

On 29 January 2015 at 15:36, Gordon Scott gor...@gscott.co.uk wrote:
 On Thu, 2015-01-29 at 15:25 +, David Anderson wrote:
 Looks like it hasn't affected all distributions. I had updates for
 Centos and Raspbian, but nothing for Mint


 As it's in glibc, that seems to me pretty unlikely.

 More likely is either that Mint was already fixed, or Mint have yet
 still to do the fix.


Modern Ubuntu (and thus Mint) was unaffected.

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] [OT] Amazon.co.uk down.

[Alan Pope]

On 28 November 2014 at 13:13, James Courtier-Dutton
james.dut...@gmail.com wrote:
 Its black Friday, and guess what Amazon.co.uk web site is down.

 Showing the following text:


Not here it isn't. Works fine.

Expect it was a transient thing. Many UK retailers are implementing
wait/queue systems (which seems mad) probably so they don't run into
these issues. Amazon have infrastructure coming out of their wazoo so
I can't imagine this is a long term issue (for them).

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] Diagram tool for network wiring?

[Alan Pope]

On 27 November 2014 at 20:37, Chris Dennis cgden...@btinternet.com wrote:
 Can anyone suggest a linuxy tool for drawing a diagram of a local area
 network?

 I want to be able to represent cables, sockets, switches, computers etc.


http://asciiflow.com/

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Re: [Hampshire] Open Source CRM

[Alan Pope]

On 13 August 2014 14:44, Edward Beckmann edward.beckm...@gmail.com wrote:
 I'm a tad confused - a search shows Full Circle Podcast (your email address)
 as a sideshoot of Full Circle Magazine, which supports the Ubuntu community.
 If that is you guys then I would have thought you have all the information
 in house somewhere. If that's not you, then there needs to be a discussion
 about one of you changing your names to reduce confusion.


If I sign up to the list as Microsoft Security
microsoft_security1...@gmail.com would you make similar
assumptions?

*boggle*

Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] [OFF TOPIC] Electrician recommendation

[Alan Pope]

Hi,

On 4 July 2014 13:28, Stephen Nelson-Smith sanel...@gmail.com wrote:
 I need to acquire the services of an electrician to provide power to an
 outbuilding.  Can anyone recommend anyone?


I can recommend http://lselectrical.co.uk/ - a guy called Simon, very
good. He's in Farnborough.

Cheers,
Al.

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[Hampshire] Ubuntu MATE Remix Alpha

[Alan Pope]

Hi all,

One of the MATE developers - Martin Wimpress (of this LUG) - has (with
a tiny bit of help) spun up an Ubuntu MATE Remix. It's Ubuntu, but
with a hint of 2010 ;)

You can get the details here, do feel free to test and fire feedback
at us via the bug reporting link on the site. It's based off Ubuntu
14.10 which is due out later in the year. If all goes well we may
backport to 14.04 and produce an LTS type release too.

http://ubuntu-mate.org/blog/ubuntu-mate-remix-alpha1/

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] XBMC ISO

[Alan Pope]

On 30 May 2014 00:05, Michael Pavling pavl...@gmail.com wrote:
 Raspberry PIs do run XBMC but they really are rather slow (even
 rendering and navigating through the menus was too slow for me for regular
 use). Much better to get it running on an Atom net-top machine at the least.


+1

I found the Pi not well suited to media playing apps. Playing the
media was okay ish, not perfect, but navigating the menus was painful.

I have an Acer Aspire Revo 3600 which has an Atom CPU and nVidia GPU,
running a stripped down Linux distro and XBMC. Works a treat with an
external remote control. The only thing it doesn't do is power down/up
when I need it.

You can pick them up on ebay.

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] Top posting

[Alan Pope]

On 28 May 2014 11:23, Anton Piatek an...@piatek.co.uk wrote:
 It certainly seems to be easy enough to start a flame war

 On 28 May 2014 10:20, Tony Wood tonywoo...@ntlworld.com wrote:
 On 27/05/14 15:19, Owain Clarke wrote:
 On 27/05/14 12:44, Joseph Bennie wrote:

 or you know... you could just get on with life and not worry about
 the little things :)
 many more fields of issues in the world that need more time and
 attention brought to them!

 +1

 So I completely failed to start a vicious flame war :(

 One of the things I like best about our list is the paucity of flaming.

 (Does this count as top or bottom posting?)


When a list has precious else to talk about (I guess Linux works for
everyone most of the time now), and the members have been around a
long time the flames are easier to start.

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Re: [Hampshire] Top posting

[Alan Pope]

On 27 May 2014 13:37, Freaky Clown freakycl...@gmail.com wrote:
 or you know... you could just get on with life and not worry about the
 little things :)

What, like this?

https://twitter.com/__Freakyclown__/status/471250625335164928

:)

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Re: [Hampshire] Disk copy/duplication for upgrade.

[Alan Pope]

On 5 May 2014 15:27, Andy Random andy.ran...@gmail.com wrote:
 I've used Clonezilla before to do this kind of thing on a desktop where I
 can have both drives connected at once, but I'm not sure the best way to do
 this on a laptop where only one disk can be connected at a time.


Why can only one be connected at a time? Can you not stick the new one
in an external enclosure, or some USB to SATA/IDE converter?

 Any suggestions?


I used an external adapter, booted from a Live USB stick and just used
gparted. It has a copy/paste feature where you just pick up partitions
from one disk and paste them onto another disk. Works rather well
modulo USB transfer speeds.

The only gotcha I had doing this was needing to manually install grub,
but that's not beyond the wit of man.

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] DDR2-800 RAM

[Alan Pope]

Hi Adam,

On 13 April 2014 20:07, Dr A. J. Trickett adam.trick...@iredale.net wrote:
 On the off chance, does anyone have 2G DD2-800 unbuffered/non-EDO RAM that
 they are not using?


I have 1xOCZ2N9002GK (which is 2x1GB sticks) . Any use?

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] DDR2-800 RAM

[Alan Pope]

On 13 April 2014 20:48, Dr A. J. Trickett adam.trick...@iredale.net wrote:

 On 13 April 2014 20:07, Dr A. J. Trickett adam.trick...@iredale.net wrote:
  On the off chance, does anyone have 2G DD2-800 unbuffered/non-EDO RAM
  that they are not using?

 I have 1xOCZ2N9002GK (which is 2x1GB sticks) . Any use?

 Yes.


Super, let me know your address via mail and I'll post them asap.

A small donation to HR Trust would be great if you can.
http://www.hrtrust.org/page/langerhans-cell-histiocytosis-in-children.html

Thanks,
Al.

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[Hampshire] ORG Hampshire

[Alan Pope]

Thought this might be of interested to Hampshire residents.

http://www.meetup.com/ORG-Hampshire

There's a meet-up in Winchester on Tuesday..

http://www.meetup.com/ORG-Hampshire/events/173967952/

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] Kernel suspend problem with i915 module

[Alan Pope]

Hi Peter,

On 20 January 2014 15:48, Peter Salisbury
peterthevi...@users.sourceforge.net wrote:
 3.2 (12.04 precise) YES
 3.6.3 (12.10 quantal) YES
 3.9.0 (13.04 raring) YES
 3.9.0 (13.10 saucy, 7.May.15) YES
 3.9.5 (saucy, 7.Jun.13) YES
 3.9.9 (saucy, 3.Jul.13) YES
 ---
 3.10-rc1 (saucy, 13.May.13) NO
 3.10.0 (saucy, 30.Jun.13) NO
 3.11 (saucy) NO [current kernel]

 What is the best thing to do next?

File a bug.

ubuntu-bug linux

Then report your findings so far.

It's possible the bug may already have been reported. There seem to be
some existing ones in this area both on launchpad and elsewhere.

Ping us the bug number and I'll ask one of the kernel guys to take a look.

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] 'Killed' response when running program from command-line

[Alan Pope]

On 16 January 2014 19:30, Robin Wilson ro...@rtwilson.com wrote:
 robintw@test:~/Py6S/6S/6SV1.1$ ./sixsV1.1
 Killed

 Does anyone have any idea what I can do to try and work out what's happening?


strace it?

strace ./sixsV1.1

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] Suggested Distro for an original Acer Aspire one?

[Alan Pope]

On 13 January 2014 11:58, Jan Henkins j...@henkins.za.net wrote:
 +1 for Lubuntu!


Interestingly I discovered only last night that LXDE (upon which
Lubuntu builds) is moving from GTK to Qt.

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] Suggested Distro for an original Acer Aspire one?

[Alan Pope]

On 12 January 2014 17:29, Andy Random andy.ran...@gmail.com wrote:
 I'd like a GUI of some kind on it rather than just a console, but I have no
 interest in flashy graphic or effects, just a basic windowing system.

 In the past I've used Xubuntu or Crunchbang for this kind of thing, but I've
 not really played with either recently and don't know how well they will
 play with the old hardware or whether something better has come along for
 giving new life to aging kit.


Crunchbang is pretty good and lean. I have used it on low power
machines including one around the same (indeed lower) spec than yours.

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] HantsLug Facebook was Hampshire Digest, Vol 86, Issue 11

[Alan Pope]

On 19 December 2013 15:02, Chris. Aubrey-Smith cas...@gmail.com wrote:
 I, too, will have nothing to do with so-called social media sites. I have an
 e-mail address; that is enough.


My point was to find new blood. It was not intended to suggest that
Facebook would supplant the website, mailing list, IRC channel, pub or
other meatspace activities.

Merely a method by which for the LUG to promote itself, its activities
and use the tools at our disposal to get people to even know the LUG
exists and then perhaps take part.

We have haemorrhaged people for years and very little has been done to
undo that.

IMHO.

Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] [ADMIN] upcoming meetings

[Alan Pope]

On 19 December 2013 10:45, Chris Dennis cgden...@btinternet.com wrote:
 Not really a jest -- a serious plea for people to update the website.


The two are not mutually exclusive. It's entirely possible to create a
meeting page on a website then a event in a social media site and link
to said page.

The website contains the details, the social media side is merely
raising awareness.

 It may be that you don't
 actually want any new people to turn up in which case fair enough. I
 just wanted to figure out what the motivation for having meetings and
 promoting them on the list and website was if that's the case.

 Now you're just being bitter and twisted.


I'm bitter that the LUG has fallen apart in this department, yes. We
used to have a functioning website which could be edited easily by
anyone. Now we don't, that's a regression.

 As I recall, the wiki was spoilt by huge amounts of spam and rogue
 registrations.

Not when it was abusemod wiki, no. There were some spam edits and they
were easily reverted by code *we* created to make it work *for* *us*.
The wiki was then pointlessly converted to Moin and the people
responsible walked away. At that point it all fell apart, and rather
than go back to what was working perfectly fine before (abusemod) we
moved forward to a situation where basically nobody edits the site.

The wiki worked. I know I am not alone in holding this opinion.

 And yet nobody ever adds anything.  The reasons must be something other than
 technical ones.


Perhaps the content people want to edit isn't the content you want
people to edit?

I don't necessarily want to create new blog pages in Wordpress, but
update the old and orphaned pages which were fine but out of date.

The pages which have existed for many years but are now non-editable
due to the ridiculous and pointless multiple migrations the website
has had. They are now unlikely to ever get fixed which makes
motivation for maintaining other parts of the site low to zero.

Just my frustrated 2p. Take it as bitter and twisted if you like, what
do I know.

Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] [ADMIN] upcoming meetings

[Alan Pope]

On 18 December 2013 18:54, Chris Dennis cgden...@btinternet.com wrote:
 Out of curiosity, does HantsLUG have a Facebook page, a event could be
 created for it?


 No, we have a proper website at hantslug.org.uk!


Not sure if this is meant in jest?

Are you seriously suggesting that we don't need to promote our
meetings outside a website which probably gets near zero new visitors
every month?

Like it or not Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and others have the
opportunity for us to reach new people. It may be that you don't
actually want any new people to turn up in which case fair enough. I
just wanted to figure out what the motivation for having meetings and
promoting them on the list and website was if that's the case.

 I've added a calendar entry for the February meeting, but you (James, and
 any other HantsLUG member) are more than welcome to add posts or pages about
 these events, or anything else vaguely related to Linux.


I'm still frustrated that we used to have a wiki which worked fine,
and was then comprehensively broken by successive parties to the point
where nobody edits it at all.

Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] REMINDER: Surrey LUG Bring-a-box meeting: 23rd November 2013, RedHat, Farnborough

[Alan Pope]

On 23 November 2013 18:12, Robert Longstaff robert.longst...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hello. Thanks to Dominic for hosting us today and to Sam and Igor for their
 presentations which were very well received. We had a good meeting with
 around 19 people attending, including at least two newbies.


Yes, thank you Dominic. I really appreciate that you take time out on
your Saturday to host us at Red Hat.

I arrived fashionably late, during the TokuDB talk, and found it very
interesting despite my personal lack of interest in all things
databases :)

Cheers,
Al.

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[Hampshire] Code Pub Meet 28/11 Reading

[Alan Pope]

Hi all,

I know some of you are interested in Code Club so I thought I'd pass
on details of Code Pub which is a meet up of Code Club Volunteers,
Potential Volunteers, teachers and other interested parties.

It's in Reading at the Nag's Head, 5 Russell St, RG1 7XD on 28th
November from 6pm to 9pm.

if you're interested in going along and chatting about teaching kids
to code, then follow this link..

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/code-pub-reading-meet-up-tickets-8975795847

Maybe see you there.

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] Ebooks, was: disk types and layout on a new box

[Alan Pope]

On 16 October 2013 18:07, Paul Tansom p...@aptanet.com wrote:
 That looks like fun, I almost wish I'd got two now! Thinking about it I'm sure
 I saw a link to a virtualised Windows 3.1 on a Nook Simple Touch. I didn't 
 take
 enough interest to find out whether it was genuine though! I sort of assumed
 that the limited hardware would have made not worth the effort to root and 
 mess
 around with - well not for me anyway, I have way too much on the go. That 
 said,
 if you can somebody no doubt will!


That would be Taras...

https://twitter.com/tarasyoung/status/344570620396306433/photo/1

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] disk types and layout on a new box

[Alan Pope]

On 15 October 2013 16:14, Alex Dicks a...@dixie.me.uk wrote:
 Both the 4GB and 16GB SSDs failed on my old Eee 900, but in both cases I
 could still read most of the files on them.  I had backups anyway, but
 no recent work was lost.  The first I knew of the problems both times
 was SMART errors caught by Disk Utility in Ubuntu.  (Once one had failed
 I trusted the other much less!)


The SSDs in the Eee 701/900 were quite early generation devices, and
had pretty terrible performance and reliability.

I had one die too, the 4GB one in a 900 died, so I re-installed the OS
only on the 16GB SSD, avoiding the busted one.

Tis one of the reasons I don't like Ultrabooks™ (or thin laptops as we
should call them now Intel has given up on the ultrabook brand), the
fact that a lot of the components are soldered on.

The 240GB disk in my X220 is getting quite full and I suspect at some
point I'll buy a 500+GB SSD and migrate over. Can't do that with most
ultrabooks, pretty though they are.

Cheers,
Al.

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[Hampshire] Ebooks, was: disk types and layout on a new box

[Alan Pope]

On 15 October 2013 23:12, Paul Tansom p...@aptanet.com wrote:
 Yes, I have the same concern with the inability to change batteries in tablets
 and some phones  laptops. I have a Nook ebook reader and I get slightly
 annoyed at the thought that I will have to scrap it when the battery gives up 
 -
 not a major issue given that it only cost me £29 and I've only used it to read
 either the freely downloadable books, or DRM free ones (Humble Book Bundles).


How did you copy content over to the device? I have the same one and
futzed around and enabled the Play store, Amazon store etc and
installed the Kindle app as I already had some content in it.

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] Ebooks, was: disk types and layout on a new box

[Alan Pope]

On 15 October 2013 23:54, Paul Tansom p...@aptanet.com wrote:
 I'm suspecting the one I was referring to isn't the same device as it isn't
 capable of running the Play store (as far as I know)

http://www.babblingengineer.com/how-to/how-i-turned-my-nook-into-an-e-reader-monster/

 - it is the basic Simple
 Touch E Ink display one. That I just connected up via USB and copied the files
 across into the appropriate folder (My Files and then one of Books, Documents,
 Magazines or Newspapers as appropriate). I've changed the screen saver in a
 similar way (although it was fun converting the images to a suitable size and
 limited greyscale!).


Ah excellent, hadn't tried that, thanks!

 The only issue I have is that it doesn't like the wireless N on my router and
 I've had to (temporarily I hope) drop the speed down to G :( More of an 
 annoyance
 is the fact that the multiple user profiles isn't exactly sophicticated - they
 are just adult or child, common pin for all adults and none for children. You
 can then restrict what apps can be run, but any config is shared between
 profiles - i.e. if you install Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. every profile
 logs in with the same account :( Oh, another annoyance is the proprietary
 connector for charging and data (I need to get a spare just in case as they 
 are
 only available while stocks last).


Stock android is okay at splitting users up. I have a Nexus 7 which
has an account for each of us. The kids check their email and play
games on it, keeping their own scores.

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] Steam

[Alan Pope]

Hi Paul,

On 7 October 2013 18:03, Paul Tansom p...@aptanet.com wrote:
 Is there anyone out there using Steam on Linux? I've finally put my Humble
 Bundle Steam keys on there and am having a good play. I didn't realise how 
 many
 games I had, but some of the independent games are much more to my liking than
 the big budget ones.


Yeah, the Humble Bundles have greatly increased my game collection for
very low cost. Great value for money.

 What I haven't managed to get working is Big Picture mode, and I was wondering
 if anyone else had.

Yup, on 64-bit Ubuntu 13.10 on Intel i7 CPU and nVidia GPU with the
binary driver..

I also installed steam-login which allows you to login directly to big
picture mode without starting a desktop.Works well.

https://github.com/thor27/steam-login/

Like this:-

http://popey.com/~alan/2013-10-07-194754_1920x1080_scrot.png

 For reference this is
 Ubuntu 12.04 with dual AMD/ATI Radeon graphics cards.


What if you disable one card?

 As an aside, if anyone wants to link up on there I'm whaletales. It would be
 nice to be eligable for the Steam Box trial, and having managed to get Bit
 Picture working on the Windows boot with a controller I just need a few more
 friends to move from no chance to miniscule chance - all together now... aw! 
 :)


:) I'm popeydc on steam, feel free to add me too :)

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] Steam

[Alan Pope]

On 7 October 2013 23:42, Paul Tansom p...@aptanet.com wrote:
 ** Alan Pope a...@popey.com [2013-10-07 19:51]:
 :) I'm popeydc on steam, feel free to add me too :)

 Wakey, wakey, already done!


That was aimed at everyone else :)

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Re: [Hampshire] disk types and layout on a new box

[Alan Pope]

Hi Adam,

On 27 September 2013 08:58, Dr A. J. Trickett adam.trick...@iredale.net wrote:
 The bulk files will probably be VM disk images (multi GB), photos (many-many
 multi MB), some video files (iPlayer and DVB recordings), ISO files (not that
 many but some). Most of these will be written once and read now and then but
 not change a lot - the VM files will change the most when in use.

 Any thoughts on combinations, and file system layout?


On my desktop I went for SSD for / and 1TB spinning rust for /home. I
found the 120GB / wasn't used well so I moves some VMs and that makes
for much better use of space, with the speed improvement too. I just
don't worry about space anymore now rust is cheap.

On my Thinkpad laptop I put two SSDs in (one conventional, one mSATA)
and dual boot.

When I go back to rust on my other laptop or family computer it feels
painful after getting used to SATA :(

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] disk types and layout on a new box

[Alan Pope]

Hi Ally,

On 27 September 2013 09:49, Ally Biggs bluechr...@hotmail.co.uk wrote:
 Al just out of curiosity what kind of back up or redundancy do you have in 
 place? Need to get a few ideas myself.

I have an HP Microserver with 12x2TB disks (4 internal, 8 external in
an external array) which amounts to one big btrfs volume.

It runs rsnapshot every few hours to pull from my laptop, desktop and
various online servers. So I have regular backups of everything I care
about.

I have a Windows partition which I don't bother backing up because
it's only used for gaming, so all the content is in the cloud.

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] disk types and layout on a new box

[Alan Pope]

On 27 September 2013 10:01, Gordon Scott gor...@gscott.co.uk wrote:
 Flash drives aren't _necessarily_ either faster or more reliable than
 spinning rust.


I suspect when Adam said Flash he meant SSD.

Which are almost always faster than spinning rust. Unless you have a
really expensive rusty drive or a really cheap and terrible SSD.

Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] disk types and layout on a new box

[Alan Pope]

Hi Gordon,

On 27 September 2013 14:05, Gordon Scott gor...@gscott.co.uk wrote:
 On reliability, though, I've seen more than a few posts from people who've
 had 'brand' SSD drives replaced several times in startlingly quick
 succession because they've failed yet again.  I'm not sure why that should
 be as flash itself is usually pretty reliable. SSDs (etc.) have redundancy
 to circumvent errors, and indeed to deal with the strange fact that flash,
 unlike most semiconductors, actually _does_ wear out.


I've seen reports of SSDs failing too. I currently have 7 from various
manufacturers in place in different machines. Not had a single one
fail yet. I've had my fair share of rust go bad.

I realise my anecdotal evidence is meaningless, but so long as you
have good backups a failed SSD is about the same inconvenience as a
failed hard disk.

Oh, and I always have swap, even on SSD.

KiB Mem:   8056628 total,  6771356 used,  1285272 free,98768 buffers
KiB Swap:  8267772 total,  2461452 used,  5806320 free,  1116208 cached

Cheers,
Al.

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[Hampshire] Want to borrow CF adapter

[Alan Pope]

Hullo!

I have a bit of a pickle. My iRiver iHP-140 (A.K.A. H140) MP3 player
has some files on that I need to get off. It is refusing to mount via
USB for some reason I can't fathom. I have taken the device apart and
have the hard disk out of it, but no way to connect it to my computer.

I need to borrow a 1.8 CF to USB/IDE/something adapter. The disk is a
toshiba mk4004gah which won't fit in a standard CF adapter because the
rails which guide/hold the CF card

I've looked on Amazon and some other stores, and they all have really
long lead times.

Anyone got one I could borrow? Being in Farnborough double-bonus :)

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] something like get_iplayer

[Alan Pope]

On 10 September 2013 15:07, James Courtier-Dutton
james.dut...@gmail.com wrote:
 I recently found something called get_flash_videos
 Get it from:
 git clone https://github.com/monsieurvideo/get-flash-videos.git

 It works by you going to the bbc, itv, channel4 web sites, go to their
 player or catchup sites, and then just copy the url onto the command
 line.

Nice idea. It failed on BBC, C4 and ITV for me.

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] something like get_iplayer

[Alan Pope]

On 10 September 2013 15:53, James Courtier-Dutton
james.dut...@gmail.com wrote:
 Did you copy the plugins to the ~/.get_flash_videos/plugins folder.
 cp -a get-flash-videos/lib/FlashVideo/Site/* ~/.get_flash_videos/plugins


Nope. Where's that documented?

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] [Surrey] untended consequences of Nokia buyout

[Alan Pope]

On 7 September 2013 10:11, Joseph Bennie j...@lincore.com wrote:
 The about  Licence page on the IDE hasn't been updated, but having followed 
 the nokia links they redirect to Digia.  Full details are on the about-us 
 page.


Odd. Which IDE on what distro is that?

It's updated here in qtcreator.

http://popey.com/~alan/qtc_about.png

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] [Surrey] untended consequences of Nokia buyout

[Alan Pope]

On 7 September 2013 12:58, Joseph Bennie j...@lincore.com wrote:
 Distro = Debian 7  (iso 7.0.1, but app installed today via gnome package 
 manager)
 App = Monkey Studio IDE(top search for QT4 Integrated Development 
 Environment)
 package name = monkey studio-1.9.0.2-2 (32 bit)
 License = unknown in repo …. - app implies LGPL 2.1 +

 https://www.dropbox.com/s/pku6te151r9htft/QTLicense.png

Ah qt4. Retro! :D

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Re: [Hampshire] Ubuntu Edge crowdfunding drive misses target

[Alan Pope]

On 26 August 2013 13:28, Andy Random andy.ran...@gmail.com wrote:
 Yes, and I think that is part of the problem with the Edge, without support
 from the mainstream providers it will struggle to sell in sufficient
 numbers.


The Edge wouldn't have sold in any numbers. The *only* way to get one
was to back the campaign to the relevant level. There was no intention
to continue selling the Edge through retail channels (or otherwise)
after the campaign finished.

 It doesn't matter if the device is great value for money, if it isn't
 affordable to the man in the street it probably won't sell in volume :(


The Edge needed 40K people to back it to the relevant level to gain
enough money to actually make it. The intention was that there might
be another crowd-funding campaign Edge 2 a year or so later, with
the original backers of the Edge maybe having first refusal for
upgrade, or having input on changes for the next generation. It seemed
like a great idea to me, allowing people to actually have input on the
next gen device.

But it was not to be.

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] Ubuntu Edge crowdfunding drive misses target

[Alan Pope]

On 25 August 2013 14:46, Simon Whitehead liquidigi...@hotmail.com wrote:
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23793457
 Is any mobile phone worth $625, $675, $695 or $725.


I paid £429 for my phone nearly two years ago. I get a lot of use out
of it. I personally hoped the Edge was going to be my next phone. It
has the design, spec and software I want. Shame it didn't hit the
target.

 Crowdsourcing is this a great way of market testing or letting the mad run
 the madhouse?!


I have backed numerous crowdfunding campaigns. These range from a 3D
printer to charities, clothing, books, films, and various hardware
projects. I find them an exciting way to back a project.

A by-product of all crowdfunding campaigns (not just the Edge) is to
test the market. If you can't get funding for your project then
perhaps there's not enough market for it, or maybe you mismanaged the
project, or perhaps there's some other reason.

Many have speculated on why the Edge failed to get funding, but I
don't think anyone has one single concrete answer.

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] Ubuntu Edge crowdfunding drive misses target

[Alan Pope]

On 25 August 2013 22:12, Tim B t...@engineering.selfip.org wrote:
 Phone+laptop+desktop.  That's a very big claim,  and not one I think can be
 supported, given the widely varied use cases.


While the use case is important for the user, it doesn't define the device.

A laptop is still a laptop whether it can run Crysis / AutoCad /
Minecraft / SAP or not.

Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] How to get your foot in the door?

[Alan Pope]

Hi Ally,

On 19 August 2013 16:02, Ally Biggs bluechr...@hotmail.co.uk wrote:
 How do you start a career in Linux? are there any volunteering opportunities
 out there?
 Or opportunities to shadow and learn? I'm passionate about Open Source Tech
 but just need guidance and the opportunity to shine.


The way it worked for me was to volunteer on an open source project.
Specifically Ubuntu. I spent a lot of time answering support
questions, advocating the use of Ubuntu and generally acting like a
bit of a fanboy.

Over time I held some leadership positions in the project including
being on the Community Council. After a few years I decided I needed
to refocus and so stepped down from some of my volunteer positions. At
that point I got a pm on IRC from a well known spaceman and (in short)
was asked to go and work for Canonical on Ubuntu full time.

I realise this is my specific scenario, but the key thing I learned
from this is that putting in a bit of effort in your own time, to
projects which need the help, may be rewarded later. In addition, if
you don't get recruited by the sponsor of the project at least there's
a body of (public) work you can point another future employer at.

So essentially I'd say go look for Open Source projects which you're
interested in, and who have gaps which need filling. That might be as
simple as testing their app/tool/library regularly, advocating the use
of it, giving talks at LUGs about a topic, and updating documentation
or tutorials. Or it could be more technical such as submitting patches
and security audits.

Hope that helps,
Cheers,
Al.

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Re: [Hampshire] Recommendations sought for system upgrade

[Alan Pope]

On 13 August 2013 15:04, Peter B. pet...@gmail.com wrote:
 Cheap case - zoostorm jobby with all parts included except OS

 http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Computer/cat/Desktop-PC


+1 for zoostorm. I have an Intel i7 based one as my desktop and has
worked just fine.

 U could probably reuse your power supply as well add in an extra
 cd/dvd/bluray - but alot of cases come with one - and I would b suprised if
 u still use that tech anymore.


I'd be surprised if you could re-use a PSU of that age in a modern PC.

Cheers,
Al.

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[Hampshire] Fwd: [GLLUG] CentOS Dojo and Barbecue - Aldershot, UK on 12th July 2013

[Alan Pope]

Thought this might be of interest to Hants/Surrey people as it's local (to
some).

Cheers,
Al.

-- Forwarded message --
From: Karanbir Singh mail-li...@karan.org
Date: 18 June 2013 15:02
Subject: [GLLUG] CentOS Dojo and Barbecue - Aldershot, UK on 12th July 2013
To: gl...@mailman.lug.org.uk


Hi,

Crossposting to the GLLUG list as well, there might be some interest
amongst members here.

Details on the day: http://wiki.centos.org/Events/Dojo/Aldershot2013
Registration URL : http://centosdojoaldershot.eventbrite.co.uk/#

The final speaker list is now online, and we still have early bird
tickets going for £10 each. While I am trying to find recording
equipment, the best way to really benefit from the event is to be there.
People speaking include:

David Scott, from Citrix EU, on clouds with openstack, xen and ceph
Jon Crowie, from Etsy.com, on building CentOS livecd's for syadmin work
Justin Clift, from Gluster.org, on getting started with infiniband
Karanbir Singh, from CentOS.org on the who/why/what/how of CentOS
Mark Sutton, fron catn.com on Creating CentOS images for OpenStack
Richard Jones, from the libvirt team on virtualisation and virt tools

http://wiki.centos.org/Events/Dojo/Aldershot2013 has the complete
session, venue, barbeque and ale details.

Keep in mind that just like the previous Dojo's we organised, this too,
is a not for profit event. The registration price just about covers the
tshirts and goodies handed out to everyone who attends. The Venue,
hospitality, barbeque and beer are all sponsored by the guys at fubra.com

See you there!

- KB


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Re: [Hampshire] Linux compatible cameras

[Alan Pope]

Hi Keith,

On 16 June 2013 10:12, Keith Edmunds k...@midnighthax.com wrote:

 I'm looking for a simple-to-use camera that is Linux compatible. It's for
 my mum, who is in her 70s, so point, click is about as complex as it needs
 to be. Her PC runs Linux, supported by yours truly from 165 miles away, so
 ideally she would connect the camera to the PC with a USB cable and it
 would Just Work.


I have a Logitech Pro 9000 which Just Works (TM). Never had any problems
with it in Skype  Google Hangouts.

Cheers,
Al.
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Re: [Hampshire] Linux compatible cameras

[Alan Pope]

On 16 June 2013 10:46, Keith Edmunds k...@midnighthax.com wrote:

 On Sun, 16 Jun 2013 10:38:38 +0100, a...@popey.com said:

  I have a Logitech Pro 9000 which Just Works (TM).

 Thanks Alan, but that's a webcam - I'm looking for an ordinary camera.


D'oh! Misread, sorry.

Cheers,
Al.
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Re: [Hampshire] Accessing genealogy data on PDF files

[Alan Pope]

On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 12:11:17PM +0100, john lewis wrote:
 For quite a few years I've used (non-free) acroread to access these
 files quite simply because the free readers (evince, xpdf, et al)  just
 aint good enough.
 

I hear that! I have recently had to install Acrobat on a machine because 
wifey has to maintain some pdf files provided by education boards and no 
other PDF reader works just right, so I feel your pain!

  dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of adobereader-enu:
   adobereader-enu depends on libgtk2.0-0 (= 2.4); however:
Package libgtk2.0-0:i386 is not installed.
  
  dpkg: error processing adobereader-enu (--install):
   dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
  Processing triggers for man-db ...
  Errors were encountered while processing:
   adobereader-enu
 
 and it isn't possible to install libgtk2.0-0:i386 as trying to do so
 requires installation of 55 other packages but that throws up another
 error
 
  The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  libc6 : Breaks: libc6:i386 (!= 2.17-2) but 2.17-1 is to be installed.
  libc6:i386 : Breaks: libc6 (!= 2.17-1) but 2.17-2 is installed.
 

This doesn't look like a problem on your system, but the fact that on 
sid the 64-bit build of libc6 is currently slightly ahead of the 32-bit 
build. You can see this here:-

http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=libc6

2.17-2: amd64 armhf powerpc s390 s390x 
2.17-1: armel i386 sparc 

Ok, so what this is telling me is that you have a 64-bit system which 
has libc6:amd64 2.17-2 but you want to pull in the latest libc6:i386 to 
satisfy the dependency for installing the other 32-bit packages (such as 
libgtk2.0-0:i386) which you need for Acrobat.

I see two solutions (well there are many solutions, but the two most 
straightforward):-

1. Wait for whatever issue is holding up the 32-bit build of 2.17-2 of 
libc6. 
2. Downgrade libc6:amd64 to 2.17-1 so you can then install libc6:i386 
thus:-

apt-get install libc6:amd64=2.17-1

You can also just simulate this operation safely with:-

apt-get install -s libc6:amd64=2.17-1
 
Chances are some other package or two may need to be downgraded also. 
It's only a minor bump so theoretically it should be much to be 
downgraded, and you can do them all in one go with:-

apt-get install libc6:amd64=2.17-1 foo:amd64=1.2.3 bar:amd64=4.5.6

etc (replacing foo and bar with package names and 1.2.3 and 4.5.6 with 
the version numbers apt asks for). Again, use -s to simulate to see if 
it will come up with a sane solution.

Once you've done that you'll have libc6:amd64 on 2.17-1 and can happily 
install libc6:i386 version 2.17-1 too. 

Note: if you apt-get upgrade or dist-upgrade (or use equivalent 
tools like aptitude or synaptic to effect the same thing) you will end 
up upgrading libc6:amd64 to 2.17-2, or in fact it may just hold that 
back because you also need libc6:i386 to be held back for the acrobat 
dependency to fulfil. 


 It isn't the first time I've had problems using 32 bit libs on a 64 bit
 system but in the past I've been able to find a solution. I lost the 32
 bit libs by a bit of careless clicking whilst doing an update ;-(
 

Now we're in a new multiarch world you should be able to install 
individual 32-bit libraries as required. The skew you're seeing is the 
pitfall of running sid I fear. 

Hope that helps.
Al.


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Re: [Hampshire] Asus Motherboard/Linux compatibility

[Alan Pope]

On 25/04/13 21:46, Ian Park wrote:

I thought I'd try picking brains about the compatibility of a
motherboard I'm thinking of using with Linux Mint. The MB is the Asus
Rampage IV Extreme [1], which brags about its compatibility with Windows
8. I don't want to commit to pretty substantial expense in building a PC
based on this MB, only to find that it gives me all sorts of grief when
I try to install Linux, because of UEFI.


Modern Linux distros have supported UEFI for some time. Shouldn't be a 
problem. Other things might be, but that won't (depending on distro you 
choose of course)


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Re: [Hampshire] Wiki broken?

[Alan Pope]

On 09/11/12 18:39, Chris Dennis wrote:

On 09/11/12 18:23, Tim Brocklehurst wrote:

On 05/11/12 15:46, Chris Dennis wrote:

So, this is the plan.  I've re-enabled new accounts, which means that
anyone can create an account.  BUT, only users who are members of the
'editors' group can change things.  If you want to be an editor,
create
an account, and let me know your user name by sending an email to
webmas...@hantslug.org.uk.


Hmmm...  Less that 24 hours later, about 50 random user names have
appeared in the wiki's list of users.  No pages have been hacked, but
it's a bit of a worry...


Could I suggest an account on application-to-the-webmaster system? I'd be
surprised if there will be more than 10 contributors?


Yes, that's fine by me.

I'll turn off the 'new account' feature, and add some blurb about
applying for an account.



Resurrecting a 5 month old thread..

I'd still like to edit a page on the wiki. Alternatively I'll move the 
content somewhere else where I can edit it, which makes me sad. What's 
the solution to this?


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Re: [Hampshire] Wiki broken?

[Alan Pope]

On 24/04/13 15:12, Chris Dennis wrote:

Yes, the old wiki still requires manual intervention (by me) to create
accounts for editing pages.  I'm more than happy to do that for people
who ask.



Consider yourself asked.


If anyone can tell me how to improve that situation, I'd love to hear
from them.  As it is, when I enable new users on the wiki, it gets loads
of spambot types registering and messing it all up.



Shame. I don't recall that happening back when it was AbUseMod :( We 
used to get drive by edits which were easily reverted, but people could 
easily edit the content. Seems we've gone backwards from the original 
intent of having a wiki really.


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Re: [Hampshire] Wiki broken?

[Alan Pope]

On 24/04/13 19:38, Chris Dennis wrote:

How embarrassing!  I was sure I'd sent that just to Alan.  I've changed
the password, and I'll try to tell Alan the new one a bit more quietly.

Thanks for pointing that out, Paul.


That made my evening :)

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Re: [Hampshire] [Surrey] REMINDER: Surrey LUG Bring-a-box meeting: 13th April 2013, Sirus Corporation, Addlestone

[Alan Pope]

On 11/04/13 20:47, Robert Longstaff wrote:

We have one definite talk (MySQL HA) and one provisional (Tiny Tiny RSS)
and there are always slots for more!



I'll bring along a tablet running Ubuntu Touch and can demo some of the 
stuff we've done and our plans.


I'll not arrive till afternoon (2pm ish) as wifey has arranged for me to 
get my hair cut at 1pm :D


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Re: [Hampshire] [OT] Android tablet for children?

[Alan Pope]

On 27/03/13 17:58, Imran Chaudhry wrote:

There's a number of geek dads among us so does anyone have
recommendations for an Android tablet for kids?



Based on my own experience I would not recommend any Android tablets for 
kids^Wanyone. That said I have a Nexus 7 which has multiple user 
profiles and is thus used by all four of us. Clare uses it now and then 
(if it's within reach and no other computers are) for email, Facebook  
web. I use it now and then for Netflix, web, email and the odd game.


The kids use it for playing games, my eldest also uses it for emailing 
friends and browsing Amazon.



I have heard the cheaper tablets have oddities such as wifi being
impaired by a metal back cover.



Quality is a concern. Some of the cheapo ones are real stinkers in terms 
of reliability, build, battery life, touch sensitivity and software 
upgrades.


One Android specific frustration my kids (and I) have had is the soft 
buttons. It's incredibly easy to accidentally close an app, switch apps, 
back out of an app or bring up Google Now when you're in the middle of 
an intense game of some kind. This is especially apparent with young 
kids who haven't mastered finger control as much, but I've done it too 
mid game and it made me want to bury the tablet in the garden, dig it 
up, shoot it, burn it, chop it up and burn it again.



I was going to go for a 2nd hand Nubi 2 [0] which although
Android-based has a walled garden of apps to filter out the bad
stuff.


You can achieve a similar thing by installing apps for them and not 
giving them access to the play store at all. Or, you know, buy an iPad.



I am also considering a Nexus 7 which with protective covers
can be made more kid-friendly, my concern though is that Play store is
more wild making it easier for the little 'uns to make in-app
purchases and be exposed to dodgy ads.



They can't do in app purchases if you don't put a credit card on their 
account, or give them credit in Google Play vouchers. They can of course 
install free stuff which may bombard them with adverts if you link a 
Google account to their Nexus 7 login (which you have to if you want 
them to have any apps at all).


Having watched my two (aged 6 and 9) use the Nexus 7 I've been pretty 
appalled at nagging popups that many apps in the Google Play store use 
to get you to install other stuff. I've logged in as them on it and see 
a plethora of additional crappy apps which were 'recommended' by the 
apps they already had. There are some awful adverts too which are made 
to look like Facebook like pages or system dialogs. It's like browsing 
Geocities in Internet Explorer with no advert blocking from 10 years ago.


Conversely I also have an iPhone and an iPad and have _no_ problem with 
them play with those whatsoever as they just don't have the same kind of 
nagging crappy apps, or if they do, we haven't found them. They also 
don't have the accidental swipe issues that Android has.


There are also minimal accessories for Android tablets, even the 
officially blessed by Google Nexus branded ones. It's 5 months since 
the Nexus 10 came out and there's still no official cover for it. I 
visited a phone shop last week and the Nexus 4 had exactly one cover. 
There's more choice for the Nexus 7, and I've got the official rubbery 
Asus one which is okay, but nowhere near as nice as the original iPad 
cover from ~4 years ago but cost the same!


Get an iPad :)

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Re: [Hampshire] Ethernet Over Mains

[Alan Pope]

On 26/03/13 15:29, Dr A. J. Trickett wrote:

I've been running Devolo 200AV units for a while and recently
asked abut their 500AV+ units. I bought a pair of 500AVs and they
are noticably faster and use less electricity apparently and even
have a power pass-through.



Any chance you can do a benchmark with something like iperf?

Here's iperf between my laptop and another machine over the 200AV units.


an@deep-thought:~$ iperf -s

Server listening on TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 85.3 KByte (default)

[  4] local 192.168.1.107 port 5001 connected with 192.168.1.2 port 53108
[ ID] Interval   Transfer Bandwidth
[  4]  0.0-10.4 sec  73.9 MBytes  59.6 Mbits/sec
[  5] local 192.168.1.107 port 5001 connected with 192.168.1.2 port 53109
[  5]  0.0-10.4 sec  73.8 MBytes  59.4 Mbits/sec
[  4] local 192.168.1.107 port 5001 connected with 192.168.1.2 port 53112
[  4]  0.0-10.5 sec  70.4 MBytes  56.1 Mbits/sec

.. compared with two machines over GbE ..

[  5] local 192.168.1.107 port 5001 connected with 192.168.1.112 port 44354
[  5]  0.0-10.0 sec  1.09 GBytes   938 Mbits/sec


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Re: [Hampshire] Upgrade problem to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

[Alan Pope]

On 23/03/13 11:31, Gordon Scott wrote:

The only desktop I can use is Unity 3D. Everything else comes up with a
desktop, with my own desktop stuff, but with no menus at all. No
toolbar,  no shut-down, nothing. (I switch out of X to a raw terminal to
shut down).



Sometimes people install/remove stuff over the life of their system 
which results in one of the critical packages for operation to get 
removed. You can ensure that everything that should be installed is 
installed with this pair of commands (not the caret):-


sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop^

I would run that and observe if any packages get _installed_ as they 
were missing which may lead to some of the issues you're seeing.



Also, my multiple screens won't now operate independently.



I would backup and remove your /etc/X11/xorg.conf and let X figure out 
your screen setup automagically, then perhaps use nvidia-settings to 
fiddle about with the layout.



Something I see as the X session starts after login may give clues to
this. I get a pop-up before X is fully running saying:

-8-
: unable to launch EDITOR=vi X session --- EDITOR=vi not found;
falling back to default session.
-8-



That looks like an incorrectly formatted line in your x session startup 
somewhere?



The multi-screens issue may be a symptom of X fallback? When I try to
set non-mirrored, it says something like requested size 3840x1080 is
larger that 1920x1920.  Both screens are 1920x1080.



Removing xorg.conf will probably work this out.

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Re: [Hampshire] Upgrade problem to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

[Alan Pope]

On 23/03/13 12:25, Gordon Scott wrote:

On Sat, 2013-03-23 at 11:48 +, Alan Pope wrote:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop^


That installs nothing and suggests a couple of three that could be
removed.



Ok, that's good.


I would backup and remove your /etc/X11/xorg.conf and let X figure out
your screen setup automagically, then perhaps use nvidia-settings to
fiddle about with the layout.


Hm, I didn't know one could do that.
It's made no difference, though :-(



Can you paste your /var/log/Xorg.0.log somewhere like 
http://paste.ubuntu.com/ ?


There's a handy package called pastebinit which can help:-

sudo apt-get install pastebinit
pastebinit /var/log/Xorg.0.log

Also see if you have the relavent nvidia packages installed:-

dpkg -l nvidia* | pastebinit

Then let us have the links so we can see the output please.


BTW, I've just felt obliged to get Windows-8 and my criticisms of Unity
usability are as nothing compared to Win-8. That's absolutely appalling!



Not used it myself, but I hear conflicting reports on it.

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Re: [Hampshire] Upgrade problem to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

[Alan Pope]

On 23/03/13 16:24, Gordon Scott wrote:

Then let us have the links so we can see the output please.


http://paste.ubuntu.com/5640512/


Ah my bad. When you said proprietary driver I daftly assumed nvidia, 
not ATI. Seems you have an ATI card. I don't know a lot about ATI cards 
but lets see what we can do.


Which video card do you have? Can you:-

lspci -vn | pastebinit


http://paste.ubuntu.com/5640513/



We can ignore that.

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Re: [Hampshire] Upgrade problem to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

[Alan Pope]

On 23/03/13 16:58, Gordon Scott wrote:

Which video card do you have? Can you:-

lspci -vn | pastebinit


http://paste.ubuntu.com/5640513/



That's your dpkg from earlier..



I guess the files on paste... expire after some time and get purged?



Or they get deleted en masse when the box breaks (as happened recently)..


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Re: [Hampshire] Advice please: disk bottle neck

[Alan Pope]

On 07/03/13 22:44, Peter Salisbury wrote:

PS I have a USB adapter on order from China for a 32Gig UDMA CF card I
have. Thought I might try it as an SSD!



I put a real SSD in my Revo. Well, I put an SSD in basically every 
machine I own :)


It makes a tremendous difference.

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Re: [Hampshire] HP Ubuntu All-in-one

[Alan Pope]

On 06/03/13 12:56, Samuel Penn wrote:

Shame it's rubbish.



.. for your use cases.


20″ HD+ widescreen WLED (1600 x 900)

Laptops are bad enough, but why did anything think that such a low
resolution
on a desktop was a good idea?



Facebook doesn't need a higher resolution.

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Re: [Hampshire] Steam

[Alan Pope]

On 15/02/13 08:07, Sean Gibbins wrote:

Coming in on the periphery of the Linux vs. Microsoft desktop debate is
the news that Steam is now available for Linux:

http://store.steampowered.com/sale/linux_release/



Yeah, it's been in closed then open beta since October. I've been 
playing with it a bit.



Has anybody out there installed and played anything yet?



I bought 9 games yesterday for ~22 quid! The sale is the best time to 
pick up a few bargains even if you're not going to play it right away.



And finally, am I right in thinking there's a bit of a kerfuffle kicking
off with some of the big game developers and Microsoft recently that has
led some of them [the developers] to threaten to go all Linux on
Microsoft's posterior? Maybe this is the thin end of that wedge...



Not really. Gabe from Valve rather publicly took some pot-shots at 
Microsoft about Windows 8 and their new app store which clearly competes 
with Steam. Valve have been encouraging developers to port their games 
over to Linux. It helps that the 3D development tool Unity 3D (not to 
be confused with Ubuntu Unity) have added an option to Unity 4 which 
makes it easy to create Linux games. They can even load their Windows 
games and spit out a Linux binary very easily.


The Steam beta started off with ~25 games and we're now at ~100. That's 
not bad growth in just a few months. Compare that to the Mac on Steam 
which has ~550 games and Windows which has ~6300. Steam on the Mac 
launched in May 2010.


It's clear though that Steam on the Linux desktop is a stepping-stone to 
a SteamBox console that Valve are preparing, and will run Linux out of 
the box.


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Re: [Hampshire] The future of Linux / career advice

[Alan Pope]

On 15/02/13 12:19, Peter Alefounder wrote:

Most people use their computers for games.


Back that up :)

I suspect the vast majority of Windows installs are not used for games, 
unless you count Oracle, Outlook, Word, Excel and Powerpoint to be 
intricate multi-player games :)


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Re: [Hampshire] The future of Linux / career advice

[Alan Pope]

On 14/02/13 09:52, Chris Malton wrote:

I know the feeling, my CV is part-compiled by LaTeX to PDF - and
unfortunately this is incompatible with many people.  I got told
yesterday that I couldn't apply for a job because my CV wasn't in Word
format. and I was applying for a job as a Linux System
Administrator.

Other companies take PDFs and strip all formatting, as I discovered to
my detriment



The agencies have databases in which they keep their candidates. Those 
databases often only have one import option - Word Doc. So while it's 
easy to point the finger and laugh or berate the agency for requesting a 
Word Doc, they're just using the tools they have. The vast majority of 
people applying for jobs are okay with this and will submit in that format.


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Re: [Hampshire] The future of Linux / career advice

[Alan Pope]

On 14/02/13 15:06, j...@osml.eu wrote:

...and it's getting even easier, ne' the Chromebook.  (groan issues from
the collective group)  But it's true.  It Linux Jim, but not as we know
it.  A large percentage of the MS Windows using public have waken up to
the fact that they don't need a 8-core i7, with a 2-gig video card, and
SSD, and 16 gigs of RAM, and a big screened retina display to browse the
web and read their e-mail.  The tablet boom-bubble has showed many
another way.  Microsoft no longer owns the end-user experience: think
iPads, smartPhones, BYOD at work.



My wife teaches at a local school, and frequently gets homework sent to 
her via email. One of the students sent her an attachment incorrectly, 
somehow attaching something called a .gdoc file. I was enlisted to help 
her attach the document correctly and took a guess and typed up a tech 
reply to her asking if it was a chromebook, turned out it was. She 
described it as a new laptop my parents bought where all the documents 
are stored somewhere else.


Interesting to see the youth of today using Linux, even if they don't 
know it :)


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Re: [Hampshire] The future of Linux / career advice

[Alan Pope]

Hi Ally,

On 13/02/13 16:31, Ally Biggs wrote:

Do you guys ever think there will be a day that Linux will be as
popular as Windows in the desktop market.



Given Windows has ~90%+ market share, I fail to see how mathematically 
any other distro can be as popular as Windows without Windows 
disappearing completely. Won't happen.


However if your question was will there be a day when Linux has 
comparable market share to Windows on the desktop I'd probably say no, 
but be hopeful that we can get a better chunk of the market than we 
currently have.



Making the transition from Windows to Linux was challenging initially
I probably will continue to learn Linux (Redhat, Debian) for server
related tasks and use Win 7 for client tasks.



I recently (1.5 years ago) installed Ubuntu for a retired chap who had 
only ever used Windows. He requested it because he was sick of viruses 
and slow-downs of Windows. I printed out a getting started guide and 
allocated ~2 hours to walk him through the basics of Ubuntu.


I'd no sooner finished my tea when he said ok, I think I have got it 
all and I left. I've so far had two support requests from him, which 
was to clarify a webcam issue with Skype and to confirm that he should 
be installing updates when prompted to. He's still using it.


One persons nightmare is another persons dream.


The thing which bothers me though about Linux ok it's free and if you
have the skills you can do great things but why isn't it being
adopted more for everyday use. Also why don't the developers
standardise a distribution for the home user i.e same package manager
and packages.


Because history, ego, momentum and coprorate requirements.


The problem with desktop Linux I think is when the shit hits the fan
and something needs to be configured or a driver needs to be added
your average user isn't going to want to sit typing commands in a
terminal or spending hours finding the solution into a community.



Same goes for Windows.

It's a giant misconception that Windows = works, Linux = OMG! It's 
broken, I need a nerd!.


Ordinary people who use Windows have just the same anxiety about their 
systems as ordinary people who use Linux. They will speak to a techy 
nerd at work, or someone in their family for support. Same goes for a 
non-expert using a smartphone (of any ilk) for the first time.


I still get requests for Windows support from my father in law, some 
years after I told him I didn't want to support it anymore. Some of 
these issues (poor wifi connection, bad printer support, video driver 
issues) are _exactly_ the same issues that we have on Linux.


The way to fix the issue differs, but it's still the same warm body 
wearing a geeky t-shirt who fixes it, irrespective of the OS or hardware 
involved.



The other problem I found is the community alot of people expect you
to be some kind of command line genius who is capable of reciting the
whole encyclopaedia of man pages. So when you ask for help or
guidance you often get a dismissive response.



Those people are dicks. Avoid them. :)


Documentation is horrendous aswell especially if you are making the
transition from Windows. Pick up a starting to learn Linux book and a
couple of pages in you end up with the worlds worst headache.



Depends on the book.

This is a good one.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ubuntu-Made-Easy-Project-Based-Introduction/dp/1593274254/ref=sr_1_1



So how did you guys learn Linux?


Installed it and played with it for oh, uhm 15 years or so. Still not an 
expert.


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Re: [Hampshire] Podcasting Mics

[Alan Pope]

On 12/02/13 10:59, Paul Tansom wrote:

I'm looking at getting a decent mic to use, not so much for podcasting, but I
figured screencasting is close enough and so I thought I'd see what people
recommended. At the moment I'm looking at something along the lines of a Samson
Go Mic [1] or a Blue Snowball [2] as a basic starter for 10. Any commends or
suggestions welcome :)



I have a blue snowball on my desk which I use for skype/mumble/hangouts 
and the odd bit of audio recording for screencasting bug reports. Happy 
to bring it over to your office so you can have a play with it and see 
how it sounds. Or you could call me on Skype and hear it :)


Cheers,
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Re: [Hampshire] SSD Laptop HDD as drop-in replacement?

[Alan Pope]

On 11/02/13 18:41, Daniel Llewellyn wrote:

My anecdotal evidence of two SSDs is 50/50 - that one (64GB) has lasted 8
months and is still alive. The other (128GB) lasted 2 months and died a
horrid lethal death of the fatal kind that one doesn't recover from - i.e.
it spews file-system and ATA errors constantly into the syslog/dmesg. I
would have claimed on the warranty but I'd thrown the receipt away. I guess
it's a case of YMMV.



My anecdotal evidence is based on a range of 6 SSDs from Corsair, OCZ, 
Intel, and Cruical. None have failed yet. I backup daily though, just in 
case :)


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Re: [Hampshire] [OT] Car based entertainment

[Alan Pope]

On 08/02/13 23:15, LUG wrote:

We are going to be driving to Scotland to visit the in-laws in summer and
accompanying us will be our (by then) year old son. He has recently
discovered the joy of The Tweenies and other CBeebies based entertainment
(or rather, we have discovered that said programs will keep him quiet long
enough for us to make his next meal and/or tidy up the previous one) so I
have started investigating if there is a fairly economical way of playing
programs in the car with the hope of making the 8+ hour journey slightly
more pleasant for all of us.



Ahh happy days. I used to take a netbook on holiday with us, full of 
CBeebies stuff to keep the kids entertained while mummy  daddy got 
ready to go out in the evening :)



I have seen the screens attached to the back of headrests in cars and I'm
not sure if these are portable DVD players or portable MP4 type players.


They can be both. Some just take an SD card or USB drive full of media 
and you choose what to play via an on screen display.



Firstly, his car seat is rear-facing so this would need to be something
that would attach to the head-rest on the back seat, which is a different
shape to the front head rests.


Some of the ones I've seen come with various adjustable straps so you 
can probably mount it on the back headrest somehow.



Secondly, both of the above devices are obviously very limited in their
functionality which got me on to thinking about buying a tablet so that we
could at least use it for other purposes after the journey.



Cheap (i.e. non-Apple) tablets tend to have terrible speakers. If your 
car stereo has an input jack you could maybe run a simple cable from the 
headphone out of the tablet to the input of the stereo and pan it to the 
rear speakers.



If not, what are people's general recommendations for reasonably cheap
tablets (by that I mean something under or around £100)?


https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_7_16gb

If you're going to use it for more than just this car journey then I 
wouldn't get a really cheapo one. The Nexus 7 is out of budget 
(currently £159) but you might be able to pick up an 8GB one cheaper as 
they no longer sell them so some people might be offloading them to upgrade.



A quick look on ebay brings up several Blackberry Playbooks going for about
£80 and they look to have a pretty good spec but the number for sale and
the low price makes me slightly suspicious.



The benefit the playbook has it the speakers are on the front/side. The 
Nexus 7 (and some others) have them on the back.


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Re: [Hampshire] Getting 3D Acceleration/Compiz working with Debian Squeeze VirtualBox guest

[Alan Pope]

On 08/02/13 21:55, Imran Chaudhry wrote:

Thanks Popey. I am using the upstream VBox and upstream guest
additions with this.

Today I tried Ubuntu 12.10 with the same Windows host and 3D
acceleration appears to work (although very slowly). My quick test was
to click the desktop switcher a few times which is 3D animated.



lsmod | grep vboxvideo

Is the kernel module loaded? If not it will fall back to LLVM and be slow.

Cheers,
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Re: [Hampshire] Getting 3D Acceleration/Compiz working with Debian Squeeze VirtualBox guest

[Alan Pope]

On 07/02/13 17:03, Imran Chaudhry wrote:

I'm having a spot of bother getting 3D hardware acceleration and
Compiz working in my Debian Squeeze Virtualbox guest. Whatever I try
it defaults to software rendering. I have obvious things set such as
3D acceleration checked in the guest settings (Display  Video 
Extended Features).



I'd use VirtualBox from upstream and the guest additions from them, not 
from the repo. We recently had a few bugs fixed in upstream VBox which 
fix the 3D acceleration stuff.


I'm using 4.2.6 here and it works with Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10. Ubuntu 
13.04 is currently broken in VirtualBox in other ways we're working on 
getting fixed


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Re: [Hampshire] Hostnames

[Alan Pope]

On 29/01/13 15:25, Leo wrote:

from the computer called hostname1 it won't go looking on the internet
for hostname2 (as it currently does)?



My home router seems to do this for me:-

alan@deep-thought:~$ ping wopr.local
PING wopr.local (192.168.1.123) 56(84) bytes of data.

alan@deep-thought:~$ ping hactar.local
PING hactar.local (192.168.1.105) 56(84) bytes of data.

Not sure what I did to make it happen. Clearly DD-WRT is awesome :)

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Re: [Hampshire] Promoting LUG meets via social networking

[Alan Pope]

On 28/01/13 10:36, john lewis wrote:

This would in itself be off-putting to a complete newcomer so perhaps,
if it hasn't already been done, there should be a way of breaking the
ice for some one new.



Some years back we started having a front desk at the LUG meeting 
where people would be greeted. We would then direct them to someone who 
could help with specific queries or just show them around. Does this 
still happen at the Southampton meets (I haven't been for ages).


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Re: [Hampshire] Promoting LUG meets via social networking

[Alan Pope]

On 28/01/13 13:40, Imran Chaudhry wrote:

I'm thinking about an intro to Perl talk - maybe at next LUG meet
family commitments allowing.



Adam Trickett did a talk on Perl at the LUG some years back. It was 
videotaped and put online. It was the single most popular talk watched 
on the HantsLUG Google Video channel. It's still available to download 
on archive.org.


http://archive.org/details/HampshireLinuxUserGroupIntroductiontoPerlThefriendlyprogramminglanguage

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Re: [Hampshire] Promoting LUG meets via social networking

[Alan Pope]

On 28/01/13 22:24, Michael Daffin wrote:

I wonder if it is worth setting up a webpage that users can request a topic
for a talk/demo and possibly where other users can register topics they are
willing to talk about.


This seems like the ideal way to get people engaging via social media. 
Putting out a tweet/fb/G+ post which specifically asks for feedback such 
as What talks shall we give next month? or What would you like to 
talk about at the LUG? will likely garner responses. These could be 
filtered, collated and posted on the website or mailing list.


Using the mailing list or website to request new topics falls into the 
preaching to the converted I was hoping to work around with my initial 
mail at the start of the thread.


Cheers,
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Re: [Hampshire] Promoting LUG meets via social networking

[Alan Pope]

On 27/01/13 23:48, Lisi wrote:

I would have though that talks for the complete beginner would have a very
limited audience at LUG meetings, where the majority of people present are
experienced users.



Hence partly why I suggested that we should be using social media to get 
new people in.


Cheers,
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Re: [Hampshire] Promoting LUG meets via social networking

[Alan Pope]

On 27/01/13 21:59, Michael Daffin wrote:

I have created a google+ community for
HantsLUGhttps://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/105960359007623736682.
If anyone wants admin privileges just ask and I will give you them.



I wasn't suggesting we have a G+ community. G+ Communities are pretty 
much forums, pre-authed with a Google account ID. I was thinking more of 
having a page (which is a separate thing in G+ parlance) which people 
could subscribe to and get updates when meetings are happening.


I also wanted to get it discussed on list before we go off half-cocked 
creating random stuff all over the place which may not ever get used, 
and will make it _harder_ not easier for people to find out what's going on.


Cheers,
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Re: [Hampshire] Promoting LUG meets via social networking

[Alan Pope]

On 28/01/13 06:36, Alan Pope wrote:

I also wanted to get it discussed on list before we go off half-cocked
creating random stuff all over the place which may not ever get used,
and will make it _harder_ not easier for people to find out what's going
on.



This probably came out more harsh than I'd intended, sorry.

Cheers,
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Re: [Hampshire] Best hardware for HTPC

[Alan Pope]

On 07/01/13 13:59, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:

Regarding Blu-Ray, I just find it frustrating.
MakeMKV can be used, but it uses illegal blu ray keys, so you might as
well just use illegal blu ray keys anyway. Google the VideoLan project
to find blu ray keys that permit you to play Blu-Ray.


What law is being broken by having or distributing these illegal keys?

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Re: [Hampshire] Dropbox alternative

[Alan Pope]

On 19/12/12 21:28, Dr A. J. Trickett wrote:

A friend is looking for something like Dropbox but it can't be Dropbox as it's
apparently banned in China. He basically need to sync data on a server in the
UK and one in China so people can easily read and write to their local server
and have it synced with the other one, and ideally access it on the move - web
access. Clients are mostly Windows but the servers could be Linux. He is
willing to pay but free is also good!



I found waula to be painfully slow and resource intensive. Spideroak is 
okay but has a confusing GUI IMO. I would recommend Ubuntu One but I am 
clearly biassed there.


Sparkleshare just hit 1.0

http://sparkleshare.org/

Given from your description it's server to server sync not multiple 
client sync I'd look at Unison.


http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/

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Re: [Hampshire] Laptop screens

[Alan Pope]

On 10/12/12 14:51, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:

Which laptops have good screens.


Apple ones.


I would like something that is greater than 720 pixels high, but still
15.6inch if possible.


http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook_pro

2880x1800 fits your greater than 720 pixels requirement and 15.

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[Hampshire] [OT] Come Dine With Me

[Alan Pope]

I note that the Come Dine With Me [0] people are looking for people in 
our area. I know a few people in the group enjoy the programme, maybe an 
opportunity to go on it.


Taken from their Facebook [1] page:-

Think you could flip, fry and fricassee your way to £1000? Now's your 
chance! We're currently casting in the following areas:


Basingstoke and Andover, Cardiff, St. Helens and Harrogate - to apply, 
email c...@itv.com


MALE contestants in Redhill, Reigate, Horley, Oxted, Dorking, Godstone, 
Caterham, East Grinstead  Haywards Heath - to apply, email 
sunil.mis...@itv.com 


[0] - http://www.channel4.com/programmes/come-dine-with-me
[1] - https://www.facebook.com/comedinewithme

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Re: [Hampshire] Christmas Lecture

[Alan Pope]

On 14/11/12 19:04, Tim Brocklehurst wrote:

This is a reminder that the Christmas Lecture will be held on the 1st December
at Southampton University. We will be next-door to our usual location (in
Zepler/Mountbatten building). There will be signs in prominant positions.



Are many LUG people planning to attend this? I'd like to, but if it's 
just me, Ed and Tim I'm inclined not to (no disrespect meant to Tim  
Ed) because I'd quite like to socialise with a few members of the LUG I 
haven't seen for a while.


Cheers,
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Re: [Hampshire] [Admin] HantsLUG on Twitter

[Alan Pope]

On 12/11/12 22:20, Chris Dennis wrote:

Does anyone know who owns the @HantsLUG account on Twitter?



At a guess, that would be Daniel Pope, cc'ed in case he missed this mail.

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Re: [Hampshire] Ubuntu Unity

[Alan Pope]

On 08/11/12 22:37, Gordon Scott wrote:

For her also, menus on the screen top-bar were so counter-intuitive that
she thought they'd been removed.



Are you aware of the HUD? You press alt then search the menu rather than 
peck through them with the mouse?



Sorry Alan, but we both strongly dislike Unity.



:) Not a problem for me.

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Re: [Hampshire] Ubuntu Unity

[Alan Pope]

On 09/11/12 12:14, Gordon Scott wrote:

On Fri, 2012-11-09 at 11:48 +, Alan Pope wrote:

On 08/11/12 22:37, Gordon Scott wrote:

For her also, menus on the screen top-bar were so counter-intuitive that
she thought they'd been removed.



Are you aware of the HUD? You press alt then search the menu rather than
peck through them with the mouse?


I was, but as I reported a while back, it kept opening menu bars for the
wrong application, possibly related to my focus-follows-mouse setup.



I miss focus follows mouse, but not so much that I'd enable it on Unity :)


I do agree with and generally prefer keyboard access than mouse (I hate
mice as they cause so much stress on and bruising of the wrist, when
used a lot). My personal editor of choice is vi/vim for the no-mouse
reason amongst others (other people's opinions will differ, of course!).



I have switched to a Lenovo Thinkpad keyboard with built in touchpoint 
(nipple thing). So my hands never stray from the keyboard :) I am 
tempted to get another one for my desktop PC and just use a 'real' mouse 
when playing the odd game.



One of the difficulties with menus is that they differ so much between
applications and across platforms, that remembering more than a modest
number of short-cuts is quite impossible, so we become conditioned to
going for the mouse/trackball/whatever.  I've been being conditioned
since DR-GEM, so Pavlov's dog looks like an rank amateur.  :-)



Since having Unity+HUD I have been conditioning myself to bring up the 
HUD and search for stuff in menus. It's taken a while and I still 
sometimes revert back, but it's worthwhile in the end.


Cheers
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Re: [Hampshire] Ubuntu Unity

[Alan Pope]

On 09/11/12 12:19, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:

On 9 November 2012 11:48, Alan Pope alan.p...@canonical.com wrote:

Are you aware of the HUD? You press alt then search the menu rather than
peck through them with the mouse?



What, not use a mouseimpossible!!  ;-)



See my last mail (I use a Lenovo keyboard now).


On another note, it would be useful if the HUD contained the short cut.
E.g.
Press ALT-F and it shows Save page as has a shortcut of CTRL-S
It would be nice if
ALT, savwould display CTRL-S next to the save page as HUD item.



HUD should display keyboard shortcuts for menu entries if available
https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/921546

Great minds..

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Re: [Hampshire] Ubuntu Unity

[Alan Pope]

On 09/11/12 14:30, Gordon Scott wrote:

I hadn't realised one could buy just the keyboard, I'd only noticed them
on laptops and a laptop is totally unworkable in my normal context.



I hadn't realised until a co-worker with the exact same laptop told me 
about them. They're expensive for what they are, but I wouldn't be 
without mine now.



Does that long 'nose' where a touchpad would normally be give any
usability issues?



It's a wrist-rest really. I prefer it to having a touchpad. I turn 
touchpads off usually, unless I'm on a Mac running OSX where their 
touchpad is better than all other touchpads in the world, ever. [FACT] :)



But I keep hitting my hand on the door whenever I try to change gear.



Hah! I do that driving in the US too!

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Re: [Hampshire] Replacement server recomendations

[Alan Pope]

On 05/11/12 19:24, Keith Edmunds wrote:

On Mon, 05 Nov 2012 09:26:32 +, alan.p...@canonical.com said:


alan@homeserver:~$ sudo btrfs fi show


How are you finding btrfs?



I've had no data loss yet. Under advice from btrfs experts I'm running 
Ubuntu 12.04 with Linux Kernel 3.6 and the latest checkout of the btrfs 
tools.


I've even managed to kick the eSATA cable out while it was under load 
and it recovered fine. I am enjoying the easy way to add/remove disks to 
the array and the fact that I don't have to worry about mixing disk 
capacities (drobo style).


Cheers,
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Re: [Hampshire] [ADMIN][IMP-WEB] Developing the HantsLUG website

[Alan Pope]

Hi Chris,

On 15/10/12 21:43, Chris Dennis wrote:

At the AGM, we discussed the fact that the existing website is
languishing somewhat for lack of fresh content and general TLC.



How does moving from Website Engine A to Website Engine B generate fresh 
content? In my experience it results in a small bump in website activity 
then as excitement about the new system fades, it falls back to the 
current state, no activity besides when the last/next meeting was/is.



Another problem was that the wiki was (until recently) updatable by
anyone, resulting in vast amounts of spam.



So perhaps it's time to have an ACL where everyone on the list gets an 
account on the wiki. If we think we're going to lock out random drive-by 
edits then we're deluding ourselves.


Nobody edits the wiki for anything other than anti-spam and meeting 
updates. Nobody. (aside from the odd edit on Hugos Random Benchmark 
page). The only drive-by edits are spammers really.


http://hants.lug.org.uk/wiki/RecentChanges


People at the meeting seemed to like the idea of converting the site to
a CMS, probably WordPress, and granting HantsLUG members permission to
add and edit the content.



Wordpress is great, if you have content to put in it and people willing 
to put that content in it. Look at Surrey LUG CMS:-


http://surrey.lug.org.uk/

1 x Welcome post
1 x Event promotion post
8 x Meeting posts


I'm happy to get that process started unless there are any objections --
initially I'll get the new site running in parallel with the old.



Why initially? Does that mean you'd shut the wiki down? That would be 
unfortunate.


What we (Ubuntu) have found is a way forward is to have multiple sites.

www.ubuntu.com - flashy look at us page which is the home page
wiki.ubuntu.com - technical documentation for users/developers

There's other sites too of course, but my point is that there are two 
audiences to be served, two main use cases. One allows us to introduce 
new people to the LUG, the other creates a place where we can put 
free-form documentation including meeting minutes, technical notes, 
about me pages and so on. We (Ubuntu) do all of that on the wiki, and 
leave the ubuntu.com site as the welcome mat for new users.


Perhaps we should have www.hants.lug.org.uk which is the front door 
and has one simple but pretty main page which contains links to the 
right wiki pages, and have the same theme on www.hants.lug.org.uk/wiki 
and lock it down to only be edited by us.



I'd like to get members' ideas and opinions on these sorts of questions:

* What is the website for?


* What is HantsLUG
* Where is the next meeting
* What happens at a meeting
* What happened at the last meeting
* What resources does the LUG have
* How can I get in touch with the LUG
etc


* Who is it aimed at?


New people and us.


* What should it look like?  Suggestions for suitable WordPress
templates will be especially welcome.


WooThemes is good for decent wordpress themes.


* What should it contain?  These sorts of things perhaps...
   (in no particular order)
   - Reviews
   - books
   - hardware
   - software


Nobody will write these. See the wiki for evidence of one book review in 
2 years.


http://www.hants.lug.org.uk/wiki/BookReviews?action=info


   - Meetings and other events
   - upcoming events
   - records of previous events
   - talks, photos, etc.
   - presentation topics
   - wanted
   - offered


This is probably the most valuable part of the whole website, for new 
and existing users alike.


Cheers,
--
Alan Pope
Engineering Manager

Canonical - Product Strategy
+44 (0) 7973 620 164
alan.p...@canonical.com
http://ubuntu.com/

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Re: [Hampshire] [ADMIN] Chairman's intro and November meeting

[Alan Pope]

Hi Tim,

On 08/10/12 22:03, Tim Brocklehurst wrote:

As Adam has already informed you, I am the new chairman. Hopefully you'll
think that's a good thing! I would like to thank Adam for doing a heoric job
through a time of adversity, with many other pressures on his time. My thanks
also to the rest of the comittee for enabling the LUG to run smoothly under
his direction.



Apologies for not making the AGM, family comes first. I wish you a 
following wind in your new role on the good ship HantsLUG on the choppy 
Linux waters.


Enough of that. Good luck!

Cheers,
--
Alan Pope
Engineering Manager

Canonical - Product Strategy
+44 (0) 7973 620 164
alan.p...@canonical.com
http://ubuntu.com/

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Re: [Hampshire] Ubuntu Unity

[Alan Pope]

On 07/10/12 16:16, Gordon Scott wrote:

My struggle with Unity continues :-/



This is not really a Unity issue.


Can anyone tell me how to get a samba drive on my server mounted on my
new PC with Unity, such that I can write to it and so it mounts
automatically? Searches in the Dash for Samba, smb, map, mount, drive,
window, even nfs all come up with usually nothing, occasionally nothing
useful.



https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MountWindowsSharesPermanently

Cheers,
--
Alan Pope
Engineering Manager

Canonical - Product Strategy
+44 (0) 7973 620 164
alan.p...@canonical.com
http://ubuntu.com/

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Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk
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Re: [Hampshire] Invitation to connect on LinkedIn

[Alan Pope]

On 06/10/12 21:35, Dave Walker via LinkedIn wrote:

LinkedIn




HAHAHAHAHAH! You embarrassing plum! :D

--
Alan Pope
Engineering Manager

Canonical - Product Strategy
+44 (0) 7973 620 164
alan.p...@canonical.com
http://ubuntu.com/

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Re: [Hampshire] Ubuntu Unity - Dash - context lists

[Alan Pope]

Hi Gordon,

On 02/10/12 11:42, Gordon Scott wrote:

On 01/10/2012 21:36, Alan Pope wrote:

On 01/10/12 21:32, Gordon Scott wrote:

Can anyone say if 'upgrading' from 10.04 to 12.04 would result in a
default switch to Unity?


It will.


Frankly that is alarming, but also as I suspected, and precisely why I
have not upgraded.



What's alarming about upgrading a system and getting new stuff? It 
happens in all software distributions. OS/2 2.x - OS/2 Warp, Windows 
XP - Windows 7, Android 2.x - 3.x - 4.x, Linux Mint 11 - 12. Some 
more dramatic than others, granted.



Have you any idea how disruptive that change would be if it were
unexpected?



How would be unexpected? When you click upgrade to go from 10.04 to 
12.04 you are presented with release notes and a clear link to:-


http://www.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/features

Which goes out of its way to detail what's new and funky in the later 
release.



Do you have any idea how badly a change like that can be received?



I recommend this book:-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0091816971/ - Who Moved My Cheese: 
An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life



I have already spent many hours trying to work out how to make Unity
effective for me as my _work_ environment. Unity is already costing me
time, and I don't yet even have it on my work machine.



So don't use it. Use something else if it's that much of a bugbear for 
you. There's lots of different desktops in the repository. I'm sure one 
suits.



Are there any nasty surprises in the upgrade from 10.04LTS server to
12.04LTS server, without the GUI?


Not that I'm aware of. We generally don't go for nasty surprises in 
Ubuntu, either on the desktop or server. We tend to favour new 
features and updated software.



 Hopefully with absolutely no bling at
least that one should be relatively OK, though any upgrade is always a
risk and challenge.



You say bling I say beauty. Let's call the whole thing off.


Does the upgrade process inform us of fallback, or better still offer it
as an option?


No. However it's as easy as clicking this link once you've upgraded.

apt://gnome-session-fallback


Does it remain comparable to my present desktop, i.e., I don't waste
hours or days betting back to something with which I can work.



You want the world to stay the same, but upgrade nonetheless? Should we 
have all stayed on GNOME 1.x or perhaps CDE? :)



The reason I'm on Ubuntu LTS was because I understood that there would
be steady upgrade process and I hoped that that would minimise many of
the disruptive changes that have happened in the past .. stupid things
like a new blingy CD writer that doesn't work properly superseding the
old drab one that did.



That's a reasonable set of expectations. Nobody is forcing you to 
upgrade right now, are they? I mean, there may be software you need for 
your work which isn't available in 10.04, or there may be hardware which 
is only supported on a newer kernel?


But if you're on 10.04 then you've got until April next year before you 
need to think about no more bug fixes and security updates on this 
release. Why not sit back and take stock of the changing world around 
you and make the step when you're ready?



 At this moment, Unity feels a little like Ubuntu
threw a grenade into the mix.  Yes, I know it's been around a year or
so, but I ditched it back then as too profound a change. I'm trying to
prepare for what seems presently to be an inevitable change, but at the
moment that's feeling a bit of a struggle.   I'm still hoping I'll
mellow.  I like Ubuntu, it's always been relatively painless to work
with in the past.  Hopefully it will be again.



I run 12.04 on my main machine and will probably stick with it for some 
time to come. I am enjoying 12.04 much more than any of the previous 
releases I've used. Each to their own though. I hope you find a desktop 
that suits you.


Cheers,
--
Alan Pope
Engineering Manager

Canonical - Product Strategy
+44 (0) 7973 620 164
alan.p...@canonical.com
http://ubuntu.com/

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