- wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

laptop problem
by jaytee＠clear.net.nz 06 Oct '07

06 Oct '07

Hi All. My machine began behaving badly. It appeared to run out of memory then totally lock up. I ran "Memtest outcome was 10 tests no errors. I replaced the hard drive with no difference being made. A simple example of one the problems was the live disc install for Feisty. Disc took forever to load then when install selected the furthest it ever went was to detecting file systems then it just quit or looped or locked. The proccessor is incredibly hot with constant stream over very hot air being forced out by the fan. The fan appears to ok as do the airways. Can anyone venture a fix for this??? Regards John

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What a hoot!
by Michael McDonald 05 Oct '07

05 Oct '07

Hi I thought the following reported error message was a joke, but it appears to be genuine. Admittedly, it was a rather rare one. Can you imagine the look on a person's face if they received this error message? Reported in Computerworld http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/fry/B89135639310C834CC25736B0005B677 Error Message: Your Password Must Be at Least 18770 Characters and Cannot Repeat Any of Your Previous 30689 Passwords — Microsoft KB article Q276304 ( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/276304/en-us ) Michael -- Michael Note: Email addresses have changed ... Michael .. mikencolleen(a)gmail.com Colleen .. colleennmike(a)gmail.com

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System Rescue CD does network boot now
by Ian McDonald 05 Oct '07

05 Oct '07

>From lwn.net: DesktopLinux.com reviews the 0.4 version of SystemRescueCD, a Gentoo-based distribution for repairing broken systems. "Another major improvement is that you can now use PXE network booting. With PXE, you can boot a troubled PC remote over your LAN into SystemRescueCD. This is great, for example, for a help desk repairing systems scattered over an office or campus. To get this to work, the PCs will need to be set to use wake-on-LAN and network boot. That's been a standard PC feature since 2001, but it usually must be made active in the BIOS before you can use it." Article at: http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS4076782266.html -- Web1: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4/ Web2: http://www.jandi.co.nz Blog: http://iansblog.jandi.co.nz

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Installfest '07
by Lindsay Druett 05 Oct '07

05 Oct '07

Hi Everyone, As announced at the AGM tomorrow is our annual Installfest. It is being held at the Gateway Christian Centre, 950 Victoria St, Hamilton, where there is plenty of parking available in the carpark. It would be greatly appreciated, that no matter how much or how little experience you have with Linux, that you come along as there maybe people who are totally new Linux may also be coming along. We already have a family of people coming down from Auckland who want to see a bit of Hamilton and get a feel of the Waikato Linux community. Who knows who else is coming along... As well has assisting people with desktop Linux, we'll also be playing around with specialist type applications, such as VoIP using Trixbox, installing Linux on a Linksys WRT54GL. Personally, I can see with the future of Installfests would be like drag race meetings where we all get together start showing off our hardware and skill set. Linksys (a division of Cisco Systems) has been a great supporter on this event where they have kindly loaned us a whole lot of networking equipment including the switches to connect everyone together, IP hones, including their flagship IP Phone, the SPA961 IP Phone, plus some other goodies. I would also like to thank Bruce who has worked really hard to organise this event. Of course, Tux will be attending the event, most probably trying to beat our neighbors across the ditch at Tremulous. Regards, Teh Linz, WLUG Vice-President.

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Interesting article on Lotus Symphony
by Ian McDonald 05 Oct '07

05 Oct '07

http://www.linux.com/feature/119596 -- Web1: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4/ Web2: http://www.jandi.co.nz Blog: http://iansblog.jandi.co.nz

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Skype 1.4 for Linux released
by Ian McDonald 05 Oct '07

05 Oct '07

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NjA5Nw -- Web1: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4/ Web2: http://www.jandi.co.nz Blog: http://iansblog.jandi.co.nz

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Update on the OLPC
by Ian McDonald 04 Oct '07

04 Oct '07

>From NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/technology/circuits/04pogue.html?_r=3&ore… -- Web1: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4/ Web2: http://www.jandi.co.nz Blog: http://iansblog.jandi.co.nz

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Re: [wlug] Microsoft starting to open source .NET
by David 04 Oct '07

04 Oct '07

Yes, seriously! http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NjA5Mg It's not all of it and it's not the greatest license but it's a start. Can there be any doubt that open source is a better model as Microsoft starts to slowly embrace it?? I think the specs to .net would be better than source code under those terms. http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2191754,00.asp Microsofts open source trap. -- Some people say that if you run a windows installer cd backwards it commands you to worship the devil... But its worse if you run it forwards, then it installs windows!

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Microsoft starting to open source .NET
by Ian McDonald 04 Oct '07

04 Oct '07

Yes, seriously! http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NjA5Mg It's not all of it and it's not the greatest license but it's a start. Can there be any doubt that open source is a better model as Microsoft starts to slowly embrace it?? -- Web1: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4/ Web2: http://www.jandi.co.nz Blog: http://iansblog.jandi.co.nz

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3Com goes VoIP with Asterisk
by Ian McDonald 03 Oct '07

03 Oct '07

Great move on their behalf: http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9790221-16.html?tag=bnpr -- Web1: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4/ Web2: http://www.jandi.co.nz Blog: http://iansblog.jandi.co.nz

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Fwd: Open source software and Consumer testing
by Ian McDonald 02 Oct '07

02 Oct '07

And Consumer are doing a feature on Linux in the future. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Oct 2, 2007 1:21 PM Subject: Open source software and Consumer testing To: ian.mcdonald(a)jandi.co.nz Hi Ian Thanks for the email. We've considered doing Linux and other operating systems for some time. The last time we looked at it, the powers that be decided that it was not worth doing. The reason for this was that in one of our computer surveys, less than 1 percent used a linux based system. However, as I'm sure you're thinking, perhaps less than 1 percent use it because they're simply not aware of the existence of these other options. This is something I'm interested in doing and I've convinced our research manager to let us do it but the timeframe hasn't been determined yet - it will take a little time to do properly. So while you may not see it in the next month, it's certainly something we're going to do. That line certainly wasn't meant to apply to open source software of the type you describe and we should clarify that. There is no doubt that a groundswell is definitely developing towards alternative software. We're certainly not in any way biased towards Microsoft, PCs versus Mac, etc, so don't feel it's an intentional snub at other possibilities. I've just finished an article on office suites which should be online soon. We recommend OpenOffice as well as MS Office 2007. Hope this helps. Best regards Marc Wendelborn Technical Writer Consumers' Institute 39 Webb St Te Aro, Wellington -- Web1: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4/ Web2: http://www.jandi.co.nz Blog: http://iansblog.jandi.co.nz

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Pharmac publishes directly with open source
by Michael McDonald 01 Oct '07

01 Oct '07

Interesting article from Computer World ... Pharmac publishes directly with open source The TeX solution reduced the cost of the project to a fraction of what the proprietary solution would have cost, says IT manager http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/25F72F231ABF8F5ACC2573630083A579 Michael

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Fwd: Your article on EULA - feedback on Free Software
by Ian McDonald 01 Oct '07

01 Oct '07

If any others of you are Consumer members you might like to write something to them. Please be polite. They have often recommended software such as Openoffice before so I think this is a genuine mistake. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Ian McDonald <ian.mcdonald(a)jandi.co.nz> Date: Oct 2, 2007 8:49 AM Subject: Your article on EULA - feedback on Free Software To: editor(a)consumer.org.nz Dear Sir/Madam, I noticed online at this page: http://www.consumer.org.nz/topic.asp?category=Computers%20%26%20Phones&subc… that you said this: Use caution with 'free' software. It is rarely free. There's often a trade-off in advertising, access to personal information or use of your computer's resources. For example, peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing programs use your computer to send information across the web which may leave it vulnerable to viruses, software flaws and trojans (malicious programs hiding in benign applications). I think that this is a little misleading as there is a whole category of free software which is completely different. This is also called "open source" software. Some examples of this are Firefox, OpenOffice (which you have mentioned positively previously) and Linux. Many large companies such as Google run on free software. A good article on free software is one here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Software I think the software you mean is actually freeware which I agree is often very problematic. This is described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeware It would be great if you can print a clarification for this as often free software/opensource software is a better choice than paid software. Regards, Ian McDonald (An open source software programmer) -- Web1: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4/ Web2: http://www.jandi.co.nz Blog: http://iansblog.jandi.co.nz -- Web1: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4/ Web2: http://www.jandi.co.nz Blog: http://iansblog.jandi.co.nz

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WLUG Installfest
by Bruce Kingsbury 30 Sep '07

30 Sep '07

You may be aware that WLUG have planned an installfest for Saturday 6th Oct. In order for this to be a successful event we really need a good number of volunteers to turn up on the day. It doesn't matter if you're not a linux guru, someone with any experience at all is going to be helpful to someone who's never used Linux before. Also we've planned 2,000 fliers to go in letterboxes on Wednesday. Rod and myself are prepared to do 1,000 each if necessary but a few volunteers here would greatly help.

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Any coders here wantto write a patch for Tremulous?
by Bruce Kingsbury 29 Sep '07

29 Sep '07

gpg authentication patch for tremulous; Tremulous client and server run as a single thread, 20 'frames' per second. Because of this time limit, the current system for identifying admins on a server consists of a 32byte cookie named 'cl_guid' which is stored (if the user has any admin priviledges) on the server in admin.dat and sent by the client in plaintext at connect time. This is less-than-ideal. I don't think it would be too difficult to fork off an authentication thread which uses pgp to do a proper signed-challenge authentication. This would be a completely different thread and not constrained by the 50ms frame timelimit. My suggestion, connecting clients optionally send a cl_gpgauth flag which indicates if they're willing to gpg-authenticate. If the server doesn't care then we don't ignore it (as an unpatched server will do) and their guid is accepted as-is. If we want to give them ops, the server requests they sent their public key which is stored in the admin.dat in some appropriate manner. If at the time they connect the guid they've sent is in the admin.dat and has a public key, the server immediately sets their GUID to “”, sends them a 'challenge' of 256 bytes (2048 bits) which is also stored locally, and carries on. If they're in admin dat and don't have a public key, no problem.. existing behaviour. (There might need to be some kind of connection-rate-limit and challenge-drop-time to prevent denial of service attacks on the server at this point.) Until they answer the challenge, or if they ignore the challenge completely, they end up with an effective GUID of “” Client binary, on receiving the challenge, forks off a gpg process to sign the challenge block with their Tremulous private key. When the fork ends (perhaps dozens of frames later) the next reply to the server will include a detatched signature of the challenge data. The server then forks off a GPG process and checks that they've correctly signed the challenge block, and (again perhaps dozend of frames later) if the gpg result is correct, their ingame guid is set back to the one listed in the admin.dat, and existing server code handles whatever privileges are implied by this. Result, connecting ops have their guid set to "" immediately when they first connect, it should only take a few seconds to do the authentication, and they'll have their regular ID back faster than it takes to unpack all the models and textures. Note; cl_guid is not their gpg-key signature or anything like that, it's still just a big random number, and the server keeps a record of both only if there's any reason for them to be authenticated.

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Police go wikiing
by Ian McDonald 29 Sep '07

29 Sep '07

And using open source software too (pmwiki): http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10466034&ref=… -- Web1: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4/ Web2: http://www.jandi.co.nz Blog: http://iansblog.jandi.co.nz

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OpenCD reborn as OpenDisc
by Ian McDonald 27 Sep '07

27 Sep '07

http://lwn.net/Articles/251967/rss -- Web1: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4/ Web2: http://www.jandi.co.nz Blog: http://iansblog.jandi.co.nz

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Be careful out there upgrading Ubuntu
by Ian McDonald 26 Sep '07

26 Sep '07

I've seen quite a few reports recently about people upgrading to Feisty and breaking their systems. I've also had problems with the previews of Gibbon (7.10) and this has caused my system to break quite a bit, quite badly. (Multiple instances of not being able to use my GUI environment at all). I'm not trying to slag Ubuntu off - and it's probably only 1% of people having issues. Just remember with any upgrade that you should always have backups. This applies whether you use Windows or Linux or the Mac or whatever.. It's just that Linux upgrades a bit more often typically. I've written a bit about bugs recently on my blog: http://iansblog.jandi.co.nz/2007/09/bugs-bugs-bugs.html Ian -- Web1: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4/ Web2: http://www.jandi.co.nz Blog: http://iansblog.jandi.co.nz

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Geography tool going open source
by Ian McDonald 26 Sep '07

26 Sep '07

Autodesk opensourcing a tool. No interest to me but might interest someone here: http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9784878-39.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=254… -- Web1: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4/ Web2: http://www.jandi.co.nz Blog: http://iansblog.jandi.co.nz

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Another gnome 2.20 article - more detail
by Ian McDonald 25 Sep '07

25 Sep '07

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/gnome-2-20-review.ars/1 -- Web1: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4/ Web2: http://www.jandi.co.nz Blog: http://iansblog.jandi.co.nz

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HP to expand Linux PC offering
by Ian McDonald 25 Sep '07

25 Sep '07

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070924-hp-to-expand-linux-pc-offerin… -- Web1: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4/ Web2: http://www.jandi.co.nz Blog: http://iansblog.jandi.co.nz

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OLPC for sale!!
by Bruce Kingsbury 24 Sep '07

24 Sep '07

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6994957.stm

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REMINDER: WLUG meeting tonight!
by Meeting Reminder Bot 23 Sep '07

23 Sep '07

There's a WLUG meeting tonight: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 7:30pm, TW.2.05 (http://www.wlug.org.nz/TW) This will be the AGM for Wlug and WlugElections will be held. If you're interested in standing for WlugCommittee sign up on the WlugElections page There is a small proposed change to the charter at WlugCharterDiscussion.

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REMINDER: WLUG meeting is on Monday
by Meeting Reminder Bot 20 Sep '07

20 Sep '07

There's a Waikato Linux Users Group meeting on Monday: ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 7:30pm, TW.2.05 (http://www.wlug.org.nz/TW) This will be the AGM for Wlug and WlugElections will be held. If you're interested in standing for WlugCommittee sign up on the WlugElections page There is a small proposed change to the charter at WlugCharterDiscussion.

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Gnome 2.20 is out
by Ian McDonald 19 Sep '07

19 Sep '07

Soon to come to Ubuntu 7.10 and other distros as they release: http://www.gnome.org/start/2.20/notes/en/ -- Web1: http://wand.net.nz/~iam4/ Web2: http://www.jandi.co.nz Blog: http://iansblog.jandi.co.nz

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