- WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

Contract Web Work
by Charles A. Haines 06 Jun '04

06 Jun '04

Someone posted some information on here about contract web work for Stow, Ma, and I was curious if whoever it was knew if the position had been filled, and if not, could they pass along that email to send resumes to to me? I seemed to have misplaced the email. Thanks, Chuck ====================== Charles A. Haines Contract Web Developer 3G Publishing ====================== http://www.3gpub.com ======================

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Trolling for topics for the June meeting
by Andy Stewart 05 Jun '04

05 Jun '04

HI everybody, The summer months always make it tough to draw people to a WLUG meeting, and announcing a meeting without sufficient notice makes it worse. Thus, I'll start the monthly troll for topics now in the hope that we can nail down this month's topic and advertise the meeting so that we'll have a pretty good turnout. If you have topics on which you would like to address WLUG, please let me know. FYI: I'm fabricating the schedule for upcoming meetings. It should be posted shortly. FYI: I'm currently negotiating the time and place for the annual WLUG BBQ to be held in July. More news coming soon. Stay tuned! Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

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DEC Miata
by Andy Stewart 04 Jun '04

04 Jun '04

HI everybody, Here is a DEC Miata system looking for a home. If you are interested, please contact Mike Keenan directly. -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

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any ideas?
by brad 04 Jun '04

04 Jun '04

Our school uses commercial library automation software. We would like to convert the database to open source. Anyone have experience doing so? Thanks, Dbn0002(a)aol.com Please send your reply to this email address.

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RE: [Wlug] any ideas?
by Keller, Tim 02 Jun '04

02 Jun '04

Nope. However, I can envision how you might go about it. I did a quick look on freshmeat.net and found this application: http://ola.sourceforge.net/ <http://ola.sourceforge.net/> which looks like it might suite your needs perfectly. No sense reinventing the wheel... When you say "open source" I'm taking a broad shot in the dark that you want to setup some sort of linux based web front end with a mysql or postgres backend? The first big issue your going to have to tackle is getting the data out of the existing database. I highly doubt that this proprietary software will let you do something like export your whole catalog to a comma delimited file. If it can, then you'd be all set. However, it probably should allow you to run a report of all the volumes you've got in your library. Either way, you'll need to get your data into some sort of normalized form that you could use to populate your new database. Hope this helps... Tim. -----Original Message----- From: brad [mailto:brad0002@ameritech.net] Sent: Saturday, May 29, 2004 1:03 AM To: wlug(a)mail.wlug.org Subject: [Wlug] any ideas? Our school uses commercial library automation software. We would like to convert the database to open source. Anyone have experience doing so? Thanks, Dbn0002(a)aol.com <mailto:Dbn0002@aol.com> Please send your reply to this email address.

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RE: [Wlug] LTSP as a means of recycling old PCs...
by Martin, Eric 02 Jun '04

02 Jun '04

Any body else have a problem getting to the article? Eric *********************** There's a post on Slashdot talking about LTSP... (Yeah, I posted it... <g>) The link is http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/22/223425&&mode=thread&tid=126&tid= 137&tid=163&tid=187 There's one comment that really drives the point home: #9227112 ... Anyway, I know that there was a recent WLUG meeting about LTSP, so I thought this might be of interest. -- William Smith wsmith(a)chezsmith.com Fall River, MA -----Original Message----- From: Bill Smith [mailto:wsmith@chezsmith.com] Sent: Saturday, May 22, 2004 8:22 PM To: wlug(a)mail.wlug.org Subject: [Wlug] LTSP as a means of recycling old PCs... _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

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xcdroast
by Bill Mills-Curran 28 May '04

28 May '04

I'm not much of a CD burner. I've used xcdroast to copy CD's, but I'm having problems getting it to use files from my hard drive. In fact, I can't even get it to look at my hard drive. What's the trick? Thanks, Bill

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Web Contractor needed
by Evans, Robert 28 May '04

28 May '04

FYI: Temporary Job opportunity. If interested, please contact the person listed below directly. - Bob Evans > Subject: job desc > > The Town of Stow, MA is looking for a contractor to work on the town's web > site (www.stow-ma.gov) Required skills include PHP and mySQL, CSS and HTML. > Build web-based forms with proper security for entering data, fix bugs, add > small amount of functionality, document architecture. Begin work immediately, > up to 40 hours/week through June. > > Send resume and qualifications to Anne VanTine, 978-562-4733, stowtv(a)stow-ma.gov.

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*&(^$%^# Adaptec controller...
by Andy Stewart 27 May '04

27 May '04

HI all, I have an Adaptec 29160N which for reasons unknown refused to boot my hard drive directly. I put in the DVD and that booted, which then booted the hard drive, and Linux came up. Today, I decided to fix this problem. I updated the BIOS on the 29160N, thinking that was the problem. On the computer in the cellar, it successfully booted a 4.7GB SCSI drive. Success(!), or so I thought. When I put the 29160N back into the "good" computer, it wouldn't boot from any hard drive. I suspected that the 18GB and 36 GB drives might be too new for the 29160N. To make a longer story short, if "enable booting from CD" *and* "enable booting from disk" are both simultaneously enabled, no disk booting occurs. By turning off "enable booting from CD", one can succeed in booting from a hard disk. Stupid, idiotic firmware programmer from Adaptec ought to be shot... Remember this so you don't waste 2 hrs on a rainy afternoon figuring this out. :-) Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

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GNHLUG quarterly meeting to be held at USENIX Technical Conference
by Jon maddog Hall 24 May '04

24 May '04

Hi, I have been thinking about having the quarterly meeting of GNHLUG down in Boston at the USENIX Technical conference. This meeting would not only be open to all members of GNHLUG, but also members of BLU (the Boston Linux User's group, www.blu.org) and the Worcester Linux User's Group (www.wlug.org) I have contacted USENIX and they have a room for us on Thursday, July 1st from 7-9 P.M. EDT. Later that evening Ted Ts'o and I will be leading a more formal Linux BoF from 9-11. Both meetings will be at the Boston Marriott Copley Place. I am arranging a speaker now, but I did want you to at least hold that evening open for what should be an interesting quarterly meeting. md -- Jon "maddog" Hall Executive Director Linux(R) International email: maddog(a)li.org 80 Amherst St. Voice: +1.603.672.4557 Amherst, N.H. 03031-3032 U.S.A. WWW: http://www.li.org Board Member: Uniforum Association, USENIX Association (R)Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in several countries. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the US and other countries.

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LTSP as a means of recycling old PCs...
by Bill Smith 23 May '04

23 May '04

There's a post on Slashdot talking about LTSP... (Yeah, I posted it... <g>) The link is http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/22/223425&&mode=thread&tid=126&tid… There's one comment that really drives the point home: #9227112 ... Anyway, I know that there was a recent WLUG meeting about LTSP, so I thought this might be of interest. -- William Smith wsmith(a)chezsmith.com Fall River, MA

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Creating web content with Linux
by Andy Stewart 22 May '04

22 May '04

HI everybody, I gave my "Introduction to Linux" presentation to a group of Internet professionals in Hopkinton last night (http://www.ip495.org) I was asked a question which I could not definitively answer since I am not a creator of web pages. The questions are: What tools are available on Linux for creating web content? Is there something akin to FrontPage for Linux? Sure, for simple HTML, any text editor will do. I've even used OpenOffice, but it feels crude to me (maybe I just don't know how to use it properly). GIMP could be used to create still images. Beyond that, I'm lost. Do I smell a topic for an upcoming meeting ? Thanks, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

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mouse scroll wheel
by Gregory Avedissian 22 May '04

22 May '04

I did a new install of SuSE 8.2, and my mouse scroll wheel no longer works. Previous install was on top of 7.2. Current XF86Config mouse section is identical to the one that worked. It also works when I boot into debian. I've tried adding the imwheel command to .xinitrc, but that didn't help. Maybe I don't understand the -W option. What's a GPM fifo? Is that the script file that starts gpm? If it is, I tried that, and it didn't work, either. Also tried adding and removing gpm from run-level services. Any ideas? Thanks, Greg

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RE: [Wlug] Comcast dolts (mail server problem?)
by Keller, Tim 21 May '04

21 May '04

Your theory is absolutely correct. We implement our SMTP systems in the same way. We've got 3 boxes behind a DNS round robin. Tim. -----Original Message----- From: Andy Stewart [mailto:andystewart@comcast.net] Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 8:53 AM To: Worcester Linux Users Group Subject: [Wlug] Comcast dolts (mail server problem?) HI all, In Kmail, when I configure the email sending parameters, I fill in "smtp.comcast.net" as instructed. In the security section, there's a selection for "check what the server supports". I do this and it returns "encryption TLS, authentication method CRAM-MD5". Well, it does this *most* of the time. Once in a while, it returns "encryption SSL". Keeping the above in mind, I periodically get errors when sending email. The error is "authentication failure". However, if I immediately resend, it goes through just fine (sometimes after repeated resends). Note also that smtp.comcast.net maps to 4 different IP addresses. My theory is that the Comcast servers are not all using the same authentication method, and when I catch one that's not setup the same as my email program, I don't authenticate and thus cannot send email. Does this theory seem reasonable? I tried to explain my theory to Comcast tech support who asked me to reboot Windows, and then complained about my unsupported email client. When I asked to speak to the system administrator for the email server, they refused. Comcast can't get into their heads that there might be an intelligent user or two using their service, and that all problems aren't the fault of the user. Sigh...any thoughts ? 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

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Comcast dolts (mail server problem?)
by Andy Stewart 21 May '04

21 May '04

HI all, In Kmail, when I configure the email sending parameters, I fill in "smtp.comcast.net" as instructed. In the security section, there's a selection for "check what the server supports". I do this and it returns "encryption TLS, authentication method CRAM-MD5". Well, it does this *most* of the time. Once in a while, it returns "encryption SSL". Keeping the above in mind, I periodically get errors when sending email. The error is "authentication failure". However, if I immediately resend, it goes through just fine (sometimes after repeated resends). Note also that smtp.comcast.net maps to 4 different IP addresses. My theory is that the Comcast servers are not all using the same authentication method, and when I catch one that's not setup the same as my email program, I don't authenticate and thus cannot send email. Does this theory seem reasonable? I tried to explain my theory to Comcast tech support who asked me to reboot Windows, and then complained about my unsupported email client. When I asked to speak to the system administrator for the email server, they refused. Comcast can't get into their heads that there might be an intelligent user or two using their service, and that all problems aren't the fault of the user. Sigh...any thoughts ? Thanks, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

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GPG - web of trust
by Andy Stewart 21 May '04

21 May '04

HI all, I recently received an email from Jeff Moyer on the WLUG list. Kmail noted that the digital signature was valid but untrusted (I thought that feature was broken - why is it suddenly working??). I had downloaded Jeff's key from the key server. What establishes this key as trusted? Certainly, if I had signed Jeff's key myself, I would trust it, but in this case, I did not. I also don't know anybody who has signed Jeff's key. Do I need to place a personal value on keys which I've downloaded? Hypothetically, what if I downloaded it from some rogue server masquerading as the real thing? What I suspect is that if I signed Joe Blow's key, and Joe had signed Jeff Moyer's key, and I had placed a value on Joe's ability to properly verify keys, that there would be some implication about the goodness of Jeff's key. Correct? In my situation, I suspect that there are too many degrees of separation between keys which I trust and Jeff's key and its signers. How does this gap get closed? Thanks, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

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Re: Wlug Digest, Vol 7, Issue 11
by Thumper 20 May '04

20 May '04

Since I have no good things to say about Comcast/ATT, I refuse to say anything about that rotten, thieving company that will never get any more of my business. On the other hand I have many good things to say about RCN. Fast, not bound to specific MAC address, great uptime, IP addresses don't change very often... Grass is much greener on the RCN side of the fence. At least from my vantage point. > > I have Comcast (AT&T Broadband) in southern NH and have nothing but > > good things to say about them. In the 3 years I had them, I think I > > can count the number of outages on 1 hand and they were always very > > brief. > > > > > > > > > I've heard nothing but overwhelming complaints about Comcast. I have had > > > email contact with dozens of municipalities who use Comcast for Internet > > > service. Things like "weeks without service" is a common theme. I can't > > > remember hearing anything good about them. > > > > > > - Rob > > >

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RE: [Wlug] Comcast experiences Plug for Speakeasy.net
by Keller, Tim 19 May '04

19 May '04

Does anybody on the WLUG list use Vonage? I constantly see banner ads for them, but I don't know anybody who uses them. Later, Tim. "I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov -----Original Message----- From: Josh Huber [mailto:huber@alum.wpi.edu] Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 9:41 AM To: wlug(a)mail.wlug.org Subject: Re: [Wlug] Comcast experiences Plug for Speakeasy.net Mike Frysinger <vapier(a)gentoo.org> writes: > the trouble is that if everyone has a cellphone and thus the local > line never gets used, you have to add $30 to the price of dsl since > that's how much a local line will run you -mike Check for the no long distance, local metered plans. I had this (before I canceled my phone line) and it cost $10 from verizon. After the excessive taxes and fees, it came out to around $16, if I recall. All outgoing calls cost money, so you really only want to do this if you don't use the phone for voice... -- Josh Huber _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

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RE: [Wlug] Charter experiences? -was:Comcast experiences ?
by Martin, Eric 19 May '04

19 May '04

Um...what package did you have with Verizon / Charter? Last I checked, verizon was 49.99, and Charter only adds on $35 to your cable bill if you already have any form of cable (or it costs an extra 10 or 11 if you don't)...Granted those are base rates, but...'sides, buy the bridge, you can get one from Best Buy for $60 or less if you get rebates.... Eric -----Original Message----- From: Baris Hasdemir [mailto:penguen@hasdemir.com] Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2004 10:22 AM To: WLUG Subject: Re: [Wlug] Charter experiences? -was:Comcast experiences ? On Sun, 2004-05-16 at 03:04, Mike Frysinger wrote: > i was talking with a guy who claimed comcast provided great cable > service in > worcester and was basically way better than anything dsl could offer (i use > speakeasy myself and love it). seeing as how he is a non-computer person, i > took his opinion with a large grain of salt ... > > it did get me wondering though as ive never used comcast in worcester > myself, > just in holden (and it sucked a lot), how have other people got along with > comcast here ? looking for the standard fare, speeds/tech support/response > times/etc... > -mike > I did not like Charter's service very much when I switched to it from Verizon DSL. Charter charges ~10 dollars more than Verizon DSL including a rent for cable modem but they gave us 2Mbits (I Think they're now giving 3Mbits) Besides the higher bandwidth, most of the time especially in the evenings I experienced latencies, if it's the right word to use. For example, I click on an ordinary link, wait for sometime and *then* it finally starts loading which is fast, of course. So I got back to Verizon again. I have 1.5Mbits and I'm fine enough. Regarding the customer support, all I can say is they did not refund anything when I canceled my subscription in 20 days. Neither the installation fee(although I had to do it myself, since there was no working version of windows) nor usage fee. baris _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

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Comcast experiences ?
by Mike Frysinger 19 May '04

19 May '04

i was talking with a guy who claimed comcast provided great cable service in worcester and was basically way better than anything dsl could offer (i use speakeasy myself and love it). seeing as how he is a non-computer person, i took his opinion with a large grain of salt ... it did get me wondering though as ive never used comcast in worcester myself, just in holden (and it sucked a lot), how have other people got along with comcast here ? looking for the standard fare, speeds/tech support/response times/etc... -mike

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RE: [Wlug] Comcast experiences ?
by Hemstreet, Jeffrey L (Jeffrey) 19 May '04

19 May '04

I have & like Charter... I had the same MAC problem 0->O when they typed it in. I've had less than 6 outages at an average of about day each time over the past 3 years. Tech support can take forever to get to since you call into level 1 and they ask the "is your PC plugged into the modem?" questions, but the second-level support is pretty good. Speed is good. 768K base service, but some people are getting 1.5-2 in areas that aren't limited. (My loop is pretty busy, but I still get a good connection.) jeff -----Original Message----- From: wlug-bounces(a)mail.wlug.org [mailto:wlug-bounces@mail.wlug.org] On Behalf Of Martin, Eric Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2004 9:07 AM To: 'Worcester Linux Users Group' Subject: RE: [Wlug] Comcast experiences ? Charter's not too bad here...Sometimes their tech support is bad (but who's isn't) eg took me a week or 2 to convice them that they wrote my MAC for my bridge wrong, and that was why I couldn't get on the net...As far as speed I think it's fine. Agree? Disagree? -----Original Message----- From: Mike Frysinger [mailto:vapier@gentoo.org] Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2004 3:06 AM To: wlug(a)wlug.org Subject: Re: [Wlug] Comcast experiences ? err, replace every occurence of 'comcast' with 'charter' :) -mike _______________________________________________ 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] Comcast experiences ?
by Martin, Eric 19 May '04

19 May '04

Charter's not too bad here...Sometimes their tech support is bad (but who's isn't) eg took me a week or 2 to convice them that they wrote my MAC for my bridge wrong, and that was why I couldn't get on the net...As far as speed I think it's fine. Agree? Disagree? -----Original Message----- From: Mike Frysinger [mailto:vapier@gentoo.org] Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2004 3:06 AM To: wlug(a)wlug.org Subject: Re: [Wlug] Comcast experiences ? err, replace every occurence of 'comcast' with 'charter' :) -mike _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

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RE: [Wlug] SuSE 9.1
by Martin, Eric 19 May '04

19 May '04

Yeah, I ran 2.6.(can't remember patch) on my laptop for a while, and `ifconfig eth0' worked fine...One cool thing is that 2.6 did get pcmcia working, although it ran dog slow with some stuff...maybe I had to recompile a bunch of apps? I'll post a few when I get to play with 2.6 again Eric -----Original Message----- From: mike(a)beakerware.net [mailto:mike@beakerware.net] Sent: Saturday, May 15, 2004 10:11 PM To: Andy Stewart Cc: Worcester Linux Users Group Subject: Re: [Wlug] SuSE 9.1 > 7) The network devices are a little weird in 2.6. There isn't an > "ifup eth0" > or "ifup eth1" like there used to be. On my system, its "ifup > eth-id-00:00:00:00:00:00" (fill in your MAC address). Once its up and you > see it with ifconfig, the "standard" ifdown command works as always. While I'm not 100% familiar with SuSE, does your network interface appear if you do an 'ifconfig -a' before an ifup is issued? I think its a SuSE thing, not a 2.6 thing your seeing, maybe because SuSE doesn't load the network card module until an 'ifup' is done? -mike _______________________________________________ Wlug mailing list Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug

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Reminder: Upcoming WLUG Meeting
by Andy Stewart 17 May '04

17 May '04

Hi Everybody, Its that time again...time for our monthly WLUG meeting, which will be on Wednesday, May 19th at 7:00 PM in the usual place (see website for directions). At this meeting, our own Tim Keller will give a talk which he describes thus: ---start Tim--- Here's the title. Creating and Rendering 3D Objects in Linux using OSS tools. Here's the blurb. I'll be giving a general talk about some of the open source tools that are currently available on linux and using them to create 3D objects, scenes and animations. I'll show the pros, cons, cool features and short comings of these non commercial products. ---end Tim--- After the meeting, we'll go out for food & drink. I'm wondering if we want Mexican this month. We can decide at the meeting. See ya later, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

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SuSE 9.1
by Andy Stewart 16 May '04

16 May '04

HI everybody, I've received my copy of SuSE 9.1 and I've gotten it installed on my laptop. Here are my thoughts so far. 0) SuSE 9.1 comes on 2 double-sided DVDs and 5 CDs. There are 64 and 32-bit versions, so one must used the proper side of the DVD. 1) It took 2 hours to upgrade from SuSE 9.0 to SuSE 9.1 on my 1 GHz Sony Vaio laptop using the DVD. That seemed long to me. 2) It uses the 2.6.4 kernel. One new feature of that kernel caused me some temporary grief since I didn't understand what it was doing. The "subfs" filesystem type is used for removeable media. The user doesn't need to mount any CD or floppy, just put in the medium and reference it with "ls /media/ floppy" or whatever. The operating system figures out that the medium isn't mounted, mounts it, carries out your wish, and then unmounts it. Sometimes, I find this a bit annoying, but perhaps I'm just not yet used to it. 3) The ACPI power management on my laptop now actually works! Well, it works for the root user, anyway (kpowersave). I actually got about 45 minutes on a battery (instead of 10). The PCMCIA wireless card really suck the life out of the battery when used! I'm diving into the code to figure out why kpowersave won't work for J-random-user. There's probably some executable that needs setuid root or some such. I suspect I can be more agressive about power saving to get close to 60 minutes out of it. 4) I said "bye-bye" to the ide-scsi module, especially after reading some notes about Linus' opinion of that module and the author of cdrecord. Things work fine without it. 5) Sound works great after one simple command. 6) I got wireless, grub, the printer, the hard wired network, and even (I think) the onboard modem working very easily. I've never had the onboard modem working previously. 7) The network devices are a little weird in 2.6. There isn't an "ifup eth0" or "ifup eth1" like there used to be. On my system, its "ifup eth-id-00:00:00:00:00:00" (fill in your MAC address). Once its up and you see it with ifconfig, the "standard" ifdown command works as always. 8) SuSE 9.1 comes with KDE 3.2.1, with which I haven't yet played. Thunderstorm coming....singing of for now....... -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

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