Re: [Hampshire] S Levels - was Re: [Fwd: [Peterboro] Free .PDF of Linux Format magazine] (fwd)

2009-03-10 Thread Hugo Mills 
On Mon, Mar 09, 2009 at 11:49:23PM +, Adrian Bridgett wrote:
> On Mon, Mar  9, 2009 at 16:50:50 + (+), Simon Capstick wrote:
> > I did a maths and a physics S-level.  I actually enjoyed them at the 
> > time - you actually had to use your brain a bit more.  Unfortunately my 
> > year was touted as being the last (1994) they produced them.
> 
> There were also STEP exams which were much the same.  I needed either
> either an S or STEP to get into uni (fortunately got three ;-))  I
> remember the first one I tried was "arrgh, dunno how to do this"
> (since you had to think rather than rinse, repeat), but then you
> became used to it and learnt how to apply your learning to answer the
> question.  Also took mine in 1994.

   STEP are Cambridge-specific (or at least, were when I did mine).
Oxford had a similar system of having their own exam, but did it a few
months earlier. STEP is "Sixth-term examination paper" -- i.e. at the
end of the second year of A-level study. Oxford's exams were
"fourth-term" papers -- done near the beginning of that second year.

   Hugo.

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Re: [Hampshire] S Levels - was Re: [Fwd: [Peterboro] Free .PDF of Linux Format magazine] (fwd)

2009-03-10 Thread Victor Churchill 
2009/3/10 Hugo Mills 

>   STEP are Cambridge-specific (or at least, were when I did mine).
> Oxford had a similar system of having their own exam, but did it a few
> months earlier. STEP is "Sixth-term examination paper" -- i.e. at the
> end of the second year of A-level study.




> Oxford's exams were
> "fourth-term" papers -- done near the beginning of that second year.
>

... and yet somehow  the term "FTEP" strangely never caught on.
And if they had called them "OFTEPs" they would have sounded like a gov.
department.
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Re: [Hampshire] S Levels - was Re: [Fwd: [Peterboro] Free .PDF of Linux Format magazine] (fwd)

2009-03-10 Thread john lewis 
On Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:57:16 +
Hugo Mills  wrote:

>STEP are Cambridge-specific (or at least, were when I did mine).
> Oxford had a similar system of having their own exam, but did it a few
> months earlier. STEP is "Sixth-term examination paper" -- i.e. at the
> end of the second year of A-level study. Oxford's exams were
> "fourth-term" papers -- done near the beginning of that second year.

sounds a bit like the older Matriculation exams which were linked to
Camb/Ox/London Unis.

In my 5th form year (1948) we took the University of London School
Certificate Examinations which so far as I can recall required a
minimum of eight subjects and needed you to get a pass in six of those
to be awarded the certificate. 

sufficiently high standard passes allow for matriculation exemption I
think. 

There was no nonsense in those days about everyone 'passing' exams, you
achieved the required passmark or failed. My certificate shows I failed
in two of the eight subjects, maths & french I think. 

I wasn't allowed to go on to 6th form, I was expected to get a job and
help support the family. My father wanted me to get a 'safe job with a
pension' so I took the Open Clerical Examination for the Civil Service
at around the same time. I don't remember what subjects were included
but I think I did rather better in those exams and ended up somewhere in
the top quarter for the whole country. 

I was offered a job a AWRE, Aldermaston but as that meant living away
from home I wasn't allowed to accept it and ended up working in an
Army Records Office at Wimborne, Dorset which was within cycling
distance from home at the time.


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Re: [Hampshire] Bring-a-Box meeting on Sat 14th March

2009-03-10 Thread Dominic Cleal 
On Monday 09 March 2009 12:04:33 Dominic Cleal wrote:
> On Friday 06 March 2009 08:45:41 Dominic Cleal wrote:
> > The doors open from 11am, then once everyone's settled, we can start the
> > Ignite talks (held in the same room).  John's already volunteered our
> > first talk:
> >
> >   * Websites with style, Drupal style
> >      ("Look what I did with my LAMP stack, Mummy!")
>
> Two more talks have been volunteered:
>
>   * Hacking Webconverger for fun and profit
>  - Freaky Clown
>   * How-To Impress, an introduction to giving talks and presentations
>  - Adam Trickett

We have a fourth talk, which I'm aware has generated some anticipation in the 
Surrey group!  Thanks to Tony for volunteering to give it.

  * Developing Nicely: Digital Photography on Linux
 - Tony Whitmore

The talk will be taking place first, as soon as Tony arrives so he can get 
away as early as possible.  The other talks will take place after, perhaps 
some after lunch depending on how the day goes.

Cheers,

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[Hampshire] a strange web server anomaly?

2009-03-10 Thread Victor Churchill 
This has me really puzzled.

I have an Apache setup to write a custom_log with the %D field to tell
me the server response time for each request. And I am seeing a very
strange pattern.

It seems that for one particular client IP address, when the page they
are being served includes a particular image, the server frequently
times out delivering the image. The image is fine served to other
clients; the client IP gets fine response on (some) other pages. It's
not particularly big.

A small example of the results - format is filename:line-number:IP
Address,http status, size, etc. The final field is the time in
microseconds):

1. grepping the image:

cd /var/log/httpd/
grep -n -e K0002.jpg cus* /dev/null
custom_log:1996:194.73.99.134 200 58124 [10/Mar/2009:12:12:34 +]
"GET /images/meters/K0002.jpg HTTP/1.1" 90075828
custom_log.1:1946:91.208.3.130 304 - [02/Mar/2009:15:24:53 +] "GET
/images/meters/K0002.jpg HTTP/1.1" 241
custom_log.1:5324:194.176.105.49 200 58124 [05/Mar/2009:15:21:56
+] "GET /images/meters/K0002.jpg HTTP/1.1" 47326
custom_log.1:6146:217.33.26.36 200 58124 [06/Mar/2009:15:48:42 +]
"GET /images/meters/K0002.jpg HTTP/1.1" 67631
custom_log.10:1372:195.173.32.142 200 58124 [29/Dec/2008:09:56:11
+] "GET /images/meters/K0002.jpg HTTP/1.0" 605584
custom_log.10:1441:195.173.32.179 200 58124 [29/Dec/2008:10:40:48
+] "GET /images/meters/K0002.jpg HTTP/1.0" 113752
custom_log.10:1718:195.173.32.142 304 - [30/Dec/2008:12:03:41 +]
"GET /images/meters/K0002.jpg HTTP/1.0" 113
custom_log.10:1766:194.176.105.49 200 58124 [30/Dec/2008:12:26:06
+] "GET /images/meters/K0002.jpg HTTP/1.1" 42906
custom_log.10:1783:195.173.32.179 304 - [30/Dec/2008:12:36:06 +]
"GET /images/meters/K0002.jpg HTTP/1.0" 246
custom_log.11:400:195.217.251.188 200 58124 [22/Dec/2008:12:05:45
+] "GET /images/meters/K0002.jpg HTTP/1.1" 246301
custom_log.12:5312:195.93.21.73 200 - [20/Dec/2008:12:49:01 +]
"HEAD /images/meters/K0002.jpg HTTP/1.1" 153
custom_log.12:5332:195.93.21.73 200 58124 [20/Dec/2008:12:49:01 +]
"GET /images/meters/K0002.jpg HTTP/1.1" 234387
custom_log.13:1834:194.73.99.134 200 58124 [10/Dec/2008:09:14:10
+] "GET /images/meters/K0002.jpg HTTP/1.1" 91120
custom_log.13:1839:194.73.99.134 200 58124 [10/Dec/2008:09:13:26
+] "GET /images/meters/K0002.jpg HTTP/1.1" 90132330
custom_log.13:1842:194.73.99.134 200 58124 [10/Dec/2008:09:13:41
+] "GET /images/meters/K0002.jpg HTTP/1.1" 90035283

386 lines for K0002.jpg
155 >= 90 sec
241 from 194.73.99.134

2. grepping the IP address
cd /var/log/httpd/
grep -n -e 194.73.99.134 cus* /dev/null
custom_log:1987:194.73.99.134 302 - [10/Mar/2009:12:12:26 +] "POST
/bstream/myMeter/intro_bs.pl HTTP/1.1" 273073
custom_log:1988:194.73.99.134 200 18341 [10/Mar/2009:12:12:26 +]
"GET /bstream/myMeter/master.pl?CGISESSID=f38f18b093477c93f6543fa178ac8f5c
HTTP/1.1" 7369256
custom_log:1989:194.73.99.134 200 1596 [10/Mar/2009:12:12:34 +]
"GET /local/QGStyleSheet.css HTTP/1.1" 260
custom_log:1990:194.73.99.134 200 3282 [10/Mar/2009:12:12:34 +]
"GET /images/presn/mmw4u.gif HTTP/1.1" 180
custom_log:1991:194.73.99.134 200 15663 [10/Mar/2009:12:12:34 +]
"GET /images/presn/SW_Welcome_226x59.png HTTP/1.1" 13087
custom_log:1992:194.73.99.134 200 76 [10/Mar/2009:12:12:34 +] "GET
/images/presn/SW_grey_720x2.gif HTTP/1.1" 125
custom_log:1993:194.73.99.134 200 580 [10/Mar/2009:12:12:34 +]
"GET /images/presn/TopNav_Highlight_150x40.gif HTTP/1.1" 134
custom_log:1996:194.73.99.134 200 58124 [10/Mar/2009:12:12:34 +]
"GET /images/meters/K0002.jpg HTTP/1.1" 90075828
custom_log.13:1825:194.73.99.134 302 - [10/Dec/2008:09:13:14 +]
"POST /bstream/myMeter/intro_bs.pl HTTP/1.1" 444074
custom_log.13:1826:194.73.99.134 200 18254 [10/Dec/2008:09:13:14
+] "GET 
/bstream/myMeter/master.pl?CGISESSID=12b34f1cf1c7ed53b48ef1d356de7909
HTTP/1.1" 11256875

1605 lines from 194.73.99.134
241 occurrences K0002
184 occurrences >=90 sec

3. grepping for >90s response times

cd /var/log/httpd/
grep -n -e 9[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]$ cus* /dev/null
custom_log:1317:195.173.32.179 200 36401 [09/Mar/2009:16:02:17 +]
"POST 
/bstream/myMeter/master.pl?page=Charts&CGISESSID=45373afd8fe16befa1c3deb524ee91b4
HTTP/1.0" 91407681
custom_log:1996:194.73.99.134 200 58124 [10/Mar/2009:12:12:34 +]
"GET /images/meters/K0002.jpg HTTP/1.1" 90075828
custom_log.11:1261:195.93.21.73 200 6410706 [23/Dec/2008:14:14:14
+] "POST 
/bstream/myMeter/master.pl?page=Charts&CGISESSID=f6a4ae7f6cc2c43199e06ea96ef7981a
HTTP/1.1" 94657173
custom_log.12:4372:195.10.45.219 200 5322469 [17/Dec/2008:11:15:53
+] "POST 
/2.3.1/myMeter/master.pl?page=Charts&CGISESSID=96abb78b64b6722ff1eb1a106d5cfa29
HTTP/1.1" 91916041
custom_log.13:1929:194.73.99.134 200 58124 [10/Dec/2008:09:29:19
+] "GET /images/meters/K0002.jpg HTTP/1.1" 90079633
custom_log.13:1935:194.73.99.134 200 58124 [10/Dec/2008:09:31:36
+] "GET /images/meters/K0002.jpg HTTP/1.1" 90044363
custom_l

Re: [Hampshire] a strange web server anomaly?

2009-03-10 Thread Hugo Mills 
On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 02:33:06PM +, Victor Churchill wrote:
> This has me really puzzled.
> 
> I have an Apache setup to write a custom_log with the %D field to tell
> me the server response time for each request. And I am seeing a very
> strange pattern.
> 
> It seems that for one particular client IP address, when the page they
> are being served includes a particular image, the server frequently
> times out delivering the image. The image is fine served to other
> clients; the client IP gets fine response on (some) other pages. It's
> not particularly big.
[snip]
> So :
> - one image file accounts for almost half the server timeouts;
> - more than half the timeouts come serving this one address;
> -  the image times out 40% of the time it is served;
> - 2/3 of the time this image is served it is going to this one user;
> - this user experiences timeouts on 10% of hir page hits;
> - s/he calls up the meter page with this image 15% of hir page hits.
> 
> But correspondingly, the user gets OK responses on other pages, the
> image is OK going to other userrs, we get timeouts for other users
> doing other stuff.
> 
> This has me quite bewildered. This user may be operating behind some
> corporate firewall router, I don't know.  I set up a trial where I
> hammered the server overnight pulling this one image repeatedly from a
> couple of addresses, and had responses consistently around 0.1 second.
> 
> What on earth would cause this set of results?

   My best guess: They've got a bad MTU set up somewhere, and their
system breaks on large packets that get fragmented. I've had this
myself in the past.

   Hugo.

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Re: [Hampshire] a strange web server anomaly?

2009-03-10 Thread Victor Churchill 
2009/3/10 Hugo Mills :
> On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 02:33:06PM +, Victor Churchill wrote:
>..
>> It seems that for one particular client IP address, when the page they
>> are being served includes a particular image, the server frequently
>> times out delivering the image. The image is fine served to other
>> clients; the client IP gets fine response on (some) other pages. It's
>> not particularly big.
> [snip]
>
>   My best guess: They've got a bad MTU set up somewhere, and their
> system breaks on large packets that get fragmented. I've had this
> myself in the past.

Interesting. I guess one could look at that by running a tcpdump
waiting for a connection from this one address, although I am no
TCP/IP expert. TBH I have not heard any complaints from this user but
it offends my principles to know that they are out there being given a
hard time. I know I would find it irritating.

thanks for the input.

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Re: [Hampshire] System restore

2009-03-10 Thread Damian Brasher 
James Courtier-Dutton wrote:

> If I have an installed system that I wish to duplicate and install on
> a dozen other machines. What Linux tools are there for this.
> The system to be copied is a Suse 9 and Suse 10 install using ext3
> partitions.
>
> I would like to do the install from either CD/DVD or Backup tape.
> Is there a tool that would create a CD boot install disk being a copy
> from an existing system?

Some ideas; for test, development equipment, critical servers and sometimes
workstations I use two methods over networks to clone boxes from master
images...

1) Partimage server and either PXE boot or a Linux CDROM distro.
http://www.partimage.org/ Once this is permanently built you will have a
robust and fast cloning and re-image facility.

2) Netcat for a quick to implement but less permanent solution, something like:-

Usually installed but if not ]#yum -y install nc (or equiv.)

*Slave* (Receiver) - the machine you want to re-image - IP 192.168.0.10.

]#nc -l -p 9000 | dd of=/dev/sd$ (replace /dev/sd$ with the drive on your
machine, i.e. sda)

*Master* (Sender) - machine containing the image you want to copy (can either
boot the master from a live disk or create an image in advance in which case
you would use dd if=image_file.img...)

]#dd if=/dev/sd$ | nc 192.168.0.10 9000

To speed up the process significantly don't dd complete disks, just
partitions and a MBR after creating them with fdisk separately instead.

Regards Damian

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Re: [Hampshire] System restore

2009-03-10 Thread Damian Brasher 
Damian Brasher wrote:

> ]#nc -l -p 9000 | dd of=/dev/sd$ (replace /dev/sd$ with the drive on your
> machine, i.e. sda)

You may not need to use the -p switch, i.e. ]#nc -l 9000|dd of=img


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Re: [Hampshire] System restore

2009-03-10 Thread James Courtier-Dutton 
2009/3/10 Damian Brasher :
> Damian Brasher wrote:
>
>> ]#nc -l -p 9000 | dd of=/dev/sd$ (replace /dev/sd$ with the drive on your
>> machine, i.e. sda)
>
> You may not need to use the -p switch, i.e. ]#nc -l 9000|dd of=img
>

Although I did not specify in the email.
The only options available to me are "either CD/DVD or Backup tape."
Note, Across the network is not included in that list.

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[Hampshire] Webcam and mike for Skype on Lenny

2009-03-10 Thread Lisi 
Has anyone any recommendations for  a webcam and mike for use on Skype on 
Lenny?  Preferably sub £10.00.  (His daughter got one for £8.00.)  

Or can I make the assumption that any cheapo one would work?  (Well, I'm sure 
I saw a flying pig go past this morning.)

TIA
Lisi

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[Hampshire] How well would Debian Lenny work on this?

2009-03-10 Thread trotter 

Hello,

I was looking at this motherboard:

http://www.acube-systems.biz/eng/sam.php 



How well do people think this will work with debian lenny?
It will be used as a standard desktop ie internet wordprocessing so theres
nothing to heavy cpu wise.


Yes its expensive but I do rather like being able to use amiga os4.1 on it,
however it does need to be useful as well for applications that arent available
on amiga os. I will be dual booting the two oses.


thanks for your time

Martin N

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[Hampshire] Dell poweredge Perc4e/Di (LSI) SCSI

2009-03-10 Thread John Cooper 
Hi, has anyone had trouble with the Perc4e/Di on board RAID controller
where it will not create partitions on any Linux install? I'm not sure
if it is a megaraid driver bug or controller bug. I'm installing on an
old Dell Poweredge 2600 server. At the point it partitions the disk, the
mkfs fails immediately with similar output to this :-

megaraid: aborting-29762 cmd=2a 
megaraid abort: 29762:21[255:128], fw owner
megaraid: aborting-29763 cmd=2a 
megaraid abort: 29763:39[255:128], fw owner
megaraid: aborting-29764 cmd=2a 
megaraid abort: 29764:16[255:128], fw owner
megaraid: aborting-29768 cmd=2a 
megaraid abort: 29768:53[255:128], fw owner

megaraid: aborting-29831 cmd=2a 
megaraid abort: 29831:8[255:128], fw owner
megaraid: resetting the host...
megaraid: 64 outstanding commands. Max wait 180 sec
megaraid mbox: Wait for 64 commands to complete:180
megaraid mbox: Wait for 64 commands to complete:175

megaraid mbox counts down to 0, and then...

megaraid mbox: critical hardware error!
megaraid: resetting the host...
megaraid: hw error, cannot reset
megaraid: resetting the host...
megaraid: hw error, cannot reset
SCSI error : <0 2 0 0> return code = 0x600
end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 242938701
Buffer I/O error on device dm-4, logical block 9893952 lost page write
due to I/O error on dm-4
scsi0 (0:0): rejecting I/O to offline device

I've updated the system BIOS and Perc4e/Di firmware (522D) but still the
same. Changing from RAID to SCSI in the bios allows a full install
proving the hardware is fine.

I support an identical server which has run RHEL4 for years without any
problems. My server has a rev 07 device compared to rev 08 on the good one.

02:05.0 SCSI storage controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic 53c1030 PCI-X
Fusion-MPT Dual Ultra320 SCSI (rev 08)
02:05.1 SCSI storage controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic 53c1030 PCI-X
Fusion-MPT Dual Ultra320 SCSI (rev 08)
03:0b.0 RAID bus controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic MegaRAID (rev 01)

John.
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Re: [Hampshire] Dell poweredge Perc4e/Di (LSI) SCSI

2009-03-10 Thread Vic 

> Hi, has anyone had trouble with the Perc4e/Di on board RAID controller
> where it will not create partitions on any Linux install? I'm not sure
> if it is a megaraid driver bug or controller bug. I'm installing on an
> old Dell Poweredge 2600 server.

Not too sure about the Di, but I've got a couple of boxes with the Si
(Poweredge 1850s). I don't think there's a lot of difference, except the
Di has another channel.

...and they work just fine.

Sorry I can't be any more help.

Vic.


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Re: [Hampshire] Free machine

2009-03-10 Thread B STEVENS 

> It's yours. :)

superb!

> Where are you?

in andover.

as i have no transport at the moment, would you mind hanging on to it if it's 
not inconvenient?

you never know, the next bring a box meeting could be in andover. it needs to 
be held in andover at some point as i have a load of stuff to give away too 
(hint to organisers :-)!

seriously though, if you can find a good home for it before i can get hold of 
it, go right ahead :-)

regards

bryan

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[Hampshire] Sync K810i with Kontact

2009-03-10 Thread Steve Kirk 
Hi,

I'd like to be able to sync the calendar on my Sony Ericsson K810i with 
Kontact. Has anyone been able to get this working?

It looks as though the OpenSync[0] project may have a solution but I've 
never used this - has anyone tried it?

Cheers,
Steve

[0] http://www.opensync.org/wiki/peers/sonyEricsson/w810i

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