December 2002 - WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

encyclopedia

by doug waud

Hi all I wonder whether I have found a gap in availability of applications for Linux :-( Specifically, I have been looking for a CD encyclopedia which will run on a Linux box (in particular a couple I set up for my two grandkids). Wine does not seem to provide a work-around both because it does not seem to be happy with any CD encyclopedia and because it would require buying Win* to get the CD stuff installed (and neither computer is worth as much as Win* would cost). I tried searching for Linux + Encyclopedia but that just gives me encyclopedias about Linux. A search for CD + Encyclopedia gave a reasonable list but none runs under Linux (as you might expect, all run under Wintel and a few on Macs). Does anyone know of a general CD encyclopedia that one can use with Linux? doug PS The grandkids take to the linux boxes quite naturally. I showed the older one how to type "lpr -Plp3 filename" to print a file. He later reported that he tried it on his brother's box but, since it was a second computer and Q comes after P and 4 comes after 3 he used -Plp4 (obvious isn't it:-) ) and it worked! :-)

Dec. 31, 2002

Web site down?

by Keller, Tim

At least from Stratus, I'm not getting any connectivity to www.wlug.org ... (actually I'm not sure that this email will get there either...) Tim.

Dec. 31, 2002

Re: [Wlug] vpn behind firewall

by Michael Long

I have gotten both vpn's coexisting nicely with each other. I can now connect to my desktop at work via vnc. It looks like I can now remove my windows partition...YEA! Now for my final issue. I have not been able to configure my cisco vpn to allow me access to my local lan when connected the vpn is running. This is proving to be most inconvenient because I do have a web server running that is accessable to the outside world. Unfortunately the webserver is unavailable when the vpn is activated. I am thinking that if I add a second nic card to the box and configure it properly that I should be able to have one card handle the webserver traffic and the other card will handle the vpn traffic. Does this seems like a sane configuration? If so can someone point me to documentation that will explain how to accomplish this. Thanks again, Mike > Well, my editor ate that one... Let's try this again. > > On Tue, Dec 24, 2002 at 05:58:15PM -0500, Michael Long wrote: > mlong> it if anyone could give me some clues or at least some intelligent > mlong> questions to ask so that I might make this thing work. It is sometimes > mlong> necessary to "help" the help desk in order that they can help you. :) > > "VPN" can mean many things... but usually it means a PPTP or IPsec > encrypted tunnel. IPsec uses port 500/udp for ISAKMP key exchange, and > IP Protocol number 50/51 for ESP/AH encryption/authentication (i.e., not > TCP or UDP). > > IPsec wasn't designed to work with the hack that is NAT (Network Address > Translation, Internet Connection Sharing), so if you are sharing one > real IP address to multiple computers with a Linksys, you can run into > issues. Basically, vendors like Linksys have hacked around the IPsec > limitation to make it sort of work through the NAT. Make sure you have > turned on the "IPsec passthrough" features of your router (NOT IPsec/VPN > endpoint). You should also look for an upgrade to the Linksys firmware > to see if it addresses your issue... It is hit-or-miss often times with > these SOHO routers. Good luck. > > mlong> Part 2: I am planning to fire up a vpn connection to my employer on > mlong> Thursday for the first time. Are there any issues running 2 vpn > mlong> connections behind a firewall. > > The IPsec through NAT hack I mentioned above usually only works with ONE > IPsec session at a time, so if both VPN's use IPsec, you may be out of > luck unless you take turns using the VPN software. On the other hand, > some vendors have figured out a way to allow multiple IPsec sessions to > work through NAT at once... > > It could be that one or both VPN's are using a technology other than > IPsec, in which case, the issues are completely different. PPTP usually > works fine through NAT, for example. There are other protocols as well, > which may or may not work through NAT. > > In addition, if they are using IPsec with a Nortel Networks Contivity > VPN switch on their end, it may have a feature called "NAT Traversal" > which wraps the entire IPsec flow in UDP packets (the administrator > chooses the port number, but Nortel recommends 10001/udp). If this is > the case, it might make sense to turn OFF any IPsec-passthrough features > of your router, so that the NAT Traversal kicks in. > > -- > Charles R. Anderson <cra(a)wpi.edu> / http://angus.ind.wpi.edu/~cra/ > PGP Key ID: 49BB5886 > Fingerprint: EBA3 A106 7C93 FA07 8E15 3AC2 C367 A0F9 49BB 5886 > > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > > >

Dec. 31, 2002

RE: Linux on a PPC chip

by Sands Fish

Thanx everyone for the advice on Linux for the PPC. I ended up going with Debian, and, guided by the advice of the installation docs that come with their dist. for PPC, I had a very successful (lacking sound, but i was told to expect that, besides it's a server) installation on the G4 Mac. Now, the only other tweak I have a burning desire to make to this box is to configure the kernel to use SMP for the dual 500Mhz processors. From what I've heard, it should only be using the first one right now, and that I have to rebuild the kernel with SMP support. Sound right? I would appreciate any tips or help on getting there, such as: -> how -> where to check to -know- that it's using one or both -> any other useful kernel info anything would be great really. thanx! - Sands <x>< __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com

Dec. 30, 2002

Re: [Wlug] Color matching scanned photos vs. printed output

by Sands Fish

Andy, I do quite a bit of photo work, using Photoshop on the Windows side of things for my art. I've found that each scanner has it's own constant way of skewing the image scanned. For example, on almost every image I scan on my HP 4100C, I first go and drop the Brightness by -10, and up the Contrast by +20 - +25. Since the Gimp is so closely aligned with Photoshop, I'm sure it is not hard to adjust these two characteristics of the image. Play with these to start with. I've seen drastic color improvements and dust/scratch removal just by up-ing the contrast. Maybe if you play with it across a few different images, you can find a few constant adjustments that can be made to each image, before you start getting picky and tweaking other things like Color Balance and such. Good luck! - Sands <x>< --- Andy Stewart <andystewart(a)attbi.com> wrote: > > Hi Everybody, > > I've been playing with my new toy, an Epson 1660 > Photo scanner, which works > very nicely with Linux. > > I have noticed that photos that I scan in and then > print don't look the same > as the original. I am using Xsane, Gimp-Print, and > CUPS. If it matters, the > photo is 4x6 inches, scanned at 400 DPI, and printed > in 1440x720 high > quallity mode. The photo was originally printed > from my 3 Mpixel digital > camera (2160x1440 pixels), so I believe I've used a > more than sufficient DPI > when scanning. > > I suspect the problem is that neither the scanner > nor the printer is perfect, > and that the cumulative effects of the transfer > functions (scanner to > computer to monitor to computer to printer) are > causing this. Its actually > worse if I let Xsane compensate for me with its > automatic adjustments of > gamma, brightness, and contrast. Adjusting the > image on my monitor screen > probably isn't going to help much since my monitor > isn't perfect, nor is > there any guarantee that I have it properly > adjusted. > > Is there any good way, other than trial and error, > to fix this? Would > generating some simple test patterns help in making > the proper adjustments? > > Thanks, > > Andy > > -- > Andy Stewart, Founder > Worcester Linux Users' Group > Worcester, MA USA > http://www.wlug.org > > > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com

Dec. 30, 2002

Toshiba Laptop?

by Wesley Allen

Hi gang, What's your collective opinion of Toshiba laptops? Circuit City has got a decent machine (Satellite 1415-s173) for $999 and they actually let me boot Knoppix on it to check out hardware support (everything worked). The only thing I'm wondering about is the battery. MY HP laptop doesn't let Linux read the battery info with either apm or acpi, and I think this is a function of an incredibly bad bios implementation. The demo models at Circuit City didn't have batteries, so I had no way of checking this bug out on that brand. Does anyone have experience with a Toshiba laptop that has an acpi bios? Can you relate your experience to me? Wes

Dec. 30, 2002

Notebooks...

by Wesley T Allen

Hi gang, Well, with the 0% financianing out there I'm seriously considering dumping my current notebook and taking all my Christmas cash to get a machine that works better with linux. I'm sick of this HP buggy BIOS that won't let linux read the thermal or battery data, even with acpi, so this'll go back to winXP for my wife, we'll dump the desktop completely, and I'll get the new machine. My question is, what's known to work with Linux. Are Toshiba's friendly? I'm not touching a compaq with a 10 foot pole, and does anyone have an HP laptop that is fully functional with linux? What about the latest Dells? Or even, gasp GATEWAY???? I checked out linux on laptops, but most of the models weren't even close so I figured I'd ask all of you... Wes

Dec. 30, 2002

No conflicts??

by Gregory Avedissian

Both my video card and the onboard sound card are assigned to IRQ11, in both windows and linux. Device Manager and KDE Control Center say that there's no conflict. Does this make sense? Thanks in advance, Greg

Dec. 27, 2002

Re: [Wlug] Color matching scanned photos vs. printed output

by Karl Hiramoto

On Fri, 27 Dec 2002, Andy Stewart wrote: > Is there any good way, other than trial and error, to fix this? Would > generating some simple test patterns help in making the proper adjustments? Trial and Error is what I've used with linux. Under Microshaft Windowz there are some Calibration tools that have come with my printer that U can use to calibrate the screen with the printer output. I've also had problems when using different types of paper. Ex. the picutre looks ok, using the el cheapo paper. Then i switch to the expensive glossy paper, and the colors look different. Is there any printer color calibration tool for linux out there? Good luck. -- ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø Karl Hiramoto <karl(a)hiramoto.org> Work: 978-425-2090 ext 25 Cell: 508-517-4819 Personal web page: http://karl.hiramoto.org/ Freedom: http://www.technojihad.com/ Zoop Productions: http://www.zoop.org/ KTEQ Rapid City: http://www.kteq.org/ AOL IM ID = KarlH420 Yahoo_IM = karl_hiramoto ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations.

Dec. 27, 2002

Color matching scanned photos vs. printed output

by Andy Stewart

Hi Everybody, I've been playing with my new toy, an Epson 1660 Photo scanner, which works very nicely with Linux. I have noticed that photos that I scan in and then print don't look the same as the original. I am using Xsane, Gimp-Print, and CUPS. If it matters, the photo is 4x6 inches, scanned at 400 DPI, and printed in 1440x720 high quallity mode. The photo was originally printed from my 3 Mpixel digital camera (2160x1440 pixels), so I believe I've used a more than sufficient DPI when scanning. I suspect the problem is that neither the scanner nor the printer is perfect, and that the cumulative effects of the transfer functions (scanner to computer to monitor to computer to printer) are causing this. Its actually worse if I let Xsane compensate for me with its automatic adjustments of gamma, brightness, and contrast. Adjusting the image on my monitor screen probably isn't going to help much since my monitor isn't perfect, nor is there any guarantee that I have it properly adjusted. Is there any good way, other than trial and error, to fix this? Would generating some simple test patterns help in making the proper adjustments? Thanks, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

Dec. 27, 2002