Re: why oh why...

[Stephen Irons]

On Wed, 2010-06-16 at 10:23 +1200, solor...@epic.geek.nz wrote:
> On Wed, June 16, 2010 09:43, Steve Holdoway wrote:
> > ... cant linux get it's sound sorted out properly?

> I share your frustration with Linux sound.  We started with OSS, which was
> okay *if* you had a card that was supported.  Then ALSA came along and it
> was struggle for a bit in the beginning.  To date it still has issues
> playing from more then one source at a time.  So several sound daemons
> were made, esd, arts, etc. that tried to solve that problem.  But then
> they don't play with apps that need real-time access to the hardware.
> 
> And finally with the last few versions of Ubuntu there is a push for
> pulseaudio which I think is utter rubbish.  It seems to me the real
> problem lies in ALSA's inability to work with more then one source.  There
> are some workarounds that disable ALSA from locking the card to one app.

The problem is deeper than just alsa...

Alsa has a plugin called dmix, which allows multiple applications to
open an alsa output stream at the same time; the individual sources are
added together.

Similarly, there is a plugin called dshare, which allows multiple
applications to open an alsa input stream simultaneously; the individual
applications get their own copy of the data.

This is an almost good enough solution. The problem is that dmix and
dshare can only operate at a single sample rate at a time. The sample
rate of the sound card is set by the application that first uses a dmix
device.

So if you try to play a DVD or other video source with a 48kHz audio
sample rate at the same time as a CD or other audio source with a
44.1kHz audio sample rate then suddenly the second application finds
that it cannot open the device because the sample rate that it wants
conflicts with the sample rate set by the first application.

Some sound cards (but not many) can have multiple streams operating at
different sample rates. Your typical cheap sound card has a single
stream in each direction that runs at a single sample rate.

Now, alsa has other plugins that do sample rate conversion. So you could
set up a chain of alsa plugins as follows:

DVD-player --> dmix (48 kHz) --> sample-conversion (48--44.1) --> dmix
(44.1) --> sound card

CD-player --> dmix (44.1) --> sound card

Then applications could open either the 48 khz or the 44.1 kHz dmix
device and everything would be fine. However, the application would have
to know to open a different audio device depending on the sample rate. A
music-playing application might have audio sources with BOTH sample
rates, so it would have to open both devices.

A further problem is that these plugins are set up in configuration
files (/etc/asound.conf, ~/.asoundrc). So if someone wants to play or
record at 22050, 24000, 88.2 kHz, 96 kHz sample rate and who knows what
else, he has to modify the config files. And then my digital camera
records audio at 11024 (rather than the more logical 11025 which is 1/4
of CD sample rate)...

You have a similar problem in the reverse direction for audio input --
if we want to record audio for digital video and CD simultaneously.

JACK provides a robust mechanism for coordinating audio at the sample
level between multiple applications, and is ideal for studio-grade
applications. However, it operates at a fixed sample rate and hence does
not solve the DVD-CD sample rate mismatch. It relies on the applications
to do sample rate conversion, or more typically, for the user to ensure
that all his sources use the same sample rate.

Now pulseaudio can provides multiple alsa-compatible devices and does
automatic sample rate conversion and sound-card sharing. It also does
esd-compatible network audio input and output, so that when I am logged
into my Linux box from a Windows box (using Cygwin/X and puTTY), I can
play a video on the Linux box that displays on the Windows screen, and
the sound comes out of the Windows sound card.

So, I believe that pulseaudio really does provide useful functionality.
But it all comes at the cost of higher latency, complexity, and bugs as
the system gets itself worked out.

Stephen Irons

Re: Bluetooth dongles

[Stephen Irons]

On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 9:45 PM, Eliot Blennerhassett <
li...@blennerhassett.gen.nz> wrote:

> Howdy Craig,
>
> did you order these? have they arrived OK, and do they work OK.
>
> On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 12:29 PM, Craig Falconer <
> cfalco...@totalteam.co.nz> wrote:
>
>>
>> I'm going to buy a couple dozen for our new office cell phones.
>>
>>
>
I have ordered these devices in the past and they work find with Ubuntu
Karmic and Lucid.

Stephen Irons


-- 
Stephen Irons
Senior Designer
Tait Radio Communications
175 Roydvale Ave, Christchurch, New Zealand
DDI: +64 - 3 - 357-0713
www.taitworld.com
stephen.ir...@taitradio.com
TAIT: THE RIGHT FIT

Topo50 map viewer [Was Re: Print large image across multiple sheets]

[Stephen Irons]

On Tue, 2010-03-30 at 16:21 +1300, Stephen Irons wrote:

> On Tue, 2010-03-30 at 12:09 +1300, Craig Falconer wrote:
> > Roy Britten wrote, On 30/03/10 10:50:
> > > Created with Image Magick from a number of TIFFs obtained from the
> > > LINZ web site (where all the new 1:50,000 series maps are available
> > > for download). I have to stitch together 6 maps to cover the tramp I'm
> > > doing later this year.
> > 

snip


Maybe it is time to update my browser-based map viewer.

I inherited an original CD containing the 260- and 262-series of
topographic maps of South Island. Unfortunately, the viewer was
Windows-based, and I wanted something that would run under Linux.

The maps themselves are JPEG image tiles which the viewer pieces
together in much the same way as Google Maps.

I looked at GSIV (the giant-ass image viewer). This is lets you divide a
big image up into tiles, then provides a browser-based Javascript viewer
to piece them together. It worked, and I even managed to get it to print
the coordinates in pixel position (on the screen, and on the map as a
whole), as well as position in NZMG coordinates, which is just a linear
scaling of the pixel position on the map.

However, it was getting very unwieldy, and I wanted to get lat/lon
position; the calculations were very difficult in Javascript.

By this time, the OpenLayers project had progressed and become very
useful. This is a general purpose browser-based map viewer. It can read
map images from a number of places (Google maps, Yahoo, Microsoft, Open
Street Map, etc), as well as used tile-based maps. I created a map layer
that works with the 260- and 262-series map tiles from the CD. 

There was a bit of work in getting it to transform the coordinates from
pixel position to NZMG and vice versa, but they have a standard way of
naming and implementing this type of transform. The conversion to and
from NZMG is now part of that project, so anyone can use it. And once
the transform was implemented, then any of the standard coordinate
systems become available. Great.

However, it uses the old 260- and 262-series maps. The images are
copyright of the people who created the CD. I do not have a problem
using them for myself, but did not feel comfortable sharing them with
friends, etc.

But now LINZ has released the Topo50 and Topo250 series TIFFs with a
gratis licence, I can share them with friends. The licence says 'You are
welcome to reproduce LINZ maps at no cost...the following
acknowledgement should be shown on the product and associated media...'.
Not a free licence, but at least I can give them to friends.

So, the project becomes:

* Download the 31 Topo250 maps and the 451 Topo50 maps. The two I have
donwloaded are about 50 MB (lots of plain blue sea) and 90 MB (lots of
contour lines). Assuming an average of 90 MB, this gives a total of
about 40 GB. Have to do this over a period of time...

* Remove the borders, legends, etc.

* Divide into tiles of a suitable size. Can the tiles be compressed to
conserve space? How can it fit onto one DVD?

* Create an OpenLayers layer that knows how to find a given tile for a
position in a suitable coordinate system.

* Viola. A cross-platform map viewer for Topo50 and Topo250 maps.

I guess the way to download the original maps is to put in place a
script that downloads a map, removes the borders and splits it into
separate tiles. Then whenever I need a map of a particular area,
download the one or two original maps needed, and create the tiles from
it.

Stephen Irons

Re: Print large image across multiple sheets

[Stephen Irons]

On Tue, 2010-03-30 at 12:09 +1300, Craig Falconer wrote:
> Roy Britten wrote, On 30/03/10 10:50:
> > Created with Image Magick from a number of TIFFs obtained from the
> > LINZ web site (where all the new 1:50,000 series maps are available
> > for download). I have to stitch together 6 maps to cover the tramp I'm
> > doing later this year.
> 
> So - why combine it to split it ?
> 
> Can you just print the 6 original pieces ?
> 
> 

The original Topo50 TIFFs include legends, borders, etc. Presumably, the
OP wants to cut the borders, create a single large image for the whole
region, then divide it up into suitable pieces for printing on an A3 or
A4 printer.

You say you used Image Magick to combine the TIFFs. Why not use Image
Magick to divide it up again? If your computer can contain the whole
combined image in Image Magick, then ImageMagick has the wherewithal to
output different parts of the image into separate files.

You then have the problem of making the bits print out at the correct
size (300 ppi). Use the -density command line option to set the
resolution in dots per inch. 

Many image viewing programs will honour this value and give you the
option of printing at the specified resolution.

Except for Acrobat Reader, I do not know of a PDF or PS viewer that lets
you specify the size to print. They all seem to scale to fit the entire
sheet.

Stephen Irons

Re: Print large image across multiple sheets

[Stephen Irons]

On Sun, 2010-03-28 at 19:15 +1300, Roy Britten wrote:

> I have a largish (~12000 pixels square) image that I want to print at
> a defined scale across multiple sheets. I'm comfortable using Image
> Magick to split the image into appropriately-sized chunks, but am at a
> bit of a loss when it comes to forcing 300dpi at printing time.
> 
> It would be wonderful if someone has already produced a tool that
> takes an image and paginates it into, say, PDFs at a defined
> resolution. My google-fu has failed to find such a tool. Suggestions?
> 
> Cheers,
> Roy.


In ImageMagick, the command-line parameter to set the image resolution
is 'density'; this inserts the desired image resolution (in dots per
inch or whatever) into the file -- provided that the file supports the
idea of image resolution in dpi. JPEG files do.

The program 'poster' takes a PS file and splits it up into bits. I use
it for printing a PCB component overlay at up to 8x full size to make it
easier to identify those tiny surface mount resistor.

  * pdftops file.pdf file.ps
  * poster -v -i410x220+10,95mm -ma3 -c2% -s2 -o file-2x.ps
  * ps2pdf file-2x.ps file-2x.pdf


Note that this starts from a PDF file, so you should use another filter
to convert your input to a PS file.

These command line option mean:

  * -i: the size of the bounding box of the input image. I wanted to
enlarge only a portion of the image
  * -m: the size of the output media
  * -c: the amount of overlap (cut size)
  * -s: linear scaling size
  * -o: output file name


Stephen Irons

Re: Acer Aspire One netbook booting off a USB flash drive

[Stephen Irons]

On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 17:00 +1300, Nick Rout wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 4:42 PM, Stephen Irons  
> wrote:
> > A few weeks ago, I reported that the 8G SSD on my Acer Aspire One netbook
> > had failed, and asking for recommendations about where to buy a replacement.
> > I could not find anything within my budget ($0), or less than my comfort
> > level ($10), or within my unbudgetted spending allowance.
> >
> > However, I did find a very small micro SD card reader, where the micro SD
> > card fits inside the metal shell of the USB connector, leaving a 7mm plastic
> > tab sticking out of the USB socket. The micro SD card fits where the little
> > plastic support in the USB plug.
> 
> 
> Can you point to where you got the reader?
> 
> __
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I looked at all (well, many of) the other ones 'world's smallest' SD
card reader. This one has the smallest protrusion when inserted into the
USB slot. There is less protrusion than those tiny bluetooth dongles.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.25558

It comes in white too, to match your iThing:

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.25557

Note that the micro SD card is inserted into the USB-end of the device,
so you have to unplug the reader from the computer before you can change
the micro SD card.

At US$3.88, it is 11c cheaper now than when I bought it...though quite a
bit more expensive than those US$0.98 models.

Stephen Irons


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Re: Acer Aspire One netbook booting off a USB flash drive

[Stephen Irons]

On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 17:00 +1300, Nick Rout wrote:

> On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 4:42 PM, Stephen Irons  
> wrote:
> > A few weeks ago, I reported that the 8G SSD on my Acer Aspire One netbook
> > had failed, and asking for recommendations about where to buy a replacement.
> > I could not find anything within my budget ($0), or less than my comfort
> > level ($10), or within my unbudgetted spending allowance.
> >
> > However, I did find a very small micro SD card reader, where the micro SD
> > card fits inside the metal shell of the USB connector, leaving a 7mm plastic
> > tab sticking out of the USB socket. The micro SD card fits where the little
> > plastic support in the USB plug.
> 
> 
> Can you point to where you got the reader?
> 
> __
> This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System.
> For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email 
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I looked at all the offerings suggested, but found this one to have the
smallest protrusion 

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.25558

It comes in white, too


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Re: 1.8" SSD or HDD wanted

[Stephen Irons]

Craig Falconer wrote:
I'd worry about spending that much on a laptop that's had an issue 
already.
Well, it is a 128 GB SSD, rather than the usual 8 or 16 GB. Hence the 
higher price. But my recoil-limit is about $100.


Try "mini PCIe SSD"

Here's one still for sale for $100.
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=77&topicid=41073

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Computers/Components/Hard-drives/Laptop/auction-267867445.htm 


$100 and it didn't sell.
I think this is the device that I am after, rather than a mini PCIe 
type. Have to find some internal photographs of the Acer Aspire.


You could hack a USB pen drive internally, but they tend to be quite 
slow.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/04/the-20gb-eee-pc-mod/

Yes, people have done something similar with the Acer Aspire One


Or you could buy something like this 
http://www.memoryc.com/storage/solidstatedisk/32gbpatriotliteseriesasuseeepc.html 

http://www.memoryc.com/storage/solidstatedisk/16gbsupertalentsataminipciexpresseees101.html 
 $75 US

First one is discontinued. Second one is out of stock.



What about an SDHC card ?  They're cheap and easy to fit.

Two thoughts ocurred to me:

* use a 16 GB SD card in the /home SD card slot (the Acer Aspire has TWO 
card slots: one SD-only for /home, the other for your camera card. I 
don't know that it can boot off SD card though.


* use a tiny micro-SD to USB adapter, like this one 
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.25558 . It looks as though the 
micro SD card slips into the metal housing an acts as the little plastic 
support for the USB contact, leaving only a small lump outside the 
casing. Has the same speed issues as the internal USB suggestion, though.


Thanks for the suggestions.

Stephen Irons




Christopher Sawtell wrote, On 02/02/10 15:47:
Try our Jason www.flashcards.co.nz <http://www.flashcards.co.nz> he 
is very helpful.

or
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Samsung-1-8-128GB-SSD-MMCQE28G8MUP-Lenovo-41W0518_W0QQitemZ300392014884QQihZ020QQcategoryZ11171QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp3286.m7QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DLVI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D1%26ps%3D6 



Starting bid is AU $280.00

On 2 February 2010 13:47, Stephen Irons <mailto:stephen.ir...@tait.co.nz>> wrote:


After 7 hours in transit at Perth airport, my family was about ready
to give up the ghost; the SSD in my Acer Aspire netbook did.

So I now have a netbook that boots Ubuntu Netbook Remix fine from a
USB flash drive, but refuses to partition the internal SSD. dmesg
gives a string of errors that leads me to believe that the SSD is
completely useless, although the BIOS does recognise the make and
reports the serial number.

I managed to get my personal data off the (EXT3 formatted) SD card
onto another flash drive.

But I am now looking for a replacement, either an SSD or HDD. This
is a 1.8" form factor thing, and price spy is not helping me.
Neither is google.

Can someone recommend a place where I can find a 1.8" SSD or HDD, or
a google search term that it actually useful?
Christopher Sawtell






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1.8" SSD or HDD wanted

[Stephen Irons]

After 7 hours in transit at Perth airport, my family was about ready to 
give up the ghost; the SSD in my Acer Aspire netbook did.


So I now have a netbook that boots Ubuntu Netbook Remix fine from a USB 
flash drive, but refuses to partition the internal SSD. dmesg gives a 
string of errors that leads me to believe that the SSD is completely 
useless, although the BIOS does recognise the make and reports the 
serial number.


I managed to get my personal data off the (EXT3 formatted) SD card onto 
another flash drive.


But I am now looking for a replacement, either an SSD or HDD. This is a 
1.8" form factor thing, and price spy is not helping me. Neither is google.


Can someone recommend a place where I can find a 1.8" SSD or HDD, or a 
google search term that it actually useful?


Thank you

Stephen Irons.

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Re: Where have you seen linux today?

[Stephen Irons]

I had to spend 7 hours in transit at Perth airport -- not much to do but 
use the free internet kiosk. There was a little note attached to the 
keyboard


  If the system has locked up, press ctrl-alt-backspace

Oh, ctrl-alt-backspace is a feature, because it is documented somewhere.

Anyway, I did it, and sure enough, X restarted, and autologged-in as 
'kioskuser'. It seemed to be running Opera, although there was no title 
bar or menu bar.
There was a button labelled 'Delete Private Data' which I pressed: this 
rebooted the whole machine.




On the plane with my family, one of our entertainment terminals 
restarted in the middle of a movie, showing linux restarting.


There was a USB socket on the seat next to the display. The airline 
magazine said that you could plug in a USB stick, ipod, etc and use it 
to play music or view photos. My son inserted his flash drive, opened a 
photo, and ... the thing locked up. So I got out the control device 
(used for playing games, or, in $$$ class, for sending emails), to see 
if I could find ctrl-alt-delete or ctrl-alt-backspace. No, but there was 
function-alt-backspace, so I pressed those.


X restarted, leaving the grey background and the cross-shaped mouse 
cursor when /etc/X/config-whatever file is bad, and we could do nothing 
more with the terminal.


The cabin crew said they could restart it 'in the galley', but after 
trying two or three times, and asking if we had seen lots of writing on 
the display, we could not get it going again. I explained the situation 
(...and I pressed a whole bunch of random keys on the keyboard, 
including this one, that one and that other one...), but we had to use 
that seat for sleeping in.



Stephen Irons

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Re: Very OT: USB cable question

[Stephen Irons]

ke...@katipo.net.nz wrote:

Hi all,

I just bought myself another USB external hard drive and this one like the
last one I bought has at the end that plugs into the PC a double USB end.
Now I was wondering if plugging in both of these plugs affects the speed
that data is transferred? I am assuming not as it is still going through
the same cable and would just bottleneck at the other end of the cable
which just has the one plug. Has anyone much wiser than me have any idea
about this?

Cheers,
Kerry


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USB data only goes through one of the plugs, so you do not get extra 
speed. The extra plug is for additional power.


The USB specification says that an external device can draw a maximum of 
500mA from any USB port. The PC or hub has circuitry to restrict the 
current to this amount. The dual-plug lets the external hard drive cheat 
and draw up power from two USB ports, so it can draw up to 2x 500mA or 
1000mA.


Going off-topic from this:

The restriction to 500 mA means that USB powered speakers can not 
possibly provide more than 5V x 500mA = 2.5W of power -- this will be 
2.5W RMS. So any USB-powered speaker that claims to provide more audio 
power than 2.5W RMS is doing the numbers as audio manufacturers are wont 
to do. In fact, even 2.5W RMS assumes a 100% efficient amplifier -- I 
think you should expect around 2W (80% efficiency).


Stephen Irons


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Re: Linux audio synchronisation

[Stephen Irons]

Andrew Errington wrote:

On Wed, September 23, 2009 15:44, Andrew Errington wrote:
  

http://www.lesbell.com.au/Home.nsf/b8ec57204f60dfcb4a2568c60014ed0f/c4b39482154feb03ca256f8100150ad9?OpenDocument
  


Actually, that article mentions Rosegarden, which I think is probably what
you need.  Here's why:

http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/tour/audio/

A

  

A bit of playing around showed that Rosegarden is what I want:

   * it is primarily a MIDI player/editor/sequencer thingy
   * it can also import and play audio (WAV) files
   * it understands tempo, and you can mark regions where it should
 play back slower or faster. This affects only the MIDI

So, I will have to:

   * rip the recording on CD to a WAV file
   * import the WAV file as an audio track
   * play through the audio, marking beats (this may be time-consuming)
 o with a MIDI keyboard, press a key to indicate each beat
 o run the MIDI beat extracter tool, which calculates tempo and
   sets up the playback speed
   * export the string ensemble scores from Finale as MIDI files
   * import the MIDI files into Rosegarden
   * done

I will try this over the weekend or sometime...

Stephen Irons


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Re: Linux audio synchronisation

[Stephen Irons]

Stephen Irons wrote:
A singer/guitarist wants a live string ensemble as backing for one of 
his songs; he currently uses a synthesizer.


A professional musician has written a number of alternative 
arrangements for up to 8 instruments. The singer and his producer want 
to hear how each of these will work before spending real money on the 
musicians and a few hours of recording studio time.


Currently, the singer has a partial recording, with drums, guitar and 
the vocal track.


The string ensemble music has been written using Finale (running under 
Wine), to produce printed output for the musicians. It can also 
generate a MIDI file, and audio as either WAV or MP3.


Problem: On a Linux system, what options are there for combining the 
two so that the musician and producer can get some idea of how the 
whole lot will sound.


The obvious thing is to just play the two at the same time, using a 
media player (eg Rhythmbox) for the recording and a MIDI player for 
the string ensemble. However, they are certain to drift apart over the 
6 minutes duration of the song.


Alternatively, spend some time adjusting the overall duration of the 
string part to match the overall duration of the recording. They will 
then start and end together, and we can hope that the drummer kept 
going at a constant speed.


Ideally, something would identify beats in the recording, and spit out 
some sort of MIDI synchronisation signal that the MIDI player will use.


Any suggestions? Or is this still pie-in-the-sky?

Stephen Irons

I should have mentioned that I am familiar with Ardour, but I don't 
think it can generate or synchronise to MIDI time code, although it does 
generate and obey MIDI transport (start, stop, fwd, etc) controls.


I think something like Rosegarden might do the job, though I don't know 
if it can AUTOMATICALLY find beats in recorded music.


I am happy to help MARKING the beats, but I don't want to spend time 
manually adjusting the MIDI tracks to match -- there are at least three 
alternatives, and more will come after the musician and producer have 
heard the result.


Stephen Irons


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Linux audio synchronisation

[Stephen Irons]

A singer/guitarist wants a live string ensemble as backing for one of 
his songs; he currently uses a synthesizer.


A professional musician has written a number of alternative arrangements 
for up to 8 instruments. The singer and his producer want to hear how 
each of these will work before spending real money on the musicians and 
a few hours of recording studio time.


Currently, the singer has a partial recording, with drums, guitar and 
the vocal track.


The string ensemble music has been written using Finale (running under 
Wine), to produce printed output for the musicians. It can also generate 
a MIDI file, and audio as either WAV or MP3.


Problem: On a Linux system, what options are there for combining the two 
so that the musician and producer can get some idea of how the whole lot 
will sound.


The obvious thing is to just play the two at the same time, using a 
media player (eg Rhythmbox) for the recording and a MIDI player for the 
string ensemble. However, they are certain to drift apart over the 6 
minutes duration of the song.


Alternatively, spend some time adjusting the overall duration of the 
string part to match the overall duration of the recording. They will 
then start and end together, and we can hope that the drummer kept going 
at a constant speed.


Ideally, something would identify beats in the recording, and spit out 
some sort of MIDI synchronisation signal that the MIDI player will use.


Any suggestions? Or is this still pie-in-the-sky?

Stephen Irons


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Re: Neat, Crazy, Cool, scripts

[Stephen Irons]

Daniel Hill wrote:

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

So I was reading over the old archive of xkcd's blag, and found this:
http://blag.xkcd.com/2009/04/27/a-problem/
(read the comments lots of bash tips)

just wondering if anyone know's any neat tricks and what not for linux
I wrote this one the other day: WARNING THIS NEEDS ROOT
AND ASKS FOR IT (VIA SUDO), IT MAY NOT DESTROY YOUR
COMPUTER I'M WARNING YOU AND I HEAR BY CLAM NO
RESPONSIBILITY FOR DAMAGE CAUSED

it will also erase any file called "speed test.txt" in the current running
directory

FILE="speed tests.txt"; cp /dev/null "$FILE"; for i in `echo /dev/sd?
| sed "s:/dev/::g"` ; do LINE="Disk:/dev/$i "; LINE="$LINE "`sudo
hdparm -t /dev/$i | grep "Timing" | awk ' {... print $11 $12 } ' `;
LINE="$LINE "`sudo fdisk -l /dev/$i | grep "Disk /dev/$i" | awk '{
print $3 $4 }' | sed "s/,//g" `; echo $LINE >> "$FILE" ; done


- --
python -c "print \"\".join([
\"\x79\x71\x6Du\056vgp\x40ae\142nr\".decode(\"\x72o\164\x5F_13\")[i]
for i  in [1, 12, 9, 5, 13, 0, 4, 3, 5, 0, 0, 8, 11, 10, 7, 11, 9, 4,
9, 13, 6, 4, 9, 2] ] )"

http://www.facebook.com/YellowOnion
msnim:chat?contact=yellow_oni...@hotmail.com
xmpp:yellowon...@jabber.org
http://last.fm/user/Yellow-Onion/
https://launchpad.net/~daniel-hill
-BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iEYEARECAAYFAkqVjlkACgkQGplaCYOFvyuFigCeJil8PJMYL3g8u33z/LFDF85k
4XwAni/fb8LNg5TAtEr7RlgpJiSCEmRv
=VOiP
-END PGP SIGNATURE-

  


For those who read the blag article, and wondered what that 'cowsay' 
pipeline near the end of the comments does:


$ cowsay "STACK OVERFLOW" | cowsay -n | cowsay -n | cowsay -n

__
/  __  \
| /  __  \ |
| | /  \ | |
| | | < STACK OVERFLOW >   | | |
| | |  | | |
| | | \   ^__^ | | |
| | |  \  (oo)\___ | | |
| | | (__)\   )\/\ | | |
| | | ||w || | |
| | \ || ||/ | |
| |  --  | |
| | \   ^__^ | |
| |  \  (oo)\___ | |
| | (__)\   )\/\ | |
| | ||w || |
| \ || ||/ |
|  --  |
| \   ^__^ |
|  \  (oo)\___ |
| (__)\   )\/\ |
| ||w ||
\ || ||/
--
   \   ^__^
\  (oo)\___
   (__)\   )\/\
   ||w |
   || ||
$




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Re: DVD-RW drive partially faulty

[Stephen Irons]

Stephen Irons wrote:

The DVD-RW drive in my laptop is partially faulty:

   * It cannot read or write CDs -- it just sits there going clonk
 every two seconds -- pre-recorded music CDs, recorded data CD-R,
 blank CR-R, makes no difference. It does this even when I have
 entered the BIOS setup at power on, so it seems to be the drive
 itself, not related to software.
   * it plays pre-recorded movie DVDs correctly. I have not tried
 writing DVDs of any type, or tried reading self-burned /DVD[+-]RW?/

For reference, it is an NEC ND-6550A.

I was busy writing a CD, when Brasero popped up an box saying 
something like 'An unexpected error occurred'. It has never worked 
since then.


Some advice wanted:

   * Why would it fail in this way? What is special about CDs that it
 cannot read them, but it can read DVDs
   * The 3-year guarantee expired 2 months ago. Is this something I
 could make a fuss about?
   * An exact replacement does not seem available any more. Any
 suggestions for drop-in replacements?
   * Does a replacement have to be Linux-compatible?

Thank you 


Thank you for all your answers. I was not aware that DVD used a 
different colour laser from CD. And Blue Ray uses yet another colour...


Dell have a great system to filter out-of-guarantee calls: when you dial 
the 24 hour help line, the first thing you have to give them is the 
service tag number. This tells the system that the guarantee is expired, 
so you go onto the back of the queue. I gave up after 30 minutes.


The same story on-line, except that you have the option of renewing the 
guarantee after paying a $110 inspection fee. Well, a new DVD writer 
costs about that...


I might have been able to fuss with a real letter but life is too short 
for that.


It appears that CD and DVD writers are like hard drives: as long as they 
look physically the same, they are all compatible. You choose according 
to the specs you want.


I bought a Panasonic UJ-870 from laptopbattery.co.nz in Christchurch and 
it dropped straight into the hole and worked. I had to transfer a little 
bent metal securing tab from the old to the new: it was held on by two 
screws. Also, the plastic bezel on the new one was about 2mm thinner 
than the old, so the drive looked pretty ugly when closed. However, a 
bit of poking around with a jeweller's screwdriver revealed the two 
little clips the popped the bezel onto the floor and the old one went on 
in its place.


I almost bought an external slimline DVD writer from www.dealextreme.com 
for about 2/3 of the cost of the drive from laptopbattery. If I were to 
do it again, I probably would. I am fairly sure that it would be 
possible to remove the mechanism from the case and drop it into the 
laptop. However, I could not get any proper specs for the unit from 
dealextreme, and, at the time, was not that confident about how similar 
different drives are.


Stephen Irons


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DVD-RW drive partially faulty

[Stephen Irons]

The DVD-RW drive in my laptop is partially faulty:

   * It cannot read or write CDs -- it just sits there going clonk
 every two seconds -- pre-recorded music CDs, recorded data CD-R,
 blank CR-R, makes no difference. It does this even when I have
 entered the BIOS setup at power on, so it seems to be the drive
 itself, not related to software.
   * it plays pre-recorded movie DVDs correctly. I have not tried
 writing DVDs of any type, or tried reading self-burned /DVD[+-]RW?/

For reference, it is an NEC ND-6550A.

I was busy writing a CD, when Brasero popped up an box saying something 
like 'An unexpected error occurred'. It has never worked since then.


Some advice wanted:

   * Why would it fail in this way? What is special about CDs that it
 cannot read them, but it can read DVDs
   * The 3-year guarantee expired 2 months ago. Is this something I
 could make a fuss about?
   * An exact replacement does not seem available any more. Any
 suggestions for drop-in replacements?
   * Does a replacement have to be Linux-compatible?

Thank you

Stephen Irons

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Re: OT: Search the Christchurch Public Library catalogue usingaFirefoxkeyword

[Stephen Irons]

Volker Kuhlmann wrote:

On Mon 22 Jun 2009 14:52:14 NZST +1200, Douglas Royds wrote:

  

Add the following bookmark in Firefox:

   Name: Public Library catalogue search
   Location:
   
http://librarydata.christchurch.org.nz/web2/tramp2.exe/do_keyword_search/guest?setting_key=InternetBranch&servers=1home&index=default&query=%s

   Keyword: public (or whatever you prefer)

No need to click through that irritating "Just Enter" rubbish any more:



From memory the chch pub lib pac online search was some sort of session
based. You might want to check your search shortcut still works 30min
later.
  


This is a new thing for the library website.

I have cookies disabled, and there does not seem to be a session key in 
the URL. So I believe that this will Always Work and the library has 
done the Right Thing.


Stephen Irons


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Re: Success with Bluetooth

[Stephen Irons]

chris wrote:
  
Perhaps I was not quite clear: I can browse files on the phone from the 
PC, and, as you say, it looks just like another directory.


The thing that does not work is to use the phone to initiate the 
transfer of a file to the PC. By default, Ubuntu does not install a 
Bluetooth receiving daemon. This comes as part of the package 
'gnome-user-share', which also installs capabilities that I do not want.


Stephen Irons



I have Bluetooth on my laptop, and under Ubuntu 9.04 have no issues.
Could it be a version problem?

Cheers Chris T

  


I also use 9.04. I based my observation on four things:

   * I could not send a file from the phone to the PC
   * My phone reports the PC's bluetooth services as 'network'.
 Bluetooth devices that I can send files to include the service
 name 'transfer'. I have tried deleting the PC device from the
 phone and making it rediscover.
   * Bug report https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/349330 describes
 my problem, and says that the solution is to install
 'gnome-user-share'
   * I do not have 'gnome-user-share installed'

I have installed 'gnome-user-share'. A new configuration menu item 
appears: System > Preferences > Personal File Sharing. After enabling 
'Receive Files over Bluetooth', it works as expected. My phone now 
reports the PC's bluetooth services as 'network; capture; transfer'. I 
think 'capture' means that the phone thinks that the PC can act as a 
camera or scanner, but my bluetooth knowledge is a bit rusty.


I then uninstalled 'gnome-user-share', purely because it offends my 
sensibilities to have to install a web server for my computer to receive 
files over Bluetooth.


Perhaps you already have 'gnome-user-share' installed? Or perhaps KDE 
does something different?


Also there used to be a package called something like 
'gnome-obex-server' that provided a Bluetooth file receiving daemon, but 
it has disappear. I think that it was not part of Bluez, so it has been 
removed in a general Bluetooth brushing.


Stephen Irons


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Re: Success with Bluetooth

[Stephen Irons]

Volker Kuhlmann wrote:

On Wed 17 Jun 2009 11:14:44 NZST +1200, Stephen Irons wrote:

  
Some one on Trademe is selling little Bluetooth adapters for $10 + $2 
postage [1]. It is the size of the tip of my thumb. Just right for plugging 
into one of the USB holes of your netbook.


I bought one. Plugged it in. It Just Worked.



Good news! But for your post to be of any use to someone else, please
identify the hardware. For USB devices, that is

1) The respective line from the output of lspci

2) Make, brand, and model. If at all possible, also the supplier.

There are too many bluetooth offers on trademe to find yours.

Thanks!

Volker

  


I stumbled across this adapter looking for something else. I had no idea 
there were so many of them going for around $10 these days.


It is a generic USB bluetooth adapter. It came with a piece of paper 
that says 'Bluetooth USB dongle'.


lsusb identifies the adapter as 0a12:0001 Cambridge Silicon Radio, Ltd 
Bluetooth Dongle (HCI mode)


Seller is http://www.trademe.co.nz/Members/Listings.aspx?member=1027944

You can find one here: 
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Computers/Networking-modems/Wireless-networking/Adaptors/auction-223852370.htm


Stephen Irons


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Re: Success with Bluetooth

[Stephen Irons]

Andrew Errington wrote:

On Wed, June 17, 2009 08:14, Stephen Irons wrote:
  

Some one on Trademe is selling little Bluetooth adapters for $10 + $2
postage [1]. It is the size of the tip of my thumb. Just right for plugging
into one of the USB holes of your netbook.

I bought one. Plugged it in. It Just Worked.


Up popped the little Bluetooth icon on my Gnome panel. Discovered my
phone. Paired and set as 'trusted'. Browsed files on phone from PC. Sent
file from PC to phone.

Bluetooth seems to have come a long way recently.


Unfortunately, I cannot yet send files from phone to PC. You need to
install 'gnome-user-share' which also brings in Apache (so that you can
share files using webdav). It is a known packaging problem, and I can't
bring myself to do it on my laptop.



Excellent!  I did the same thing two years ago.  I was using Mepis 6 on an
old ThinkPad.  Mepis has KDE, and it too Just Worked.  I had no trouble
dragging and dropping files either way with Konqueror.  It surprises me
that Gnome makes a distinction between a file on a phone and any other
removable filestore.  Perhaps you have overlooked soemthing?

A

  
Perhaps I was not quite clear: I can browse files on the phone from the 
PC, and, as you say, it looks just like another directory.


The thing that does not work is to use the phone to initiate the 
transfer of a file to the PC. By default, Ubuntu does not install a 
Bluetooth receiving daemon. This comes as part of the package 
'gnome-user-share', which also installs capabilities that I do not want.


Stephen Irons



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Success with Bluetooth

[Stephen Irons]

Some one on Trademe is selling little Bluetooth adapters for $10 + $2 
postage [1]. It is the size of the tip of my thumb. Just right for 
plugging into one of the USB holes of your netbook.


I bought one. Plugged it in. It Just Worked.

Up popped the little Bluetooth icon on my Gnome panel. Discovered my 
phone. Paired and set as 'trusted'. Browsed files on phone from PC. Sent 
file from PC to phone.


Bluetooth seems to have come a long way recently.

Unfortunately, I cannot yet send files from phone to PC. You need to 
install 'gnome-user-share' which also brings in Apache (so that you can 
share files using webdav). It is a known packaging problem, and I can't 
bring myself to do it on my laptop.


Stephen Irons


[1] $2 postage using NZ Post at buyer's risk. It was simply popped into 
an envelope with a spec-sheet. The metal surround on my one was slightly 
bent when received: NZ Post or someone seemed to have applied to much 
pressure to the wrong place. But a pair of long-nosed pliers soon 
straightened it out.


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Re: Dynamically loadable library woes

[Stephen Irons]

Nick Rout wrote:

On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 4:45 PM, Stephen Irons  wrote:
  

Christopher Sawtell wrote:


On Tuesday 24 February 2009 12:37:45 Stephen Irons wrote:
  

I have installed ffmpeg from the Ubuntu repositories.


man gcc


pay particular attention to the -L option flag.


and then if you are an obedient purist, alter the necessary configuration
files, generate a new .deb file and install form that.


Being an obedient purist is seriously recommended.


--
With Sincerity,
Christopher Sawtell
  

-L/usr/local/bin as an option to gcc did not change anything. I think that
option only affects static linking -- it tells the linker where to look for
libraries. Or perhaps where to find the stubs necessary to link a library
dynamically. But it did not affect the loading at run-time.

But I found two solutions:

1. ./configure --extra-ldflags=-Wl,-rpath/usr/local/bin stores that path in
the executable to tell the program loader to also search /usr/local/bin for
libraries.

2. ./configure --build-suffix=-ZZZ changes the names of the libraries to
lib-avcodec-ZZZ.so.66.whatever. These names are stored in the executable, so
they are found correctly.

man ld gives the full search order for *linking*:

  * -rpath-link options
  * -rpath options
  * LD_RUN_PATH environment variable
  * On *SunOS*, directories specified using -L -- this is what
Christopher Sawtell suggested, but does not work on Linux
  * LD_LIBRARY_PATH
  * DT_RUNPATH or DT_RPATH
  * default directories /lib and /usr/lib
  * directories in /etc/ld.so.conf

man ld.so gives a different order for *loading*:

  * LD_LIBRARY_PATH
  *  From the cache file /etc/ld.so.cache, created by ldconfig
  * /lib and /usr/lib

But this does not describe what I actually saw happening, so I prefer the
search order given in man ld. I think that the *linker* was finding the
necessary library stubs in /usr/lib, so it never bothered to look in
/usr/local/lib.

Anyway, my version of ffmpeg with AMR support is now working...so I can once
again convert videos from my phone to ... whatever ... they are still
rubbish.

I should probably make a .deb package so that I can install into /usr/bin
and /usr/lib so that other applications get the newer version of ffmpeg and
libav* ... but what will it break? Nothing, provided that the library
authors have got their version numbering correct.

Stephen Irons



perhaps it would be easier to use the medibuntu repos. My ff,eg from
medibuntu boasts:

--enable-amr_nb --enable-amr_wb

would that do the trick?
  

Under Hardy, libav*-unstripped from medibuntu repository worked just fine.

On the downgrade [1] to Intrepid, the version of ffmpeg in the medibuntu 
repository does not work with Intrepid: some other application (Totem? 
gstreamer?) insists on a newer version of one of the libav* packages. 
Medibuntu have not packaged the newer version for Intrepid. Instead 
there is a -unstripped version of ffmpeg etc. in Ubuntu multiverse but 
it does not have AMR enabled. I have raised a bug report 
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ffmpeg/+bug/325593, so 
hopefully it will get fixed sometime...after all, I am most of the way 
there...


Stephen Irons

[1] The Bluetooth functionality I used is broken. ffmpeg is broken. 
openmovieeditor is broken. The display sometimes goes blank when 
switching between users. Other things are different.


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Re: Dynamically loadable library woes

[Stephen Irons]

Christopher Sawtell wrote:

On Tuesday 24 February 2009 12:37:45 Stephen Irons wrote:
> I have installed ffmpeg from the Ubuntu repositories.


man gcc


pay particular attention to the -L option flag.


and then if you are an obedient purist, alter the necessary 
configuration files, generate a new .deb file and install form that.



Being an obedient purist is seriously recommended.


--
With Sincerity,
Christopher Sawtell


-L/usr/local/bin as an option to gcc did not change anything. I think 
that option only affects static linking -- it tells the linker where to 
look for libraries. Or perhaps where to find the stubs necessary to link 
a library dynamically. But it did not affect the loading at run-time.


But I found two solutions:

1. ./configure --extra-ldflags=-Wl,-rpath/usr/local/bin stores that path 
in the executable to tell the program loader to also search 
/usr/local/bin for libraries.


2. ./configure --build-suffix=-ZZZ changes the names of the libraries to 
lib-avcodec-ZZZ.so.66.whatever. These names are stored in the 
executable, so they are found correctly.


man ld gives the full search order for *linking*:

   * -rpath-link options
   * -rpath options
   * LD_RUN_PATH environment variable
   * On *SunOS*, directories specified using -L -- this is what
 Christopher Sawtell suggested, but does not work on Linux
   * LD_LIBRARY_PATH
   * DT_RUNPATH or DT_RPATH
   * default directories /lib and /usr/lib
   * directories in /etc/ld.so.conf

man ld.so gives a different order for *loading*:

   * LD_LIBRARY_PATH
   *  From the cache file /etc/ld.so.cache, created by ldconfig
   * /lib and /usr/lib

But this does not describe what I actually saw happening, so I prefer 
the search order given in man ld. I think that the *linker* was finding 
the necessary library stubs in /usr/lib, so it never bothered to look in 
/usr/local/lib.


Anyway, my version of ffmpeg with AMR support is now working...so I can 
once again convert videos from my phone to ... whatever ... they are 
still rubbish.


I should probably make a .deb package so that I can install into 
/usr/bin and /usr/lib so that other applications get the newer version 
of ffmpeg and libav* ... but what will it break? Nothing, provided that 
the library authors have got their version numbering correct.


Stephen Irons

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Dynamically loadable library woes

[Stephen Irons]

I have installed ffmpeg from the Ubuntu repositories. This creates the 
following files:


   * /usr/bin/ffmpeg
   * /usr/lib/libavcodec.so.51.50
   * /usr/lib/libavformat.so.52.7.0
   * /usr/lib/i686/cmov/libavcodec.so.51
   * /usr/lib/i686/cmov/libavformat.so.52

as well as some others, including some symlinks.

I have also built a new version of ffmpeg from the ffmpeg project. This 
creates the following files:


   * /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg
   * /usr/local/lib/libavcodec.so.52.18
   * /usr/local/lib/libavformat.so.52.29.2

and some others.

$ which ffmpeg reports /usr/local/bin.

When I run ffmpeg, it fails with a message about a missing symbol.

I know that all the libraries have been built correctly, because if I 
set LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib, then my new ffmpeg works correctly.


I read somewhere on google that it is Bad to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH, except 
during development or to work around problems that have no other solution.


I have modified /etc/ld.so.conf, adding /usr/local/lib at the top of the 
file, and run ldconfig -v; it indicates that the correctly libraries are 
there in /usr/local/lib, and are at the top of the listing, so I assume 
that they are loaded first.


Now, the only indication that something is wrong comes from

$ ldd /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg
:
: snip
:
  libavformat.so.52 => /usr/lib/i686/cmov/libavformat.so.52 (0xb7ffa000)
  libavcodec.so.52 => /usr/local/lib/libavcodec.so.52 (0xb7823000)


This shows that /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg is trying to use version 52 of 
libavcodec; there is only the one in /usr/local/lib, so it uses the 
right one.


However, it is trying to use version 0.52 of libavformat: there are two 
of these. For some reason, it is ignoring the setting in /etc/ld.so.conf 
and using the /usr/lib/i686/... version instead of my one.


   * Is there something INSIDE /usr/local/bin/ffmpeg that makes it
 prefer the /usr/lib... version? If so, how do I override it?
   * Is /etc/ld.so.conf and ldconfig broken?
   * ./configure can somehow detect which libraries are installed.
 Perhaps this is broken and uses the wrong search path.
   * How do I make it use MY version of libavcodec, libavformat, etc
 without resorting to LD_LIBRARY_PATH?
   * There is another library (libx264) that gives the same problem...

Some heavyweight solutions spring to mind:

   * install into /usr/bin and /usr/lib, overwriting those files from
 the packages; however, I am concerned that this will break during
 upgrades.
   * remove ffmpeg and its dependencies; however, this will mean
 uninstalling everything that depends on these packages. I would
 prefer not to do this.
   * create my own .deb package and install that



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Re: Movies from a still camera

[Stephen Irons]

Barry Marchant wrote:


What is your camera Stephen?

My camera is a Canon S1IS. I have made several short videos with it. 
Just tested 2. VLC reports the video codec as MJPG, frame rate 
30.000300 and the audio at 22050 hz, 16 bits/ sample and bitrate 325 kb/s


mplayer & vlc play them quite nicely, xine is a dead loss.

For a friemd I made 3 movies into a dvd (pal) using kino. It works ok




Canon A720IS -- the cheaper range.

Video is MJPEG 640x480 at 30 fps. Audio is 1 channel (mono) 8-bit PCM at 
11024 Hz with a bitrate of (obviously) 88 kbps. Its microphone is such 
that anything else would be wasted bits.


After copying videos to the PC, I use ffmpeg to convert them to H.264 
video with AAC audio (no free codecs for me :(. The converted files take 
1/3 of the disk space on average, with the best-compressed using only 2% 
of the original, and the worst about 70%. The best compressed video was 
a long sequence of a person doing 3D stunts with a radio control model 
aeroplane -- the camera was on a tripod, he was standing still, the sky 
was a uniform overcast grey, and the only moving thing was the tiny 
plane moving around him.


I have also used Kino to create a movie and found it stable and easy to 
use. I just hate the idea of converting everything to DV format first.


OpenMovieEditor is my recent favourite, but the version in the Ubuntu 
repositories does know about enough video and audio formats, so I had to 
compile my own. Unfortunately, it got broken in the cross-grade from 
Hardy to Intrepid and I have not recompiled it yet.


Stephen Irons

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Re: Remove a watermark from a PDF

[Stephen Irons]

Volker Kuhlmann wrote:

On Mon 16 Feb 2009 17:04:41 NZDT +1300, Stephen Irons wrote:

[...]

Looks like most PDF editors are, let's say, not quite there yet.

Use pdfimages (of xpdf) to extract all images. Check the watermark is a
bitmap graphics. If so, there's probably only one copy in the PDF, which you
could turn into all-transparent with a hex editor.

Use pdftk or whatever to remove the encryption. It's just a PITA anyway. You
may have to doctor some FOSS to do that.

Use pdftops, hope it's easier to doctor in the postscript.

Try loading it into OO with pdfimport (search OO extensions). Remove
background image (OO supports no other watermarks), reassemble PDF from OO.

Give feedback to the manufacturer of said second-hand device, featuring the
word morons or some such prominently. Buy other device next time.

Put up with the annoying printout, or use the non-dead-tree variety instead.

HTH,

Volker

  

Some success:

pdftoedit can convert from PDF to many different vector formats: SVG, 
HPGL, PS, PDF, and so on. It has some built-in output formats, or it can 
use Ghostscript to generate anything that GS can.


$ pdftoedit -f gs:pdfwrite input.pdf output.pdf

tells it to convert from PDF to PDF using Ghostscript pdfwrite driver.

By luck (not any command-line option), it converts to the screen-view 
rather than the print-view, for all pages except the first two and the 
last one.


The resulting PDF file makes Acrobat reader crash (trying to read memory 
at 0x0008), but Evince works fine.


The next step is to re-arrange the PDF file so that it prints 2-up on an 
A4 page with page 2 behind page 1, and page 4 behind page 3, so that I 
can print it on a duplex printer, guillotine the pages in half and bind 
them nicely. A job for pstops...



Things that tried did not work:

* pdftops converted to the print-view with the watermark built in. If it 
had converted to the screen-view, then it would have been fine, except 
that the PS file was 20x the size of the PDF, but that seems to be 
fairly typical.


* it took 15 minutes to convert 10 pages by clicking manually through 
Inkscape. I do not have 3 hours to convert 120 pages.


* The PDF importer for OO v 2.4 is hopeless. Apparently, it is much 
better for OO v 3 (beta), but I do not want to install that.


* pdfimages revealed that each page had its own copy of the watermark.

* I cannot take the PDF version everywhere that I like to read 
instruction manuals [1]





Canon have shown themselves to be pretty moronic in other ways too. My 
digital still camera can take videos, but records the sound at 11024 
samples per second -- 1 sample per second slower than 1/4 of 44100. 
Totem-xine plays with stuttering audio, MPlayer makes the video speed up 
and slow down quite obviously. ffmpeg used to reject the file, but the 
latest version from Ubuntu works just fine.


Now, I am not sure that there is anything in the .AVI or .WAV 
specification that *prohibits* this unusual sample rate -- the sample 
rate is a 4-byte integer. Software would have to resample to 44100 or 
48000 to include the sound on DVD or VCD, and it makes no difference to 
the resampling algorithm what the before- and after- sample rates are.


But sound card hardware, even the cheapest, can usually play at 
multiples or submultiples of 44100 and 48000, so suddenly you *HAVE* to 
resample to be able to play without problems.


Or perhaps other movie player software pretends that the audio sample 
rate is 11025, and adjusts the frame rate to 30.0027 fps by repeating 
one frame every 368 (12s)?




On the other hand, the camera plays with Linux very nicely over USB...


Stephen Irons


[1] Does anyone else read instruction manuals cover to cover? For 
pleasure? For devices you don't own, but are thinking of buying? For 
devices you aren't even thinking of buying?




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Remove a watermark from a PDF

[Stephen Irons]

I have bought a second-hand device. It came without the user manual. I 
have downloaded a PDF of the user manual from the manufacturer's website.


When I print the PDF, it print with a watermarked 'COPY' diagonally 
across every page. I would like to get rid of it.


When I view the PDF using Acrobat Reader under Windows, it looks just 
fine on the screen. The watermark appears only when printed.


This suggests to me that the watermark is separate from the page 
content, and so it should be possible to remove it.


When I view the PDF using Evince, the watermark appears on both the 
screen and the print.


If I open the PDF using Inkscape, I can move the watermark separately 
from the rest of the page, and even delete it. But Inkscape can only 
operate on a single page at a time, and I don't want a pristine copy 
badly enough to hand-tweak 120+ pages. I would much rather spend my time 
finding out how to do it properly (even though I could probably 
hand-tweak the 120+ pages in half the time...)


If I open the PDF using PDFEdit 0.4.1, it gives warnings about the 
document being a linearized PDF and an encrypted PDF, and about unknown 
compression methods, and does not display any of the page contents at 
all (but it does list all of the pages). It does provide an option to 
delinearize the PDF, which gets rid of the linearized and encrypted 
warnings, but still complains about the unknown compression and does not 
display the page contents.


Any more suggestions?

Stephen Irons

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Re: USB turntables, anyone?

[Stephen Irons]

Nick Rout wrote:

On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 10:30 AM, Andrew Errington
 wrote:
  

Hi Wesley,

As others have pointed out, if you have a record player already then you
can hook it up to the audio input of your PC sound card and record the
sound that way.



Actually you are far better off with a preamp. IIRC levels
(impedance?) from turntables don't match well with line-in on a sound
card.
  
There are at least three factors to consider when hooking up a turntable 
to a sound card:


   * signal level -- some turntable cartridges give very low output,
 often lower than microphone levels
   * impedance -- some turntable cartridges have high output impedance,
 which needs an amplifier or preamp of high input impedance
   * equalisation -- records are recorded with high-frequencies boosted
 and low frequencies cut; during playback, you need an RIAA
 equalisation filter to correct this

Your best solution is as recommended: plug a turntable into a amplifier 
with a 'phono' input and record using a sound-card connected to the 
tape-recorder outputs.


You could try connecting a turntable output to a microphone input and 
apply the equalisation in software after recording (Audacity has an RIAA 
equalisation filter), but you would probably do better to use a real 
hardware preamp to ensure that the levels and impedance are correct.


Stephen Irons


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Re: Searchable web comics

[Stephen Irons]

John Carter wrote:

On Fri, 16 Jan 2009, Craig Falconer wrote:


David Lowe wrote, On 16/01/09 15:46:
Then you can never share this, because it would be redistribution of 
copyright material :-\


Actually I suspect even an attack lawyer may have a hard time
identifying what is copyrighted in a text file of (word,-mm-dd) 
pairs.


A very brief attempt (2 seconds) with gocr didn't spit out anything
readable. I suspect one actually needs to (Gasp! Schlock! Horror!)
read the man page and tweak options.

gocr gave reasonable results when converting opera subtitles with 
dvd::rip. I have no idea what options they used, and every DVD needed 
its own learning phase, where you could tell it that on THIS DVD, this 
bunch of pixels is 'm', but that bunch of pixels is 'rn'.


But it showed that gocr could be useful, and it might be worth pursuing.


Stephen Irons

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Re: /var/spool/mail/$USER file locking under Ubuntu

[Stephen Irons]

 wrote:
  

I am busy setting up an automatic mail retrieval system at home. It will
collect email from a number of different remote POP mailboxes and deliver it
to the appropriate local users.


---8<--- snip ---

Stephen Irons



Thank you for all the responses. When I get a bit more Time, I will see 
about making getmail deliver the retrieved mail to a maildir, and 
perhaps set up an IMAP server.


To mitigate locking issues, what I have actually done is have getmail 
deliver mail to /var/spool/GETMAIL/$USER, rather than 
/var/spool/MAIL/$USER. Then there at most two things accessing the mbox 
(mail client and getmail). I don't know who else writes to 
/var/spool/mail, but I do occasionally get email from anacron, and there 
might be other things that also write to the mbox. But that is really 
just a temporary hack; unless I can know that they all use the same 
locking scheme, it is only a matter of time before bad things happen.



Some context for why I am complicating the mail system:

Four people share a computer at home. We have individual user accounts 
on the computer, and individual email addresses with separate mailboxes. 
We all check our email individually. We have a dial-up connection. It 
all works well enough...


...except for two things that have long annoyed me:

  * We have to check email individually. I would prefer to collect 
everyone's email at one go.


  * In order to send email to another family member, it goes via the 
ISP -- it should just get delivered locally. (We do actually talk to one 
another, but sometimes it is convenient to forward emails, send photos, 
etc).


So my idea for improving the mail system was to

  * use a mail retrieval agent (like getmail or fetchmail) to retrieve 
everyone's email all at once from various POP3 mailboxes.


  * use a local MTA (like sendmail or exim, with external SMTP server 
disabled) to send local mail locally and remote mail to the ISP's smart 
SMTP server.


  * do this on-demand from the command line at first, then automate it 
so that it happens whenever someone dials up, and then every 15 minutes 
or so.


  * get the MTA to rewrite email addresses so that I can send email 
addressed to wifes_n...@our.isp.com and it gets delivered to 
wifes_account locally.


I have the system up and running for my mail, using getmail (because it 
seemed easier to configure than fetchmail) and exim (because I found a 
tutorial on how to set it up just as I wanted). When I get home, I have 
new email waiting for me without having to dial out, simply because 
someone else has dialed out during the day. Email disappears immediately 
from the outbox, and gets sent later when someone dials out or I want to 
browse the web.


I had to do some magic in /etc/ppp/ip-up.d to ensure that getmail runs 
when a connection appears. Exim does this for you (as does fetchmail, as 
I later found out).


When I am happy, I will adjust everyone else's mail client settings to 
use the super new whizzy system.


I am not completely happy at the moment. Apart from my mbox locking 
concern: there is no indication whether getmail is busy receiving email, 
or whether exim is busy sending email, so you don't know whether it is 
safe to hang up. The only solution is to browse the web for a bit 
longer...or perhaps make a little Gnome panel applet that monitors the 
Exim queue (exim -bp), checks whether getmail is running and turns green 
when it is safe to hang up...


I have considered setting up a local IMAP server, but that seemed just a 
bit too much just now. Perhaps next year, though we might well have 
broadband by then and a few more computers, so there will be different 
influences driving the situation. I would like to get a 
wireless-router-switch with USB port running OpenWRT (like the Asus 
WL520GU for NZ$85) to act as an IMAP server...


Stephen Irons


(My original mail did not make it back through the incoming spam filter, 
so I have replied to a reply)



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Re: /var/spool/mail/$USER file locking under Ubuntu

[Stephen Irons]

Nick Rout wrote:

On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 11:30 AM, Stephen Irons
 wrote:
  
mbox gets very slow if you store a lot of mail in it. Its basically

one big file that represents the whole folder. maildir is superior in
many ways!
  


Interesting. Evolution and Thunderbird both seem to store local email in 
mbox-like files, but have additional index files, presumably to speed up 
searching and sorting.


And, can you believe it, Evolution still, in year 2009, corrupts lines 
starting with 'From ' to '>From '. It obviously needs to evolve some more.

I have run my own small (but with large folders, I am a hoarder) email
server for many years and the above approach grew out of frustrations
at previous iterations.
  



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/var/spool/mail/$USER file locking under Ubuntu

[Stephen Irons]

I am busy setting up an automatic mail retrieval system at home. It will 
collect email from a number of different remote POP mailboxes and 
deliver it to the appropriate local users.


getmail seems to fit the bill, and I have a system up and running to do 
just that -- it collects email and puts it into the appropriate 
/var/spool/mail/$USER mbox file.


Now, getmail allows for two different types of file locking for the 
/var/spool/mail/$USER file: flock and lockf. flock uses a lock file, 
while lockf uses fcntl locking, which I gather is some internal kernel 
feature.


Also, the getmail manual [1] warns that other programs using the mbox 
file must use the same type of locking, to prevent them from accessing 
the file simultaneously and causing corruption. It encourages you to ask 
the system administrator what type of file locking the system uses.


I AM the system administrator and I don't know what type of file locking 
it uses. I have not been able to discover the answer with a number of 
Google searches.



Can anyone suggest a search string, or just tell me what type of mbox 
file locking Ubuntu Intrepid uses for mbox files in /var/spool/mail?



An alternative suggested by getmail is to deliver mail to Maildirs 
instead of mboxes. However, neither Evolution or Thunderbird can 
retrieve mail from Maildirs into their own internal format, although 
Evolution can access a Maildir store. So I would prefer that getmail 
delivered to the /var/spool/mail mboxes.


A third alternative is just to hope that the mail client, getmail and 
any other mail generators (I know that anacron occasionally sends email 
to the system administrator) never access the mbox simultaneously, and 
if they do, that Someone Else has already thought about the problem and 
that the getmail default (lockf) is correct.


Stephen Irons


[1] http://pyropus.ca/software/getmail/configuration.html




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Re: OT: Christchurch bus info

[Stephen Irons]

Eliot Blennerhassett wrote:

Recalling that there was some bemoaning of the lack of linux support
for bus information in chch, I stumbled across this just now:

http://arcgis.ecan.govt.nz/Beta/Metro/wheresmybus.aspx

(From here http://ecangisbeta.wordpress.com/)
  

Works well with Epiphany -- back on topic

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Re: arrrgh! dependencies!

[Stephen Irons]

Aidan Gauland wrote:

Hello,

 I want to setup a cross-compiler, following this tutorial...
http://wiki.debian.org/BuildingCrossCompilers
...but since I'm on a dial-up connection, I would be waiting until 
Christmas for steps such as "sudo apt-get build-dep binutils gcc-4.1" 
to finish.  I usually mark changes with the Synaptic Package Manager, 
generate a download script, and give it to my father to run at work (I 
don't do this often).  But I can't do that for... unorthodox 
installations like what I'll need for setting up a cross-compiler.  
How can I get a list of the the URLs for all the packages apt-get 
needs to install (if I give arguments)?


Thanks,
Aidan


sudo apt-get install --print-uris 

Or consider using apt-zip-* (the apt-zip package). I have not actually 
used it, but apparently you run apt-zip-list on your offline machine to 
generate a script that runs on the online machine. This script downloads 
the necessary packages which you bring home on a USB stick (or a ZIP 
disk, hence the name). You then run apt-zip-inst on the offline machine 
to install the packages; it uses a script that was generated when you 
first ran apt-zip-list.


Stephen Irons


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Friday fun with a mouse

[Stephen Irons]

, axis, etc

Value is used to indicate keypress, release, or the amount moved, or the 
absolute position.


Now, it is quite possible to write a script to interpret these. Ideally, 
it would be written in C, and #include .


However, clever people have already done this and given it a nice Python 
interface: gizmod, the Gizmo Daemon.


So a little gizmod script quickly hacked together detects mouse 
movements and button presses and displays the result.


It was only a little more effort to modify the script to send OSC (Open 
Sound Control, proposed successor to MIDI) events to Ardour.


Now I have a spinny wheel that adjusts the SPEED of the tranport in 
Ardour when you turn the wheel. It should adjust the POSITION of the 
transport as you turn the wheel...next Friday afternoon, perhaps.


Perhaps I could expand a bit on Gizmod and Ardour too...but it is time 
to go home now.


Stephen Irons

[1] well, for a little while
[2] much longer than [1]
[3] mice are small furry rodents

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Re: OT: Skype & Standards. Was: Re: SIP phones and pfsense....

[Stephen Irons]

Nick Rout wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 26, 2008 at 2:50 PM, Don Gould <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>   
>> Perhaps there's reason why ; shouldn't be used.
>>
>> I don't know what those reasons are.
>>
>> 
>
> The reason it shouldn't be used is that it isn't in the standard.
>   
The standard...there are so many.

You could always suggest that Evolution is not conforming to RFC-1123
(Requirements for Internet Hosts -- Application and Support).
Specifically, section 1.2.2 Robustness Principle. This is Jon Postel's
famous statement: "Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in
what you send".

Stephen Irons

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Re: CherryPal

[Stephen Irons]

Gabriella Turek wrote:
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/17/cherrypal/
> http://72.51.37.17/

This is EXACTLY what I have been waiting for as my network server:

* low power so I can leave it on
* no fan, so I can't hear it
* small, so I can mount it on the bottom of the shelf
* Wifi, so my laptop can connect to it
* Ethernet, to connect to the ADSL modem
* one USB hole to connect a whacking great hard-drive
* one USB hole to plug in a printer

Sure, you can do this with an old PC, but that fails on the first two
points.

How long until we install router + firewall + file-server + print-server
software on it?

Stephen Irons


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Re: CherryPal

[Stephen Irons]

Gabriella Turek wrote:
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/17/cherrypal/
> http://72.51.37.17/


US$ 250 (click 'Purchase' at http://72.51.37.17/shop/)

400 MHz processor
256 MB RAM
4G flash drive
Wifi
Ethernet
2 USB ports
Headphone out
50GB online storage

BYO monitor, keyboard, mouse, broadband modem.

If you want to plug in anything else, also BYO USB hub.

No microphone input, so BYO USB sound card or SIP-phone.


Stephen Irons


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Re: slow data rates for usb flash drive

[Stephen Irons]

Nick Rout wrote:
> I have an imation 4G flash drive that is sitting in a USB2 port. I am
> transferring a 3.7G file from the computers sata hard drive to the usb
> drive.
>
> It seems to be taking about 20 minutes This seems far too long. USB
> data rate 60MB/s.
>
> 3719MB/60MB/s = 62 seconds, give or take.
>
> Now I know I won't get a sustained rate anywhere near that, but the
> predicted time is 20 odd times over the theoretical minimum time.
>
> So where should I look for problems. Suspicions centre around:
>
> 1. USB flash drive cannot handle the data rate, tough one Nick; or
>
> 2. USB operating at USB1.1 rate only. How would I diagnose that?
>
> Its an intel based compaq motherboard, excerpts from lspci:
>
> 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB
> UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
> 00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB
> UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
> 00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB
> UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
> 00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2
> EHCI Controller (rev 02)
>
> dmesg displays a lot of lines with the term USB in them, dunno whats relevant.
>   

Another point of reference is the relative speed rating of CF and SD
cards. They are often rated as 6x or 60x or 133x. This is relative to the
standard CD ROM 1x speed of 150 k bytes/sec.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SD_card#Speeds)

So an SD card rated at 6x can transfer data at 900 k bytes/sec, while a
60x card can get close to 10 M bytes/sec. Top end cards (133x or 150x)
can get up to perhaps 20 or 30 M bytes/sec. It is not clear from
Wikipedia or manufacturer's very limited datasheets whether this is read
speed or write speed; one assumes the read speed because this is usually
higher than the write speed.

Stephen Irons




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Re: slow data rates for usb flash drive

[Stephen Irons]

Nick Rout wrote:
> I have an imation 4G flash drive that is sitting in a USB2 port. I am
> transferring a 3.7G file from the computers sata hard drive to the usb
> drive.
>
> It seems to be taking about 20 minutes This seems far too long. USB
> data rate 60MB/s.
>
> 3719MB/60MB/s = 62 seconds, give or take.
>
> Now I know I won't get a sustained rate anywhere near that, but the
> predicted time is 20 odd times over the theoretical minimum time.
>
> So where should I look for problems. Suspicions centre around:
>
> 1. USB flash drive cannot handle the data rate, tough one Nick; or
>
> 2. USB operating at USB1.1 rate only. How would I diagnose that?
>
> Its an intel based compaq motherboard, excerpts from lspci:
>
> 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB
> UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
> 00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB
> UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
> 00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB
> UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
> 00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2
> EHCI Controller (rev 02)
>
> dmesg displays a lot of lines with the term USB in them, dunno whats relevant.
>   
Flash devices take a certain length of time to write to the non-volatile
cells inside the flash IC. Also, banks of cells have to be erased to
make space for more data. Finally, the read access time is MUCH faster
than the write and erase time.

It so happens that I have a data sheet for a flash device on my desk...

Samsung K9KG08R0B (128 Mbyte NAND flash)

Page write cycle time: 200 us
Page write size: 512 bytes

This means that this particular flash device can write 512 bytes in 200
us = 2.56 bytes/us or about 2.6 mega bytes per second.


Block erase time: 2 ms
Block erase size: 16K bytes

This device can erase 16K bytes in 2ms = 8192 bytes/ms = 8 mega bytes
per second

Page serial read time: 50 ns
Page random read time: 15 us
Page read size: 512 bytes

This flash device can read pages sequentially at 512 bytes in 50 ns =
10.24 bytes/ns or about 10 giga bytes per second.
This flash device can read random page at 512 bytes in 15 us = 34.13
bytes/us or about 34 mega bytes per second.

For writing, the flash write time is the limiting factor.
For reading, the USB data rate is the limiting factor.


I have no idea what flash devices are actually used in USB flash drives.
Presumably not this small, old one.

Stephen Irons


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Re: Printing woes...

[Stephen Irons]

Barry wrote:
> If I bring my box etc tonight would there be a guru who could sort out
> cups for me, I just about went around the bend with it last week.
>
> The printer is a HP colour laserjet 1600, cups recognises it and it
> appears to be properly set up, jobs get passed to cups & queued and
> there they stay until cancelled.
>
> Any ideas anyone please?
>
> Barry
>
In my latest upgrade to Ubuntu Hardy, my printer (HP Deskjet 670C
connected via a USB-parallel port widget) has started disabling itself
occasionally, giving the effect you describe (jobs sent to cups, queued,
but no printing happens).

It seems to get into this state when I unplug the printer: seems as if
cups sees the printer is not there and disables it, but does not see
that it comes back again so it stays disabled.

In my case, I have to re-enable the printer: In System > Administration
> Printing, choose the printer, then on the Policies tab, turn on the
'Enabled' flag.

Stephen

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Re: Ubuntu Hardy Heron RC1

[Stephen Irons]

Derek Smithies wrote:
> Hi,
>  
> On Thu, 24 Apr 2008, Kerry Mayes wrote:
>
>   
>> And, not to rely on the release date - I see they have replaced
>> yesterday's "1 day to go" with "coming soon"!
>> 
>
> http://linux.softpedia.com/get/System/Operating-Systems/Linux-Distributions/Xubuntu-32977.shtml
>
> says, 
>  "As Ubuntu has a delay of six weeks with a new release date of the first 
> of June,"
>
>
>
> Derek.
>   
The paragraph before the one you quoted indicates that the Softpedia
description is wrong -- they are talking about the 6-week delay when
DAPPER was released.

"Xfce4 has been supported in Ubuntu's universe by the MOTUXfce team
since Hoary and Breezy. For Dapper we want to go one step further and
make Xubuntu a sibling of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Edubuntu by having
install and live CD images generated for it."


On 21 April, Ubuntu announced the release date of 24 April.

That is the UTC date, so there is still a few hours wait...

Stephen

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Re: I'm officially grumpy! Audiobooks for visually impaired.

[Stephen Irons]

John Carter wrote:
> So I was speaking to Granny (who lives on The Far Side of the Planet),
> and I discover she can no longer read or watch TV. (Macular Degeneration)
>
snip
> None have tactile deducible controls. (ie. Can feel, braille like,
> which control it is.)
I have always wanted to install an MP3 player in a cassette:

* detect the capstan turning == play
* detect tension hub turning == rewind
* detect wind-on hub turning == ffwd
* playback audio goes out through a magnetic coupling to the playback head
* record audio goes in through a magnetic coupling from the playback head
* detect erase == record mode

Also have a USB connector to load and unload material on the device.

Anyone keen to make one up?

Stephen Irons


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Re: How to change your sender address in the mail server...

[Stephen Irons]

Don Gould wrote:
>
>
> Jim Cheetham wrote:
>> I use GNU Anubis as an SMTP proxy to do just this sort of thing.
>> http://www.gnu.org/software/anubis/
>
> Thank you.  That is the package someone said before.  I remember now.
>
> Is it hard to set up?  Any Gotyas?
How about NOT changing any server settings, but instead setting up a new
email account in your email client with your correct CLUG subscribe
address. You would then filter CLUG emails into a folder in this account
-- I do this using Evolution.

Your work-flow changes from

1. Thinks: I want to send a message to CLUG
2. Create a new message
3. In the new message, change the sender address to CLUG subscribe address
4. Type the CLUG mailing list address

to

1. Thinks: I want to send a message to CLUG
2. Change to the CLUG folder/account -- I am usually there anyway, when
I am thinking about CLUG matters
3. Create a new message -- the sender address is correct
4. Type the CLUG mailing list address

You can still get it wrong if you do not follow the work-flow. But the
whole thing it visible, is easily done by any user, and does not involve
editing invisible mail configuration files.

Thunderbird does not quite support this. At any rate, I have not found
out how to set up multiple 'Local folders' accounts. I'm sure a bit of
poking around in the Advanced Configuration will show how Thunderbird
configures its local folders account -- it might be as simple as
changing the mail.server.server.type to 'none' rather than 'pop' or
'imap'.

Other mail clients do allow you to configure multiple local mail folders
in their own usual way.

Stephen Irons


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More on Vodafone 715

[Stephen Irons]

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my experience with a Vodafone 715 phone,
trying to get it to play nicely with Linux as a USB storage device.

It turns out that if you plug in a flash card (micro SD) card then
connect to the PC, it Just Works. You can access files on the SD card,
but nothing in the phone's internal memory.

Pity, I was hoping there would be a way to get rid of the useless
Vodafone Live shopping catalog.


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Re: Comparing text files

[Stephen Irons]

Barry wrote:
> Can someone point me to an app which will display/compare 2 text
> files, much like the compare utility which came with xtree/xtpro years
> ago.
>
> TIA
>
> Barry
>
Probably not what you are looking for, but one that I discovered
recently is 'comm' (presumably for 'common'). It compares two files and
prints three columns:

* column 1 contains lines in file 1 only
* column 2 contains lines in file 2 only
* column 3 contains lines that common to both files

The two files must be sorted in alphabetical order.

It is useful for comparing lists.

Stephen


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Re: which kubuntu version am i running?

[Stephen Irons]

Nick Rout wrote:
> Also on this topic, most distros have a file with the term "release" or
> "version" under /etc/ , eg:
>
> /etc/gentoo-release
> /etc/KnoppMyth-version
>
> Also under debian/*buntu, take a look at /etc/apt/sources.list, the
> version name (edgy, gutsy, lenny etc) will appear in the deb lines.
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, March 13, 2008 3:18 pm, Nick Rout wrote:
>   
>> On Thu, March 13, 2008 10:13 am, Kerry wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi Rex,
>>>   
>
>   
On my box, cat /etc/lsb-release gives

DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=7.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=gutsy
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 7.10"


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Re: Unrecognised USB device

[Stephen Irons]

Nick Rout wrote:
> On Mon, March 3, 2008 10:57 am, Stephen Irons wrote:
>   
>> yuri wrote:
>> 
>>> On 29/02/2008, Stephen Irons wrote:
>>>
>>>   
>>>> When connecting a Vodafone 715 mobile phone to a PC running Ubuntu
>>>>  Gutsy...nothing happens. Well, nothing visible. lsusb reveals that the
>>>>  kernel sees the device plugged in:
>>>>
>>>> 
>>> [snip]
>>>
>>>   
>>>>  Just USB mass-storage support (to speed up transfer of files to the
>>>>  device) would be enough: it costs too much to access the internet via
>>>>  mobile phone.
>>>>
>>>> 
>>> Does the connectivity menu on the phone give an option to activate USB
>>> mass storage?
>>> Some phones have two modes for USB.
>>>
>>> Yuri
>>>
>>>   
>> There is nothing obvious in the settings that suggests a USB storage
>> option; I think I have traversed the whole menu-space. It has been easy
>> to find on other devices (like my camera).
>>
>> Some debugging over the weekend with the help of a friend's Windows box:
>>
>> 1. The Vodafone PC Assist software includes a Windows device driver that
>> make the phone look like a USB serial port.
>>
>> 2. Typing 'AT ' at a terminal gets an 'OK' response, but 'ATDT
>> ', 'ATH0' and 'ATH1' give an error message. They seem to have
>> some private protocol running over the serial connection.
>>
>> 3. The PC Assist software includes functions to manage the SMS, calls
>> and emails on the phone, to synchronise the phone's address book and
>> calendar with Outlook, and to manage files on the phone. It also
>> includes a useless photo editor, and so on. They have fallen into the
>> trap of trying to provide a phone management application, rather than
>> providing a connection so that you can use your own first-class tools to
>> manage the set of data that happens to be on the phone.
>>
>> 4. It might be possible to reverse engineer the protocol over the serial
>> connection. One would hope it is the same as the E620 or E220, for which
>> support seems to be coming slowly.
>>
>> 5. The PC Assist application restricts the serial speed is limited to
>> 115200 baud. Transfer rate is slow (a number of seconds to transfer 100k
>> of data). But what does it mean to limit a USB serial port speed to
>> 115200 baud? Is the average data rate restricted to 115200?
>>
>> 6. I will just use the Bluetooth connection -- it seems to transfer
>> files at about the same speed as the USB connection.
>>
>> Stephen Irons
>> 
>
> What OS is the phone running?
>
>   
How does one tell?

The "Product Datasheet for Vodafone 715" available from Vodafone has a
section named "Operating System and CPU", but it only tells us that it
is a 180 MHz Intel StrongARM with 8MB of "internal memory available to
the user" (presumably flash memory for address book, emails, etc). It
does not actually mention the OS.

I have not seen anything else on the web about its OS. It is not a very
popular phone...

Stephen

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Re: Unrecognised USB device

[Stephen Irons]

yuri wrote:
> On 29/02/2008, Stephen Irons wrote:
>   
>> When connecting a Vodafone 715 mobile phone to a PC running Ubuntu
>>  Gutsy...nothing happens. Well, nothing visible. lsusb reveals that the
>>  kernel sees the device plugged in:
>> 
> [snip]
>   
>>  Just USB mass-storage support (to speed up transfer of files to the
>>  device) would be enough: it costs too much to access the internet via
>>  mobile phone.
>> 
>
> Does the connectivity menu on the phone give an option to activate USB
> mass storage?
> Some phones have two modes for USB.
>
> Yuri
>   
There is nothing obvious in the settings that suggests a USB storage
option; I think I have traversed the whole menu-space. It has been easy
to find on other devices (like my camera).

Some debugging over the weekend with the help of a friend's Windows box:

1. The Vodafone PC Assist software includes a Windows device driver that
make the phone look like a USB serial port.

2. Typing 'AT ' at a terminal gets an 'OK' response, but 'ATDT
', 'ATH0' and 'ATH1' give an error message. They seem to have
some private protocol running over the serial connection.

3. The PC Assist software includes functions to manage the SMS, calls
and emails on the phone, to synchronise the phone's address book and
calendar with Outlook, and to manage files on the phone. It also
includes a useless photo editor, and so on. They have fallen into the
trap of trying to provide a phone management application, rather than
providing a connection so that you can use your own first-class tools to
manage the set of data that happens to be on the phone.

4. It might be possible to reverse engineer the protocol over the serial
connection. One would hope it is the same as the E620 or E220, for which
support seems to be coming slowly.

5. The PC Assist application restricts the serial speed is limited to
115200 baud. Transfer rate is slow (a number of seconds to transfer 100k
of data). But what does it mean to limit a USB serial port speed to
115200 baud? Is the average data rate restricted to 115200?

6. I will just use the Bluetooth connection -- it seems to transfer
files at about the same speed as the USB connection.

Stephen Irons




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Unrecognised USB device

[Stephen Irons]

When connecting a Vodafone 715 mobile phone to a PC running Ubuntu
Gutsy...nothing happens. Well, nothing visible. lsusb reveals that the
kernel sees the device plugged in:


$ lsusb
Bus 003 Device 005: ID 12d1:1009

The phone is a rebadged Huawei U120. I believe that it should support
mass-storage, CDC modem and SyncML using OBEX over USB.

Googling for 12d1 reveals that indeed 12d1 is the vendor ID for Huawei.
However, linux-usb.org has only the following entries:

12d1  Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
1001  E620 USB Modem
1003  E220 HSDPA Modem

No obvious support for model U120.

Is it practical to roll-your-own support for an unsupported device? In
the days of hotplug, I knew where to start typing. But I have not really
followed the transition to udev, HAL and all its friends.

Just USB mass-storage support (to speed up transfer of files to the
device) would be enough: it costs too much to access the internet via
mobile phone.

Bluetooth works just fine: pairing was easy, files transfer in both
directions (but slowly), and synchronisation with Evolution address
books using opensync is good.

Is there enough data in lsusb -v to determine exactly which protocols
the device support? On Bluetooth, sdptool tells you what the remove
device can do.

Those vendor specific protocol class, subclass and protocol worry me
somewhat.

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

$ lsusb -v
Bus 003 Device 005: ID 12d1:1009
Device Descriptor:
  bLength 18
  bDescriptorType 1
  bcdUSB 1.10
  bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level)
  bDeviceSubClass 0
  bDeviceProtocol 0
  bMaxPacketSize0 64
  idVendor 0x12d1
  idProduct 0x1009
  bcdDevice 0.00
  iManufacturer 1
  iProduct 2
  iSerial 0
  bNumConfigurations 1
  Configuration Descriptor:
bLength 9
bDescriptorType 2
wTotalLength 62
bNumInterfaces 2
bConfigurationValue 1
iConfiguration 0
bmAttributes 0xa0
  (Bus Powered)
  Remote Wakeup
MaxPower 500mA
Interface Descriptor:
  bLength 9
  bDescriptorType 4
  bInterfaceNumber 0
  bAlternateSetting 0
  bNumEndpoints 3
  bInterfaceClass 255 Vendor Specific Class
  bInterfaceSubClass 255 Vendor Specific Subclass
  bInterfaceProtocol 255 Vendor Specific Protocol
  iInterface 3
  Endpoint Descriptor:
bLength 7
bDescriptorType 5
bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN
bmAttributes 3
  Transfer Type Interrupt
  Synch Type None
  Usage Type Data
wMaxPacketSize 0x0010 1x 16 bytes
bInterval 128
  Endpoint Descriptor:
bLength 7
bDescriptorType 5
bEndpointAddress 0x82 EP 2 IN
bmAttributes 2
  Transfer Type Bulk
  Synch Type None
  Usage Type Data
wMaxPacketSize 0x0040 1x 64 bytes
bInterval 0
  Endpoint Descriptor:
bLength 7
bDescriptorType 5
bEndpointAddress 0x02 EP 2 OUT
bmAttributes 2
  Transfer Type Bulk
  Synch Type None
  Usage Type Data
wMaxPacketSize 0x0040 1x 64 bytes
bInterval 0
Interface Descriptor:
  bLength 9
  bDescriptorType 4
  bInterfaceNumber 1
  bAlternateSetting 0
  bNumEndpoints 2
  bInterfaceClass 255 Vendor Specific Class
  bInterfaceSubClass 255 Vendor Specific Subclass
  bInterfaceProtocol 255 Vendor Specific Protocol
  iInterface 3
  Endpoint Descriptor:
bLength 7
bDescriptorType 5
bEndpointAddress 0x85 EP 5 IN
bmAttributes 2
  Transfer Type Bulk
  Synch Type None
  Usage Type Data
wMaxPacketSize 0x0040 1x 64 bytes
bInterval 0
  Endpoint Descriptor:
bLength 7
bDescriptorType 5
bEndpointAddress 0x05 EP 5 OUT
bmAttributes 2
  Transfer Type Bulk
  Synch Type None
  Usage Type Data
wMaxPacketSize 0x0040 1x 64 bytes
bInterval 0


Thanks
Stephen Irons

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file:///C:/DOCUME~1/IRONSS/LOCALS~1/TEMP/nsmail.tmp
Description: PGP signature

Re: On Topic: USB Microphone Adaptor

[Stephen Irons]

I spent $10 on Trademe for a no-name brand USB audio device. It uses a
Tenx usb headset chipset and works with Ubuntu 7.10. It works. The
microphone preamp is good enough. The speaker output is pretty bad, but
fine for speech (its intended application).

I have tested a Creative USB sound card (cannot remember which model)
and it also worked under Linux. It cost about $75 or so.

High-end sound cards are called 'audio interfaces', and googling for
'usb audio interface linux' will get you what you need. You can expect
to pay $250 or more for one made by (in no order) M-Audio, Mackie,
Lexicon, Roland, Boss, Tascam, etc. At the higher end, you get very high
quality microphone preamp with 48V phantom power. I have tested a
Lexicon Lambda and an Edirol UA-25, and they both worked with Linux, but
no longer have access to them.

I currently use a cheap Audio Technica stereo microphone, a home-made
microphone preamplifier, a Sony minidisc recorder, and a Behringer
UCA202 USB audio interface, plugged variously into Audacity under Ubuntu
7.10.

The Behringer UCA202 is line-level only, hence the need for the external
mic preamp. Build quality is plasticy, but is uses a Texas
Instruments/Burr-Brown USB chip with good specs. It cost about $70
brand-new on Trademe.

Stephen




Christopher Sawtell wrote:
> Greetings CLUGgers,
>
>   Can anybody suggest a microphone amp and adc box, possibly with some
> other software, which will allow me to use my somewhat superior, if
> old, electret stereo microphone into a USB socket and thence into
> Audacity?
>
> (Thank goodness I can mention an application which runs on Linux thus
> being On Topic)
>
>   Many thanks.
>
>   


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Re: Test your C knowledge here.

[Stephen Irons]

Derek Smithies wrote:
> Hi,
>  I was at a conference in chicago (www.cluecon.com) and one of the 
> presenters there asked a question:
>
> Is the following line of code legal?
>
>
>   2["abcde"];
>
>
> Answer to come, after any discussion..
>
> Derek.
>
>
>   
C FAQ, question 6.11 (http://c-faq.com/aryptr/joke.html),

To me, the most relevant comment is

"it finds no useful application outside of the Obfuscated C Contest".


Stephen Irons


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Re: Advice for a Windows user

[Stephen Irons]

Roy Britten wrote:
> ... other than "switch to linux" :)
>
> A chap I know misses the Windows Explorer interface when he's on a
> linux box. You know the sort of thing -- a split pane with an
> expanding/collapsing directory tree on the left and a file list on the
> right. I just use plain old nautilus and don't know of any appropriate
> file managers. What should I suggest to him?
>
> Cheers,
> Roy.
By default, the left-hand pane of Nautilus shows 'Places': a list
containing your home folder, your desktop, 'the' filesystem (ie. /), as
well as any mounted filesystems in /mnt and /media. This might include a
flash drive, MP3 player, camera, etc.

At the top of this list, it says 'Places'. If you open the list (by
clicking on the arrow next to 'Places', you can choose from one of:
* Places - described above
* Information - some details about the current location
* Tree - THIS IS THE ONE YOU WANT
* History - your navigation history within Nautilus
* Notes - text stored an extended attribute associated with the file
* Emblems - a list of the tiny icons that you can associate with each file

Stephen



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Re: Favourite online C resources

[Stephen Irons]

Stephen Irons wrote:
> John Carter wrote:
>   
>> hmmm
>>
>> Is that...
>>
>>   ``Notes for C programmers,'' by Christopher Sawtell, are available
>>   by ftp from svr-ftp.eng.cam.ac.uk and garbo.uwasa.fi, or on the web
>>   at www.fi.uib.no .
>>
>> any relation to our very own Christopher Sawtell?
>> 
>
> If you follow the link to www.fi.uib.no, you get his name, address, and
> phone number in Christchurch.
>
> Stephen
>   
Sorry, that was the link text as displayed by the browser; I typed it
in. The actual link from that page is:

http://www.fi.uib.no/Fysisk/Teori/KURS/OTHER/newzealand.html


Stephen


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Re: Favourite online C resources

[Stephen Irons]

John Carter wrote:
> hmmm
>
> Is that...
>
>   ``Notes for C programmers,'' by Christopher Sawtell, are available
>   by ftp from svr-ftp.eng.cam.ac.uk and garbo.uwasa.fi, or on the web
>   at www.fi.uib.no .
>
> any relation to our very own Christopher Sawtell?

If you follow the link to www.fi.uib.no, you get his name, address, and
phone number in Christchurch.

Stephen



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Re: You're all no doubt hackers

[Stephen Irons]

Kerry Mayes wrote:
> Definitely a crock understanding of statistics.  Also:
> - to assert that the attacks originate in the target country seems
> bizarre!
> - the differences between countries may not even be statistically
> significant.
>
> I saw a wonderful page from a "bad science" group (may have been
> called the anti-Nobel prize).  The key thing I remember was from a

Ig Nobel Prize. http://improbable.com/ig/. The Improbable Research site
is a great way to spend a Friday afternoon.

Stephen


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Re: Edit EXIF dpi information

[Stephen Irons]

Andrew Errington wrote:
> Hello,
>
> What is the best tool for editing the dpi information in a JPG image?  I 
> have resized the original with ImageMagick, and the EXIF dpi is 72 in X and 
> 72 in y.  I want to edit these values to be 300 dpi in both axes.  
> ImageMagick will print out the EXIF values, and I have found some utilities 
> to edit the EXIF fields, but they only seem to allow editing of the 
> 'coventional' fields like date and time, title, copyright string etc.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Andrew
>   
The -density option to convert specifies the resolution in dpi, unless
you change the units with the -units option

Stephen


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Re: Ubuntu Feisty Fawn upgrade.

[Stephen Irons]

Kerry Mayes wrote:
> I have also just completed my upgrade to Feisty Fawn and it was very
> straightforward for me.
>
> Here at work we had three machines running Edgy and  it seemed
> wasteful for each to download >900Mb so I downloaded the "alternate"
> cd image. Once I found an empty cd re-writeable to put this on (is
> there a way of mounting an iso as a virtual cd rom under linux?)
> installation was easy (if time consuming).
>
You can mount a .iso as a virtual CD; you need to do the following:

1. make sure you know where your .iso file is located, perhaps
/home/me/download/ubuntu-7.04-alternate-i386.iso

2. make a directory to mount it. eg
mkdir /mnt/ubuntu-cd

3. add an entry in /etc/fstab reading something like

# Ubuntu CD
#path-to-filemount-point 
parameters...
/home/me/download/ubuntu-7.04-alternate-i386.iso /mnt/ubuntu-cd  
auto  noauto,loop,ro,exec  0   0


4. mount the filesystem
mount /mnt/ubuntu-cd


You can then point apt (and friends) at this mount point instead of your
normal CD mount point (/media/cdrom, I think), and bob's your uncle.


> This only did about 3/4 of the upgrade, the rest had to be done direct
> from the repositories (another 250Mb ish).  That should have been easy
> as a normal package upgrade but it wanted the alternate cd (which I'd
> left at home). Once I found *another* cd re-writeable and written it,
> the rest of the upgrade was straight forward.
>
If you are upgrading more than one machine, and you have to download
many packages that are not on the CD but are needed on all machines, you
can save download time by copying the packages from the package cache on
one machine to the package cache on the other machines (via network,
flash drive or CD rom). The package cache is /var/cache/apt/packages.

When you do an installation or upgrade, apt (and its various front-ends)
looks for packages in the package cache first, and only downloads them
if they are not there.

This is useful if you have one machine with a good internet connection
(perhaps you have broadband at home), and other machines with a slow
connection (if you only have dialup at work).

Stephen


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Re: Article: Parallelize applications for faster Linux booting

[Stephen Irons]

david merriman wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I was just reading this article ( http://tinyurl.com/2ostmf ) about
> parallelizing (is that a word ?) applications to make Linux boot
> faster, and thought I might give it a go. Does anyone here do
> something like this on their own pc's ? If so, what do you use/do, and
> what experiences, good or bad, have you had ? I'd be interested to know.
>
> L8R,
> David
Upstart is in use on Ubuntu.

In Edgy, it does nothing more than upstart the usual init.d script, so
nothing new there.

For Feisty, however, the main developer reports on 2006-11-03

http://www.netsplit.com/blog/articles/2006/11




  Boot Sequence

A long-running project within Ubuntu has been to get the boot and
shutdown sequences as fast and efficient as possible. At the time we
started, it was common for a Linux distribution to boot in a mere two or
three minutes.

If you thought edgy booted fast, wait until you see feisty.

Feisty is the release where we take full advantage of Upstart
, not only bringing the system up as fast as
possible but also more robustly than we can do today.

And if that weren’t enough, it should look slicker too; without some of
the nasty flickering and mode changes that happen today.




I have no idea how well it works; I'm still on Edgy. But that is an
relatively easy way to see whether it works for you.

Stephen


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Re: Which distro ? [Long]

[Stephen Irons]

Don Gould wrote:
> Extreamly useful!
>
> I'm printing it out, do you mind if I publish it in a few places?
>
> Cheers Don
You can use it in part or whole, but please attribute it to Stephen
Irons, not to Tait Electronics; they are my opinions.

And you could remove the guff below; it gets added automagically. I
should try to work out how to use a different SMTP server...
|
|
|
V




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Re: Which distro ? [Long]

[Stephen Irons]

Christopher D Maher wrote:
> What is the best distro for an introduction to Linux?  All I want to
> do is be able to play and have something that doesn't use much
> hardware ie no big graphical requirements (though I do want a GUI) and
> something very very light on ram.
>
> CM.
>
This is a list of questions that may affect your choice of Linux
distribution.

It is not a dichotomic  search that leads inevitably to the correct answer

I hope that it will prompt both requester and suggester about what is
important.

It is not complete.

It reflects my bias about what is important.

It derives from my practical experience (installation and use for a
period of time
to achieve a specific non-computer related goal) with

   * 4 different linux distributions

o slackware console (1995 era)
o redhat/kde
o debian/kde
o ubuntu/gnome (5.04 to 6.10)

* many variant of windows from 3.1 to 2K, excluding XP and vista
* many other operating systems including
o DOS, Geoworks, VMS, various HP offerings, etc
   
as well as theoretical consideration (reading the blurb and following some
issues on the forums) of many other Linux distributions and operating
systems

Comments welcome, but I do not maintain this list. It reflects a few
hours thought over a period of some weeks.

Stephen Irons




How to choose a Linux distribution
--

Have you used a computer before

* I have seen computers on TV; they seem easy to use
* I use the online catalog at the library
* I use the public access computers at the library
* I use dedicated business applications at work (Baan, MRP, etc)
* I use email, a word processor and calendar at work
* I hack the kernel with one hand tied behind my back
* I design my own motherboard PCBs and etch them in the shed

What type of computer have you used before

* None
* Windows
* Mac
* Linux desktop
* Unix/linux console
* mainframe
* punchcards and teletypes

What type of system are you talking about now

* single PC, single user
* single PC, multiple users all sharing one account
* single PC, multiple users with separate accounts
* multiple PCs, multiple users, no dedicated servers
* multiple PCs with dedicated servers
* lots of single purpose PCs (kiosks, internet cafes, etc)
* other

What do you want to do (choose all that apply)

* email
* web browsing and blogging
* write letters
* write documents with photos, diagrams, graphs, equations
* manage a collection of music (rip, play, tag, purchase, share)
* manage a collection of photos (get from camera or scanner, touch
up, edit, montage, panoramas, print, share)
* maintain a simple website
* maintain a corporate website
* write software for my computer
* embedded applications and software cross-development
* hack the kernel
* astronomy
* write music scores and play them
* play computer/video games
* create my own computer/video games
* other

What PC hardware do you have

* latest, greatest gaming machine with all the toys
* modern machine (high speed, plenty of RAM, big HDD, modern
graphics, Wifi, bluetooth, etc)
* older machine (good speed, enough RAM, smaller HDD, cheaper
integrated options)
* dunger (slow, little RAM and HDD, crummy graphics)
* specific hardware (ps2, xbox, wrt54, ipaq)
   
You should know or be able to find out the following about your machine
* processor: type, speed, single or dual core
* RAM: size, speed
* HDD: size, connection
* optical drive: type, connection
* graphics system: chipset, number and type of outputs
* monitor: number, type, type of inputs, resolution
* sound: chipset, outputs, inputs, joysticks, mixers, synths
* ethernet: chipset, types of connection
* wifi: chipset
* modem: chipset
* other accessories: keyboard, mouse, touchpad, flash card reader,
finger print gadget
* other connections: usb, firewire, serial, parallel, scsi, etc
* other built-in hardware

What external hardware do you have

* printers, scanners, fax machine
* network switches, wireless access points, routers
* adsl, cable, dialup modems
* print servers, file servers
* digitial cameras, flash drives
* video camera, web cam
* MIDI keyboard, control surfaces, music synthesizer, etc
* remote-control telescope with focuser and low-light video camera
* other special-purpose accessories
* any other external hardware

Who will do the following

* initial installation, setup and configuration
* adding and removing users
* helping users with installed applications
* helping users with web applications (internet banking, trademe,
heavens-above, etc)
* backups
* installing security updates
* installing bug-fix updates
* installing feature upgrades
* adding h

Re: Which distro ?

[Stephen Irons]

Christopher D Maher wrote:
> What is the best distro for an introduction to Linux?  All I want to
> do is be able to play and have something that doesn't use much
> hardware ie no big graphical requirements (though I do want a GUI) and
> something very very light on ram.
>
> CM.
>

My recommendation in order of preference are:

1. stick with the one you have used before. If you change today, you
will have a different set of problems tomorrow.
2. choose the one that is easiest for you to get personal assistance
with. Choose the one your mates use.
3. ubuntu

These are generic recommendations. However, I have added a 4th for your
situation

4. xubuntu. It uses a window manager and GUI applications that are
supposed to be RAM and processor friendly, making it suitable for older
machines.


I have a list of questions that will probably reveal some contradictions
in your requirements...it is a long list, so I will send it as a
separate post.

These recommendations and the list of questions derive from my
assessment of Linux distributions, based on my practical (install and
use) experiences with

* slackware console (1995 era)
* redhat/kde (2003
* debian/kde
* ubuntu/gnome (5.04 -- 6.10)

and my theoretical assessment (reading the blurb and newgroups) of
numerous other distributions. My somewhat cynical summary of all
distributions is:

* different distros install a different set of applications and
libraries by default over a very wide range
  o from a limited set of applications for a specific purpose
(kiosk, router, server)
  o to a selected set of applications for common office tasks
(email, web browser, word-processor, etc)
  o to installing everything, letting you choose without having
to install anything else

* different distros have different distribution mechanisms for
initial installation
  o single CD
  o single DVD
  o multiple disks
  o network only (with perhaps a boot floppy, CD or image)

* all distros provide additional packages via network

* there are a number of different packaging and update mechanisms;
they all provide similar features
  o apt, emerge and rpm are the big three (in alphabetical order)
  o they all fail to do the right thing under certain conditions

* not all distros make a distinction between security updates and
feature upgrades

* all distros provide updates and upgrades via the network

* different distros have different policies about non-free-speech
software
  o some include it all, free and non-free
  o some separate out the non-free stuff, but it is still
available in the repositories if you need it (or want it)
  o some include only free-speech stuff in the package repositories

* all distros and packaging systems have had packaging problems

* all distros had problems detecting some hardware

* you cannot tell ahead of time whether any distro will have
problems with your specific set of hardware

* you cannot tell ahead of time whether any distro will have
problems with your specific software choices

* all distros have had update and upgrade issues

* any distro will need a similar amount of tweaking and
troubleshooting for your specific situation

* there are more alternatives for GUIs under linux than there are
under windows and mac osx

* no desktop distro comes with a backup system for grandma


Stephen Irons


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Re: executing .sh file from command line

[Stephen Irons]

Roger Searle wrote:
> Hi, I have the following file:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~/Desktop> ls -l backup-data.sh
> -rwxr-xr-x 1 roger users 167 2007-03-09 10:18 backup-data.sh
>
> which if clicked from the desktop will create a tar file containing a
> few folders of files in the expected location.  Yet all my attempts to
> run from the command line fail to generate the tar file - having tried
> the following:
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~/Desktop> sh ./backup-data.sh
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~/Desktop> ./backup-data.sh
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~/Desktop> sh /home/roger/Desktop/backup-data.sh
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~/Desktop> /home/roger/Desktop/backup-data.sh
>
> None of the above work - what am I overlooking?
>
> Cheers,
> Roger
>
>   
In what way do they not work:

* computer crashes
* shell gives an error message
* shell returns with a prompt but no message at all
* disks whirr and lights flash but the backup it not where you expect it
to be
* disks whirr and lights flash but you cannot restore files from the backup

It is hard to know what is the problem without knowing what actually
happened.

Stephen

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Re: linuxchix.org.nz

[Stephen Irons]

Olwen Williams wrote:
> Sorry to be picky but Roy doesn't seem to be a woman's name :-)
>
> On 26/02/07, Roy Britten <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> From http://linuxchix.org.nz
>>
>> LinuxChix NZ is a community for women who like Linux, and for women
>> and men who want to support women in computing.
Note the line above...'and men'

[remainder snipped]
>>

Stephen


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Re: PDF Wrangling

[Stephen Irons]

Andrew Errington wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I suppose this is sort of OT, but I have this PDF file that I would like to 
> re-arrange.
>
> The document comprises a number of sheets.  Each sheet is sized A4.  On 
> each sheet there are four 'pages'.  The sheets have crop marks at the 
> edges, which indicate the edges of the four pages on the sheet:
>
>  _|   | |   |_
>
> 1 2
>
>  _ _ _
>  _|   |_|   |_
>   
> 3 4
>
>  _ _ _
>   |   | |   |
>
> The idea is that you print the sheet and cut it with a knife at the crop 
> marks to make a small booklet.
>
> I have a printer that will print on small cards.  If I could extract the 
> pages from each sheet I could print one page per card (or 1/4 sheet per 
> card).
>
> What I want to do is either:
>
> Extract the contents of the PDF and reformat it in a wordprocessor so that 
> each page is on one sheet
>
> or
>
> Set up some amazing print-fu that 'masks' each quadrant of the original 
> page then scales and prints it onto a card.  I have found Kprinter's print 
> filter dialog, but I don't know what tools to use with it to split the 
> original sheets up.
>
> or
>
> Something else.
>
> Anyone done anything like this?  Unix tools preferred, but I could make it 
> work in Windows (I'd rather not though, as the piece of crap that is Adobe 
> Acrobat reader has today decided to freeze one minute after startup every 
> time I load it).
>
> Thanks,
>
> Andrew
>   


In concept:

* pdf2ps to convert PDF to PS

* pstops to move the original PS pages around on a new page. Perhaps you
could set the paper size to the size of one the 'inner' pages, then load
the original 4 times, each time with a different X and Y offset to put
it into the middle of the new page. You would have to measure the
original; pstops will not find the crop marks for you. Note that pstops
is different from ps2ps...

Good luck with the page-specification syntax for pstops...

* use pstops again to change the size of the paper back to A4 (or
whatever), either keeping the content in the centre of the page,
enlarging it to fit the paper

Stephen



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Re: PDF Wrangling

[Stephen Irons]

Andrew Errington wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I suppose this is sort of OT, but I have this PDF file that I would like to 
> re-arrange.
>
> The document comprises a number of sheets.  Each sheet is sized A4.  On 
> each sheet there are four 'pages'.  The sheets have crop marks at the 
> edges, which indicate the edges of the four pages on the sheet:
>
>  _|   | |   |_
>
> 1 2
>
>  _ _ _
>  _|   |_|   |_
>   
> 3 4
>
>  _ _ _
>   |   | |   |
>
> The idea is that you print the sheet and cut it with a knife at the crop 
> marks to make a small booklet.
>
> I have a printer that will print on small cards.  If I could extract the 
> pages from each sheet I could print one page per card (or 1/4 sheet per 
> card).
>
> What I want to do is either:
>
> Extract the contents of the PDF and reformat it in a wordprocessor so that 
> each page is on one sheet
>
> or
>
> Set up some amazing print-fu that 'masks' each quadrant of the original 
> page then scales and prints it onto a card.  I have found Kprinter's print 
> filter dialog, but I don't know what tools to use with it to split the 
> original sheets up.
>
> or
>
> Something else.
>
> Anyone done anything like this?  Unix tools preferred, but I could make it 
> work in Windows (I'd rather not though, as the piece of crap that is Adobe 
> Acrobat reader has today decided to freeze one minute after startup every 
> time I load it).
>
> Thanks,
>
> Andrew
>   


In concept:

* pdf2ps to convert PDF to PS

* pstops to move the original PS pages around on a new page. Perhaps you
could set the paper size to the size of one the 'inner' pages, then load
the original 4 times, each time with a different X and Y offset to put
it into the middle of the new page. You would have to measure the
original; pstops will not find the crop marks for you. Note that pstops
is different from ps2ps...

Good luck with the page-specification syntax for pstops...

Stephen


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Hugin [was Re: Image Editing]

[Stephen Irons]

Stephen Irons wrote:
> Christopher Sawtell wrote:
>   
snip
>> With hugin you can assemble a mosaic of photographs into a complete 
>> panorama, 
>> stitch any series of overlapping pictures and much more.
>>
>> If so go here:-
>> http://hugin.sourceforge.net/
>> and here
>> http://panotools.sourceforge.net/
>>
>> Beautiful results claimed ( I havn't used the programs )
>>
>> 

>>   
>> 
> Thanks for the pointers: I was wondering if there was something like
> this available. I have a whole series of photos of the Waimak - Mingha -
> Bealey valleys taken from the ridge above the Bealey Hut that I have
> been trying to assemble into a big panorama using gimp, using the
> methods described in 'Beginning GIMP'. I was holding the camera by hand,
> however, so they are all rotated slightly.
>
> I can't wait to try it...
>
> Stephen
>
>   

I installed Hugin from the Ubuntu archives.

Operation is quite simple: you load up the photos you want to stitch
together, then on each pair of photos, you mark identifical points on
each of them: the corner of a window, a ship in the distance, anything
that has good contrast. After you have marked the first point of each
pair, you just have to mark a point on one of the other photos, and it
makes a very good guess at finding the corresponding point on the other
photo.

The next step is 'optimisation', where it works out how to adjust the
photos so that the points line up. It adjusts for lens common lens
distortions, rotates the photo in three dimensions, and probably more
transformations than I care about.

You can get a preview of the result at any time.

Finally, you stitch them together, producing either a single composite
image, or a multi-layer TIFF file. In a single image, the joins between
the photos are not straight lines: it uses some sort of spline to select
the best from each photo. This does not happen for the multi-layer TIFF
format, however; in this case, each transformed photo is a separate
layer with a transparent background. You can load it into GIMP and
create your own join paths.

The join is really amazing: I had to zoom in to pixel level to see an
misalignment.

One disappointing thing was the exposure and colour control. In my test,
the exposure in a few of the photos was very different from others (they
were taken with an old digital with no manual exposure control). Hugin
can use 'enblend' to correct for this, but there was no Ubuntu package
(although enblend source code is GPL, one of its libraries seems not to
be (or something)).

The other disappointing thing is that Hugin crashed when trying to use
an alternate stitching program PTstitcher (which apparently can do
exposure and colour tweaking).

Previously, I had spent hours trying to line up these very same images.
Yesterday, Hugin got the images lined up after about 30 minutes
(including installation and learning how to drive it). I did spend
another few hours trying to get the colours right, but...one thing at a
time...

There are alternative GPL command-line tools that Hugin can use instead
of the defaults, but I have not had time to try them.

Stephen


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Re: Image Editing

[Stephen Irons]

Christopher Sawtell wrote:
> On Tuesday 20 February 2007, Kerry Mayes wrote:
>   
>> Is there something more like "gimp for paintbrush users" around?
>> (Preferably online) For example, I wanted to create a picture that was
>> just two copies of the same picture side by side.
>> 
> I'm wondering if you actually mean something more to this effect?
>
> With hugin you can assemble a mosaic of photographs into a complete panorama, 
> stitch any series of overlapping pictures and much more.
>
> If so go here:-
> http://hugin.sourceforge.net/
> and here
> http://panotools.sourceforge.net/
>
> Beautiful results claimed ( I havn't used the programs )
>
> --
> CS
>
>
>
>   
Thanks for the pointers: I was wondering if there was something like
this available. I have a whole series of photos of the Waimak - Mingha -
Bealey valleys taken from the ridge above the Bealey Hut that I have
been trying to assemble into a big panorama using gimp, using the
methods described in 'Beginning GIMP'. I was holding the camera by hand,
however, so they are all rotated slightly.

I can't wait to try it...

Stephen


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Re: Creating a montage [was Re: Image Editing]

[Stephen Irons]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> * load the first image
>> * make the canvas twice as wide to leave a blank on the right-hand side
>> * copy the first image into a new layer
>> * move the new layer over to the right
>> 
>
>
> Is a new layer necessary. I don't have gimp here to try it, but how about:
>
> * load first image
> * select and copy to clipboard the whole image
> * make canvas twice as wide to leave a blank on the RHS
> * paste original image into RHS of image
> * if the pasted image goes in the wrong place, pick it up and move it with
> the mouse, somewhere in the menu there is probably a dialog to move it a
> precise number of pixels left right up or down.
>
> Also montage should do it:
>
> http://www.imagemagick.org/script/montage.php
>
>
>   
No, you don't have to create a new layer manually. But it is a good idea
to get used to using layers: they are essential for anything but very
trivial image manipulation.

Step by step instructions:

1. Open the image in gimp
2. Make the canvas twice as wide: menu Image > Canvas Size
2.1. Unlock the aspect ratio: click on the chain icon between the width
and height checkboxes
2.2. Set the width: double the number in the Width field; in my case, I
changed 500 to 1000.
2.3. Apply the changes
3. Make the layer the same size as the image: menu Layer > Layer to
Image Size. Otherwise your new copy will not be visible...
4. Select, copy and paste a copy: ctrl-A, ctrl-C, ctrl-V, or menu Select
> All, menu Edit > Copy, menu Edit > Paste. This makes a 'floating' layer.
6. Move the copied 'layer' to where you want it
6.1. Use the mouse
6.1.1. Select the Move tool in the main gimp window
6.1.2. Drag the image to the right and tweak it exactly into position
6.2. Alternatively, offset the layer
6.2.1. menu Layer > Transform > Offset
6.2.2. Set the X offset to the original width (in my case, 500)
6.2.3. Set the edge behaviour to Transparent (rather than Wrap,
otherwise you will only be able to see the offset copy)
6.2.4. OK.
7. Anchor the floating layer: ctrl-H or menu Layer > Anchor Layer. This
copies the floating layer onto the original image.
8. Save the whole thing.

Stephen


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Creating a montage [was Re: Image Editing]

[Stephen Irons]

I second 'Beginning GIMP'. The library is it, but you will probably have
to reserve it: it has always been out when I have wanted it.

You can get a taste for its style at

http://linuxchix.org/content/courses/gimp/

which is an on-line course from which the book was derived.

For your specific request, you might look at

Lesson 1: cropping, zooming and rescaling
Lesson 3: introduction to layers
Lesson 10: stitching panoramic images



Now, let's start commenting on your question: how to make a picture
consisting of two copies of the same image side-by-side. You can use the
gimp:

* load the first image
* make the canvas twice as wide to leave a blank on the right-hand side
* copy the first image into a new layer
* move the new layer over to the right

Is this more complicated than in paintbrush? More complicated than
photoshop? I don't know, but it does introduce an important concept in
manipulating pictures: layers.


However, to do something like this where you can DESCRIBE the operation,
rather than having judge it by eye, you might like to try a command-line
tool like imagemagick:

http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/montage/

Stephen Irons



Kerry Mayes wrote:
> Is there something more like "gimp for paintbrush users" around?
> (Preferably online) For example, I wanted to create a picture that was
> just two copies of the same picture side by side. Failed miserably. I
> don't want to use the fancy features yet, just the easy ones.
>
> So far I've found "gimp for vegetables" and "gimp for gurus" with
> nothing in between!
>
> On 20/02/07, Douglas Royds <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> I also recommend:
>>
>> Beginning GIMP: From Novice to Professional
>>
>> Also available in the public library. US$35 on Amazon, where GIMP 2 For
>> Photographers (below) is only US$20. Beginning GIMP is a seriously good
>> book, though.
>>
>> Warwick Hay wrote:
>> > Photographers on the list may be interested in this new library book:-
>> > GIMP 2 for photographers: image editing with open source software by
>> > Klaus Goelker 006.68
>> >
>> > Regards, Warwick
>>
>>
>
>>


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Re: Alien Technology and Rat Holes.

[Stephen Irons]

John Carter wrote:
>
> Some folk here have been gently ragging me with...
>   http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20070125.html
>
> Well, can anyone lay their hands on the Dilbert series where Dogbert
> convinces investors to throw their money into a rat-hole? I sure I can
> gimp a sign "M$oft" above the rat hole...
>
> I feel they would go nicely next the "yammering" one.
>
> I will pin both them up, along with...
>   http://dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20070122.html
> ...on the cloth walls of my cubicle.
>
> :-)
>
>
>
> John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
> Tait ElectronicsFax   : (64)(3) 359 4632
> PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> New Zealand
>

At
   http://www.bfmartin.ca/finder/index.php?page=search

search for 'rat hole'. It suggests 2002-10-07

Try
   http://www.geek.nl/pics/dilbert-arch/dilbert-20021007.gif
   http://www.geek.nl/pics/dilbert-arch/dilbert-20021009.gif

This archive is not complete though.

Stephen


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Funding (was Re: BBC NEWS | Technology | Public can purchase $100laptop)

[Stephen Irons]

Don Gould wrote:
>
>
snip
> I do see your point thou, I should learn to write endless applications
> for funding before I should be allowed to even consider getting any!
>
> No way should this be enough...
>
> http://www.bowenvale.pointclark.net/les/LESApplicationLetter.pdf
>
> You should also have to fill out this!...
snip

My wife is a musician, a violinist. She likes to perform, but, like most
artists, finds that the audience are not willing to pay enough to even
cover costs (venue, advertising, etc), let alone make any sort of income
from a concert, so she relies on private patronage and public funding to
make up the gap.

Her first two applications for funding were rejected. She then went on a
seminar run by some local government body on how to apply for funding.
Her next application was successful, and now that she has established
her bona fides, she gets funding very easily.

After all, there are these funds available and the trustees have to give
the money away. However, the trustees want to avoid getting into the
news, for debacles like the hip-hop research tour or CPIT. So they are
nervous of people they don't know.

What did she learn:

* learn from the experts: go on a seminar
* start small: her first successful application was for a few hundred
dollars
* work with a partner who is not a family member: the trustees are very
wary of individuals and families
* keep trying
* stick with the fund you are successful with: get to know them

As usual, it is who you know, not what you know, that gets results.

Stephen



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Re: CT - what does fork mean?Re: [OT] Perl Question

[Stephen Irons]

John Carter wrote:
> On Sun, 3 Dec 2006, Don Gould wrote:
>
>> I've seen reference to fork in a number of posts now and don't
>> understand what it means.
>>
>> Could someone give a 10 word heads up?
>
> One of those glorious bits of "man page" arcana
>
> $ man perlfunc
> /zombie
>
>If you "fork" without ever waiting on your children, you will
>accumulate zombies.
>
> Now you know what is wrong with schooling today...
>
> ("man fork" is actually more helpful...)
>
>
> John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639
> Tait ElectronicsFax   : (64)(3) 359 4632
> PO Box 1645 ChristchurchEmail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> New Zealand
>
My Ubuntu installation has no man fork [1].

However, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork_%28disambiguation%29
describes three computing-related meanings:

* Fork (operating system)
  , a
  method of creating new processes.
  o Fork bomb ,
malicious code which creates a fork of itself, exponentially
spawning processes and using system resources.
* Fork (software development)
  ,
  when a piece of software or other work is split into two branches
  or variations of development.
* Fork (filesystem)
  , a part of a
  file in certain filesystems.
  o Resource fork ,
a companion file with metadata for some files in Macintosh OS.


Stephen


[1] Perhaps it need a woman?

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Re: Broadband & Modems

[Stephen Irons]

Andrew Errington wrote:
> On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 11:18, you wrote:
>   
>> What is the best (Broadband?) option at the moment if you have two
>> computers one a Windows and the other a Linux and you want to connect
>> both to the Internet?
>> 
>
> I have an SMC router.  It has one ethernet port at the back which connects 
> to my cable modem, and four 10/100 ports at the front into which you can 
> plug 4 PCs (Windows, Linux etc.).  It also has a print server, which is 
> connected to my printer (compatible with Unix, but requires a tiny print 
> redirector utility for Windows).  In addition it has a serial port to 
> connect to a telephone modem- if the broadband link goes down it can be 
> configured to dial the modem and connect to the internet that way.  
> Actually, without broadband you can use this feature to provide 
> dial-on-demand from any of the connected PCs.
>
> It's a fab piece of equipment and cost less than $100.
>   

This sounds like the closest yet to what I am looking for. What model
number? Where did you get it from?

Also, if you know whether it is still available, where from and how
much. If you don't know these things, I will do a hunt around for the
specific model.

Background:

I am looking for the following wireless router type thingie:

* Wifi
* 1 or more Ethernet LAN ports
* built in telephone modem, or serial port for external telephone modem,
or USB port for USB-serial adapter with an external telephone modem
* parallel or USB port for printer
* 1 port for ADSL/cable modem (future)
* USB port for external HDD (future)
* Access point
* Router
* Firewall
* WPA and other appropriate security features
* Modem dialling
* Print server
* File server
* Low power consumption (always on)
* Up to NZ$150

The idea is I can use my laptop anywhere in the house either untethered,
or with a single power connection.

At the moment, I have a USB thingy with a parallel printer port, a
serial port and two USB ports, connected to printer, modem, mouse and
potentially external HDD. So there are only two connections (USB and
power), but as soon as I move away from the study, I lose all connection
with the outside world.

The Apple Airport Extreme is the closest that I have found :built-in
modem, but no file server and costs $350

Digitus DN-7011 has no telephone modem capability, but does have both
parallel and USB printer ports. $140

Dlink DI-524UP has USB print server, but no serial or telephone modem. $150

Linksys WRT54GL has no print server, serial or telephone modem. But it
has open source firmware FWIW

NetGear FWG114P has a USB print server, but no serial port or telephone
modem and it costs $240

Surecom EP-9611SX-GU has USB print server, no serial or telephone modem,
and only WEP encryption. $110

USR 805461 has print server but no serial or telephone modem, and it
costs $250


So far, I have not found any that include file sharing and external HDD.
And none (except Airport Extreme) with support for telephone modem.

There was a project hacking the Linksys NSLU2 'slug' and related
network-attached storage devices. However, they seem to have only
ethernet and USB ports.

I am open to any other suggestions, though I doubt whether a PC-based
solution will meet the low-power, always on constraint.

Stephen


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Re: OpenOffice language settings

[Stephen Irons]

Barry wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am using OOwriter 1.1.4.
>
> When I invoke the spellchecker the language comes up as 'English(USA)'
> and the dictionary as 'Standard(All)' The drop down options do not work.
>
> In language settings I set the language to English(NZ).
>
> In writing aids I set the spelling language to English(NZ) and it
> reverts to English(Aust)
>
> In /usr/share/dict/ooo are files for AU, Ca, GB, NZ and US.
>
> Please, how do I force the spellchecker to use the NZ dictionary?
>
> Barry
>

Select

Format > Character emnu

Font tab

there is a Language setting that seems to default to English (USA).

I guess the idea is that you can set the language for individual words
(as well as paragraphs, the document and OOo as a whole).

Stephen


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Re: Restore default panel on gnome desktop?

[Stephen Irons]

Bryce Stenberg wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> On the weekend I let my daughter (age 6) try her hand at the games
> installed with OpenSUSE 10.1. It is running the gnome desktop. Now
> somehow she managed to delete all those nice panel items like
> Applications – there were two others but I can’t even remember their
> names – one let you logout…. I see she still gets her right and left
> mouse clicks confused so probably hit the delete context menu item off
> the panel.
>
> Anyway, is there an easy way to get the default panel back again?
>
> Regards,
>
> Bryce Stenberg.
>

...and after you get it sorted, create her a user account of her very
own. You will still have to restore things for her when they get messed
up, but

a. you can sort it out in your own time
b. you can still use the computer until you sort out her account
c. she learns the effects of uncontrolled fiddling around

It works just great for my 11-year old son who can't stop himself from
fiddling.

I have set up GDM (Gnome display manager, in effect the graphical login
screen) and PAM (pluggable authentication module, I think) so that you
do not have to type a password if you login from GDM locally, but you do
have to type a password if you login from a console or from a remote X
session. The effect is that at GDM you either type a user name or select
your photo from the face browser and ... you're in.

I am still working on a system of accounts and permissions to solve the
digital photo situation (2 shared cameras, everyone wants to see all
photos, I don't want anyone to be able to modify or delete the
originals), although a recent threads has given some ideas.

Stephen




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Re: IEs4linux - a nice utility

[Stephen Irons]

Nick Rout wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Aug 2006 14:05:46 +1200
> Craig FALCONER wrote:
>
>   
>> Works nicely thanks Roy - rather an ugly sight on an otherwise clean linux
>> box :)
>>
>> Apparently google earth's linux client is the same - basically the windows
>> version running inside wine.
>> 
>
> I think you are thinking of picasa.
>
>   

Both Picasa and Google Earth have linux versions. Picasa is definitely
windows-with-wine, according to
http://picasa.google.com/linux/learn_more.html

So, how does it work? Picasa for Linux runs the current Windows version
of Picasa using a carefully tested version of Wine, an open-source
implementation of the Windows application-programming interface (API).

I think that Google Earth is too, but I could not find a similar note
about how they made Google Earth.

Stephen

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Re: Addressbook etc import - Thunderbird from Mozilla

[Stephen Irons]

Nick Rout wrote:
> On Wed, 02 Aug 2006 14:10:20 +1200 (NZST)
> John Carter wrote:
>
>   
>> On Wed, 2 Aug 2006, Rik Tindall wrote:
>>
>> 
>>> Don't think I'll be getting submerged with it again though - Thunderbird 
>>> soars higher with every update. The spell-checker is simply fantastic!
>>>   
>> Speaking of moving  info around...
>>
>> I have just discovered "Password Exporter"
>>
>>"This extension allows you to export and import your saved passwords and
>> rejected sites between computers. Your passwords will be exported to an
>> XML or CSV file and can be encrypted."
>>
>> Supports Firefox 1.5 - 3.0a1, Thunderbird 1.5 - 3.0a1, and Flock.
>>
>>https://addons.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2848/
>> 
>
>
> speaking of which, does anyone know hoew to remove one only saved
> password from firefox? Every time I go to log into my webmail my wife's
> username and password come up automatically, because I must have clicked
> to remember her details one time when i checked her email for her. now
> it comes up every time and is annoying me.
>
>   
Tools > Options > Privacy > Passwords > View Saved Passwords > Passwords
Saved > select the one to delete> Remove

or it might be

Edit > Preferences > Privacy ...

Stephen

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Re: Roll-your-own boot CD

[Stephen Irons]

Nick Rout wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Jul 2006 09:28:11 +1200
> Stephen Irons wrote:
>
>   
>> Andrew Errington wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Has anyone on the list made their own boot CD?
>>>
>>> I want to do the following on a laptop with no hard drive:
>>>
>>> 1) Boot from CD
>>> 2) Load X
>>> 3) Mount an NFS share
>>> 4) Start a slideshow of image files found on the share
>>>
>>> That's it.
>>>
>>> I just spent some time replacing the CCFL in a laptop display, and that, 
>>> plus the guts of the laptop, will be installed within a picture frame to 
>>> make a 'walltop' or live photo frame.  Yes, all the cool kids were doing 
>>> that last year...
>>>
>>> I decided I don't need a hard drive, but I can't do a remote boot from a 
>>> PCMCIA card, and I certainly don't want to bother with a floppy.  I suppose 
>>> I could try and boot from a USB stick, but I don't think the old laptop 
>>> BIOS supports it.
>>>
>>> The whole thing should be silent- once the CD spins down there will only be 
>>> the occasional whine of the CPU fan.  Also, no need for an orderly 
>>> shutdown- just pull the plug.  Turning it on again might be tricky though, 
>>> I don't think the BIOS has 'boot after power failure'.
>>>
>>> Anyone tried it?  Knoppix used to be the best base for this sort of 
>>> roll-your-own project.  Is there anything easier/better now?
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance,
>>>
>>> Andrew
>>>   
>>>   
>> I recently replaced the HDD in an old notebook PC with a 512MB compact
>> flash card and a 2.5" to CF adaptor. Not cheap: the adapter was $20
>> including postage from a crowd in Australia, and flash cards of a useful
>> size are $40 or more.
>>
>> But it boots quickly and is eerily quiet: not a sound to be heard as it
>> starts up.
>>
>> Stephen
>> 
>
> is it running a rw filesystem on the flash card? This is widely regarded
> as  a "bad thing" given the limited write life of flash. 
>
> However if you look at voyage (http://www.voyage.hk ) they do a debian
> system which runs in a read only disk with the rw portions being in
> ramdisk. Its a debian based system and it is possible to simply apt-get
> additional software (after making the flash disk rw, then after all
> config etc is done you make it ro again)
>
> voyage is designed as a router/access point, but there seems to be no
> reason why you cannot get it to do other things.
>
> By the way you do not need X to view photos. You might like to look at
> geexbox, which does photos and movies in a framebuffer. It is a 6MB
> image, easily loaded to flash or cd or hard drive. It runs entirely in
> ramdisk after bootup. A few changes to the base system start up scripts
> and it will do what you want.
>
>   
Yes, it the filesystem is writeable, but I did it simply to verify that
the CF+adapter would be a direct hardware replacement for the HDD, and
it certainly is. The system is not in active use. The thing I wanted
hanging on the wall was a day-night map of the world, similar to a Geochron.

Puppy linux and Ubuntu 6.10 live CD have solutions to making changes
persistent when running off CD, using a USB flash drive to store
modified data. This seems applicable to booting off a CF card too.

Portable Thunderbird and Portable Firefox  (Windows only) also try to
reduce writes to the flash drive, and the Portable Apps project is busy
with a Portable Linux which will have the same problem. There are lots
of people working on it.

Stephen


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Re: Roll-your-own boot CD

[Stephen Irons]

Andrew Errington wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Has anyone on the list made their own boot CD?
>
> I want to do the following on a laptop with no hard drive:
>
> 1) Boot from CD
> 2) Load X
> 3) Mount an NFS share
> 4) Start a slideshow of image files found on the share
>
> That's it.
>
> I just spent some time replacing the CCFL in a laptop display, and that, 
> plus the guts of the laptop, will be installed within a picture frame to 
> make a 'walltop' or live photo frame.  Yes, all the cool kids were doing 
> that last year...
>
> I decided I don't need a hard drive, but I can't do a remote boot from a 
> PCMCIA card, and I certainly don't want to bother with a floppy.  I suppose 
> I could try and boot from a USB stick, but I don't think the old laptop 
> BIOS supports it.
>
> The whole thing should be silent- once the CD spins down there will only be 
> the occasional whine of the CPU fan.  Also, no need for an orderly 
> shutdown- just pull the plug.  Turning it on again might be tricky though, 
> I don't think the BIOS has 'boot after power failure'.
>
> Anyone tried it?  Knoppix used to be the best base for this sort of 
> roll-your-own project.  Is there anything easier/better now?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Andrew
>   
I recently replaced the HDD in an old notebook PC with a 512MB compact
flash card and a 2.5" to CF adaptor. Not cheap: the adapter was $20
including postage from a crowd in Australia, and flash cards of a useful
size are $40 or more.

But it boots quickly and is eerily quiet: not a sound to be heard as it
starts up.

Stephen


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Re: Vcards and attachments [was Re: Cakes,Coffee and Tea forMeetingTommrow night...]

[Stephen Irons]

Andrew Errington wrote:
>> ===
>> This email, including any attachments, is only for the intended
>> 
...6 or 7 lines of similar meaningless guff snipped
>>  altered or corrupted during transmission.
>> ===
>> 
>
> Oh, the irony!
>
> A
>   
Delicious, isn't it?

I considered posting from gmail to prevent the company mail server from
tacking this useless stuff onto the end of the email, but thought that
it was somehow relevant. And it is not an attachement.

Stephen

here comes another one...

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Vcards and attachments [was Re: Cakes,Coffee and Tea for Meeting Tommrow night...]

[Stephen Irons]

Yours is about 300 bytes:

begin:vcard
fn:Don Gould
n:Gould;Don
org:Bowenvale Communications
adr:Riccarton;;2/59 Peverel Street;Christchurch;;8004;New Zealand
email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
title:Director
tel;work:+64 3 348 7235
tel;home:+64 3 348 7235
tel;cell:+64 21 114 0699
url:http://www.bowenvale.co.nz
version:2.1
end:vcard


There is also a bit of MIME stuff to separate it from the main body. 

This is about the same size as a 4-line .signature, if you use all four lines.

Maybe he meant the 'relevant to the subject' bit to apply to vcards, which are 
never
relevant to the subject. But they are similar to a .signature.

It really is time that email and mailing lists move beyond plain text and start
embracing formatted text, photographs and drawings; in short, to advance
electronic communication into the 20th century.

Stephen


Don Gould wrote:
> Right off topic now...
>
> But how big is a vcard?
>
> I thought it was just a 3k or less text file.
>
> Cheers Don
>
> Nick Rout wrote:
>> On Tue, 11 Jul 2006 12:49:59 +1200
>> Craig FALCONER <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>
>>> I have no problem with attachments to the list, provided they're
>>> small and
>>> relevant to the subject being [discussed]
>>
>> Which is not the case with vcards 
>


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Re: Ubuntu 6.06 installs then wants 100M updates

[Stephen Irons]

My feeling is that the internet will always have the same sluggish
response time. If the pipes are bigger, then we will just expect more
detailed photos and videos, and better apps with bigger updates, until
they take too long to load and our wallets are empty.

I believe that it will always cost more to rent bandwidth from someone
else than to own my own computing power. So the solution is to minimise
download time and use my own resources.

Stephen


Don Gould wrote:
> The real answer is just build a faster AND cheaper internet.
>
> Cheers Don
>
> Stephen Irons wrote:
>> Carl Cerecke wrote:
>>> The trouble is that even a small patch means downloading the whole
>>> package again. There are no "diff" type updates available.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Carl.
>>>
>>> On 11/07/06, Nick Rout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>> Man its kinda annoying to have 100M updates for a six week old distro!
>>>> Particularly when download of two fail - they don't seem to be on the
>>>> ubuntu nz server.
>>>>
>>>> If I can get the poxy cd writer at the office to go properly I will
>>>> try
>>>> and write some cd's of the updates before tonight.
>>>>
>>>> Should have brought the laptop in, it makes a good portable drive for
>>>> this sort of thing!
>>>>
>>>>
>> The problem of huge download for a small patch has always worried me
>> about binary distributions. With a slow, expensive internet connection
>> and almost free, reasonably fast and unlimited duration computing, it
>> seems to me that a Gentoo style source update model might be better
>> suited for home users.
>>
>> 1. Are Gentoo updates (emerges?) really smaller than binary downloads?
>>
>> One thing I like about the Ubuntu model is that they have identified a
>> small number of applications and services that they support, and provide
>> regular security for. Their selection matches my needs quite closely, so
>> all I do is download the security updates once a month. I then do a
>> feature upgrade every six months (or so) when they release a new version
>> (this has worked twice: Hoary -> Breezy -> Dapper).
>>
>> 2. How would I restrict Gentoo updates to really important things on
>> specific applications?
>>
>>
>> Stephen
>>


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Re: Ubuntu 6.06 installs then wants 100M updates

[Stephen Irons]

Carl Cerecke wrote:
> The trouble is that even a small patch means downloading the whole
> package again. There are no "diff" type updates available.
>
> Cheers,
> Carl.
>
> On 11/07/06, Nick Rout <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Man its kinda annoying to have 100M updates for a six week old distro!
>> Particularly when download of two fail - they don't seem to be on the
>> ubuntu nz server.
>>
>> If I can get the poxy cd writer at the office to go properly I will try
>> and write some cd's of the updates before tonight.
>>
>> Should have brought the laptop in, it makes a good portable drive for
>> this sort of thing!
>>
>>
The problem of huge download for a small patch has always worried me
about binary distributions. With a slow, expensive internet connection
and almost free, reasonably fast and unlimited duration computing, it
seems to me that a Gentoo style source update model might be better
suited for home users.

1. Are Gentoo updates (emerges?) really smaller than binary downloads?

One thing I like about the Ubuntu model is that they have identified a
small number of applications and services that they support, and provide
regular security for. Their selection matches my needs quite closely, so
all I do is download the security updates once a month. I then do a
feature upgrade every six months (or so) when they release a new version
(this has worked twice: Hoary -> Breezy -> Dapper).

2. How would I restrict Gentoo updates to really important things on
specific applications?


Stephen


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Re: Kubuntu Disks.

[Stephen Irons]

Hadley Rich wrote:
> On Wednesday 05 July 2006 14:33, Nick Rout wrote:
>   
>> I understand the same as Volker - one CD only which is both a livecd and an
>> installer. HOWEVER  it cannot be used to upgrade an existing install.
>>
>> For upgrades this is apprently the place:
>>
>> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DapperUpgrades
>>
>> so, big downloads to upgrade :(
>> 
>
> If the debs are on the CD (I don't see why they wouldn't be, but I haven't 
> checked) you should be able to copy them to your /var/cache/apt/archives/ 
> directory before running the update to save the downloads.
>
>   
The LiveCD has a new install system called Espresso. As I understand it,
when Espresso does an install, it essentially copies the filesystem from
the LiveCD to your hard-drive.  You don't get the packages, but you do
get the package installation details.

Apparently, Espresso installation is much faster than installing from
packages. It seems as though they are targetting new users.

Espresso knows about partitioning, so you don't have to wipe the whole
drive. You might even be able to separate out some directories into
specific partitions.

To upgrade, you need the alternate-install CD, but I don't think they
post CDs free of charge any more; you have to download it. Otherwise,
upgrade over the network.

Stephen


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Re: http://clug.net.nz/index.php/procmail?action=edit

[Stephen Irons]

Don Gould wrote:
> http://clug.net.nz/index.php/procmail?action=edit
> Following my issues with procmailrc I've updated the wiki with some
> hints for next time...
>
>
> However I've run aground with the formating...
>
> I wanted bold headings and ended up with bullet points.
>
> Can someone tell me what I did wrong.
>
> Cheers Don
* at the start of a line means a bulleted list.

Why not use ! or !! for smaller headings, rather than just trying to
bold the text?

Stephen


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Re: New flavour of linux for a laptop

[Stephen Irons]

Roy Britten wrote:
> On Fri, 2006-06-09 at 13:55 +1200, Stephen Irons wrote:
>   
>> Installing other packages from CD or from the archives is very easy.
>> Uninstalling them is a bit more tricky.
>> 
>
> Out of interest, what trouble did you have with uninstalling packages?
>
>   

Removing a package does not remove dependant packages that become
orphans when the package is removed.

For instance, I installed Rosegarden (a musical score editing package,
written for KDE/Qt). I then decided it was not quite what I wanted.
Removing the package 'rosegarden4' only removed that single package, not:
   kde libraries
   qt libraries
   jack sound libraries
   etc.

that became orphans because there are no other KDE-based applications.

I believe a package called 'deborphan' exists to detect orphans, but I
have not tried it. In any case, my ideal installer program would deal
with this.

Stephen


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Re: New flavour of linux for a laptop

[Stephen Irons]

I have Ubuntu 6.06 on my Dell laptop. I had to do the partitioning, but
it detected Win XP and installed grub the right way (you might have to
negotiate on the default OS).

There are 3 Ubuntu disks: 'Live CD', 'Alternate' (used to be called
'Install') and 'Server'. The Live CD includes the Gnome desktop that
runs from the CD without affecting the HDD. However, it can also install
to the HDD, essentially by copying the live CD filesystem onto your HDD.
There were some issues with partitioning during the testing, but I think
those were resolved by release time. The 'Alternate' CD installs the
Gnome desktop environment from packages and takes a bit longer, but lets
you configure some more things.

The Desktop CD does not come with many of the server applications (LAMP,
etc), so you would need to either get the server CD or install those
from the archives.

Ubuntu does not include anything that has a doubtful free (-speech)
status on the CD---this includes many Wifi card drivers, Win modem
drivers, Flash plugins, MP3 decoding, DVD playback, etc. But they are
there in the archives.

Ubuntu comes with a minimum of packages; it is a single CD, after all.
You have to install the rest from the archives.

Installing other packages from CD or from the archives is very easy.
Uninstalling them is a bit more tricky.

I was very impressed with the basic installation: a few questions at the
start and then it just ran to the end.

The Intel 3945 wireless network card (as in my Dell laptop) has a
non-free driver. In my case, I just installed it from the network and it
worked.

You might like to install Network Manager too. This tries to ensure that
you always have a network connection. If you have a Ethernet cable
plugged in, it will use that. Otherwise, it will try to use a wireless
network. At work, the ethernet network just worked. At a friend's house,
I had to set up the network name and password, and they had to set up
the MAC address, but after that, it too just worked.

All in all, I have been quite impressed with the Debian packaging
system, and Ubuntu's selection of packages.

I have the Alternate (Install) CD and can burn you a copy this evening,
if you want. Phone 359-3542 (Bishopdale area).

Stephen


Phill Coxon wrote:
> Hi, 
>
> I've just bought a new Acer laptop which will be delivered today.
>
> I need a great version of linux to run to dual boot with Windows XP
> (bah! - my partner won't let me delete it :) on the laptop.
>
> I've been using Mandrake / Mandriva for the last few years but I've had
> enough of their crappy new corporate focus so I'm looking for a change. 
>
> What recommendations can you make for a new flavour of linux that has a
> simple dual boot install process into an existing Windows XP laptop?
>
> Most of the work I'll be doing on it will be email, open office, general
> desktop use, VMware, samba, Apache 2, ssh etc.
>
> Probably the most feature I need is easy to set up wireless networking.
>
> I'm leaving for Auckland on Tuesday and need to have wireless networking
> set up and working before then. The last time I tried to set up wireless
> networking 18 months ago it was a nightmare of cryptic configuration
> files. 
>
> So... recommendations?
>
> Ubantu maybe?  I've been itching to try a debian solution for some
> time. 
>
> Bonus points if you have a copy of the latest version of that
> distribution on CD / DVD that I could pick up tomorrow in exchange for a
> reasonable copying fee. 
>
> Thanks!
>
>
>
>   


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Re: Dapper availability?

[Stephen Irons]

Rik Tindall wrote:
> don wrote:
>>
>> I'm just running the up grade to the duck now :)
>>
>> I'll let you know how I get on.
>>
>> Cheers Don - to be the DD... Don the Duck :)
>
> Oh! I get it - at last!
>
> - Don the Duck is going pressure the Mickey-like Soft-weir!!
>
> I also LOL'd from Hadley's 'Flaming Ducks' sig, but couldn't quote it.
>
> Long live the Duck! :)
>
> Any other users out there yet?
>
> Cheers
I have been using it in anger on a dual-core laptop for about 3 weeks.
Seems to work well enough now that the fatal flaw has been resolved.
This entailed Dell replacing the motherboard twice until a search
revealed that others started having the same problem at about the same
time; it seemed to take a while before this thread showed up on google.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=149565

But accessing the hardware clock with the --directisa parameter seems to
have fixed that problem.

Stephen

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Picasa for Linux

[Stephen Irons]

Picasa is a photo management and touchup application. It is now
available for Linux

http://picasa.google.com/linux/

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Re: definition files for colours

[Stephen Irons]

John Carter wrote:
> On Mon, 22 May 2006, Wesley Parish wrote:
>
>> I'm just not sure where I should look for the definitions
>> (hexadecimal, 12 bit
>> and 24 bit, etc) of colours.  Any hints, pointers?
>
>
> Pity I didn't see this earlier.
>
> The one true answer can always be found at...
>
> /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt
>
> I have always loved browsing this list. (ps you can see the actual
> colors in
> kcolorchooser Select named colors)
>
> Anybody for "papaya whip", or "antique white"?
>
> Who thought up these names anyway?

According to
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X11_color_names

'It is not known who originally compiled the list.'

Stephen


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Re: Who donated that dunger? Anyone for a WiFry?

[Stephen Irons]

I put ordinary cable in black 13mm PVC tube used for garden irrigation
systems. It has been buried for 6 years or so, and cost next to nothing,
though you could always claim it is a gardening expense.

It is VERY difficult to pull the cable through the tube if there are
bends in the run. Preferably lay the whole thing out straight on the
lawn or down the road. Use a vacuum cleaner to suck a length of cotton
or string through the tube, then use that to pull a fishing line or
weed-eater cord through.

Make sure that the ends of the tube are protected from the rain or the
whole run will fill up with water and you have wasted your time.

Stephen


Reg wrote:
> Speaking of cables, I am planning to run a 35 m Cat 5 enhanced UTP patch
> network cable from my house to an outside studio. I plan to go through the
> floor under the house, out an air vent and then underground to the studio. 
>
> Questions: 
> How durable is this cable?  Is it subject to problems from moisture? I am
> wondering whether to just dig a deep trench and bury it as I did when I ran
> a phone cable (which was designed for outside and has silicon inside it)
> there or whether to feed the underground section through a pvc pipe?  
>
>
> Kind Regards
> Reg
>
>   
>> -Original Message-
>> From: Craig FALCONER [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> Sent: Friday, 19 May 2006 8:53 a.m.
>> To: linux-users@it.canterbury.ac.nz
>> Subject: RE: Who donated that dunger? Anyone for a WiFry?
>>
>> The limits on USB are the same for 1.1 as 2.0 afaik
>>
>> No more than 5 metres of unboosted cable.  (I have a mouse with a 6 foot
>> 
> cord on the end of a 5 metre extension and it works on a USB2
>   
>> port but not a
>> USB1 port)
>>
>> Maximum total length is 25 metres with active signal boosters every 5
>> metres.   (probably to do with bit times and all that coax ethernet timing
>> stuff from last century.)
>>
>>
>> --
>> C. Falconer
>> http://www.avonside.school.nz/
>> http://criggie.dyndns.org/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -Original Message-
>> From: Andrew Errington [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> Sent: Thursday, 18 May 2006 5:47 p.m.
>> To: linux-users@it.canterbury.ac.nz
>> Subject: Re: Who donated that dunger? Anyone for a WiFry?
>>
>>
>> 
>>
>> I expect that you could make a USB cable as long as you like, but the
>> signals have a high clock rate so they would degrade past a certain point
>> (that and the voltage drop). 5m might be an arbitrary limit set by the USB
>> specification, but it is not unreasonable, and guaranteed to work.
>>
>>
>> 
>
>
>   


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Re: Ubuntu sound problems

[Stephen Irons]

Thanks Neil and Nick for the info about linux sound. I will have to
spend some more time reading about how it fits together.

The system "Just Started Working" [1] on Friday evening. Following
instructions from http://alsa.opensrc.org/TroubleShooting, I did the
following:

1. checked again that lspci and lsmod seemed sensible (they did)

2. ran alsamixer as root---hooray, I could change volume levels

3. ran alsamixer as me---again, I had control over the volume levels

4. opened the gnome mixer---success

5. used gnome cd player to play a CD---success

6. used rhythmbox to play an ogg file---success

I did not edit any files, change any permissions, change the BIOS
settings or adjust the sound card. The only thing I did differently was
to run alsamixer as root.

So everything came right magically. Perhaps it just needed a second boot
after installing the sound card: first boot to recognise the sound card
and make sure the drivers are in place, second boot to start working?
Though it does seem odd.

Once again, thanks for all the suggestions. Now for the joystick...

Stephen

[1] Apple products are reputed to "Just Work". My experience with
(Ubuntu) Linux is that things "Just Start Working" after I have posted a
cry for help on a list, or invoked the aid of our resident guru. This
has happened three or four times now.

sgi



Nick Rout wrote:
> On Sat, 29 Apr 2006 13:21:22 +1200
> Neil Stockbridge <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>   
>> On Fri, 2006-04-28 at 11:59 +1200, Stephen Irons wrote:
>> 
>>> It is not clear to me how various things work together (or not) in linux
>>> to make sound work. There seem to be too many layers and alternatives:
>>> alsa, oss, esd, jack?
>>>   
>> OSS is a known interface between application software and physical sound
>> cards and includes OSS kernel drivers for each sound card.  ALSA is
>> similar and has mostly made OSS obsolete.  ESD is another interface but
>> one that sits on top of either OSS or ALSA and mixes audio from multiple
>> applications (OSS and ALSA support only one application using the sound
>> card at once i think).
>> 
>
> no longer true of alsa - dmix allows mixing of different sources.
>
> http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_ALSA_sound_mixer_aka_dmix has alot of info.
>
> Also note that although OSS is deprecated, and alsa is now integrated
> with the kernel, there are plenty of apps that want to output to oss
> drivers. Those drivers make a device at /dev/dsp (or similar) that you
> can output to. 
>
> Because so many apps depend on the oss driver being present, alsa has
> oss emulation included. Here is a typical list of modules installed on
> a modern (2.6) kernel with oss emulation included:
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~/media/audio/bbcjazz $ lsmod|grep snd
> snd_pcm_oss47392  0
> snd_mixer_oss  17024  1 snd_pcm_oss
> snd_seq_oss32128  0
> snd_seq_midi_event  6400  1 snd_seq_oss
> snd_seq49488  4 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
> snd_via82xx22688  0
> snd_ac97_codec 78392  1 snd_via82xx
> snd_pcm82120  3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_via82xx,snd_ac97_codec
> snd_timer  21124  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
> snd_page_alloc  7620  2 snd_via82xx,snd_pcm
> snd_mpu401_uart 6144  1 snd_via82xx
> snd_rawmidi20512  1 snd_mpu401_uart
> snd_seq_device  6988  3 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi
> snd46692  11
> snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_via82xx,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer,snd_mpu401_uart,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device
> soundcore   7456  1 snd
>
>
> the OSS stuff is self evident.
>
> Anyway - back to "why don't I have sound" 
>
> first check what modules are loaded - lsmod|grep snd
>
> next check the device permissions on /dev/dsp. It will probably be
> owned by root and a group like "audio" or "media" - make sure that the
> user is in the correct group. DO NOT change the ownership, it will
> revert on the next boot! Put yourself into that group, log out. log in.
> (group changes take effect from the next login - apain when you are in
> X)
>
>
>   
>> what's jack?
>>
>> 
>
> Jack Audio Connect Kit
>
> Pro level low latency audio system. If you want to set up a linux music
> making machine (synth, drum machine, midi etc etc ) you need jack.
>
> or so they tell me!
>
>   
>>> I did notice from /proc/interrupts that interrupt 11 is shared between
>>> the soundcard and the PCI-based USB card, and the number of interrupt
>>> events for interrupt 11 is zero. T

Ubuntu sound problems

[Stephen Irons]

I have an old PC with Ubuntu 5.10 installed on it: it works well, though
it is rather slow.

Last night, I plugged in a soundcard based on the CMI8738 chipset. After
power-on, it was detected normally (reported by lspci), and the correct
modules were loaded (reported by modprobe, and comparing with the CMI
page on alsa-project.org).

However, I do not get sound: no sound effects, nothing from rhythmbox.
When I try to adjust the volume levels using the gnome mixer
application, they always spring back up to full volume. alsamixer from
the command line also refused to change the levels.

1. Any suggestions?

It is not clear to me how various things work together (or not) in linux
to make sound work. There seem to be too many layers and alternatives:
alsa, oss, esd, jack?

2. Can someone suggest a (preferably online) reference that describes
how these things work together

3. What settings and/or files can I tweak?


I did notice from /proc/interrupts that interrupt 11 is shared between
the soundcard and the PCI-based USB card, and the number of interrupt
events for interrupt 11 is zero. This suggests some sort of conflict
between the sound card and the USB card at the interrupt level.

4. I thought that PCI was meant to have solved interrupt sharing?

I have the BIOS  set to non-PnP operating system, with resources
allocated automatically.

5. Do I need to change this?

6. Any other suggestions?


Stephen


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Re: Listening to CDs through headphone socket or audio card (notviaIDEinterface)

[Stephen Irons]

Nick Rout wrote:

>On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 12:11:19 +1300
>Stephen Irons wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Question 1: how do I make Gnome CD player send the audio out of the
>>analog audio outputs on the CD drive rather than out of the IDE
>>connector? Or do I need (yet another) way to control my music?
>>
>>
>
>In fact the digital way is often seen as more desirable as the music is
>able to be ripped digitally.
>
>How you fix it I do not know.
>  
>
Oh, I understand that, in some circumstances, digital is better.
However, there are 4 ways to manage music under Ubuntu: CD player (to
play CDs), Sound Juicer (rip CDs), Music player (playing MP3s, etc) and
Nautilus (copy WAV files). I don't want to add another CD player to play
CDs the old fashioned way.

Stephen

>  
>
>>For extra marks:
>>
>>Question 2: how do I make Gnome CD player send the audio out of the
>>SPDIF output? I think I can get the right settings on the mixer to
>>enable the SPDIF inputs.
>>
>>
>>
>
>What is the sound card? The answer may differ depending on the card. go
>to the alsa-prject souncard matrix and the settings should be detailed
>there.
>
>in the mixer is there an IEC958 control in the mixer? (IEC958 is the
>techo name for SPDIF).
>
>
>  
>
It's a C-Media 8738 chipset device from DSE. Seems to work just fine. I
have read about the IEC958 controls at the alsa site. Just need to make
sure they work...

Stephen




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Listening to CDs through headphone socket or audio card (not via IDEinterface)

[Stephen Irons]

I want to listen to CDs while using the PC. I start up Gnome CD player
and press play. The music skips and clicks.

¿Que? Yes, my processor is underpowered, but surely it does not have
anything to do with playing CDs once I have pressed play?

Open the mixer. The CD input is muted, while changing the volume of the
WAV input changes the CD volume (between the clicks).

Clearly the audio is going via the IDE interface, through the processor
to the sound card, ignoring the cunning little audio cable that connects
the CD player directly to the appropriate input of the sound card.

Question 1: how do I make Gnome CD player send the audio out of the
analog audio outputs on the CD drive rather than out of the IDE
connector? Or do I need (yet another) way to control my music?


For extra marks:

The CD player has an SPDIF output. The audio card has an SPDIF input for
the CD player as well as the analog CD inputs. There is an SPDIF cable
connecting the two (the SPDIF cable cost $1 from DSE!) It also has SPDIF
inputs and output on the rear panel.

Question 2: how do I make Gnome CD player send the audio out of the
SPDIF output? I think I can get the right settings on the mixer to
enable the SPDIF inputs.

Thanks for the help
Stephen


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Re: modem connection

[Stephen Irons]

I tried the same route as you, but generally do not want to connect
always. I ended up using Gnome PPP. It is non included in the base
Ubuntu install; you have to download it from Universe (I think). It is
only a few 100k, if I remember correctly.

Disable the modem connection under 'Network Settings'.

Install GnomePPP.

Connect using GnomePPP when you want to connect, and disconnect using
GnomePPP when you have finished. It 'just worked' for me.



Actually, what I really want is more control over autodialling:

1. Generally, I want to be offline all the time.

2. The system should check for new email periodically (every 30 minutes
or 1 hour or so) even if the mail client is not running. I might like
this to fetch headers too, but probably not download the entire message.
Once all the accounts are checked, it can drop the connection after a
delay of 30s or 1 minute (unless something else is still using it).

3. Emails I write go into 'Outbox'. When I click 'Send and receive', it
should autodial, send my outbox and retrieve mail from all my accounts.
Once all is done, it can drop the connection after a short timeout
(unless something else is still using it).

4. The web browser should connect automatically. Once the entire page is
loaded, it should drop the connection after a longer timeout (maybe 2 or
3 minutes) because I am probably going to go to another page.

5. The clock synchronisation must NEVER autoconnect. However, it should
schedule a resynchronisation periodically (once a day, perhaps), but it
will only do the synchronisation when something else connects to the
internet. This service will not keep the connection alive; even if
part-way through the synchronisation process, if it is the only service
using the internet, the connection will drop.

Ideally, clock synchronisation would measure how much my clock drifts
compared to the time server and adjust itself to be more accurate over
time. It could then also change how often it has to synchronise to a
time server.

6. The system should check for software updates in the background. It
can piggyback on another connection, but will not dial out itself or
keep a connection open if it is the only thing still connected. Once a
list of updates is available, it should offer me the option of
downloading them in the background (piggybacking on other connections),
or keeping the connection option to download them all as quickly as
possible. Once all the updates are downloaded, the normal update
procedure applies. Or perhaps the system could apply the updates (with
permission) as they are download where possible.

7. No other service are allowed to auto connect, unless I specifically
give permission for them to do so.

Now, is there a way to achieve all this under Ubuntu? I know that
Firefox and Thunderbird have 'offline' modes, but going online does not
seem to dial. Can I change this? Is there an email checker (something
like biff?) that is independent of any email client, but which can
download headers and pass them on to the email client itself? Can I set
different connection hold timeouts for different applications? Is there
the concept of notifying or starting an application when a connection is
made or lost or about to be lost? Does the system update service cache
partially downloaded files, or does it always start each file afresh if
the connection is lost unexpectedly?

Stephen





Matthew Whiting wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Wondering what would be the recommended way of controlling a dial-up
> connection with Ubuntu or similar? My modem works nicely but only when
> I can connect :-) Under 'Network Settings' if I set the Modem
> Connection to activated and select 'Set modem as default route to
> internet' it dials up when I start up my machine. Thats cool providing
> I want to connect to the net straight off. If I deselect the default
> route option I have a hard job consistently controlling the connection
> by activating/deactivating the Modem Connection.
>
> Would there be a better way to connect? I try using kppp but after
> clicking connect it doesn't really seem to do much. How could I better
> monitor what is actually going on behind the scenes?
>
> Cheers
> Matthew



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Re: Be thankful for linux

[Stephen Irons]

Robert Himmelmann wrote:

> Maurice Butler wrote:
>
>> Check out the lastest windows nightmare
>>
>> http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/11/more-on-sony-dangerous-decloaking.h
>>
>> tml
>>
>>
>>  
>>
> The link does not work but it shows that the site is running IIS.
> Maybe they are so Microsoft-friendly that they removed the page.
>
> Happy Hacking,
> Robert Himmelmann


The 'tml' of 'html' wrapped onto the next line.

Stephen

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Re: Music players

[Stephen Irons]

Volker Kuhlmann wrote:

>I wouldn't buy any player which doesn't play ogg. That seems to rule out
>offerings from copyright mafia companies such as Apple. Why support
>companies that show no regard to open standards?
>
>  
>

The latest Dick Smith monthly flyer advertises the *iAUDIO X5L MP3
Player 20GB (product code **A2386) for $630*. The blurb says that it
plays OGG. If you look here

http://eng.iaudio.com/product/product_X5_spec.php

it says 'Supports Linux v 2.2 or higher (Data transfer only).

Stephen

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