[Nottingham] NLUG Desktop Fix-it Evening - my writeup

[pat]

Hi everyone,

Can I just start off by saying how much I enjoyed the meet on Thursday. 
Looking forward to the next one, work permitting.

I managed to get one of my issues sorted (Qemu install/ setup) before my 
keyb was borrowed for the "XP killing any other OS competition in sight" 
issue. It looked at first as if it wouldn't be a major issue but XP had 
done a good job of screwing things up. Most of the things being done to 
cure the issue was going above my head but it was interesting none the 
less, especially as all was being shown on the projector - sooo jealous 
;-) - almost an "I want one of those..." moment. Anyway, the problem was 
sorted, my keyb was returned and all too soon, it was time to go.

I managed to pick up a few tips to help me with general use with the 
commandline, I have a version of Qemu that works but not had a chance to 
try as yet due to my shifts and was reminded that I need to replace the 
present cdrom drive or add a dvd drive so I can use my LFX discs direct 
and not through my network. I had bought the pc through Ebuyer and it 
came with a normal cdr drive and I always meant to get that sorted but 
managed to get round it but now a priority.

Anyway, thanks for the help martin, and for being so patient with me 
(while having numerous questions being fired at you while sorting the 
Qemu issue) and thanks to everyone else for making the evening so 
enjoyable.

As a final note, can I just say that we have very talented and 
knowledeable people in the group. It's also a friendly group and I 
recomend anyone thinking about going to a meet actually go. After the 
first time you go to a meet, you'll wonder what you were worried about.

Thanks again guys.

Anyway, time to sleep,
Pat


Martin wrote:
> Michael Erskine wrote:
> 
>> NLUG Desktop Fix-it Evening
>>
>> Last night's NLUG meeting was quite a success: for some time
> 
> [---]
> 
> Michael, good idea and good writeup.
> 
> 
> [---]
> 
>> We managed to get the Navigation Inn as our venue again but
>> not on our usual night. It worked out pretty good however to
>> shift from Weds to Thurs and we got a pretty good turnout.
> 
> 
> Should we alternate between Weds & Thurs? How many people would this 
> affect or indeed prefer this?
> 
> 
> [---]
> 
>> Newcomer, Ray had a multi-boot AMD Duron 800 with SUSE 10.2,
>> an old Mandriva install, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. The
>> XP install had wiped out the master boot record (surprise,
>> surprise!) and so the Linux installs were rendered
>> "invisible". ...
> 
> 
> I suspect that one of the Mandriva partitions had been overwritten by 
> WinXP and then there was a little confusion due to the other multiple 
> partitions of parts of whichever multiple distros.
> 
> 
> [---]
> 
>> Andy B and Stef were discussing their quandry of cloning
>> BootCamp installs over firewire on 50-60 Apple Intel boxes.
> 
> 
> I've just done a multiple machine "ghosting" using Ubuntu live cds and 
> deft use of bzip2, fifos, and "ssh -c blowfish" to optimise wifi 
> bandwidth to 12 machines. Linux is indeed very flexible!
> 
> But there must be a (better solution) single disk open source "ghosting" 
> of "dd | bzip" solution out there somewhere that supports tcp/udp 
> multicast...?
> 
> 
>> Marcel had brought in his excellent laptop and apologised
> 
> 
> And a very beautiful machine too. No chance for me to beat him at 3d chess!
> 
> 
>> With my MAME laptop through the data projector I was able to
>> demonstrate my dual-PlayStation2-to-USB adapter to Patrick
>> Gustafson by playing Salamander projected on the wall!
> 
> 
> Nicely entertaining too over a beer :-)
> 
> 
> [---]
> 
>> problem with /dev/null (of all things). Enter resident gub
>> expert, Roger Light! He hand-copied a grub config from
>> another machine and had a grub MBR installed pretty quickly.
>> For some reason grub wouldn't provide the desired list of
> 
> [---]
> 
> The projector view of hackings in progress was very good fun to watch! A 
> little like spectating at a cricket match or watching a "Dr Kildare" 
> operation...
> 
> 
>> I thoroughly enjoyed this meeting and I think we should hold
>> these events quite regularly as it really helps people out
> 
> 
> I agree.
> 
> 
> The evening has spawned a few talks interesting to those there. Looks 
> like our calender will get updated in advance rather than retrospectively!
> 
> 1: Database bashing: from csv to MySQL/Postgres to a pretty web page
> 2: How to compile your first piece of source code
> 3: Desktop hints and tips: Where to click!
> 
> 
> Good interesting fun.
> 
> Cheers all,
> Martin
> 


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