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Desktop Adapted Dad

Desktop Adapted for Dad

“DAD”

The ideas in this page came from my project to give my retired father a computer running Debian Sarge. All the ideas can be transplanted to any modern Linux distribution, and most of these ideas should work with any desktop system. I used KDE and found it easy to configure, others will no doubt add comments on the other desktop systems.

Introduction

My father is in his late 60s, and has never used a computer before, though he has seen others use them. There are a lot of people that now fall [continued…]

2nd September2006

When: 10:30 – 16:30, Saturday 2nd September 2006

Where: ParkHallChurchHall

[[TechTalks]]

You’ll find slides, video and other media from the talks on the TechTalks/2ndSeptember2006 page.

Who was there

Pcmcia And DHCP

Debian uses /etc/network/interfaces to configure network interfaces to request an IP address from a DHCP server with a line like:

iface eth0 inet dhcp

However if you are using a PCMCIA card as your NIC you should also check your /etc/pcmcia/network.opts file and ensure that there is a line DHCP=”y” and that there is no setting for a static IP address.

A static IP address setting is likely to be found in this file if the Laptop has been setup to use a static IP address prior to wanting to use a DHCP server. The /etc/pcmcia/network.opts file [continued…]

One Disk To Another

Introduction

Usually when one gets some new hardware (say, a new hard drive) they want to use it, and replace their old one. But just how does one go about copying/creating partitions on the new drive, and then copy the data across safely? It’s not quite as simple as a “cp” command….

The Theory

If you are copying from one filesystem to another, they both have to be mounted. However, you can’t mount both the old and the new filesystem on the same place, as you will only be able to see one of them.

The [continued…]

4th October2003

When: 10:30 – 17:00, Saturday 4th October 2003 Where: Seminar Room 1, Building 59 (Zepler), Department of Electronics & Computer Science, Southampton University.

<b>Who was there:</b>