Ask Ubuntu General Room

@MarcoCeppi LOL

@MarcoCeppi a bit difficult for me... should be a skype version also! ;)

@Alvar Well there are at least 300 worldwide - might be one by you!

there is actually LOL

@Alvar Well clear your calendar and attend! :D

@MarcoCeppi that was a oud place to have a meeting.. Staffanstorp isn't a place you really want to go to...

if you don't have to...

there are just a lot of farms around it...

it's a really small town, stupid...

3:07 PM

i just installed japanese for my mint system using the control center language and text utility. then i went to press the button to apply the japanese language across my system and the utility just hangs and nothing changes. is it frozen? is it working?

@Alvar You can start one closer to you - and better :)

cpu is at 8% so it must be frozen

Q: Clean-Up Week - Event planning

3:31 PM

hillo

Oli

@Everybody - We're planning a "clean-up week" to deal with the older, unanswered questions on the site but we need your input!

2

We (your moderators) have been mulling over an idea for a good way to deal with old, unanswered and unanswerable posts. We've been in discussion with the StackExchange team and while we're a long way from actually launching this, we feel it's about time we involve the community and let you help s...

8

Yi Jiang

@Oli That's odd, why wouldn't reps be the 'reward' here?

Certainly seems harder to work with than physical swig

A: Community Promotion Ads - 1H 2011

Love the idea @Oli. Thing is, I'd prefer rep. shrug

Alaukik

just need two votes

4

@JamesGifford You'll get rep - if you answer unanswered questions and do it well :)

3:47 PM

@MarcoCeppi read my reply on Meta. I brought up a few questions, and I also brought up something about the swag. :)

So, I've written this 'modem' program, which translates a unicode string into weird computer-noises (and back). Any ideas on how to test such a thing? I don't have a tape drive or anything like that

@JamesGifford welcome to the 1k rep club

@StefanoPalazzo Why would a tape drive be relevant to that?

@lazyPower Well, the idea is to store your programs on a tape like on a C64

don't ask me why I'm doing this...

looks puzzled and backs away slowly I'm not coming between a man and his legacy C64 fantasies - thats dangerous!

I guess, with two laptops each with built-in microphones, I could try to get them to talk to each other

at 1000 baud :D Actually, I'm going to waste a day trying that out

3:52 PM

@lazyPower Thanks. I'll catch up to you. Eventually. ;)

But blast... my older laptop doesn't have a microphone

@JamesGifford wont take long, i think i'm what, only 40 points your senior?

@StefanoPalazzo you could hack one together using an old speaker coil.

Oli

@YiJiang and @James - Jeff's against the idea. Reputation allows you to do things on the site and I guess he thinks that giving people a shortcut to higher rep levels may let people through without them proving themselves.

But you'll still get rep for answering old answerable questions (providing they're good answers, of course).

As well as badges too! (There are a few that reward giving good answers to super old questions)

Oli

@MarcoCeppi Hopefully.

3:58 PM

@Oli That makes sense.

It does - it's unfortunate, but does make sense from the SE perspective

Makes plenty of sense from SE's side.

@lazyPower I found my mp3 player has a microphone, now I just need to record it again using my computer, to get worse quality

4:11 PM

do chat rooms take up a lot of server power?

@RolandTaylor Depends on the code

I mean here

(on SE)

Ryan

4:34 PM

Hey, if I run the live CD and have hardware that isn't detected/working (HDMI Audio out), is it dumb to ask about it?

@Ryan It's not dumb - but you likely wont' be able to fix it since it's not a persistent environment.

@Ryan like marco says; everything that works on ubuntu, should work on the live cd

Have you tried changing the sound profile in the sound settings under the hardware tab?

But search the site first, it's quite likely your hardware already came up somehwere

Ryan

@marco Yeah, I can change it to "HDMI Digital Out," but the only output device listed is "dummy device"

@marco and when I click "speaker test" the sound dialog crashes :\

4:37 PM

@Ryan That's rough, not sure - but try searching, then you might try asking. Again not sure how much you can fix without a persistent install

hi @TheX & @JamesGifford

Ryan

@Marco of course, the reason that I'm running the LiveCD is to make sure my hardware works before I install :)

@Marco, but yeah, I'll Ask tonight after I get back to that PC

@stefano So if it doesn't come up automatically on the Live CD I can assume it won't get autodetected by the install?

@Ryan I've always had weird issues with HDMI out - sometimes I have to plug in the HDMI cord before starting the machine (for detection) then switch the sound profiles and kill the X server session for the sound to output (This was an older laptop) on my new netbook it works fine

@Ryan correct, all the drivers and things are already included (apart from what are called 'additional drivers', which have to be downloaded - but Ubuntu will let you know about those)

4:56 PM

LOL

:)

5:07 PM

Cool we have network wide profiles now: stackexchange.com/users/2720ab85-1f55-47cb-8833-628420f05e56

@RolandTaylor Yo.

@JamesGifford hey dude

@RolandTaylor What's up?

nm - chatting on jabber ^^

Neato.

5:24 PM

@RolandTaylor you're on AU chat via Jabber?

no :P

I wish :P

btw if anyone wants to add me - I'm rolandixor@jabber.org

oh, ok. I was about to get really excited for a second.

if they open SE chat via jabber O.o that would be insane with possibility since Jabber supports push notifications. You could have it auto-magically push the chat to your cellular device.

O_O

I love that idea.

@JamesGifford settle down meow :P its a pipe dream at present

@lazyPower But it's a awesome dream... :P

5:28 PM

I read about the possibility of it somewhere but I lost track of where

:(

best part is, you could hook it via a web-service for @StefanoPalazzo's lense on AU and you would receive push notifications of your subscribed questions via the lense.

just sayin

and you could find more ways to bug @MarcoCeppi >:)

#winning idea @RolandTaylor

mhm

#Winning idea. That'll get us suspended. :P

5:29 PM

@lazyPower mh.. I could do that now, but not very nicely

:P

I.e. just pull the transcript every few seconds and check for mentions

@StefanoPalazzo that would end up exhausting the API key at some point. probably identify it as abusive.

that would be power hungry with a lot of data D:

@StefanoPalazzo thats why push would be a winning ticket

5:31 PM

@lazyPower ono, that's without the API, I mean literally just downloading the HTML transcript page

(tbh, I've already written that program, but it's oh so horrible...)

@lazyPower I bet that's coming some day, you're certainly not alone in wanting it

5:45 PM

waves

@StefanoPalazzo :) true that

@lazyPower Just explained to a buddy why you shouldn't use sudo apt-get upgrade -y - he just kinda went "O_O" lol. Thanks for explaining that to me.

Np. Glad to share the information ;)

Q: Clean-Up Week - Event planning

5

We (your moderators) have been mulling over an idea for a good way to deal with old, unanswered and unanswerable posts. We've been in discussion with the StackExchange team and while we're a long way from actually launching this, we feel it's about time we involve the community and let you help s...

discussion feature-request featured cleanup

AWESOME! screams

6:05 PM

@JamesGifford They've made headway with the Jabber hack. It's getting there

@OctavianDamiean <3

@MarcoCeppi Awesomesauce.

when does natty go gold?

@TheX 28. April

in 24 days then :D

wiki.ubuntu.com/NattyReleaseSchedule

@TheX yup very soon :)

dang the UDS is soon too!

6:12 PM

Then I have to decide.... unity.... gnome-3

is all excited :D

@TheX let me help you. Unity. :)

@TheX Unity. :)

@OctavianDamiean lol thanks...

@TheX well there is one advantage with letting me decide. You can blame someone else if you don't like it :p

or maybe I could just become an elite hacker and make my own desktop environment...

@OctavianDamiean good point

A: How to improve quality of SO questions/answers?

6:18 PM

0

I'd like to throw in an idea I had today. What would you think about some kind of mentoring program? The principle is very simple. You need one experienced user and one or more new (not so experienced) users. Mentors would get one or more trainees assigned with the aim to teach them how to ask ...

@TheX You should use Ratpoison

nongnu.org/ratpoison

@OctavianDamiean Left a comment.

is it going to kill my furry little friends?

@JamesGifford good question! I'll post that in a sec. :)

@OctavianDamiean Sweet. :)

6:31 PM

@JamesGifford answer updated. :)

@OctavianDamiean Good idea. I was thinking of something like that. Someone else is (And I'll mention that in a few moments) is that you shouldn't enroll people in it by default - it should be a voluntary thing.

@JamesGifford in the mentor/trainee thing or the automated assignment you mean?

@OctavianDamiean list of participants.

@JamesGifford updated my answer :)

@OctavianDamiean I have nothing else to add. Good idea. :)

6:53 PM

now I only need more people to read that idea and comment on whether they think it might help or not :)

Well, I just tweeted it, and I'll also forward a link to a few SO buddies. :)

@JamesGifford nice, thanks :)

@OctavianDamiean You're welcome. :)

Quick question... is 54 C too hot for a notebook HD?

@GeorgeEdison Mines 76 C....

6:59 PM

@GeorgeEdison that sounds fine, slightly high perhaps. Mine always was at around 50°

ah

:D

Oh wait. temp1 is my CPU I think.... not sure.

checks

@GeorgeEdison nice! :D

@GeorgeEdison temp1 is my CPU. I don't think I have a sensor for my HDD.

can't really tell on a notebook but my WD Velociraptors are always between 25° and max. 30° C :)

@OctavianDamiean Aren't those desktop HD's though?

Does anyone know if 55 C (what it's at now) is too hot?

7:12 PM

@GeorgeEdison they are, I just have no notebook at hand right now

@GeorgeEdison don't really think so

@OctavianDamiean I don't want to sound doubtful, ('cuz I don't know any better) but is there a source for that?

I just need re-assurance :)

@GeorgeEdison codinghorror.com/blog/2006/12/…

Hmmm... is there a way to manually turn up the fan speed?

I would trust Jef :)

@GeorgeEdison Should be able to adjust them with a command line call that escapes me at the moment.

7:14 PM

@GeorgeEdison you have a fan for the HDD?

No. (Not that I know of.)

@GeorgeEdison you're talking about your case fans, right?

@MarcoCeppi Right.

hold on are we talking about a desktop or a notebook still?

Notebook.

It has a fan at the back.

^--- There's the sensors.

7:21 PM

Hehe, "metric" temperatures

All of these temperatures are idle temperatures. The CPU has been hovering around 4% or so for the last couple hours.

HDD on left, CPU in center, video on right.

Are your fans running ATM?

Very slowly.

really simple question. Does anyone know how to add stuff to awn stacks applet?

The "other" StackApplet :)

7:25 PM

I drag icons from the linux mint launcher into the stacks applet box but they don't go in

there's gotta be a way to put stuff in there. I know I'm missing something

Or maybe you are not allowed to launch applications from it O_o

is it only for files or folders?

@JoshuaRobison Might be - I don't use AWN

aw lame. it looks like it only works with folders or files

Just like the Crapple stack tool :)

awn is great so im not too disappointed. cant really argue with something that's cool and free

Cairo Dock is pretty good.

7:33 PM

@GeorgeEdison thanks. ill check it out

ive been using mint the past couple days and I have to say... im addicted

I am so amazed at how far linux has come

I'm wondering why linux takes 8gigs to run though. that doesn't seem right .

@JoshuaRobison 8 Gb Disk or Ram?

disk

I installed a usb stick with linux mint.

Well - it depends on the flavor you get - really the linux kernel only needs 250MB of diskspace. Start adding things like xserver, applications, driver support, etc and you can get upwards of 700MB for the basic, start adding the entire application catalog and you can get upwards of 10GB

it is 8gig stick and I only have 500mb left

i have a feeling though since this is a usb with a persistant live install that there are some clones of stuff that I really should trash

@JoshuaRobison marco has a valid point, and to say "linux" like that is unfair when comparing it on a branded distribution like ubuntu/mint. There are "lean" distributions out there that are sub 100mb, and come as a "roll your own system" solution.

7:41 PM

I thought I had a copy of the kernel on this machine - but it doesn't appear I do

case in point:

cybernetnews.com/puppy-linux-30-weighs-in-under-100mb

hmm. there must be someway to know what I don't need and work backwards, though

greetings, everyone

@lazyPower Yeah, PuppyLinux is great.

It was my first Linux distro, in fact.

I started with Knoppix :)

7:46 PM

started with Ubuntu 9.04 as his first linux distro :P

you people make me feel old

lol?

Old voice, but not that old I started with an Apple I and Commodore 64 that I hot-wired to my Atari

started using linux in 1997/98, I think it was

slaps @MarcoCeppi with an old Windows 98 image stored across 789 1.44MB floppy disks

that's for starting with Apple :P

7:52 PM

I remember installing debian from floppy disks as well :P

@MarcoCeppi can i get a relink to the so meetup page?

@lazyPower meetup.com/stackoverflow/DHS-MD/82562

I see there's even a SO meetup in NZ

@ajmitch Over 400 communities! :D

and none listed in this city! :)

which I sort of expected

7:57 PM

@ajmitch You could always start your own :)

takes effort

@ajmitch Yeah, no kidding

It's at 56 now.

@Marco: Is 56 too hot?

@GeorgeEdison dunno, I don't track my temps

@GeorgeEdison what system you running on?

i track temps for a variety of system architectures

8:00 PM

@EvilPhoenix It's a Centrino Duo.

eww Centrino

(It's a notebook, btw.)

true

gimme one sec lemme pull up my log data

@GeorgeEdison I have a laptop that overheats, hard drives have issues past about 58C or so

all laptops run hot

i've got a Core 2 Duo in this laptop here

8:01 PM

some hotter than others

its running at 65C - 75C

@EvilPhoenix Right... the CPU is at 56.

any hotter and it yells at me

@GeorgeEdison that's not crazy hot

It's the HDD I'm worried about.

@GeorgeEdison if it starts to stay around, say, 85C - 95C, you have an issue

as for the disk drive

if we look at this system i'm on, its at 86C right now temp for the CPU because i'm compiling a lot

the disk drive is at 45C

that's the typical disk drive temp

8:03 PM

Hrm. And that's a notebook?

mhm

my netbook runs even hotter :P

yes, i said my netbook

Then 56 is pretty hot.

I've seen this system's disk drive temp skyrocket to 75C

at 76C i have a notification that says "Shutting down NOW: Thermal Overheat", system shuts down 60 seconds later

on the disk drive temp of course

: ( gparted tells me I've got 3gigs of space on this disk but when I open a file browser it tells me only 590mb ?!?

CPU temp shuts off the system at 106C

8:05 PM

@EvilPhoenix That is too hot!

damn right

@GeorgeEdison the temp at this system right now is at 95C on the CPU, but i just started a 4th consecutive compile of software (and two of the compiles are on a vbox'd image, for software testing).

I've done it then. That's a day I'll never get back

►

So is there a command to force the fan to kick it up a notch?

@GeorgeEdison that's partly controlled by the BIOS and motherboard coding, there may be some command to kick it up a notch, if there is I dont use it (because the fan on this system isnt very good either >.>)

@StefanoPalazzo what the heck is the purpose of that, out of curiosity :/

@StefanoPalazzo its still funny, regardless :P

I just like colorful text and things making noise

8:10 PM

@EvilPhoenix I don't even get it.

:P

Hang on... I'm going to try putting the notebook on a cooling mat.

@GeorgeEdison yeah, i have 3 cooling pads, one's for this system, the other is for my netbook, the third is just sitting there without a complete purpose right now :/

I've now got it raised off the desk... we'll see if that helps.

@MarcoCeppi i'll certainly be there now. I just got the entire trip comp'd as a business trip.

@MarcoCeppi Start thinking about where to go for lunch on wednesday. I'm supposed to be taking people out on the company.

8:13 PM

@lazyPower hah! That rules - how long will you be in DC?

Wed morning till Thursday evening :)

Maybe friday morning

depends on how long he booked the Hotel for

Nice! I work in Georgetown so if you wanted to grab lunch Wed before the meetup I know a few good places

Hey... it's dropping!

55 now.

@StefanoPalazzo That's...really awesome. I could think of a few applications for this... :)

@MarcoCeppi Deff. a possiblity. I'll get in touch with you soon to plan it.

8:15 PM

@lazyPower sweet!

@MarcoCeppi I wish I still had my commodore :-(

oh snap, my CPU temp spiked to 105C disables all running compiles, limits CPU running frequency to half of max

No idea what possessed me to give it away, but I suppose they should be pretty affordable by now

checks ebay

yeah it's about 60€ without the tape drive, but who needs that :P

hey @StefanoPalazzo

the google books lens guy says he got an API key from the blekko guys

evening @JorgeCastro :-)

8:19 PM

also, hi!

@EvilPhoenix You need liquid cooling :)

@GeorgeEdison I need to stop compiling software and running vbox'd systems on a laptop :P

although i'm REALLY glad about my internet speed, my computer could use some changes >.>

@JorgeCastro I can't find any info about a blekko api :O

@EvilPhoenix I get 1.2MB/s :P

heh

@GeorgeEdison on a good day i get 30Mb/s down, 10Mb/s up :P

8:25 PM

@MarcoCeppi I'll be staying at the Helix Kimpton hotel

Arrive: 04/05/11 Depart: 04/07/11 -- sooo

@lazyPower Lucky - you're right by Fathom Creative - walking distance

That was the idea ;)

spend as little of my own cash as possible \o/

@lazyPower You're about 2 miles away from my office - There are a lot of good places around there. Your office knows how to pick a good location :D

do you really want to brag about good up/down speeds, you know I will win! ;)

@StefanoPalazzo Try here first: blekko.com/ws/+/contact

8:31 PM

dev-ops.net/2011/02/02/…

aha!

I wonder if it will end up working better than the native thing

heh, that's a bit secretive

interesting

wimp.com/ballbach

Mh. I wonder why they say "You should note that it prohibits practically all interesting uses of the blekko API."

I don't know anything about their API or what could be done

8:35 PM

@StefanoPalazzo Probably things like gettting domain stats, and other special slashtag things

Q: Using update manager to upgrade from Ubuntu 8 to 10.04 LTS leaves me with 'kernel panic'

I hate reading questions like this:

0

I recently used the update manager to upgrade my laptop from Ubuntu 8 to 10.04 LTS. When I tried to reboot after the upgrade was complete, I got the message kernel panic not syncing: vfs : unable to mount root FS on unknown block. If I try to boot into recovery mode, I get the same problem. I...

kernel update-manager

where someone's system has been left in an unusable state, it's not good

@JorgeCastro Well I can't really evaluate it without a key. Without one at least, it's really really slow. I should probably talk to the Books Lens person

@MarcoCeppi trying to get my VP of operations to come with me too

@lazyPower Nice!

this has become a big thing around the office :D

8:39 PM

Lol... my HD is the hotest thing in my case.

@lazyPower You should get your company to sponsor the food would make my budget happy

@StefanoPalazzo he's in IRC now

@StefanoPalazzo I was thinking maybe we should ask for a key just to give it a shot

but not like, waste too much time on it

@JorgeCastro who is he?

davidcalle

that's #ayatana?

8:52 PM

@MarcoCeppi I've got authorization to take some people that program .net out to lunch on the company to make business contacts :)

so, learn .net real quick :P

@lazyPower Already know some ASP.NET :D

@StefanoPalazzo yeah

@JorgeCastro thanks a lot for the tip, who knows, maybe this turns out to be really good

<davidcalle> There is no url, but you can ask a key and some doc at apiauth@blekko.com , the guy seems well versed in Ubuntu novelties and open to give keys.

does bzr really have to ask my key every time I branch, or am I imagining things?

it's 35 characters long :-/

9:00 PM

I don't think it should be doing that

@StefanoPalazzo Depends - does your key have a passphrase?

@JorgeCastro also, for the first time (in real software), I just discovered that I have some copyright on the books lens, without knowing about it or being responsible for it. That's nice!

@MarcoCeppi yeah, I guess I should just create a new one

no idea why I did that (:

hehe, yeah - branching is a networked action

I have what I call "throw away" keys which are passphrase less for things like bzr access and git access to public repositories

that's why it doesn't use the keyring?

dunno if that's why or not - but if it's asking for a passphrase it's probably because it's doing something on the LP servers

9:03 PM

makes sense

@lazyPower Not gonna lie, I'm jealous that you're able to go to a SE meetup. I can't get the right folks to return my emails for a Cleveland meetup. :P