NoS-LUG Blog

NoS-LUG t-shirts

2010-05-12T09:41:00.005+01:00

Some of the members of NoS-LUG are planning to go down to Oggcamp next year (I hope it will be on) and to mark the occasion we decided to make some t-shirts for the group. The first design is shown below:

In case the image isn't clear we have a tartan Tux sitting on a world map with arrows pointing to all corners of the globe. 'NoS-LUG' at the top and'on tour' at the bottom. With the back print simply stating the website adress 'NoS-LUG.org'

I decided against going for an Oggcamp logo simply so that the t-shirts could be used again for other vsits without looking dated, general visiting regalia you might say.

Please post any comments of this on the NoS-LUG forum, although it may seem a bit away we need to get moving now to get these made and then orders taken. I want to make sure the quality of the manufacturers gear is up to scratch so I will be expecting to get some samples. I just hope we will have enough time.

Tomacat on Linux Part 3 - Performance

2010-05-02T23:51:00.010+01:00

Performance.

Tomcat offers many configuration options that can improve the performance on your system. Here I'll be covering some of the main configuration options for boosting performance you may want to look at.

TCP/IP configuration

Ipv6 as of yet is not widely supported on all networks, this can cause a problem and even connections can be dropped. By default this Tomcat installation uses Ipv6 but this can be changed easily. If you open up a terminal and type $ lsof -i you will be presented with a table that shows what is using Ipv6 and what is using Ipv4. [Christopher Schultz. (2010).]

To configure Tomcat so that it uses Ipv4 instead of Ipv6 shut down Tomcat using either the shutdown.sh script or the “$ service tomcat stop” command then type

$ export CATALINA_OPTS=-Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true

Then start Tomcat once again and check that it is now using Ipv4 with the $ lsof -i command.

Heap Size

Runaway programs could cause a problem, eating up all your RAM and overwhelming your Operating System. The Java runtime environment has what is called a “maximum heap size”, this is a limit on how much memory can be used and prevents any potential problems caused by any runaway program. For JDK 1.3 for example the default limit was 32MB, this was established at a time when memory was more expensive. [Jason Brittian (2007). p19]

You can improve the memory usage by setting the environment variables your self or for each class for example $ java -Xmx=256M MyClass will run a class file called MyClass with a maximum memory size of 256MB. To change the environment variable in JAVA_OPTS you can type in

$ export JAVA_OPTS=-Xmx256M

This will now set the environment to run classes at a maximum of 256MB thus improving the performance over the default option. Using the JAVA_OPTS function will make system wide changes, you can limit the changes to be Tomcat only by instead using

$ export CATALINA_OPTS=-Xmx256M

Now I'm going to use a load testing tool to measure and see the difference in performance that changing the heap size can have. The tool I'm using is Jmeter, you can get this for Ubuntu by typing

$ sudo apt-get install jmeter

First with CATALINA_OPTS being set to 32M Jmeter came up with these results

From these results you can see that 5000 HTTP requests were thrown at Tomcat and the average time to process those requests were 327 milliseconds with the Maximum time being 5161 milliseconds and the throughput being 116.6 requests per second. Now we can compare these results with what we get after changing the environment variable to 512M

The average time has dropped from 327 to 17 milliseconds and the maximum time to 1164 milliseconds. The throughput has increased from 116.6 requests per second to 167.7. So here you can see the performance boost you can gain from increasing the heap size.

Timeouts and connections

Idle connections can cause a lot of consumption of the system's memory resources, this can be prevented with the use of a connection timeout. By configuring the connection timeout variable you can control how long server resources are allocated to tasks and clients. [Microsoft. (2003).] To change the connection timeout variable go back to edit your server.xml file as was done for changing the port number, you'll find the conectionTimeout variable just below where the port number is defined. Change this number to suit your needs, this time is in milliseconds but keep the timeout within a sensible range as making it too low can be counter productive.

If we change this variable so that connectionTimeout="20000" and run Jmeter we get these results :

And if we now change this variable to connectionTimeout=”50000” and run Jmeter we get these results :

As you can see from these results the higher the connection timeout time the longer each sample takes to process. Now just to show the effects of having the timeout set too low, here are the Jmeter results with a connection timeout value of 1 :

From these results you can see that not only is the process time greater than the other two timeout values but there is a significant error percentage level shown where many samples where just simply unable to connect. [Jason Brittain (2007). p156]

You can also define the maximum number of connections you want to allow to your server, by doing this you can prevent Denial of Service attacks and too many connections eating up your system's memory. You can set this variable in the server.xml file by simply uncommenting the following line :

Here the default maximum connections allowed is 150, you can change this value to suit your needs and the demands on the server.

DNS Server

Web Applications can log a client's details such as looking up their Domain Name Service data. These DNS look ups can cause delays as it causes traffic from your server that could pass through many servers that maybe far away. To stop this from happening edit the line enableLookups so that the value is changed from true to false in the server.xml file. By changing this variable the server will no longer go off to find the DNS data, instead it can just log the numeric IP address, then if required the DNS data can be looked up outside of tomcat. This setting can also reduce disk space usage as less data is stored. [Jason Brittain (2007). p156]

Performance Monitoring

Changing these values can improve performance but over time with the possibility that visitor numbers may increase you might need to tweak these settings to keep good performance. You could periodically run Jmeter to check your server's performance optimisation or even write a script to automatically run a load testing tool such as siege and log these details for you.

Now that we've looked at installing, configuring and optimising performance of the Tomcat server you'll want to be able to secure it, the next part is on making your server secure.

Gentoo Gnome Screenshots

2010-04-28T23:47:00.005+01:00

After attempting my first Gentoo build with a KDE graphical environment, I switched back to Gnome after 5 bug filled months, the system is running quicker and I have had a lot less crashes and programmes freezing. The one major thing about Gentoo is the clarity and smoothness of the graphics. Here are some screenshots of my work (I know that there not to everybody's taste, but I am a Bluenose):

This is my first Gentoo build. For anybody thinking about attempting Gentoo then I will give the following pieces of advice that I have found very valuable:

Read everything, assume no prior knowledge
Ask questions on forums etc, go back to being a newbie
You'll get a working distro quickly, it will take a lot longer to perfect
Learn about flags, portage and ebuilds
Be prepared to spend a lot of time on the computer, make sure your schedule is empty

Other than that all I'll say is good luck, it really is worth the work in the end.

Tomcat on Linux Part 2 - Configuration

2010-03-21T22:51:00.006Z

Configuration

Automatic Startup

As this installation is based on the generic multi-platform you'll have to create a script that'll allow you to start tomcat on boot. Using your preferred text editor type out a script similar to this

#!/bin/bash

#Tomcat startup script

JAVA_HOME=/usr/jdk1.6.0_17

CATALINA_HOME=/home/stephen/apache-tomcat-6.0.26

export JAVA_HOME CATALINA_HOME

exec $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh

Save the file as tomcat and change the file ownership to root and chmod it to 755 to make it executable.

$ sudo chown root.root tomcat

$ sudo chmod 755 tomcat

This next step will depend on the distribution you are using, you can copy the file into the directory containing your init scripts so that it starts on boot e.g. /etc/rc.d/init.d or use your distributions start up application manager. In Ubuntu go to the start up applications found in System>Prefrences>Startup Applications and add the tomcat file you just created in there.

Now restart your computer and test Tomcat in a web-browser as before to make sure it worked. At this point in your browser Tomcat is most likely still using the default port of 8080 where in the address bar it says http://lochalhost:8080. Copy / move this file to /etc/init.d/ to run as a service.

Changing the Port address

One thing you may want to change is the port number that Tomcat runs on. This maybe due to you having another instance of Tomcat running or another server already using that port. Another reason that you may choose to change this is if it interferes with something else such as one person I know who had a printer and discovered that after installing and running Tomcat the printer wouldn't work, it was later discovered that the printer uses the HTTP protocol on port 80. The port that the server uses can be changed in the server.xml file found in apache-tomcat-6.0.20/conf . Use your prefered text editor to change the port number like so.

$ sudo gedit ~/apache-tomcat-6.0.26/conf/server.xml

Once you have changed the port number to something of your choosing that you feel is more appropriate (there is plenty of material on the Internet covering port numbers but for a brief description and list of port numbers visit http://www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers) save the file. Now start up the server and test it works like before but now with the new port number e.g. http://lochalhost:9915 .

Change the default Web Application and temp Directory

We looked at how to change the port address to prevent potential conflicts, now we're going to change the default Web Application Directory. Why would you want to do that? Well by default the directory resides with in the Tomcat root directory with all the other directories and files that make it work. If you decide to update Tomcat you run the risk of loosing your own files if they are kept inside Tomcat. Another reason you may want to change the default directory is if you want to run more than one instance of Tomcat and need both to access and share your own files. To be able to do this you can set the CATALINA_BASE environment variable to point to your desired directory while CATALINA_HOME points to the root Tomcat directory. To do this, in a terminal type

$ mkdir ~/dist (create a new directory with the name of your choice)

$ cd dist (cd into that directory)

$ cp -R ~/apache-tomcat-6.0.20/conf (copy the conf directory from tomcat)

$ mkdir common logs temp server shared webapps work (create these new directories)

The reason for copying the conf directory and creating these new directories as well as the webapps is that this folder will be used to hold our personal stuff, logs and configurations so that any future Tomcat upgrade won't write over them and upgrading won't be a painful process. Now that you've created your new directory you'll have to set up the CATALINA_BASE variable.

$ CATALINA_HOME=~/apache-tomcat-6.0.20

$ CATALINA_BASE=~/dist

$ export CATALINA_HOME CATALINA_BASE

This will point the relevant environment variables to you're personal files including webapps and the root tomcat directory for it to run. You may want to add this line to your start up script otherwise these settings will be lost the next time you boot. You're start up script should now look something a bit like this

#!/bin/bash

#Tomcat startup script

JAVA_HOME=/usr/jdk1.6.0_18

CATALINA_HOME=/home/stephen/apache-tomcat-6.0.20

CATALINA_BASE=/home/stephen/dist

export JAVA_HOME CATALINA_HOME CATALINA_BASE

exec $CATALINA_HOME/bin/startup.sh

When you start up tomcat with these settings you might notice that CATALINA_TMPDIR automatically points to ~/dist/temp, you can change the location of the temp directory if you so choose using the same method as above.

These configuration options can be defined for the environment in which you're using the service and on personal preference. Next we'll look at configuring Tomcat to improve performance.

Tomcat on Linux part 1 - Installation

2010-02-22T21:54:00.004Z

Introduction.

The purpose of this document is to outline the issues involved when installing a web server such as Apache Tomcat. This paper is very Tomcat specific but some issues will be similar to setting up other server software. This document is a guide to installing, configuring and securing Apache Tomcat Server on a Linux system.

Why Tomcat?

Tomcat is written in Java so it can run on pretty much any platform. It is Open Source so is freely available and re-distributable, it implements Java Servlets and and JavaServer Pages (JSP) and provides a pure Java HTTP web server environment for Java code to run. [Wikipedia, 2010] As the Apache Software Foundation puts it “Apache Tomcat is intended to be a collaboration of the best-of-breed developers from around the world.” and it is also used in many mission critical web applications used by many large scale organisations and companies around the world. [Apache Software Foundation, 2010] .

Installation.

I have chosen to install Apache Tomcat server on Ubuntu 9.10 although the following instructions can be applied to most Linux Distributions. There is an RPM available for Red Hat based distributions but as I'll be installing it on a Debian based system I'll be using the multi-platform binary release which comes in the form of a gzipped tar archive. Unfortunately a deb file is not available due to the Apache Licence being incompatible with the GPL. By installing Tomcat using this method you have the choice of what directory you'd like it installed to, the downside to this though is that it is not tracked by any package manager and can be more difficult to upgrade later. But before you start with installing Tomcat you need to ensure you have the latest Java runtime (JRE) installed.

Installing Java.

At the time of writing you can get the latest JDK and JRE from Sun / Oracle at this address http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp . From this page click on download next to the newest JDK available (the JRE will be included with this). You don't need to get the JDK if you don't want to as all you really need is the JRE, but the JDK is good to have if you're going to create your own Java applications. At the download page there is the option of what platform you'd like to download for e.g. Windows, the current OS you are using is normally selected by default (in my case Linux) but there is also the option for Linux x64 platforms. I stick with the default Linux option and click download. After being presented with a pop up to log in or register (this step can be skipped which I did) you are given download options RPM or bin. I choose the bin file and the download starts.

Now the file can be found at your downloaded location such as your “Downloads” directory. Open up a terminal and cd to that directory, you'll need to make the file executable then run it. I used the following commands.

$ cd Downloads

$ sudo chmod +x jdk-6u18-linux-i586.bin

$ ./jdk-6u18-linux-i586.bin

You'll be presented with the installer, go through the licence agreement and type y and enter to continue. You will then find a folder named something like jdk1.6.0_17, the current directory isn't the ideal place to keep this so use the command $ sudo mv jdk1.6.0_17 /usr/ to move it to the usr directory. You can double check that it is in the correct place by typing $ ls /usr

You can choose to move the JDK folder to any location you deem appropriate but remember the location of it as you'll need it to finalise the installation in this next step. For Tomcat to use the JDK JAVA_HOME and PATH variables need to be set, this can be done with the following comands,

$ JAVA_HOME=/usr/jdk1.6.0_ 18 (the full path to the JDK directory)

$ export JAVA_HOME

$ PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH

$ export PATH

Now you should be all set to install and start running Tomcat.

Installing Tomcat

Before beginning with the installation it's a good idea as a security precaution to create a tomcat user with low privileges and a strong password that can't be guessed. This is so that

$ sudo useradd -g 46 -s /sbin/nologin -d /opt/tomcat/temp tomcat

Now to download the binary, this can be found at http://tomcat.apache.org/download-60.cgi . Download the tar.gz file, also grab the MD5 checksum and save it as a text file then check the download with the following command.

$ Md5sum -c apache-tomcat-6.0.24.tar.gz.md5

apache-tomcat-6.0.24.tar.gz: OK

As long as the second line comes up with OK then the downloaded file came down in tacked and hasn't been tampered with. Now move the file to the location you wish the files to be kept and uncompress it. I have chosen to create a new directory called WebServer and moved the file to there.

$ mkdir WebServer

$ mv ~/Downloads/apache-tomcat-6.0.24.tar.gz ~/WebServer

$ cd ~/WebServer

$ tar -xvf apache-tomcat-6.0.24.tar.gz

Now as we created a user called tomcat we have to set the file permissions so that the tomcat user has read/write permissions on it.

$ sudo chown -R tomcat\: apache-tomcat-6.0.24

Tomcat is ready to run. At this point Tomcat won't restart on reboots, but this will be covered later in the performance configuration under Timeouts and connections. To start Tomcat cd into the Tomcat directory and into the bin directory within there.

$ cd ~/apache-tomcat-6.0.20/bin

$ ./startup.sh

Using CATALINA_BASE: /home/stephen/apache-tomcat-6.0.20

Using CATALINA_HOME: /home/stephen/apache-tomcat-6.0.20

Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /home/stephen/apache-tomcat-6.0.20/temp

Using JRE_HOME: /usr/jdk1.6.0_18/

You should see output similar to that above and you are now running Tomcat. To test that it's working correctly open up any web-browser and type in the URL http://lochalhost:8080 and you should see the following screen.

Now that we have Tomcat installed and ready to go we'll next look at configuration for performance and security.

Moblin on the EeePC 901

2010-01-09T19:12:00.017Z

After reading about the development of Moblin and owning an Intel Atom device myself I decided to give it a test run to see what it was all about. I downloaded both the 2.0 and 2.1 versions from here Moblin Releases. I also heard about the Ubuntu Moblin Remix being developed and downloaded a copy of that from here Dell Community. I tried all three of these with varying degrees of success.

All three (Moblin 2.0/2.1 and Ubuntu Moblin Remix) come as an img which can be used on a USB stick or SD card (instructions on this found at Moblin.org). Once booted from the storage media Moblin can be tried through the live img or installed, I decided to install to get the full experience. In all versions the install took roughly 3 minutes.

First off I tried Moblin 2.0 and the boot up and over all speed of the Distro was lightning quick. It took about five seconds for it to boot and there was no delay in navigating the system. The interface takes a little getting use to but once you learn where everything is and how it works it all becomes very easy and intuitive. Once you get to the UI you are greeted with "My Zone". Here you have three columns, one column with calendar and to do list, one with recently/most used apps and visited web pages and one column with twitter/last fm feeds and instant messaging.

The navigation bar hides at the top and has icons for different tasks, this bar can be accessed by either putting the curser at the top of the screen or by pressing the super key. (The super key on most PCs would be the one with a Windows icon on it, in the case of the EeePC it's the one with the image of a house). This Navigation bar when triggered by either method drops down to give you access to the icons.

The icons in the Navigation bar From left to right My zone, Status, People, Internet, Media, Clip Board, Applications and Zones. There are also icons for Bluetooth (version 2.1 only) Battery state, Volume and network.

Here's a breakdown of what they are:
My Zone : As described above
Status : Allows you to post twitter feeds and change your status on instant messaging accounts

People : Allows you to search for people and details within your IM accounts
Internet : opens Moblin's integrated Web Browser which fills the whole screen. This opens up showing the most/recently viewed web pages and an address bar.

Media : allows you to view pictures, play video and music
Clip Board : holds anything you've copied via Ctrl+C etc.
Applications : here you have different categories such as Accessories, Games, Office, Internet and Settings. Under each category as you would expect you'll find icons that link to different apps and there are a good range installed by default.

Zones : This is an interesting take on window management. Each window you open takes up most if not all of the screen and even though you can move and resize the windows you can't minimise them. With zones you can keep track of open windows and each window is held in a dfferent work space (simular to the virtual desktop idea). You can access these windows by clicking this icon and selecting the window/work space you want or by Alt+TAB or Ctrl+Alt+Arrow keys (this last keyboard short cut doesn't work in version 2.1 which is a shame as it gives a nice graphical switching effect when used).

There are very little differences between 2.0 and 2.1. The boot up time is the same, 2.1 brings with it Bluetooth and 3G support. On the EeePC 901 in version 2.0 the wireless works fine but could not connect to a network where the SSID was hidden, only when the Network name was being broadcast would it connect despite the fact that it lets you type in Network details manually. Strangely the Wi-Fi wouldn't connect at all in version 2.1 even though it could detect the presence of the network.

Even though the 2.1 version boasts 3G support I was unable to get connected through a mobile phone. The battery indicator is different between the two versions as in 2.0 you have the battery status and brightness control together but in 2.1 the brightness control has been removed.

When booting from the Ubuntu Moblin Remix img you don't have the option of running a live session only to install. When you select to install the whole process is automated and you have no option to edit partitions etc like you do with the Moblin images. UMR is pretty much the same as Moblin 2.0 but with more applications installed and includes what looks like Open Office. Although Moblin doesn't have Open Office installed or available there was a comment on Moblin.org from a user claiming that using a Fedora RPM to install OOo worked very well and even made icons available in the correct place. The real down side that I found from UMR was the fact that it took longer to boot. When you boot into UMR you are greeted with the same progress bar found in Jaunty then taken to the same interface as above.

Moblin 2.1 unlike 2.0 has an app store where you can install extra applications. With Canonical developing their version this OS could shape up to be pretty good with an extensive list of available apps. Moblin is still a bit unstable, there were a few times when it froze on me or things didn't work as it should but then the default Xandros install that came with my netbook wasn't any better and sometimes suffered the same faults. I'm going to keep this as a dual boot with Ubuntu Karmic if just for the sheer speed to get on to the internet. I can't wait to see future releases of this and watch it mature. When it becomes more stable and is used more on netbooks this Distro is not only good for Linux fans and hobbyist but also a great netbook UI for end users with little computer experience.

Chocolate Tux

2009-12-17T14:12:00.005Z

Was in Marks and Spencer's today and browsing their Christmas stock and discovered this chocolate penguin in amongst a range of Penguin confectionery. Does anyone else see an uncanny resemblance to anyone.............?

Education short response test Answers

2009-12-17T14:06:00.002Z

New Convert

2009-11-23T23:07:00.000Z

I was down in Dundee at the weekend visiting a friend and knowing my interest in Linux she asked me about it, her first question being "How much does it cost". When I told her it was free she was very impressed and asked if I could install it on her computer. She had a very dated looking Windows XP set-up (I'm not sure it even had SP2 installed) and her major gripe was the fact that she couldn't install the new live messenger and being stuck with an old MSN Messenger app.

Ever keen to get new people to try Linux I asked her if she was ok with me installing an OS and completely getting rid of windows. She never really plays games with it other than solitaire and mainly just uses it for the Internet "The perfect candidate for Linux" I thought to myself. With complete trust in me she agreed and when I asked if she was sure at getting rid of windows before I hit the return key she said "yep Kill it!" and with that the hard drive was formatted to ext4 and XP annihilated.

I had a bit of trouble at first as I didn't have an Ubuntu install disk on me (I chose Ubuntu over any other distro as I figured it'd be best for a new convert). So I used her Windows to download the ISO only to find out that I couldn't get any app in the OS to burn the image to disk. I managed to overcome this, luckily I had a copy of pupy 4.0 live cd. There was only one optical drive so I had to run puppy from ram, once booted I mounted the windows Drive and was able to burn the Ubuntu image to CD.

Once it was all installed and I set it up for her (installed restricted extras, libdvdcss, aMSN, compiz, VLC etc.) I showed her a few things to get going and let her play about with it. The overall result was good, She was impressed with it saying "It's like I've got a new computer". The one thing she spent the most time on was aMSN (I told her about empathy but didn't seem interested) I noticed in one of her IM's her saying "I've got the new MSN messenger now". I didn't bother trying to explain the difference but it goes to show that from an end user's point of view Windows / Apple / Linux / BSD it's all the same and the underlying technology doesn't matter as long as it does what they expect it to do.

Nothing Karmic about it.

2009-11-18T23:12:00.003Z

I've had Ubuntu Karmic installed in both my Desktop and EEEPC since just after the release day, once installed I was quite impressed. Everything worked well, I was in awe over the X-splash effect and the cinematic shut down plus the improvement in boot up and shut down speed. I even like the extras such as Empathy, Evolution and the new Software Centre. A few weeks in though and some updates later every thing's going tits up. My FaceBook plugin for Empathy gave in the ghost, Gwibber has been very twitchy and Kaffeine pre 1.0 is pants.

I may look into trying to fix these annoyances or maybe stick it out in hope an update will fix them for me, I don't know if I want to spend my time tweeking till it works. A part of me wishes that I'd stayed with Jaunty but hope Karmic will improve seeing as we're heading into an LTS edition in April. Small annoyances they may-be but if they don't get fixed it'll just bug the hell out of me and I may make the switch to another Distro like Mint or something, Hell I might even give Slackware a go!

OS Success

2009-11-17T23:23:00.001Z

Great news I finally got Linux to work on the PC. Ok it's not the Ubuntu distro that I tried in vein to install but it's a Linux OS none the less. PCLinuxOS or PCLOS for short is the distro I successfully installed. This distro seems very user friendly and was easy to install. When booting from the CD the software basically does a check on your system then gives you the best options to install (the whole process is done for you) no messing about. The OS looks very cool and comes in lightning blue rather than Ubuntu classic brown. I'm probably going to spend hours on the computer now playing about with it and getting used to the environment (I'm very excited!!!).

So FINALLY I can start to enjoy the world of Linux properly and get more involved.

Fun in Linux Land

2009-11-17T23:20:00.004Z

After using PCLinuxOS for some time I grew a bit bored with it, I wanted to try something else. I pulled out my CD case full of various Linux Distros and started trying them to see if I could get something else installed. After much disc swapping and Internet searching I finally managed to get Mandriva 2008 one working (with Compiz effects in all). They way I managed to get it going after my first failed attempts was by typing the command "acpi=off" in the boot option. As far as I'm aware the acpi has something to do with power management but by turning it off the installation went flawlessly on my system. I've been playing around with it now for awhile and haven't gotten bored with it yet, I love the 3D desktop, wobbly windows and all the little animations that go with it.

Despite being chuffed with myself that I got a new OS running and having fun with all the bells and whistles I still wanted to get Ubuntu installed as it was my first choice and seems to be a very popular Distro within the Linux community. Aaron ordered some free discs from the Ubuntu website for the latest release 8.04 Hardy Heron. So I decided to try agian to get it installed and again the live CD wouldn't work and nothing was happening till I changed the boot option again this time adding the commands "acpi=off", "noapic" and "nolapic". After typing in these commands I finnaly managed to get it installed but it wasn't flawless. I had problems with the screen resolution I couldn't read anything being displayed. I managed to find some help online with the Ubuntu forums and typed a bit of extra code into the "/etc/X11/xorg.conf" file and this solved the problem.

When I say it solved the problem it did to an extent as I could now read what was on screen and the display was much better but now I'm stuck with a 800x600 resolution on a 1028x1024 monitor. I don't mind the low res though it means everything is allot bigger and easier to see (and it's not like I'm playing World of Warcraft or Medal of Honor on it or anything). Also I still can't get the Compiz to work through Ubuntu like on Mandriva but I'm still happy with it.

So now I have a system that dual boots Mandriva and Ubuntu (I'm WELL impressed). Now I'm going to reattach the hard drive containing Windows XP (not that I've used it since last year) and I'll have a Triple booting PC! ACE!!!

Open Source on Windows

2009-11-15T19:19:00.001Z

As I can't have a fully functional system with Linux at the moment (till I convince my partner to allow a second tower in the house or I get around to buying an EeePC) I've had to settle with a few Open Source apps that I can run on Windows. I've downloaded a couple so far these are Open Office (OOo as it's referred to) and Pidgin. Of course there are many more Open Source apps out there but I've only gotten around to these two so far.

Open Office is similar to Microsoft Office, it has all the usual apps such as word processing, Spreadsheets, Database, PowerPoint and Drawing. The great thing about OOo is it works in the same way as the Microsoft version so it's simple to use you don't have to relearn everything, also you can open Microsoft documents with it and vice versa, it's compatible with most systems so you don't have to worry about converting files if you use OOo at home and Microsoft at work. The best thing about OOo compared to Microsoft is that it's FREE!!

Pidgin is a chat client that allows you to send instant messages using many existing clients so if you have more than one account you can bring them altogether using this one app. Pidgin works with these IM clients..........

AIM
Bonjour
Gadu-Gadu
Google Talk
Groupwise
ICQ
IRC
MSN
MySpaceIM
QQ
SILC
SIMPLE
Sametime
XMPP
Yahoo!
Zephyr

Both Open Office and Pidgin come already preinstalled with Linux OS so although I can't have the full version at the moment at least I can still have a taste of Open Source on Windows.

Ubuntu Features

2009-11-04T23:36:00.000Z

As I said before I have managed to have a go with Ubuntu on an older system and I'm very impressed. The amount of features available from the offset is a lot more than what you get with a cheap Windows OS. Some Apps include open office, Pigeon, FireFox virtually any open source application available and the list of games are also impressive even with a more expensive version of Windows I haven't seen as many games in one menu.

I had a go Playing Chess and the "GNU" (as it's referred to in Linux) keeps beating me, any time I play against the Windows "CPU" I always win. This just shows you how much more care has gone into developing even the smallest feature available in the Linux OS. Another thing I quite like, is when you click the shutdown option. In Linux once you've clicked on shutdown the computer just turns off in an instant, whereas in Windows once you've clicked shutdown it comes up with messages "application still running do you want to close", then it says "Logging Off" followed by "Windows is shutting down". Basically twenty minutes later and finally the computer turns off.

I've barely scratched the surface with what this OS can do but so far it has me hooked. Not much more has to be done now to convert me from an everyday Windows user to a dedicated Linux die hard.

VM WHERE????????????????

2009-11-03T12:48:00.002Z

I've had to install Ubuntu onto an older system. I'm a bit disappointed in this as all my files etc are on the new system and my partner won't allow me to....

A. have both systems in the house and

B. completely get rid of Windows on the newer system.

I tried a different route. I found out that you can download a free bit of software from VMware called VM Player. This allows you to create a virtual machine on your computer and allows you to run a different OS within your current system. So I thought cool! I logged onto the site and downloaded the software, once I had installed it everything seemed to be going fine but then the computer crashed (a Windows fault not Linux). I tried using it afterwards but it wouldn't work so I thought I'd uninstall and reinstall it.

After uninstalling VM Player I click on the program to reinstall and guess what happened. NOTHING that's what happened NOTHING HAPPENED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm still determined to use Linux, after playing with it on my older system I'm very impressed with it. What I'd like to do now is either get a cheap second hand Laptop with no OS installed or even with no HDD. Or there is the option of buying the new eeePC.

Repetition Repartition!

2009-10-29T22:43:00.000Z

[Taken from an older post from another blog I own]

I thought I nailed it. I thought I discovered the reason why I couldn't get Windows and Linux to dual boot, the drive only had one partition (dominated by Windows). So I decide to go about repartitioning the hard drive to allow both Linux and Windows on the same drive.

I use Gparted, burned it to disc and rebooted the computer. Gparted comes up. Now at this point what I should of done was read the documentation and instructions on how to use it, but eager to get started I jump straight in. The disk drive is displayed in a graphic showing the space and how many partitions it has. So first I click on the partition containing Windows and resize it, then add a new one for Linux. I resize the windows partition again then add a "Linux Swap" partition afterwards resizing the windows partition to make the drive look tidy with no unnecessary unused space. What I didn't realize was that each time I resized the windows partition I was giving Gparted a new command. I click OK. Instead of resizing the windows partition once like it should have, it resized it THREE times!

After clicking OK, Gparted shows a warning saying "depending on the nature and type of operation this may take a long time" I'm thinking it'll probably be a few hours. The estimated time till completion clock goes up and up and up. Basically I started the thing running Monday night at 5pm, it finished at 7am Wednesday! If it hadn't of resized the Windows partition three times it probably wouldn't of taken as long.

So Gparted finishes off and I'm like "well it may have taken a while but it's done now, at least I'll be able to install Ubuntu now". I load the Ubuntu installation disc into the tray and reboot the computer. The Ubuntu logo comes up with the options, I hit enter on the start and install and............................................NOTHING HAPPENS!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

My Linux experience isn't getting off to a good start but I'm determined to get into using it. I'm now looking into a different root and maybe give up on the dual booting idea. I'll keep you posted.

Dual Boot Ubuntu

2009-10-17T17:55:00.001+01:00

[Taken from an older post from a blog I also own]

I have recently taken an interest in Linux. After reading more about it and looking it up over the Internet I decided I'd go ahead and give it a try. There was a lot of information on the Linux OS, Ubuntu. According to a few articles Ubuntu has become a popular operating system and it's easy to use. I also read up on the fact that you can use this (and other operating systems) alongside windows by "Dual Booting". So I thought "best of both worlds", I can start getting into using Linux and still keep Windows, but it didn't work out that easily!

I started by going to the official Linux site (http://www.linux.org/) and reading the tutorials there, then I went to the official Ubuntu site (http://www.ubuntu.com/). Here I could download a copy of the latest version 7.10 and read up some more on dual booting. After downloading, hash sum checking, burning to disc and hash sum checking again I rebooted the computer. The Ubuntu logo came up with some options, at this point I'm thinking "cool". I click on the start and install Ubuntu and.............................................nothing happens!

So I think to myself "I must have done something wrong". So I watch this video on line on how to do it step by step (google video) then I try again and nothing. The next day I'm getting shopping and I spot a Linux Format magazine with a DVD containing Ubuntu. I snap it up with the thought that the DVD might work better than the disc I burned from the computer. I rush home to try it out getting excited about the whole thing. I stick in the disc, reboot the computer, Ubuntu logo comes up with the options again and then NOTHING!

I'm starting to get frustrated at this point. I decide instead of dual booting, I'll just install it on an old hard drive I've got. After checking the drive and formatting it I rip out the drive containing Windows and popped in the blank drive. The installation from then went well and I finally got Ubuntu to work. With spending SO much time trying to get it going I still haven't had a good play around with Ubuntu, but I will. Have to say it does look good. I still want to get the computer to Dual Boot instead of swapping drives about so I'm going to look more into that.

Until I figure out how to successively do a Dual Boot I'll be getting to grips with the actual OS, so I'll let you know how I get on.

2009-10-17T17:46:00.002+01:00

One of Euan's arguments for the Mac is that it's not susceptible to Viruses. This is not true as I found out in this fortnight's Computer Active magazine. There is a news in brief article warning of a new threat to the Mac. Here is the article in full.

"New Trojan War
Security vendor Intego claims to have uncovered a new Trojan attack that targets Apple's OSX operating system. The OSX.RSPlug. A Trojan disguises itself as a program that offers access to a pornographic video. Intego said that malware authors have spammed Mac forums with links to pornographic websites hosting the malware. While secrurity experts agree that such malware would pose a very serious threat to Mac users, it remains unclear just how far the reported Trojan has spread."

http://tinyurl.com/3youno

[Computer Active issue 254]

So Euan better be careful. If he doesn't use anti-virus software and firewall like normal everyday PC users do, he could be in for a shock! I should get a hold of his email address. Maybe I should send him a link to a porno site he might be interested in looking at, Hmmm.

Doctor Who Exhibition Glasgow 2009

2009-10-16T23:28:00.003+01:00

Earlier this summer we went on a trip to Glasgow to see the Doctor Who Exhibition. If you're a bit of a Time Lord fan like myself you may appreciate these pictures.

Website update

2009-09-18T14:27:00.000+01:00

The website is coming together quite nicely though there's still some work to be done on it such as moving the remaining pages still hosted under StruFu.com over to the new domain. There is also plans on adding a new forum and a mailing list SIMULAR to that used by edlug. Hopefully these will encourage users to communicate and share ideas.

We've sent posters to libraries accross the noth in a bid to get the site noticed, any other ideas on promoting the site or other features we could add are most welcome.

2009-09-03T11:27:00.001+01:00

The new site is almost up and running, we've created our logo although we're debating on touching it up sometime in the near future. The site still needs some tidying up but this will be done as we go along. We plan to go fully live as from the 8th September when we've sorted out our domain name after which we'll get to work on advertising the site as much as possible, this includes posting adverts and distributing posters across the North.

We've set up NoS-LUG not to be just another LUG but as a place for other LUGs or potential ones in the North of Scotland to advertise themselves, events etc in a central portal dedicated to the area. With this we hope to achieve a better Linux comunity closer to home by helping local LUGs grow, reach out to new members, collaberate with other groups in the same area or close by and get some more Linux activity buzzing up here.

Many Lugs up this way have come and gone with little or no success, Just check out this list on lugs.org.uk many of the closest lugs are labeled as inactive and as for the Highland lug their forum seems to be a bit quiet these days. We know there are many people up here who use and share an interest in Linux we want to spread the word and make the North of Scotland a more active Linux using comunity