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Logitech QuickCam Pro and Programming
by Chuck Haines Aug. 10, 2004

Aug. 10, 2004

Hey guys, I recently got a Logitech QuickCam Pro and was thinking about doing some development work with it. I'd like to make a program that will take pictures when motion is detected or when I send it commands to do so. I'm currently looking to do it in C, so does anyone have any experience with this? I've done some googling and found some material but nothing that is really a how-to for the API for this kinda thing. Oh yea, I'm developing it on a laptop that runs Fedora Core 2, but I will eventually be porting it to an embedded computer (an Arcom GX-1 to be exact) which runs a flavor of RedHat 7.2 and kernel 2.4.18. Thanks, Chuck -- Chuck Haines chaines(a)gmail.com ------------------------------------------- Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity WPI Class of 2005 ------------------------------------------- AIM: CyberGrex YIM: CyberGrex_27 ICQ: 3707881 -------------------------------------------

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Job posting
by Mike Leo Aug. 6, 2004

Aug. 6, 2004

Think this is my first mass-email but thought I would share with the group. I recruiter sent this to me today...i have no more information than what is listed below. If interested, I recommend communicating directly with the recruiter at winterwyman.com....he is Joe Kotlinski j jkotlinski(a)winterwyman.com--you can tell him Mike Leo sent you, for what ever that is worth. Good luck. "a successful start-up in the medical devices industry located in the MetroWest/495 area. They want to hire 3 desktop support people. The people they're seeking must have: 6-12 months of experience; Microsoft Networking, Windows 98/NT/2000/XP, and hands on knowledge of Microsoft Office, e-mail applications such as Outlook and Outlook Express and Internet Explorer; and a BS Degree. The base salary will probably max out in the low $40,000s." __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

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RE: [Wlug] Multiple platform blues...
by Martin, Eric Aug. 6, 2004

Aug. 6, 2004

A1: OpenOffice works fine with word / powerpoint. Only catch is Password protected docs. A2: Samba works for me. Its wicked easy to learn (took me maybe a few hours). I run a 200GB samba server in my basement with ReiserFS as the file system. Windows likes it, *NIX can mount it, and I assume OSX can too. A3: Can't help, sorry :( -----Original Message----- From: Stephen C. Daukas [mailto:stephen@daukas.com] Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2004 8:54 PM To: WLUG Subject: [Wlug] Multiple platform blues... I'm sure my experience with platform-dependent apps as an impediment to moving entirely to Linux is not unique. I have spent plenty of time playing with Linux at home, but have always had to deal with platform-specific needs of employers, etc., so I have never been able to completely immerse myself in Linux. I'd still like to use Linux as my primary platform, but I have to deal with having to run quite specific apps in different environments. So, I'm looking to begin a discussion about how to set-up a home environment that is as much Linux-based as is possible while providing for the realities of platform-specific requirements. Of course, this is as much a discussion of applications as it is about platforms. I have 3 systems and 1 laptop at home, all of which are Pentium IIIs, one as fast as 800MHz (imagine that!), that are available for use in my home network. I must be able to run Internet Explorer 6.x (required for several web-enabled apps I must use on a regular basis), Word, and PowerPoint. My wife has a Pentium III laptop that must run XP because of her work, but it would be nice to have her access a linux file server for backup and such. (She also likes Linux games!) Also, I have a couple of laser printers and an ink jet that I would rather hang off of one print server. With an eye toward a home network that must include Microsoft and access to Macs at work, here are some questions to start this discussion off: Q1 - OpenOffice versus MS Office: I will need to be reading/editing/creating Word and Powerpoint files (as most of the world do). I will be getting files to edit, and be creating others from scratch. I teach, so the results are intended for display on an ActiveBoard with the expectation of touching the board (or clicking from the console) to follow a link embedded in a powerpoint slide yielding a movie clip, or web page, or whatever. I'm told I have control over the department's files, but not to the extent of choosing something other than MS, so I'd like to use OpenOffice as my primary environment and then generate MS files for use at the school. I assume OpenOffice can do what PowerPoint can do (within reason), but I can't afford the time to "fix" generated MS Office files to work in a Mac or XP environment. Are the any OpenOffice users out there that can comment on this? Q2 - Heterogeneous access: I want to be able to access any file created in any of the three environments. I'd like to move files between the Macs at work and one or more of my machines at home without using Email (I want to avoid any constraints like size limitations on attachments). I want to be able to pull and push those files to whatever platform is needed for whatever needs to be done with them. I assume VNC is available on the Mac, and that I would probably need to run SAMBA, but what are the options these days? I suppose I could set up a FTP server... I'd also like to drop the static IP because of cost, and have already moved the web site to a commercial provider... Q3 - Email: Of primary concern is moving existing email from the MS environment (laptop) to Linux. I am trying to find a way to export all of my email from Mozilla 1.6 to a file or files that can then be moved to a Linux box and imported/read by a mail reader there, but I can't seem to find a way to do this... There is no export function in Mozilla 1.6 and the mail files are not consistently ASCII (at least from what I've seen). I have even tried to use other mailers' ability to import from their competitors, in the hopes that one of them can do the export, but I have had no luck with any of them knowing about Mozilla. Does anyone know of a way to get email out of Mozilla into an ASCII file-based structure (or something equally vanilla) that can be read by a standard Linux reader? Beyond that specific issue, what would be the best way to handle email? Right now I limit myself to using one platform and POP only from it. This is because I can travel with the laptop and not all the servers I access allow IMAP. I retrieve mail from 7 different accounts and forwarding is not allowed (nor do I want to have to keep track of that). I don't mind having to do this, but I'm wondering about other options... Thanks for your sage advice! Steve _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

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Anyone proficient in Beowulf (cluster) installations?
by Dwight A. Ernest Aug. 6, 2004

Aug. 6, 2004

I may need some help with a Beowulf cluster, with which I personally have no experience; I'd love to hear if anyone on this list has any relevant experience. Thanks! -- Dwight A. Ernest, dwight at significant dot com GPG key A6999567 Cell: +1-508-523-1416 FAX: +1-978-405-2504 YIM: dwight_ernest RHCE #803004293310030 http://significant.com/~dwight/ KA2CNN Papa, partner, pilot, net geek, sysadmin, consultant, cohouser.

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Graphing Package for Python.
by Chuck Noyes Aug. 3, 2004

Aug. 3, 2004

Hi all, I'm using version 2.2 python on a laptop running RH9; 2.4.23 kernel. I'd like to know what the 'list' considers a decent, and fairly easy to learn graphing package. I don't need anything too fancy, just a 2-D line graph package I can plug into python. I'd really like to stay away from object- oriented stuff, mostly because I don't understand it too well. Since the scripts I'm working on will probably be run on MS Windows as well as in Linux, the package will need to have a MS version too. Thanks, -Chuck -- Using M2, Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/m2/

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Speaker for next meeting
by albutler33＠netscape.net Aug. 2, 2004

Aug. 2, 2004

I'm in. I'd be interested in hearing a talk on SELinux. Al Butler __________________________________________________________________ Switch to Netscape Internet Service. As low as $9.95 a month -- Sign up today at http://isp.netscape.com/register Netscape. Just the Net You Need. New! Netscape Toolbar for Internet Explorer Search from anywhere on the Web and block those annoying pop-ups. Download now at http://channels.netscape.com/ns/search/install.jsp

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Re: August Speaker Proposal
by Phil H July 30, 2004

July 30, 2004

On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 12:00:11 -0400, wlug-request(a)mail.wlug.org <wlug-request(a)mail.wlug.org> wrote: > Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2004 10:10:49 -0400 > From: Jeff Moyer <jmoyer(a)redhat.com> > Subject: [Wlug] August Speaker proposal > To: wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > Cc: dwalsh(a)redhat.com > Message-ID: <16647.46057.757622.844343(a)segfault.boston.redhat.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > Hello, > > If there is interest, Dan Walsh is willing to give a presentation on > SELinux for the next meeting. Takers? > > -Jeff I'd be interested in hearing it, but I'll be out of the country. Next meeting, I guess. Will the slides (if any) be made available online for those who can't make it? Phil

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RE: [Wlug] Partition table blues
by Martin, Eric July 30, 2004

July 30, 2004

All fdisk /mbr does is replace your mbr with windows info...the most it would screw up is grub / lilo (what ever is in your mbr). That can be replaced with any livecd and a quick command from grub or lilo. -----Original Message----- From: Gregory Avedissian [mailto:gma2004@verizon.net] Sent: Sunday, July 25, 2004 11:43 AM To: douglas.waud(a)umassmed.edu; Worcester Linux Users Group Subject: Re: [Wlug] Partition table blues Hi Doug, I haven't tried fdisk /mbr because I don't really fully understand what it does and have never seen a good explanation of how it will affect linux partitions. This morning, I read that it shouldn't be used on disks that have more than four partitions. I have five partitions and some unclaimed space. I might try it later today. Beside that, anything of value is on the linux side of the disk. (That's not a microsoft slur, it's just where I have my files.) So, while I would like to be able to get the whole thing back to its original working order as a learning exercise, I'm more motivated to get to the linux partitions. Thanks again, Greg doug waud wrote: > Hi again > > This time, let's try focussing on one thing to try. > > I don't see that you have ever tried the standard way to restore the > MBR > for Windows --- boot a Windows floppy with fdisk on it and type > fdisk /mbr > and, if you still cannot boot windows, add a > sys c: > > It is not clear from here why you did not try this. > > doug > > > Gregory Avedissian wrote: > >> doug waud wrote: >> >>> Hi again Greg >>> >>> Gregory Avedissian wrote: >>> >>>> There were three backups of the mbr. One made under dos with >>>> debug.exe, and the others made with linux as, >>>> >>>> dd if=/dev/hda of=/boot/boot.MBR bs=512 count=1 >>>> dd if=/dev/hda of=/boot/boot.446.MBR bs=446 count=1 >>>> >>>> I restored with: >>>> >>>> dd if=/boot/boot.MBR of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1 >>>> I think maybe I picked the wrong one. >> >> >> >> > I admit I would have used the second, safer (since it does not >> touch the >> > partition table), but I don't see why the 512 bs variant would not >> have >> > worked unless you had changed the partition table since making that >> > boot.MBR file. >> >> No, I didn't change the partition table. I made these backups within >> days of installing, so that I would have copies of a new, working mbr. >> >>> >>> It is hard to tell what went wrong until you tell us what you were >>> doing just before the system no longer would boot. (Those two lines >>> creating the boot.xyz files would only read from the first 512 or 446 >>> bytes not do any writing there so they cannot be the cause of your >>> troubles.) >>> >>> >>> Why don't you boot from a bootable floppy? Alternatively, start the >>> SuSE recovery mechanism which includes "boot an installed system" as >>> an option. If all that is screwed up it the MBR, you could then >>> simply run LILO to refresh it. >>> >> >> I had a new win98 installation working ok, then I installed suse8.2 >> and set it up so that it would boot with GRUB from floppy. I don't >> recall if I ever tried to boot from the harddrive to get into windows >> after I installed suse, but I know I could get there from the floppy. >> >> When I did try to boot off the hard drive two days ago, it hung with >> the message, "Disk boot failure. Insert system disk." >> >> I could still boot to win or linux from the grub floppy at this >> point. >> I tried restoring the mbr in dos with debug.exe, and that didn't help. >> I could still boot to linux with the floppy, and I can't remember if I >> could still boot to windows. Then I tried restoring with >> dd if=/boot/boot.MBR of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1 >> >> After that, I couldn't boot from the grub floppy anymore. Trying to >> boot the installed system from the rescue disk also failed. I then >> booted to the rescue system. Output of sfdisk -l looked like this: >> >> Disk /dev/hda: 3737 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track >> /dev/hda: unrecognized partition >> No partitions found >> >> Repeating the restore procedure with debug.exe didn't help, either. >> >> >> Thanks, >> Greg >> > > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

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RE: [Wlug] Partition table blues
by Keller, Tim July 29, 2004

July 29, 2004

Well, if your only keeping your windows partition around to watch DVD's, that's something that you've been able todo in linux for a long time. Check out mplayer / Xine and Ogle. Tim. -----Original Message----- From: Gregory Avedissian [mailto:gma2004@verizon.net] Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2004 2:13 PM To: Worcester Linux Users Group Subject: Re: [Wlug] Partition table blues Here's the update: Went into BIOS and set the disk to LBA. This resulted in sfdisk -l showing the same geometry as the kernel (CHS 3737/255/63) This put the start and end of the first partition at 0 and 1023. Somewhere along the line, my windows partition grew by 2GB. Is it possible that it's reading a previous partition table? Win98 was still showing c: to be 5.8GB, and dos fdisk was still showing it as 8.2 GB. So, I took Doug's advice and said a prayer, then went at it. Set the win partition back to 6GB with dos (win98) fdisk (with the drive hooked up as master.) This made windows unbootable, and fdisk /mbr didn't correct it. That's ok. I did have it working again until then, and I could have retrieved my data if I'd had any on that partition. Connected the drive as slave and put another drive I had with a non-critical linux installation on as hda (in case I screwed up and partitioned the wrong drive). Booted into linux and repartitioned with sfdisk /dev/hdb, putting in parameters for <start cylinder> <size in cylinders> <type> for each partition when promted: /dev/hdb1 0 765 c * /dev/hdb2 765 130 82 /dev/hdb3 896 1044 (L for linux is the default) /dev/hdb4 1941 1795 (tried both 85 for linux extended and 5 for win extended) /dev/hdb5 1941 1305 L /dev/hdb6 - it insisted on setting up hdb6, so I just hit enter, and let it take the rest of the disk. This was originally unpartitioned space. I then was able to mount /dev/hdb3 and access my root filesystem. I was not able to mount /dev/hdb5 to access my /home partition. Error message from mount was "wrong filesystem type or too many mounted filesystems). Unless someone knows the secret code to to mount a recovered logical partition, I'll assume that there's no easy way to do it and finish this project (i.e. wipe the disk and start over, without putting windows on this drive.) No more extended partitions for this boy. On a brighter note, I learned how to get windows98 to boot from the SECOND hard drive, and that gives me great satisfaction. It was way easier than I thought, and if anyone's interested, I'll give details. This means that when I figure out how to watch movies on dvd in linux, I can get rid of windows by simply removing the second drive. Thanks to all for your help with this. Greg Charles R. Anderson wrote: > On Mon, Jul 26, 2004 at 02:27:01PM -0400, Gregory Avedissian wrote: > >>>What does the kernel think the disk size is on bootup? >> >>hdb: 60036480 sectors (30739 MB) w/1916KiB Cache, CHS=3737/255/63, UDMA(100) > > >>>What does the BIOS say in the CMOS setup screen for the disk geometry? >> >>capacity 30740 MB >>cylinder 59560 >>head 16 >>precomp 0 >>landing zone 59559 >>sector 63 > > > The BIOS and kernel agree on the size of the disk. 59560/(255/16) = > 3737 cylinders. I would however make sure the BIOS is set to LBA mode > if it isn't, which should cause the heads to become 255. > > >>>What does the disk say on the label for the geometry? >> >>Model: DTLA-307030 >>Capacity: 30.7 GB >>LBA 60.036.480 sectors >>CHS: 16383/16/63 >>MLC: F80033 > > > Strange. That doesn't add up at all. Ah, here it is: > > "There is an industry convention to give C/H/S=16383/16/63 for disks > larger than 8.4 GB" [1] > > >>And here's more: >>DOS fdisk reports the partition as being 8032 MB. >>Win98 reports it (C:) as 5.8 GB. > > > Interesting. > > >>gnu parted reports it as: (note that the drive is temporarily connected as >>hdb for convenience) >>hdb: 60036480 sectors (30739 MB) w/1916KiB Cache, CHS=3737/255/63, UDMA(100) > > > Agrees with the kernel above. > > >>sfdisk -l >>Disk /dev/hdb: 1123 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track >>Units = cylinders of 8225280 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0 > > > Here is the problem. sfdisk is seeing the wrong number geometry. I > would attempt to fix the C/H/S values in the partition table with > sfdisk. First I would read [1] in it's entirety--it goes into all the > gory details of geometry and size limits. > > Here are some useful documents on geometry and partitioning: > > [1] http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO.html > > [2] http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/en-us/default.asp?url=/ windows2000/techinfo/reskit/en-us/prork/prcb_dis_qxql.asp > > [3] http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us /Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkd_t ro_kyrr.asp > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

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Re: [Wlug] Partition table blues
by Gregory Avedissian July 29, 2004

July 29, 2004

Hi Doug, I tried fdisk /mbr and it worked easily. As expected, I only have a windows partition (verified by fdisk). I suspect that I'm less than halfway there. > >> This morning, I read that it shouldn't be used on disks that have more >> than four partitions. I have five partitions and some unclaimed space. >> I might try it later today. > > > I don't know where that came from. It came from ms. Maybe they're just playin' with our heads. > > However, once that is working, you can boot into your linux system (by > one of the ways I mentioned in an earlier post, and run LILO which is > smart enough to leave the Windows part working and simply add the stuff > for other things you want to boot (as specified in lilo.conf --- which > I assume is OK if it was working earlier and you have not edited it). No, there's no lilo.conf and never was one on that installation. There is (was) a grub/menu.lst, which serves the same function, but as far as I understand it, the partition table needs to contain information about linux partitions for either of these to work. I went ahead and booted the rescue system and tried a grub-install /dev/hda, and it returned a message saying that no /dev/root was found. Maybe I'll try parted again, now that I can find where hda1 ends. Thanks, Greg

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