networking questions

[Eric S. Johansson]

alain.muls at telenet.be wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> A couple of anoyance I have with breezy: 1. ntp at boot does not sync
> my clock (same behavior as under hoary). I already changed the
> ntp-server in /etc/ntp.conf and added the IP in /etc/hosts so that no
> DNS lookup is necessary.

very strange.  Breezy just uses NTP date which is fine for setting the 
time and date once but not so good for ongoing time maintenance.

if you have a good NTP server and network connectivity, install 
ntp-simple and its dependencies.  Otherwise, just live with 
synchronizing once a reboot.

two more hints:

don't forget to start and stop as sudu.  the scripts will not tell you 
that you screwed up.

log messages will be found in /var/log/syslog

Nov  2 07:10:41 localhost ntpdate[26840]: step time server 82.211.81.145 
offset 1.111518 sec

haven't seen any messages from NTP at but, I will.



> 2. how can I duplicate my specific firefox settings (themes &
> extensions) to another user on the system, or better, can I install
> once these themes and extensions so that all users will have the same
> settings 

that's a real good question.  I know that Thunderbird/Mozilla has a 
place to put common Java/JavaScript.  After searching a little bit, this 
maybe it.

/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/defaults

locate and grep is your friend.

>3. I have in the classroom a ubuntu system and want to
> graphically login to it from my office. I can launch individual
> programs over a ssh connection and work, but I would like to know if
> and how it is possible to get the full desktop available on my VT8
> terminal?

I'm not sure about that terminal but enable remote desktop and use one 
of the three variants on vnc.

  4. On my DELL Inspiron 5100 I have a port replicator from
> TARGUS (Model PA090) connecting to one of the USB ports of my PC.
> Sometimes Gnome finds the printer connected to the USB port
> (/dev/lpUSB ???), sometimes it does not. If the connection is found,
> than the printer (Lexmark Optra T614) is mostly in sleep mode and for
> each print job I have to enable it several times. At the moment the
> printer is not detected at all and I have no printing capability. A
> solution someone?

does unplugging and replugging do anything?  What's in the logs?  if 
it's anything like my Dell I5000, you will see a lot of

Nov  2 05:05:08 localhost kernel: [5041396.952000] read EC, IB not empty
Nov  2 05:05:08 localhost kernel: [5041397.002000] read EC, OB not full
Nov  2 05:05:08 localhost kernel: [5041397.002000]     ACPI-0423: *** 
Error: Handler for [EmbeddedControl] returned AE_TIME
Nov  2 05:05:08 localhost kernel: [5041397.002000]     ACPI-0508: *** 
Error: Method execution failed [\_SB_.BAT0._BST] (Node dfac8160), AE_TIME

but that's conversation for another message.

Seriously, you should see some messages about devices being unplugged 
and recognized etc. etc..  What do you get?


--- eric