December 2003 - openSUSE Users - openSUSE Mailing Lists

so OT it hurts...Merry Christmas!
by William G. Westfall 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

General speaks out Merry Christmas; I thought that you might enjoy quoting General Hawley over the holidays. This four-star says it pretty well. For those who don't know General Hawley, he's a newly retired USAF 4-star general. He commanded the USAF Air Combat Command [our front-line fighters and bombers]. The Command headquarters is at Langley AFB, VA. General Hawley is now retired and no longer required to be politically correct. His short speech is very much to the point. The following are excerpts: "Since the attack [9-11], I have seen, heard, and read thoughts of such surpassing stupidity that they must be addressed. You've heard them too. "Here they are: 1) "We're not good, they're not evil, everything is relative." Listen carefully: We're good, they're evil, nothing is relative. Say it with me now and free yourselves. You see, folks, saying "We're good" doesn't mean, "We're perfect." Okay? The only perfect being is the bearded guy on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The plain fact is that our country has, with all our mistakes and blunders, always been and always will be the greatest beacon of freedom, charity, opportunity, and affection in history. If you need proof, open all the borders on Earth and see what happens. 2) "Violence only leads to more violence." This one is so stupid you usually have to be the president of an Ivy League university to say it. Here's the truth, which you know in your heads and hearts already: Ineffective, unfocused violence leads to more violence. Limp, panicky, half-measures lead to more violence. However, complete, fully thought-through, professional, well-executed violence never leads to more violence because, you see, afterwards, the other guys are all dead. That's right, dead. Not "on trial," not "re-educated," not "nurtured back into the bosom of love." Dead. D-E --Well, you get the idea. 3) "The CIA and the rest of our intelligence community have failed us." For 25 years we have chained our spies like dogs to a stake in the ground, and now that the house has been robbed, we yell at them for not protecting us. Starting in the late seventies, under Carter appointee Stansfield Turner, the giant brains who get these giant ideas decided that the best way to gather international intelligence was to use spy satellites. "After all (they reasoned), you can see a license plate from 200 miles away." This is very helpful if you've been attacked by a license plate. Unfortunately, we were attacked by humans. Finding humans is not possible with satellites. You have to use other humans. When we bought all our satellites, we fired all our humans, and here's the really stupid part. It takes years, decades to infiltrate new humans into the worst places of the world. You can't just have a guy who looks like Gary Busey in a Spring Break '93 sweatshirt plop himself down in a coffee shop in Kabul and say "Hiya, boys. Gee, I sure would like to meet that bin Laden fella. "Well, you can, but all you'd be doing is giving the bad guys a story they'll be telling for years. 4) "These people are poor and helpless, and that's why they're angry at us." Uh-huh, and Jeffrey Dahmer's frozen head collection was just a desperate cry for help. The terrorists and their backers are richer than Elton John and, ironically, a good deal less annoying. The poor helpless people, you see, are the villagers they tortured and murdered to stay in power. Mohammed Atta, one of the evil scumbags who steered those planes into the killing grounds is the son of a Cairo surgeon. But you knew this, too. In the sixties and seventies, all the pinheads marching against the war were upper-middle-class college kids who grabbed any cause they could think of to get out of their final papers and spend more time drinking. It's the same today. 5) "Any profiling is racial profiling." Who's killing us here, the Norwegians? Just days after the attack, the New York Times had an article saying dozens of extended members of the gazillionaire bin Laden family living in America were afraid of reprisals and left in a huff, never to return to studying at Harvard and using too much Drakkar. I'm crushed. Please come back. Let's all stop singing "We Are the World" for a minute and think practically. I don't want to be sitting on the floor in the back of a plane four seconds away from hitting Mt. Rushmore and turn, grinning, to the guy next to me to say, "Well, at least we didn't offend them." So here's what I resolve for the New Year: Never to forget our murdered brothers and sisters. Never to let the relativists get away with their immoral thinking. After all, no matter what your daughter's political science professor says, we didn't start this. Have you seen that bumper sticker that says, "No More Hiroshimas"? I wish I had one that says, "No More Pearl Harbors."

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usr local bin holidays
by James Ogley 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

Ho ho ho, 'tis the season to be jolly. And to that end, I shall be on holiday until January 2nd. I don't anticipate any major releases in that time, but if there are, they'll just have to wait till the new year. Thanks for all your support this year, it's the responses I get from you guys who keep the site going, knowing that you find the work I do useful means a lot. God bless us, everyone. -- James Ogley, Webmaster, Rubber Turnip james(a)rubberturnip.org.uk http://www.rubberturnip.org.uk Jabber: riggwelter(a)myjabber.net Using Free Software since 1994, running GNU/Linux (SuSE 9.0) GNOME updates for SuSE: http://www.usr-local-bin.org

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Finding files on the SuSE ftp site
by Paul W. Abrahams 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

Assuming I'm already at the right subdirectory at the SuSE ftp site, how can I find the package containing a specific file (an executable program or a library, say)? It's easy enough to do this for an installed system using Yast's search facility, but I don't see any obvious way to extend that to a directory on the ftp site. Much of the time I can guess the right package name, but all too often I can't. Paul Abrahams

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eth0......failed
by pseep＠mail.gr 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

I change my ethernet card and i received htat message during boot. I cannot make the eth0 to work even though i have configure properly the card ------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.mail.gr/ - Get Your Private Free Email Address! http://www.ringtone.gr/ - Ringtones & Logos for your mobile!

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seti@home
by James F. Pirtle 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

Hello List; I am a long time user of the seti@home screen saver on the windows platform. Am moving to Linux and would like to continue the search. Anybody got experience using seti as screensaver? Using SuSE 8.2 with KDE desktop. Any help would be appreciated. Step by step instructions would be lovely. Be gentle, I'm a real newbie. Thanks.

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Wine
by Gregory Baboolal 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

Hi, I would like to install a windows app but not sure where to start. Wine has been included from the 9.0 distro and as looks to have been installed. However trying to now relate it all back to the documentation is not clear, i.e whats happened to .tool/wineinstall When running winecfg a window pops up allowing one to specify which Win.X version to mimick? Is there something I need to do to get wine to setup the win dirs etc or has already been done. If I have the win program to install in the cd what do I do? wine install mycrapy_win_installprogram.exe? tia.

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kde virtual screen in 9.0
by mail 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

Hi. I have just done a fresh install of 9.0 and am greeted with a 640x480 virtual screen (those awful ones where you have to move the mouse to the edges of the screen to see the rest of it). I have to log out then login again to get to my chosen 1024x768 screen. All was fine under 8.2. I wanted the new yast stuff. Not this. Please help someone! Thanks, Steve.

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general hawley, astroturfing and microsoft
by Robert P. J. Day 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

as a feeble attempt to tie the recent idiotic posting by mr. westfall into something remotely related to IT, you might be amused by a related propaganda tactic that is becoming more popular. it's called "astroturfing", and it involves a carefully co-ordinated, professional PR program disguised as a populist, grassroots movement. (in short, a "fake" grassroots movement, hence the name "astroturfing".) astroturfing involves a professional PR campaign generally producing letters to various editors, to give the impression of a legitimate popular movement driven at the grassroots level, when it is, of course, pure corporate propaganda. as an example, feel free to google on "microsoft astroturf" to see what i mean -- microsoft has been involved in astroturfing for quite some time. i don't think the recent general hawley bogus piece technically qualifies as astroturf, but it was hard not to draw a parallel -- it's just another flavor of totally dishonest propaganda. the lesson here is -- if it sounds too well-written or funny to be legit, it probably is. rday

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user login problem
by mail 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

When I boot up, it takes me straight to my user account without asking for a password. Can someone please help? SuSE-9.0 fresh install. Thanks, Steve.,

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RE: [SLE] Ugly fonts
by GarUlbricht7＠netscape.net 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

Claes Holmerson <claes.holmerson(a)polopoly.com> wrote: >Hi, > >I did an FTP install of Suse 9. I am running KDE, but unless I choose >antialiasing of fonts for all sizes, the fonts look very jagged and ugly, >(more than I have seen on any Linux before). With antialiasing it looks >better of course, but the problem then is that my system runs slower. For >example, if I do "find . " in konsole, I can't switch tab easily, like I >could on my previous version. Probably because the system becomes very busy >with antialiasing and thus becomes less responsive. > >Is it possible to turn of antialiasing and still get decent fonts? > >Thanks, >Claes Hi, Sorry to say, but "Ugly fonts" is a common complaint. as a result there was a long thread in the Nov [SLE] list entitled "KMail Font Weirdness." See: http://lists.suse.com/archive/suse-linux-e/2003-Nov/0303.html (google is your friend) There have been others, (eg {SLE] Helvetica, Geneva, "Trebuchet MS" fonts download") IIWY, i would start with the above thread, it might give you some ideas. It did me, for example: I adjusted the display size of my monitor and my fonts look better. YMMV. HTH -- In the Beginning was the Command Line ---Neal Stephenson -- __________________________________________________________________ New! Unlimited Access from the Netscape Internet Service. Beta test the new Netscape Internet Service for only $1.00 per month until 3/1/04. Sign up today at http://isp.netscape.com/register Act now to get a personalized email address! Netscape. Just the Net You Need.

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Re: [SLE] OT: What Perl Modules are installed?
by GarUlbricht7＠netscape.net 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

Patrick Shanahan <paka(a)wahoo.no-ip.org> wrote: > >* Ahbaid Gaffoor <ahbaid(a)att.net> [12-23-03 17:02]: >> >> how do you test to see what perl modules are installed? >> >> Is there a quick command that does this for Perl? >> Something like how we can do "rpm -qa" to see all rpm's installed... > > try: > > # perl -MCPAN -e shell > cpan> i > >-- >Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 >http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org > Patrick, with all due respect, IMHO I think your reply is misleading. The question that was asked is there a command in perl similar to "rpm -qa", which tests to see what perl modules are installed? Instead you gave a script to for "Installing CPAN Modules" where "CPAN" stands for the "Comprehensive Perl Archive Network" and can be accessed at http://www.cpan.org/ Agreed that once installed CPAN has a way of determing what PERL modules are installed --- but a warning that your script was going to download a bunch of .gz's would have been nice. -- "Paranoia is heightened awareness." -- __________________________________________________________________ New! Unlimited Access from the Netscape Internet Service. Beta test the new Netscape Internet Service for only $1.00 per month until 3/1/04. Sign up today at http://isp.netscape.com/register Act now to get a personalized email address! Netscape. Just the Net You Need.

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Re: [SLE] /dev/ttyS0 and /dev/ttys0 - What's the difference?
by GarUlbricht7＠netscape.net 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

Jerome Lyles <susemail(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote: > >On Tuesday 23 December 2003 05:07 am, Mark Gray wrote: >> Sid Boyce <sboyce(a)blueyonder.co.uk> writes: > ---<text snipped>----- > >What does tty stand for (especially the y:-) >Thanks, >Jerome > Doing a quick google search I cam across this: "tty - Definition: /tit'ee/ (ITS pronunciation, but some Unix people say it this way as well; his pronunciation is not considered to have sexual undertones), /T T Y/ 1. teletypewriter. { ie Tele TYpewriter } 2. (Especially Unix) Any terminal at all; sometimes used to refer to the particular terminal controlling a given job (it is also the name of a Unix command which outputs the name of the current controlling terminal). 3. (Unix) Any serial port, whether or not the device connected to it is a terminal; so called because under Unix such devices have names of the form tty*. Ambiguity between senses 2 and 3 is common but seldom bothersome. 4. A TDD. from: [Jargon File] COPYRIGHT Â© 2000-2003 WEBNOX CORP. http://www.hyperdictionary.com/computing/tty -- In the Beginning was the Command Line ---Neal Stephenson -- __________________________________________________________________ New! Unlimited Access from the Netscape Internet Service. Beta test the new Netscape Internet Service for only $1.00 per month until 3/1/04. Sign up today at http://isp.netscape.com/register Act now to get a personalized email address! Netscape. Just the Net You Need.

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Synaptic quitting
by Jerome Lyles 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

I clicked the synaptic upgrade button to upgrade gtkhtml and synaptic quit. The messages in the terminal window were I started synaptic are: (synaptic:29648): Gtk-CRITICAL **: file gtkwidget.c: line 1827 (gtk_widget_hide): assertion `GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed. The quit message: /usr/sbin/synaptic: relocation error: /usr/sbin/synaptic: undefined symbol: _ZN15pkgVersionMatchC1ESsNS_9MatchTypeEi Is the fact that synaptic quits with this message an error in synaptic? Thanks, Jerome

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Xfree86 and LIRC, but would also like to say thanks
by Timothy Johnson 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

This is my first time using Suse Linux. Little different at first but all in all I like it, better then Redhat. But I would just like to say thanks for this mail list. Thanks to it I have been able to get lots of things working on my laptop. Just two things remain. The first one is my Resoution when I go to a lower res then 1600 * 1200. It makes the screen smaller then my LCD is. I believe this can be fixed in the XFree86 Config file. Could someone please tell me if I am right. Would I just have to change the refresh rate for the lower res. And second is I cant seem to get my IR port working. I have pretty much given up on it. But was wondering if anyone here got it to work with Suse 9.0. Thanks all for your time.

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problem unmounting external devices in kde
by Bernie Gardner 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

Sorry if this has been discussed previously but I can't find the answer. I have a sandisk usb reader which has slots for multiple card types. It works great except if I mount a card in kde I can't unmount it without exiting kde. Attempting to unmount, either through the desktop icon or from a terminal gives a device busy error. This is in Suse 9.0. In 8.2 this would happen if Konqueror was still open, but closing Konqueror would allow the device to be unmounted. I have looked at running programs, and killed all which might be related to the device but still couldn't unmount it. Thanks for any suggestions! Bernie Gardner w1az(a)arrl.net

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RE: [SLE] OT: DVD-Jon acquitted/IBM pays CA AIX SMP royalties
by Pacheco Jason NPRI 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

> Looks like the SCO claims to AIX SMP code is a fallacy - it seems SCO > can't quite figure out if they have a little arse or big ears. What makes you say that? I have been following the response to SCO's recent letter on the linux-kernel mailing list, and the issue seems very far from solved. Linus is convinced that SCO's claim is a fallacy as you say, but nevertheless he is trying to prove his claim by tracking down old sources from the kernel, which is proving to be more difficult than expected.

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Monitor refresh rates needed
by Rohit 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

Hi, Surfed the net but can not find the refresh rates for my Liyama Vision Master Pro 502 [21"] CRT monitor. Windows 98 that I have, does not carry the refresh rates for this. The web told nill. Can anyone please help me with this? I need refresh rates for this monitor to be able to configure it well in my SuSE 9.0. Hey, wait ... where does the monitor database reside in SuSE 9.0 - may be SuSE shall autodetect my monitor. However, I can not use SaX2 on my machine because it hangs when using SaX2 [probably because of an integrated Nvidia GPU on my Asus n7v266 mobo with athlon - dunno why...] Any hints in correect direction shall be appreciated. Please reply . Thanks and regards, Rohit ********************************************************* Disclaimer This message (including any attachments) contains confidential information intended for a specific individual and purpose, and is protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, you should delete this message and are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, or distribution of this message, or the taking of any action based on it, is strictly prohibited. ********************************************************* Visit us at http://www.mahindrabt.com

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Fetchmail/Procmail with mixed IMAP/POP3
by Nick Selby 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

Hi, A marathon of posts today. All the below refers to a Suse 8.2 machine. I am running Fetchmail to grab mail from two accounts; one is an IMAP account and one a POP3 account. Once I get it from fetchmail, it gets sent to procmail, which then does what it does and forwards the messages to the appropriate user mailbox. Has that just destroyed the IMAP-ness of the mail fetched from the IMAP account? How can I make my MUA (KMAIL) see that this is IMAP mail and synchronize with the server? Sorry if this is vague, and thanks in advance nick --

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Recovering From File System Failure
by Terry Eck 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

I screwed up my system by trying to move the /boot partition located at /dev/hda2. I wanted to make more room on /dev/hda1 to a larger windows partition. Since I had been backing up all my partitions onto a secondary drive I did not think there would be a problem. After deleting both hda1 and hda2 and remaking them using fdisk I copied the backup boot directory to /dev/hda2. Now the problem. The system will not boot since I lost the stage1 part of grub which was on hda2. How could I, using the rescue system from the DVD, reinstall grub so hda2 would contain the stage1 loader. I tried grub-install and grub from the command line in the rescue mode without luck. Can anyone explain, in simple term, how to recover a bootable partition? Thanks, Terry -- Sig line not working yet!

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GNOME on SuSE 8.2
by Ilhamsyah Edwar 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

Hi All, I have a problem with my Gnome Desktop Environment. When I try to log off from Gnome Menu, it takes a long time to display the log off dialog box. I had tried to reinstall all Gnome from Yast. I works fine when I use KDE. Can someone help me? Thanks and Regards ilham

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FTP installation source for 9.0 - Yast rejects it
by Paul W. Abrahams 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

Following Sid Boyce's suggestion, I attempted to add the SuSE FTP site as an installation source for Yast under 9.0P. I specified the Server Name as: ftp.suse.com and the Directory on Server as: /pub/suse/i386/9.0/suse/i586/ I also checked the Authentication/Anonymous box. After clicking the OK button, there was some whirring and then I got a failure with the message: Unable to create installation source from URL `ftp://ftp.suse/com//pub/suse/i386/9.0/suse/i586' Details: ERROR(InstSrc:E_no_instsrc_on_media) Try again? Any suggestions as to how to get past that? Paul Abrahams

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16 white pages
by Frits Wüthrich 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

When I print with Mozilla 1.5 on my SuSE8.1 system, I first get 16 sheets of paper without anything printed, and then finally the print. Is there a way to solve this? -- Frits Wüthrich <frits(a)wuthrich.cc>

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linux newbie with some pcmcia questions
by Alberto de_la_Torre 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

I am using the following as a starting point... http://tuxmobil.org/linux-ze4315us-slack-9.1.html I have an HP ZE4240. I'm trying to get my cisco 350 802.11b card working under suse 9. I've been trying to learn how pcmcia stuff is configured by reading all I can get my hands on, but I'm still very much in the dark. What I could use some clarification on is the list of files and the order they are processed. Also, I'm not clear if using "kernel" pcmcia vs "external" pcmcia uses a separate set of configuration files, or the exact same ones, or if there is some overlap. On my system there is a file /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia which has the following settings PCMCIA_SYSTEM="kernel" or "external" PCMCIA_PCIC="" PCMCIA_PCIC_OPTS="" PCCIA_CORE_OPTS="" 1 - Is a setting of "external" above how you would disable kernel pcmcia so you could run pcmcia_cs as outlined on the above web page? 2 - When it says you have to run i82365 instead of yenta_socket, is this (PCMCIA_PCIC) where you set it? When I do an insmod i82365 I get an error message "init_module: No such device" I tried a few parameters like irq_list= but couldn't get it to work. I can insmod yenta_socket with no trouble. I've looked at the script /etc/init.d/pcmcia, but it's too complicated for this beginner to follow. I do see that /etc/sysconfig/pcmcia does not have any execute permissions, so how can /etc/init.d/pcmcia execute it? (which it does) I tried setting the PCMCIA_SYSTEM to external. This lets the system boot (rather than lockup) with the cisco card installed. However I don't see it with either ifconfig or iwconfig. thanks for any help. al

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OT: DVD-Jon acquitted/IBM pays CA AIX SMP royalties
by Sid Boyce 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

Two items of Xmas cheer, lwn.net and linuxworld.com. Jon Johannsen has again been acquitted on retrial for originating and distributing the Linux libdvdcss code, one in the eye for the DMCA. Looks like the SCO claims to AIX SMP code is a fallacy - it seems SCO can't quite figure out if they have a little arse or big ears. Regards Sid. PS:- OT, I know, I know! but I'm a wayward sod. -- Sid Boyce .... Hamradio G3VBV and keen Flyer Linux Only Shop.

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partition resizing gone awry
by Serge Naggar 24 Dec '03

24 Dec '03

Hi, I found some free space and decided to resize the /home partition but I did not backup before I attempted the change - my mistake and a very big one. I used Yast's resizer [I guess it has a big problem] to do the resizing and it seemed to do the job except that the partition's physical size never did change. On bootup the system hung and fsck could not read the partition. The number of blocks showed a difference of 16065 blocks an inconsistency between the physical size [8285515 blocks] and the superblock size [8301580 blocks]. Nothing I did seems to bring back the file system [ext2,3]. I pushed fsck to its limits to no avail. Ideally I need a function which will let me either bring the partition back to its original physical size - modify the superblock to the physical size or cut the partion down to a smaller size. I know that the data covers only about 50% of the partiton. Does any body know of such a function[s] or has any ideas on how to solve this situation? Any help would be appreciated. thanks -- Cheers, Serge Naggar Consulting

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