Re: [Dorset] Crontab issue

[Adrian Warman]

Excellent! Glad it's working now!

Kind regards,

Adrian W.

27 Jun 2022 22:36:00 Tim :

> Adrian, reading  your comment reminded me of something I read about adding a 
> display option to the script. So I added the line "export DISPLAY=:0.0" and 
> the script now works with the image being displayed on screen at the 
> scheduled time from crontab
> 
> regards
> 
> 
> Tim H
> 
> On 26/06/2022 22:03, Adrian Warman via dorset wrote:
>> The reason is that there is no screen on which to display any windows.
>> 
>> A crontab 'job' is running in its own little login. It's a command line 
>> -only session, hence nowhere to send graphical display output.
>> 
>> The 'no MTA' message is a different thing. The crontab task failed (nowhere 
>> to display graphic output), so crontab would like to send an error report. 
>> But there's no email service set up for the OS to use. MTA is Mail Transfer 
>> Agent, which on Linux is typically sonething like sendmail, but also 
>> (typically) is not configured and running by default.
>> 
>> Adrian W.
>> 
> 
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Re: [Dorset] Kwallet problem

[Adrian Warman]

As far as I know, Thunderbird has no awareness of KDE in general. It is
desktop-platform agnostic. Certainly, using Thunderbird does not result in
any entries in Kwallet. So, most likely when you started Kmail for the
first time, that action initiated the task of putting some data into
Kwallet. I would also guess that since you started Kmail once before, it
may now be trying to start automatically each time you login and as part of
that is asking Kwallet for mail-related passwords.

I don't use Kmail myself, so I can't offer detailed suggestions, but things
I would consider trying:

   - Checking to prevent automatic Kmail startup during login.
   - Deleting the Kwallet entries for mail (after backing up the contents).


To back up the contents of Kwallet, simply use the File -> Export option.
This allows you to create a clear-text XML file containing all the details
stored in Kwallet. NB: Clear-text means that all passwords are in the
clear, as well!

HTH,

Adrian

On 11 May 2012 10:08, Peter Merchant  wrote:

> When I start the computer (kubuntu the latest), I get a prompt for the
> kwallet password to allow "Mail of type Imap email server" to run. I don't
> know what this is, but I have recently installed Thunderbird, transferred
> all my mail from evolution across, and am using that now. I did try to run
> kmail, but didn't complete the connection process.
>
> In Kwallet, there are two items under Mailtransports/passwords, but one is
> a nine digit number and one is a ten digit number.
>
> Does anyone know how to relate this number to the application so that I
> can delete the offender? I hope that if I do that it will stop  this logon
> prompt and give me a clue to what is the application to remove.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Peter M.
>
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Re: [Dorset] Best starter programming language

[Adrian Warman]

I think Leo's recommendation is Python.

In any event, I would also recommend it. It's platform-agnostic, it's
used by big companies (Google, anyone?), it can be run in a simple,
interpreter-like way (single line Basic, anyone?), it supports
object-oriented programming, there's lots of documentation and
examples freely available,...

Adrian

On 15 September 2012 15:01, Andrew Drapper  wrote:
> *Leo Laporte*, (The Tech Guy) always recommends a programming language that
> will not take you very far, but lays VERY good foundations for good habits
> of programming that make moving on to more complicated languages easier.
> Does anyone know what this is. I keep saying every time he mentions it...
> "I must remember that for my children" But you know...
>
> Andrew Drapper
>
>
>
>
> On 15 September 2012 13:22,  wrote:
>
>> Hi All
>>
>> My 12 year old grandson has asked 'Which is the best Programming Language
>> to learn?' - over to you all!!
>>
>> Please remember he is 12 years old and has just started senior school here
>> in Switzerland.  I've suggested he ought to lean a cross platform language
>> but I don't know which one. (C, C++, Python, Ruby, Jarva?)
>> He has a windows 98 laptop and a MAC at home and I assume a Windows macine
>> at school.
>> At the moment he is learning to touch type (at school) and uses Libre
>> Office and Firefox at home.  He is also interested to programme his Lego
>> Mindstorm but does not have anyone to support him and finds it frustrating
>> when stuck.
>>
>> Any suggestions please?
>>
>> --
>> *Clive Wills*
>>
>> /Powered by Linux & Open Source Software///
>>
>>
>>
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Re: [Dorset] Scripting / Python books?

[Adrian Warman]

I rather like the O'Reilly 'Cookbook' series. There is a nice one for
Python ( http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596007973.do ). It's good
for of all sorts of typical tasks, and additionally provides useful
hints and tips applicable beyond the specific examples.

O'Reilly have a 'Back to School' offer on at the moment, with 50% off
ebooks and 40% off print books: http://oreil.ly/SUPaaT

The offer expires on Sept. 18th. (I have no connection with O'Reilly
other than as a happy customer.)

Adrian

On 17 September 2012 02:02, Nick Kirby  wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I've dabbled with both Bash scripting and Python, mainly from using
> tutorials off the net. I don't usually get very far as I find it hard to
> recall commands etc.
>
>  I'm thinking I need something in book form (as opposed to a pdf on my
> computer) - something I can refer back to easily...
>
> Can anyone recommend me some good starting books please or share how they
> got started, methods etc?
>
> Nick :)
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Re: [Dorset] Recover

[Adrian Warman]

Realistically,  you should prepare yourself for not getting the data back.
While that seems harsh,  I'd rather be pessimistic and then you have a
degree of success than for you to get your hopes up too soon.

Also, I'm not offering any promises or guarantees of anything.

However...

Your email doesn't give many details (for example,  I'm not clear whether
the drive had a Linux filesystem on it - if it does,  why refer to D:? Was
it encrypted?  And so on. ) This makes it hard to comment on specifics.

Here are a couple of articles that might be helpful:
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=97356
http://blog.edseek.com/archives/2004/02/25/ext3-filesystem-bad-superblock-recovery/

Other searches suggest that the photorec tool might help; I haven't used it
myself.

I would *strongly* recommend taking *plenty* of time to explore,  think
through - and ideally practice on a separate drive - the various recovery
options. Taking this extra time won't make your challenge worse.  Rushing
into a quick attempt at a fix could easily obliterate whatever data might
be left.

Give serious thought to buying a large external drive and copying an image
of your affected drive onto it (using the dd command is -  painful but true
- one way to do it). When you have the image - or ideally several copies -
you can try out some recovery techniques on the copies, in the hope of
finding one that works.

Consider if it's worth paying for a professional recovery service.  It'll
cost little to ask,  although the service itself probably wouldn't be
cheap.

Specialist professionals take years to acquire the necessary skills and
tools for this kind of task. It's not easy.  Take your time,  do plenty of
research and preparation,  to try and maximize the chance of success.

Before each and every step you plan,  every command you enter,  ensure you
check and verify *exactly* what you intend,  that the command will do that
and nothing else. Get someone to help you check.

Do some reading around the subject of computer forensics; the tools and
techniques are for problems that are very similar to what you describe.

Best wishes for a good outcome.

Adrian
On Sep 18, 2012 8:36 PM, "Walter"  wrote:

> OK, hands up, I done the unforgivable!
> I downloaded the Beta Ubuntu  12.10 and tried to write to a usb stick
> using 'Startup Disk Creator' which previously worked very well particularly
> with Ubuntu (but not always others). This time it would not acknowledge the
> .iso, after a google I copied a recommendation to use DD command. DD
> IF=blaa blaa blaa OF =dah di dah. Proceeded to get the input file IF
> correct, but yes, forgot about the output file! You might have guessed I
> wrote the the D drive 500GB (sdb) and not the usb stick (sdc).
>
> Don't laugh I bet you have all done it!
> What recommendations do you have for a rescue program to get as much of my
> data back as possible?
> Walter
>
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Re: [Dorset] Laptop advice please

[Adrian Warman]

Just a thought - but might a Chromebook suffice? The Acer C7 is £199, has
the basic hardware spec you indicate, and can be configured to boot into
Linux (proper) as well...


On 12 August 2013 08:54, Clive Wills  wrote:

> Hi All
>
> Last night my laptop cover/screen broke again for the second time at the
> hinge. (Dell Inspiron 1525) It cost over £80 to repair last time and the
> same has happened this time, it looks as if the hinge puts a strain on the
> cover. As the laptop is getting old I'm thinking of a new one but what to
> get?  Intel i3 with 300-500Gb drive, good screen and either HDMI or VGA
> output for the projector, SD card slot and Intel wireless N.
> I use it as my main PC, nothing special requiring speed or high graphics
> other than camera pictures, (minor improvements, cropping and aperture
> adjustments).
> Price range £200-£400 and wondered about a Tablet but it must have a
> keyboard, I can't get on with 'on screen' ones (Paul's Asus Transformer
> looked good but not now available).
>
> Does anyone know what to avoid as some of the specs I'm not sure on as it
> will only be running Linux (do not want M$!!!). It needs to run
> LibreOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, and Digikam; I'm on Mint 14 cinnamon at
> moment.
> Keen on NovaTec as it's local (Portsmouth) and they give good service but
> don't know anything about Linux. HP, Acer and Asus seem to be OK but have
> heard of some problems with Linux on some models.
> Any help please?
> --
> /Clive /
>
> /Powered by Linux & Open Software /
>
> //
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Re: [Dorset] Open Source Document Management Tools

[Adrian Warman]

Without knowing a bit more about the number of users, numbers of files,
platforms, etc., it's hard to make specific suggestions. However...

Might you consider a combination of git plus one of the many git GUI
interfaces for the basic storage versioning and control? Out of the box,
git supports some astonishing powerful content search (cf
http://www.jayway.com/2012/01/25/finding-with-git/ )

For more advanced searching, you might well be better off doing a regular
snapshot of the current files (easy using git) and searching those, using a
tool such as recoll ( http://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/index.html )

HTH,

Adrian


On 30 September 2013 17:36, Simon P Smith wrote:

>
>
> On 30/09/2013 14:41, d-...@hadrian-way.co.uk wrote:
> > Is this too much to ask for?  We have identified a few tools, but a
> > recommendation goes a long way.
> >
> Terry,
>
> I find Feng Office pretty good for the basics; it's solid and reliable
> but only "renders" a few file-types to the browser ( mind maps, pdf) the
> rest you download or checkout which is fine for my purposes.  it does
> much more than documents but it is fine at that.
> http://www.fengoffice.com/web/
>
> Cheers
>
> Simon
>
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Re: [Dorset] Linux problems with SSD drives

[Adrian Warman]

I've been using an SSD with various flavours of Linux for several years,
and have yet to have any problems at all.

Quite the opposite really; much better performance ( of course) and a
definite sense of greater reliability because there are no moving parts.

Only recently I swapped out the on-board 320GB hard drive that came with an
Acer C7 chromebook for a 64GB SSD unit. No problems at all, but faster
performance (10 seconds from power on to login) and better battery life.

I have an old but reliable Asus 901 NetBook that has only ever had a 16GB
SSD unit. It runs Kubuntu 13.04 quite happily.

I like to tweak a Linux install on SSD by modifying a few /etc/fstab
parameters, but apart from that, everything is the same as for an ordinary
hard drive config.

As a precaution, I run smartctl self tests periodically, to make sure I get
early warning of issues; so far all three SSDs have been 100% clean.

Finally, I do full backups regularly - but that's because of good practice,
not concerns over the SSD.

SSD = highly recommended for Linux, based on my experience.
On 7 Oct 2013 20:37, "Sam Davis"  wrote:

> No problems from my ssd so far on Debian Wheezy, home partition is kept on
> hdd though.
>
> https://plus.google.com/+LinusTorvalds/posts/V81f6d7QK9j
>
> Linus uses(used) them too, it seems!
> 
> From: c...@pampru.org
> Sent: 07/10/2013 19:08
> To: Dorset Linux User Group
> Subject: [Dorset] Linux problems with SSD drives
>
> Hi all,
>
> I upgraded to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS on a PC which has an SSD drive, but
> lots of problems have arisen and usability is steadily getting worse
> with an increasing number of regular functions no longer working and
> many freezes needing complete shut-downs. 12.04 LTS seemed to be very
> flakey indeed.
>
> I mentioned it to John Dubery and he though it may be the SSD that is
> not suited to Linux, and yesterday my son, an IT-based Systems Design
> manager, said that an IT supplier told him not to use SSD drives with
> Linux.
>
> Has anyone else experienced, or is aware of, problems when using SSD
> drives with Linux?
>
> With reliability of SSDs now surpassing rotating-disk drives and SSD
> drives increasingly being supplied as standard in laptops and PCs,
> this could be a serious issue for Linux users.
>
> Charles Miller
>
>
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Re: [Dorset] Linux defragmentation

[Adrian Warman]

Yes, they do. There's an excellent article here:
http://www.howtogeek.com/115229/htg-explains-why-linux-doesnt-need-defragmenting/
.. which talks all about it. The article also links to a description of
various Linux disk utilities - this is well-worth reading for more details.

HTH,

Adrian

On 20 December 2013 16:14, p.lane  wrote:

> Knowledgable peeps.
> Is it necessary to defrag Linux based partitions?
> I was taught that defragging UNIX partitions wasn't ever necessary because
> UNIX 'conspired to defragment'.
> ie from the outset of creating data, semi-smart data handling routines
> logically distributed file fragments about the partition for optimal
> function and retrieval.
> Does anyone know if various Linux distro's have similar functionality?
> thanks.
>
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>
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Re: [Dorset] Social Networking in a Corporate Environment

[Adrian Warman]

Atlassian Confuence ?

You can get a 'starter' licence for between $10 and $30, that will support
up to 10 users. Sufficient to try out its capabilities.

Adrian

On 30 September 2014 14:40, Stephen Wolff 
wrote:

> Hi Terry,
> >> I believe that the management are not really sure what they want in
> >> terms of functionality so are looking for suggestions.  We have
> >> discussed this locally
> > What's the nature of the information you want to share?  Considered blog
> > posts?  One-line Q&A?  A curated resource of information?
> If you can get over the name, then BuddyPress is pretty flexible in
> terms of tailoring a website for a social network:
>
>  - https://buddypress.org/
>
> It could be served to an internal company network rather than www, and
> setup with the feature set which suits (as Ralph says - what do you want
> to share?)
>
> Stephen
>
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Re: [Dorset] Thurs AM: Google Drive not accessible?

[Adrian Warman]

Seems to be working fine for me...

Adrian W.

On Thu, 11 Aug 2016 at 10:06 Peter Merchant  wrote:

> Anyone else having this problem?
>
>
> Peter M.
>
>
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[Dorset] Crontab issue

[Adrian Warman via dorset]

The reason is that there is no screen on which to display any windows.

A crontab 'job' is running in its own little login. It's a command line -only 
session, hence nowhere to send graphical display output.

The 'no MTA' message is a different thing. The crontab task failed (nowhere to 
display graphic output), so crontab would like to send an error report. But 
there's no email service set up for the OS to use. MTA is Mail Transfer Agent, 
which on Linux is typically sonething like sendmail, but also (typically) is 
not configured and running by default.

Adrian W.

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