September 2005 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

Devices, udev, device numbers
by Ian McDonald 23 Sep '05

23 Sep '05

Hi there, In the process of setting up webcams (and getting greatly frustrated) I have been using mknod to create device entries. This is something I'm not really familiar with and I have some questions. I am trying things at present and don't really know why I am typing stuff I find in Google! Questions: 1) How are major and minor device numbers assigned? e.g. a webpage will say type "mknod /dev/video0 c 81 0". I understand the syntax but why 81 and 0 for the major and minor numbers? 2) How do these devices you create interact with udev? Permissions and other things seem to disappear after a reboot. Should I be using udev instead of mknod? URLs to articles would be appreciated or just people's comments. I promise to Wiki what I find out as I have been doing for most of my discoveries... Ian

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WLUG Meeting is on Monday
by Meeting Reminder bot 22 Sep '05

22 Sep '05

The WLUG meeting is on Monday ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In accordance with Rule 6 of the charter (http://www.wlug.org.nz/WlugCharter) I would like to announce to all members that the WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup (Incorporated) will be holding its Annual General Meeting (http://www.wlug.org.nz/AGM) on Monday, 26 September, 2005, at 7pm, at the regular meeting location of room LitB] at the http://www.wlug.org.nz/University of Waikato ([WaikatoUniversity). New committee All WLUG members are encouraged to stand for election onto the WlugCommittee for 2006. The charter currently specifies the committee as consisting of a President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and five general committee members. Because of the relatively large size of the committee compared to the organisation's membership, the outgoing committee intends to propose a change to the charter at the AGM. We wish to call for a vote on modifying Rule 7 to require only three general committee members, not five, and modifying Rule 6 such that the quorum for committee meetings is four, not five. To stand for the committee, please email secretary at wlug.org.nz (http://www.wlug.org.nz/mailto:secretary at wlug.org.nz). If you wish to nominate someone, please contact them and ask if they are willing to stand; if you would rather not contact them yourself, feel free to email me and I will pass your request on for you. People with uncertain futures (who may be leaving the Waikato) are encouraged not to let this stop them standing for election, but please only stand if you are committed and prepared to take on a relatively small workload. To be granted voting rights at the meeting, you must have been a paid member for 2004-2005, and signed a new membership form for '05-'06. (Remember, you have 90 days to pay.) Survey I would also like to announce the first annual WLUG survey, and the chance to win a $100 DickSmith Electronics voucher! All people associated with WLUG, paid members or not, are encouraged to fill out the survey at http://survey.wlug.org.nz/. No personal information is collected and all responses are totally anonymous. At the end of the survey you will be given a token; bring this to the AGM and sign up for the '05/'06 year, and you will be in to win the $100 voucher. Regards, CraigBox WLUG Secretary

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Happy SFD!
by Dave Waddling 22 Sep '05

22 Sep '05

Yes it's Software Freedom Day '05! In celebration of the event I wanted to let everyone know of the following link. ftp://ftp.lanux.com/pub/Suse/SUSE_9.3_PROF_i386_5CD_set/ As you may guess from the URL it is the full version of SUSE 9.3 Pro. The company providing this is a Canadian Company that says: " We are here to support the Linux community at large so if there are people that need the disks for "test and experimentation" they can have them under our extended license. " So enjoy, however I have been told that if the bandwidth goes too nuts they will may to cut it off. -- Dave Waddling ----------------- dave(a)waddling.com Skype davewaddling

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v4l question - /dev/video0
by Ian McDonald 22 Sep '05

22 Sep '05

Hi there, I'm trying to get a couple of webcams going in Linux. One is a firewire card and one is a USB. They are both loaded on my system and are partially usable (e.g. Firewire one works in Gnome Meeting). My question is how does /dev/video0 come into existence with video 4 linux (aka v4l)? I have tried using mknod and that can create it but it doesn't make it usable. I've hunted around the web heaps and not found much at all. Questions: - is there a magic step to create /dev/video0 automatically and I haven't set it up? - or is it that my drivers aren't really working well? Ian

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ANNOUNCEMENT: Committee nominations as at 19 Sep & survey cutoff
by Craig Box 21 Sep '05

21 Sep '05

Hi all, Current nominations for 2005-2006 committee =========================================== President DRUETT, Lindsay Vice President HALLETT, David Secretary BOX, Craig Treasurer MCDONALD, Ian General Committee Members: LORIER, Perry PERRONE, Gian PURVIS, Jon That's exactly the right number, but we can't have a very good election if we don't have any contention :) Survey closeoff =============== The survey will be closed on Sunday evening to allow for some statistics to be presented at the AGM. If you have not filled out the survey yet, please check it out before Sunday at http://survey.wlug.org.nz/. Regards, Craig

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802.11G Wireless Cardbus cards for sale
by Daniel Lawson 20 Sep '05

20 Sep '05

Hi, I recently acquired a bulk lot of brand new (shrinkwrapped) 802.11G Wireless cards through an auction. They caught my attention because the particular models were compatable with linux. They are DLink DWL-G630 cards, hardware revision D1, Firmware 4.10. They use the Atheros chipset, and are fairly easy to get to work in linux using a recent snapshot of the madwifi drivers. I'll provide some better notes on the wiki once I get time. I've got 5 for sale. I also have a pair of DLink DWL-G650+ cards, which I believe have an ACX chipset. Last time I tried to make an ACX chipset card work in linux, it didn't like me very much, but I've heard good things about getting the DWL-G650+ to work with the driver available from acx.sourceforge.net. They'll work fine in windows. If you'd like one of these, mail me offlist. Asking price is $35, and I can provide some limited support for getting them working. http://www.wlug.org.nz/GarageSale Daniel

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Debian stable/unstable.
by Oliver Jones 18 Sep '05

18 Sep '05

Hi folks. I'm just trying to find out what peoples feelings are with regard to the testing & unstable branches of Debian. I've added testing to my deb and deb-src lines in /etc/apt/sources.list. Mainly because I wanted a newer version of a package I use. I'd like to know A) if this is advisable B) if going all the way to unstable is advisable. What are the security patch repercussions? Regards -- Oliver Jones > Roving Code Warrior > www.deeperdesign.com

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WLUG Meeting is one week away
by Meeting Reminder bot 18 Sep '05

18 Sep '05

The Waikato Linux Users Group have a meeting in one week today. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- In accordance with Rule 6 of the charter (http://www.wlug.org.nz/WlugCharter) I would like to announce to all members that the WaikatoLinuxUsersGroup (Incorporated) will be holding its Annual General Meeting (http://www.wlug.org.nz/AGM) on Monday, 26 September, 2005, at 7pm, at the regular meeting location of room LitB] at the http://www.wlug.org.nz/University of Waikato ([WaikatoUniversity). New committee All WLUG members are encouraged to stand for election onto the WlugCommittee for 2006. The charter currently specifies the committee as consisting of a President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and five general committee members. Because of the relatively large size of the committee compared to the organisation's membership, the outgoing committee intends to propose a change to the charter at the AGM. We wish to call for a vote on modifying Rule 7 to require only three general committee members, not five, and modifying Rule 6 such that the quorum for committee meetings is four, not five. To stand for the committee, please email secretary at wlug.org.nz (http://www.wlug.org.nz/mailto:secretary at wlug.org.nz). If you wish to nominate someone, please contact them and ask if they are willing to stand; if you would rather not contact them yourself, feel free to email me and I will pass your request on for you. People with uncertain futures (who may be leaving the Waikato) are encouraged not to let this stop them standing for election, but please only stand if you are committed and prepared to take on a relatively small workload. To be granted voting rights at the meeting, you must have been a paid member for 2004-2005, and signed a new membership form for '05-'06. (Remember, you have 90 days to pay.) Survey I would also like to announce the first annual WLUG survey, and the chance to win a $100 DickSmith Electronics voucher! All people associated with WLUG, paid members or not, are encouraged to fill out the survey at http://survey.wlug.org.nz/. No personal information is collected and all responses are totally anonymous. At the end of the survey you will be given a token; bring this to the AGM and sign up for the '05/'06 year, and you will be in to win the $100 voucher. Regards, CraigBox WLUG Secretary

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Re: [wlug] Ubuntu said "Ack!!"
by jaytee＠clear.net.nz 17 Sep '05

17 Sep '05

Thanks I get a couple of days off when I get to Florida so will read up then Regards John ----- Original Message Follows ----- > --- jaytee(a)clear.net.nz wrote: > > > Hey all > > I had a problem with the "simple" install of > > Ubuntu > > Hoary which I thought was due to me not paying > > attention to > > the partitioning thus not including a swap space. > > However I retried the install and paid > > attention to > > what happened. Almost at the end of an otherwise > > uneventful > > install the programme said: > > Would suggest you start again with a clean slate. Use > Knoppix and QtParted to wipe current data and to > create a swap partition. I have just put up a HowTo @ > http://www.wlug.org.nz/UbuntuKbuntuInstall > > HTH > Bill > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection > around http://mail.yahoo.com > > _______________________________________________ > wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz > Unsubscribe: > http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug

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Debian tips
by Oliver Jones 16 Sep '05

16 Sep '05

Hi people. I've just leased a Debian server from Server Beach. I've managed to upgrade it from 3.0 to 3.1 and install a few apps I want to play with. However I'm a recovering RedHat user and therefore very green when it comes to Debian. ;) I would appreciate any sage advice/tips to help me transition from people (Daniel?, Perry?) who've made the switch before. Thanks. -- Oliver Jones > Roving Code Warrior > www.deeperdesign.com

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