Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fsck forced on boot up due to date problems after update
Hi Rob, I've been trying to install Ubuntu 7.04 on my dad's Thinkpad R50e notebook this evening with not much luck. Snip... I then rebooted again, and during the reboot the machine complained about not having a disk check for about 49,710 days. It ran through the disk check and rebooted, it then on the second reboot said exactly the same thing. It isn't the battery - I don't know what it is but it's much nastier than a dead battery :-( Doing some simple maths :- 2 ^ 32 = 4294967296 MAXINT = 4294967296 - 1 = 4294967295 4294967295 / 86400 = 49710.2696181 this is unlikely to be a battery problem. It looks as if some routine is not reading the date correctly and it is returning either 0 or MAXINT. For those that haven't clicked, 4294967295 is biggest number that can be represented in a 32 bit word and 86400 is the number of seconds in a day. Standard UTC uses the same 32 bits, that's why we have to worry about 2038 (1970 + 49000 days). Quite what the actual problem is, I don't know but I wouldn't be looking at changing batteries, I'd suspect some hardware incompatibility. Some numbers just ring funny :-) TTFN D ubuntu/uk-2007-10-06.txubuntu-uk [EMAIL PROTECTED] ++ | Dave Restall, Computer Nerd, Cyclist, Radio Amateur G4FCU, Bodger | | Mob +44 (0) 7973 831245 Skype: dave.restall Radio: G4FCU | | email : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : Not Ready Yet :-( | ++ | Any father who thinks he's all important should remind himself that| | this country honors fathers only one day a year while pickles get a| | whole week.| ++ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] How 'Gnu' are you?
On Friday 05 October 2007 16:16:18 Peter Lewis wrote: On Friday 05 October 2007 15:40:38 andylockran wrote: We had some fun on Wednesday night on IRC installing Virtual Richard Stallman on our ubuntu boxes to see how many non-free products were installed. Well, as it's a friday afternoon, and people are probably looking for something to waste their time.. let's all take turns in uploading our results. LOL, great stuff... (If you haven't got it already, just : sudo apt-get install vrms, then run vrms. Please append your results to the list below: andylockran - 15 non-free packages, 1.1% of 1381 installed packages. pete lewis - 28 non-free packages, 1.5% of 1893 installed packages. Mark Fraser - 21 non-free packages, 1.3% of 1603 installed packages Not sure what this means though: Non-free packages with status other than installed on rachael opera( dei) The Opera Web Browser sun-java5-fonts ( dei) Lucida TrueType fonts (from the Sun JRE) sun-java5-jre( dei) Sun Java(TM) Runtime Environment (JRE) 5.0 (ar -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fsck forced on boot up due to date problems after update
Snip... Quite what the actual problem is, I don't know but I wouldn't be looking at changing batteries, I'd suspect some hardware incompatibility. Have you actually replaced the hard drive? Or at least run a decent disk checker on it (the one from Maxtor excellent)? Installing a whole new OS on a flakey harddrive is a recipe for disaster. In my experience once drive start showing back sectors they usually go bang pretty quickly. 40-60GB laptop drive are pretty cheap these days and most laptops have bays so they are easy to change. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fsck forced on boot up due to date problems after update
On Sat, 2007-10-06 at 09:11 +0100, David Restall - System Administrator wrote: Hi Rob, I've been trying to install Ubuntu 7.04 on my dad's Thinkpad R50e notebook this evening with not much luck. Snip... I then rebooted again, and during the reboot the machine complained about not having a disk check for about 49,710 days. It ran through the disk check and rebooted, it then on the second reboot said exactly the same thing. It isn't the battery - I don't know what it is but it's much nastier than a dead battery :-( Doing some simple maths :- 2 ^ 32 = 4294967296 MAXINT = 4294967296 - 1 = 4294967295 4294967295 / 86400 = 49710.2696181 this is unlikely to be a battery problem. It looks as if some routine is not reading the date correctly and it is returning either 0 or MAXINT. For those that haven't clicked, 4294967295 is biggest number that can be represented in a 32 bit word and 86400 is the number of seconds in a day. Standard UTC uses the same 32 bits, that's why we have to worry about 2038 (1970 + 49000 days). Quite what the actual problem is, I don't know but I wouldn't be looking at changing batteries, I'd suspect some hardware incompatibility. Some numbers just ring funny :-) TTFN Hi Honestly I've installed Ubuntu countless times, mostly servers. Since 7.04 i seem to get this every time! On different machines and VMs. I assumed this was just a lazy way of forcing a disk check after its been installed. So all i do is install, apt-get upgrade, reboot, reboot... and then all is fine after that... almost like a post install intentional mess that sorts itself out. Later, Michael -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] How 'Gnu' are you?
On Fri, 2007-10-05 at 14:40 +, andylockran wrote: We had some fun on Wednesday night on IRC installing Virtual Richard Stallman on our ubuntu boxes to see how many non-free products were installed. Well, as it's a friday afternoon, and people are probably looking for something to waste their time.. let's all take turns in uploading our results. (If you haven't got it already, just : sudo apt-get install vrms, then run vrms. Please append your results to the list below: andylockran - 15 non-free packages, 1.1% of 1381 installed packages. Regards, Andy [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ vrms Non-free packages installed on Jupiter eawpatchesNon-free (and more complete) patch set for MIDI audio human-icon-theme Human Icon theme linux-generic Complete Generic Linux kernel linux-restricted-modules- Non-free Linux 2.6.22 modules on x86/x86_64 linux-restricted-modules- Non-free Linux 2.6.22 modules on x86/x86_64 linux-restricted-modules- Non-free Linux 2.6.22 modules helper script linux-restricted-modules- Restricted Linux modules for generic kernels nvidia-glx-newNVIDIA binary XFree86 4.x/X.Org 'new' driver p7zip-rar non-free rar module for p7zip sun-java6-bin Sun Java(TM) Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 (architecture sun-java6-jre Sun Java(TM) Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 (architecture tangerine-icon-theme Tangerine Icon theme 12 non-free packages, 0.8% of 1445 installed packages. Not too bad =] -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] How 'Gnu' are you?
On Sat, 2007-10-06 at 11:27 +0100, Alec Wright wrote: On Fri, 2007-10-05 at 14:40 +, andylockran wrote: We had some fun on Wednesday night on IRC installing Virtual Richard Stallman on our ubuntu boxes to see how many non-free products were installed. Well, as it's a friday afternoon, and people are probably looking for something to waste their time.. let's all take turns in uploading our results. (If you haven't got it already, just : sudo apt-get install vrms, then run vrms. Please append your results to the list below: andylockran - 15 non-free packages, 1.1% of 1381 installed packages. Regards, Andy [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~$ vrms Non-free packages installed on Jupiter eawpatchesNon-free (and more complete) patch set for MIDI audio human-icon-theme Human Icon theme linux-generic Complete Generic Linux kernel linux-restricted-modules- Non-free Linux 2.6.22 modules on x86/x86_64 linux-restricted-modules- Non-free Linux 2.6.22 modules on x86/x86_64 linux-restricted-modules- Non-free Linux 2.6.22 modules helper script linux-restricted-modules- Restricted Linux modules for generic kernels nvidia-glx-newNVIDIA binary XFree86 4.x/X.Org 'new' driver p7zip-rar non-free rar module for p7zip sun-java6-bin Sun Java(TM) Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 (architecture sun-java6-jre Sun Java(TM) Runtime Environment (JRE) 6 (architecture tangerine-icon-theme Tangerine Icon theme 12 non-free packages, 0.8% of 1445 installed packages. Not too bad =] Oops... looks like im loosing this :( 38 non-free packages, 2.6% of 1458 installed packages. Doomsday Engine, Java, and VMware are the main culprits!! -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
[ubuntu-uk] Sight Village 2008: Volunteers
Hi Matt, Alan Peter and anyone else interested Thanks for your offers of help. I don't want to turn away offers of help, but anyone volunteering must understand that us visually impaired lot can be, well, exceedingly trying at times. There is still a lot of institutalised VIP that able bodied people can find difficult to deal with sometimes. That being said, you must also remember that whatever information you are going to impart, the words just click here is, ahem, useless! I'd suggest that the best thing to do is to set up a Ubuntu Gnome based installation on your laptop / desktop with accessability enabled, have the screen turned off, or covered, and get used to navigating around using the keyboard shortcuts. The weiki pages at http://live.gnome.org/orca is a good place to start for any research. Oh, and you can't be allergic or have a phobia about dogs smiles. E -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
[ubuntu-uk] Sight Village 2008: Audio Manuals
Daniel Thanks, appreciated. Although jumping ahead somewaht the idea I have is to collar a couple of well spoken people, say from an AmDram group, and get them to talk through a transcript of the How to's and record them onto proper Audio CDs - ie not a compressed format. I suppose your studio can't master onto the good old cassette tapes as well can it? E -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Daniel Lamb Sent: 04 October 2007 22:19 To: British Ubuntu Talk Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] UK Project Proposal Iv done sound engineering afew years since i did it properly but still done it and got access to a studio, Regards, daniel Original message From: Ian Pascoe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 4 Oct 2007 7:34pm +00:00 To: British Ubuntu Talk ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] UK Project Proposal Guys I'll take this as a positive acceptance of the idea - thanks for all the offers of support up to and including the tea pot Matthew! Alan can you contact me off list to talk through the web stuff please? Chris R - I know the post you refer to and I referred him onto the Orca mailling list which he now participates on. I am aware of the Ubuntu Accessability mailling list but haven't done anything there as yet as they're up to their knees in sorting out the Gibbon at the moment. Chris D - yep accessability is firing on all cylinders at the moment including the speech recognition which was the main downfall of Linux until this Summer's Google Summer of Code. For interested parties, it's only available through Gnome for the short to medium term. DaveW - haven't got the costs yet, but they should be out in the next month or so. I know there's a couple of sound engineering types on the list, would you be able to offer any help on the audio recording side if things started to rock and roll? E -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Alan Pope Sent: 04 October 2007 20:03 To: British Ubuntu Talk Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] UK Project Proposal Hi Ian, On Thu, 2007-10-04 at 18:14 +0100, Ian Pascoe wrote: What I was thinking of doing was running a stand there for the three days - starting Tues 15/07/08 I think - demonstrating Ubuntu together with it's Assistive Technologies in use. Sounds great to me, count me in. * get a loan of at least one laptop / desktop for the duration I don't think that's a problem. I suspect that you could get one or more in fact. * a supply of the then current distributions That would be Hardy Heron - 8.04 which would be an LTS release. By then there would be media available. * an installation guide to Ubuntu with Assistive Technologies activated, in printed, braille and audio formats Ooo, like that idea. We also have a screencast that has subtitles :) * increase my knowledge of Ubuntu from the surface scratchings I have to a damn good gouge. I'm sure we can help with that too! Winner. Now, there's plenty of time until July, and exhibitors registration doesn't need to be completed until 31/01/08, but I'll be honest and say it seems rather daunting. I'd say it's pretty damned easy for us to achieve if we work together actually. I've got ideas how to deal with most of the above points, but wondered if this'd be a good project for the Loco team? Definitely. Cheers, Al. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] UK Project Proposal (Sight Village)
Alan Some very valid points. However, until the stock market crash in the late 90's Guide Dogs was the wealthiest organisation in the UK for the blind, and in the top 5 in the world. Unfortunately, they're now ranked somewhat lower, but gradually picking up again. This may well turn you off from giving to GDBA, but just remember that from birth to death GDBA looks after all their dogs financially and medically, and an average cost to maintain a dog through it's life including training is £30k+! E -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of alan c Sent: 05 October 2007 10:28 To: British Ubuntu Talk Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] UK Project Proposal (Sight Village) Ian Pascoe wrote: Hi y'all Before I ask for Popey's help to put this onto his Ideas Pool, I thought I'd run it by the list and see what your feed back was. Every year the Queen Alexandra College for the Blind in Birmingham runs an exhibition called Sight Village, which is the leading technology showcase for the bisually impaired and associated support groups throughout Europe - these groups being both Government bodies and local / national / international charities. What I was thinking of doing was running a stand there for the three days - starting Tues 15/07/08 I think - demonstrating Ubuntu together with it's Assistive Technologies in use. Great idea! A background scenario might be of interest: a) RNIB (as a major institution in the scene) is apparently very non Open Source. I have previously contacted them as a potential volunteer helper - for open source (Free) and Linux. I do not think they even knew what I was talking about, even the Computer related person. b) RNIB is said to be a very rich organisation. Saving money may be something they as an institution see in their own special way. c) My contact with RNIB suggested they naturally use a level of bureaucracy you might expect from a vary large well off organisation, who also use many volunteers too. The formality seemed much higher than with Age Concern for example. Associated with the formality and bureaucracy may be a certain inflexibility and resistance to change. d) When on the Microsoft Campus in Berkshire (for Age Concern events, a couple of occasions) I became aware of the AbilityNet organisation http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/ who are -located- in one of the main Microsoft buildings, apparently heavily funded by the company. [extract quote] 'AbilityNet’s links with Microsoft, IBM, Hewlett Packard, BT and other major IT companies put us in a very strong position to make sure the voices of disabled people are heard. We aim to lead the way in providing effective interventions using the latest technology.' Comment: One can easily understand that there is a strong tradition for and also a strong expectation of proprietary software at all levels - organisations and end users. e) Blind people I have come across *are* very keen to save money! And very interested in alternatives. They would obviously need a bit more support that other new Ubuntu users. The Sight Village event would be a major marketing showpiece for us. A very alien territory, with a tradition probably of users being even more reliant that usual upon proprietary companies. Can I remind ourselves that press and media coverage will be important to stimulate and foster? In principle I would like to and be able to attend and or contribute, although the far date will need confirmation closer to the event. (Particularly finding a suitable car park for our small motorhome, and us, to reside unobtrusively for the duration). -- alan cocks Kubuntu user#10391 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Home Servers Update
Daniel Lamb wrote: Why not ask around family and friends? Surely someone will have an old laptop or even old pc which is less power hungry. To be honest I wouldn’t be over bothered about the energy (I say that as someone who provides IT support to an energy company) as there is plenty and its not a lot of money, and what you could do is run that then wait a bit to buy a cheap laptop or less power hungry pc as one will come up. Obviously the green people won't like this so I'm sorry. Regards, Daniel Hey all, Thought I would pass on an update. I found an old laptop that I had been raiding for parts that just needed a new HDD to make it work as an acceptable server. After a trying time of both feisty and gutsy telling me that the processor was too old for the kernel, I finally managed to get the i386 kernel installed and working. Hopefully this will keep the leccy bill down a bit!! Thanks very much for all your suggestions and ideas. -Matt Daubney -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fsck forced on boot up due to date problems after update
MailoGroups wrote: Snip... Quite what the actual problem is, I don't know but I wouldn't be looking at changing batteries, I'd suspect some hardware incompatibility. Have you actually replaced the hard drive? Or at least run a decent disk checker on it (the one from Maxtor excellent)? Installing a whole new OS on a flakey harddrive is a recipe for disaster. In my experience once drive start showing back sectors they usually go bang pretty quickly. 40-60GB laptop drive are pretty cheap these days and most laptops have bays so they are easy to change. It's a brand new Seagate Momentus 54200 2.5 Hard Drive, the old drive was faulty hence putting in this new one. I will check the drive when my dad is back from holiday. Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Fsck forced on boot up due to date problems after update
Michael Holloway wrote: Hi Honestly I've installed Ubuntu countless times, mostly servers. Since 7.04 i seem to get this every time! On different machines and VMs. I assumed this was just a lazy way of forcing a disk check after its been installed. So all i do is install, apt-get upgrade, reboot, reboot... and then all is fine after that... almost like a post install intentional mess that sorts itself out. Later, Michael Ahh I'm glad I'm not the only one experiencing the problem. I'm hoping that 7.10 won't have any issues like this. I must admit 7.10 Beta looks okay. Rob -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
[ubuntu-uk] [ADMIN] Next meeting 13/10/07 @ 20:30 BST in #ubuntu-uk
Hi all, The next Ubuntu-UK Team meeting will be held via IRC at 20:30 BST (that's 19:30 UTC) on Saturday 13th October 2007 in #ubuntu-uk. We encourage everyone who is a member of the UKTeam to attend whether to take part or merely watch from the sidelines. If you have anything in particular you would like to table for discussion at the meeting, please add it to the following page:- https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/MeetingNotes/20071013Meeting You will need a launchpad account to edit this page. If you would rather not register on launchpad then feel free to mail me or reply to this post with items for discussion and someone else can add the item(s) for you. Please note however if you wish to discuss something then it makes sense for you to turn up at the meeting or it may get passed over. We try to keep the meeting to just one hour, but if there is a lot to discuss then we may overrun. Once the meeting is over we usually post the log to the page linked above pretty much immediately, then over the next few days whoever chaired the meeting disseminates the information into a more manageable summary on the same page. Hope to see you there. Cheers, Al. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
