From noreply at netlogmail.com  Mon Nov 23 14:05:31 2009
From: noreply at netlogmail.com (Jarrod Sallee)
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 20:05:31 -0000
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Visit my Netlog profile
Message-ID: <mailman.0.1259006732.32632.discuss@ntlug.org>

Hey,

I have created a Netlog profile with my pictures, videos, blogs and events and I want to add you as a friend so you can see it. You first need to register on Netlog! When you log in, you can create your own profile.

Take a look:
http://en.netlog.com/go/mailurl/type=invite_1&mailid=621825694&id=1&url=-L2dvL3JlZ2lzdGVyL2lkPTE2NTQxNzU0MTEmaT10OTE_

Cheers,
Jarrod

----------------------------------------------------------------
Don't want to receive invitations from your friends anymore?
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From leroy_tennison at prodigy.net  Thu Nov 26 23:19:23 2009
From: leroy_tennison at prodigy.net (Leroy Tennison)
Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 23:19:23 -0600
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Troubling hard disk behavior
Message-ID: <4B0F615B.10904@prodigy.net>

Running SuSE 10.3 with a Seagate Barracuda ST3250620A drive.  Twice on
boot up GRUB paused for a significant length of time at stage1 but
eventually booted.  Today during the init scripts I got a time out
waiting for one of the partitions to presumably mount.  I am running the
smartd daemon.

Running smartctl as root with -H reports "PASSED" for the drive and "-l
error" states that there is no error log.  The current drive was
purchased relatively recently when these tools presented a "drive
failing" message to me one day.

Any ideas as to what could be wrong?  Yes, I ***DID*** back up my data
when these events took place...


From leroy_tennison at prodigy.net  Thu Nov 26 23:36:27 2009
From: leroy_tennison at prodigy.net (Leroy Tennison)
Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2009 23:36:27 -0600
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] <sigh> Which distro this time?
Message-ID: <4B0F655B.2010507@prodigy.net>

My previous message about the hard disk may be the smaller of my two
worries.

Just ran the Open SuSE Updater for 10.3 and was informed that this was
the last security update.  Looking on the Open SuSE site it looks like I
could upgrade to 11.2.

Do I want to do that?  I seem to remember horror stories about upgrades.

11.2 comes with KDE 4 and Thunderbird 3 beta 4, I've heard about KDE 4
(not good) and wonder about Thunderbird 3 beta, any comments from
others?  KDE3 can be installed but isn't supported.

The last time I switched OSes was to SuSE 10.3 because IDE/ATA support
had recently changed and there were plenty of issues with the
distributions using it (Red Hat, CentOS).  SuSE hadn't gone to it yet
and so my hard drive and CD devices worked.  Has this issue been resolved?

What about other alternatives.  I've used Red Hat and CentOS, only
played with Debian/Kubuntu.  Any thoughts given my situation?


From pmichaud at pobox.com  Fri Nov 27 09:10:34 2009
From: pmichaud at pobox.com (Patrick R. Michaud)
Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 09:10:34 -0600
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] <sigh> Which distro this time?
In-Reply-To: <4B0F655B.2010507@prodigy.net>
References: <4B0F655B.2010507@prodigy.net>
Message-ID: <20091127151034.GA19967@pmichaud.com>

On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 11:36:27PM -0600, Leroy Tennison wrote:
> 11.2 comes with KDE 4 and Thunderbird 3 beta 4, I've heard about KDE 4
> (not good) and wonder about Thunderbird 3 beta, any comments from
> others?  KDE3 can be installed but isn't supported.

KDE 4 is okay now.  The early (and IMO very justified) complaints
about KDE 4 had a lot to do with it being provided in distributions
before it had reached a similar level of maturity as what it was
meant to replace (KDE 3.5).

I just updated to Kubuntu 9.10 earlier this week and I'm very
pleased with it.  It has added about 20-25% to my laptop battery life,
many of the drivers are much more solid, and KDE 4 itself has 
improved a _lot_ since 8.10.  (KDE 4 in 8.10 was truly truly awful.)

Pm


From gkfmorrow at gmail.com  Fri Nov 27 10:36:56 2009
From: gkfmorrow at gmail.com (Gilbert Morrow)
Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:36:56 -0600
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] <sigh> Which distro this time?
In-Reply-To: <4B0F655B.2010507@prodigy.net>
References: <4B0F655B.2010507@prodigy.net>
Message-ID: <1e1cfe3d0911270836o11aa3eddr4d07f6fab1313127@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 11:36 PM, Leroy Tennison <leroy_tennison at prodigy.net
> wrote:

> My previous message about the hard disk may be the smaller of my two
> worries.
>
> Just ran the Open SuSE Updater for 10.3 and was informed that this was
> the last security update.  Looking on the Open SuSE site it looks like I
> could upgrade to 11.2.
>
> Do I want to do that?  I seem to remember horror stories about upgrades.
>
> 11.2 comes with KDE 4 and Thunderbird 3 beta 4, I've heard about KDE 4
> (not good) and wonder about Thunderbird 3 beta, any comments from
> others?  KDE3 can be installed but isn't supported.
>
> The last time I switched OSes was to SuSE 10.3 because IDE/ATA support
> had recently changed and there were plenty of issues with the
> distributions using it (Red Hat, CentOS).  SuSE hadn't gone to it yet
> and so my hard drive and CD devices worked.  Has this issue been resolved?
>
> What about other alternatives.  I've used Red Hat and CentOS, only
> played with Debian/Kubuntu.  Any thoughts given my situation?
>
> Stay with openSUSE 11.2 is okay with KDE4.3.3 , LXDE is a pretty good GUI
as well .
Avoid Ubuntu at all cost , Red Hat 12 is pretty snappy with KDE 4.3.3 .
openSUSE has made great strides in the update/upgrade department .
Sorry Mark S. but Windows 9.10 , uh I mean Ubuntu 9.10 is not to my liking .

> _______________________________________________
> http://www.ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>



-- 
See that picture of the Dinosaur , I have a bone from one them .

From robert.citek at gmail.com  Fri Nov 27 11:14:49 2009
From: robert.citek at gmail.com (Robert Citek)
Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:14:49 -0500
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] <sigh> Which distro this time?
In-Reply-To: <4B0F655B.2010507@prodigy.net>
References: <4B0F655B.2010507@prodigy.net>
Message-ID: <4145b6790911270914n7677c166vf118e3076f51a702@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 12:36 AM, Leroy Tennison
<leroy_tennison at prodigy.net> wrote:
> What about other alternatives. ?I've used Red Hat and CentOS, only
> played with Debian/Kubuntu. ?Any thoughts given my situation?

Experiment.

Those are all good distros, although each has its strengths and
weaknesses.  If I recall correctly, all the distros you've mentioned
have LiveCDs.  Give them a whirl to see if they meet your needs and
work with your hardware.  Alternatively, you could install them to a
virtual machine and enjoy all the goodness of a VM.

Good luck and let us know how things go.

Regards,
- Robert


From prestonh at gmail.com  Fri Nov 27 11:43:15 2009
From: prestonh at gmail.com (Preston Hagar)
Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:43:15 -0600
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Troubling hard disk behavior
In-Reply-To: <4B0F615B.10904@prodigy.net>
References: <4B0F615B.10904@prodigy.net>
Message-ID: <8f5897560911270943j36bd61caxce4bd833f547e18a@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 11:19 PM, Leroy Tennison
<leroy_tennison at prodigy.net> wrote:
> Running SuSE 10.3 with a Seagate Barracuda ST3250620A drive. ?Twice on
> boot up GRUB paused for a significant length of time at stage1 but
> eventually booted. ?Today during the init scripts I got a time out
> waiting for one of the partitions to presumably mount. ?I am running the
> smartd daemon.
>
> Running smartctl as root with -H reports "PASSED" for the drive and "-l
> error" states that there is no error log. ?The current drive was
> purchased relatively recently when these tools presented a "drive
> failing" message to me one day.
>
> Any ideas as to what could be wrong? ?Yes, I ***DID*** back up my data
> when these events took place...
>

One more thing you might use to test the drive would be HD Sentinel.

http://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_sentinel_linux.php

The linux version is free.  What it does is take all of the SMART
information and give you an average, instead of a PASS/FAIL.  A lot of
times I have had it predict a drive on its way out while SMART still
said it was fine.  Apparently, SMART is fairly boolean that although
you could have a lot of bad sectors, high temps or other issues, as
long as no single issue is over the given threshold, then the drive is
considered a PASS.  Some of the thresholds can only be reached if the
drive actually fails!  HD Sentinel takes all of the SMART data and
uses an algoritim they came up with to create a score on a scale of
0-100 on the health of your drive.  This might give you a better idea
if your drive is having to remap a lot of bad sectors or has other
problems.

I know this isn't a exact reply to your question, but I just thought I
would share a really nice free tool I have found in terms of
monitoring drives.

Preston


From prestonh at gmail.com  Fri Nov 27 11:47:33 2009
From: prestonh at gmail.com (Preston Hagar)
Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:47:33 -0600
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] <sigh> Which distro this time?
In-Reply-To: <1e1cfe3d0911270836o11aa3eddr4d07f6fab1313127@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4B0F655B.2010507@prodigy.net>
	<1e1cfe3d0911270836o11aa3eddr4d07f6fab1313127@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8f5897560911270947m2d9c3caep7b896e9f767ec2c3@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 10:36 AM, Gilbert Morrow <gkfmorrow at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Avoid Ubuntu at all cost , Red Hat 12 is pretty snappy with KDE 4.3.3 .
> openSUSE has made great strides in the update/upgrade department .
> Sorry Mark S. but Windows 9.10 , uh I mean Ubuntu 9.10 is not to my liking .
>

Not to start a flame war, but why avoid Ubuntu?  Every distro has its
short coming, but I find apt much easier to deal with then rpms, yum
or yast and the fact that you can Google "Ubuntu
<question/problem/program>" for whatever you might want and find
Ubuntu specific instructions has always been really nice.  I know from
the Ubuntu mailing lists that 9.10 had some issues, especially with
Intel video chipsets, (I am still using Hardy, their last long term
support release), but I was wondering if you had any specific issues
or reasons why Red Had or openSUSE is better than Ubuntu.


Preston


From trryhend at gmail.com  Fri Nov 27 16:44:26 2009
From: trryhend at gmail.com (terry)
Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 16:44:26 -0600
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] <sigh> Which distro this time?
In-Reply-To: <20091127151034.GA19967@pmichaud.com>
References: <4B0F655B.2010507@prodigy.net>
	<20091127151034.GA19967@pmichaud.com>
Message-ID: <f61662290911271444w48115254p2c033550ab4a10e3@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 9:10 AM, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 11:36:27PM -0600, Leroy Tennison wrote:
>> 11.2 comes with KDE 4 and Thunderbird 3 beta 4, I've heard about KDE 4
>> (not good) and wonder about Thunderbird 3 beta, any comments from
>> others? ?KDE3 can be installed but isn't supported.
>
> KDE 4 is okay now. ?The early (and IMO very justified) complaints
> about KDE 4 had a lot to do with it being provided in distributions
> before it had reached a similar level of maturity as what it was
> meant to replace (KDE 3.5).
>
> I just updated to Kubuntu 9.10 earlier this week and I'm very
> pleased with it. ?It has added about 20-25% to my laptop battery life,
> many of the drivers are much more solid, and KDE 4 itself has
> improved a _lot_ since 8.10. ?(KDE 4 in 8.10 was truly truly awful.)
>
> Pm
>
> _______________________________________________
> http://www.ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>

I have to agree with Patrick, the new KDE is not bad at all -
actually, in my opinion KDE 4.2x rocks.
I only recently upgraded (only a few weeks ago), and I'm very happy
with all that I see - it appears to me to be a mature and feature rich
desktop system and a radical makeover for KDE as well.  The look and
feel of 3.x was nice and comfortable but getting a bit old and stale
in [my opinion] and I didn't really realize it until after getting
used to the upgrade.
Gnome 2.2x is nice too, and rock solid, but, ... I guess it's about
like the difference between  Ford and Chevy, it's simply a matter of
preference - where do you want the buttons and switches and what do
you want your dash board to look like... etc...

-- 
<><


From leroy_tennison at prodigy.net  Fri Nov 27 21:40:59 2009
From: leroy_tennison at prodigy.net (LEROY TENNISON)
Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:40:59 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] <sigh> Which distro this time?
In-Reply-To: <4145b6790911270914n7677c166vf118e3076f51a702@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <741223.56470.qm@web82603.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Good point, I wasn't thinking about Live CDs but that's definitely a good option.

--- On Fri, 11/27/09, Robert Citek <robert.citek at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Robert Citek <robert.citek at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [NTLUG:Discuss] <sigh> Which distro this time?
To: "NTLUG Discussion List" <discuss at ntlug.org>
Date: Friday, November 27, 2009, 11:14 AM

On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 12:36 AM, Leroy Tennison
<leroy_tennison at prodigy.net> wrote:
> What about other alternatives. ?I've used Red Hat and CentOS, only
> played with Debian/Kubuntu. ?Any thoughts given my situation?

Experiment.

Those are all good distros, although each has its strengths and
weaknesses.? If I recall correctly, all the distros you've mentioned
have LiveCDs.? Give them a whirl to see if they meet your needs and
work with your hardware.? Alternatively, you could install them to a
virtual machine and enjoy all the goodness of a VM.

Good luck and let us know how things go.

Regards,
- Robert

_______________________________________________
http://www.ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

From trryhend at gmail.com  Sat Nov 28 03:36:24 2009
From: trryhend at gmail.com (terry)
Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2009 03:36:24 -0600
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] Mark Shuttleworth: Thank You Ralph Green!
In-Reply-To: <4B09C8B1.30207@acm.org>
References: <20091122185723.E38CB16C0@goliath.cnchost.com>
	<4B09C8B1.30207@acm.org>
Message-ID: <f61662290911280136p4a40e46ex9edad1af1f5f0756@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 5:26 PM, Chris Cox <cjcox at acm.org> wrote:
> John Taylor wrote:
>> Ralph:
>>
>> Thank you *so* much for making the Mark Shuttleworth talk happen at
>> yesterday's NTLUG meeting.  That was thoroughly enjoyable!.  Well done!!
>
> Indeed... we all need to thank Ralph for persuading Mark to come on by.
>
> It was a good talk.... (anybody have $20 million lying around?)

Not since Mark left town, (I think he took it with him).   :):):):)


>
> _______________________________________________
> http://www.ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>



-- 
<><


From fredstevens at yahoo.com  Sat Nov 28 09:55:16 2009
From: fredstevens at yahoo.com (Fred)
Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2009 07:55:16 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] <sigh> Which distro this time?
Message-ID: <441031.49658.qm@web37302.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Leroy:

I just installed opensuse 11.2/KDE 4.3 on a P4 Dell laptop 
and the jury is still out. Most seems to work ok... most.
There are irritating little gems like the 11.2 bug that says
that the DHCPCD (client) default process has to be killed
and then restarted in order for the networking to work.
Most irritating. That one little quirk would make it not
ready for prime time in any book. But it is a simple matter 
to bring up a term and type it in. BUT I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO!!!

I never have liked KDE 4's look and feel. I think it is an awkward
layout. Some people, however, especially the dweebs that
created it, like it fine. So be it. IceWM works well.

Upgrades don't work. Best thing since drives are so cheap is to
get a new drive, install the OS on it, then move over any data
you want from the old drive. Scuze me... upgrades don't work 
right like they are supposed to and it takes less time to do a
fresh install than it does to screw with the upgrade. My opinion,
of course. YMMV

On balance, I repeat what everyone else says: If you want
stability then stick with enterprise versions and don't go
with bleeding edge, which this definitely is. And if you
go with the latest and greatest, do updates regularly
to get the latest bug fixes and be prepared for the updates to 
break something, usually the program that you most need
at the time.

Good luck,
Fred



      


From leroy_tennison at prodigy.net  Sun Nov 29 10:59:57 2009
From: leroy_tennison at prodigy.net (Leroy Tennison)
Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:59:57 -0600
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] <sigh> Which distro this time?
In-Reply-To: <441031.49658.qm@web37302.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <441031.49658.qm@web37302.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <4B12A88D.2040609@prodigy.net>

Fred wrote:
> Leroy:
> 
> I just installed opensuse 11.2/KDE 4.3 on a P4 Dell laptop 
> and the jury is still out. Most seems to work ok... most.
> There are irritating little gems like the 11.2 bug that says
> that the DHCPCD (client) default process has to be killed
> and then restarted in order for the networking to work.
> Most irritating. That one little quirk would make it not
> ready for prime time in any book. But it is a simple matter 
> to bring up a term and type it in. BUT I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO!!!
> 
> I never have liked KDE 4's look and feel. I think it is an awkward
> layout. Some people, however, especially the dweebs that
> created it, like it fine. So be it. IceWM works well.
> 
> Upgrades don't work. Best thing since drives are so cheap is to
> get a new drive, install the OS on it, then move over any data
> you want from the old drive. Scuze me... upgrades don't work 
> right like they are supposed to and it takes less time to do a
> fresh install than it does to screw with the upgrade. My opinion,
> of course. YMMV
> 
> On balance, I repeat what everyone else says: If you want
> stability then stick with enterprise versions and don't go
> with bleeding edge, which this definitely is. And if you
> go with the latest and greatest, do updates regularly
> to get the latest bug fixes and be prepared for the updates to 
> break something, usually the program that you most need
> at the time.
> 
> Good luck,
> Fred
> 
> 
> 
>       
> 
> _______________________________________________
> http://www.ntlug.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> 

Hmmm, if the DHCP client has to be manually restarted to work that's a
real pain.

I've got the hard drive(s) to install on, sounds like it's "download and
test" time.  Thanks for the input.


From trryhend at gmail.com  Sat Nov 28 19:58:20 2009
From: trryhend at gmail.com (terry)
Date: Sat, 28 Nov 2009 19:58:20 -0600
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] <sigh> Which distro this time?
In-Reply-To: <441031.49658.qm@web37302.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <441031.49658.qm@web37302.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <f61662290911281758y4f95f0abx2e0027282e25351d@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 9:55 AM, Fred <fredstevens at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Leroy:
>
> I just installed opensuse 11.2/KDE 4.3 on a P4 Dell laptop
> and the jury is still out. Most seems to work ok... most.
> There are irritating little gems like the 11.2 bug that says
> that the DHCPCD (client) default process has to be killed
> and then restarted in order for the networking to work.
> Most irritating. That one little quirk would make it not
> ready for prime time in any book. But it is a simple matter
> to bring up a term and type it in. BUT I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO!!!
>
> I never have liked KDE 4's look and feel. I think it is an awkward
> layout. Some people, however, especially the dweebs that
> created it, like it fine. So be it. IceWM works well.
>
> Upgrades don't work. Best thing since drives are so cheap is to
> get a new drive, install the OS on it, then move over any data
> you want from the old drive. Scuze me... upgrades don't work
> right like they are supposed to and it takes less time to do a
> fresh install than it does to screw with the upgrade. My opinion,
> of course. YMMV
>
> On balance, I repeat what everyone else says: If you want
> stability then stick with enterprise versions and don't go
> with bleeding edge, which this definitely is. And if you
> go with the latest and greatest, do updates regularly
> to get the latest bug fixes and be prepared for the updates to
> break something, usually the program that you most need
> at the time.
>

Or, you can use Slackware


From leroy_tennison at prodigy.net  Sun Nov 29 12:41:43 2009
From: leroy_tennison at prodigy.net (Leroy Tennison)
Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:41:43 -0600
Subject: [NTLUG:Discuss] [Fwd: Re:  Troubling hard disk behavior]
Message-ID: <4B12C067.6010303@prodigy.net>

Preston Hagar wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 26, 2009 at 11:19 PM, Leroy Tennison
> <leroy_tennison at prodigy.net> wrote:
>> Running SuSE 10.3 with a Seagate Barracuda ST3250620A drive.  Twice on
>> boot up GRUB paused for a significant length of time at stage1 but
>> eventually booted.  Today during the init scripts I got a time out
>> waiting for one of the partitions to presumably mount.  I am running the
>> smartd daemon.
>>
>> Running smartctl as root with -H reports "PASSED" for the drive and "-l
>> error" states that there is no error log.  The current drive was
>> purchased relatively recently when these tools presented a "drive
>> failing" message to me one day.
>>
>> Any ideas as to what could be wrong?  Yes, I ***DID*** back up my data
>> when these events took place...
>>
> 
> One more thing you might use to test the drive would be HD Sentinel.
> 
> http://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_sentinel_linux.php
> 
> The linux version is free.  What it does is take all of the SMART
> information and give you an average, instead of a PASS/FAIL.  A lot of
> times I have had it predict a drive on its way out while SMART still
> said it was fine.  Apparently, SMART is fairly boolean that although
> you could have a lot of bad sectors, high temps or other issues, as
> long as no single issue is over the given threshold, then the drive is
> considered a PASS.  Some of the thresholds can only be reached if the
> drive actually fails!  HD Sentinel takes all of the SMART data and
> uses an algoritim they came up with to create a score on a scale of
> 0-100 on the health of your drive.  This might give you a better idea
> if your drive is having to remap a lot of bad sectors or has other
> problems.
> 
> I know this isn't a exact reply to your question, but I just thought I
> would share a really nice free tool I have found in terms of
> monitoring drives.
> 
> Preston

(Didn't realize that my reply was only to Preston, forwarding)

Well, I downloaded it and it ran fine.  Power on time was less than 62
days with an estimated remaining time of more than a 1000 days.  "The
hard disk status is PERFECT."  The motherboard is an ASUS P4S533-VM,
never had any trouble with it.

Any other ideas from anyone?