Re: [Dorset] Failed upgrade, system restored. now have an error.

[Peter Merchant]

On 12/08/2024 18:39, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

Hi Tim,


I had seen that [post] and have been watching it to see if any helpful
suggestions

Comment on that thread; a ‘me too’ with similar stuff to what you sent
to this list.  Say it seems as if the automatic snapshot is faulty, or
the restore from it is incomplete.  It seems odd you're not alone
suffering problems.


Does this imply that I am not the only one with problems?

Peter M.


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[Dorset] Kubuntu 24.04 - anyone updated?

[Peter Merchant]

I am on Kubuntu 22.04 and wondering whether to update. Actually the 'release 
upgrade tool'  doesn't.


Peter


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[Dorset] test message, please ignore.

[Peter Merchant]

I have been having problems setting up my account again, requiring help from 
Ralph, so I thought I would test it. Please ignore this message.

Peter M.


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

[Peter Merchant]

If there is an on-line meeting tonight, I won't be on it. I am away in Newbury.
Peter

On*04/06/2024* 12:40, Terry Coles wrote:

Hi,

The next Online Meeting is tonight at 8 p.m. using Jitsi.

The meeting can be joined using a web browser to open
https://meet.jit.si/dorset-lug

Chrome or Chromium may fare better than Firefox.
An alternative to installing either of those is to obtain an all-in-one
bundle especially for Jitsi and enter ‘dorset-lug’ as the meeting ID.

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

    chmod +x jitsi-meet-x86_64.AppImage
    ./jitsi-meet-x86_64.AppImage


I'll see you there.

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Re: [Dorset] OT: Wimborne Minster suggestions for a lunch and a meeting room.

[Peter Merchant]

On 24/06/2024 09:56, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

Hi Peter,


There is a new space offering working areas, but haven't sussed it out.
It might be associated with that new coffee place 'Sonders?'

Thanks, found it, and it offers a room for half a day.
https://www.sondercoffee.co.uk/co-working/


Ever since it opened, this coffee shop in Wimborne seems to be quite busy, so I 
guess they serve good coffee. They have a lot of competition in Wimborne.  The 
previous business in this location, an ice cream shop, never seemed to have any 
customers and died quite quickly

Peter


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Re: [Dorset] OT: Wimborne Minster suggestions for a lunch and a meeting room.

[Peter Merchant]

Le Petit Prince for Lunch, And can you book a meeting room in the Allendale for 
the Afternoon.
There is a new space offering working areas, but haven't sussed it out. It 
might be associated with that new coffee place 'Sonders?'


Peter

On 23/06/2024 10:57, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

Hi,

 Next month, five of us want to meet in Wimborne to have a spot of
lunch and then a room for a business meeting for the whole afternoon.
These don't have to be at the same location but ideally walkable between
the two.  Any suggestions?




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[Dorset] In-person meeting, Wednesday 19th June.

[Peter Merchant]

Regrets I won't make it. I have a very sore throat and tiredness

Peter
On 18/06/2024 14:30, Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty via dorset wrote:

Hi,

I would be happy to go there, but unfortunately I am ill so I shouldn't go and 
spread the illness.

Hope any of you who do go have a good time :)

Hamish

On 18/06/2024 14:27, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

Hi,

Tim wrote:

Who is planning to go tomorrow?  (I'm in.)

Not me.  Not a great time at the moment for travelling for me.






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[Dorset] OT- Double mains sockets containing Wifi extenders

[Peter Merchant]

We are in the middle of a kitchen refit, and I am wondering if anyone has any 
experience with this sort of socket.

Or should I stick with my Netgear Wn3000.

Peter


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[Dorset] Updating technology NvMe memory

[Peter Merchant]

I see that Elf is selling for £12 and It makes me wonder if my system will 
support these as the manual for my P8Z77-v Motherboard is dated 2012.

<https://www.elf.co.uk/product_details.php?part_code=SSD047&description=256GB_M.2_2280_PCIe_NVMe_SSD_Drive,_Assorted_Makes,_Tested_Pulls&top=&cat_desc=SSD&cat_id=SSD&show_menu=7>
256GB M.2 SSD 2280 Drive, PCIe NVMe, Assorted Brands,

Any thoughts on that, or for that price is it worth trying?

Peter



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[Dorset] Electromagnetic Field

[Peter Merchant]

Anybody going to emfcamp.org?

My son-in-law wanted me to join him there, but I have to strip the kitchen 
ready for a new one being done from Monday.

Peter



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Re: [Dorset] In-person meetings

[Peter Merchant]

At a previous discussion the Kings Arms at 252 Wallisdown Road

 * Dorset BH12 5BT
 * was mentioned as we used to meet there many years ago.  It is fairly central.

Peter

On 28/05/2024 17:18, Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty via dorset wrote:

Hi all,

So it looks like every third Wednesday is the best option for those who are 
interested. Next we'd have to decide where to meet and when. I live in 
Wimborne, so I am fairly equidistant between Bournemouth and Poole, if that's 
relevant.

Where would you all like to try and meet? I guess we could always discuss this 
at the online meeting next Tuesday.

Hamish

On 03/05/2024 20:37, Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty via dorset wrote:
Hi all, 

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Re: [Dorset] Pi 5's PCIe connector for NVMe SSDs.

[Peter Merchant]

I saw this the other day, and was wondering about it. Peter

https://www.tomshardware.com/raspberry-pi/add-on-board-lets-you-use-four-nvme-ssds-at-once-with-raspberry-pi-5



On 22/05/2024 11:12, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

Hi Bob,


You might want to look at the PIMORONI site, single and dual NVMe
adapters up to 2280 in length.

Thanks, I found which does allow two up to the 2280's 80 mm.
https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/nvme-base-duo-for-raspberry-pi-5

And thanks for the pointer to Argon cases.




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[Dorset] Tues evening

[Peter Merchant]

Nice to be there if only for a few minutes.

My family history program can show locations using either OpenStreetMap or 
Google maps. It needs OsmGpsMap to be present.

 Interesting about how Andrew combined two hard disks into one virtual one. 
What program did you use to search for duplicates in that lot.

Peter

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Re: [Dorset] The future of family history digital recordings?

[Peter Merchant]

On 22/04/2024 17:15, Alex wrote:

If I may echo Ralph, don't do anything to the originals. If you decide to mark 
up the image in any way make sure you do it on a copy.

Agreed.


For people who turn up regularly in photos another tedious option would be to 
make a rogue's gallery of the usual suspects: have a folder of cropped images 
of individuals (again from copies) each named appropriately, so whoever comes 
after has a clear visual reference of who is who.

Alex

On Mon, 22 Apr 2024 16:57:41 +0100
Peter Merchant  wrote:


My Brother agrees:
Plain Text,
and addressing people by position in row.

Though my other brother says that XnView is simple to add numbers on people, 
which I remember from when I used microsoft.

Peter

Thanks for your thoughts.




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Re: [Dorset] The future of family history digital recordings?

[Peter Merchant]

My Brother agrees:
Plain Text,
and addressing people by position in row.

Though my other brother says that XnView is simple to add numbers on people, 
which I remember from when I used microsoft.

Peter

Thanks for your thoughts.

On 22/04/2024 12:47, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

Hi Peter,


The thought is that they wouldn't mean anything to anybody in the 22nd
century unless I left some notes in each folder.  I don't intend to
say what each photo was, but more the occasion of the photos.  The
question is, what format should I use for these text files - Plain
Text

Plain text would last the longest.


ODT, or Microsoft word?

If you want a word-processing format, use the Open Document Format for
Office Applications, ODF.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument#Application_support


Another alternative is to write it and save them as a PDF.

There are different PDF versions.  Pick one which has been standardised
for long-term archiving.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF/A
The downside is others may find it less easy to augment the information
over time.


The next thing is that I would like to take some of the large
gathering pictures and say who the people are.  To me that seems to
mean sticking a letter or number on each person and saying who they
are in the attached text.  Is there any better way?  I am not skilled
at editing pictures.

Do not edit the picture.  Others will not thank you for losing the
original pixels.  The time-honoured way would be extra text:

 Pictured from left to right:
 back row: ...;
 middle row: ...;
 seated: ...

If the pose is a bit of a melee then try to put them in rows anyway.
If there are other pictures then any confusion can probably be sorted
out by comparisons.

More tediously, take a low-resolution thumbnail and blot an obvious
capital letter on it, or ① ② ③, to mark each person.  Or just a plain
rectangle with the letters in the appropriate relative positions.

An option is to alter the image's meta-data to include your simple
plain-text ‘who's whom’ description so the two travel together in the
future.  But again, you may want to leave the original image pristine
depending on whether it's already been mucked with or not.  Plus, if
there are other copies then creating derivatives means others are faced
with multiple versions in time and have to pick or merge.

Lastly, consider storing a digest of key files alongside them so you can
trust they haven't changed, e.g.

 sha256sum *.jpeg >digest.sha256

sha256sum(1) and others have a ‘-c’ to check the digests.




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[Dorset] The future of family history digital recordings?

[Peter Merchant]

My brothers and I have been saving our family photos on a Nextcloud server 
maintained by my nephew.  Thethought is that they wouldn't mean anything to 
anybody in the 22nd century unless I left some notes in each folder. I don't 
intend to say what each photo was, but more the occasion of the photos. The 
question is, what format should I use for these text files - Plain Text, ODT, 
or Microsoft word? Another alternative is to write it and save them as a PDF.

https://office-watch.com/2021/now-we-have-two-official-xml-document-standards/ 
<https://office-watch.com/2021/now-we-have-two-official-xml-document-standards/>

The next thing is that  I would like to take some of the large gathering 
pictures and say who the people are. To me that seems to mean sticking a letter 
or number on each person and saying who they are in the attached text. Is there 
any better way? I am not skilled at editing pictures.

Appreciate your thoughts on this,
Peter
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[Dorset] Telegraph article about Linux

[Peter Merchant]

Bit negative..   [ sorry about the narrow columns]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/04/08/data-centres-nearly-seized-by-hackers-nobody-noticed/

Our data centres were nearly seized by hackers – and nobody noticed

The utopian, high-trust nature of open source is no longer safe in an 
increasingly divided world


Imagine this plot for a movie.

Somewhere in Nebraska lives a lonely, overworked and anxious man, who we shall 
call Hank. Between feeding his cat, dealing with mental health issues and 
sorting out his mother’s medical prescriptions, Hank also looks after some 
computer code.

Hank isn’t paid to do that – he’s a volunteer. But mistakes happen, and an oversight 
by Hank leads toChina taking control of the free world’s IT systems 
,
 capturing our biggest cloud data centres and paralysing the G7’s economies.

Too far-fetched? Well, think again as such an attack just took place – and very 
nearly succeeded.

A week ago, an audacious attempt to place a backdoor into the systems used by 
major cloud companies, and millions of businesses that depend on them, was 
discovered.

The malicious code allows an outsider to take control of these systems, and 
hackers very nearly pulled it off by taking advantage of an unpaid legion of 
lone volunteer coders, like Hank.

Hank is the start of a very long but critical supply chain that few ever 
examine.

Today, much of our enterprise and government computing is done in giant cloud 
data centres, and around 90pc of these use free, largely volunteer-run, open 
source Linux systems.

The code is open, allowing anyone to inspect and submit code.This is the utopian 
model mimicked by Wikipedia 
.
 But it means a great deal of the coding effort remains voluntary and in the hands of 
individual code “maintainers” like Hank.Over two years, attackers carefully took 
control of one of the crucial nuts and bolts of a Linux system: a compression library 
that zips and unzips files, and is used thousands of times a day in data centres.

XZ Utils was originally developed by Lasse Collin in 2005, and he has looked 
after it ever since. In 2021, Collin began to receive contributions over the 
internet from someone calling himself “Jia Tan”. At first, these seemed like 
helpful and innocuous bug fixes – but all this later changed as the mysterious 
Mr Tan began to take increasing control.

Then on March 28, a Microsoft developer called Andres Freund discovered 
something astonishing. The tiny library that Collin maintained now contained a 
secret backdoor that stemmed from the code patches that Mr Tan had submitted – 
crucially allowing an attacker to take full control of the entire system 
without anyone realising.

The backdoor had already been distributed globally, and in the coming weeks and 
months would have reached many data centres too, becoming a part of our 
critical infrastructure.

“I’m surprised it’s taken this long for this kind of attack to be mounted”, 
says Tim Mackey, head of software supply chain risk strategy at the silicon 
design company Synopsys. “This may turn out to be a template for a new kind of 
social engineering.”

These gambits are called supply chain attacks. The SolarWinds hack in 2020, 
which injected backdoor malware into at least 18,000 customers, including the 
US government, was another. Its discovery prompted President Biden to issue an 
executive order. But unlike SolarWinds, this one was carefully designed to 
target the social and perhaps even personal vulnerabilities of the open-source 
volunteers.

“Keep in mind this was an unpaid hobby project,” said Collin on a mailing list.

It seems extraordinary that our economies rely so much on contributions from 
individual volunteers. How can so much economic value balance so precariously 
on something so fragile? Google and Amazon are among the biggest companies in 
the world, and the cloud computing market was worth almost half a trillion 
dollars in 2023, but critical parts still rely on unpaid volunteers.

Almost a quarter of open source projects had just one developer accounting for 
more than 80pc of the code, a study by Harvard Business School for the Linux 
Foundation found in 2023. Most had fewer than 10. “These findings are counter 
to the typically held belief that thousands or millions of developers are 
responsible for developing and maintaining [open source] projects,” the 
researchers wrote.

Malware and spyware are constantly being uploaded to these code libraries, says 
Feross Aboukhadijeh, founder of security startup Socket. Code checkers had 
failed to pick up the XZ backdoor, as it was so well disguised.

Around 10 years ago, vital encryption code used in every e-commerce transaction 
was compromised.

The unfunded OpenSSL project that was responsibl

[Dorset] Snap, Flatpack, or traditional install?

[Peter Merchant]

Hi,

Can anybody point me to a discussion of the relative merits and cons of these 
different software formats?

It seems that Snap files get installed in a folder/Directory(?) called Snap, 
Flatpacks can go anywhere, and Trad forms get installed  in hidden user files  
or root.

This is just for my own information. I do keep coming across programs that are 
available in more than one form and wonder which to use.

Thanks,

Peter


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Re: [Dorset] In-person meetings

[Peter Merchant]

On 11/03/2024 18:09, Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty via dorset wrote:

Hi all,

At the last online meeting, several of us expressed interest in doing in-person 
meetings again, probably at the Broadway in Bournemouth where we used to do 
them.

We were thinking of doing them on a different day so they don't clash with the 
online meetings, and so that people who don't want to attend/can't attend 
in-person meetings don't miss out. I don't think we decided what day yet, so 
now would be a good time to chime in with your suggestions so we can try and 
come to a decision.

Hamish




Well, How about sticking with Tuesday a fortnight different from the on-line 
sessions, so Third Tuesday of the month?

Peter


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Re: [Dorset] Kubuntu Audio settings jumping around.

[Peter Merchant]

Done it. I HAVE MY SOUND BACK. I was following 
https://itsfoss.com/fix-sound-ubuntu-1304-quick-tip/
and it worked.

Not sure about the mic yet.

Peter

On 04/03/2024 21:41, Peter Merchant wrote:

Still having problems with this. I have probably stuffed it completely now. In 
settings GUI there is no item for Audio.

inxi gives me a lot:

peterm@peterm-kubuntu:~$ inxi -SMA
System:
Host:peterm-kubuntu Kernel:6.5.0-21-generic x86_64 bits:64
Desktop:KDE Plasma 5.24.7 Distro:Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish)
Machine:
Type:Desktop Mobo:ASUSTeK model:P8Z77-V LX v:Rev X.0x
serial: UEFI:American Megatrends v:1502
date:11/09/2012
Audio:
Device-1:Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio
driver:snd_hda_intel
Device-2:NVIDIA High Definition Audio driver:snd_hda_intel
Device-3:C-Media CMI8738/CMI8768 PCI Audio driver:snd_cmipci
Sound Server-1:ALSA v:k6.5.0-21-generic running:yes
Sound Server-2:PipeWire v:0.3.48 running:yes




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Re: [Dorset] Kubuntu Audio settings jumping around.

[Peter Merchant]

Still having problems with this. I have probably stuffed it completely now. In 
settings GUI there is no item for Audio.

inxi gives me a lot:

peterm@peterm-kubuntu:~$ inxi -SMA
System:
Host:peterm-kubuntu Kernel:6.5.0-21-generic x86_64 bits:64
Desktop:KDE Plasma 5.24.7 Distro:Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish)
Machine:
Type:Desktop Mobo:ASUSTeK model:P8Z77-V LX v:Rev X.0x
serial: UEFI:American Megatrends v:1502
date:11/09/2012
Audio:
Device-1:Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio
driver:snd_hda_intel
Device-2:NVIDIA High Definition Audio driver:snd_hda_intel
Device-3:C-Media CMI8738/CMI8768 PCI Audio driver:snd_cmipci
Sound Server-1:ALSA v:k6.5.0-21-generic running:yes
Sound Server-2:PipeWire v:0.3.48 running:yes

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Re: [Dorset] Kubuntu Audio settings jumping around.

[Peter Merchant]

On 01/03/2024 21:50, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

Hi Peter,


I have a CMI8738 Audio card in my PC, and when I look at the Audio
settings the options for different 'devices' are jumping all over the
place and changing.  I can't hit one long enough to disable it.  Any
ideas how I resolve this?

What's changed?

- Have you had options for that audio card which you could happily
   change in the past?
- Is it possible there are two competing audio systems wanting to take
   control of the hardware?
- Does ‘sudo -i dmesg -Hxw’ show anything interesting as all this
   jumping is happening?  It will keep displaying new kernel log messages
   as they arrive.


Using that command the output was static with nothing about the sound output 
device.

I am now trying Pulseaudio and it keeps resetting and trying to "establishing 
connection to Pulseaudio, please wait"

I think that I have seen a similar problem before and it is necessary to remove 
and re-install Pulsaudio. I might try that tomorrow.


Peter


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[Dorset] Kubuntu Audio settings jumping around.

[Peter Merchant]

I have a CMI8738 Audio card in my PC, and when I look at the Audio settings the 
options for different 'devices' are jumping all over the place and changing. I 
can't hit one long enough to disable it. Any ideas how I resolve this?


PeterM


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

[Peter Merchant]

Looks like it's not happening.  I'll see you next month.
Cheers all.

On 05/12/2023 13:08, Terry Coles wrote:

Hi,

The next Online Meeting is tonight at 8 p.m. using Jitsi.

The meeting can be joined using a web browser to open
https://meet.jit.si/dorset-lug



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Re: [Dorset] Low voltage power supply barrel connectors

[Peter Merchant]

Now to find one.



https://thepihut.com/products/in-line-power-switch-for-2-1mm-barrel-jack.



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Re: [Dorset] Low voltage power supply barrel connectors

[Peter Merchant]

On 28/12/2023 19:20, Peter Merchant wrote:

My son has a Facebook Portal and his kids have mangled the barrel connector 
that connects power to it. Does anyone know of a chart that gives part numbers 
or anything similar for barrel connectors. We have determined that it is 5.5mm 
O.D, and we have an unlabelled drill bit that just fits the inside hole, but 
trying to find the right one to order is stumping me.


Please come back Radio shack.

Peter



Final result: I have a basic gauge on my crescent wrench, and judging by a 
drill bit that fit snuggly, the result is O.D. 5.5mm, I.D. 2mm. and I notice in 
the Wikipedia thing that Ralph suggested that the standard is I.D 2.1mm so that 
could be it.   I had thought in the past that the size  was also related to the 
voltage of the plug, but though there are some that mention voltages, many 
don't.

Now to find one.


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[Dorset] Low voltage power supply barrel connectors

[Peter Merchant]

My son has a Facebook Portal and his kids have mangled the barrel connector 
that connects power to it. Does anyone know of a chart that gives part numbers 
or anything similar for barrel connectors. We have determined that it is 5.5mm 
O.D, and we have an unlabelled drill bit that just fits the inside hole, but 
trying to find the right one to order is stumping me.


Please come back Radio shack.

Peter


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Re: [Dorset] TP-Link routers

[Peter Merchant]

On 18/11/2023 14:25, Peter Merchant wrote:

Does anybody have any experience with TP-Link routers?  I see the C50 and C64 
are not badly priced and I really want to improve the response of my  wireless 
connection from this PC. I am currently using the Talktalk Sagemcom 
super-router and speed on a speed test is pretty dire.

I also think I might improve my wifi dongle and considering an Atheros Ar-9271.

Peter


I bought a Maxesia WiFi dongle for my upstairs PC and it arrived this morning. Even 
though it had a CD for configuring it which amazingly included Linux, it 
automatically configured itself, and it works amazingly fast. AND my computer runs a 
lot faster too. I didn't realize that the slow WiFi was affecting the performance of 
my PC.   This is not just a teeny-weeny USB device, but has an antenna about 8" 
long.



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Re: [Dorset] Strong company and smart meters.

[Peter Merchant]

On 06/12/2023 09:30, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

Hi Peter,


1] anybody heard of this company 'Strong'?
https://www.currys.co.uk/products/strong-atria-mesh-kit-1200-uk-whole-home-wifi-system-triple-pack-10247033.html

No, but I found https://strong-eu.com/about-strong/
and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyworth.

Yes, I read that before. But if they have been going for that long, how come we 
have never heard of them before?



2] Smart meters.

All I know about ‘free’ smart meters is they are not free.
Their cost is ceding more control over the supply.


Eon said that my current (ooh!) electricity meter is old and needs replacing, 
and will have to be replaced with a smart meter, though apparently I can ask 
for it to be in dumb mode. That last from moneysavingexpert.

But my original question is, is it only the deemed export that is replaced by 
SEG?

Peter






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

[Peter Merchant]

Not going to make it, running way behind on jobs.   Two questions I was going 
to ask about:

1] anybody heard of this company 'Strong'? 
https://www.currys.co.uk/products/strong-atria-mesh-kit-1200-uk-whole-home-wifi-system-triple-pack-10247033.html

2] Smart meters. I always keep refusing them because EON insists that I move to 
SEG (Smart Export Guarantee)  but I think having been looking it up that SEG 
only replaces the 'Deemed Export' part of my Feed In Tariff and I still have to 
send in my Generated Value to the company that processes it. (Good Energy).   
So after I get a smart meter I still get the FIT payment and also a SEG 
payment. Is that correct?  I had thought that SEG replaced everything.

Have a good evening.
Peter


On 05/12/2023 13:08, Terry Coles wrote:

Hi,

The next Online Meeting is tonight at 8 p.m. using Jitsi.

The meeting can be joined using a web browser to open
https://meet.jit.si/dorset-lug

Chrome or Chromium may fare better than Firefox.
An alternative to installing either of those is to obtain an all-in-one
bundle especially for Jitsi and enter ‘dorset-lug’ as the meeting ID.

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


I may not be there myself; we have just lost a very good friend and a lot of my 
time is taken up with dealing with things that need sorting as a result.  If I 
feel up to it, I may pop in for a short time.




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Re: [Dorset] TP-Link routers

[Peter Merchant]

On 18/11/2023 14:49, Terry Coles wrote:

On 18/11/2023 14:25, Peter Merchant wrote:

Does anybody have any experience with TP-Link routers?  I see the C50 and C64 
are not badly priced and I really want to improve the response of my  wireless 
connection from this PC. I am currently using the Talktalk Sagemcom 
super-router and speed on a speed test is pretty dire.

I don't have any recent experience, But I did have a TP-Link router some years 
ago.  I wasn't overly impressed with it and ended up getting a Netgear 
Nighthawk, which was a vast improvement.  I still get updates for it from time 
to time.


I also think I might improve my wifi dongle and considering an Atheros Ar-9271.

Interestingly, my WiFi dongle is made by TP-Link and seems to work fine.  
However, I only really use it very occasionally, such as when the Ethernet link 
failed the other day.


I did use a TP-Link range extender, but it kept dropping connections, so I now 
have a Netgear one that works well. But when I was a University lecturer 
Netgear gave me a bunch of kit, and they were a beast to set up. (20 years ago 
now, mind]

Peter


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[Dorset] TP-Link routers

[Peter Merchant]

Does anybody have any experience with TP-Link routers?  I see the C50 and C64 
are not badly priced and I really want to improve the response of my  wireless 
connection from this PC. I am currently using the Talktalk Sagemcom 
super-router and speed on a speed test is pretty dire.

I also think I might improve my wifi dongle and considering an Atheros Ar-9271.

Peter




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Re: [Dorset] Church website problem - Firefox - Solved

[Peter Merchant]

We have to all agree, Ralph is Brilliant.
Peter

On 17/11/2023 16:19, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

Hi Clive,


🙂🙂🙂

Thanks Again Ralph!

'Allow pages to choose their own fonts' has done the trick! Buttons
now do not have the text over written! I thought I had checked doth
PC/laptop settings to be the same so will now check again the PC to see
if that 'box' is ticked.

In answer to the other question about cntr-+ or - they both work on both
machines.

I knew it must be something simple (from a user view) but could not work
out what.

Thanks Ralph, not sure I understand your explanation but it sounds good
and is (possibly) correct as the 'tick' has done the job.

If it's OK with you could I pass on your comments to our person looking
after the 'Church' end of the operation as it may help him sometime later.

Yes.




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Re: [Dorset] My Kubuntu Config is completely trashed

[Peter Merchant]

On 15/11/2023 07:03, Terry Coles wrote:

On 14/11/2023 12:05, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

I'm surprised a Linux machine is configured to shutdown on persistent
high CPU or memory load.  Rather, the kernel's out-of-memory killer will
kick in and guess a process to kill to free memory.  It sometimes
nobbles the wrong horse.  Perhaps it sent some vital process to the glue
factory which initiated an orderly shutdown, but I doubt it.


I have been very happy using Vivaldi for the past little while. It takes a bit 
of getting used to, but I like it now.

Peter


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Re: [Dorset] My Kubuntu Config is completely trashed - was High CPU Usage When a News Pages Opened in Chromium

[Peter Merchant]

On 14/11/2023 07:55, Terry Coles wrote:

Hi,

I was attempting capture the outputs from htop and dstat -tcdngmy after 
Chromium started eating CPU and RAM as detailed in the previous thread.  
However, before I could complete that, the system shut itself down.  Normally, 
I have found that restarting the system brought it back after a bit of disc 
checking within the boot process, but this time my system was trashed.

It boots up, but hardly any of my Activities have any Widgets left.  More 
seriously, my wired connection seems to have lost its configuration.  According 
to the Internet this config should be in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/, but I 
don't have a sysconfig directory so no network-scripts!   I have no idea what 
else has happened under the bonnet.

The WiFi connection works when I plug in a USB dongle.

Normally I am able to restore everything using the most recent backup, (last 
Thursday), but I don't normally backup the root directory because that can 
always be restored with a clean installation.  However, a clean installation 
necessitates several days reinstalling and reconfiguring my favourite packages, 
so before I do that, I'd like to work out exactly what has been broken.

Any ideas?


No Ideas about how to find out what broke it, but a week or so ago I 
Reinstalled kubuntu 22.04  and in the disk formatting I did it manually and 
kept my /Home partition as it was, and that worked without loss of data 
(AFAIK). And it also kept the configuration of programs that had configurations 
in the Home partition, like Thunderbird.


So maybe do that, completely Uninstall suspect programs and go from there?

Peter


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Re: [Dorset] Last nights mtg

[Peter Merchant]

From My router, it took a bit of digging, but this is my printer:

Host Name:  --
User Alias: 
Device Type:
IP Address: 192.168.1.12
MAC Address:02:0f:b5:3f:8c:f2
Device Status:  Online
Port Type:  WIFI
Interface:  SSID1
Online Duration:0 hour 2 minutes
IP Acquisition Mode:Static
Remaining Lease Time:   --


And i'm not changing anything as it just works, from kubuntu ,W11, and using 
Brother iPrint from my tablet.

Peter

On 08/11/2023 19:40, Peter Merchant wrote:

I have a basic B&W HL-1210 and I also used the drivers from the Brother website 
- The ones from the system printed funny. No problem waking mine up.

Peter

On 08/11/2023 12:20, Terry Coles wrote:

On 08/11/2023 12:12, CA Wills wrote:

Description: Brother HL-L2350DW series
Location: Brother HL-L2350DW
Driver: Brother HL-L2350DW series, driverless, cups-filters 1.28.15 
(grayscale, 2-sided printing)
Connection: 
dnssd://Brother%20HL-L2350DW%20series._ipp._tcp.local/?uuid=e3248000-80ce-11db-8000-bcf4d4b410fc
Defaults: job-sheets=none, none media=iso_a4_210x297mm 
sides=two-sided-long-edge

Mine is a Brother HLL3230CDW.

I don't know if this is of any help but the connection info looks suspiciously 
long to me and I think Tim mentioned something about the 'dnssd' ?

Mine is @dnssd://Brother%20HL-L3230CDW%20series._ipp._tcp.local/?uuid=e3'


The driver is direct from CUPS but there is a driver listed on the Brother 
Website; should I be using that?

I did.

Once I get it out of deep sleep it prints fine and quickly, no complaints.

I still have a problem with it going to sleep, but I found that if I open the 
print queue, it wakes up OK.

Any ideas as to what is stopping it from waking up please?

I wish I knew.  I would expect it to 'wake-on-LAN', but doesn't either.





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Re: [Dorset] Thunderbird identity problems

[Peter Merchant]

I have just unset  this on the hotmail account: Reply from this identity when 
delivery headers match.


Peter




Stopped and started  T-bird. This has no obvious effect.

I will delete Yahoo, and make a note to check it online periodically.

Peter


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Re: [Dorset] Thunderbird identity problems

[Peter Merchant]

On 09/11/2023 09:11, Terry Coles wrote:

On 09/11/2023 08:37, Peter Merchant wrote:

Can anyone suggest a solution. This is on Kubuntu 22.04 with T-bird 115.4.1.

I have 3 email addresses on it:

petermerch...@hotmail.com

p_v_merch...@yahoo.com

madsmaddad@netscape,net

in that order.

Whenever I try to reply to an email, it always puts up the yahoo address as the 
sender.  For awhile I had changed the yahoo configuration to have a reply-to 
address of the hotmail address, but that just prevented me sending replies from 
the yahoo address, so I had to change the sender address manually.  I have now 
taken that out but it still wants to send from the yahoo address.


Peter,

I'm not sure what is going on here.  The above three addresses are clearly three 
different mailboxes, since they are on three different servers.  As such they 
should appear in the left-hand pane of Thunderbird as three 'tabs' with right 
arrows ( > ) which turn to down arrows ( \/ ) when clicked on.

Is that right?

If so, then replying to a message that appears in one of those tabs would 
normally have the receiving address as the sender. However, this behaviour 
changes if you have any Identities set up in the Account Settings.  In that 
case, the reply would be sent from whatever Identity you have set up, unless 
there wasn't a matching entry.

Do you have any identities set up for any of these accounts?  If you do, what 
happens if you click on the down arrow in From field at the top of the message 
that you are composing?


You are correct about the three email accounts. None of them have any identity 
other than the default. I have filters that filter messages off to my Local 
Folders  like DLUG Messages.  That is what I am replying to now.

I always have to click on the v arrow in outgoing emails to set it to the 
desired account. (Hotmail).

The other two accounts are seldom used now except for places where I have set 
them up as the security email or similar.  I'm tempted to delete the Yahoo 
account, but then Murphy will probably send an email to it.


I have just unset  this on the hotmail account: Reply from this identity when 
delivery headers match.


Peter





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[Dorset] Thunderbird identity problems

[Peter Merchant]

Can anyone suggest a solution. This is on Kubuntu 22.04 with T-bird 115.4.1.

I have 3 email addresses on it:

petermerch...@hotmail.com

p_v_merch...@yahoo.com

madsmaddad@netscape,net

in that order.

Whenever I try to reply to an email, it always puts up the yahoo address as the 
sender.  For awhile I had changed the yahoo configuration to have a reply-to 
address of the hotmail address, but that just prevented me sending replies from 
the yahoo address, so I had to change the sender address manually.  I have now 
taken that out but it still wants to send from the yahoo address.


Any thoughts?

Peter


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Re: [Dorset] Last nights mtg

[Peter Merchant]

I have a basic B&W HL-1210 and I also used the drivers from the Brother website 
- The ones from the system printed funny. No problem waking mine up.

Peter

On 08/11/2023 12:20, Terry Coles wrote:

On 08/11/2023 12:12, CA Wills wrote:

Description: Brother HL-L2350DW series
Location: Brother HL-L2350DW
Driver: Brother HL-L2350DW series, driverless, cups-filters 1.28.15 
(grayscale, 2-sided printing)
Connection: 
dnssd://Brother%20HL-L2350DW%20series._ipp._tcp.local/?uuid=e3248000-80ce-11db-8000-bcf4d4b410fc
Defaults: job-sheets=none, none media=iso_a4_210x297mm 
sides=two-sided-long-edge

Mine is a Brother HLL3230CDW.

I don't know if this is of any help but the connection info looks suspiciously 
long to me and I think Tim mentioned something about the 'dnssd' ?

Mine is @dnssd://Brother%20HL-L3230CDW%20series._ipp._tcp.local/?uuid=e3'


The driver is direct from CUPS but there is a driver listed on the Brother 
Website; should I be using that?

I did.

Once I get it out of deep sleep it prints fine and quickly, no complaints.

I still have a problem with it going to sleep, but I found that if I open the 
print queue, it wakes up OK.

Any ideas as to what is stopping it from waking up please?

I wish I knew.  I would expect it to 'wake-on-LAN', but doesn't either.




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Re: [Dorset] Somewhat Off Topic - Can Anyone Recommend a Decent Tablet Computer?

[Peter Merchant]

Just a further note. My phone is Android 13, and the tablet we saw this morning 
is Android 10, but don't touch an Android 12 one. They are totally different 
and hard to get the hang of.

Peter

On 30/10/2023 10:18, Terry Coles wrote:

Hi,

After years of resistance, I'm going to get a tablet!  Ideally it would be one 
that ran Linux of course, but the main specs needed are good resolution and 
plenty of contrast.

The reason for this is my deteriorating eyesight.  Generally speaking, I'm OK 
with distance vision, but reading small text on coloured backgrounds is 
becoming increasingly difficult.  This means that my magazine subscriptions are 
largely wasted because I cannot read them.

However, I do know that I can read PDFs of the magazines on my wife's iPad and 
on my desktop monitor, so getting a decent tablet is probably the most 
convenient solution.  If possible, I don't want to spend a fortune, so Samsung 
Galaxy Tabs at circa £1000 are out, and in any case the performance of this 
type of device is probably way over the top for reading a magazine.  However, I 
am prepared to pay for the kind of performance I need, hence this query.

Thanks in anticipation.




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Re: [Dorset] Somewhat Off Topic - Can Anyone Recommend a Decent Tablet Computer?

[Peter Merchant]

Look up 'anti-glare tablet screen protectors' on Amazon/ebay.
P.
On 01/11/2023 11:29, Terry Coles wrote:

Hi,

So I met up with Peter this morning and had a look at his Lenovo Tablets 
(Thanks Peter).  For me, the main show-stopper with these is the shiny screen.  
I tend to read magazines at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, and the kitchen 
has downlights, making the text very difficult to see unless I angle the device 
to avoid the reflections.

My wife's iPad Air (circa 2019/20) also has reflections, but much less, so I 
can read it easily.  I would still rather not have an Apple device, so what 
about the alternatives; are there any out there that don't have a shiny screen? 
 I will be calling into PC World later to see what is on offer, but if anyone 
has any tips I would appreciate it.

Terry

On 30/10/2023 13:14, Peter Merchant wrote:

WE have had a few, and I have been happy with Lenovo ones. I once had a 10" one, but it was 
eminently droppable, so I now have an 8" one. I recently bought Val a new 8" one, but it has 
Android 12 and is a pain to use. I recommend an 8" one over the 7" ones as it is significantly 
larger. Looking at my list, my tablet is Android 10 and my phone Android 13, and both are easy to use.

I suggest that we meet for coffee somewhere and you can have a play before 
committing. I got our latest from Currys for about £89. Via Quidco!

cheers,

Peter

On 30/10/2023 10:18, Terry Coles wrote:

Hi,

After years of resistance, I'm going to get a tablet!  Ideally it would be one 
that ran Linux of course, but the main specs needed are good resolution and 
plenty of contrast.

The reason for this is my deteriorating eyesight.  Generally speaking, I'm OK 
with distance vision, but reading small text on coloured backgrounds is 
becoming increasingly difficult. This means that my magazine subscriptions are 
largely wasted because I cannot read them.

However, I do know that I can read PDFs of the magazines on my wife's iPad and 
on my desktop monitor, so getting a decent tablet is probably the most 
convenient solution.  If possible, I don't want to spend a fortune, so Samsung 
Galaxy Tabs at circa £1000 are out, and in any case the performance of this 
type of device is probably way over the top for reading a magazine. However, I 
am prepared to pay for the kind of performance I need, hence this query.

Thanks in anticipation.







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Re: [Dorset] Somewhat Off Topic - Can Anyone Recommend a Decent Tablet Computer?

[Peter Merchant]

I have bought used/refurbished stuff locally- Ferndown Industrial Estate, from 
Elf.co.uk. Remember that their price list is ex-VAT.   Their prices are not 
that hot, but they are local.

Peter



On 31/10/2023 06:39, Stephen Wolff wrote:

I have to agree - if you can get over any Apple aversion, the iPad is worth 
considering. My wife (a violin teacher) is very happy with the larger iPad Pro 
(an earlier generation to reduce extortionate cost) - for storing and reading 
musical scores. It saves on the agro of never being able to find a piece of 
music, which previously were often not put away in the right place, is very 
hard to find! Might be overkill for magazines though

On 30 Oct 2023, at 17:09, Hugh Frater wrote:


I hate to say it, but having been through a tablet a year since the form
factor became a thing, I’ve settled on the smaller iPad Pro. This being my
second iPad.




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Re: [Dorset] Somewhat Off Topic - Can Anyone Recommend a Decent Tablet Computer?

[Peter Merchant]

WE have had a few, and I have been happy with Lenovo ones. I once had a 10" one, but it was 
eminently droppable, so I now have an 8" one. I recently bought Val a new 8" one, but it has 
Android 12 and is a pain to use. I recommend an 8" one over the 7" ones as it is significantly 
larger.  Looking at my list, my tablet is Android 10 and my phone Android 13, and both are easy to use.

I suggest that we meet for coffee somewhere and you can have a play before 
committing. I got our latest from Currys for about £89. Via Quidco!

cheers,

Peter

On 30/10/2023 10:18, Terry Coles wrote:

Hi,

After years of resistance, I'm going to get a tablet!  Ideally it would be one 
that ran Linux of course, but the main specs needed are good resolution and 
plenty of contrast.

The reason for this is my deteriorating eyesight.  Generally speaking, I'm OK 
with distance vision, but reading small text on coloured backgrounds is 
becoming increasingly difficult.  This means that my magazine subscriptions are 
largely wasted because I cannot read them.

However, I do know that I can read PDFs of the magazines on my wife's iPad and 
on my desktop monitor, so getting a decent tablet is probably the most 
convenient solution.  If possible, I don't want to spend a fortune, so Samsung 
Galaxy Tabs at circa £1000 are out, and in any case the performance of this 
type of device is probably way over the top for reading a magazine.  However, I 
am prepared to pay for the kind of performance I need, hence this query.

Thanks in anticipation.




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Re: [Dorset] MagPi - Python & Robots

[Peter Merchant]

On 08/07/2023 15:14, Terry Coles wrote:

On 08/07/2023 15:05, Peter Merchant wrote:

Does anybody subscribe to the MagPi and have this section on programming robots 
with Python? Is it worth me buying the mag?


I subscribed for several years from Issue 1 until around 18 months ago.  I 
don't suppose that I'd have the Issue containing the Article you mentioned (you 
don't say which Issue it was).

Regarding whether MagPi is worth it; I found it useful in the early days and I 
got a free RPi Zero W!


Yes, I bought it for the free Pi-zeroW too. It is the latest issue that has the 
robotics/python stuff. Do you still have on-line access to articles?

I guess I'll have to gt into WHSmith in Wimborne for it. Both grandchildren 13, 12 
yer 9 & 7 got good reports on their Python work.


Peter


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[Dorset] MagPi - Python & Robots

[Peter Merchant]

Does anybody subscribe to the MagPi and have this section on programming robots 
with Python? Is it worth me buying the mag?


Peter


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[Dorset] Does anyone have? to lend

[Peter Merchant]

I am looking for a device to program my 3D printer controller called a 'USBASP AVR Programmer and 
Adapter 
<https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hobby-Components-USBASP-Programmer-Adapter/dp/B06XYV162N/ref=sr_1_3_mod_primary_new?geniuslink=true&keywords=usbasp&qid=1688027812&sbo=RZvfv%2F%2FHxDF%2BO5021pAnSA%3D%3D&sr=8-3>'

and wonder if anyone has one that I could borrow.

Cheers,

Peter M (Colehill)

/

/
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Re: [Dorset] Brother printer info

[Peter Merchant]

On 20/06/2023 13:54, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

Hi Peter,


Just a check email to Clive to see if he gets it.

Clive, or anyone else, can also get Mailman to email them by sending an
email to dorset-requ...@mailman.lug.org.uk with ‘help’ in the subject
and an empty body.

If set up, and it's probably not on many Linux home systems these days,
this can be done with

 mail -s help dorset-requ...@mailman.lug.org.uk 
You are right. Not on my system. I need to install mailutils to use it.

Peter


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Re: [Dorset] Brother printer info

[Peter Merchant]

Just a check email to Clive to see if he gets it.
Peter


On 20/06/2023 09:59, CA Wills wrote:

Thanks to those who replied to my request for info.
Unfortunately neither my email or your replies got through to me! For some 
reason my 'listing' has been removed and it was only by sending a question to 
Ralph that I found out it had got through.
Sending this thanks for 2 reasons: 1. to thank you and 2 to see if this gets 
through and I see it.

Tried to re-enlist but not sure anything has happened: no mail from the LUG 
since Tims 'Amazon v Morrell' mail.

Ralph:  Thanks for your reply and could you check this please. Did get onto the 
link and looked at the replies.  Not sure that I've managed to get 
're-enlisted' to /receive/ mail from the LUG.




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Re: [Dorset] Brother printer on Mint 21.1

[Peter Merchant]

I have a Brother HL-1210 Laser printer connected via Wifi and it has worked 
reliably for a good few years now. I also use the brother iprint app on my 
tablet to print to it.  I seem to remember having to update the driver from the 
Brother website when I first installed it.

Peter


On 18/06/2023 09:24, CA Wills wrote:

Hi All

I think the problems with the emails has finally been sorted, thanks for your 
help during the Jisi Meet.  Spoke too soon not able to send this as 'SMPT 
server not authenticated ', now awaiting TSOHOST to sort out again.

So now I'm thinking of replacing the old HP B&W Laserjet 1022 with one that 
will do double sided printing and has network connections.  The HP does not do 
double side and is not network ready. It is connected via a Raspberry Pi Zero which 
works from the laptop _most _times but will not connect reliably to the desktop or 
tablet.  Yesterday took 30mins to get it to print, in the end sent it to the laptop 
and eventually got a print - not reliable enough and my wife goes barmy trying to 
print!

Looking at the Brother MFC-L2710D, it appears to be OK for both printing & 
scanning, I only need mono printing as that's the main use.
Any comments please; before I order one?  Vicking seem to be reasonable price 
and give quick delivery.  Curry's not in stock when I looked.




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Re: [Dorset] Problems with Email

[Peter Merchant]

I printed it off, but never got  it to Clive before the meeting.   It's now 
being recycled through the printer.
Peter
On 08/06/2023 10:13, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

Hi Hugh,


2. Clive's provider has not updated the MX record for his domain to point
to the new server, so the mail still goes to the old server.

That tallies with my off-list email to Peter yesterday, CC'd Clive.
I was pointing out this list had suspended Clive's subscription because
of bounces.  Each bounce was due to the MX host for the domain refusing
to accept the email because the LUG hadn't authenticated.  In other
words, it was as if the MX record was misconfigured to be an SMTP
server that Clive should be using to send email rather than the incoming
SMTP server others should use to email Clive.

As expected, the CC to Clive bounced.  :-)

I've never been clear who provides the email system which Clive is
using.  If it's GoDaddy then, as I wrote to Peter yesterday, an Internet
search found
https://uk.godaddy.com/help/check-and-manage-my-mx-records-7590 which
suggests the two DNS MX RRs should be

  0 smtp.secureserver.net
 10 mailstore1.secureserver.net

This page gives IMAP and outgoing SMTP server configuration.
https://uk.godaddy.com/help/server-and-port-settings-for-workspace-email-6949

swaks(1) can be useful to give command-line SMTP email tests for someone
else to run and feedback the result.  Similarly fetchmail(1) for POP3 or
IMAP.




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[Dorset] Problems with Email

[Peter Merchant]

Clive is back from his travels, but thinks that due to his email supplier 
having upgraded their servers, he cannot access his emails from Thunderbird.  I 
don't think he can get them via webmail either. Has anyone heard of this 
problem or can suggest a solution, short of deleting his account and starting 
again?

Thanks,

Peter


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[Dorset] Interesting email security check

[Peter Merchant]

I came across this from Linked-In 
https://emailsecuritycheck.service.ncsc.gov.uk/check

It shows me how much I need to learn about security. But of course, having 
checked it on talktalk.net, how powerless I am to do anything to improve  the 
situation.

Peter


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Re: [Dorset] Window positioning and Android permanently Awake. (Was: Next Meeting - One Week Tonight)

[Peter Merchant]

On 03/05/2023 17:40, Peter Merchant wrote:

On 03/05/2023 17:15, Tim wrote:

In regards to gkrellm look in your home folder from .gkrellm2. open this folder and look 
for user-config file, there is a setting in there called "save_position" (about 
line 16), remove the numerical value, reboot or log out the desktop, move Gkrellm to the 
required location, right click on the GKrellm monitor and select configuration, select 
General, Properties Tab and select the following three options Set sticky state, set on 
top of other windows of the same type, Set window type to be a dock or panel, click OK. 
It should now stay there if it still does not work try changing the theme, I am using 
clockwork Cobalt without issue.


The running version gkrellm 2.3.11 on Mint 21.1 XFCE


Hope it helps


I hope that it does too. I set to sticky as suggested, but didn't like what it 
did if I set Window type to be dock/panel, But on the first config screen was a 
'remember location for next startup' so I ticked that.

We will see over the next few days if that has resolved it. Thanks for your 
help.  I am on the same version.

Peter




10 May. This seems to have worked so far.

Peter


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Re: [Dorset] VAriations on a theme - USB Charging.

[Peter Merchant]

On 04/05/2023 11:30, Peter Merchant wrote:

Looking at  changing mains sockets for ones that include USB charging.

None say that they support QC3.  apparently the IET has an article on it that I 
haven't found yet.

Any thoughts?   MK sockets apparently shut down USB when  not in use, so no 
residual power drain.


Tempted on the one at Wickes that is also a wifi extender with one USB charging 
port.


Peter



After a day looking around researching, I now have some reading to do:

https://usb.org/document-library/battery-charging-v12-spec-and-adopters-agreement

Now to continue on my other search to find out why my plumber thinks I should 
change my central heating system for a pressurised system.

Peter


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[Dorset] VAriations on a theme - USB Charging.

[Peter Merchant]

Looking at  changing mains sockets for ones that include USB charging.

None say that they support QC3.  apparently the IET has an article on it that I 
haven't found yet.

Any thoughts?   MK sockets apparently shut down USB when  not in use, so no 
residual power drain.


Peter


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Re: [Dorset] Android permanently Awake.

[Peter Merchant]

My Phone is Android 9 Motorola.
Under Apps¬ifications/Special App Access I can find a Battery optimisation,
which for a lot of Apps, says 'battery optimisation not available'
Going to try it on my phone for awhile


Peter.  Bah - all the android differences.


On 04/05/2023 10:15, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

Hi Peter,


My problem is the Android phone which I
use for Jitsi now stays permanently ‘Awake’, burning through 100%
of battery in about four hours.  The battery chart's detail has
‘Media’ as one of the top two users, but the percentage of all
those that are listed is well under 50%.  I suspect Media though
because clicking it shows it is Awake for 100% of the time and
used CPU for about 50% of it.  Perhaps that's a dual-core thing.

What app is this battery chart?

It's built in.

- Swipe down for Notifications.
- Tap battery, arrive at ‘Battery usage’ with a chart of recent
   discharge.
- ‘More Settings’ underneath it, arrive at ‘Battery’.
- Same chart shown but underneath is ‘Use since last full charge’ and
   then a few apps listed.
- Either tapping the chart puts extra bars underneath it showing what
   was on at different times of discharge, e.g. ‘Screen on’, and ‘Awake’.
- Or tapping one of the apps gives detail on its usage, e.g.

 Media

 CPU total2h 36m 49s
 Keep awake   5h  9m 33s
 Computer power use   410 mAh

I'm guessing this phone is dual core given:

 $ units -1 '2 hour + 36 minute + 49 s' '5 hour + 9 minute + 33 s'
* 0.5065956




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Re: [Dorset] Window positioning and Android permanently Awake. (Was: Next Meeting - One Week Tonight)

[Peter Merchant]

I am just an ancient retired Electronics Engineer, but I cannot see how a 
QC3/4/5 charger is going to help my charging. My tests were done with the same 
charger and cable and three different devices that needed to be charged. The 
only parameter that was changed was the devices, and they charged at different 
rates so the implication to me is that the charging circuitry in the phones is 
limiting the current. This test was repeated with  as said below with 6 
chargers.

Peter


On 04/05/2023 05:10, Hugh Frater wrote:

Ah, the joys of USB charging protocols. It’s taken nearly 20yrs and they still 
haven’t got a reliable, performant solution. USB-pd gets it nearly correct, but 
it’s still not perfect.

Slow charging speeds are also very much caused by the cable type. Back when I was 
charging micro-usb based smartphones I went through a handful of cables and 
anything that negotiated at <2a went in the bin. There really is a lot of junk 
out there. A USB power meter and a qc3 compatible charger is a good starting point.


On Wed, 3 May 2023 at 18:19, Peter Merchant  wrote:


>> I didn't make last night.  My problem is the Android phone which I use
>> for Jitsi now stays permanently ‘Awake’, burning through 100% of battery
>> in about four hours.  The battery chart's detail has ‘Media’ as one of
>> the top two users, but the percentage of all those that are listed is
>> well under 50%.  I suspect Media though because clicking it shows it is
>> Awake for 100% of the time and used CPU for about 50% of it. Perhaps
>> that's a dual-core thing.

What app is this battery chart?  SWMBO keeps complaining that her tablet 
doesn't hold a charge overnight, and I wonder what she has running. I have just 
installed Accubattery.

Dear S-in-L who is an Electrical Engineer, suggests getting a better charger 
with more oomph. All of the chargers that I have are rated at 5V/1A. Charging the 
two phones in the house shows the device drawing  approx 500ma, and the same 
charger on my tablet is giving >1A.   I have repeated this on about 6 chargers. 
 So it ain't the fault of the charger.  [ I just plugged my tablet into a 
powerbank, and it is getting ~667mA. ]

Peter



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Re: [Dorset] Window positioning and Android permanently Awake. (Was: Next Meeting - One Week Tonight)

[Peter Merchant]

I didn't make last night.  My problem is the Android phone which I use
for Jitsi now stays permanently ‘Awake’, burning through 100% of battery
in about four hours.  The battery chart's detail has ‘Media’ as one of
the top two users, but the percentage of all those that are listed is
well under 50%.  I suspect Media though because clicking it shows it is
Awake for 100% of the time and used CPU for about 50% of it. Perhaps
that's a dual-core thing.


What app is this battery chart?  SWMBO keeps complaining that her tablet 
doesn't hold a charge overnight, and I wonder what she has running. I have just 
installed Accubattery.

Dear S-in-L who is an Electrical Engineer, suggests getting a better charger with 
more oomph. All of the chargers that I have are rated at 5V/1A. Charging the two 
phones in the house shows the device drawing  approx 500ma, and the same charger 
on my tablet is giving >1A.   I have repeated this on about 6 chargers.  So it 
ain't the fault of the charger.  [ I just plugged my tablet into a powerbank, and 
it is getting ~667mA. ]

Peter



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Re: [Dorset] Window positioning and Android permanently Awake. (Was: Next Meeting - One Week Tonight)

[Peter Merchant]

On 03/05/2023 17:15, Tim wrote:

In regards to gkrellm look in your home folder from .gkrellm2. open this folder and look 
for user-config file, there is a setting in there called "save_position" (about 
line 16), remove the numerical value, reboot or log out the desktop, move Gkrellm to the 
required location, right click on the GKrellm monitor and select configuration, select 
General, Properties Tab and select the following three options Set sticky state, set on 
top of other windows of the same type, Set window type to be a dock or panel, click OK. 
It should now stay there if it still does not work try changing the theme, I am using 
clockwork Cobalt without issue.


The running version gkrellm 2.3.11 on Mint 21.1 XFCE


Hope it helps


I hope that it does too. I set to sticky as suggested, but didn't like what it 
did if I set Window type to be dock/panel, But on the first config screen was a 
'remember location for next startup' so I ticked that.

We will see over the next few days if that has resolved it. Thanks for your 
help.  I am on the same version.

Peter



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Re: [Dorset] Next Meeting - One Week Tonight

[Peter Merchant]

Not me guys,  I am in post-grandchildren recovery mode. In other words, 
knackered.

But if I was there, I would be asking the question, why does Gkrellm sometimes 
come up in the centre of the screen when I start the computer, and mostly in 
the top left where I want it and always move it to.

Enjoy yourselves,
Peter

On 25/04/2023 09:31, Terry Coles wrote:

Hi,

The next Meeting will be one week tonight Tuesday, 2023-05-02 at 20:00 using 
Jitsi.

Details are as for the previous meetings and will be reposted on the day.

I'll see you then.




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[Dorset] Discord Group name

[Peter Merchant]

What is the LUG name on Discord? I have had to join Discord to access help from 
a couple of other groups, so thought that I would add the DLUG, but I can't 
find it.

Thanks,

Peter


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Re: [Dorset] Connectors, wires etc

[Peter Merchant]

Yes, I think I have a laplink cable also.   But the program?  Or what linux 
program can use a laplink cable?    Assuming Hamish is working in linux at this 
point.

P.


On 19/03/2023 13:00, Hugh Frater wrote:

Null-modem cables are still available new, if required. We still use them
extensively in the offshore survey industry, which is still heavily reliant
on the old serial port.

I might have both a serial and parallel lap link cable floating about if
required.

On Sun, 19 Mar 2023 at 10:06, Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty 
wrote:


I think I have a 25-15 converter already, but yeah a Centronics cable and
a null-modem serial cable would be useful. IIRC, they can also be uses for
file transfer, or would I need a special parallel cable for that too?

I know there's an option for it somewhere in the settings, I'll have a
look and get back to you later.

Hamish

On 19 March 2023 09:43:06 GMT, Peter Merchant 
wrote:

I have both, hidden away in the garage. Is that a parallel

printer(Centronics) cable that you want, or just a  25way  extension cable.

Also somewhere I should have some 25-15 way D-converters if required.

(not exactly sure where they are).



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Re: [Dorset] Connectors, wires etc

[Peter Merchant]

I have both, hidden away in the garage. Is that a parallel printer(Centronics) 
cable that you want, or just a  25way  extension cable.
Also somewhere I should have some 25-15 way D-converters if required. (not 
exactly sure where they are).

This is a measure of how technology has changed in the last 15 years.

Peter

Just a note. T-bird keeps on wanting to use my yahoo address as the 'from' 
address, but I changed the settings of the Yahoo one and now it won't, so I 
have to select the hotmail one after it fails.  Wish I could get it to default 
to Hotmail (which is the top of the list).


On 18/03/2023 22:38, Hamish McIntyre-Bhatty wrote:

Hi Graeme,

I'm in the market for a parallel cable, and possibly also a null-modem serial 
cable, if you happen to have one.

Hamish

On 18 March 2023 17:08:58 GMT, Ralph Corderoy  wrote:

Hi Graeme,


Is there any future in keeping them or should I just take them along
to the recycling centre?

The value of copper could be on the rise long term if the
electrification of all things continues.


(Spring cleaning under way, and the XYL is getting insistent).

Probably best to tip it then, lest XYL becomes a SWMBO.  :-)

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Re: [Dorset] Problem with CTRL-:

[Peter Merchant]

Brilliant Ralph. Thank You, Problem sorted.


Now financial stuff that I put on the household finances spreadsheet can get 
back to normal.

peter


See
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/72009437/ctrl-semicolon-not-inserting-date-in-google-sheets-instead-showing-under




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Re: [Dorset] Problem with CTRL-:

[Peter Merchant]

Test immediately disappeared when I pressed the send button.

Thanks for investigating.

On 14/03/2023 07:37, Terry Coles wrote:

On 13/03/2023 19:49, Peter Merchant wrote:

CTRL-: used to enter the date. I use it a lot.

I'm not aware of this functionality.

Now it enters

an e character [I had to go to another line because I tried to show what it did 
and I can't get rid of the obnoxious thing]

In this email it shows as e Underscore also brought up a whole menu of  things 
like activities/Animals and nature/control.


How did you invoke this when it worked; ie in what App and in what context?

If you explain this, I'll try it here and see what I get.




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Re: [Dorset] Problem with CTRL-:

[Peter Merchant]

Actually it is CTRL-semicolon.

I use it to put date in spreadsheets, and also to add date in Libreoffice 
documents.

I think that it used to work in emails too.

Here is a test:

On 14/03/2023 07:37, Terry Coles wrote:

On 13/03/2023 19:49, Peter Merchant wrote:

CTRL-: used to enter the date. I use it a lot.

I'm not aware of this functionality.

Now it enters

an e character [I had to go to another line because I tried to show what it did 
and I can't get rid of the obnoxious thing]

In this email it shows as e Underscore also brought up a whole menu of  things 
like activities/Animals and nature/control.


How did you invoke this when it worked; ie in what App and in what context?

If you explain this, I'll try it here and see what I get.




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[Dorset] Problem with CTRL-:

[Peter Merchant]

This has only occurred after my upgrade to Kubuntu 22.04.

CTRL-: used to enter the date. I use it a lot.

Now it enters

an e character [I had to go to another line because I tried to show what it did 
and I can't get rid of the obnoxious thing]

In this email it shows as e Underscore also brought up a whole menu of  things 
like activities/Animals and nature/control.

Have I got the wrong language pack or something? Google hasn't helped.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Peter


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Re: [Dorset] Sound

[Peter Merchant]

I had never heard of Pipewire until  I upgraded to Kubuntu 22.04.

I'll probably mess it all up because I'm a tinkerer and wondering what the 
sounds from my monitor speakers sound like.  Actually the thunk strikes and 
I'll put in that Fedora KDE system and try there.

Peter
On 10/03/2023 12:26, Hugh Frater wrote:

Glad to hear that you’ve got it working Peter.

I’m not sure why sound on Linux has always been such a complicated affair. All 
I know is that I’m still on the alsa+pulseaudio train and it works for me.

On Fri, 10 Mar 2023 at 11:46, Peter Merchant  wrote:

That worked, and started bringing up a myriad of notifications on the 
bottom right of teh screen to do with
" pasystray
New Sink "bxbxbxbxbxbxb"
also_output 
"
  and somehow I got to pasystray and selected my desired output and all is 
now good. I have rebooted to confirm that my music plays smoothly.

Hopefully if nothing goes wrong I'll have got rid of the feedback noise 
from Tuesdays meeting.

    Peter

On 10/03/2023 11:26, Peter Merchant wrote:
> I am just working through this:
> 
https://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2022/04/pipewire-replace-pulseaudio-ubuntu-2204/
>
> Peter
>
> On 10/03/2023 09:23, Ralph Corderoy wrote:
>> Hi Peter,
>>
>>> Back to my main system Pavucontrol keep saying /no output devices
>>> available/, but
>>>  aplay -l
>>>  List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices 
>> ...
>>
>> Does ‘systemctl status --user pulseaudio.service’ look healthy?
>>
>> If you search the distro's packages, is there a PulseAudio + ALSA
>> package which isn't installed?
>>
>> These may be useful:
>>
>> 
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PulseAudio/Troubleshooting#Getting_debug_output_from_pulseaudio
>> https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PulseAudio/Troubleshooting#No_cards
>> 
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PulseAudio/Troubleshooting#The_only_device_shown_is_%22dummy_output%22_or_newly_connected_cards_are_not_detected
>>
>
>


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Re: [Dorset] Sound

[Peter Merchant]

That worked, and started bringing up a myriad of notifications on the bottom 
right of teh screen to do with
" pasystray
New Sink "bxbxbxbxbxbxb"
also_output 
"
 and somehow I got to pasystray and selected my desired output and all is now 
good. I have rebooted to confirm that my music plays smoothly.

Hopefully if nothing goes wrong I'll have got rid of the feedback noise from 
Tuesdays meeting.

Peter

On 10/03/2023 11:26, Peter Merchant wrote:

I am just working through this:
https://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2022/04/pipewire-replace-pulseaudio-ubuntu-2204/

Peter

On 10/03/2023 09:23, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

Hi Peter,


Back to my main system Pavucontrol keep saying /no output devices
available/, but
 aplay -l
 List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices 

...

Does ‘systemctl status --user pulseaudio.service’ look healthy?

If you search the distro's packages, is there a PulseAudio + ALSA
package which isn't installed?

These may be useful:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PulseAudio/Troubleshooting#Getting_debug_output_from_pulseaudio
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PulseAudio/Troubleshooting#No_cards
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PulseAudio/Troubleshooting#The_only_device_shown_is_%22dummy_output%22_or_newly_connected_cards_are_not_detected







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Re: [Dorset] Sound

[Peter Merchant]

I am just working through this:
https://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2022/04/pipewire-replace-pulseaudio-ubuntu-2204/

Peter

On 10/03/2023 09:23, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

Hi Peter,


Back to my main system Pavucontrol keep saying /no output devices
available/, but
 aplay -l
 List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices 

...

Does ‘systemctl status --user pulseaudio.service’ look healthy?

If you search the distro's packages, is there a PulseAudio + ALSA
package which isn't installed?

These may be useful:

 
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PulseAudio/Troubleshooting#Getting_debug_output_from_pulseaudio
 https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PulseAudio/Troubleshooting#No_cards
 
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PulseAudio/Troubleshooting#The_only_device_shown_is_%22dummy_output%22_or_newly_connected_cards_are_not_detected




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Re: [Dorset] Sound

[Peter Merchant]

Not getting anywhere. Making -progress.
I used a different HD and put Fedora-KDE version on it so that next time my 
S-in-law comes he can play on that and not muck up my system. It showed a 
number of outputs and kept jumping between them  until I got something up and 
was able to click the radio button for teh one I wanted and settle it down.
Back to my main system Pavucontrol keep saying /no output devices available/,
but
aplay -l
 List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices 
card 0: CMI8738 [C-Media CMI8738], device 0: CMI8738-MC6 [C-Media PCI DAC/ADC]
 Subdevices: 1/1
 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: CMI8738 [C-Media CMI8738], device 1: CMI8738-MC6 [C-Media PCI 2nd DAC]
 Subdevices: 1/1
 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: CMI8738 [C-Media CMI8738], device 2: CMI8738-MC6 [C-Media PCI IEC958]
 Subdevices: 1/1
 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Device [USB2.0 Device], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
 Subdevices: 1/1
 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC887-VD Analog [ALC887-VD Analog]
 Subdevices: 1/1
 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 1: ALC887-VD Digital [ALC887-VD Digital]
 Subdevices: 1/1
 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 3: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
 Subdevices: 1/1
 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 3: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
 Subdevices: 1/1
 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 3: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 8: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
 Subdevices: 1/1

I know that the one that I want is the [USB Audio] but don't know how to get 
pulseaudio  to recognize them anymore. I note that it shows the speakers built 
into my monitor. I have never had those working.

Any thought appreciated. Short of doing a full reinstall again
Peter


On 08/03/2023 14:47, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

Hi Peter,


Last night, when I mentioned PulseAudio, Hamish mentioned something
else?

Yes, Pipewire.


I think I should investigate it, as I now have no sound at all.
Pulseaudio says it cannot find any output devices.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PulseAudio  might help.


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[Dorset] Sound

[Peter Merchant]

Last night, when I mentioned PulseAudio, Hamish mentioned something else?

I think I should investigate it, as I now have no sound at all. Pulseaudio says 
it cannot find any output devices.

Haven't tested the mic.


Peter


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Re: [Dorset] Updating Kubuntu 20.04 --> 22.04

[Peter Merchant]

On 05/03/2023 11:54, Peter Merchant wrote:

On 05/03/2023 11:09, Terry Coles wrote:

On 05/03/2023 10:53, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

I believe that you can't jump a year but have to go through the

iterations from 20.04 to 21.04 to 22.04?

An LTS release can be upgraded to the next LTS release without stepping
through the six-monthly non-LTS in between.
https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/upgrade-introduction

I think 20.04 and 22.04 are LTS releases.

Yes.  I misread Peter's original message.  He should be able to upgrade from 
20.04 to 22.04.  However, my comments about the bug that I saw with Activities, 
would indicate that he might have problems if he uses them.


Thanks all, I was somehow working under the misunderstanding that April 
releases are LTS and Octobers are Interim, forgetting that LTS are every two 
years.

Peter



Using the instructions found here:

https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-upgrade-to-ubuntu-22-04/

I did the upgrade. All went fairly smoothly, but it did require two reboots to 
get a couple of things straight. After the first 'end-of-install' one the mouse 
didn't work at bringing anything up.

It did keep on getting Pasystray notices as it jumped from analog to digital 
until I shut them off (I think they are still happening in the background)

The sound does work, but not smoothly. We will see if the mic works this 
evening.

Otherwise quite pleased.

Peter



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Re: [Dorset] Updating Kubuntu 20.04 --> 22.04

[Peter Merchant]

On 05/03/2023 11:09, Terry Coles wrote:

On 05/03/2023 10:53, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

I believe that you can't jump a year but have to go through the

iterations from 20.04 to 21.04 to 22.04?

An LTS release can be upgraded to the next LTS release without stepping
through the six-monthly non-LTS in between.
https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/upgrade-introduction

I think 20.04 and 22.04 are LTS releases.

Yes.  I misread Peter's original message.  He should be able to upgrade from 
20.04 to 22.04.  However, my comments about the bug that I saw with Activities, 
would indicate that he might have problems if he uses them.


Thanks all, I was somehow working under the misunderstanding that April 
releases are LTS and Octobers are Interim, forgetting that LTS are every two 
years.

Peter


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Re: [Dorset] Updating Kubuntu 20.04 --> 22.04

[Peter Merchant]

On 05/03/2023 09:35, Terry Coles wrote:

On 05/03/2023 08:41, Peter Merchant wrote:

Hi Terry, I seem to remember you commenting on doing this, or maybe it was a 
different upgrade. Do you remember having any problems? You must have or you 
wouldn't have commented.


Yes.  I did have problems; all associated with Activities, so if you don't use 
them you should probably be alright.  The problem manifested itself in a number 
of ways, all of which appeared to be related to remembering changes to the 
Desktop.  I posted bug reports; at Launchpad - 
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/plasma-desktop/+bug/2001887 and KDE 
Bugs - https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=463922. Neither of these reports 
resulted in any suggestions and the bug wasn't picked up by either team.

However, I subsequently installed the Kubuntu KDE Backports repository which 
fixed the original problem (relating to Klipper), but not the one which failed 
to remember where I had put things.


I believe that you can't jump a year but have to go through the iterations  
from 20.04 to 21.04 to 22.04?  By the time I have done that 23.04 should be 
available!


That is true, but if you are going to do that and the bug that I reported 
affects you, then you may be better to wait for 23.04 to be released before you 
make a start on this.  If you look at my comments against the bug reports you 
will see that I resorted to a clean installation of 22.04 and the bug was 
present there too (I retained my /home partition).  It seems that once the 
erroneous data has been written to the config file it's there forever.

If you have a good backup of your /home directory/partition and can do a clean 
install of 23.04 you should be fine.  If you install the Synaptic Package 
Manager you can get it to generate a Package Download script to re-install all 
of the packages that you currently have.


Thanks, good advice.
I did wonder about a clean install. My current system has been mucked about 
with a lot since the last one.  I'll wait, and do another backup.
Peter


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[Dorset] Updating Kubuntu 20.04 --> 22.04

[Peter Merchant]

Hi Terry, I seem to remember you commenting on doing this, or maybe it was a 
different upgrade.  Do you remember having any problems?  You must have or you 
wouldn't have commented.

I believe that you can't jump a year but have to go through the iterations  
from 20.04 to 21.04 to 22.04?  By the time I have done that 23.04 should be 
available!

Peter M (still on Kubuntu 20.04)




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Re: [Dorset] Interesting Solar feature

[Peter Merchant]

The next wobbly that has appeared is that I summed up the FIT payments that I 
received for 2022 and they come to £509, and then I checked my own spreadsheet 
which now uses Payment values from the company that looks after my FIT 
payments, and that gives me an expected payment of £589. My spreadsheet is 
quite complex because the FIT payment value changes in April, and I  record 
data every time I send in a utility reading. In past years I used to use the 
OFGEM values for FIT payments.    I am tempted to ask the company to explain 
the difference, but I would probably have to send them my google spreadsheet.

Just having a moan.
Peter



On 14/06/2022 16:46, Hugh Frater wrote:

Interesting, although I'd expect them to run either some custom firmware or
something sat on a commercial RTOS (freeRTOS) rather than embedded linux.

I'm looking to add some extra solar on the AC side of my system - looking
at Chinese microinverters from AliExpress, mainly because I'm a cheapskate.

On Sun, 12 Jun 2022 at 13:06, Peter Merchant 
wrote:


I have had my 10 solar panels for about 7 1/2 years now, and they each
have individual Enphase Microinverters so they can be monitored
individually. For a few years one of them seemed to be generating about 1/3
more power  than the other panels. The hitch with this was when it reached
a certain amount the inverter switched off, and I only got electricity from
9 panels.



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Re: [Dorset] Does any one have a solution to this problem please?

[Peter Merchant]

On 17/02/2023 16:07, Sandie via dorset wrote:

Hello Linux men in Dorset.

My name is Sandie & I attended 1 of your pub meetings in August '17 & have been 
on the mailing list since. It's enjoyable to see how you get things fixed. If I was 
ever to venture back to the UK I'd really like to see the Wimbourne model village set 
up, it being run on Raspberry pi's. ( I have one stored away only used a bit in Ecuador 
a few years ago, loved it)

I am currently in Mexico.

Now I have a couple of questions/problems that hopefully someone will have time to 
& won't mind assisting me with.

There is no one around here that can help me. I've mostly been in Latin America since 
'12. At that time Linux was on most school computers & was used a lot. That has 
changed now & no one's heard of it.

I recently bought a new Hyundai HYbook 14 & installed via a disro created on a usb 
Ubuntu 22. (I've stuck to & loved '16.04 on now retiring computer, I created the 
usb on it.)

I have done this usb install previously on a couple of 2nd hand computers & it 
has worked well. I saw someone commenting on the process a few months ago here. 
This is a new computer. I'm not even sure if it has totally eliminated windows as 
some sort of menu for windows is available at start up.

The install has not found the web cam! I tested the camera in the shop before I 
bought the computer. On the Windows system it worked well.

Application Cheese came installed on Ubuntu 22 but it couldn't see a camera so I 
uninstalled it. I have reinstalled, uninstalled quite a few times. There are 2 versions 
of Cheese on offer in the Ubuntu software menu. I tried both several times.  Then I 
tried & installed an application called Cameratrls? It found a camera named 0 & 
worked not too well on one zoom call. Now it too has failed.

I tried a little bit of commanding on terminal, from tips I found searching for 
help. However some permission/s were denied.

I'm not too sure about this 'snap store' app? either. It is threatening to 
close something if I don't close it but can't see how to.

The computer is now failing to awaken from hibernation, that worked well for a 
few days but no longer.

Anyway with this info I hope someone can help.

Thanks in anticipation Sandie Ball.


Hi Sandie, In my notes I have the following tips. (Not Guaranteed!)

Cheese doesn't always work.
VLC works most of the time.
After adding ffmpeg,then
ffplay /dev/video0
works
use this to determine ident:
v4l2-ctl --list-devices
that is double hyphen before list.

Fixing sound output. Renamed 
/usr/share/pulseaudio/alsa-mixer/paths/analog-output-speaker.conf, and on next 
startup it created a new file and was good.
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Re: [Dorset] Emails slow to send.

[Peter Merchant]

On 10/02/2023 10:25, CA Wills wrote:

Hi All

On my laptop for the past couple of months my emails have been 'slow to send'.  
It seems to be before connection is made to the 'server'.

After pressing the 'send' button that's when it's slow, approx 3-6 seconds: it 
used to go within 1 second.

Can anyone give a terminal command to find out what's happening. Not a frequent 
terminal user so bit slow to use and never really sure I've done it correctly 
(spaces or not in the commend).
Thunderbird has been through some 'upgrades' and wondered if it could be 
something in the settings but not sure what to look for. Not changed anything 
in the setup for a long time as it's always just worked.

All other internet connections are not affected and the desktop machine (same 
settings/OS) has not been affected just my LT.

Using Thunderbird on Latest version of Mint 21.1 Cinnamon and always update 
when available.


My thunderbird is 102.7.1 (64-bit) on Kubuntu 20.04 and I haven't noticed any 
delay, unless sending graphics. On the W11 machine it seems to be a bit slow 
moving the mails to the sent folder.

Peter


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

[Peter Merchant]

On 04/02/2023 07:00, Ralph Corderoy wrote:

Hi Patrick,


I downloaded the .deb package from their website at MicroBlocks.fun
and opened it as an archive file to see what the .desktop file
contains:


[Desktop Entry]
Name=MicroBlocks
Comment=MicroBlocks is a graphical and dynamic blocks language for
32 bit microcontroller boards such as the BBC micro:bit, the
Adafruit Circuit Playground Express, the NodeMCU and many Arduinos.
Exec=/usr/local/bin/ublocks
Icon=/usr/share/icons/MicroBlocks.png
Type=Application
Categories=Development;<80>

This seems to show that MicroBlocks should appear in the Development
submenu. If it doesn't, I see two possibilities:

You email has a byte with the value 0x80 after the semicolon in the
Categories line, rendered as ASCII above, by the time it reaches here.

Is it in the .desktop file or did it get added somewhere between there
and here?  If it's in the file, perhaps that's stopping it being fully
processed?

The email has ‘Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit’ so that eighth bit did
well to get here, and the software badly for letting it.  It's the only
top-bit-set byte.

 $ tr -d '\000-\177' 
I got the original OK.

Peter M.


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

[Peter Merchant]

On 03/02/2023 16:43, Peter Merchant wrote:

On 03/02/2023 13:40, Peter Merchant wrote:

On 03/02/2023 12:42, Terry Coles wrote:

On 03/02/2023 11:39, Peter Merchant via dorset wrote:
Ah, herein is the rub. I don't know where the program is stored. And with the Arduino one, I have installed and  removed it so many times trying to find a version that works for me that I am sure that my computer is full of junk. PS Arduino IDE vn.2 I couldn't get on with trying to find the hardware that i needed. It has a known bug. 


You shouldn't need to know where the program is stored; just the command to 
launch it.  Since you say that it works from the command line, then you should 
have enough to get it to work.


It doesn't run from the command line, but it is found and runs from the search 
bar in the Application Launcher. When It is found this way, I can bring up the 
properties with a right click, but haven't yet found how to set it in the 
Application Launcher. Will try again later - duty calls.

P.



I found the Microblocks in what Terry called the friendly name, and selected 
the application location and put that in the program name  in the application 
launcher menu item, and that sorted that.   Thanks Terry,

I found an Arduino link  as per Hugh's suggestion in 
/home/peterm/.local/share/applications/arduino-arduinoide.desktop

But doing the same  as above doesn't work. It 'cannot find the application'


Correction: Using the full 'friendly' name does work, so everything is now 
sorted.

"env 
BAMF_DESKTOP_FILE_HINT=/var/lib/snapd/desktop/applications/arduino_arduino.desktop 
/snap/bin/arduino"

Thanks everyone.

Peter



I did a locate on Arduino-arduinoide and found about 30 locations.

Still working on it.

P.




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

[Peter Merchant]

On 03/02/2023 13:40, Peter Merchant wrote:

On 03/02/2023 12:42, Terry Coles wrote:

On 03/02/2023 11:39, Peter Merchant via dorset wrote:
Ah, herein is the rub. I don't know where the program is stored. And with the Arduino one, I have installed and  removed it so many times trying to find a version that works for me that I am sure that my computer is full of junk. PS Arduino IDE vn.2 I couldn't get on with trying to find the hardware that i needed. It has a known bug. 


You shouldn't need to know where the program is stored; just the command to 
launch it.  Since you say that it works from the command line, then you should 
have enough to get it to work.


It doesn't run from the command line, but it is found and runs from the search 
bar in the Application Launcher. When It is found this way, I can bring up the 
properties with a right click, but haven't yet found how to set it in the 
Application Launcher. Will try again later - duty calls.

P.



I found the Microblocks in what Terry called the friendly name, and selected 
the application location and put that in the program name  in the application 
launcher menu item, and that sorted that.   Thanks Terry,

I found an Arduino link  as per Hugh's suggestion in 
/home/peterm/.local/share/applications/arduino-arduinoide.desktop

But doing the same  as above doesn't work. It 'cannot find the application'

I did a locate on Arduino-arduinoide and found about 30 locations.

Still working on it.

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

[Peter Merchant]

On 03/02/2023 12:42, Terry Coles wrote:

On 03/02/2023 11:39, Peter Merchant via dorset wrote:
Ah, herein is the rub. I don't know where the program is stored. And with the Arduino one, I have installed and  removed it so many times trying to find a version that works for me that I am sure that my computer is full of junk. PS Arduino IDE vn.2 I couldn't get on with trying to find the hardware that i needed. It has a known bug. 


You shouldn't need to know where the program is stored; just the command to 
launch it.  Since you say that it works from the command line, then you should 
have enough to get it to work.


It doesn't run from the command line, but it is found and runs from the search 
bar in the Application Launcher. When It is found this way, I can bring up the 
properties with a right click, but haven't yet found how to set it in the 
Application Launcher. Will try again later - duty calls.

P.


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

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

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

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

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

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

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


Peter,

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

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

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


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

Not interested in this.


Let us know how you get on.





So far so Not so good.

Tried Whereis to find it - no luck

Tried which to find it - no luck

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

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

.still working on it.


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

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

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

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

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

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


Peter,

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

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

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


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

Not interested in this.


Let us know how you get on.




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

[Peter Merchant]

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

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

Thanks,

Peter M


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Re: [Dorset] Kubuntu hanging

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

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

Peter

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

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

Hamish

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

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

Peter( this time using his correct email address!)

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

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

Peter


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

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

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

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

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

Cheers,

Peter














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Re: [Dorset] Kubuntu hanging

[Peter Merchant]

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

Peter( this time using his correct email address!)

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

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

Peter


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

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

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

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

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

Cheers,

Peter








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Re: [Dorset] Kubuntu hanging

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

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

Peter


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

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

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

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

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

Cheers,

Peter





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[Dorset] Kubuntu hanging

[Peter Merchant]

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

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

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

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

Cheers,

Peter


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

[Peter Merchant]

Thanks for this.



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


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


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

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



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

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

Thanks for this.



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


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



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

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


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[Dorset] Setting up wifi on Raspberry Pi Zero-W

[Peter Merchant]

For some while now one of us has had some difficulty setting up the Wifi on his 
Pi-zero-W.    Here are my instructions for getting it working with the latest 
OS. This is different to older Raspbian OS's.

1] Flash the latest OS onto your memory card.

2] Before removing the card from the computer, open a terminal in  each of the 
partitions on the card and 'touch ssh' ( might be Sudo Touch ssh - I can't 
remember). This is for use in the future if you want to access the device when 
it is in operation.

3] With a screen, keyboard and mouse connected boot the R-Pi.

4] When it is up, highlight the Wifi symbol at the top right of the screen and 
set up your wifi parameters.  This will give you a dynamic IP address.

5]  Do the usual sudo apt update  and sudo apt full-upgrade   and then follow 
the instructions from here: https://pimylifeup.com/raspberry-pi-network-manager/

starting at point 6.

That gives all the instructions even to setting a static IP address and 
creating a wireless hotspot.

That all worked for me.

Note that I started from a different place in that I set up dhcpcd.conf for an 
Ethernet connection on a R-Pi model B and used that for the initial 
installation of the drivers for my WiFi dongle, before moving over to the 
Pi-Zero.  Editing this and wpa_supplicant.conf does not work on this latest OS, 
you need Network-manager.

Cheers,

Peter


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

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

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

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

Peter


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

Hamish,

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

Hugh

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


Hi all,

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

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

Hamish


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[Dorset] Programming my 3D printer card using JTAG

[Peter Merchant]

Thanks to Hugh for the discussion about it.

Wikipedia has an overview https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JTAG

I have found a third Arduino UNO that I didn't know that I had so I am ready to 
try again.

My 3D printer board has an AtMega1284p.

I will have to investigate how I can get the Marlin firmware from the Arduino 
IDE into the JTAG communications.

Life is a real learning experience.

Peter.



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[Dorset] Android file removal problems

[Peter Merchant]

On the basis that Android is a GUI on a linux kernel.

On my Android 10 tablet there are some document files that I cannot delete, no 
matter how I try. I have even connected the tablet to my computer (Kubuntu 
20.04) and found them, but been unable to delete them.

I have used a terminal on the tablet but that hasn't worked.

Any thoughts of things to try?

Peter


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Re: [Dorset] New laptop

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

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

peter M



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Re: [Dorset] New laptop

[Peter Merchant]

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

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

Does anybody know of a good source for him?

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

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

Over to you guys.
Peter


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

  

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

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

Thank you kindly, Walter Reed

"New Laptop"

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

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

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

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

Wifi driver for Asus VivobookA516JA

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

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

Thanks again for all your help and suggestions.

Cheers Walter.
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Re: [Dorset] New laptop

[Peter Merchant via dorset]

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

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

Does anybody know of a good source for him?

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

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

Over to you guys.
Peter


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

  

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

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

Thank you kindly, Walter Reed

"New Laptop"

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

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

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

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

Wifi driver for Asus VivobookA516JA

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

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

Thanks again for all your help and suggestions.

Cheers Walter.
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