Re: [Hampshire] raspberry pi and educational software
Hi Roger, I'll give an anecdote. The Raspberry Pi runs a hardware-tweaked version of Linux and I was surprised at just how well it performs and what's installable from the repositories. I bought one out of curiosity then, after a machine failure, put it into my home networks as a DMZ and postfix mail host as a temporary fix. system, load with "w" was 0 0 0, even with anti-spam running. Oh; right; let's try anti-virus filtering, too. Still around 0 0 0. Wow. Later I also added a squid proxy ... system load still modest. It stopped being a temporary fix ... it's still there. I would suggest they get one and try it for their wanted purposes. I think they'll be pleasantly surprised at what it can do. https://tutorials-raspberrypi.de/ https://www.makershop.de/raspberry-pi https://www.raspberrypi.com https://thepihut.com/ In a hot climate the standard Pi may well want some heat-sinking. I've used these cases: https://thepihut.com/collections/raspberry-pi-cases/products/aluminium-armour-heatsink-case-for-raspberry-pi-4 -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
[Hampshire] Migrate multi-boot system to new drive(s)?
Hi all, I have a multi-booting machine with xubuntu across several partitions and Windows10 and it's other odd partitions on /dev/sda, I also have AVL-MXE on /dev/sdb and some ext4 user-spaces on /dev/sdb, and I now also have a Win10 snapshot on and external /dev/sdc, together with a couple of ext4 workspaces, one of which is a copy of part of my ~/.wine tree that has around a terrabyte of audio files (Band-in-a-Box). It's also become a little spread about over time, where I've moved stuff to new drives/partitions, expanded partitions and the like. It feels like time to rationalise all this onto fewer drives and I'm very tempted to make the new main drive a 2TB SSD, with a second conventional hard drive for other storage. I come therefore to deciding the best way to do this. I imagine that I can pretty much just copy the Linux stuff to new partitions on the new SSD and then run update-grub and grub-install onto the new SSD and boot that SSD via EFI F12 or similar, before tidying up, remove, replace and/or clear the old drives and run the grub stuff again. But how can/does one best deal with the Win10 stuff? I'm unsure how Win10 manages partitions or whether I can put NTFS partitions into the extended area, or indeed what actually is the "Microsoft reserved partition" that gparted reports as an unknown file type. Unfortunately ditching Win10 is not an option as I still have one application that I cannot run on Linux :-( Another thought whilst I'm on this. Could I put that terrabyte of audio files onto an ntfs partition, rather than ext4, so that I can access it either from within ~/.wine as a mount or symlink, or as a windows drive? Thoughts and/or advice, please. Thanks. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Joint LUG Event: Lightning talks on Linux audio
I can see Mozilla Hubs working for a small group chat ... book club or similar. It appears to me fundamentally flawed with a speaker and shared screen(s). Was it recorded in any successful way? I'd still like to listen. Gordon. On 29/09/2021 19:43, Thomas Kluyver via Hampshire wrote: We've had enough problems now that we're going to move over to the BigBlueButton server we use for EdLUG: https://links.taikedz.net/?id=bbb-edlug On Wed, 29 Sep 2021, at 19:15, Gordon Scott via Hampshire wrote: On 29/09/2021 00:39, Paul Tansom via Hampshire wrote: On Mozilla Hubs - spatially-dependent audio, because audio isn't complicated enough! Hmm ... a triumph of cleverness over usability I think. After trying to see ta shared screen without either having my view blocked by someone else, or blocking their view, I gave up. And that with only 16 of us at the time. Maybe there's a more practical mode? I'm afraid my patience had expired after 10 minutes of trying. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk -- -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Joint LUG Event: Lightning talks on Linux audio
On 29/09/2021 00:39, Paul Tansom via Hampshire wrote: On Mozilla Hubs - spatially-dependent audio, because audio isn't complicated enough! Hmm ... a triumph of cleverness over usability I think. After trying to see ta shared screen without either having my view blocked by someone else, or blocking their view, I gave up. And that with only 16 of us at the time. Maybe there's a more practical mode? I'm afraid my patience had expired after 10 minutes of trying. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Where to get Debian computer?
On 25/06/2021 12:04, Peter Alefounder via Hampshire wrote: cleaned the heat sink and replaced the thermal paste. There's an awful lot to be said for just a vacuum around. New thermal paste is often a very good idea. G. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Where to get Debian computer?
On 03/06/2021 12:11, Peter Alefounder via Hampshire wrote: Ubuntu can be made usable. FWIW, I stopped using the main distribution of Ubuntu ages ago, because I dislike their desktop, in favour of xubuntu, which uses a more traditional desktop. For quite a while I installed ubuntu, then jumped through the hoops to get to a "traditional" desktop, before realising that xubuntu (XFCE desktop) did it all for me. If you do really want KDE, kubuntu may be a better starting point. I haven't tried it, so can't comment other than that. YMMV Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Linux and LED Scrolling Signs
Any mileage in small a raspberry-Pi screen? Some are direct to the Pi, some are HDMI. https://thepihut.com/collections/raspberry-pi-screens ... other vendors available. On 26/10/2020 08:59, Rob via Hampshire wrote: Thanks to all who replied. I think I'm going to report to the powers that be that this is a bad idea. What we're after (for work) is a sign which shows either something like "All Systems Go" or lists the server(s) down. I guess we could "sacrifice" a display and leave it on 24/7/365 but a sign would seem to be a better (greener) solution. Can anyone suggest any other possibilities? Cheers Rob -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Old fart needs digital makeover urgent
Hi Roger, I shouldn't worry about your son's opinion on that unless he's willing to do it for you. These days everything seems very 'phone-centric, so a pragmatic answer might bi 'phone or tablet and a Bluetooth speaker. There are some quite good speakers from Bose and JBL, but even at my 67 years, I find the sound quality of my Bose Revolve leaves something to be desired. I've ripped most my CDs into .ogg format onto my fileserver, though with hindsight .flac would have been a better format. The .ogg files of around 4000 tracks uses about 23G. There are multi-room systems, but I know little more about them than I'm not paying that much to replace my very nice traditional Hi-Fi system. Good ear-buds may be the cheapest and most pragmatic solution of the lot. There are some excellent wireless in-ear monitoring systems for musicians, from the likes of AKG, Shure, Sennheiser, though then you have a small body-pack and a short cable to wear. Gordon On 17/12/2019 23:08, Roger Munford via Hampshire wrote: My son is back for Christmas and is disgusted that his parents are shuffling around listening to occasional you tube videos on You tube. I had actually been planning to attend to this at some stage with a project based around the raspberry pi, small amps and a tuner. However it has been pointed out that it could be years before that gets done so I am seeking advice on what is available for a quick fix. What I have in mind is ceiling mounted speakers in the lounge a kitchen and possible bathroom. Oldies have limited frequency response so quality is probably not a priority. At the moment I switch on the 40 year old radio by punching the on off switch and get instant reaction. I would like to duplicate that. I would also like to be able to access the BBC iplayer, you tube and other internet services. There is also a pile of CDs that would have to be somehow available for occasional use. Any suggestions from "persevere with the raspberry pi it is really not that difficult" to the hardware involved in a DIY or a commercial solution and where to get it would be very helpful. I am sorry that I have not even started my own research but this has sort of come up unexpectedly. Seasons Greetings Roger Munford -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] DAT as a backup medium
On 22/04/17 12:37, Rob Malpass via Hampshire wrote: I find it amazing hdd technology (which we’ve has since the 70s) is still the medium of preference. To a significant extent it's _because_ they've been around since the 70s. They've been undergoing fairly continuous evolution since then ... better materials, better manufacturing techniques, better balance and resilience of the components and so on. Totally hermetically sealed, auto-parking, etc. I used to use tape, but it isn't actually all _that_ reliable. It _isn't_ hermetically sealed, so it's at greater risk from environmental factors like humidity and pollution, tape has always been prone to stretch, I presume(!) that there's still contact between head and tape (in HDDs the head 'flies' microns above the medium). SSD may(!) be more reliable, but it's much more expensive. I gave up tape when it became more expensive than HDDs. So far, I personally have seen no reason to return. YMMV. Gordon. -- Gordon Scott http://www.gscott.co.uk *Rescue Tally Ho* http://www.yachttallyho.com https://www.facebook.com/yachtTallyHo -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] DAT as a backup medium
YMMV, but I personally have a PC in an another building, running backupPC and connected by WiFi. Your own private 'cloud' would also be an option. I use my garage, but a friendly neighbour who would reciprocate may also be an option. I tend to use Unison for cloning from one machine to another. G. On 21/04/17 15:55, Rob Malpass via Hampshire wrote: Hi all Is DAT still a viable backup medium if you want USB and to avoid optical disks? I’ve got about 8Tb to backup and for various reasons don’t fancy: LTO, BluRay, Cloud or HDD (i.e. NAS). I know DAT’s quite old (and I might even be forced to use DAT160 because of cost) but if it’ll do the archiving (write once read seldom) job I have in mind for 8Tb (even if that’s a lot of tapes) I’d be happy. Thanks Rob <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email_source=link_campaign=sig-email_content=emailclient> Virus-free. www.avg.com <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email_source=link_campaign=sig-email_content=emailclient> <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2> -- Gordon Scott http://www.gscott.co.uk *Rescue Tally Ho* http://www.yachttallyho.com https://www.facebook.com/yachtTallyHo -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Robotic Sailing talk, Monday 3rd October (Southampton Python group)
On 28/09/16 12:12, Thomas Kluyver via Hampshire wrote: On Wed, Sep 28, 2016, at 10:54 AM, Gordon Scott via Hampshire wrote: Why would I want a robot if I can just lash the tiller, trim the mizzen and sit back and marvel at what the old lady does all on her own? A speaker introducing the conference after the competition did trace the history of autonomous sailing back to Francis Drake rigging fire ships to be blown into the Spanish Armada. We were trying to achieve a bit more control, however! And hopefully less fire :-) I remember an article some years ago about a robot auto-navigation voyage in which, as so often happens in cars, they'd put in a slightly wrong name and the yacht ended up on the west coast of America, rather than in Wales. It was an April issue, but I feel sure the story was true :-) Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Robotic Sailing talk, Monday 3rd October (Southampton Python group)
On 27/09/16 14:03, Thomas Kluyver via Hampshire wrote: hear about how we used Python and Linux to make a boat sail itself, :-> Hmm, but my 86 year old gaff yawl does that, up to a point at least, with no robotics at all :-> Why would I want a robot if I can just lash the tiller, trim the mizzen and sit back and marvel at what the old lady does all on her own? Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Nasty email purporting to come from the US
I received one this morning. I did not recognise the sender. I deleted it. If I think these _might_ be genuine, I normally check the routing information within he mail header. Usually there's some mismatch in IPs/hostnames/etc.. On 21/04/16 21:10, Ian Park wrote: Hi all I received a suspicious email today, purporting to come from Covance (a web search showed Covance to be an apparently genuine organisation doing contract clinical research on drug development and animal testing). The text of the email was: "Purchase Order, 11300 / 0002323808, has been Dispatched. Please detach and print the attached Purchase Order." The attachment was a .tgz file containing a 6.2kB javascript file - a method of attack which I haven't seen before. Needless to report that I didn't attempt to run said javascript file! Has anyone else come across this method of attack? Ian Park -- /But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy./ Plutarch AD44-120 -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] avconv
On Wed, 2016-03-09 at 17:31 +, Peter Alefounder wrote: > Thanks to all for the comments. I still think something I could use > from the command line would be easier - a simple shell script loop. Did you look further at sox for conversion? Chris Liddell said he used it to resample, but it does many more things than that. You may well find that the following just works: sox mytrack.flac mytrack.mp3 If not, try deliberately converting in two stages: sox mytrack.flac mytrack.wav sox mytrack.wav mytrack.mp3 That would allow you to verify that the .wav itself is sensible. -- Gordon Scott. Electronics and software engineering. Basingstoke UK +44-1256-476547 But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy. === Plutarch AD44-120 -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] avconv
Try converting flac to .wav first. A few years back I was comparing the quality of compression methods. expanding flac to .wav gave a binary identical to the original CD file, i.e., 'cmp' reported them as identical. Gordon. -- Gordon Scott. Electronics and software engineering. Basingstoke UK +44-1256-476547 But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy. === Plutarch AD44-120 -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] NTFS and Linux
> > I am considering getting an external hard drive for use as a back-up > > device > Good you should make a back up An aside... FWIW, my backup system involves an additional PC, running backupPC, in the loft of my garage. That way the backups are done automatically and the copy is essentially off site because the garage is the other side of a physical firewall. Anywhere separated is better than having both copies in the same building. Garden shed, friendly neighbour, even an outside tool storage chest. Linux is brilliant in that you can recycle old PCs for jobs like this. Try St. James if you have no spare PC. I bought a low-cost ITX for energy consumption reasons, but how well that really adds up with embodied energy I couldn't say. Gordon. -- Gordon Scott. Electronics and software engineering. Basingstoke UK +44-1256-476547 But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy. === Plutarch AD44-120 -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] New Forest Solar
On Fri, 2015-11-13 at 09:39 +, Roger Munford wrote: > > I should delete this because I already have a reputation for talking > rubbish. No, No, No! You _must_ recycle it! :-D -- Gordon Scott. Electronics and software engineering. Basingstoke UK +44-1256-476547 But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy. === Plutarch AD44-120 -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] New Forest Solar
Hi Lisi, Most supermarkets and DIY stores now take small batteries. There's usually a cylindrical bin that looks a bit like a big battery. I don't know of a solution for the bulbs. Frustratingly, I've been storing some for years ready for when I go to the dump. Of course I almost always forget to take them. I'm bemused also by the electronics industry having been mandated to use lead-free solder for most produce. That's OK in itself, but seems a bit pointless when many churches and the like have many tonnes (cf tons) of lead on the roof. I think our few grams in an alloy was close to negligible in comparison. From where can I get those eco-friendly crackers, please :-) Gordon. On 13/11/15 17:38, Lisi wrote: On Friday 13 November 2015 10:20:07 Gordon Scott wrote: I looked into the German waste system Like battery recycling bins everywhere... Years and years ago... Sigh. I have an electric kettle to get rid of. My days of being able to repair such things are over, and as it stands it is a fire hazard. So, I have an electric kettle to get rid of. The "correct" way for me to do so is to drive 5 or 6 miles, sit in a queue with the engine running, or repeatedly restart the engine, dump the kettle, drive home again. (To go to my "local" tip it is 11 or 12 miles, but the next door authority tip is a mere 5 or 6 miles away, with a permanent queue.) I do have three mercury based light bulbs I could get rid of at the same time. And some batteries, but I could get rid of those only three miles away at a place I go to sometimes anyway. Ecofriendly, crackers, or what??? Lisi -- /But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy./ Plutarch AD44-120 -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] New Forest Solar
On Fri, 2015-11-13 at 09:39 +, Roger Munford wrote: > Gordon, > > I have enjoyed corresponding with you via this list very much. We are > talking about everyday things which just don’t work as well as they > could and it seems like they should get better but for some reason > they don't. Still off-topic, but... I did once explore the possibility of building a genuine eco-home. The full works. earth bermed, passive solar, recycled tyres, rammed earth, straw bales, green roof, rainwater harvesting, grey-water recycling, composting toilets, microgeneration, sun pipes. Almost "you name it". I discussed it with a couple of county councils who were interested. I disusssed it with several planning departments who "ran a mile". Too strange, too scary, more than my job's worth. I drew two conclusion. 1) Getting planning permission was a snowball in hell's chance. 2) If one wants to do it, one does it covertly and hopes that TV will support the eco-warrior when the council demand you bulldoze it. > This is a particular problem for engineering types. Like me, yes :-) > > I looked into the German waste system Like battery recycling bins everywhere... Years and years ago... Sigh. G. -- Gordon Scott. Electronics and software engineering. Basingstoke UK +44-1256-476547 But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy. === Plutarch AD44-120 -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] New Forest Solar
Hi Roger, What I've written is not about any specific project, and I agree with you entirely on just about everything. I know too little about the project(s) in which you have an interest to be able to comment in detail. I do think it's tragic that we're increasingly wasting good land rather than double-using the concrete we've already put down. I haven't yet seen Hugh F-W's programmer, I hope to. I've been arguing similarly for years, but don't have the influence. I definitely shall _not_ get started on supermarkets, packaging and related waste! I wrote a lot about eco-homes, population, waste, antibiotics and other stuff. All very off-topic, so I deleted it. It made for a very scary ready, too. :-( Gordon. -- /But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy./ Plutarch AD44-120 -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] New Forest Solar
Whilst I approve of PV in principle, I do wish they'd put them in places that aren't additionally intrusive into the environment. Put them over supermarket and other car parks, giving shade to the cars as well. Factory, supermarket and shopping-centre roofs, bus shelters, railway station roofs, etc.. Why oh why do they so often put them in green spaces? It's ridiculous. Gordon. -- Gordon Scott. Electronics and software engineering. Basingstoke UK +44-1256-476547 But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy. === Plutarch AD44-120 -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Hosting recommendations
On Fri, 2015-08-21 at 08:57 +0100, Owain Clarke wrote: What I'm wondering is whether anyone has any fabby recommendations for hosting? I've been very happy with tsohost.com. -- Gordon Scott. Electronics and software engineering. Basingstoke UK +44-1256-476547 But for the sake of some little mouthful of flesh we deprive a soul of the sun and light, and of that proportion of life and time it had been born into the world to enjoy. === Plutarch AD44-120 -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Advice on specs for a gaming machine
On 11/08/2015 16:11, Roger Munford wrote: Thanks for that. He is 18 so I have little influence I must be getting old or something. I struggle with the concept of buying a toy for an 18yo. When I reached 16, I was told to get a job and start paying rent. From then on, everything I needed I had to buy for myself. -- This message was written elegantly and lucidly, by my own fair hand using a quill pen on hand laid parchment. It was then scanned, OCRed, spiel-chequed, then cat und pastied into this email. If it's now just gibberish, it's the software's fault. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Advice on specs for a gaming machine
On 12/08/2015 08:56, Roger Munford wrote: I am afraid that you are getting on but I stand wholeheartedly with you having had the same sort of experience which I think was very valuable. However it is his own money and I am trying to help him spend it wisely. Yep, I misunderstood. I rather read it as has asked for. He's asked for advice. That's highly sensible. On 12/08/2015 08:55, Alan Pope wrote: Hoop stick was a lot less expensive hobby back then, right? :-) My hoop and stick days were rather earlier, when I was in lower single digits. At 16, I was trying to save for a motorcycle to make the journey to and from work and college easier. Almost 200 miles a week was quite a lot of cycling or hitch-hiking. Actually, I never had the stick, just the hoop. But that was the 1950s and 'hula', not Victorian England. :-) I'm one of those allegedly lucky, privileged baby boomers with our free university education .. except around 90% of us didn't get a university education. G. -- This message was written elegantly and lucidly, by my own fair hand using a quill pen on hand laid parchment. It was then scanned, OCRed, spiel-chequed, then cat und pastied into this email. If it's now just gibberish, it's the software's fault. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Alternative to httrack?
There's also a MSYS/minGW version of wget, too, if the cygwin style doesn't feel right to them. I think MSYS looks more Windows-like than cygwin. IIRC MSYS avoids those /cygdrive/C/ paths that cygwin uses. Gordon. On 13/05/2015 19:33, Jon Wilks wrote: I use the cygwin version of wget for precisely this purpose. Jonny On 13 May 2015 12:51, Peter Alefounder p_alefoun...@yahoo.co.uk mailto:p_alefoun...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: Paul Freeman (Core Internet) p...@coreinternet.net mailto:p...@coreinternet.net said: wget -m -p -np http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/GOONS/ should do the job :) Thanks, Paul. I will pass that on to the those involved. I suspect they will want something that will work under MS Windows as well (which httrack was supposed to do), but it seems even that may be possible: a Windows version of wget exists. Peter Alefounder. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk mailto:Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk -- -- This message was written elegantly and lucidly, by my own fair hand using a quill pen on hand laid parchment. It was then scanned, OCRed, spiel-chequed, then cat und pastied into this email. If it's now just gibberish, it's the software's fault. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Dead server
On 13/05/2015 23:08, jay bennie wrote: sound more like a bad capacitor, it could be anywhere, check the tops for swelling/dis colour and dust (hover any crud from fans gaps) I'd go along with that. The ones that normally go are the electrolytic types .. aluminium cans with black(usually) printing. The electrolyte is a liquid and tends to dry out over a number of years use in a warm environment. Swelling, (usually of the flat top), discolouration, oozing electrolyte. The next most likely candidates are tantalum capacitors, which tend to be little black rectangular block. When they fail, they tend to blow a corner off of the moulding, or sometimes just a small hole/crater. Most of the rest will be ceramics, which are usually trouble-free. Gordon. On a Windows PC that just did a reboot, of it's own volition, for updates and dumped half this mail.Junk! -- This message was written elegantly and lucidly, by my own fair hand using a quill pen on hand laid parchment. It was then scanned, OCRed, spiel-chequed, then cat und pastied into this email. If it's now just gibberish, it's the software's fault. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] UK digital skills report
On Sun, 2015-02-22 at 20:02 +, Imran Chaudhry wrote: People under-estimate the amount of good communication skills you need as a developer Aye. Frustratingly, though, techies almost always get pigeon-holed into the geeky, nerdy, cannot communicate stereotype until they've proved themselves otherwise. You need a human being with a good well-rounded head on their shoulders to do it well - and it's going to stay that way for a long time. And to be able to tolerate and gently educate the pigeon-holers. G. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] UK digital skills report
On Sun, 2015-02-22 at 19:29 +, Samuel Penn wrote: On Sunday 22 Feb 2015 17:52:23 Stephen Davies wrote: No one taught me all this stuff. There are no University Courses or real 'how to Text Books' on the subject. The job description does not fit into tidy little boxes. Some employers and especially recruitment agencies just can't grok that you know all this stuff. You are the Jack of All trades. [...snip...] I see no programmes out there that will even begin to skill up my replacements. That is a problem that no one is even remotely trying to solve. I'm not sure I agree. I've worked most of my life as a consultant for small companies, getting thrown into projects involving tools and products I'd never heard of, but expected to learn it all quickly. Actually I think you probably are agreeing, but maybe you don't realise it. Pretty much everyone I've worked with has had to do the same, because in a small company you can't afford to have anyone specialise. You may start as a 'developer', but after ten years of doing this your skill set is a lot broader. Indeed. And I think that's exactly where Stephen you and I all agree, but what those not fully involved in technologies usually fail to recognise. At any moment one is faced with a number of things that are familiar and a number of this that are quite new and unfamiliar. The higher the percentage of the former the quicker the latter can be assimilated. Most of the time (IMHO), it isn't particularly the tools so much as the concepts and strategies that need to be understood, and also that there are many ways to skin a cat. Not that as a vegetarian and animal lover I would do such a thing :-) Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] UK digital skills report
On Mon, 2015-02-23 at 12:49 +, Brad Macpherson wrote: G'day Gordon, On 23 Feb 2015, at 12:16, Gordon Scott wrote: Then again, it also seems to me that we've not really progressed very far with tools. Lisp(58!), Prolog(72), Smalltalk(80), perl(87), tcl(88), Python(89+), Java(91), Ruby(99). I can't speak for the other languages in your list but Perl has continued to progress since 1987 with higher-order Perl (functional programming) and Moose (object-oriented Perl done well) being 2 major changes to the way applications are built on Perl 5. Just look at the plethora of application frameworks and reinvented wheels on CPAN; actually that can be a pain in the backside sometimes, maybe we need an AI to help sort the wheat from the chaff :-) I hadn't meant to imply they hadn't moved on. In particular, most have now at least some OO capability. Actually that's a bit depressing. I dunno, I think it's a tribute to the languages' designers and users that they've lasted so well. Oh, most certainly that! Again I hadn't in any way meant to imply that perhaps I didn't think that most or all of those languages and the authors' achievements are very good. Still more so with C, which is still very much alive and well where many other languages have fallen into obscurity. There can some truth to the criticisms of C and perl, that the former is a write only language and the latter is a write once, read never language. When that's true, it's the programmer's fault. :-) Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] UK digital skills report
Incidentally, of course, code generation doesn't necessarily need AI to work. Some years ago I was working with/on telephone exchange design, and telephone system's are defined in no small part using formalised structured language, notably UML and SDL. The UML was a tool largely to help formalise the SDL, and we had an SDL compiler. I can't now remember whether it went to a byte-code type output or to C/C++ ready for compiling with a conventional compiler. The same kind of thing is also quite commonly used in DSP and similar environments (and my central heating controller, actually), where functional block are dragged and dropped, configured and interconnected, with little if any code actually written by the implementer. My worry with a lot of the school-oriented stuff is the focus on teaching coding. I think coding should probably already substantially be the past. In some respects I'm disappointed that we're still doing so much, at least in the computer systems end of things (most of my work is embedded, where small footprints very close to the metal hold things up some). Then again, it also seems to me that we've not really progressed very far with tools. Lisp(58!), Prolog(72), Smalltalk(80), perl(87), tcl(88), Python(89+), Java(91), Ruby(99). Actually that's a bit depressing. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Python GUI
Fixed a couple of other that's changed bugs and I now have a working GUI, though just yet it does little of use. It's time to start populating those place-holders. Gordon. On Fri, 2015-02-20 at 09:08 +, Gordon Scott wrote: On Thu, 2015-02-19 at 21:25 +, Ally Biggs wrote: http://python-gtk-3-tutorial.readthedocs.org/en/latest/builder.html That one has certainly helped. All the other documents I have refer to importing gtk while that one refers to Gtk. Gtk is found and loaded. When one reads the friendly manual, it does help if the friendly manual is correct :-( -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Python GUI
On Thu, 2015-02-19 at 21:25 +, Ally Biggs wrote: http://python-gtk-3-tutorial.readthedocs.org/en/latest/builder.html That one has certainly helped. All the other documents I have refer to importing gtk while that one refers to Gtk. Gtk is found and loaded. When one reads the friendly manual, it does help if the friendly manual is correct :-( https://glade.gnome.org/ I've spent some time here. Even the examples here do import gtk not import Gtk :-( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KrgCrPp3w4 No sound on this PC, I'll take a look later. Thanks Ally. At the very least that confirms Glade is still a suitable tool. I was starting to doubt it. Where I looked on AskUbuntu, they were saying 'deprecated', use their SDK and QML (QML appears basically JavaScript, not Python!). Other distributions are available! Thanks again. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Python GUI
Hi Ally, Hm, well, I've been programming for years and years, in many languages, but I'm relatively new to Python. Quite a few languages I used to use are now dead and gone ... sometimes for the best :-) A little background. Mostly my work is embedded, usually soft real-time. I do write stuff for PCs, but it's more often than not front-ends for the embedded stuff. I tend to use visual Tcl most of the time for that, as it's very effective and has been pretty stable for years. I have for ages been trying to settle on a GUI-builder that, ideally at least, works with all or most of the PC-related languages with which I work, mostly Ruby, Python, Tcl, C/C++. Glade seems to do that. Part of my frustration here was that Glade-2 was persistently crashing on my system, so I tried the newer Glade-3, which is a bit different, but fine. But I failed to get Python2.7 to work with the xml from Glade-3, mostly I think because a number of names have changed both in the Gtk packages and in the xml. Python3.4 seems to be working with it. I think it's likely that Python2 will stay around for quite some time, and personally I tend to be fairly conservative about changing. Not because I object to change, but because there are always early problems and I have enough stuff of my own to deal with without spending ages getting tools to work properly. That said, Python at 3.4 should be pretty stable by now, so I have no qualms about using it. One thing I don't like about Python is one of the things so many others seem to like. Blocks defined solely by indent. It sounds reasonable enough, but you have only inadvertently to indent some code one character too few to totally break a program. I like unambiguous blocks. Ruby is nice. All other things being equal, I personally prefer Ruby, but any good language is fine. religiously I'm a sceptic. I doubt, though don't deny, the existence of a god. That includes me :-) Gordon. On Fri, 2015-02-20 at 12:19 +, Ally Biggs wrote: Awesome stuff :) Can I ask you a Python related question? currently I am learning Bash Scripting to automate a few administration tasks, But eventually would like to make the transition to either Python or Ruby. Regarding Python is it more feasible to learn version 2 or 3? I mean how long is 2 going to be supported for? Or should I forget 2 altogether and just focus on 3. Again was going to use Python for administration, I am a noob when it comes to programming but wold like to eventually be able to create a script with various options from a menu driven system all presented in a nice GUI. That is the eventual aim. I take it you have programmed for a while and are a god compared to myself :) -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
[Hampshire] Python GUI
Hi Guys, Can anyone suggest a sensible+working GUI-Builder, etc., for use with Python? Preferably, but not necessarily, one that also works with Ruby and/or Tcl. I now have prototype GUI interfaces attempts built with five different builders, not one of which runs because of some apparently insurmountable bug or missing package/option. FWIW, my most complete prototype was built with Glade-3, but I seem not to have a python GUI package that runs with GTK3. I'd prefer to use Python for this as there are a couple or three appropriate and fairly stable packages that I would like to use, and I'll also be interfacing with some other Python stuff. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] UK digital skills report
On Thu, 2015-02-19 at 13:13 +, Joseph Bennie wrote: I think it will then deserve it's name “Lucy. It’s moral essence however, will only be a reflection of ourselves. FWIW, I've long that intelligent machines may be the next significant phase of human evolution. I'm not convinced that evolution demands that we stay in our original physical shell. I doubt I'll ever see it. G. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Patch your Linux systems (Ghost vulnerability CVE-2015-0235)
On Thu, 2015-01-29 at 16:01 +, Alan Pope wrote: Modern Ubuntu (and thus Mint) was unaffected. Hm, I stand corrected ... and 'find' tends to concur. G. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Patch your Linux systems (Ghost vulnerability CVE-2015-0235)
On Wed, 2015-01-28 at 11:12 +, Imran Chaudhry wrote: Sounds like a pretty serious one, proof of concept involved an email sent to a Exim mail server to get a remote shell. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/27/glibc_ghost_vulnerability/ Oh dear. Why Oh Why do people use strcpy() etc., rather than strncpy() etc.? Never mind security, that just sensible defensive programming! Sheesh! G. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
[Hampshire] Simple database?
Hi Guys, I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for a simple and simple database for a membership list. An address book with some extra fields for things like paid until, in this case 'boat', and a notes field. I need a number of fields, so plain table's are a nuisance, though a spreadsheet with frozen columns works OK. I have people on Linux, Mac and Windows, so need cross-platform. There are presently only 116 records and that's unlikely to change a great deal. I could just make something in Ruby or whatever, but there must, surely, already be something out there. I often use xmbase-grok, but it's not cross-platform. Regards, Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Might ring a bell
On Tue, 2015-01-13 at 22:32 +, Victor Churchill wrote: That's why I have a den and an attic and a cellar :-) So, no need then for a garage, garden shed, car boot and a dilapidated old van in the drive. :-) G. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Simple database?
On 14/01/2015 11:30, Jay Bennie wrote: google's spreadsheet app works well can, but if you want something uber simple I steer clear of Google. They already know far too much! or Create a table in mysql and use the scafolding capability in cakephp to autocreate a CRUD interface. (its quite usable by default) it takes about 20mins, then publish to a web server. (adding a password layer is a few mins of extra work work ... but its all in the tutorials It had occurred that there may be something on WordPress, which the association uses for their website. I'd thought not to put it on a website, but I guess it's not too sensitive and if password protected, etc., it should be OK. -- This message was written elegantly and lucidly, by my own fair hand using a quill pen on hand laid parchment. It was then scanned, OCRed, spiel-chequed, then cat und pastied into this email. If it's now just gibberish, it's the software's fault. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Simple database?
On 14/01/2015 11:30, Jay Bennie wrote: google's spreadsheet app works well can, but if you want something uber simple I steer clear of Google. They already know far too much! or Create a table in mysql and use the scafolding capability in cakephp to autocreate a CRUD interface. (its quite usable by default) it takes about 20mins, then publish to a web server. (adding a password layer is a few mins of extra work work ... but its all in the tutorials It had occurred that there may be something on WordPress, which the association uses for their website. I'd thought not to put it on a website, but I guess it's not too sensitive and if password protected, etc., it should be OK. -- This message was written elegantly and lucidly, by my own fair hand using a quill pen on hand laid parchment. It was then scanned, OCRed, spiel-chequed, then cat und pastied into this email. If it's now just gibberish, it's the software's fault. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Firewall hardware
On Thu, 2014-12-11 at 18:04 +, Bob Dunlop wrote: On Thu, Dec 11 at 11:07, Gordon Scott wrote: That was my thinking with the LinITX units. Three NICs on a lightweight fanless x86 for ??140. The ones at that price are all out-of-stock at present, though. I hope that's just temporary. Two NICs at sub ??100. Be warned the LX800 is a really gutless Geode processor. Think 500MHz Pentium with no real cache. That should still be plenty to handle an ADSL2+ line. My main fileserver is only a 600MHz Via x86 ITX box. Buy a MicroTik RouterBoard from the same site. If you don't like the supplied software the most of them will run debian. At least we have several running debian in the office, don't know how easy it was to install, didn't do the install myself. A lot are listed on OpenWRT as well. MIPS processor core I believe. That's definitely very useful to know. I'd stopped considering the RouterBoards, primarily because of too many choices and too little detail. LinITX's idea of what constitutes a specification is appalling. Your comments prompted me to look again and further. MicroTik's routerboard.com site gives much more information. My specific needs/desires were PPPoA and/or PPPoE for the ADSL, IPv6 with firewalling and ideally three NICs so I can physically isolate the DMZ. Even the lower cost boards appear(!) to do the first two. The 2011 series have two NICs each with a switch, so should do the third. _Probably_ a 600MHz MIPS is better suited to firewall/routing than the Geode. Myself I'd go with an ARM based board like the IPC-SAMA5D35 from armdevs.com. $140 plus postage/customs. Two ethernet ports one of the Gigabit and loads of extras. My main reason being I've programmed them at work so know the ins and outs, so I guess really it's go with what you are comfortable with. Nice board-set, though by the time one's added postage, VAT and a housing, it's getting quite costly. Two NIC's and no switches, so also doesn't do the third above. If one's happy to get that close to the hardware, one of these could also be a candidate: https://www.olimex.com/Products/SOM/AM3352/AM3352-SOM-EVB/open-source-hardware 60 Euros, two NICs, Debian/Android, again no housing. The big advantage for me with the pre-built complete routers is that if they just work sanely out of the box, that's great. If they don't do all I need, a reprogrammable version based on a Linux/FreeBSD certainly should. I'd prefer the former to the latter. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Firewall hardware
On Wed, 2014-12-10 at 23:07 +, Leo wrote: Thanks for that. Although part of me is a little unsure about going for a non-arm or x86 based setup. So now I'm wondering if buying a cheap router and flashing it with openwrt is the way to go... I'm sceptical that you'll find many firewalls that are not either x86 or ARM. They're both pretty much ubiquitous now. Skimming through the OpenWRT hardware list, it looks like there are a few MIPS and PowerPC based units out there. The ARM architectures are, of course, licensed intellectual property, so many chips that don't have the word ARM in the name are still an ARM inside. Whatever platform, there's a distinct advantage in having the software on a physically write-protected memory medium. My guess is that most of the hardware listed on OpenWRT is just that. My personal thought for looking to a micro-PC type device were that I then have full control of the software and don't again get bitten by buying a new, fairly expensive, router that, despite what it says on the box and website, appears not properly to support IPv6. Sole reason for purchase :-( Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Firewall hardware
However in both old-PC cases the cost of and waste of the electricity to run them 24/7 may make them not the lower cost option. Of course scrapping them is also wasteful, so it's a judgement call. Frustratingly my router before last can now be reflashed with OpenWRT, but my present router and it's immediate predecessor can't yet. Of course I scrapped the router before last. :-( I have to say as someone who tries to reuse stuff where sensible that not so long ago I took a good quality Pentium tower, fully working though with a non-Y2K BIOS to the tip for recycling and they said it was too old to be any use Apparently if it can't sensibly run Win7, they're not really interested! On Thu, 2014-12-11 at 10:31 +, Ian Park wrote: I must admit that's the approach I've taken - cost me about £40 for a low profile HP low profile desktop with 512MB RAM and a built-in NIC (even shelled out a fiver for a separate graphics card...) - stuck in an extra PCI NIC from my drawer of bits, installed IPFire and that was it. I could even add a wireless NIC for a blue interface if I wanted. OK, it has a fan in it, but it's not noisy. I -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Firewall hardware
That was my thinking with the LinITX units. Three NICs on a lightweight fanless x86 for £140. The ones at that price are all out-of-stock at present, though. I hope that's just temporary. Two NICs at sub £100. Gordon. On Thu, 2014-12-11 at 10:43 +, David Wills wrote: I use something similar with pfsense on it. Shame is only 2 nics which means you can't use captive portal. It also acts as a squid cache and of course snort. Works very well though. On 10 Dec 2014 23:27, Leo li...@fractal.me.uk wrote: Or failing that, something like: http://www.ebuyer.com/623384-shuttle-ds47-pc-intel-celeron-1-1ghz-intel-hd-graphics-no-os-barebone-ds47 as it has two ethernet ports. Leo -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Firewall hardware
On Wed, 2014-12-10 at 11:45 +, Leo wrote: Can anyone recommend a cheap and quiet box for use as a firewall? As it happens I was just looking for the same. I've used LinITX.com a number of times for small/cheap-ish/quiet boxes as they have a number of fanless options. They've always had a few machines around suitable for firewalls. They presently have a range dedicated to that using ALIX boards. I have not yet used one. http://linitx.com/category/linitx-firewalls/1086/79,1086 http://www.pcengines.ch/alix.htm (lots of very proper OS/FW options) Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Hampshire Digest, Vol 98, Issue 4
My understanding of Tin Hat is the same as used by the WWI Tommy. A sarcastic name for the metal helmet that offers more perceived than actual protection. But usages and understandings change, witness Internet Trolls. My understanding for decades was that it came from the style of fishing Streaming baited fishing lines from the stern of a boat to see if you can get a bite. The original Internet trolling was posting a contentious statement somewhere to see if you could set off a flame war. The meaning seems now to have changed very substantially indeed. Gordon. On Mon, 2014-12-08 at 14:01 +, Lisi wrote: On Monday 08 December 2014 13:46:23 Anthony wrote: Tin Hat Google has let me down. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tinhat So what is a tin hat? An unneccessary protection? A paranoid protection? A necessary protection? Lisi -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Help with Linux server
How long should a server last in your estimation, assuming that drives and fans are replaced every three to five years? In my world, electronics needs to last at least 15 years, and we have plenty of clients whose hardware has lasted over 20 years. And that's without considering high reliability stuff - we had our compilers and code used for the Rosetta/Philae mission. Long life, high reliability products generally cost substantially more than consumer products and even industrial products. The components are much higher grade and much more conservatively rated. You can easily add a zero to the price. And which cloud provider do you trust to a) provide service b) not to mine your data c) not to feed NSA/GCHQ/... You need to read the Ts and Cs very carefully. I might be prepared to trust my own on-site cloud. :- -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] IPv6
I thought perhaps I should stop focussing IPv6-centric and focus instead on Linux-centric. Of course there's a Linux IPv6 howto that helps a lot, including a link to a helpful (IMHO) slide show on building addressing plans, common mistakes and how to avoid them. http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Linux+IPv6-HOWTO/ http://www.v6.dren.net/AddressingPlans.pdf Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
[Hampshire] IPv6
Hi all, I've spent a fair while now trying to get to the bottom of how to set up IPv6 to and on my network. Some makes decent sense, some seems distinctly unclear. I have an allocated subnet (2001::bl00:ah02::/64) and it's related internal, 2001::blah:2000::/56, but I'm not confident about how to specify the interface addresses on a public-facing name-server, or how they relates to the internal addresses. I'm guessing that someone on the list has a better than me about IPv6 and can perhaps give a pointer to documents that help clarify that, and probably other bits I don't yet understand. I guessing also that if I've spent a fair time finding answers to the wrong questions, that I'm not alone, so both the question and the answer are likely useful to others. The whole process for me also seems complicated as either my ISP's IPv6 presentation, or my router's understanding of it, is broken, as at present I can't get an route to the world. Hopefully someone can offer a steer in the right direction. Kind regards, Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] UEFI booting woes
On 10/11/2014 23:48, Joseph Bennie wrote: .. the only meaningful difference was the RH7 changed something and every time it boots theres a little flash of the uefi boot shell before it loads the OS. There is a tool that does boot repairs. It's useful enough that I have a bootable USB stick dedicated to it. This may be what RH did. http://sourceforge.net/projects/boot-repair-cd/ -- This message was written elegantly and lucidly, by my own fair hand using a quill pen on hand laid parchment. It was then scanned, OCRed, spiel-chequed, then cat und pastied into this email. If it's now just gibberish, it's the software's fault. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Arch vs Debian
On Thu, 2014-10-09 at 20:31 +0100, Keith Edmunds wrote: I kept out of the systemd debates at the time, but once the decision was made, I got myself a quick intro to it from one of my tech guys. I was very favourably impressed. I don't want to start a war about it, but it isn't the demon (hehe) it's been made out to be by some. I think this is all down to one's personal attitude to risk in the context. If on doesn't mind if a machine breaks for a while, or indeed if the challenge of fixing it is what makes you tick, then you may want to go for the highest risk option. If your machine is a tool to do a job and it breaking is a significant concern, you'll likely go for a low risk option. The only person who can decide what risk is appropriate is oneself. Everyone else just has their opinion. Now editors, that's another matter ... there is only one true editor, but I'm not going to tell you what it is :-D Gordon. -- Linux for Web Devlopers - 15 Mistakes to Avoid: http://goo.gl/2SKjYL You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Arch vs Debian
On 08/10/14 22:38, Lisi wrote: On Wednesday 08 October 2014 20:20:39 Keith Edmunds wrote: Stable plus backports is, arguably, even better, as then you have security updates as well. This is what I go for and would recommend highly - but then I like an easy life with my desktop. ;-) Personally I can't understand the desire to have the latest versions of things unless you absolutely need some new feature. Latest version unless they're quite minor increments will always carry the risk of problems. Sometimes severe problems. If I need a very latest version of something, then I will usually build it on a known stable machine. That won't make me immune from problems, but it will certainly help and should also constrain the extent of problems. Like Lisi, I like an easy life with my machines. I have a fair number of them and they're tools to help me earn a living. If I'm fixing the tools, I'm not earning. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Career Advice
This is a different answer from the question, but might still be helpful. Some advice I remember. Design your business operations like a franchise. Then, when you get bored with it, you can much more easily delegate, or indeed offer franchises. Not all businesses will design like that, but alternative energy might. Gordon. On Wed, 2014-10-01 at 19:18 +0100, Roger Munford wrote: From time to time this list has given advice to people at the beginning of their careers. I wonder if you have any advice for those at the other end. I spent about 25 years as a contract programmer working on all sorts of projects before stopping to follow a bit of a dream in alternative energy about 6 years ago. However for me, the excitement surrounding alternative energy, on the installation side, has become routine and my heart (not to mention back and knees) is no longer in it. I would like to return to contract programming but don’t feel confident that I could be productive enough without some preparation. I did electrical engineering and electronics at University and have done a lot of assembler and C around hardware projects and have done successful projects in Java, PHP, MySQl, Javascript, HTML, Labview, Postscript and the now defunct Foxpro. Clearly I am not up to speed in any of these now but I thought I would ask the list for views on what languages, tools and sectors are currently sought after and if there is any training or qualification that would be worth investing in. I haven't looked at mobile programming, perhaps that is an option. I maintain a couple of programmes that I wrote for DOS over 25 years ago and have subsequently ported through to Windows 7. They are still in daily use so I feel that I have a good commitment to quality work. Thanks Roger -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Cloud of choice
On Fri, 2014-09-05 at 16:55 +0400, li...@themilwards.biz wrote: Hi All Thinking of spending out for 1tb of Google Drive but wary due to the lack of Linux client but still tempted as it is very cheap for the cost. Does anyone have any suggestions for alternatives? Looking for largish space as I need to start backing my photos up off site (had a dead drive scare recently only to discover that my previous off site wasn't backing up properly) FWIW, and maybe I have more changing data than some, I found that the cloud storage I tried using some while back was simply unable to keep up with the amount of data. In fairness, that was because my CAD system was also making it's own multi-megabyte backups to the same disc that was being mirrored in the cloud. It was also hogging my broadband. I always feel a bit uncomfortable about having data that might possibly be private or otherwise non-disclosable on a public site, however secure they think it is. I'm told a few celebrities agree with me. My personal cloud(ish) storage is now on an ITX computer in a building the other side of a real physical firewall (to stop real physical fires). Consider cron to check that the backups were done OK and tell you if they weren't. Or just an alarm clock to remind you to check. I use BackupPC, which seems pretty reasonable, not a real cloud software. G. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Touch-screens et al.
On Fri, 2014-08-22 at 16:31 +0100, Peter Alefounder wrote: Assuming you are right-handed, try using the mouse with your left hand. No doubt it will take a while to get used to, but may save some trouble later. I do sometimes do that, though not that often. It's easy enough with buttons and most icons, but tricky with the CAD, as many movements are quite fine. I have been known simultaneously to use two mice to control two PCs, but whatever you do don't tell any women that, as we blokes are supposed to be incapable of multi-tasking. I wouldn't want to risk puncturing any illusions. Incidentally, that vertical mouse, which has been helping a lot, is Ambidextrous. It has a switch that swaps all the function from side to side. The friction on the desk is a little high for fine work and the mouse-wheel is a bit jumpy. When I first used it, I also had a tendency to try to use it like a normal mouse, but I'm used to it now. I easily swap between different devices. There are also some things called roll-bar mice that look like they should be very good, but they rather hurt the wallet, so I haven't (yet?) tried one. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
[Hampshire] Touch-screens et al.
On Thu, 2014-08-21 at 00:11 +0100, Joseph Bennie wrote: touch is just evil! give me a mouse and keyboard anytime. Real men, of course, use only the command line :-) I have a few touch devices and, with the exception of the 'phone, they all _also_ have mouse-ish interfaces and a real keyboard. I use the interface that best suits the task. But here's the thing. I've used a mouse for many years now and with the amount of clicking increasing as more and more applications fail to offer a key-press alternative and/or applications are so complex one can't remember them all anyway, has left me with some wrist problems. I've managed (so far) to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome, but I've been suffering with bruising to the ulnar nerve, causing significant pain in my wrist and pain and/or numbness right down my little finger. I now have mice, trackballs, touch-pads, Wacom tablet and a vertical mouse (http://www.posturite.co.uk/ergonomic-mice-keyboards/vertical-mice/penguin-mouse.html). And before anyone asks, no it doesn't vibrate. That particular model just felt right for a Linux user :-) Mice are evil too, I'm afraid. Ho Hum. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Touch-screens et al.
On Thu, 2014-08-21 at 07:40 -0400, j...@osml.eu wrote: I've twice had the same problem with the ulnar nerve-tendon. My solution was to rest the elbow of the arm using the mouse on the desk top. It relieves any stress on the ulnar region. YMMV A friend used to push the keyboard away, move the mouse to the centre of her body-line, use it, push it away and pull back the keyboard. That worked for her, but then she needed the mouse far less than I. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Munich Council was: (no subject)
Look on the bright side. This always looked to me like FUD, and if Microsoft have to move their European Headquarters to Munich to get them out of using a Linux IT infrastructure, that sounds to me like Linux in Munich was causing MS some real heartache. I suspect MS are paying a lot of money for this move. Try to enjoy your holiday. Gordon. -- This message was written elegantly and lucidly, by my own fair hand using a quill pen on hand laid parchment. It was then scanned, OCRed, spiel-chequed, then cat und pastied into this email. If it's now just gibberish, it's the software's fault. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Home Routers
On Thu, 2014-07-31 at 11:53 +0100, Simon Whitehead wrote: Does anyone know if there is a list of the broadband routers ISP’s give to home customers? Give? :- G. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] ISP Filtering
On Tue, 2014-07-29 at 13:50 +0100, James Bensley wrote: All ADSL providers lease the copper pairs to the end site from BT Openreach, With the probable exception of lines in Kingston-upon-Hull, where they have their own telephone network. I doubt that will affect any of us in the Hampshire region, though :-) G. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Weird DNS issues
This is an aside to Adam's mail, but has proven useful to me. Some time back I had some persistent ADSL troubles, that eventually proved to be an unstable interface card in the BT box down the road. However .. during the troubleshooting phase one suggestion was to disconnect my router both from power and from the telephone line for fifteen minutes. My initial reaction was that's silly, the router will reset much quicker than that. The ISP's response was yes it will, but it takes that long for our routers to knock down all of your route, then when you do reconnect it will set up the whole route again from scratch. I've periodically tried that since then if I have odd network problems that a local router reset doesn't fix. It isn't unusual for the fifteen minute trick to work. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
[Hampshire] test .. please ignore
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Re: [Hampshire] disk types and layout on a new box
On Mon, 2013-10-14 at 16:23 +0100, Paul Tansom wrote: ** Anton Piatek an...@piatek.co.uk [2013-10-12 21:54]: I don't trust hard drives as it seems most of mine die sooner or later. ** end quote [Anton Piatek] Of course; They all die sooner or later. I guarantee it, possibly excepting if they get retired first, and even then, many will still run on to extinction in the third world. I'm with you on the distrust of hard drives, and I'm even more uncomfortable at this point with SSD drives. Trusting any of these completely will eventually burn fingers. I never cease to be amazed at just how reliable HDDs are. They sit there spinning away at 5000 to 10,000 rpm for years on end, with tiny mechanical heads flying (literally, using ground-effect) back and forth over them in milliseconds, and they just keep on going ... for ages. But not for ever. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] disk types and layout on a new box
Hi Adam, If it were me doing this, which of course it isn't, I'd likely make the old machine into NAS for bulk storage using perhaps a couple of xTB discs in a mirrored raid, and have just one flash or the desktop itself. The old machine should be plenty good enough for that, probably even with the clock speed reduced to conserve power. Flash drives aren't _necessarily_ either faster or more reliable than spinning rust. On Fri, 2013-09-27 at 08:58 +0100, Dr A. J. Trickett wrote: it's tiny 120 Gig hard disk :-) Hm, the first hard drive I used was the size of an industrial top-loading washing machine, had a massive 5MB fixed + 5MB removable cassette and changing the cassette took half a day to spin down and up again. nothing is ever cheap... Obviously my experiences go back further than yours. I think most stuff today is very cheap, some of it remarkably, even alarmingly, so. Especially in electronics! Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] disk types and layout on a new box
On 27/09/2013 09:29, Alan Pope wrote: I suspect when Adam said Flash he meant SSD. I'm sure he did. Which are almost always faster than spinning rust. Unless you have a really expensive rusty drive or a really cheap and terrible SSD. Indeed. You're right though in guessing that in my mind were other classes of flash drive. I use CF for some jobs and that is very often slower than a hard disc. On reliability, though, I've seen more than a few posts from people who've had 'brand' SSD drives replaced several times in startlingly quick succession because they've failed yet again. I'm not sure why that should be as flash itself is usually pretty reliable. SSDs (etc.) have redundancy to circumvent errors, and indeed to deal with the strange fact that flash, unlike most semiconductors, actually _does_ wear out. Gordon. -- This message was written elegantly and lucidly, by my own fair hand using a quill pen on hand laid parchment. It was then scanned, OCRed, spiel-chequed, then cat und pastied into this email. If it's now just gibberish, it's the software's fault. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
[Hampshire] Privacy ( was choice of motherboard for use with Linux)
On Sun, 2013-09-15 at 21:54 +0100, Daniel Llewellyn wrote: And the reason people refer to email as like a postcard as opposed to a letter One of the arguments for encryption of email was that if one wouldn't post a letter without putting it in an envelope, why do we send emails without something similar. The catch with encrypting e-mail, of course, is that it pretty much guarantees that certain organisations will immediately start taking a strong interest in it. There are several big nuisance factors of 'targeted' advertising. It presumes that mail or searches one send or does mention subjects of interest to me, rather than to some second or third party; It may presume that keywords in emails are of interest to me, when those emails are spam. They presume that ones interest is still extant. Yes, my mileage does vary :-) Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Privacy ( was choice of motherboard for use with Linux)
On Mon, 2013-09-16 at 12:23 +0100, Daniel Llewellyn wrote: I think Facebook is probably the worst offender in terms of potential privacy issues in regards to targeted advertising. I'm listed on there as being Single, so Facebook ads have worked out that I obviously want to date an Asian woman or a woman in uniform along with several other dating-related adverts. Neither of these are necessarily true, and presuppose that I want to date at all. I get similar to those, but I'm not on Facebook or Twitter, or indeed most other 'social networking' sites. I suspect those adds target any presumed male. I can't tell how good their content targeting is. But there is an example of where privacy might be as issue. Could 'alternatively leaning' targeted advertising cause embarrassment or worse. I guess we've all used search terms that with hindsight can be interpreted other than we plan. I run used to run a website about wildlife for which I often research Animals, wildlife and so on. I used to have to do a _lot_ of post filtering on some searches to exclude inappropriate matches. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] choice of motherboard for use with Linux
On Fri, 2013-09-13 at 09:24 +0100, Owain Clarke wrote: Google Has No Respect for Your Privacy IMHO, that's an understatement (no disrespect). Google appears to see our personal information as it's prime target. I've been _very_ confident for a long time now that Google scans and uses gmail content. They've always scanned search and 'click-on' results (of course). They're now using tracking cookies that my Windows virus checker considers trojans. For a couple of years already, I now only use Google in any form as a last resort. Sadly I'm not convinced any other search-oriented companies are actually any better :-( Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] choice of motherboard for use with Linux
On Fri, 2013-09-13 at 14:30 +0100, Brad Rogers wrote: What I can't believe, because it's simply not possible, is that google 'accidentally' slurped up people's data whilst driving around taking pictures for streetview. I feel sure that's not a silly mistake they're likely to repeat with Google Glass and it's WiFi, Bluetooth (and hence mobile-phone) connections. Oh no, no, no, they wouldn't do that! Nor with Android. Self-driving cars offer numerous possibilities. Climb in. Take me to my aunt Morticia's please Ah yes, she lives in the big dark house on the hill; make yourself comfortable, sir, and we'll be there shortly. You turn on the in-drive TV with both subliminal and blindingly obvious flashing adverts. The car drives off. Ten minutes later, the car announces You have arrived at your destination, sir. and the doors open to reveal that you're outside the very shop where they sell those advertised products. The car helpfully tells you that Your aunt Morticia has been looking for one of those! A shop assistant helpfully puts a 13.5GHz Intel i9 Ultra-Gamer-Xpletive-XIII+ in the car and gives you the receipt already charged to your contactless credit card. OK, that's supposed to be funny. I think Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Recommendations sought for system upgrade
On 23/08/2013 18:15, James Courtier-Dutton wrote: On Aug 23, 2013 4:39 PM, Peter Alefounder p_alefoun...@yahoo.co.uk mailto:p_alefoun...@yahoo.co.uk wrote: Gordon Scott gor...@gscott.co.uk mailto:gor...@gscott.co.uk said: They say that does have a VGA D-Type. Gigabyte seem unsure .. in one place it says yes, in another it says no. Odd. Odd indeed. I'm not sure what type of VGA I have, I will look into that. I didn't know there was more than one. If you need vga out, most DVI have a Vga output. all you need is a connection adapter. Mostly for Peter's information. 'VGA' is normally a 15-pin D-Type connector in a 'DE' (9-pin) shell. If you look at the connector, the metal surround is oval with a lightly assymetric 'D' shape, and with three staggered rows of pins or sockets, depending on whether you look at the PC or the lead. DVI is a larger connector, also slightly D shaped, also with three rows of pins, but they're not staggered; I also has a little cluster at one end, with a blade connection (IIRC it's a connection, possibly it's just a polariser). DVI comes on analogue, digital. or both formats. There are pictures here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Visual_Interface together with some explanations if you're interested. There are DVI to VGA adapters around as James says, but oddly GigaByte _appear_ to say something along the lines of not with this board, you can't. I'm not sure I believe that, but if I wanted VGA and they couldn't or wouldn't say yes, it works, I probably wouldn't part with my money for it, despite my feeling that it probably does work just fine. Gordon -- This message was written elegantly and lucidly, by my own fair hand using a quill pen on hand laid parchment. It was then scanned, OCRed, spiel-chequed, then cat und pastied into this email. If it's now just gibberish, it's the software's fault. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] How to get your foot in the door?
On 20/08/2013 07:27, Bob Dunlop wrote: or ./configure make make install You could consider variant like this, too: ( ./configure ; make ; make install ) 21 | tee Errors.txt FWIW, I personally always do the three stages of installing separately. The make install often needs a sudo, unless you're already root. On 2013-08-19 20:35, Ally Biggs wrote: Maybe I should come along to some meets and get hands on I've been a bit put off though as I'm no guru. Gurus have to start somewhere to become gurus and LUG meetings would be a good place. If you're going to work for yourself and/or run a business of some kind, you need to practice taking a deep breath and walking in! Mostly afterwards you'll wonder why you were apprehensive. Occasionally you'll know you were right to be apprehensive, because that hurt. Don't forget that one (of many) definition of an expert is someone who's half an hour ahead of you on the learning curve. ;-) Gordon -- This message was written elegantly and lucidly, by my own fair hand using a quill pen on hand laid parchment. It was then scanned, OCRed, spiel-chequed, then cat und pastied into this email. If it's now just gibberish, it's the software's fault. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] How to get your foot in the door?
On 19/08/2013 23:12, Joseph Bennie wrote: for real programming tasks … good old c and c++ I'm a big proponent of C, but like Perl, it's sometimes rightly described as a write-only language. Whatever language(s) you end up using, try to discipline yourself to write simply and tidily, and use white space generously. It's very irritating, but also a complement, when someone looks at your code and says Oh, that's really simple. Even I could have written that!. C is extremely capable, but also can very easily allow you to shoot yourself in the foot. If you use C and your coding is done well that should rarely happen. Two key phrases (IMHO), defensive programming and avoiding buffer overruns. Lots of potentially dangerous C functions have safer versions .. compare strcpy() and strncpy(), sprintf() and snprintf(), used, e.g., with sizeof(). … if you can't solve a problem with c .. give up! :-) Scripting and programming are different Though the edges between scripting and interpreted languages and compiled languages are very blurry. I worry about 'too much information', but I'll throw another language (pair) into the mix. Have a look at Ruby and Ruby-On-Rails. Ruby itself is an object-oriented language that has a neat and tidy structure. Ruby-On-Rails is its web-server extension. http://www.ruby-lang.org http://rubyonrails.org/ Most of us have collected a number of languages over the years. We prefer some to others and we're better at some than others. -- This message was written elegantly and lucidly, by my own fair hand using a quill pen on hand laid parchment. It was then scanned, OCRed, spiel-chequed, then cat und pastied into this email. If it's now just gibberish, it's the software's fault. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] How to get your foot in the door?
On Tue, 2013-08-20 at 14:46 +0100, Michael Daffin wrote: I highly recommend learning python, it is easy to learn, available out of the box on just about every Linux distro which makes it the ideal language to write scripts in as it is highly likely that they will work on most Linux systems without needing to install many extra packages. FWIW, most of the popular languages like those can also be run on Windows or Mac. Certainly true of Perl, Python, Ruby, Tcl, Java. I also recommend learning how to use the vi editor as it is often the only editor on some systems and you will likely need to at least know how to use it. I'd second that, but I'm biassed as vi (well vim these days) is my editor of choice. Initially is seems arcane and cryptic, but there are some good tutorials out there that will get you going quite quickly. vi is one of a modest number of editors that will work just fine either on the host machine, or over a telnet or ssh session. pure vi is text only, vim hav a gui flavour, gvim, that's easier to use, but allows you not to learn the stuff you'll need via ssh. You should always use instead of ; for that sequence of commands, as will stop That's good advice. Stopping was why I always did it manually. I see me using in the future. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Recommendations sought for system upgrade
On 15/08/2013 17:14, Peter Alefounder wrote: ... am copying everything to SD cards (slowly, over a USB 1.1 connection). I already have back-ups of all the really important files anyway. You can get new PCI Ethernet cards for under a tenner, or probably scrounge one somewhere. I've been following this thread with interest, In the past I always upgraded machines, but recently it seems nothing much carries forward. IDE has gone to SATA, I/O has all gone USB, RAM has changed, CPUs have all changed. For the last couple of rebuilds, the only thing salvageable from the main PC itself has been the case. I still have a PS2 keyboard on one machine. It isn't so long ago that I finally disposed of an old AT 486. My monitors I finally disposed of when I voluntarily changed to LCDs, mostly for space though the lower power consumption was a plus. I nearly posted comments like that a the start of the thread, but waited in case I'd 'missed a trick' (Jamie's, perhaps). FWIW, I've started using ITX and micro-ATX machines for many jobs. Where I don't need raw power, these are really good and very low energy, though ITX carries a price premium. My main fileserver is a 1GHz fanless ITX with two 2.5 500bG drives, that takes a total power somewhere around 15W. The case fan sometimes starts on particularly warm days. Most of my installs are now done from a memory stick, so most machines no longer ave any CD/DVD drive. Backups are done automatically by a micro-ATX in the garage by backuppc over a WiFi link. http://linitx.com/category/systems/51/51 Gordon. -- This message was written elegantly and lucidly, by my own fair hand using a quill pen on hand laid parchment. It was then scanned, OCRed, spiel-chequed, then cat und pastied into this email. If it's now just gibberish, it's the software's fault. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Enabling Secure Boot
On 09/07/13 12:02, Stephen Nelson-Smith wrote: Hello chums, I have a Novatech laptop, bought maybe 3 months ago. It came with no operating system. I installed Windows 7 on it for a project which needed Windows, but now want to install Linux on it. I've got Fedora 18 install media on a USB stick, but when I try to boot the installer I get the message: Secure boot not enabled/ A little research suggests that Novatech machines do have Secure Boot enabled on machines with Windows 8 preinstalled. However I can't see in the BIOS any way to enable it. Anyone had a similiar issue? Or any ideas how to enable this? Perhaps from the UEFI shell? -- Stephen Nelson-Smith Technical Director Atalanta Systems Ltd www.atalanta-systems.com http://www.atalanta-systems.com Hi Stephen, There are two interpretations of that message that come to mind. One is that Fedora 18 is expecting a secure boot UEFI/BIOS and doesn't find it. More likely (IMHO .. but I could very easily be wrong) is that the UEFI/BIOS is expecting software with a signature and Fedora doesn't have one. On my ASUS notebook, I turned off secure booting and was then able to install, but then I can't remember what messages I had. There's a utility called Boot-Repair that might also be useful. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Win8 recovery (not as OT as it sounds)
On Sun, 2013-06-09 at 12:03 +0100, Gordon Scott wrote: So I'll be doing a fresh install again from Win8-Pro again. A followup on this if anyone's interested. I installed afresh from Win8-Pro. I formatted the memory stick to NTFS and using Linux, copied the recovery or restore partitions (the one with the most data) to the memory stick, then used Win8-pro to 'refresh', which appears to have recovered all the Win8 drivers, but I presume reverted to Win8-Home (how does one tell?). So then I did the upgrade to Win8-pro. Seems to have gone OK. It all now dual boots again as intended, and the broken bit (the touch-screen) works again in both OSs. Incidently, I had a lot of trouble when trying to restore/refresh because the partition with Win8: Is locked. Please unlock and try again. But with no clues _how_ to unlock. I searched the web for ages, but none of the 'solutions' I found made any difference. After I gave that up and tried to install Win8-pro, the installer said the partition had been something (locked/reserved?) by the OEM, which presumably was my 'locked' problem. I just deleted the partition. After that I could install OK. What a pigs ear of a process. All those hours of messing about just for two applications that aren't on Linux and the occasional 'does my code work on Win8? check. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Win8 recovery (not as OT as it sounds)
On Tue, 2013-06-18 at 09:06 +0100, Peter B. wrote: Not sure but could the locked bit be that the drive was mounted maybe thus locked... I guess so. None of the Win8 tools would unlock it. IIRC gparted didn't understand the problem. Deleting the partition was easy, but I first wasted a huge amount of time trying not to. :-( Win8 recovery seems to me quite fundamentally broken. I still haven't tried dd on it. G. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Linux compatible cameras
On 16/06/2013 09:12, Keith Edmunds wrote: I'm looking for a simple-to-use camera that is Linux compatible. It's for my mum, who is in her 70s, so point, click is about as complex as it needs to be. Her PC runs Linux, supported by yours truly from 165 miles away, so ideally she would connect the camera to the PC with a USB cable and it would Just Work. Thanks I think probably all of them now look like a USB memory stick. I guess they're typically composite devices (MSD+Camera) as normally you can also control them from PC. One thing to check is that either it has a proper viewfinder, or the screen is usable in bright sunlight. My wife's camera struggled with that and we bought a pop-up sunshade for her camera: http://delkin.com/c-147097-protect-pop-up-shade-universal.html They're neat and work pretty well. FWIW I've always been an Olympus enthusiast and Sue's that needed the sun-shade was the only shortcoming, ever. Gordon. -- This message was written elegantly and lucidly, by my own fair hand using a quill pen on hand laid parchment. It was then scanned, OCRed, spiel-chequed, then cat und pastied into this email. If it's now just gibberish, it's the software's fault. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Linux compatible cameras
On 16/06/2013 10:37, Keith Edmunds wrote: FWIW I've always been an Olympus enthusiast If Olympus just work, that's a possibility, thanks. Any particular (lower end) Olympus you'd recommend? I couldn't make a specific recommendation as I haven't looked at any for some time, and don't tend to look at the lowest cost end. There are a couple of ways on their website to look for suitable cameras. Try starting here: http://www.olympus.co.uk/site/en/c/cameras/index.html There's a product finder to the right, then Guided and probably pick the basic camera option. Their entry-level VG-150 is £48.50 on Amazon here. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Olympus-V106060BE000-Vg-150-Black/dp/B006VPDNPM Mostly it's a little higher. Reviews a bit elusive, but: http://www.photographyblog.com/news/olympus_vg-150_and_vg-160/ http://www.naaptol.com/digital-cameras/olympus-point---shoot-vg-150/P/3683646.html http://www.testfreaks.co.uk/digital-cameras/olympus-vg-150/user-reviews/ Should give an idea. The manual confirms it is compatible with the USB mass storage class. Gordon. -- This message was written elegantly and lucidly, by my own fair hand using a quill pen on hand laid parchment. It was then scanned, OCRed, spiel-chequed, then cat und pastied into this email. If it's now just gibberish, it's the software's fault. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Win8 recovery (not as OT as it sounds)
On 07/06/13 21:23, Ally Biggs wrote: Acronis true image is good for capturing images, Or you can use Microsoft deployment tools such as WAIK to capture and deploy images, you basically boot up the completed system in a pre installation environment and capture the image using a tool called imagex always ensure you sysprep images before you deploy. Hope this helps WAIK is pretty kool it's basically a suite of tools for image deployment including a tool called DISM for injecting drivers and patches into images. Anyways that's enough of the boring Microsoft stuff lol :) I've heard good reports elsewhere of Acronis True Image. I'm think I'm not going to trust an MS image stuff. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
[Hampshire] Win8 recovery (not as OT as it sounds)
Hi Guys, After my new notepad went back for repair, it's been returned with just the factory Win8 on it, and I want it back to dual boot. When originally I made it dual boot, Win8 wouldn't run, so I tried the Win8 recovery, which just baulked because it couldn't fin a partition. Now I'm again back to making a reboot, I'd like this time to get a 'recovery' disc that actually does recover the system. I've tried several of the built-in tools .. recovery, refresh, reset (because the former two trashed the disc) and all I've done is get back to factory reset again. The Win-7 image create isn't presently working to a USB stick, though I'm told it should. I'm now wondering if there's another way to get a recovery image. I'm open to any suggestions that will be OK with a Linux partition on the disc. The is the new UEFI setup, BTW. I have been wondering if that ancient but good tool dd might be applicable here. I'll be having a look at that, anyway. Unfortunately the obvious alternative of just binning Win8 is not an option :-( It's a pile of poo, but I have to have it. = I guess many of you are aware of this, but some will not be. If you use the Win8 restore and/or refresh functions, (and if it works!), it keeps you data and any applications you bought from the Microsoft store, but removes all other programs! Inclluding those that have, for example, a restricted number of installs! = Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Using the host file
On 23/05/13 18:39, Tim wrote: I am trying to access a web site via a different IP address than the normal web site sits on. I have been told (by the owners of the the web site) to add an IP address to my host file which resolve to the domain name. So I edited the /etc/host file as follows 1.1.1.1 thesite.co.uk (all fictitious, just an example) I then saved it and restarted the networking. I then tested the access to the web site and while I could access the web site I am unable to access the bit of the web site that I need to access which the above mod to the host file should of let me access. How can I check that the web browser is accessing the web site via the changes I made in the host file and not using the old settings? Tim You could, of course, just access it as http://10.11.12.13 provided it's not using virtual sites. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Accessing genealogy data on PDF files
On Mon, 2013-05-13 at 17:39 +0100, Vic wrote: Any particular reason you're averse to a Free solution? I don't believe for one minute that John is averse to a free solution. I think it's justthat, as he said in the first paragraph, they ain't good enough I agree with him, despite acroread being a bug-ridden pile of proprietary junk (IMHO). Your example Okular is good, but try zooming in to read small print or drawing details on a scalable document or similar and you'll find it pixelated where acroread renders cleanly. For me that makes Okular unusable. Last time I tried, all the others had some problem. Personally I'd love to consign acroread to the skip, but it hasn't happened yet. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] [OT] Friday Fun Question
On Tue, 2013-05-07 at 14:43 +0100, Lisi wrote: and I was wondering why on earth we needed to reboot.* -8- *In case you are wondering, when I went up to the chap and asked, the answer was To check that everything is O.K. I _like_ to reboot sometime after an upgrade, to confirm that everything is indeed OK, but it's a preference not a need. That preference applies also to the kernel. The present kernel is working, the new one probably also will, there's likely no hurry. G. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Windows 8 + Dual Booting
Hi Guys, I hadn't fully (or perhaps formally) recognised the cloud strategy, but I did click a number of the what's that then mega-buttons in TIFKAM to get a Login to your Microsoft account window. At which point, of course, I exited and unpinned the app from the start screen. On Mon, 2013-04-15 at 23:25 +0100, Daniel Llewellyn wrote: On 15 April 2013 23:11, Leszek Kobiernicki 1 10. With Linux, you need NEVER pay for another piece of software ever again Well, someone, somewhere has to pay something, somehow, or many people simply wouldn't produce 'free'(beer) software. FWIW, I still use a number of commercial (and quite expensive) applications, some on Linux, some on Windows. There are 'free'(beer) applications, but many remain a long way behind the commercial packages (no criticism here; these are complex tools for nichy markets). Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Windows 8 + Dual Booting
Hi Les, We probably don't disagree as much as you may think, but... On Tue, 2013-04-16 at 11:42 +0100, Leszek Kobiernicki 1 wrote: On Mon, 2013-04-15 at 23:25 +0100, Daniel Llewellyn wrote: ( snip ) Well, someone, somewhere has to pay something, somehow, or many people simply wouldn't produce 'free' (beer) software. * Just look at reboot. pro: the devs. there don't charge, but do their self-imposed tasks gratis. So _they_ are paying with their time. Doubtless, they are in paid employment in a company, ...or possibly _they_ are paying. so do their creative work, in their spare time, purely for the love of it - which, to my mind, is a perfectly good arrangement ( I, too, did the same, for many years ). Indeed. Lots of students produce software, too. If they're in private education, their parents are probably paying, if it's state education, then probably you and I are paying for stuff done in the UK, at east. I would argue that it's entirely fair to charge for tech support absolutely. in resolving device-specific knotty problems Or indeed just where it may be more convenient to pay someone else to sort things out. But software is only really a toolbox, and the tools should be free: That's where we do disagree. I don't expect to just wander down to BQ and help myself to an electric drill without paying for it. Why should I or anyone else necessarily feel that a software tool should be free. Just because there's nothing physical, it doesn't mean that it cost nothing to produce or has no value. it's the labour that.to me, is valuable, almost beyond price. Unless it's human labour expended making tools? Then it has no value? The human input should rightly be valued - rather than the tools that do ( - or don't effectively do - ) the job they are developed for. Working in a software development house, I saw the human contribution costed into overall Project costs, then recoverable through a hardware implementation, powered by the associated software. So here the buyer of the hardware pays. But the software was only ever regarded as a form of activation, of the far more important hardware being submitted, from proof-of-concept, to prototyping. I use the exact same strategy myself, particularly where the hardware is, if you like, the 'dongle'. I also make tools to make my own life easier and I'm often happy to release those into the wild, gratis. But again _I_ paid for those tools (by building them myself). This I consider a sounder basis for costing, pricing, fundamental IT investment, overall. That falls down somewhere when there's no hardware, though. Several of my tools are the CAD packages that I use to design the hardware. There's no hardware for the makers of those tools to recoup their costs. There is also a certain amount of you get what you pay for, though some of the 'free'(beer) stuff is fabulously good and some of the paid-for is rubbish. I'm a big proponent of OpenSource and try to use it most of the time, and also encourage its use by others. But I also find there are times when the management effort with some is just too great. I use a commercial programming tool for embedded work, because I used to waste so much time working out why changes broke my environment. I need to earn a living and my time is better spent doing that that trying to find out, e.g., why OpenOCD isn't working today. Dual-booting has been made more difficult than it inherently needs to be, through deliberate software development to inhibit that capability; accordingly, some hardware now needs a kind of team input, from more than one head, to get it going properly .. I think maybe so. I think there's a good argument that they're protecting people from accidentally installing malware, though I'm unconvinced that argument stands up to any serious scrutiny. Kind regards, Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] re Windows 8 + Dual Booting
On Sun, 2013-04-14 at 14:38 +0100, Sean Gibbins wrote: On 14/04/13 13:35, Stephen Davies wrote: Shame on you. No one in their right mind does that. :) :-) How dare you! :-) I just did the self-same thing because I needed a notebook or laptop right now, no ifs, no buts. And it needed Windows, and sometime I have to sest software with Win8, so it might as well start now. Take the time to go to Novatech and see what they have to offer. +1 I bought an ASUS S200E notebook with Win8 preinstalled on it. They couldn't supply it with a retail Win8, but I was also able _with_ the ASUS to get a full retail Win8-Pro at a surprisingly good price. Indeed dual boot can be done. I did the Windows stuff I needed, than made the 'recovery disc' on a USB stick (it wanted 20GB) on the basis that, even if I couldn't reinstall in the event of a pear-shaped, I could at least revert to to the original install and start over. The first problem was finding how to get to the BIOS as the usual boot screen with 'press DEL' or whatever didn't appear. It was hidden .. the getting started documents, IIRC, give the clue. I spent a while, then, trying to get anything to boot, before learning that one needs to change a couple of things in the BIOS to let it. I had of course to set the boot options, but also turn off Secure Boot After that, my USB stick booted OK. At this point I used a 'remix' copy of Ubuntu 12.04LTS, though IIRC I later repeated this with a standard Ubuntu 12.10. A brief explanation here. I'm told (not verified), that there has to be a 'key' to allow booting, and that key is purportedly in the 'remix' and Ubuntu 12.10 onwards. Not sure I'm convinced. The advice was to boot the 'remix' copy as a standalone version and use the Boot Repair tool on the desktop to adapt booting. They said Just accept the recommendation, so I did. Then do the install. I installed side-by-side and the remix-12.04 went on fine and seemed to be working OK, including the touch-screen (single-touch, anyway). Back out on Linux and reboot to Windows. Not. It won't boot. Try the Boot-Repair again, no help. Try several flavours on Windows repair, no help. Try the recovery USB stick, ready to start over completely if necessary. The USB recovery stick reports a missing partition and will not play! Well, I try a bunch of other stuff, no success. Initially I give up an just declare it a Linux-only machine, but I did want to test stuff with Win8 and eventually I went back and tried some more. What I did at this stage was try installing Win8-Pro on the original Win8 partition, but the 'upgrade' process would not install onto an EFI drive, only onto NTFS. I think I reformatted to NTFS, but it said the same thing :-| OK, full Win8-Pro install on that partition. That seemed to go reasonably. I don't remember any particular issues with it, except of course that there are now no vendor-supplied drivers and applications. Since then, I've been downloading and installing drivers, etc., from ASUS and most of that has gone OK (no Bluetooth, but it's possible there's a fault). So, now I have a dual-booting Ubuntu 12.?? and Win8-Pro system, both halves apparently working OK (sans BT). CAVEAT. You'll note from he above that I never got the shipped Win8-OEM to install or recover. I was fortunate that I had the Pro version to fall back on. I don't know what one does if one does not. You'll also not that the 'recovery disc' _didn't_! About which I've made comment to Microsoft. Maybe a backup disc as well would have helped? FWIW, like many people, I think the Win8 Interface that used to be called Metro pretty horrible, but then if you followed my views on Unity, that will come as no surprise (IMHO at least Unity is better than Win8). I'm told one can regain the old start-menu, but, as with Unity, I'm going to try to live with the new flavour on Win for now. Kind regards, Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Upgrade problem to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
On Sat, 2013-03-23 at 14:29 +, Gordon Scott wrote: Seems like I also can't mount my fileserver's NFS. Looks to be that the server upgraded to not support NFS3 and the workstation upgraded to default to NFS3. For the present I've dropped back to NFS2, but presumably I should aim to move both ends to NFS4. No time at present. Work to do. G. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Upgrade problem to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
I've found the answer to the displays problem. There's an AMD specific application 'amdcccle' that gives control of the ATI cards and allows of how the cards may map displays. That has the usual arrange-screens and clone/extend options. It also needs to be set up in Linux itself, i.e., non-mirror. I've gained access to my fileserver via samba for now. Still exploring why NFS is broken, but at least I can work again. Another PC with 12.04 LTS works OK, so I'll look at the differences between them. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
[Hampshire] Upgrade problem to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
Hi Guys, After doing all that investigation and learning I finally run the upgrade on my main work machine, expecting it to go reasonably smoothly. Not so far :-( The upgrade has happened, but some stuff is distinctly wrong and I have yet to understand why. The only desktop I can use is Unity 3D. Everything else comes up with a desktop, with my own desktop stuff, but with no menus at all. No toolbar, no shut-down, nothing. (I switch out of X to a raw terminal to shut down). Also, my multiple screens won't now operate independently. Something I see as the X session starts after login may give clues to this. I get a pop-up before X is fully running saying: -8- : unable to launch EDITOR=vi X session --- EDITOR=vi not found; falling back to default session. -8- The only option is 'Okay'. Nothing obvious in dmesg or the X_org logs. The multi-screens issue may be a symptom of X fallback? When I try to set non-mirrored, it says something like requested size 3840x1080 is larger that 1920x1920. Both screens are 1920x1080. I do have a graphics card that needs a proprietary driver, though that was working OK on 10:04LTS. Any ideas, please? Thanks. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Upgrade problem to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
Hi Alan, On Sat, 2013-03-23 at 11:48 +, Alan Pope wrote: On 23/03/13 11:31, Gordon Scott wrote: The only desktop I can use is Unity 3D. Everything else comes up with a desktop, with my own desktop stuff, but with no menus at all. No toolbar, no shut-down, nothing. (I switch out of X to a raw terminal to shut down). Sometimes people install/remove stuff over the life of their system which results in one of the critical packages for operation to get removed. You can ensure that everything that should be installed is installed with this pair of commands (not the caret):- sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop^ That installs nothing and suggests a couple of three that could be removed. I would run that and observe if any packages get _installed_ as they were missing which may lead to some of the issues you're seeing. Also, my multiple screens won't now operate independently. I would backup and remove your /etc/X11/xorg.conf and let X figure out your screen setup automagically, then perhaps use nvidia-settings to fiddle about with the layout. Hm, I didn't know one could do that. It's made no difference, though :-( Something I see as the X session starts after login may give clues to this. I get a pop-up before X is fully running saying: -8- : unable to launch EDITOR=vi X session --- EDITOR=vi not found; falling back to default session. -8- That looks like an incorrectly formatted line in your x session startup somewhere? I ran out of time yesterday, but today I'm running some find+grep lines. I have it 'set EDITOR=vi' in my personal .profile, which for the moment I've commented out with a #. I'll try that when the find has finished. Nothing else besides .xsession-errors and my mail has it. The multi-screens issue may be a symptom of X fallback? When I try to set non-mirrored, it says something like requested size 3840x1080 is larger that 1920x1920. Both screens are 1920x1080. Removing xorg.conf will probably work this out. Sadly not yet. BTW, I've just felt obliged to get Windows-8 and my criticisms of Unity usability are as nothing compared to Win-8. That's absolutely appalling! Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Upgrade problem to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
On Sat, 2013-03-23 at 12:25 +, Gordon Scott wrote: I ran out of time yesterday, but today I'm running some find+grep lines. I have it 'set EDITOR=vi' in my personal .profile, which for the moment I've commented out with a #. Which results only in the pop-up reporting that it can't launch VISUAL=gvim, which is the preceding line in the same file. Commenting out that as well results at least in Gnome fallback setting up properly. The screens still won't separate with the same message. I'm puzzled that these two environment setting lines should result in that error/behaviour, and indeed what to do about it. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Upgrade problem to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
Seems like I also can't mount my fileserver's NFS. 8 gordon@Gordon-CoolLED:$ sudo mount /osmia mount.nfs: an incorrect mount option was specified 8 8 gordon@Gordon-CoolLED:$ sudo mount --verbose /osmia mount.nfs: timeout set for Sat Mar 23 14:14:02 2013 mount.nfs: text-based options: 'rsize=8192,wsize=8192,timeo=14,intr,addr=10.0.0.108' mount.nfs: mount(2): Protocol not supported mount.nfs: trying 10.0.0.108 prog 13 vers 3 prot UDP port 2049 mount.nfs: trying 10.0.0.108 prog 15 vers 3 prot UDP port 48390 mount.nfs: mount to NFS server '10.0.0.108:/' failed: RPC Error: Success 8 The fileserver was upgraded to 12:04 LTS a couple of day back and appeared to go fine. Nothing much appeared to break. I'm rather guessing an nfs version mismatch or similar. I've been searching the web for solutions to that, but nothing yet has helped. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Upgrade problem to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
On Sat, 2013-03-23 at 16:12 +, Alan Pope wrote: There's a handy package called pastebinit which can help:- Hm, yes. Neat. Then let us have the links so we can see the output please. http://paste.ubuntu.com/5640512/ http://paste.ubuntu.com/5640513/ Xlog then dpkg. The dpkg data looks rather sparse. Gordon. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Upgrade problem to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
On Sat, 2013-03-23 at 16:29 +, Alan Pope wrote: Ah my bad. When you said proprietary driver I daftly assumed nvidia, not ATI. Seems you have an ATI card. I don't know a lot about ATI cards but lets see what we can do. Hm, well, actually I _thought_ I had an Nvidia card, which is partly why I didn't query your request. Looking through a ventilator I can, though, see what looks like it's probably the ATI logo. ATI usually work out of the box :-/ I guess the Nvidia was on some other PC. Which video card do you have? Can you:- lspci -vn | pastebinit http://paste.ubuntu.com/5640513/ I guess the files on paste... expire after some time and get purged? -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Upgrade problem to Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
On Sat, 2013-03-23 at 18:32 +, Alan Pope wrote: On 23/03/13 16:58, Gordon Scott wrote: Which video card do you have? Can you:- lspci -vn | pastebinit http://paste.ubuntu.com/5640513/ That's your dpkg from earlier.. Sorry Alan. Try again. http://paste.ubuntu.com/5641056/ -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Improving Home Broadband Talk - Follow Up
On 07/03/2013 22:44, Daniel Llewellyn wrote: you do yourself a disservice assuming Kb to KB is an order of ten magnitude difference. The maths is not _so_ funky as bps is the rate of the data as the raw bits that flow down the line, and Bps is the rate of the bytes in the payload, so will be less than 100%. On a serial line with 8n1, it will be close to 10 bits per byte. On ADSL, I presume it's typically(*) better than that, though I don't know how much better. (*) That should be measured after delivery of good data, so I guess on a line with intermittent noise it may be possible to have a decent bps but an extremely poor Bps ... at least occasionally, because of many retransmissions. [side-rant] WHY do so many people get KB and Kb, i.e. bits vs bytes and MB vs mB i.e. Mega vs Mili wrong! The number of times I see something like I've got a 5mb connection and have to refrain from asking what a milibit is! It's not even as if they were wanting to say MegaBits, but instead getting it wrong twice by meaning MegaBYTEs. There's a standard for a reason people! [/tongue-in-cheek-ranting-lunatic] Then there's mhZ which I've seen countless times. And there are Billion and Trillion where we persist (now) in using the US meanings (10^9 and 10^12) rather than the European meanings (12^12 and 10^18). There's an opportunity for a very big misunderstanding indeed if one talks about 'a billion Euros'. Now, you see, you've got me started :- Gordon. -- This message was written elegantly and lucidly, by my own fair hand using a quill pen on hand laid parchment. It was then scanned, OCRed, spiel-chequed, then cat und pastied into this email. If it's now just gibberish, it's the software's fault. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] [OT] Domain registrars
On 05/03/2013 21:19, Leo wrote: Thank you all, I'll take a look at the suggestions. I've got a follow up question too. How easy is it to switch registrars if I wanted to switch my existing domains too? Or rather how easy is it to switch the mail addresses I've got set up, as I presume switching the domain registrations is reasonably straightforward? Will they switch all my existing email addresses, or do I have to set them up again? I've done this the usual way in the past and it's been pretty painless. Normally you get a transfer code from your old registrar and supply that to the new registrar with the transfer request, pay a small fee and everything transfers. This time was a little different, but NOT because of the new registrar. I'll describe my own experience moving from ukfsn to tsohost. Other changes may be a little different. I moved because Jason at ukfsn was simply no longer responding to support requests .. I think the sole proprietor had quit. I'd been unable to renew domains and they were expiring fast. I looked at a few providers and chose tsohost as I'd seen several recommendations. So far they've been good. As I couldn't get any response from ukfsn, I mailed tsohost support for advice. Initially I received the standard response, but I repeated the tricky bit and they advised going to Nominet to seize back my .uk domains. A small charge (12?) covered all the domains and they confirm carefully (I had to write a letter, scan and mail it, together with a proof of identity ditto (driving licence, services invoice, or the like). Once the domains were with Nominet, the change went ahead as normal. Tsohost were not able to advise on my .com domains, but in that case, the ukfsn on-line management tools were working fine and supplied the transfer code when I unlocked the domains. Tsohost advised renewing before the transfer if there was less than 9 days to run, but I couldn't; I personally had no problems, but I guess there's a good reason why they advise that. Tsohost automatically renewed the expired domains as they transferred. You can set up websites as you wish within the constraints of your subscription. I had (I think) to set up a generic mailbox for each domain. They offer an option to upload some stuff by CSV (mail address and dns, maybe? I didn't use it). All my mail gets collected by fetchmail and that worked fine when I copied the ukfsn rules, setting the new server and account names as appropriate (the old pop3 account was just a login name, the new imap uses a login email address, which felt a little odd in the script, but worked fine). If you want specific email redirects from tsohost, you can just add them via the management pages. Personally I do all those in my local postfix. I have an slightly adapted wwwsync for my websites. I just changed the paths and login, and ran it. My first website on tsohost appeared. I have yet to transfer some others. They offer several website toolsets and databases, etc. (Ruby-on-Rails, Wordpress, CodeIgniter, Concrete5, Coppermine, CubeCart, DocuWiki, Drupal, Elgg, Gallery, Joomla, etc...; MySQL, MSSQL[*]). So far, everything I've done with tsohost has been pretty straightforward. I was a little apprehensive when I started as I have a bunch of odd setups, but everything I needed to do was there. Domain aliases, email accounts, ftp accounts, sub-domains, cron, dns, plus a bunch of other stuff. [*] They offer several hosting platform options; Their 'recommended' platform is Linux. Gordon. -- This message was written elegantly and lucidly, by my own fair hand using a quill pen on hand laid parchment. It was then scanned, OCRed, spiel-chequed, then cat und pastied into this email. If it's now just gibberish, it's the software's fault. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] [OT] Domain registrars
On 05/03/2013 08:40, Tim wrote: On 04/03/13 23:02, Leo wrote: I currently use 1and1 as my registrar and email provider, but am not overly impressed with them. Can anyone recommend another for the next domain I want to register? The main functionality I want is registration (and auto re-registration) and email provision. Email wise I'd either like to be able to register quite a few accounts, or do some intelligent catch all (e.g. 1and1 used to have an option to send anything sent to myemail+anystr...@domain.tld to myem...@domain.tld). Thanks, Leo I use TSOHost, very good customer service when you raise a question either pre sales or technical after sales, very reliable, very competitive pricing. https://www.tsohost.com/ +1 I just switched to TSOHost from ukfsn, who seem to have gone awol. The whole change went really smoothly, even releasing the domains from ukfsn once they and I learned how to do that (via nominet). You can pick up all mail on a standard account name using fetchmail, so the +anystring should work OK, I think. If not, they allow full dns management, so you could presumably use smtp instead if needs be. Hm, Why don't I do the obvious .. mail to gordon+anystring at mydomain was delivered just fine. One of the nice things for me is that they also allow web aliasing, so I can easily point www.mydomain.com to www.mydomain.co.uk G. -- This message was written elegantly and lucidly, by my own fair hand using a quill pen on hand laid parchment. It was then scanned, OCRed, spiel-chequed, then cat und pastied into this email. If it's now just gibberish, it's the software's fault. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
