Re: [SLUG] LaTeX niggle.
Hi https://www.writelatex.com/ Don't know if this helps but here it is anyway. -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk https://twitter.com/SleepyPenguin1 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Rusty Russell – Kernel Code Developer
Hi http://sleepypenguin.homelinux.org/journalism/?p=191 Might interest someone out there. I've re-written some of the magazine features that I've produced over the years. -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk https://twitter.com/SleepyPenguin1 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Issues with Ubuntu 12.04 LTR
On Friday 07 Feb 2014 21:06:21 Johannes Nielsen wrote: I have a Lenovo thinkpad with an Intel Core 2 Duo T5870 2.00 Ghz with a GM 45 Chipset with 8 Gig of DDR III Ram Since I installed 12.04 LTR my lappy has slowed down and there appears to be memory issues, I am not able to open as many tabs as I was in the previous release 11.04 See also http://www.f-secure.com/en/web/labs_global/removal-tools/-/carousel/view/142 http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.php This probably doesn't help but it's a good idea to have them around. -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk https://twitter.com/SleepyPenguin1 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Photographs and Archive
On Saturday 01 Feb 2014 12:16:13 Patrick Elliott-Brennan wrote: Nice one, Richard. I like the layout and the text that appears on the images when you select one. :) You don't get a lot of choice if you are a photographer and want to show your pictures on the net. Due to either theft of pictures or people like Google assuming that they have a right to own your future. There is full screen mode ? Click FS on the bottom right. That should help. I had to close down Apache which I have always loved and switch to Lighttpd to get this to work on my AMD64 server with SATA drive. Nice to know that somone likes it. -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Photographs and Archive
Hi http://sleepypenguin.homelinux.org/photographs/ http://sleepypenguin.homelinux.org/blog/?p=296 After some long weeks of some system administration it looks like I've been able to sort out my web server at last. If you are interested have a browse. Might entertain you for a few minutes. Regards -- Richard Sheffield UK https://twitter.com/SleepyPenguin1 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Booting problem
On Monday 02 December 2013 09:48:25 Heracles wrote: I recently had a problem and had to replace my motherboard and cpu. After the replacement the system would not boot. It came up with a console and the following: No such device:3c7c2249-34ed-484d-9e36-bd40223e1c34 grub I thought that the number might be the old UUID of sda1 so I reinstalled the OS (Ubuntu 13.04) and allowed it to wipe and use all of sda as I keep my home drive on sdb. The numbers may have changed (I'm not sure as I only copied the latest set) but the machine still won't boot and comes up with the same error. You might try this but I'm sure that someone else can come up with something better... http://www.supergrubdisk.org/rescatux/ http://www.sysresccd.org/SystemRescueCd_Homepage http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.php -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk https://twitter.com/SleepyPenguin1 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Raspberry Pi
Hi http://youtu.be/o774LMtfeJY Might interest someone out there. Interview I did with the Raspberry Pi team. -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk https://twitter.com/SleepyPenguin1 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] James Vasile Talks about Legal Aspects of Software Licences
Hi http://www.mixcloud.com/Johno395/ We'll try that again shall we. SoundCloud just closed me down. I have to pay for extra space. Try this instead. -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] James Vasile Talks about Legal Aspects of Software Licences
Hi https://soundcloud.com/richard-ibbotson/james-vasile-came-to-sheffield I did this so that everyone could listen to it. Not for me to prevent it's distribution. With that in mind I thought I should put it on SoundCloud. This is a presentation that we did back in April 2008. This is a talk given at Sheffield Hallam University some years ago about the subject of open source software and legal aspects of the General Public Licence. Replicating the success of free software. The content of James' talk was something like the following. The Free Software movement has proven itself in every imaginable way. We have quality software on servers, desktops and in embedded systems. Free Software is used in homes, offices, retail and in manufacturing. Everywhere from back rooms to classrooms and boardrooms. We've spawned new business models and changed the economics of old ones. The challenges that are left will be met and soon. Such has been the success of free software that we have spawned entire other movements. From Creative Commons to open hardware to open science, everybody wants to replicate Free Software's achievements in new media. Even further, there are people fighting for values that, while beloved in the Free Software world, are not protected by the Free Software society. Values like privacy and data portability between web services. Each of these attempts borrows from Free Software's history. This talk looks at what is being taken, what is being left, and why. It's an inquiry into the future, as we ask how to nurture these nascent movements. -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk https://twitter.com/SleepyPenguin1 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Open Source News
Hi http://www.sheflug.org.uk/news/ I don't claim that this is anything amazing but if you are having one of those days when you are bored out of your mind this might help for a few minutes. Some of it is worth reading. -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk https://twitter.com/SleepyPenguin1 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] 20 years of using Linux at Home
Well today pretty much marks 20 years since I've used Linux at home. I started using Debian and RedHat Linux when I was at www.shef.ac.uk back in 1993. Then I got into e-mail discussions with Richard Stevenson at Pegasus Mail in New Zealand. By 95/96 I was helping to start the first UK LUG - www.manlug.org.uk - and then later - www.sheflug.org.uk - which I still run. The discussion with Richard Stevenson was about the fact that I would have to be nuts to suggest that a free desktop could exist on Linux. But, as we all know. Times have changed. I spent ten years writing for - www.linuxuser.co.uk - www.linuxformat.co.uk - http://www.linux-magazine.com/ . Travelled round the world a few times doing that. Just at the moment we seem to be experiencing a healthy FOSS environment with many versions of GNU/Linux and BSD out there. It wasn't always like that. -- Richard https://twitter.com/SleepyPenguin1 http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Managing software across a cluster
On Tuesday 14 August 2012 21:59:00 Steven Tucker wrote: I have just rolled out a Scientific Linux (Redhat clone) cluster of 20 nodes plus controller that runs torque for batching and uses a lot of MPI. My problem is that I periodically get asked to include some library or program to help out with some ones research code, and often it is something that needs to be installed across all nodes. On my Mageia cluster I simply run urpmi parallel, issue the one command and it installs across all nodes. For those not familiar with urpmi parallel, it queries all the nodes asking what rpms are needed to install the given software (including all dependencies), it then downloads all the rpms to the machine running urpmi, it then pushes the appropriate rpms to each node and installs them. If you don't get anywhere with this try subscribing to the Fermilab list and send mail to - linux-us...@fnal.gov. Linux Users - http://fermilinux.fnal.gov/maillists/ -- Richard https://twitter.com/SleepyPenguin1 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: blank desktop / window management
Hi One of the things I do after an upgrade is ... 'sudo apt-get install smartpm'. Then 'sudo smart update' and 'sudo smart upgrade' finds various things that apt-get might not find. After that I keep going around apt-get and smart commands to install everything. I don't know if this is a Unity dependency that is missing but it might be. If all else fails I install LXDE. 'sudo apt-get install lxde'. This might not give you the desktop you want but you should be able to login and do some things. This also worked fine for Ruediger Berlich... http://www.ukuug.org/bios+profiles/RBerlich.shtml -- Richard https://twitter.com/SleepyPenguin1 http://sleepypenguin.homelinux.org/blog/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Android phones
On Monday 28 May 2012 22:29:53 Ben Donohue wrote: Anyone out there with Android able to sync with a Linux desktop? Works for me. See also http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJMdTYek8Cs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnLqjvlfUWE -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk https://twitter.com/#!/SleepyPenguin1 -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Australian distributor product page for Raspberry Pi
On Thursday 01 March 2012 02:06:24 Patrick Elliott-Brennan wrote: More information: http://www.rasberrypi.org/ These seem to selling at a greater rate than the original Asus EeePC 701. Thought I was imagining something until I saw this e-mail. -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Raspberry Pi
On Thursday 01 March 2012 16:20:15 Geoffrey Cowling wrote: Will Microsoft be able to lock this down? In some ways this is a good question. As far I understand it M$ attempts to lock down the Arm platform in Europe will fail due to EU law. Not allowed to do what they want to do. Might be that under U.S. law they can do something ? Not sure about the latter. Whatever else happens they will certainly use their marketing power to drive out GNU/Linux from the ARM CPU in the way that they did from the Asus EeePC. Only Linux fans will know that Linux exists. In the U.K. the Pi is aimed at the educational market. Which is owned by Microsoft under direction from Whitehall. Say n'more ?... cough Winduhs advert... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT3_UCm1A5I Best winduhs advert out there ;) -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Alternatives to Gnome3
On Saturday 12 Nov 2011 21:21:56 Erik de Castro Lopo wrote: Can anyone recommend an alternative? Something simple and minimal without too much ugly. Sorry I can't stand tiling WMs either. Before Gnome 3 came along I didn't like LXDE but I've started to use it. I find that the Avant or Cairo dock in the bottom of the screen also helps. Leafpad as a text editor and PC Man as a file manager. XFCE can be good. Thunar is a good file manager. Lot of people out there don't like Gnome 3. -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Ubuntu 11.10
On Tuesday 18 Oct 2011 13:31:59 Ken Foskey wrote: A gear will appear near your name, you can then select classic Gnome from the start up. Personally I have moved to XUbuntu and xfce. Seems to work OK for me so far. I did this by installing xubuntu and then using the gear wheel to select xfce. I didn't like the LXDE desktop but I'm geting used to it. Since I discovered the Cairo dock which is at the bottom of my screen. Bit like Mac with a lightweight Gnome desktop. I had to install Xscreensaver for the screensaver but it works for me. I tell people to try them all. You have to log out to try the next one. Not hard to do. -- Richard http://www.sheflug.oorg.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: mobile broadband enabling
On Friday 07 October 2011 08:47:49 james o'regan wrote: I have a netbook with mint fodera, great. Just bought a new laptop that was configured with open suse, kubuntu pardus; the shop couldn't enable mobile broadband. I live in the bush, i unfortunately have to be with telstra next g, phone mobile broadband usb. I am really quite new to computers. Any advice would be appreciated. Lived in the bush myself. for Mint and Kubuntu you can probably start with wicd and wi-fi radar. Use 'apt-cache search wicd' or 'apt-cache search wi-fi radar' for those in a terminal window. You should be able to open a terminal by searching your desktop menu. Install with 'sudo apt-get install wicd'. You will be asked for the password that you used when you login to Mint or Kubuntu. I know that doing things this way is an advanced topic for you but I'm trying to teach you something. See also the software managment tools in the Mint and Kubuntu desktops. These are point and click. You should be able to understand them. For openSuSE and Fedora you can use Yum in the terminal. Such as 'yum search wicd'. 'yum install wicd'. Also, in SuSE use YaST. This will find and install software for you. In all of these you can search for wi-fi or USB dongle. You should find something useful with that. Meanwhile. People on this list probably need to understand which USB dongle you are using. You can do 'lsusb -v' and copy and paste the output to this list so that we can understand which USB hardware you are using. I know this is an advanced subject for yourself but we have to understand a few things to help you. -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: mobile broadband enabling
On Friday 07 October 2011 12:25:34 Jeremy Visser wrote: On 07/10/2011, at 19:11, Richard Ibbotson wrote: On Friday 07 October 2011 08:47:49 james o'regan wrote: I live in the bush, i unfortunately have to be with telstra next g, phone mobile broadband usb. for Mint and Kubuntu you can probably start with wicd and wi-fi radar. Use 'apt-cache search wicd' or 'apt-cache search wi-fi radar' for those in a terminal window. Maybe I just fail at reading comprehension, but why does it seem that (a) your answer is completely irrelevant to the James' question (he's talking about USB mobile broadband, not WiFi), and (b) you are recommending non-standard WiFi–management tools that are in conflict with what comes with the distro (i.e. NetworkManager)? I always find that if I'm using mobile broadband it's a good idea to install the wi-fi stuff as well. There's a lot of USB drivers in the versions of Linux that he's using. Should work. Just the version of the USB hardware that might cause some issues but that should work. -- Richard -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: updating SUSE
Stewart Most of it is on the openSuSE site http://en.opensuse.org/YaST_Software_Repositories http://en.opensuse.org/YaST_Software_Repositories Search this site for further info. -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Text to HTML?
DaZZa Lyx - http://www.lyx.org/ Abiword - http://www.abisource.com/ LibreOffice - http://www.libreoffice.org txt2html - http://txt2html.sourceforge.net/ -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Printer problem in Ubuntu
On Thursday 16 June 2011 00:04:25 Heracles wrote: It is an HP P1005 Laserjet. As it worked in 11.04 loses the settings etc. each time it is restarted whereas 10.10 did not, I believe it is a problem in 11.04. I'm considering going back to 10.10. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=644041 http://www.openprinting.org/printer/HP/HP-LaserJet_1005 -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Printer problem in Ubuntu
On Thursday 16 June 2011 11:03:27 Heracles wrote: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=644041 http://www.openprinting.org/printer/HP/HP-LaserJet_1005 Thanks for the info. I have discovered that just downloading the required plugin each time I start the computer solves the problem for now. The info on the forums site is a few years out of date. The P1005 is supported out of the box now with a plugin from HP. This works in all distros EXCEPT Ubuntu 11.04 which finds it hard to retain the information between boots. Yes. That's an example of something that I've always seen since desktop Linux came along. The bug or fault is discovered and fixed and then when the next version of Ubuntu or Debian or Fedora comes along it's put back in again. Can't understand why the developers do that. Must be something to do with manpower and number of monkeys working on the wire ? I don't like to complain if I get a desktop that mostly works :) I would try and suggest Linux Mint or Trisquel but you'll probably be better of staying with Ubuntu. -- Richard -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Printer problem in Ubuntu
On Wednesday 15 June 2011 08:20:32 Heracles wrote: I have this printer attached to my computer via USB. Using Ubuntu 10.10 it worked fine. I have now installed 11.04 and the only way I can get it to work is to completely remove it each time I start my PC and reinstall it (including downloading a fresh copy of the drivers from HP). It will then work fine until my computer is restarted. Any clues would be appreciated. Which printer is it ? http://www.openprinting.org/printers -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Email Client
Jam wrote: , how do you disable muk? I've tried everything including *removing* all trace (which means kmail won't run) and all the disable switches I can find, but using these one has to start kmail twice, first time fails with nep-errors :-( Open up settings from the KDE menu and find desktop search. Deslect the Enable Muk box. Easy to do. If system settings isn't installed do 'sudo apt-get install systemsettings'. Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Email Client
On Monday 13 June 2011 09:57:38 Jam wrote: IMHO thunderbird is completely unusable ... Try to reply to an issue (eg this one) when you get digest mail and you will get a deep and clear understanding of stress. kmail is pretty nice but has some show stoppers eg nepomuk (some utterley grotestque trash that holds your disk at 100% for hours) Switched off muk years ago. The Debian KDE list and other lists were compaining about muk for a while. Along with Microsoft. Back in the days of winduhs I used to use Pegasus Mail but when the Linux desktop came along I switched to Kmail. I've been fine with it since. Of course, if you are a real/proper Linux advocate you will use Mutt ;) hides under the table. I use Alpine as a stand in if I can. -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Can't Create Certificate
Richard == Richard Ibbotson richard.ibbot...@googlemail.com writes: Richard Hi Any one give me a clue what I'm doing wrong ? I've done a Richard two day web search on this and nothing is working... Debian Richard Squeeze Apache server Peter Chubb wrote: Have you verified with CaCERT that the domain name is yours? The certificate request has to include a common name that relates to one of the domains that CAcert knows you own. On the RHS after you log in CacERT.org there's a place to `add domain'. Yep... did that first. I can see in my CaCERT panel that http://sleepypenguin.homelinux.org is verified. Shouldn’t be any problem getting a certificate from CaCERT as far as I know. I can't understand where I went wrong. -- Richard -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Can't Create Certificate
Peter Peter Chubb wrote: Do you mean you see http://sleepypenguin.homelinux.org in your domain list, or just sleepypenguin.homelinux.org ??? If you see the former there's something wrong. It's definitely sleepypenguin.homelinux.org. I've just opened up my CaCERT page and checked it. shrug.. can't understand why something went wrong... -- Richard -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Can't Create Certificate
Hi Any one give me a clue what I'm doing wrong ? I've done a two day web search on this and nothing is working... Debian Squeeze Apache server https://sleepypenguin.homelinux.org/blog/ trying to create a certificate in... /etc/apache2/ssl ... with openssl req -x509 -days 1825 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout hostkey.key - nodes -out hostcert.pem After doing this I copy hostcert.pm into CA Cert and get the message CommonName field was blank. This is usually caused by entering your own name when openssl prompt's you for 'YOUR NAME', or if you try to issue certificates for domains you haven't already verified, as such this process can't continue I've done 'rm hostcert.pem and hostkey.key' an endless number of times and run the openssl command again. I get the same message every time. Is there an X509 certificate somewhere on the machine that needs to be removed as well ? So, far I've tried . sleepypenguin sleepypenguin.homelinux.org richard Richard Ibbotson as the common names. None of these work. Tried to have a chat to Marc Balmer (OpenBSD consultant) about this who said that the documentation might provide an answer. Nothing in there. All I can see for a common name is Internet Widgits Pty Ltd which is not what I entered on the command line. I think I'll go and head butt a wall instead ;) Lot easier than doing this :) -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Virus Scanner
On Sunday 03 April 2011 11:41:34 Chris Allen wrote: What is the current consensus on using a virus scanner for Linux (specifically Ubuntu 10.10)? When I last asked this (about 2 years ago) the general opinion was, waste of time, Linux did' need it If scanners are recommended now, which is the favourite? I always scan e-mail both ways. I send e-mail with Exim. Clamav and other anti-virus software is installed. My firewall has a proxy which scans downloading web pages for viruses and worms. This does not slow down my network connection. I don't know about Australia but in England it's considered to be criminal not to scan for viruses. The legal stuff doesn't say that it is criminal but it implies that something is wrong if virus scanning software is not installed on a workstation or somewhere else... Firewalls http://sleepypenguin.homelinux.org/blog/?page_id=174 -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Debian 6
On Sunday 20 March 2011 06:53:01 Heracles wrote: lspci shows the nic and so does iwconfig but ifconfig only shows the loopback interface. It does not even show the (100/1000Mb) ethernet interface. Ubuntu, SuSE and Fedora all show both. Am I missing something? This is only speculation but... if the Debian people have moved towards kernels that are based on free software rather than stuff that just works then I'd say that the driver for your network card has been removed. This is what I thought was going to happen when Debian 6.0 was released. GnewSense is now moving to Debian. Richard Stallman uses GnewSense. I could be wrong but this sounds like FSF intervention once again. -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: A Toshiba Computer.
On Wednesday 29 December 2010 04:16:51 wbenn...@turing.une.edu.au wrote: [I'm surprised at the reaction of some people on learning of my intentions. Some regard me as a mindless iconoclast (don't mind that), others give me a penny lecture on the superiority of Microsoft over everything (do mind that).] Did you ever see a film called Se7en ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_%28film%29 the plot of the film is so like everything to do with Microsoft and winduhs Se7en that it's hard to tell the difference. So:--- 1) Have never considered the 64-bit version of Ubuntu. Are there any caveats? It's a lot nicer to use than it was when it first arrived. Shouldn't be any problems. Bazerick Beerkat 10.10 would seem to be good software. 2) There's a TV tuner in it (didn't ask for it, but it came anyhow). Will wiping Windows and installing Ubuntu affect this? Uhhmm... dual boot might be useful ? Not sure about the TV Card with Ubuntu. Problem I have with this is that Tosh graphics didn't used to work with Linux. But, that changed some years ago. The TV card might still be winduhs centric. Try booting from a live CD and run that before you do an installation ? I'm supposing that you do wan to use the TV card. What does it say in the winduhs control center about the TV card hardware ? Post that here. 3) Whilst trolling the Web, came across mention of a Toshset package, installation of which causes all Toshiba-related Ubuntu problems to evaporate. It's the result of someone reverse-engineering some Toshiba interfaces. Has anyone heard of Toshset? Sorry, no, not heard of that one. -- Richard http:/www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Upgrade from 10.4 to 10.10
On Wednesday 24 November 2010 12:37:13 ma...@idl.net.au wrote: Hello fellow users, I recently did an upgrade from Ubuntu 10.4 to 10.10 The computer will not start. I get a flashing cursor in the top left corner. Can I recover the computer, or what is the best option ? http://www.ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/ http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.php?wpid=1 http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page -- Richard htp://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: detecting hard drive failure ?
On Friday 12 November 2010 04:45:17 Voytek Eymont wrote: this is a rolling storage for cameras, so we lost data that would soon be overwritten, anyhow but, what can I use to be notified should such a failure occur again ? Can't think of anything other than occasional checks with the disks I've shown you. Other than that a bash script scratches head. But, can't remember the script. Looking through my bookshelf doesn't reveal anything either. Something that does a umount and then does an fsck and then drop a log or send a script to an e-mail address ? This might or might not be helpful. http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-find-out-if-harddisk-failing.html http://www.linuxjournal.com/magazine/monitoring-hard-disks-smart Hope this helps. -- Richard http://sleepypenguin.homelinux.org/blog/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: detecting hard drive failure ?
Can you use SMART? Thinking was a bit fuzzy this morning. I was thinking that you might be able to write a bash script using smartmon. Any bash script would have to have something like this in it... smartctl -d ata -H /dev/sdb or whatever would be relevant. Also some part of the script would send out a text file by e-mail or dump into /var/log with a cron job. Of course, I'm supposing that Voytek is using a Linux or UNIX operating system. -- Richard http://sleepypenguin.homelinux.org/blog/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: detecting hard drive failure ?
- what sort of tests or whatever can I run before I pull the unit down ? - what sort of utility can I run to 'detect and notify' should such failure occurs again ? You might try these... one of more of these should tell you something http://www.meiring.org.uk/sheflug/mailarchive/2010/10/msg00016.html -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: detecting hard drive failure ?
- what sort of tests or whatever can I run before I pull the unit down ? - what sort of utility can I run to 'detect and notify' should such failure occurs again ? You might try these... one of more of these should tell you something RescueCD... http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page SystemRescueCd is a Linux system rescue disk available as a bootable CD-ROM or USB stick for administrating or repairing your system and data after a crash. It aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the hard disk partitions. It comes with a lot of linux software such as system tools (parted, partimage, fstools, ...) and basic tools (editors, midnight commander, network tools). It requires no installation. It can be used on linux servers, linux desktops or windows boxes. The kernel supports the important file systems (ext2/ext3/ext4, reiserfs, reiser4, btrfs, xfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs, iso9660), as well as network filesystems (samba and nfs). Trinity Rescue CD http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.php?wpid=1 Trinity Rescue Kit or TRK is a free live Linux distribution that aims specifically at recovery and repair operations on Windows machines, but is equally usable for Linux recovery issues. Since version 3.4 it has an easy to use scrollable text menu that allows anyone who masters a keyboard and some English to perform maintenance and repair on a computer, ranging from password resetting over disk cleanup to virus scanning Sometimes you can find that the Rescue CD doesn't load kernel modules if you are trying to rescue an Ubuntu system. If you run into one of these you can try this http://www.ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/ Ubuntu-Rescue-Remix features a full command-line environment with up-to-date versions of the most powerful free/libre open-source data recovery software including GNU ddrescue, Photorec, The Sleuth Kit and Gnu-fdisk. Parted Magic can be good for some things. Works in a snap ! ... http://partedmagic.com/ The Parted Magic OS employs core programs of GParted and Parted to handle partitioning tasks with ease, while featuring other useful programs (e.g. Clonezilla, Partimage, TestDisk, Truecrypt, G4L, SuperGrubDisk, ddrescue, etc...) and an excellent set of documentation to benefit the user. An extensive collection of file system tools are also included, as Parted Magic supports the following: ext2, ext3, ext4, fat16, fat32, hfs, hfs+, jfs, linux-swap, ntfs, reiserfs, reiser4, and xfs. Clonezilla as mentioned above... http://clonezilla.org/ You're probably familiar with the popular proprietary commercial package Norton Ghost®. The problem with these kind of software packages is that it takes a lot of time to massively clone systems to many computers. You've probably also heard of Symantec's solution to this problem, Symantec Ghost Corporate Edition® with multicasting. Well, now there is an OpenSource clone system (OCS) solution called Clonezilla with unicasting and multicasting! RescueCD... http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page SystemRescueCd is a Linux system rescue disk available as a bootable CD-ROM or USB stick for administrating or repairing your system and data after a crash. It aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the hard disk partitions. It comes with a lot of linux software such as system tools (parted, partimage, fstools, ...) and basic tools (editors, midnight commander, network tools). It requires no installation. It can be used on linux servers, linux desktops or windows boxes. The kernel supports the important file systems (ext2/ext3/ext4, reiserfs, reiser4, btrfs, xfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs, iso9660), as well as network filesystems (samba and nfs). Trinity Rescue CD http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.php?wpid=1 Trinity Rescue Kit or TRK is a free live Linux distribution that aims specifically at recovery and repair operations on Windows machines, but is equally usable for Linux recovery issues. Since version 3.4 it has an easy to use scrollable text menu that allows anyone who masters a keyboard and some English to perform maintenance and repair on a computer, ranging from password resetting over disk cleanup to virus scanning Sometimes you can find that the Rescue CD doesn't load kernel modules if you are trying to rescue an Ubuntu system. If you run into one of these you can try this http://www.ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/ Ubuntu-Rescue-Remix features a full command-line environment with up-to-date versions of the most powerful free/libre open-source data recovery software including GNU ddrescue, Photorec, The Sleuth Kit and Gnu-fdisk. Parted Magic can be good for some things. Works in a snap ! ... http://partedmagic.com/ The Parted Magic OS employs core programs of GParted and Parted to handle partitioning tasks with ease, while featuring other useful programs
[SLUG] Re: An apt-get question.
On Sunday 24 October 2010 13:45:29 wbenn...@turing.une.edu.au wrote: If I have an application that I wish to install --- a crossword compiler in this case and I have the download on the desktop --- it's a .tgz file --- is there an apt-get command 9or variation) that will install it? apt-get install alien Then... man alien ... or Google search. Followed by alien -d crossword.tgz or alien -d -i crossword.tgz Or, if you did -d first and didn't install (more sensible)... dpkg -i crossword_all.deb Doing -d and -i together can lead to some issues sometimes. Should work fine on Debian and Ubuntu. If it doesn't work untar the tgz and tar again at crossword.tar.gz. That should do it :) This might or might not work for a compiler but it's worked for me a lot of times. Sometimes it didn't. -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: On buying a laptop.
Hi I'm afraid I gave up on filling public rubbish dumps. If you can excuse me for putting it that way. If I do need a laptop I go to Ebay and get hold of something like an IBM T40 or X40. As long as it has 2Gb of RAM. Cost about $160. Ebay also do a CD based manual for about $10. How to service and rebuild an IBM laptop. Easy to do. Easier than most car engines or gear boxes. Other than that Advent or Dell. I've burnt out several Advent laptops. All of them were good. -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org/indexpage -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Learning Linux
On Wednesday 22 September 2010 07:53:01 Lee Isaacson wrote: Oh... just about any... http://distrowatch.com/ But, just about any version of Ubuntu or Kubuntu or Fedora or openSuSE is easy to install and use. Easier than winduhs. You just need to make sure you have enough RAM in your machine. A good graphics card also helps. I like to use Nvidia. -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Accounting and business software
On Sunday 19 September 2010 14:59:11 elliott-brennan wrote: I'm looking for some recommendations in relation to accounts and client management software. http://www.aaxnet.com/design/linuxacct.html Also... apt-get install gnumed-client . http://wiki.gnumed.de/bin/view/Gnumed/InstallerGuideHomeShort Probably something better out there but this might help for a start. -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Evil on the Internet
Hi http://www.sheflug.org.uk/clayton.html A meeting we had last week. Might interest someone out there. This is a short summary with a YouTube video. -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Travelling Overeseas - USB Modems
Hi Rick Phillips r...@greyheads.net writes: Are USB 3G modems a reasonable alternative? If so, what would members recommend? Plenty of pay for Wi-Fi out there. Such as British Telecom, Belgacom in Belgium, Deutsch Telecom in Germany and so on. For a USB based broadband service you might try 3 at about $12 to $25 per month... http://threestore.three.co.uk/broadband/ In England BT Openworld might be easier. You buy a prepaid card and enter your ID and password when you are near a Wi-Fi hotspot. Lot easier and might be better for you. Other than that try - www.ebay.co.uk. If you need some help when you are over here send me some e-mail. -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Is the Internet Filter Australia's Berlin Wall
Hi http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Is_the_Internet_Filter_Australia%27s_Berlin_Wall I'm not sure if you should take anything too seriously on this site but there are times when it makes for interesting reading. The above seems to be a good read. -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Windows Applications Making GRUB 2 Unbootable
Hi http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/ucgi/~cjwatson/blosxom/2010/08/28 Colin Watson would like to hear from you. ... If you find that running Windows makes a GRUB 2-based system unbootable (Debian bug, Ubuntu bug), then I'd like to hear from you. This is a bug in which some proprietary Windows-based software overwrites particular sectors in the gap between the master boot record and the first partition, sometimes called the embedding area. GRUB Legacy and GRUB 2 both normally use this part of the disk to store one of their key components: GRUB Legacy calls this component Stage 1.5, while GRUB 2 calls it the core image (comparison). However, Stage 1.5 is less useful than the core image (for example, the latter provides a rescue shell which can be used to recover from some problems), and is therefore rather smaller: somewhere around 10KB vs. 24KB for the common case of ext[234] on plain block devices. It seems that the Windows-based software writes to a sector which is after the end of Stage 1.5, but before the end of the core image. This is why the problem appears to be new with GRUB 2. e-mail address on the page above. -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Using a DNS with Dynamic IP
On Sunday 29 August 2010 15:03:25 Nick Andrew wrote: For public servers there are plenty of reasonably priced services including virtual server, web hosting, Amazon EC2, dedicated server, colocation etc etc. And those are only some of the self-managed infrastructure options. You can get free blogs, free forums, for code hosting there's SourceForge and Google Code and Github and Gitorious (and more). Example of dynamic DNS service if you want it https://www.dyndns.com/ Some others out there. This is what I use with a static IP for... http://sleepypenguin.homelinux.org/blog/ -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: A distro which recognises Wi-fi on Asus eee 1005p?
On Wednesday 04 August 2010 22:57:20 Jon Jermey wrote: I'm trying to get Linux running from an SD card boot on an Asus eee 1005p but every distro I have tried so far fails to recognise the Wi-Fi (Atheros). Wired connections are working. Does anyone know of a distro which recognises wireless out of the box on this specific model or, failing that, a reliable set of instructions to get one working? My 1005HA works fine on Ubuntu 10.04. Might be that the drivers for your hardware aren't out there yet. -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: A distro which recognises Wi-fi on Asus eee 1005p?
On Thursday 05 August 2010 00:54:07 Adrian Chadd wrote: I have one of these very-recent atheros chipset Eeepc laptops and it works fine. Just need to remember to recompile it every time the kernel is updated. Been through that a few times with my EeePC 701 and 1005HA. More recently with Ubuntu 10.04 I find that my 1005HA works fine. -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Samsung Galaxy S i9000
On Sunday 18 July 2010 12:01:28 Daryl Thompson wrote: i am looking at Android powered mobiles and was wondering has any one synchronised the Samsung Galaxy S i9000 with Linux ubuntu as yet and if there was any problems My Samsung GT-I5700 works fine with this. Just have to remember to click on mount the device on the phone desktop. Yes, I know that it's a different phone but manufacturers tend to stick to a certain way of doing things when they have found that things work. I am presently working on upgrading this to Android 2.1 http://www.samsungmobile.com.sg/support/softwaremanuals/softwareNpsUpdate.do?phone_model=GT- I5700 -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk http://sleepypenguin.homelinux.org -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: WordPress, PHP ... Re: Ubuntu 10.04
On Wednesday 30 June 2010 06:08:42 justin randell wrote: this looks like a wordpress code/mysql issue to me: some basic things - do you have APC enabled for php? if you don't, apt-get install php5-apc, restart apache, and you'll get immediate performance gains. Hmmm Google search... ubuntu 10.04 php5-apc ... http://constantshift.com/install-php-fpm-5-3-2-on-ubuntu-10-04-lucid- lynx/ Installed that. i'm not a wordpress dev, so i don't know if they have any devel modules that can give you info about that sort of stuff, but i'd look for one and see what it tells you. does wordpress have any basic, built-in caching you could turn on? Tried installing wp-super-cache yesterday. Logs show that the blog was attacked about 90 minutes later and it went offline. I don't know what that's about. Deleting wp-super-cache brought the site back up. I'll have a go at wp-cache next. if you control all the moving parts, i'd suggest pushing the compression further up|down the stack (depending on how you look at it) to apache by using mod_deflate, rather than using php. you'll want compression for your static files as well, and this is the simplest and most cpu efficient way to get it. Running 'sudo a2enmod deflate' reveals that it's already running. It's already faster than it was. Thanks for everyone's help :) -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: WordPress, PHP ... Re: Ubuntu 10.04
On Wednesday 30 June 2010 13:50:01 Jeff Waugh wrote: I hope you mean the 'php-apc' package, rather than php-fpm. Yes. wp-cache is unmaintained, wp-super-cache was forked from it and is kept up to date by the creator of WordPress MU. There's no point using wp-cache, and it is highly unlikely that there is a direct relationship between attacked and wp-super-cache. Hmm... Suhosin log/Syslog in the Apache box says the word attacked. From my router which is what the Apache box is plugged into. shrug. ... Jun 30 11:33:49 sleepypenguin suhosin[14273]: ALERT - zend_mm_head corrupted at 0xb3d80d2c (attacker 'Your Router', file '/var/www/blog/wp-admin/options-general.php') Running 'sudo a2enmod deflate' reveals that it's already running. It's already faster than it was. Doesn't mean it's active. Module deflate already enabled. Running ? Not sure about that. Use 'ismyblogworking.com' to find out useful tidbits about how your blog is operating. AH ! Thanks for that ! Was hoping that something like that might exist Your web server [82.69.119.126] is working fine. Your blog page took 13.12 seconds to fetch. Your web server might be overloaded. No, just nor caching properly (I Think). Your robots.txt file prevents GoogleBot from fetching http://sleepypenguin.homelinux.org/blog/. This may harm your search engine rankings. Good :) Your blog is not indexed by Google. powered by Your blog is not indexed by Bing. More good news :) Your blog seems slow. It took 11.75 seconds to generate the page. Yes, slightly embarrassing. Installing wp-cache or wp-super-cache works for a while but then the whole thing goes offline. Don't know why. Should work with Wordpress 3.0. Can't think why it does that. Jeff, Thanks very much :) -- Richard -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: WordPress, PHP ... Re: Ubuntu 10.04
On Wednesday 30 June 2010 14:27:34 Richard Ibbotson wrote: On Wednesday 30 June 2010 13:50:01 Jeff Waugh wrote: I hope you mean the 'php-apc' package, rather than php-fpm. Yes. wp-cache is unmaintained, wp-super-cache was forked from it and is kept up to date by the creator of WordPress MU. There's no point using wp-cache, and it is highly unlikely that there is a direct relationship between attacked and wp-super-cache. Hmm... Suhosin log/Syslog in the Apache box says the word attacked. From my router which is what the Apache box is plugged into. shrug. ... Jun 30 11:33:49 sleepypenguin suhosin[14273]: ALERT - zend_mm_head corrupted at 0xb3d80d2c (attacker 'Your Router', file '/var/www/blog/wp-admin/options-general.php') Hmmm... http://www.tutorial9.net/web-tutorials/wordpress-caching-whats-the- best-caching-plugin/ Be Careful Enabling CompressionIf you enable WP Super Cache Compression and your server already has compression enabled or doesn’t support it then you will get a lovely blank page of death or just a lot of garbage printed on the screen. Use with caution.Something seriously wrong is obviously happening when compression is enabled. Despite what the people say, WP Super Cache isn’t very super. In my opinion it is a complicated version of WP-Cache with only slightly better performance. With numerous reports of blank pages of death, I am hesitant to install this plugin on an actual blog. On top of it all this plugin doesn’t seem to play nice with others. Improper configuration and/or a bad plugin combination can lead to a drastic decrease your performance. It is sad but true. Might explain something ? The blank page of death. Anything is better than the blue screen of death ;) -- Richard -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: WordPress, PHP ... Re: Ubuntu 10.04
Hi I think this one died a while ago but after some months I have finally been able to get my Wordpress blog running again http://sleepypenguin.homelinux.org/blog/ Finally sorted it out with 'apt-get install wordpress' which most likely installed a configuration file that I didn't know about. After I disabled a couple of incompatible plugins that Wordpress 3.0 didn't like the content of the pages came back up again. Wordpress is installed from the source from the Wordpress site. Now I just have to work out why it is that web pages are so slow to download from this box. Not sure what that's about. DNS configuration seems to be okay and there is 2 Megabits of bandwidth on my home line. Shouldn't be any problems. Thanks for everyone's helpful comments. -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: WordPress, PHP ... Re: Ubuntu 10.04
On Tuesday 29 June 2010 22:31:03 Michael Chesterton wrote: Both google and yahoo have firefox plugins that might help diagnose the problem. One is called yslow (I think that's yahoo's) and googles is speed test toolbar or something obscure like that. Does the page wait for a few seconds on a blank screen and then download quickly, or does it start downloading straight away but slowly? Kind of a bit of both. I can hear the box grinding trying to deliver a web page and then for about 5 or 15 seconds something is happening. Doesn't matter where I download the page from or which operating system I use to view the site. Same result. There is 1Gb of RAM in the box which should be enough for a machine that delivers about two web pages a week. Kind of wait for seconds and then download slowly. Annoying problem. -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: WordPress, PHP ... Re: Ubuntu 10.04
On Wednesday 30 June 2010 00:25:24 Mike Lampard wrote: I'd suggest the WP-Cache or WP-Super-Cache plugins, which precompile the php to html so the server doesn't have to recompile the pages on each access. The GZIP-Output wordpress plugin is also recommended. I'll try those. Meanwhile I've been hacking the DNS and bind9 configuration. Looks like it might have taken a second or two off the download time. More like downloading a web page from planet earth rather than the moon :) http://sleepypenguin.homelinux.org/blog/ I think I can get back to writing something now. Must remember to include a cricket section. -- Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: WordPress sessions [Was: WordPress, PHP]
This usually leads to client-server style databases or things like memcachedb in redundant configuration. This is the exact problem I came across recently when developing a Wordpress extension. Coming from Drupal land I thought sessions would be stored in the DB out of the box. But alas there is more code to write... though I haven't looked if an appropriate plugin exists. Yes.. was thinking something like that when I compared Drupal and Wordpress on my own Apache box. I did 11 years in heavy engineering where I found out that the world revolves around all kinds of cleverly designed engineering projects and software. Just have to learn to live with what's out there. At least thanks to the open source software developers we have a choice now. Wasn't like that back in 1995 when I did a B.Sc. in Chemistry and Geology. Let's see there wuz winduhs 95 and winduhs 95 and winduhs 95 Oh ! and winduhs 3.11. Just for a change. Wouldn't like to repeat some of the conversations I had with some of the lecturers holds head Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Re: WordPress, PHP ... Re: Ubuntu 10.04
That is not the case, however, certainly not with WordPress 2.9 (and I'm pretty sure, all the way back to 2.7 and earlier)... in normal operation, there should be *no* warnings whatsoever running WordPress core. Oh... The second last log line, and inaccuracy of line 27 (given that call is on line 18 in WordPress 2.9), seem suspicious to me... sounds like Richard has something else running on every request? Notably session_start is not called in the WordPress codebase. Not that I'm aware of. Richard, you haven't turned on WP_DEBUG in wp-config.php, have you? (That would explain at least some of the notices and warnings...) No. It's running in the way that it's supposed to. Can't think where I've gone wrong. I think I might have to re-install Wordpress. Can't see any other way that I can fix it. Richard -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: WordPress sessions [Was: WordPress, PHP]
Most likely both... on top of that, consider WordPress's relative age, ease of installation / configuration (particularly on shared hosting platforms where the user has no control over the system), and desire to support older system components. An interesting question though, for which I'm sure there's more historical background (and rationale for not switching to PHP session handling in later versions)... I'll ask around and find out more. :-) Would be interesting to find out more :) Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: WordPress sessions [Was: WordPress, PHP]
Hmmm... Wordpress 3 beta 2 upgrade looks like a re-install to me :) .. http://sleepypenguin.homelinux.org/blog/ Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Ubuntu 10.04
Del wrote... PHP 5.3 includes a lot of fairly forward-looking changes that were originally slated for PHP 6. The justification for doing that's been argued about quite a bit in the PHP community. Oh.. that's what's going on. I know Derick Rethans reasonably well. I should have asked him a few questions. Must get in touch with him http://derickrethans.nl/ Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: WordPress, PHP ... Re: Ubuntu 10.04
Justin Randell wrote given that the current stable ubuntu, the coming stable debian and redhat, and stable just about everyting-else in linux land will/does ship php 5.3, maybe a patch set will develop? I was thinking that this might happen. Given that things move along quickly in the PHP and Ubuntu communities. I've got Squeeze on a workstation next to me. Be interesting to have a look in there and see what's happening. can i interest you in a drupal 7 blog? works like a charm on php 5.3 ;-) Got it on my Apache box. I'll have to play around with it this week and see what it does. Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: WordPress, PHP ... Re: Ubuntu 10.04
Jeff Waugh wrote... WordPress 3.0 is going to rock (and indeed, already is, if you're comfy running pre-release). Yes. Looks like it should be good. Shame the PHP stuff in Lurid Lynx 10.04 isn't quite there just yet. Maybe an update in a few weeks for Ubuntu. Seems fine here. I've been running it for a couple of months on production servers [1] for WordPress, PHP, MySQL, etc., and they're running swimmingly. Quite a few problems were shaken out of the PHP 5.3 stack before release, such as the requirement to update APC in the repo, etc. Looking into /etc/mysql/my.cnf just now. The upgrade might have changed something in there without my knowledge. [1] If you don't test before release, particularly with an LTS, it is much harder to say but X doesn't work! with a straight face. Uhhmm.. I wouldn't like to say that about *any* software :) Richard -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: WordPress, PHP ... Re: Ubuntu 10.04
Jeff WordPress 3.0 is going to rock (and indeed, already is, if you're comfy running pre-release). Right, following your helpful words I have upgraded to 3.0 beta 1. Seems to work fine. Wordpress database upgrade went fine. However, looking in to my.cnf and php.ini I can't see anything wrong. Doing 'sudo find / -name php.ini' finds /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini and /etc/php5/cli/php.ini. Isn't that wrong ? Can't think there should be two php.ini files in there. Looking at http://sleepypenguin.homelinux.org/blog/ I can see that the page and the background are there. But, no written content of pictures. shrug Don't know what to do about that. Seems fine here. I've been running it for a couple of months on production servers [1] for WordPress, PHP, MySQL, etc., and they're running swimmingly. Quite a few problems were shaken out of the PHP 5.3 stack before release, such as the requirement to update APC in the repo, etc. After doing the Wordpress upgrade I'd go back to Ubuntu 10.04 and have a look around in there. Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: WordPress, PHP ... Re: Ubuntu 10.04
Jeff Probably a theme issue. Make sure that you have the freshest version of your theme, and then start looking at your error.log - you're very likely to find indicative errors in there. Checked the Flora Relief theme. Seems to be up to date. Tried to use some other themes. Same result. The error.log reveals something but I'm not quite sure what it's telling me.. bWarning/b: Directive 'magic_quotes_gpc' is deprecated in PHP 5.3 and greater in bUnknown/b on line b0/bbr / [Sun May 02 16:16:38 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Deprecated: Function set_magic_quotes_runtime() is deprecated in /var/www/blog/wp- settings.php on line 27, referer: http://sl [Sun May 02 16:16:38 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Warning: session_start() [a href='function.session-start'function.session- start/a]: Cannot send session cache limiter - h br / bWarning/b: Directive 'register_long_arrays' is deprecated in PHP 5.3 and greater in bUnknown/b on line b0/bbr / br / bWarning/b: Directive 'magic_quotes_gpc' is deprecated in PHP 5.3 and greater in bUnknown/b on line b0/bbr / [Sun May 02 16:17:14 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Deprecated: Function set_magic_quotes_runtime() is deprecated in /var/www/blog/wp- settings.php on line 27, referer: http://sl [Sun May 02 16:17:14 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Warning: session_start() [a href='function.session-start'function.session- start/a]: Cannot send session cache limiter - h [Sun May 02 16:17:29 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Deprecated: Function set_magic_quotes_runtime() is deprecated in /var/www/blog/wp- settings.php on line 27, referer: http://sl [Sun May 02 16:17:29 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Warning: session_start() [a href='function.session-start'function.session- start/a]: Cannot send session cache limiter - h [Sun May 02 16:17:47 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Deprecated: Function set_magic_quotes_runtime() is deprecated in /var/www/blog/wp- settings.php on line 27, referer: http://sl [Sun May 02 16:17:47 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Warning: session_start() [a href='function.session-start'function.session- start/a]: Cannot send session cache limiter - h [Sun May 02 16:17:55 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Deprecated: Function set_magic_quotes_runtime() is deprecated in /var/www/blog/wp- settings.php on line 27, referer: http://sl [Sun May 02 16:17:55 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Warning: session_start() [a href='function.session-start'function.session- start/a]: Cannot send session cache limiter - h [Sun May 02 16:18:03 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Deprecated: Function set_magic_quotes_runtime() is deprecated in /var/www/blog/wp- settings.php on line 27, referer: http://sl [Sun May 02 16:18:03 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Warning: session_start() [a href='function.session-start'function.session- start/a]: Cannot send session cache limiter - h br / bWarning/b: Directive 'register_long_arrays' is deprecated in PHP 5.3 and greater in bUnknown/b on line b0/bbr / br / bWarning/b: Directive 'magic_quotes_gpc' is deprecated in PHP 5.3 and greater in bUnknown/b on line b0/bbr / [Sun May 02 16:25:43 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Deprecated: Function set_magic_quotes_runtime() is deprecated in /var/www/blog/wp- settings.php on line 27, referer: http://sl [Sun May 02 16:25:43 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Warning: session_start() [a href='function.session-start'function.session- start/a]: Cannot send session cache limiter - h [Sun May 02 16:25:57 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Deprecated: Function set_magic_quotes_runtime() is deprecated in /var/www/blog/wp- settings.php on line 27, referer: http://sl [Sun May 02 16:25:57 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Warning: session_start() [a href='function.session-start'function.session- start/a]: Cannot send session cache limiter - h [Sun May 02 16:26:08 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /var/www/blog/wp-settings.php on line 208, refere [Sun May 02 16:26:08 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /var/www/blog/wp-settings.php on line 223, refere [Sun May 02 16:26:08 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /var/www/blog/wp-settings.php on line 230, refere [Sun May 02 16:26:08 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /var/www/blog/wp-settings.php on line 237, refere [Sun May 02 16:26:08 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Deprecated: Assigning the return value of new by reference is deprecated in /var/www/blog/wp-settings.php on line 262, refere [Sun May 02 16:26:08 2010] [error] [client 10.0.0.2] PHP Deprecated: Function set_magic_quotes_runtime() is deprecated in /var/www/blog/wp- settings.php on
[SLUG] Re: WordPress, PHP ... Re: Ubuntu 10.04
Justin i guess the wordpress devs would have read this: http://au.php.net/manual/en/migration53.deprecated.php and just decided that people using 5.3 can just deal with those warnings in their logs on every, single, request. Was hoping someone was going to give me a simple answer. I've always thought that a good way to learn was by making mistakes. As long as it's on my own Apache box and not somewhere else. I just have to hope that I can find a way to fix my own Wordpress installation. I was thinking I wouldn't have to re-install from scratch but I might have to do that anyway. Thanks very much :) Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Ubuntu 10.4
Hi Josh Smith wrote: It was released this morning. First to update or install, please report results :) My Ubuntu server seems to be working fine after the upgrade. Also, my Ubuntu desktop in my kitchen. However, I now find that my Wordpress 2.9.2 blog postings have disappeared. http://sleepypenguin.homelinux.org/blog/ any suggestions about how to fix this greatly appreciated. Can't find an answer with a Google search. Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Ubuntu 10.4
any suggestions about how to fix this greatly appreciated. Can't find an answer with a Google search. i don't mess with wordpress much, but lucid ships php 5.3 by default, and a lot of php webapps (and plugins for those) haven't bee thoroughly vetted to run smoothly on php 5.3. I thought it might be something like that. try googling for wordpress 5.3 issues, and maybe throw in the names of any plugins you have installed. I'll try that. i know at work we'll be avoiding lucid until we start doing more Drupal 7 work, because while drupal 6 core is 99% ok with php 5.3, contributed modules are a lucky dip. Yes. Good idea. I was thinking that on my own Apache box it wouldn't matter a lot. Mostly used for experimental stuff anyway. Drupal 7 seems to be a bit of a mess just now but better than it was a few months ago. Hopefully Wordpress 3 might be usable when it is released :) another option is to pin you php5-* packages to a karmic repository. Might consider that as well. Richard -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Asus EeePC 1005HA
Jeff A quick tidbit for anyone who has acquired one of these delightful netbooks: Asus has shipped a few BIOS updates, the most recent of which has improved my wifi performance/reliability considerably. Recommended update. How did you get your machine to install the BIOS update. I've found the part about ALT + F2 to start it but can't get the machine to find the USB stick. Do I have to format the USB stick as FAT16 or is just any old file system going to work ? Richard -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Joomla
Hi How do I get a copy of Joomla installed on Ubuntu 9.10? I have downloaded the file package ffom their site, but it is in zip format and gunzip says unknown suffix --ignored and does nothing You need to install unzip and p7zip sudo apt-get install p7zip-full rar arj lha unzip Should do it. Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Asus EeePC 1005HA
Jeff Waugh wrote: 2. Are you still happy Very much so. +1 on that :) 3. How has the battery life stood up over the 6m. 4. What sort of battery life are you getting (esp. now after 6 months) Early days yet, but the battery life on this thing is INSANE. I loved not having to cart around a power cable during linux.conf.au, even with heavy web/email usage. I couldn't get over the fact that I could use it all the way up to Manchester airport on the train and on the flight to Fosdem and in Brussels for some hours after I arrived. Ran for eight hours on that day from a full charge. I got the 2Gb RAM upgrade from Ebay for not much. New batteries don't cost a lot either. 6. How has the build quality stood up Thus far, awesome. It's the new seashell style from Asus, so it's much sleeker than the plasticky early versions. The only thing I didn't like was the shiny case that attracts finger prints. Mine has a protection cover which you can get hold of from anywhere. Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Netbooks .... Again (7 months on) Are you still happy?
Peter Chubb wrote: I bought an Acer Aspire One a year ago, and am still happy. In fact I'm typing this on it now! Main problems are: -- slow SSD -- when the laptop is clsoed you can't see the power LED, so can't tell if it's suspended, on, or off. -- cover is a fingerprint magnet. Nice hardware. I've had to work on a few of these for some people who bought into the Linpus black hole of hell where some updates or video streaming doesn't work on older models. Deleting Linpus and installing Ubuntu Netbook Remix fixed that one. Dell Minis are nice. So are the Samsung netbooks. Resist the temptation to spend large piles of money. Plenty of nice netbook hardware out there. I still have my EeePC 701 which has done some airports and some more. I now have an EeePC 1005HA which I used to write a Fosdem report for issue 85 of - www.linuxuser.co.uk. Using that I edited 200 photographs from my Nikon camera in one hour. Happy ? Yeh... you bet... only happier when watching England v Australia playing test match cricket or eating roo sarnies. Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Netbooks .... Again (7 months on) Are you still happy?
Peter Chubb wrote: I bought an Acer Aspire One a year ago, and am still happy. In fact I'm typing this on it now! Main problems are: -- slow SSD -- when the laptop is clsoed you can't see the power LED, so can't tell if it's suspended, on, or off. -- cover is a fingerprint magnet. Nice hardware. I've had to work on a few of these for some people who bought into the Linpus black hole of hell where some updates or video streaming doesn't work on older models. Deleting Linpus and installing Ubuntu Netbook Remix fixed that one. Dell Minis are nice. So are the Samsung netbooks. Resist the temptation to spend large piles of money. Plenty of nice netbook hardware out there. I still have my EeePC 701 which has done some airports and some more. I now have an EeePC 1005HA which I used to write a Fosdem report for issue 85 of - www.linuxuser.co.uk. Using that I edited 200 photographs from my Nikon camera in one hour. Happy ? Yeh... you bet... only happier when watching England v Australia playing test match cricket or eating roo sarnies. Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Fosdem
Hi In the past we have had visits to Fosdem by some people from Australia. This year the streets of Brussels were empty of our Australian friends. With this in mind you might like to have a look here... http://video.fosdem.org/2010/ Probably the best of the whole bunch was Andrew Tanenbaum talking about Minix 3 and Richard Clayton talking about Evil on the Internet. You shouldn't miss that one. You can get hold of the slides here... http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/talks/ Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Fosdem
On Monday 15 February 2010 12:44:20 Ken Foskey wrote: On Mon, 2010-02-15 at 11:08 +, Richard Ibbotson wrote: Probably the best of the whole bunch was Andrew Tanenbaum talking about Minix 3 Wasn't he the one that did the talk in LinuxConf 2006? I remember a rant about kernel programming that pretty much fell flat to a linux audience. If I remember rightly that is correct. The crowd loved it last time. This time it drew some loud applause as well. Can't keep a good man down ? http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/ Richard -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Earliest open source?
Peter What's the earliest reference to open source anyone knows? I found this in a 1965 paper: The Multics system will be published when it is operating substantially, and will therefore be available for implementation on any equipment with suitable characteristics. Yes. This fits in with everything that I have read and seen for the past 30 years. I suppose that it might sound strange to anyone else but even back in 1974 when I was working next to one of the first ICL commercial computers here in Sheffield there were people around me talking about ideas that are like open source software of the present day. Many open source ideas have come and gone. The present day version is probably the purest version (maybe). Uuuhhmmm Linux ? Yeh.. it's a word I thought up back in 1982 when I was in the Royal Air Force after I found out that UNIX was in need of something better. Why it took Linus 13 years to write the code for the word I had invented when I worked on the Nimrod re-fuelling protect I do not know... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Siddeley_Nimrod Sadly, we lost some of our friends from Oz while I was working on this :( We still miss them now (lest we forget?) Richard http://www.sheflug.org.uk http://www.linuxuser.co.uk/news/knoppix-founder-klaus-knopper-speaks/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: IE on Ubunto
On Tuesday 02 February 2010 10:13:01 Chris Allen wrote: Is there a simple solution (cheap) to this dilemma? http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Main_Page -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Re: IE on Ubunto
On Tuesday 02 February 2010 10:46:18 James Polley wrote: On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 11:25 PM, Richard Ibbotson richard.ibbot...@googlemail.com wrote: On Tuesday 02 February 2010 10:13:01 Chris Allen wrote: Is there a simple solution (cheap) to this dilemma? http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Main_Page Supports IE 5, 5.5 and 6. Last updated 6th Feb 2008. It worked for me last time I needed this, but that would have been some time in 2007 when IE6 was state-of-the-art. Yes. I'm afraid I'm biased in the direction of the GNU/Linux desktop. I'm not ignorant of the latest software but can't think why I would want to use grot (winduhs) on my desktop :) I know that the latest version of Internet Exploder is said to be more standards compliant but I can't think of a use for it on my own desktop. I suppose Chris will use whatever he wants to use as do most people. -- Richard -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Mini-itx Smoothwall
On Sunday 06 Dec 2009 03:45:08 Jake Anderson wrote: Meijer, Luke wrote: Hello I want to build a mini-itx box for smoothwall 3.0 If your not absolutely set on smoothwall take a look at pfsense, same roots and, any itx machine should have enough juice to run it well and its based on newer BSD's so you should have fewer hardware concerns (other than a KVM virtual machine I haven't found anything it wont run on) lots of nice addons too. pfSense is excellent. If you can't work it out m0n0wall is also very good. Both of them better than Smoothwall. IP Cop is also good... http://www.pfsense.com/ http://m0n0.ch/wall/ http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/ipcop/wiki If you absolutely have to use GNU/Linux and iptables then IP Cop is really good for a lot of things. For hardware I use https://kd85.com/soekris.html -- Richard http://www.linuxuser.co.uk http://www.sheflug.org.uk http://sleepypenguin.homelinux.org -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] 64-bit Karmic Koala or not?
On Thursday 19 Nov 2009 05:23:33 Amos Shapira wrote: I'm going to get a new desktop at work and was wondering whether it's worth moving to 64-bit. What's the collective wisdom/experience on the list? Is it worth moving to 64-bit or should I stay away? Works for me for the past two years with Ubuntu and Debian and openSuSE. I use these because it's easy to install Nvidia drivers. I'd also like to move my home desktop to 64 bit when I get around to buy extra RAM (it's 2Gb now). 2 Gb works fine. No need to upgrade. I'm running Gnome and KDE 4.3 and AWN together on the same desktop. -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: 64-bit Karmic Koala or not?
On Thursday 19 Nov 2009 11:21:28 Amos Shapira wrote: The work desktop will come with an on-board Intel chip, which as far as I followed should be supported using open-source drivers. Do you use Skype and Flash? Any issues with them? No. On Ubuntu which is the easiest to use with Flash and Skype... apt-get install flashplugin-installer skype You have to add this to /etc/apt/sources.list # Medibuntu deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ karmic free non-free and then run 'apt-get update' Yes, I'm sure 2Gb will be enough for 64 bit but until I start installing amount of memory which requires 64 bit I'm not sure what's the benefit (a little more speed? I just use it for browsing, skype, email and ssh). I don't get any grinding noises from my SATA drive. It's quick enough. You could put 4Gb into it to future proof it a bit more. I don't like to lift the lid of a PC once I've built it. Except for once every six months I'll run a vacuum cleaner around the inside of it and check the CPU fans and PSU. Good idea to look at those. I used to build PCs and servers for IBM and Compaq. Thanks for the input, much appreciated. Yes. -- Richard -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: 64-bit Karmic Koala or not?
On Friday 20 Nov 2009 01:06:44 Jake Anderson wrote: Watch out running a vacuum cleaner around inside a PC, they can make *loads* of static. After ten years without a hitch there shouldn't be a problem. Depends what you are standing on :) I did most of a degree in physics. For that I had to study surface effects on electric fields as part of it. Then there's the fact that static charge moves around different materials in different ways. How do I know that ? Well, back in 1974 when I worked at a large industrial company in Sheffield known as Thos. W. Ward we had the original ICL business computer in the room above me where I worked. Cobol in its later stages was largely written here but other work was done in other places. At that time concepts like electric charge on a planetary body or a building were known about but not too well understood. We had large cabinets full of TTL packages. State of the art computing. 500 integrated circuit components per board. 50 or 100 boards per cabinet. I tried to explain to the RD people who were working on it that every time there was a large bang that the cabinet blew up that it was the static charge on the building. I was told to f ***. We were working inside the original British Steel prefab steel building. I have been working with this kind of thing since I was eight years old. I understood this effect better than anyone else when I was fourteen years old. It was something like the 1980's before any University anywhere acknowledged that I was right. Even then the discovery was attributed to a Dr or Professor of something even though I knew about it back in the 70's. In the present day if someone asks me how to fix something I always say something like 'It it wiv a 'ammer mate !. Works for me;) -- Richard -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Skype
Hi Some interesting news for people who spend a lot of time making long distance phone calls... http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Mysterous-Mail-Will-Skype- Become-Open-Source http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Skype-Plugin-for-Asterisk Digium, makers of Asterisk telephony solutions, and VoIP provider Skype have announced a one-year development period for a Skype plugin to the free telephony service. The proprietary Asterisk plugin provides Skype users with not only SkypeIn and SkypeOut to friends worldwide but also in other PSTN and mobile networks. -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Asus 1000hd - excessive HD noise
Havent used my Netbook for a few weeks. Booted up last night and installed 94 updates. Now whenever I use streaming media ( shoutcast in Exaile or Youtube in Firefox) The HD clicks like crazy. There was something like EXT3 daemon issues or many versions of the same desktop search software running at the same time. At the command line type 'top'. See if there are multiple processes running in there. Find and kill the process with something like 'ps ax | grep [name of process]' Or, for SSH ps ax | grep ssh. If SSH is process ID 5678 then you type 'kill 5678' to kill it. Ideas please. Could be something else but the above seems like a good place to start :) -- Richard www.linuxuser.co.uk www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Linux Saves Aussie Electrical Grid
Hmmm... http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1556944/linux-saves-aussie- electricity QUICK THINKING open sourcerers might have saved an Australian power supply system after its electrical grid control room network got infected with a virus. Winduhs ... my friend for life -- Richard www.linuxuser.co.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Linux Saves Aussie Electrical Grid
Had they kept their OS and anti-virus up to date, they would have had some protection against what felled their systems. Yes. However, considering that they were using Windows as X terminals for Solaris servers, one wonders why they weren't using Linux. I was wondering the same thing :) An EDS consultant I know is also thinking the same way. -- Richard www.linuxuser.co.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Dreamweaver clone for Linux ?
At the time Drupal had a vague plan to move to a decent database layer to reduce SQL injection attacks, but nothing more. Just got back from Drupalcon in Paris. Have a look at http://www.archive.org/details/Drupal7StatusUpdateandNextSteps the sound is a bit rough but you should get something out of it. Drupal 7 is something different compared with previous attempts. DB layer issues fixed and PHP pass algorithm now in use. I suppose this doesn't plug all the holes but it's a step in the right direction :) -- Richard -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Asus Eee PC 900
Are people running versions of Linux on this or similar computers that they've been able to install easily while keeping Windows? I do not know that because I don't have Eeepc. Having said that though, why not give Eeebuntu (http://www.eeebuntu.org) a go? It's specifically designed for Eeepc. Or even Xubuntu (http://www.xubuntu.org/). I've been using Eeebuntu on my 701 for months. It's excellent. All of those drivers and other stuff that doesn't exist for other netbooks just installs into your EeePC. Works first time you boot. Just got hold of a new 1005HA. Turns out that the ethernet and Wi-Fi drivers for these only exist as a backport until November when Manic Koala 9.10 comes along. Used the backported drivers after the installation and deleting XP. Works fine for me with ordinary Jaunty Jackoffalot 9.04 :) Cheers (better not mention the cricket) -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Asus Eee PC 900
The one that I've been using for writing for magazines and travelling with my 701 is... http://www.eeebuntu.org/ Netbook remix or the standard version is just great. See also Crunch Bang Linux - http://crunchbanglinux.org/ - great for netbooks. -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Mini-notebook Sales Jump 398%
Hi I don't know if this is true but here it is http://tiny.cc/PGil5 I think this means that although some of this is the XP desktop a lot of it is GNU/Linux based ? -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Mini-notebook Sales Jump 398%
On Wednesday 26 Aug 2009 12:36:03 Morgan Storey wrote: Unfortunately from what I have read a lot of the manufacturers moved to XP on the slightly higher models, and models with larger disks, and a lot of those sales where XP machines. So much so that MS continued shipping XP and supporting it. They have now even made a cutdown version of 7 for netbooks. But it is progress, there are a heap of people out there using Linux on thei netbooks, the missus was already a convert and probably only bought her netbook cause she knew everything would just work with Linux. Yes. As part of the same discussion that I've had with a lot of people I found myself having a long chat to Mark Shuttleworth one day at an event in Brussels. He agreed with me that you can't get hold of any real figures for desktop use of GNU/Linux. However, it seems to be that thanks to the netbook penetration of the commercial desktop market is starting to happen. It's becoming acceptable and easy to use. I even managed to get someone from SuSE in Nuremberg to agree with me about this. As a side note: Fujitsu are saying that they might have to lay off 1200 people in the UK due to lack of sales. -- Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Fwd:SLUG meeting videos/slides?
On Sunday 31 May 2009 10:45:52 Ken Wilson wrote: Michael Chesterton wrote: The videos are up, (thank you very much) they're in the 2008 directory. http://mirror.linux.org.au/lug/slug/2008/ Thanks for that. Was hoping I might be able to watch Jeff give his talk :) Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: Fwd: [SLUG] SLUG meeting videos/slides? SYSADMINS:- LOOK AT VIDEO STORAGE
On Sunday 31 May 2009 14:04:42 Jeff Waugh wrote: Looks like there's an ugly encoding issue going on... the audio seems fine, but the video goes nuts in mplayer (and gstreamer just seems to ignore the intermediate frames -- mplayer is valiantly trying to do something useful with them). What did you use to encode the videos? Yeh.. I'm getting that. Also get the same when I create my own videos from VHS-C tape. Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Ubuntu 9.04 performance [Was: Sound in Ubuntu 9.04]
On Tuesday 19 May 2009 00:55:18 Jeff Waugh wrote: The sluggishness is almost certainly related to the video driver performance regression in Ubuntu 9.04. There are some half-fixes which introduce new problems, but for most users I recommend going back to 8.10 for now. Easiest way around it, sadly. My own domestic workstations are 4 Ghz AMD64 machines with 2Gb of RAM and an Nividia graphics card. Built by me. I used to build machines for IBM and Compaq. There is a slight glitch in the graphics from time to time but mostly it's okay. I find these machines to be good for making videos and editing them. Kino or something similar Good for editing images from my Nikon digital SLR camera and of course the usual word processing and spreadsheets and e-mail (Kmail) and web pages. Regards Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: GIMP (Was: Lenovo wins $150m NSW schools deal or April Fools joke?)
On Tuesday 19 May 2009 00:21:41 Marghanita da Cruz wrote: With regard to Technical/Architectural drawing - I suspect there would be lots of shortcomings in the gimp apart from its printing capabilitybut my tech drawing and photography classes were too long ago, for me to comment on how the subject is taught today. But I don't think the Gimp is a particularly good drawing package. Hmm... I tend to use Gimp for editing Nikon raw data files and then batch process afterwards with Phatch. To do any graphics or drawing I prefer Inkscape. At least we made it to the point where there is now a choice of graphics packages on the Linux desktop :) Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: Proprietary colour names (was GIMP was...)
On Tuesday 19 May 2009 08:32:33 Andrew Cowie wrote: As long as the graphics arts industry continue to use those names to identify, and the printing industry uses such names to distinguish the pile of coloured bottles on the shelf, then apparently there's nothing we can do. ie, we are free to come up with our own names for inks, release them freely, and manufacture said inks to our hearts content. But this doesn't do us the least bit of good until such time as such inks were widely available at printing houses as an alternative to the Pantone copyright ones. And that ain't about to happen. It's exasperating, but the names mapping are their property. I think most people who need to would be happy to pay for access, but a) such a datapack would be non-redistributable, and in any case b) since people are used to getting it for free (in products whose vendors have already paid Pantone for a licence), people don't really get the idea that there's a cost to it. So maybe we need to go on a crusade to convince ink manufacturers to _also_ label their products with [some hypothetical set of redistributable] names, as well as Pantone ones. Some further background information for people who might not know a lot about this http://www.linux.com/archive/articles/49236?theme=print http://mandrivausers.org/index.php?showtopic=43129 http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=733411 For further info use Google and search for Linux Pantone or similar. An add on Gtk+ application for Gimp and Inkscape might do the job. As always, it comes back to some brave sole who wants to write the code and circulate the software :) Someone has to do it. See also.. http://endsoftpatents.org/ Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: microphone / skype / ubuntu 9.04 jaunty
It's driving me nuts; i've spent the last couple of hours twiddling knobs like crazy and making repeated calls to the test service. What I do after checking the sound levels with a gui based application is install another sound level controller. Let's see.. sudo apt-cache search sound ... alsa-firmware-loaders lib32asound2-plugins alsaplayer-alsa alsamixergui alsa-tools-gui ubuntu-restricted-extras Yes, I know it doesn't sound all that sensible but I found that after installing Jaunty Jackoffalot some things were missing. I had to play around with apt-cache search for a while to find what I had missed. Don't know what this is about :) Other than that it's a hardware issue. Regards Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: GIMP (Was: Lenovo wins $150m NSW schools deal or April Fools joke?)
On Monday 18 May 2009 12:54:34 elliott-brennan wrote: I've never been shown the difference (as in, here are examples of a photograph) and I don't know if most (the majority of) people would notice or care either way. Due to the fact that most people are taught only simple concepts to do with a subjective concept like colour or colour analysis it can be difficult and confusing for people to discuss this kind of issue. To get to be a professional photographer I had to take written exams which were all about colorimetry (Things like degrees kelvin and mired values and colour balance) and sensitometric analysis of (old fashioned) colour film emulsions http://www.springerlink.com/content/w8j53q7180mn9226/ Since then I have taken a few degrees in pure sciences. The clever bit comes when you finally match up sensitometric analysis and colorimetric related issues to your own subjective understanding of colour (color if you were trained by Kodak). Most people can only manage to do this effectively (numerically as well as subjectively) after many years of working as a photographer or through the process of paint matching. I find that while my own eyesight isn't very good due to having my face crushed when I was a child but in actual fact my eyesight is very good at judging colour balance which is a skill which was essential in old fashioned colour print production. Some people have brilliant eyesight but rotten colour judgement. Vision and the optical nerve is a very long and tortuous subject to understand :) Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] Re: GIMP (Was: Lenovo wins $150m NSW schools deal or April Fools joke?)
On Monday 18 May 2009 14:56:54 elliott-brennan wrote: I agree about colour perception and the range of abilities people have. Similarly a (then) girlfriend's aunt insisted she could not tell the difference between stereo and mono. I ran a few tests for her. Despite the fact she could hear well enough in both ears she insisted she couldn't tell the difference (I think she was just a cranky old fart :)) Yeh... although I'm a well published photographer (not as much as some) who is supposed to be able to print his own colour photographs (as in the old fashioned version with film) the RAF put me through their stereo vision checks to see if they could move me over to their air side to analyse pictures of the things that they photograph from the sky. 70 m/m film. I used to be an RAF photographer. The RAF test showed that no part of my vision could possibly work at all ! laughs out loud. What does this tell you about the RAF ? In spite of this I can do a lot of Ju Jitsu and Aikido and judge distances very well. On the other side of it my own colour vision would seem to be excellent. Most people seem to balance around a slight red or blue shift. I come out as slightly red. A neutral photograph looks slightly warm to me. Right... where's that free crack cocaine that comes with every Ubutnu (oh.. sorry Ubuntu) disk ? Must get back to sniffing that ... Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] GIMP (Was: Lenovo wins $150m NSW schools deal or April Fools joke?)
On Monday 18 May 2009 13:45:48 Glen Turner wrote: Also lacking in GIMP and Inkscape is support for spot printing and multi-colour processes. PANTONE is the most common of those process -- it is commonly used to print logos onto things. Yes. I've done a lot of work with old fashioned Letraset. In short, you wouldn't notice with photos, but if you're trying for a moderate level of graphics arts on paper then the lack of ability to describe all that the printer is capable of gets old pretty quickly. As a simple example, I had to ditch GIMP to get a sun rising effect on some PR material I was preparing. Yes. Gimp is much better than it was but some sort of Pantone colour integration would be good (eventually). An open source version of that would need to be implemented. Similarly, the lack of PANTONE support sucks if you are printing stuff like your sporting club's logo onto water bottles or whatever. I agree :) Richard www.sheflug.org.uk -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
