- WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

Linux from Scratch - anyone use this?
by Alexander Haley April 11, 2009

April 11, 2009

As a recent newcomer to this group ... I've lurked about a bit .. but now I have a question: Has anyone used or is anyone using the Linux from Scratch project? I've built several systems through it -- however none exist today ; Mainly it has been a learning experience for me. I'm looking to actually create and stick with a LFS creation in the upcoming future. So - thoughts ? Advice ? Thanks, Alexander

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WPI Exchange Help
by tedshipper＠gmail.com April 8, 2009

April 8, 2009

So I'm new to the Linux community and I could use a little help. I'm trying to setup exchange to work through Evolution Mail on Ubuntu 8.10. I can't seem to set it up correctly. I feel like i have all the necessary info like the OWA URL, which I think is https://exchange.wpi.edu/owa/ . Please advise as to whether I need to specify the DOMAIN\User which doesn't work or if there is a better client for setting up exchange at WPI. Thanks, Ship

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gl over ssh
by bkn＠ithryn.net April 6, 2009

April 6, 2009

Hi all, I've run into snag with using ssh x-forwarding and GL. I'm trying to run a program which uses GL remotely. The program runs and the GUI pops up with sliders and such visible, but the GL part of the gui is not displaying. everything else with the program is functional. When i start the program from the prompt i did notice the following error, libGL error: XF86DRIAuthConnection failed libGL error: reverting to (slow) indirect rendering and on the side that displays the program i see the following error in the xorg.log file (each line represents each attempt at running the program), failed to authenticate 8 failed to authenticate 9 I've google'd around and haven't much useful information. i do have write permissions to /dev/dri. Also local GL programs display just fine, this only happens with ssh forwarding (i've tried ssh -X and ssh -Y). Both machines are ubuntu, the display machine is ubuntu 8.10 and the other is 8.04. They both use the stock xorg.conf file, which is pretty minimal, i'm guessing that's because xorg tried to determine everything at runtime. If anyone has any hints or suggestions, let me know, thanks. Thanks, -- brad

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The Care and Feeding of a dell power edge 2650
by Alex Camilo April 5, 2009

April 5, 2009

The student organization i belong to has recently been entrusted with a retired dell power edge 2650 rack mount server. Me and another club member are going to be in charge of setting up and maintaining the server. I'm pretty sure there is a lot of information i'm simply not aware of and i was wondering if anyone with IT experience would be willing to give me a few pointers. My current plan is to install a minimal system (prefferably debian based) install the services i need (LAMP) and then harden the box with a set of restrictive iptables rules and keep up to date with security updates.

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Re: [Wlug] Linux audio
by Jamie Guinan April 3, 2009

April 3, 2009

But PulseAudio is so simple and elegant! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Pulseaudio-diagram.png -Jamie On Fri, 3 Apr 2009, Eric Stein wrote: > Screw PulseAudio. I won't be using it until they pry ALSA out of my cold > dead hands. > > Eric > > Nick Nassar wrote: > > People were posting about audio problems in Fedora a while back. This > > is the full explanation. > > > > http://linuxhaters.blogspot.com/2008/10/pulse-my-audio.html > > > > _______________________________________________ > > 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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Linux audio
by Nick Nassar April 3, 2009

April 3, 2009

People were posting about audio problems in Fedora a while back. This is the full explanation. http://linuxhaters.blogspot.com/2008/10/pulse-my-audio.html

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[OT] hyperterm OS X
by vze284qe＠verizon.net April 2, 2009

April 2, 2009

Hi All, Does anyone know of a hyperterm-like utility for OS X? I'm looking to connect to a serial port of a server and see the output (there is no video console on this server). Currently, the only thing I can use is hyperterminal. I'm using a MacBook Pro with 2 USB ports. I have a USB-to-DB9 adapter. Thanks, -Chuck

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Community Training
by mlong＠datalong.com March 19, 2009

March 19, 2009

Hi All, I have floated the following idea at my church and it has been well received. Seek donations of older computers, have the youth group refurbish them, sell them at a low price with user training and support to seniors. The money raised will go to the youth group. The systems would be optimized for email and web surfing. Naturally Linux would be the OS. Is this a crazy idea? Has anyone done something similar? Are there resources available to help with this sort of thing? Thanks, Mike Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

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Using wireshark to sniff arduino USB traffic...
by Tim Keller March 19, 2009

March 19, 2009

I saw this article yesterday: http://biot.com/blog/usb-sniffing-on-linux Pretty cool stuff! Later, Tim. -- I am weary of the allegiances of any politician who refers to their constituents as "consumers".

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REMINDER: Upcoming Meeting
by Andy Stewart March 18, 2009

March 18, 2009

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 HI everybody, We have a WLUG meeting scheduled for Wednesday, March 18th, 2009 at 7:00 PM on the WPI campus in Worcester, MA USA. Our featured speaker for this evening will be WLUG member John Stoffel, and he will be talking about using Linux together with an Arduino, which is a microcontroller that is freely specified and available in many different implementations for around $30. See http://arduino.cc for more information. After the meeting, we'll adjourn to a local pizza establishment. I look forward to seeing you at the meeting! Andy - -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group (http://www.wlug.org) Chelmsford Linux Meetup Group (http://linux.meetup.com/393) Amateur Radio: KB1OIQ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFJv8j+Hl0iXDssISsRAuIqAJ9/L41ujQ7aJeEwHtag17bC4dH8ugCggXl7 p/V/8P3I9KNTNILhP48ntrA= =gkyJ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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web hosting recommendations
by Frank Sweetser March 17, 2009

March 17, 2009

I'm looking to see if anyone has any recommendations for a decent web hosting service for a small local business. The people are pretty non-technical, so they're basically looking for something low cost with a good CMS, rather than a raw semi-managed linux host. Anybody have any favorites that would fit this bill? -- Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu | For every problem, there is a solution that WPI Senior Network Engineer | is simple, elegant, and wrong. - HL Mencken GPG fingerprint = 6174 1257 129E 0D21 D8D4 E8A3 8E39 29E3 E2E8 8CEC

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apt + version control
by bkn＠ithryn.net March 17, 2009

March 17, 2009

Hi All, I'm trying to find a solution to a problem. I would like tie apt (or dpkg) to some kind of version control system so every time you install/remove a package you much annotate why you're doing so. The reason i'd like to have a system like this is because i co-maintain a linux machine with a few other people and we'd like to keep a running tally as to who installed what packages and why (since the package gets unwieldy after a while). Does anyone know of a system like this? The closest thing i was able to find was something called pkgwatch, which is a package of scripts which wraps around apt and rpm; one of it's features is to diff the list of packages after every call to apt-get which will get the job done. Does anyone know of anything similar? Thanks, -- Brad

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Screen resolution on my laptop - HELP!
by Andrew C Wilkin Feb. 28, 2009

Feb. 28, 2009

I am trying to adjust the screen resolution on my Toshiba Portege 7140CT. I'm sure it's an adjustment in the xorg.conf file, but I don't know enough to do it properly. As a matter of fact, I tried following online instructions only to have no resolution - only lines and a frozen machine. I need this done in the next couple days, please, and would be willing to drive a reasonable distance to have you look at it. If anyone can help me, either by rewriting it for me via email or by my visit to get it done, please let me know here or by calling my cell: 508-713-5947. Thanks! Andrew Wilkin

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Re: [Wlug] Fedora freezes
by Jamie Guinan Feb. 24, 2009

Feb. 24, 2009

Hi Walt, When it is frozen, can you ssh in from another machine? Ping, even? -Jamie On Tue, 24 Feb 2009, Walt wrote: > Nope, the ONLY two things that work are the light and NmLk. These are > operated (on my Lenovo X61s) using the Fn key. None of the other Fn key > functions operate at time of lock-up. So I'm assuming a panic. > Thanks! > Walt > > > Chuck Anderson wrote: > > On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 07:44:05AM -0500, Walt wrote: > > > >> I can turn the light on (ThinkLight) and the NumLock. Other than that, > >> no keyboard interaction happens. > >> Thanks! > >> > > > > So the little house-shaped light with the "A" inside it that > > represents the state of the Caps Lock function doesn't blink all by > > itself? Because if it does, that indicates that the kernel paniced. > > If it doesn't, then the kernel did not panic. > > _______________________________________________ > > 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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no sound from ubuntu
by Strazdas, Rich Feb. 24, 2009

Feb. 24, 2009

Hi, first post here! I'm a part-time Linux user, with experience on Mandrake and Fedora. After installing ubuntu 8.10, I find that my computer is very quiet, even when I don't want it to be! The only sound I can get is the beep when the arrow keys reach a limit, such as scrolling to the end of a list, or the end of a command line. The master volume is high, I have permission to Use Audio Devices, nothing is muted, am I missing something basic??? I've been to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingSoundProblems <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingSoundProblems> and lots of links from there. Learned a lot, accomplished little. :) I can turn off the beep (alert) in Sound Preferences, but I can't turn on other sounds, (Rhythmbox, youtube, etc.) Some info I picked up is shown below. I wasn't clear from checking http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Main <http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Matrix:Main> whether my sound card is supported by ALSA. The Intel soundcard list includes ESB2, but nothing else remotely like 631xESB/632xESB. If that's the case, am I screwed? aplay -l **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: STAC92xx Analog [STAC92xx Analog] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 lspci -v 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 631xESB/632xESB High Definition Audio Controller (rev 09) Subsystem: Dell Device 01c0 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16 Memory at dfffc000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel /proc/asound/cards 0 [Intel ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel HDA Intel at 0xdfffc000 irq 16 -Rich This e-mail message is generated from?Coghlin Companies Inc. or one of its subsidiaries including, but not limited to, Columbia Electrical Contractors, Inc. d/b/a Columbia Tech; DCI Automation, Inc.d/b/a DCI Engineering Services; Cogmedix, Inc.; and Coghlin Precision, Inc. This message may contain information that is?CONFIDENTIAL, and may also possibly contain information that is being held as a Trade Secret.? The information is intended to be disclosed solely to the addressee(s).? If you are the intended recipient, any information herein is to be held as CONFIDENTIAL pursuant to any Non-Disclosure Agreement applicable between the parties, or as a Trade Secret as applicable.? If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this e-mail information is prohibited.? If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender by return e-mail and delete it from your computer system.

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cheap, small computer
by Nick Nassar Feb. 21, 2009

Feb. 21, 2009

Does anyone know of a cheap, small computer with a TV out powerful enough to run Ubuntu? Preferably something without a fan? Nick

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Few things from last night's meeting
by Eric Martin Feb. 20, 2009

Feb. 20, 2009

A couple of things from last night's meeting / dinner that might interest everybody: [IRC] I know people have mentioned it before but WLUG has an irc channel. We're on freenode and it's #wlug-ma. IRC stands for Internet Relay chat and is used for sync communication between people. Check out this wikipedia link [1] for more info. get a copy of Xchat (irc client) and when you open xchat it should prompt you for a server. Click freenode. Next it may ask you for a channel to join, type in #wlug-ma. If it doesn't ask for a channel to join, type "/join #wlug-ma" in the command bar at the bottom. [PGP Keys] Some people mentioned that their pgp keys are expiring in roughly 2 months so we need to have a keysigning again. If your key is expiring soon I would suggest generating a new key now and signing your new key with your old key. This will allow the web of trust to extend to your new key. For generating new keys, there are a few schools of thought. Some people prefer to have their master key be unlimited and generate new subkeys every so often (1/year, etc). This way signatures go to the master key but the subkeys can always be revoked if there's a problem. Others generate a key pair with a 3-5 year expiration and just get signatures again as they need them. The thing to keep in mind is how possible is it that my key will be cracked [expiration] years from now given technology. I think the current plan is to have the key signing in two months (please correct me if I'm wrong) so I'll be sending more stuff out as it gets closer. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRC -- Eric Martin Key fingerprint = D1C4 086E DBB5 C18E 6FDA B215 6A25 7174 A941 3B9F

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Is MS becoming less evil?
by Clint Moyer Feb. 17, 2009

Feb. 17, 2009

I'd say no, but there is this: http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/02/red-hat-virtualization-deal… http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2009/02/15/Microsoft-and-Re…

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REMINDER: Upcoming meeting THURS 7PM
by Andy Stewart Feb. 17, 2009

Feb. 17, 2009

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 HI everybody, Our monthly WLUG meeting will be held this coming Thursday, Feb 19th, at 7:00 PM in the Access Grid room on the WPI campus in Worcester, MA USA. We don't have a specific topic for this meeting unless we get a volunteer from the audience between now and the meeting time. As always, light refreshments will be available at the meeting, and we'll go out for pizza afterwards. See ya there! Andy - -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group (http://www.wlug.org) Chelmsford Linux Meetup Group (http://linux.meetup.com/393) Amateur Radio: KB1OIQ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFJminTHl0iXDssISsRAtsWAJ0SUghV2rZBFgAZ+vQ0r102C/YfswCfeUi3 P3IOTZmoXAfc33wsQe84umY= =bCTv -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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GIMP tutorials
by E Johnson Feb. 14, 2009

Feb. 14, 2009

A couple of WLUG members had been interested in GIMP a few months back. A presentation I gave to the group last Fall may have been effective that it could have been, since we couldn't get the big monitors working in the meeting room. But now while looking for one piece of info, I came across this in article Linux Haxor: "50 Tutorials To Get You Started With Gimp." http://www.linuxhaxor.net/2009/02/09/50-tutorials-to-get-you-started-with-g… Some of these tutorials seem to be concerned with specific special effects, but others, such as "Using and Manipulating Layers with Gimp" and "Retouching hair and eye (video)" might be of interest to non-artist persons, and to those who want to work with photos they have uploaded from digital camera. Enjoy, Liz J

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Miro gets a makeover
by Richard Klein Feb. 14, 2009

Feb. 14, 2009

I haven't read the article yet, but it looks like Miro 2.0 has launched. Miro was the topic of last month's meeting. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/10/miro-gets-a-makeover/ -- Rich

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tux's new prison
by Doug Mildram Feb. 14, 2009

Feb. 14, 2009

Suffering from "temporary" (winter) shrinkage, Tux looks a bit worried in his "new" computer room..... OK so he's homeless and I merely bought him a bottle and a limited air supply with the other derelicts in my man-cave... ( ! warning, no disturbing images, 3 boring pix at.... ) http://dmildram.jalbum.net/Server+DesktopClutter/index.html

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Lenovo S10 Netbook
by Mike Leo Feb. 13, 2009

Feb. 13, 2009

I picked one of these up at Circuit City last week and am looking to speed it up where ever possible. (Reviewed below). It has a normal SATA II drive in it and I know an SSD drive would significantly speed it up, but don't want to spend any more $ on it. http://www.trustedreviews.com/storage/review/2008/05/08/OCZ-64GB-SATA-II-SS… has pretty graphs to compare. I weaseled a RAM upgrade out of my hard ware guy so I have 1.5gigs in it now (max'd). I ran speed tests between booting off the SATA II drive and the same install via USB 2.0 thumb drive and boot times were around 50 seconds for either. I know there are SSD ExpressCards for cheap (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820191057) but I read that the ExpressCards are really just USB 2.0 speeds anyway so I wouldn't see any difference from my thumb drive test. Short of compiling my own kernel (which I never can seem to do right), any other advise on how to speed up a netbook's boot time? I will say once booted, everything runs pretty well, though I'm sure I wouldn't mind more speed then, too! grazie! Mike Review: Stopped in to Circuit City today and (impulsively?) bought a Lenovo IdeaPad S10. I've been looking for something to waste my money on/replace the Dell I bought that I ended up not liking and turning over to my wife, so it wasn't extremely impulsive, just a little impulsive. Anyway, it was 10% of the normal price, which brought it down to $370. Not a great deal at that price since online it is like $350 or so, but the one I got has twice as much RAM and hard drive space as online numbers, plus no shipping. Specs: Intel Atom N270 1.6ghz CPU (Intel has returned to multi-threading) 10.2 inch screen 1GIG RAM 160Gig SATA II Hard drive Wired/Wireless NIC cards 3 Cell Lithium-Ion 2.64lbs No CDROM (not a big deal as I have a Lenovo USB CDROM drive anyway) The size: possibly the perfect size...small, light weight without being tiny. 10.2 inch 1024x600 screen and not an impossibly tiny keyboard (though obviously not full sized). It is about the size of a larger hard cover book. The OS: Comes with Windows XP and it ran very well...applications opened fast, web surfing was responsive and I could open several apps at once without much hit to performance. After 27 different questions about my loyalty to Bill Gates, I decided it was time to upgrade. Concerned that the new hardware may have issues with older versions of Linux, I jumped right into an as-yet-to-be released version of Ubuntu (9.04). Booted right up, answered a couple questions and installed like a champ...saw the disk, the RAM, the wireless card, everything...during the install. Upon reboot into Linux though, nothing...it just wouldn't boot. "No OS found". I thought my partitioning might be screwing me up, so I let the installer pick, but to no avail. I booted off live CD's, but when I mounted and chroot'd into my install, the install didn't even see my /dev/sda. At one point I finally got to a grub > boot, but still wouldn't boot to the OS. I tried a Debian 4.0 install, but that didn't see either the wired or wireless nics. Similar to the Ubuntu, Fedora 10 installed, but would never boot. So I tried a Ubuntu 8.10 install and everything was fine! Installed with my partitions (/boot, /, /home and swap) and all is well in the world. Wired, wireless, SATA, screen resolution....everything works straight from the install. I'm still testing and upgrading but over all this is a great netbook and takes to Ubuntu Linux straight away, and for less than $400 a great addition to my daily commute.

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How to (not) Damage a FLASH Storage Device
by Chuck Anderson Feb. 6, 2009

Feb. 6, 2009

I found this article enlightening: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_to_Damage_a_FLASH_Storage_Device

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Any ruby hackers?
by John Stoffel Feb. 6, 2009

Feb. 6, 2009

Guys, I'm looking for some help with a Ruby script which uses the 'Drb' and 'Slave' libraries. Basically, I'm doing a recursive readdir() on a directory, but with parallel processes (since Ruby Threads aren't really parallel, sigh...) and I'm running into some problems. I'm happy to post the code here, before I start begging for help on the http://www.ruby-forum.com site. Thanks, John

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