Re: Totally Out of Ideas on Fixing Network Bug
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Null Ack wrote: | Jun 21 04:34:46 ppp kernel: [ 5493.104588] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: | transmit timed out | Jun 21 04:34:46 ppp kernel: [ 5493.104738] eth0: Transmit timed out, | status 0003, PHY status 786d, resetting... | Jun 21 04:34:46 ppp kernel: [ 5493.105384] eth0: link up, 100Mbps, | full-duplex, lpa 0x45E1 Here's a post on the Ubuntu forums from someone who had a similar problem, also on Via Rhine II hardware: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-586044.html It turns out an aggressive BIOS setting was causing the issue, and choosing some safer options in-BIOS solved their problem. - -Dan -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFIXe0deFJDv0P9Qb8RAmh+AJsGEkhkVAlGblPpTke7z24xLesRtACeLIeR Mm3ul9lYVdRHIepWYfBiKRU= =C/Z9 -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: On Bugs and Linux Quality
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Null Ack wrote: | Linux needs to have less scatterbrain behaviour where half done things I'll snip the post there, as that line contains the wording I am interested in discussing. One thing I find very common of people migrating to Linux is that they treat Linux as a single entity, or single product. Almost as if it were a corporate being, ala Microsoft, Oracle, etc. Linux, as the name is used en mass, is not a single being. It is a collection of literally tens of thousands of programs, all working together. Indeed, no two Linux distros are alike, simply because the people providing them choose different collections of software to forge together to offer. I make no apologies for saying this, but Linux will never be less scatterbrain as you put it. The distributed nature of the coding processes that go into Linux may well be at times one of its weaknesses, but on the whole it is also its single greatest asset. As someone who is obviously new to Linux, what you need to understand is that the Linux community understand the distributed, evolving nature of software far better than the slower moving proprietary world. ~ In software, the concept of the perfect release is simply impossible to achieve - software is a process, not an object, and something that moves and flows with the needs of its users over time. To consider it a single release, or one-off product is the wrong way to approach it. Yes, there are tens of thousands of bugs in Ubuntu. Again, you need to realise that this encompasses code written by tens of thousands of human beings, from thousands of different companies, all working together to release their code in a common pool for anyone to take from. ~ Unlike a lot of proprietary software that has a vested financial interest in proclaiming how perfect it is on release (and then proceding to release dozens of service packs and fixes anyway), Linux makes no such claims. Complete transparency and full discolsure is the name of the game. And what you also need to realise is that Linux is no better or worse than proprietary counterparts. I can assure you, Microsoft have just as many bugs across their entire suite of software. The difference is you as the end user don't get to see their internal bug trackers. To their marketing departments and shareholders, admitting fault like that would be financial suicide. But just because it's not out there for all to see, doesn't make it any less real. Linux's distributed nature can be frustrating to people new to it. But again, you need to understand that despite the shortcomings of the approach, it is the single biggest reason why Linux is alive and thriving today. I work in professional IT (as a Linux sysadmin and systems architect), and time and time again hear the same cry from people with little exposure to Linux: They just need to stop making dozens of distros and all work together to make one killer distro, or they need to stop making 5 different word processors and just make one killer app. What's obvious about this is that the people saying it are grossly unaware of who they are, and how many people that encompasses. ~ More to the point, what constitutes the perfect app? By whose definition are we quantifying perfection? Linux is a massive collection of small programs that each focus on doing one thing well. A Linux distro is one individual's/group's/company's idea of which of these programs should be tied together to make an operating system. By virtue of the fact that there are so many large-scale distros doing so well in the market (RedHat, SuSE, Debian and Ubuntu are generally the big 4 that people talk about, with other popular ones like Fedora, CentOS, Gnetoo and others close behind). In a perfectly free market, if something is not good enough it will disappear through obscurity and lack of interest. So again, by virtue of all of these distros existing and being popular, it means that they all have users who find them interesting and usable for a whole gamut of reasons, personal and professional. I understand your frustration. You have used the product, found a bug, and found that it was not fixed in a manner you considered timely. As an end-user, that is frustrating. Speaking from the point of view of a sysadmin who deals with literally thousands of machines on a daily basis, I can tell you that this is not limited to the Linux world by any means. I personally find even more frustration when I'm forced to admin proprietary software at great financial expense, and find the support no better or more satisfying despite the enormous financial outlay. I'm not trying to downplay your frustrations, but in my 11 years of free software use, I've consistently found it faster to respond to known bugs from both an acknowledgement point of view and a fix-delivery point of view. Additionally, I find it easier to get support for free software from a wide array of channels.
Re: Totally Out of Ideas on Fixing Network Bug
Thanks again Daniel, very much appreciated. Ive been through my CMOS settings but unfortunately no joy. So I have been doing more research and I think Im narrowing it down now. In summary I think: After a period of no network use, ACPI thinks IRQ 23 isnt needed ACPI turns off IRQ 23 eth0 times out and wont come back without reboot ifdown/ifup wont fix it Im yet to test manually unloading and reloading the module for my Via rhine II nic to see if that brings it back without reboot. Just waiting for the timeout. Jun 21 03:04:07 ppp kernel: [ 57.447218] eth0: no IPv6 routers present Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747505] irq 23: nobody cared (try booting with the irqpoll option) Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747514] Pid: 0, comm: swapper Tainted: P2.6.24-19-generic #1 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747516] Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747517] Call Trace: Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747519] IRQ [__report_bad_irq+0x1e/0x80] __report_bad_irq+0x1e/0x80 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747550] [note_interrupt+0x2ad/0x2e0] note_interrupt+0x2ad/0x2e0 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747562] [handle_fasteoi_irq+0xa1/0x110] handle_fasteoi_irq+0xa1/0x110 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747571] [do_IRQ+0x7b/0x100] do_IRQ+0x7b/0x100 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747577] [ret_from_intr+0x0/0x0a] ret_from_intr+0x0/0xa Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747583] [pci_conf1_read+0x0/0x100] pci_conf1_read+0x0/0x100 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747596] [__do_softirq+0x60/0xe0] __do_softirq+0x60/0xe0 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747609] [call_softirq+0x1c/0x30] call_softirq+0x1c/0x30 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747614] [do_softirq+0x35/0x90] do_softirq+0x35/0x90 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747618] [irq_exit+0x88/0x90] irq_exit+0x88/0x90 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747621] [do_IRQ+0x80/0x100] do_IRQ+0x80/0x100 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747624] [default_idle+0x0/0x40] default_idle+0x0/0x40 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747628] [default_idle+0x0/0x40] default_idle+0x0/0x40 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747630] [ret_from_intr+0x0/0x0a] ret_from_intr+0x0/0xa Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747633] EOI [lapic_next_event+0x0/0x10] lapic_next_event+0x0/0x10 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747648] [default_idle+0x29/0x40] default_idle+0x29/0x40 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747654] [cpu_idle+0x6f/0xc0] cpu_idle+0x6f/0xc0 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747662] [start_kernel+0x2c5/0x350] start_kernel+0x2c5/0x350 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747670] [x86_64_start_kernel+0x12e/0x140] _sinittext+0x12e/0x140 Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747678] Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747679] handlers: Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747680] [usbcore:usb_hcd_irq+0x0/0x60] (usb_hcd_irq+0x0/0x60 [usbcore]) Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747702] [via_rhine:rhine_interrupt+0x0/0x7f0] (rhine_interrupt+0x0/0x7f0 [via_rhine]) Jun 21 04:29:46 ppp kernel: [ 5193.747710] Disabling IRQ #23 Jun 21 04:34:46 ppp kernel: [ 5493.104588] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out Jun 21 04:34:46 ppp kernel: [ 5493.104738] eth0: Transmit timed out, status 0003, PHY status 786d, resetting... Jun 21 04:34:46 ppp kernel: [ 5493.105384] eth0: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x45E1 Jun 21 05:05:02 ppp kernel: [ 7308.203455] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out Jun 21 05:05:02 ppp kernel: [ 7308.203606] eth0: Transmit timed out, status 1003, PHY status 786d, resetting... Jun 21 05:05:02 ppp kernel: [ 7308.204254] eth0: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x45E1 Jun 21 05:35:16 ppp kernel: [ 9121.303308] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out Jun 21 05:35:16 ppp kernel: [ 9121.303457] eth0: Transmit timed out, status 1003, PHY status 786d, resetting... Jun 21 05:35:16 ppp kernel: [ 9121.304106] eth0: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x45E1 Jun 21 06:05:32 ppp kernel: [10936.402170] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out Jun 21 06:05:32 ppp kernel: [10936.402319] eth0: Transmit timed out, status 0003, PHY status 786d, resetting... Jun 21 06:05:32 ppp kernel: [10936.402968] eth0: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x45E1 Jun 21 06:12:40 ppp kernel: [11364.189787] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out Jun 21 06:12:40 ppp kernel: [11364.189937] eth0: Transmit timed out, status 0003, PHY status 786d, resetting... Jun 21 06:12:40 ppp kernel: [11364.190589] eth0: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x45E1 Jun 21 06:36:06 ppp kernel: [12769.492097] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out Jun 21 06:36:06 ppp kernel: [12769.492247] eth0: Transmit timed out, status 0003, PHY status 786d, resetting... Jun 21 06:36:06 ppp kernel: [12769.492892] eth0: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x45E1 Jun 21 07:06:22 ppp kernel: [14584.590959] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out Jun 21 07:06:22 ppp kernel: [14584.591109] eth0: Transmit timed out, status 0003, PHY status 786d, resetting... Jun 21 07:06:22 ppp kernel:
Re: On Bugs and Linux Quality
*shrug* I agree fully with the op. On Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 6:22 PM, Steve Lindsay [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 2:27 PM, Null Ack [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Linux needs to have less scatterbrain behaviour where half done things are left and the chaos moves forward to the next semi complete feature. It needs to consolidate and have a unified effort to really work on stability and bug fixing. The word needs needs to be banned. Steve -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au -- When one burns ones bridges, what a very nice fire it makes. -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: Totally Out of Ideas on Fixing Network Bug
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Null Ack wrote: | Thanks again Daniel, very much appreciated. Ive been through my CMOS | settings but unfortunately no joy. Your BIOS should have two defaults modes: optimised defaults and fail-safe defaults. The latter is designed to give a much more stable system at the expense of a little speed at the top end. | | So I have been doing more research and I think Im narrowing it down now. | In summary I think: | | After a period of no network use, ACPI thinks IRQ 23 isnt needed | ACPI turns off IRQ 23 IRQ23 isn't a real IRQ (IRQ's go up to 15). Anything higher is a virtual one. With that said, some of that is controlled by the Plug and Play OS option in your BIOS. This is a yes/no option, and might be worth trying each option to see if it makes a difference. Similarly, have a look at the various automatic and manual IRQ settings options, and see if setting some of these help. - -Dan -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFIXh6TeFJDv0P9Qb8RAhASAJ9+tnArT+glukRPq2NokRl99XWPQACgohpt ise+ckFK5nF3hvmZYBt3yIQ= =XW4o -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: On Bugs and Linux Quality
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Blindraven wrote: | *shrug* | | I agree fully with the op. As per my previous post, due to the very fact that Linux is open source means that the moment you try to centralised/control it's development, someone else will fork the code and do their own thing. If you desire a more controlled, formalised Linux system with support, I'd suggest you migrate to RedHat Enterprise Linux Desktop. It is available for purchase with 1 year support for US$80, or 3 years of support for US$228. https://www.redhat.com/apps/store/desktop/ If you don't want the formalised support, you can download CentOS and get essentially the same software, but minus any support. It should be mentioned that a common criticism of RedHat Enterprise Linux is that it moves quite slowly. They are slow to adopt new features, and are extremely conservative when it comes to making changes. The upside of course is that upgrades are predictable and that sudden changes in the system that will break things are unlikely. I prefer Ubuntu (and Debian) simply for their faster adoption of new features, and their brilliant APT package manager. But again, the downside of a fast-moving system is the occasional software hiccup. If you want to further guarantee the hardware you purchase is Linux compatible, then buy hardware from a certified vendor. HP, IBM/Lenovo, Dell and others all sell high-end hardware certified for Linux use. It will cost you slightly more, but if it's the guaranteed stability you're after, then pay the price for the peace of mind. The options are there for those who want them. They do involve you either spending some money or sacrificing some of the bleeding-edge features of faster moving distros. By all means, try out the more conservative distros and see if they fit your needs better. But it's ill-advised to judge all Linux systems on one distro, and similarly to make sweeping claims on how Linux should be fixed without understanding the true nature of how it works and where it has come from. - -Dan -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFIXiE2eFJDv0P9Qb8RAoAFAJ93/wl84gUd+UDoUUW5s2H/r1qPowCffbwL XfoY8DYvJ548QZdBXup4daU= =qaYx -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: Misc Ubuntu Troubles
Owen Townend wrote: ... 2) As far as SVN is concerned, what is the recommended app to manage and sync our code repositories? (GUI is preferable, but in the worst case scenario, I will resort to command line). I'm currently struggling to make good use of RapidSVN, which has been recommended, but I find it a little awkward compared to some SVN software for the Mac RapidSVN and commandline are the two methods I typically employ, though depending on your needs you may be interested in wrapping this with an editor and trying Eclipse. I second this. I use Eclipse for all my Java development, and its svn integration (subclipse) has been very good for me. Sometimes i revert to command line, but i love the command line, so that's not surprising. Regards, Paul begin:vcard fn:Paul Gear n:Gear;Paul org:Liberty Systems Software adr;dom:;;;Birkdale;Q;4159 email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] title:Director tel;work:07 3122 2198 tel;cell:04 3183 7656 x-mozilla-html:FALSE url:http://www.libertysys.com.au/ version:2.1 end:vcard smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: On Bugs and Linux Quality
Daniel with respect, I did not mean to present that the solution to improving the quality of GNU/Linux is for centralised control. However, people are in control of aspects of Linux - such as release decisions about key sub systems, or release decisions as it relates to Distros. These decision makers have the power to conform, or not to conform as some unfortunately choose, to decades old principles to do with what consitutes an alpha, beta or production release. Clearly, there are allot of problems when parties who are in control declare a release as stable when its not. With the kernel, I gave the example where Andrew Morton shared with us that he often see's regression bugs go without fixes, he see's developers ignore bug reports. There is other examples too in other key sub systems of just about any Linux distro. Take for example, all the problems with X releases and how most recently a new release of X was made with a blocker bug and other serious bugs. If more focus and discipline was put into what constitutes a production release I think that would be a very good direction to take. Who cares if there is more release candidates for kernels or more betas for X, if its not ready its not ready. Some bugs can be tricky for a developer to replicate and resolve. Its human nature not to see the severity the same way with an issue if it's not happening on your machine. I dont see proper release management stifling any freedoms in FOSS projects. It just means having a proper quality standard before bits are declared stable and ready for production. I greatly enjoy Ubuntu, over all other distro's Ive tried (Arch, OpenSuse, Fedora) but I am certainly not the only person Ive seen sharing their views that arbitary time based releases arent condusive to good software. -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: On Bugs and Linux Quality
On Sun, 2008-06-22 at 20:35 +1000, Null Ack wrote: Daniel with respect, I did not mean to present that the solution to improving the quality of GNU/Linux is for centralised control. However, people are in control of aspects of Linux - such as release decisions about key sub systems, or release decisions as it relates to Distros. These decision makers have the power to conform, or not to conform as some unfortunately choose, to decades old principles to do with what consitutes an alpha, beta or production release. Clearly, there are allot of problems when parties who are in control declare a release as stable when its not. With the kernel, I gave the example where Andrew Morton shared with us that he often see's regression bugs go without fixes, he see's developers ignore bug reports. There is other examples too in other key sub systems of just about any Linux distro. Take for example, all the problems with X releases and how most recently a new release of X was made with a blocker bug and other serious bugs. If more focus and discipline was put into what constitutes a production release I think that would be a very good direction to take. Who cares if there is more release candidates for kernels or more betas for X, if its not ready its not ready. Some bugs can be tricky for a developer to replicate and resolve. Its human nature not to see the severity the same way with an issue if it's not happening on your machine. I dont see proper release management stifling any freedoms in FOSS projects. It just means having a proper quality standard before bits are declared stable and ready for production. I greatly enjoy Ubuntu, over all other distro's Ive tried (Arch, OpenSuse, Fedora) but I am certainly not the only person Ive seen sharing their views that arbitary time based releases arent condusive to good software. I have been watching this thread, and many like it over the years. Yes it would be nice if the quality of GNU/Linux distros improved, but I don't demand that. Lets take a look at the situation. You are getting a complete operating system for free (as in liberty and beer). It comes with a warranty - see clause 15 of the GPL [1]. Vendors (including canonical/ubuntu) honour the warranty offered by upstream. Now lets look at the upstream projects. They or usually run by informal groupings of people. Even with all the corporate resources thrown at Linux (as in the real Linux - the kernel), it is down to Linus and the advice of his lieutenants as to what is in and what is out of a release. No one is able to make a volunteer fix a bug. The goes for if Ubuntu/Canonical pushes a patch upstream to kernel and it is included in a release but later turns out to be broken, there is nothing which compels anyone, let alone makes Ubuntu fix it. This is the free software movement at work. No one makes you use the code we produce (yes I am a FOSS developer). No one can make us fix our bugs. This is the risk you take when you use our code. I don't lose any sleep if someone does or doesn't use my code. If someone demands that I fix a bug or else random_threat, I mentally put it to the bottom of the pile. For the flip side, lets look at a proprietary development model. I have picked the easiet one - Windows. Windows 98 didn't support USB mass storage and support for it was never included, last I checked you couldn't install onto a SATA drive without a _boot floppy_ and looks unlikely to ever be fixed. It took until SP2 for XP to come anywhere close to getting half decent security. Many vendors took months to get their drivers right for Vista. The list of fundamental flaws with various versions of Windows is extensive. This is a product shipped by the biggest software company on the planet. My experiences with the official support channels for Windows, as a legitimate, paying customer have been extremely disappointing. If you are disappointed with the quality of the product warranty offered in clause 11 of the EULA (XP SP2 [2]), which I think you will have very little chance of seeing it honoured as there are too many loopholes for MS to use to get out of it. I currently have 2 virtual machines running Windows (one Vista and one XP), they are both legitimate copies. I am currently running about 30 different GNU/Linux (physical and virtual) servers, and my laptop only runs Hardy. I have given up on running Windows for anything serious. When I need bullet proof servers, I run Debian stable and I double check the specs before paying for new kit. When I need pretty good servers I check if Ubuntu LTS or Debian stable are a better fit for the task. On the desktop desktop I generally run ubuntu alphas (which I don't advocate to others), for others they get LTS or current stable ubuntu depending on their needs. Do I get annoyed/frustrated with GNU/Linux, yes. Do I complain - yes via bug reports and my blog. Do I threaten people to get things fixed, no. I have
Re: Auto-complete in Evolution
The Wassermans wrote: Having migrated from Thunderbird to Evolution Just out of curiosity, why did you do that? (I don't know anything about Evolution, so i can't help you with the actual problem.) I've tried to migrate from Thunderbird to Evolution a couple of times (because people told me i should), and both times it has driven me crazy. I gave up trying several years ago. Paul smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: Fw: Auto-complete in Evolution
Just out of curiosity, why did you do that? (I don't know anything about Evolution, so i can't help you with the actual problem.) I've tried to migrate from Thunderbird to Evolution a couple of times (because people told me i should), and both times it has driven me crazy. I gave up trying several years ago. Paul Paul, I am a brand new Ubuntu convert. I have been contemplating the move from Windows for a while. I downloaded the Windows version of Thunderbird and ran that for a month or two before the move. I was reasonably happy with it. I finally made the move last week. Because Hardy automatically bundles Evolution, it is tantamount to a recommendation. Anyway, I reasoned that I should simply accept the vanilla installation - at least until/unless I don't like it. So I am trying to make it work the way I like to work. By the same token, I am still trying to come to grips with the whole thing. It's all very foreign to me still. I think you'll see quite a bit of me in/(on?) the List for a while. Tell me. What drove you so crazy regarding Evolution? Dave W -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Auto-complete in Evolution
Having migrated from Thunderbird to Evolution I miss the convenience of the auto-complete function when addressing an e-mail. I would like to set up auto-complete in the To: in Evolution. I can't find the switch for that. Dave W Okay I worked it out. The auto-complete only begins to register when you have entered the first 3 letters. How silly of me. Oh, the learning curve! Sorry folks, Dave W -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: How can I edit the text of a PDF file without having the source file of it?
Sridhar Dhanapalan wrote:
On Sat, 21 Jun 2008 at 15:40, Peter Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hello Ubuntu-Australia ppl,
{ I apologize for waffling on (below) however I figured that I was best for
me to supply too much info rather than not enough. }
I have a PDF file (eg an Adobe Portable Document Format) file which I
authored quite a long time ago... back when I was using M$ Windows XP Home
Edition as my Operating System. I now wish to edit the PDF file, however I
don't know where the source document is, or whether I even HAVE the source
file. From memory, the file was written using Micro$oft Word, and probably
printed with PDF995 (M$ Windows print driver which creates PDF documents).
[ eg PDF995 is available from the website www.pdf995.com ]
PDF is primarily an export format - it was never designed to be edited.
However, there are some tools out there which can do it - pdfedit and the
soon-to-be-released OpenOffice.org 3.0 spring to mind.
It is possible to treat a PDF like a canvas and draw a white box with new text
over the old text. This is usually done programmatically and can take a lot of
fiddling.
It would also be possible to splice the original PDF with a new page replacing
the one with the old url. This is probably the easiest approach. PDF::Reuse [1]
will do this for you in perl but its API is reasonably complicated, there may
also be GUI tools for this including PDF Split and Merge [2]. Extract pages 1
to 4 and 6 to 16. Create a new page 5, merge back together.
[1] http://search.cpan.org/~nsharrock/PDF-Extract-3.02/lib/PDF/Extract.pm
[2] Open source, java: http://www.pdfsam.org/?page_id=10
--
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Re: Fw: Auto-complete in Evolution
The Wassermans wrote: ... I am a brand new Ubuntu convert. I have been contemplating the move from Windows for a while. I downloaded the Windows version of Thunderbird and ran that for a month or two before the move. I was reasonably happy with it. ... By the same token, I am still trying to come to grips with the whole thing. It's all very foreign to me still. If that is the case, i would try to use as many of the same applications as possible while you try to come to grips with the other differences. I've got a bit of a list of some of these apps here: http://linuxman.wikispaces.com/switching+to+Linux There are more at other sites focused on switching to Linux. ... Tell me. What drove you so crazy regarding Evolution? Mostly the lack of sensible keyboard strokes for simple actions like next previous message. Paul smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: On Bugs and Linux Quality
I enjoyed this debate. Based on the observations made, what do people here see as the biggest pros and cons of using Linux, and specifically Ubuntu in a commercial, corporate environment? -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: On Bugs and Linux Quality
Slawek having been on the tender process for numerous Government contracts (both inside in the Government and outside in vendors) the key pros / cons for Linux I see are: 1. Pro - reduced TCO 2. Pro - easy sell for servers 3. Con - hard sell for desktops. I did not see anything particularly solid in preventing this - its more a lack of understanding. Im sure some areas really could not do without Office but most that make this claim are in my experience wrong about OpenOffice capabilities. Some sites have custom .net apps running so it would be critical that Mono or some equiviliant really worked. Actually I dont really understand all the whining about Mono as I understand that is is now an open standard and not a MS standard? Theres probably going to be the occasional legacy app written on the win32 application platform that doesnt play nice with Linux. What we did on one project where all the infrastructure was replaced was to have a few citrix sessions running legacy apps - for some reason they didnt want virtualisation for desktop apps. In my experience even getting OpenOffice into departments was difficult. The one place that was done was on a Java developer build where the users were all developers working on Java projects. -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Re: On Bugs and Linux Quality
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Slawek Drabot wrote: | Based on the observations made, what do people here see as the biggest pros and cons of using Linux, and specifically Ubuntu in a commercial, corporate environment? For me personally, speed and reliability are the biggest pros. What do I mean by speed? I can roll out fairly complex networks using a Linux environment in a very small amount of time. Take for example a client of mine that was a startup visual effects studio. They needed a centralised authentication system that would allow authentication services for workstations running MacOSX, Windows, Linux and SGI/IRIX, high speed file serving, cross-OS permissions control, VPN access, routing and firewalling, secure wireless network, and a host of other services (databases galore, wikis for knowledge bases, etc) for a network of 20 users/workstations, 4 very large servers and with a decent sized renderfarm and management nodes. Under a proprietary OS, this would have taken ages. I've seen smaller networks with less features and a single OS base take a month or more to roll out. Particularly when you consider you need to waste a huge amount of time on license procurement, software asset/licensing/serial management, auditing of licenses to ensure you are not over or under licensed, etc, etc. I managed all of the above by myself in under 5 days. The whole studio was up and running on a production film within 30 days of the green light, which included hardware purchasing and installation, the software stuff above, and the rest of the administration style activities that normally happen. I used free software like LDAP, SASL, Samba, BIND, OpenVPN, NFS and others to build the core features which allowed all of the systems to plug in without worrying about OS compatibility. The testing performed was minimal and most things just worked regardless of attached OS. On the long-term scale, it allows the studio owner to scale his network well over 100 times in size with no extra software cost at the server side. It also meant that we could build in redundancy early on without the need to worry about further licensing restrictions and time delays. I've since worked on similar projects where there has always been an insistence to use proprietary software as the base. Typically this means Microsoft Windows Server and Active Directory. Invariably the result is the same: permissions and user mapping fail when dealing with cross-platform networks (MacOSX and Linux systems don't play as nicely when compared with a standard LDAP system), DNS systems are more difficult to manage, systems like Exchange are limiting in their scalability, performance, and extensibility, and the time to roll out these networks is always blown out by software license management. One I was a part of recently took several months to complete, and had fewer features than the 5-day affair I mention above. And I'm not even going to start talking about the dollar cost (I hate terms like TCO, as they are far too hand-wavy and belong in the realm of pointy haired bosses only). The reliability part has been fantastic. The network in question has been functional for 1.5 years now, and we are planning various upgrades and extensions that are going to be equally as trivial to implement thanks to the redundant nature of the network, which in turn is thanks to the free software driving it. - -Dan -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFIXyfzeFJDv0P9Qb8RAttYAKCcfZG1FUGLjnOy3FBUkI4SLcP8VgCggjj1 VmjAwcc8t8WYWy0kHG24638= =dSaf -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
Retrieving old keys.
Hey! I have installed Ubuntu on a new PC and am curious how to retrieve my old keys. They are uploaded at http://keyserver.ubuntu.com:11371/pks/lookup?search=blindravenop=vindex The first 2 keys are the ones I'm after as they are the ones assigned to my Launchpad. I have forgotten which key was for email and which was for singing as well. Tony. -- When one burns ones bridges, what a very nice fire it makes. -- ubuntu-au mailing list ubuntu-au@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
