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LINUX GAZETTE
TABLE OF CONTENTS ISSUE #9
Copyright (c) 1996 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.
For information regarding copying and distribution of this material see
the COPYING document.
_________________________________________________________________
* The Front Page
* The MailBag
* More 2 Cent Tips
+ Emacs Control M Trick
+ XTerm Title Trick 2
+ VI Trick -- Commenting Code
+ Newbie Tip on Find
+ Masquerading with SendMail
+ Linux Upgrade
* News Bytes
* Binstats: Finding Unusable Binaries, by Larry Ayers
* The Easy Way to Set Up a Local News Server, by Christophe Blaess
* FileRunner: A New Tk/Tcl File Manager, by Larry Ayers
* Getting Up and Running on StarOffice 3.1, by Dwight W. Johnson
* YODL: A New, Easy-To-Use Text Formatting Language, by Larry Ayers
* The Back Page
_________________________________________________________________
Got any great ideas for improvements! Send your comments, criticisms,
suggestions and ideas.
_________________________________________________________________
This page written and maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette,
gazette@ssc.com
"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun! "
_________________________________________________________________
The MailBag!
_________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 06 Aug 1996 08:45:27 -0500
From: "Andrew R. Cook" andy@anchtk.chm.anl.gov
To: fiskjm@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu
Subject: Linux Gazette comment
Hi John,
Thanks for taking the time for putting together the Gazette. I hope
you have some time left over for doing work for your employer !!! I
trust/hope that Phil Hughes will be able to keep the Gazette going ...
I've certainly enjoyed the Gazette over the last year. One comment
though. In the most recent issue (#8) the format has changed so that
the Gazette is no longer (easily) printable, but is split among many
pages. I know this is supposed to be an e-zine, but I liked the old
format better :-(. I'd hazard to guess that I'm not alone in this, but
probably in the minority..... Any chance of putting an organized
single postscript file on the ftp site? That way those of us loosers
who like to read from paper at our leisure (and don't have laptops,
sigh..) can still easily print out a copy of the Gazette. This may
understandably not fly with Phil, but I thought I'd suggest it and see
what happens anyway!
Thanks again for all your work!
-Andy Cook
andy@anchtk.chm.anl.gov
(Yes, you are in the minority, and I must say it is much easier for
me if the Gazette is in a multi-part format. As a result, it's very
likely to stay in multi-part format. However, you should note that
it can be downloaded as one file from the SSC ftp site --
ftp.ssc.com/lg/. So you could download it, convert it to
postscript, print it and read at your leisure. We're not going to
do all the work for you -- that would take all the fun out of it.
:-) --Editor)
_________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 1996 20:44:20 -0500 (CDT)
From: Larry Ayers layers@vax2.rain.gen.mo.us
To: gazette@ssc.com
Subject: A Few Choice Gleanings From the FTP Sites
This month I've found some really nice utilities and programs in the
incoming directories of the Linux archive sites. If any of you LG
readers find (or have written) a program you're excited about, and
don't have the time or inclination to write a piece for the Gazette,
drop me a line telling me what you like about it and its location.
I'll include a piece on it in next month's issue.
* Binstats: Finding Unusable Binaries
* FileRunner: A New Tk/Tcl File Manager
* YODL: A New, Easy-To-Use Text Formatting Language
Larry
(Larry has done a great job as usual on letting us know about new
products and releases. Thanks, Larry, for your contributions.
--Editor)
_________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1996 14:27:34 -0700 (PDT)
From: hans@mlsoft.com (Hans D. Swildens)
To: gazette@ssc.com
Subject: Microline Software Free LINUX GUI Version
I don't know if you are aware, but we have a free LINUX advanced GUI
toolkit (based on the Microline Widget Library for Motif) on our ftp
site www.mlsoft.com. The MWL was used to build Netscape Navigator for
UNIX and is used for mission critial applications by AT&T, 3Com,
Merrill Lynch, Canon, Netscape, Sun, SGI, etc.
Please download our free LINUX version. We would like to be reviewed
or mentioned in the Linux Journal to get the word out. Since we are
giving it away for free, we can not pay for an ad, etc. We welcome
your feedback and hope that the LINUX community enjoys the free
download.
Hans Swildens
Microline Software
hans@mlsoft.com
www.mlsoft.com
(Okay, here's your chance to see your name in print. Let me know
that you have downloaded the software and want to do the review.
I'll see that it gets in both Linux Gazette and Linux Journal.
First come, first serve. --Editor)
_________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 12:25:02 -0400
From: MikKass@aol.com
To: gazette@ssc.com
Subject: MindQ Publishing Inc.'s Intro to Programming Java Applets
Dear Editor:
"I'm a programmer and I want to spend a few hours getting acquainted
with Java applet programming. Is there a faster way to learn than
books?" "I'm not a programmer, but I want to learn about Java without
wading through Dweeb books. Is there a way?" "My programmers are
learning Java and I want to keep up without being overwhelmed. How do
I do that?"
These are comments we overheard at the Web Interactive Show in New
York this month. The point? It's not just hard-core techies who want
to learn about Java--or have time to read the books. So where do the
rest of us go?
MindQ Publishing Inc.'s "Intro. to Programming Java Applets" is a
multimedia CD-ROM tutorial designed to teach all of the above--using
animation, audio, video and hypertext. Experienced programmers can use
the hyperlinked table of contents to find exactly what they need.
Newbies can jump on any one of five tours. People inbetween can use a
combo. All of them can use the Java Developers Kit, or the Launch
button to go right to other Java-related programs or websites (when
the Launch capability is activated). The program retails for $49.95,
but I can provide you with an eval copy. Please email me:
MikKass@aol.com, or call me (203)323-4166. Thanks. I look forward to
hearing from you.
Cordially,
Michael Kassin
_________________________________________________________________
The following letters are from authors who will be having articles in
the Linux Gazette soon.
_________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 17 Aug 1996 19:07:19 -0400
From: Randy Appleton randy@dcs.uky.edu
To: gazette@ssc.com Subject: Re: WANTED: Linux Gazette Needs Writers
I might be the sort of person you are looking for. I've been hacking
on the kernel since around version 0.8. I'm a new professor looking to
get my name published. I'm teaching a class in System Administration
using Linux, and I've written before. Does this sound like the
qualifications for writers for the Linux Journal? How do I get an
article in the Linux Journal?
-Thanks
-Randy
(Sounds qualified to me. See the Author section on the Front Page
for more information. --Editor)
_________________________________________________________________
Date: Sun, 18 Aug 1996 21:46:00 -0500 (CDT)
From: "jwhyche" jwhyche@scott.net
To: gazette@ssc.com
Subject: Writers Needed
I read on Usenet where you are looking for writers for Linux Gazette.
If you would send me some information on what is required.
Thank you,
(Again, see the information found in the Author section on the Front
Page. --Editor)
_________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 1996 13:37:12 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Olof Svensson d95olofs@dtek.chalmers.se
To: gazette@ssc.com
Subject: Re: WANTED: Linux Gazette Needs Writers
Hey.
I would like to write some small articles for the Gazette. Like some
novice articles that were in the early articles in LJ. Or maybe it is
interesting to review some new products or small articles on how to
set up different network features.
Yours sincerely, Olof S (and of course I will spellcheck my articles)
(Spellchecking is nice -- also formatting them in HTML. --Editor)
_________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 17 Aug 1996 17:15:41 -0500
From: Morrissey moz@hti.net
To: gazette@ssc.com
Subject: Re: tips & tricks
I would like to contribute to the Linux Gazette. I have just put a
link to the Linux Gazette because of the tips and tricks articles!
----------------------------------------------------
"I wear blue on the outside, 'cause blue |Richard
is how I feel in the inside." --morrissey.|N=FA=F1ez
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
http://ww.hti.net/~moz/moz.htm ;personal page
http://ww.hti.net/~moz/ ;business page
(Thanks for the link. Mr. Nunoz's home page is pretty cool.
--Editor)
_________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 17 Aug 1996 14:06:54 +0200
From: Manuel Soriano dpsys10@dapsys.ch
To: gazette@ssc.com
Subject: Ideas for Linux Gazette
Hello Marjorie
First, excuse me, my english is not very fluent.
I have several articles, covering general topics, of the intallation
and configuration of Linux, test of soft, etc... but all in spanish.
My idea is to make a new section on Linux Gazette in others languages
than english.
This will put LG in a new dimension and, why not, LJ :-)
What do you think about ?
Bye
Manu
\|/ dpsys10@dapsys.ch
O-O manu@ctv.es
*****---oOo-(_)-oOo---**********************************************
* Manuel Soriano * El Perello/Valencia/Spain *
(Why not, indeed. Let's try it. An article from Manuel will appear
in Issue 10. --Editor)
_________________________________________________________________
[ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Next
This page written and maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette,
gazette@ssc.com
"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun! "
_________________________________________________________________
More 2<> Tips!
_________________________________________________________________
CONTENTS:
* Emacs Control M Trick
* XTerm Title Trick 2
* VI Trick -- Commenting Code
* Newbie Tip on Find
* Masquerading with SendMail
* Linux Upgrade
_________________________________________________________________
EMACS CONTROL M TRICK
Date: Fri, 09 Aug 1996 20:15:45 -0500
From: David Ishee <ishee@erc.msstate.edu>
To: fiskjm@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu
Subject: $0.02 tip for removing Control M in emacs
After looking at issue 8 about how to remove the pesky Control-M
character in vi (vim or whatever) I had to also tell how it could be
done in emacs. Say you loaded up a file that has the ^M all over the
place. No problem, say M-x replace-string RET C-q C-M RET RET and
you're done. Emacs rulz!!
David
_________________________________________________________________
XTERM TITLE TRICK 2
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 20:45:39 +0100
From: Caolan McNamara
To: fiskjm@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu
Subject: XTerm title tricks in Linux Gazette #6.
Just scanning through back issues and came across the tip to keep the
hostname of the machine your currently logged into in your xterm
titlebar (and wanted to add my 2 cents).
I work in a room of 30 linux boxes, so to keep track of which one I'm
logged into despite logging in from one to another and logging out, I
put
alias precmd 'echo -n "\033]2;"`hostname`"\007"'
(course anything could be put here)
in my .cshrc. Keeps my titlebar updated at all times. As a precmd its
run after every command but its a tiny overhead and steps around the
issue of trying to detect log-outs.
C.
--
Real Life: Caolan McNamara Local: caolan@skynet
College: 9312811@ul.ie Quote: Happiness is a small sig.
_________________________________________________________________
VI TRICK--COMMENTING CODE
Date: Fri, 23 Aug 96 10:30:06 EDT
From: dane@cci.com (Daniel Engel)
To: gazette@ssc.com
Subject: vi trick
This is how you comment in a block of code using vi:
:START,ENDs/^/# /
where START is the starting line number and END is the ending line
number.
i.e. :10,30s/^/# /
comments in line 10 through line 30 of the current buffer (file).
same idea can be used for indentation and/or commenting out.
d. at Nortel (dane@cci.com)
_________________________________________________________________
NEWBIE TIP ON FIND
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1996 12:38:12 -0600 (MDT)
From: murphyc@cadvision.com(Jim Murphy)
To: gazette@ssc.com
Subject: Article submission: Newbie Tip on Finding
Hi,
As a new linuxer, I had a hard time finding my way around the
filesystem, and discovered that I often had to find a file for some
reason or other. I knew the find command was out there, but
remembering all the options required to make it search the right
places, find the right files, and print the right answers was
something I couldn't do, at first. So I made up my own command, using
a shell script, and called it "fnd".
"fnd" takes one argument, the name of the file you want to locate,
complete with any wildcards you may wish to include, and pipes its
output to "less", which then allows you to view a large list of
results. What you get, on each line of output, is the complete path to
anything which you're looking for! I find it amazingly useful (as is a
rough familiarity with the "less" command.) Here's my script:
#!/bin/bash
find / -iname $1 -mount -print |less
That's it! The -iname option tells find to be case insensitive, the $1
is a variable which subs in your commandline argument, -mount tells
find not to descend directories on other file systems like your cd-ROM
(because mine is wonky and locks up the machine if it is accessed;).
The -print option is required or you don't get any output! (Get used
to it, it's *nix...) The | symbol tells find to direct its output to
the "less" command so you can see your results in style! Don't forget
the / right after the find command, or it won't know where to look. -
Enjoy! You won't regret the time you spend keying in this little
shortcut, and don't forget to put it in a "bin" or "sbin" directory
after chmod'ing it to be executable.
Jim Murphy
murphyc@cadvision.com
_________________________________________________________________
MASQUERADING WITH SENDMAIL
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 1996 21:49:27 +0100 (GMT+0100)
From: "Robert S. Wolfram"
To: gazette@ssc.com
Subject: Masquerading with sendmail
Hi Marjorie,
First of all, I think it is wonderful that John devoted that much of
his spare time to start and maintain the Linux Gazette. I am happy to
see that it is being continued. Keep up this beautiful project!
I was very pleased with Leifs Queue-R-Mail Howto, published in issue 6
of the Gazette, but I was still left with one drawback. I have a PPP
dialup account at a local provider, and when sending remote mail, the
"From" address and "Return Path" should be masqueraded to match my
address at the provider. If I would fill the $M macro in my
'sendmail.cf' (as installed by Slackware 3.0), it would only change my
domain, so it needed some adjustment. I made some direct changes to
'sendmail.cf', but I did make a backup before trying anything! Here
are the changes I made:
> # Before the edits
First of all, I filled the $M macro for masquerading my domain and added
a $N macro for masquerading my username:
> DM
Disable masquerading for the local mailer in ruleset 40:
> R$* $: $1 @ $M add local qualification
Include username in remote mail masquerading (rulesets 31 and 61):
> R$* $@ $1 $M is defined -- use it
$@ $N $M is defined -- use it
> R$+ $: $1 user w/o host
user w/o host
If you send your mail as root, you might want to remove its special
treatment:
> #CLroot
> CEroot
After sending 'sendmail' a HUP signal, my mail got masqueraded so that
the receiver could just reply to the correct mailbox.
Two remarks:
First, to find ruleset xx, just search for Sxx in the beginning of a line.
Secondly, tab characters between the fields in the rewriting rules
are REQUIRED!!! Make sure you do not change those into spaces!
Well, those were my $0.02. I hope it was still readable.
Cheers,
Rob.
Rob S. Wolfram 0wolfram01@lelystad.flnet.nl rwolfram@wi.leidenuniv.nl
W3: http://www.flnet.nl/~0wolfram01
=========================================================================
L I N U X : T H E C H O I C E O F A G N U G E N E R A T I O N
=========================================================================
__________________________________________________________________________
LINUX UPGRADE
__________________________________________________________________________
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1996 11:02:03 -0400
From: David Bourgin dbourgin@wsc.com
Organization: WSC Technologies, Inc.
To: linux@ssc.com
Subject: Linux upgrade
Hello,
Since this FAQ is comes up a very often in comp.os.linux.*,
and since it's already mentioned in kernels 2.0.12+ in
/linux/Documentation/Changes and in some News papers
(still one contacting me today: The editor of the german magazine
UNIXopen.) without any request from us.
So I'm going to ask for you to put something in your interesting
magazine. It's is how to avoid a lot of problem when upgrading
a Linux box. There's a easy way, and some scripts to run.
All the stuff is free, and is available by ftp, located at:
ftp://ftp.wsc.com/pub/freeware/linux/update.linux/
The upgrade is full, it means it will upgrade any system
from 1.2.x (sorry I didn't test any earlier setup).
It will be right for anyone from new Linux users to experts
(no knowledge is required, no questions are done: all
is detected and worked fine for all people who tested,
except non-Lilo users since I force Lilo v19 to install.
This will change next.)
All the upgrade is always up to date, and only fully tested
packages are included (!). For example, I didn't install
kernel 2.0.5 when it comes out since I've found out a bug
in the code (reported to Linus who did 2.0.6 as a patch).
Current upgrade contains:
* New kernel: 2.0.x
* New gcc: 2.7.2
* New libc: 5.4.2
* New libg: 2.7.1.4
* New ld.so: 1.8.1
* New bin utils 86: 0.3
* New modules: 2.0.0
* New make: 3.74
* New lilo: 19
* New autoconf 2.10
* New binary utilities 2.6.0.15 (2.7 only works with kernel 2.0.8+)
* New dip 3.3.7o
* New fdisk 3.04
* New fdutils 4.2
* New fsck 1.04
* New ftape 2.08
* New gawk 3.0.0
* New getty_ps 2.0.7i
* New gpm 1.09
* New hd param 3.0
* New iBCS 2.0 960610
* New man 1.4h
* New man pages 1.12
* New mount 2.5k
* New mtools 3.0
* New ncurses 1.9.9e
* New net tools 1.32alpha
* New pcmcia modules 2.8.18
* New ppp 2.2.0f
* New ps,top,who,w 1.01
* New sendmail 8.7.5a
* New SysVinit 2.64
* New TermCap 2.0.8a
* New apache (HTML server) 1.1.1
* New boot sys 0.4a
* New DosEmu: 960807
* New ghostscript 3.33
* New IP masquerading ipfwadm 2.2
* New lclint 2.1b
* New loadlin 16
* New ntfs 951231a
* New quotas 1.51
* New samba
* New snd-util 3.5
* New socks 5b 0.16.4
* New Linux utilities: 2.5
* New WINE: 960717
* New Netscape: 3.0 (not a freeware!)
All is NOT installed when requested. For more details,
see README file at
ftp://ftp.wsc.com/pub/freeware/linux/update.linux/
I know some mirrors exist in Europe as:
ftp://ftp.ibp.fr/pub/linux/update.linux/
Note: I'm French, and I've moved two months ago from France.
So sorry if my American is not yet plain ;-)
Bye, David
--
Web: http://www.accescyb.fr/~rezo1/homepage.html
E-mail: dbourgin@wsc.com
David Bourgin - Netware/Unix administration/security.
I'm a netsurfer, and as such, a citizen of the worlda.
__________________________________________________________________________
[ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next
__________________________________________________________________________
This page written and maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette,
gazette@ssc.com
"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
_________________________________________________________________
NEWS BYTES
_________________________________________________________________
GNU ID UTILITIES
A new release of the GNU id utilities is available at
ftp://ftp.gnu.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/id-utils-3.2.tar.gz
GNU id-utils is a package of simple, fast, high-capacity,
language-independent identifier database tools. Actually, the term
``identifier'' is too limiting -- ID Utils stores tokens, be they
program identifiers of any form, literal numbers, or words of
human-readable text. Database queries can be issued from the
command-line, or from within emacs, serving as an augmented tags
facility.
Release 3.2 fixes a nasty bug in eid (a.k.a., "lid -R edit"), which
should only be a problem for users of non-emacs editors (e.g., vi).
This release also fixes as well as some minor portability problems. If
you use emacs and had no trouble compiling 3.1, there's no reason for
you to pick up this release.
Additional information: gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu
_________________________________________________________________
INFOMAGIC WORKGROUP SERVER
The InfoMagic Workgroup Server provides high-performance file and
printing services to PC and Macintosh clients using the Linux
operating system. It is the first Linux distribution designed
specifically for servers. Based on networking software created by the
Internet community and already in use at hundreds of companies,
universities and organizations worldwide, the InfoMagic Workgroup
Server provides simple graphical tools for system administration and
set-up. A Unix novice can set up a sophisticated server environment in
a couple of hours.
Additional information: Orders@InfoMagic.com,
http://www.infomagic.com/
_________________________________________________________________
LINUXCONF 1.6
I am proud to announce the release of linuxconf 1.6. This release
incorporates many enhancements and features. The last official release
was 1.3. Since, a major user interface rework has been done and many
smaller features were added. Release 1.4 and 1.5 were only released on
the linuxconf mailing list.
It has been uploaded to sunsite in the pub/Linux/Incmoning directory
and should move to /pub/Linux/System/admin/linuxconf-1.6.src.tar.gz.
Binaries for both elf and a.out systems are provided at the same
place.
The major enhancement is the http mode. With this, you can now operate
linuxconf using any web browser supporting forms. This makes
administration of large linux networks a wonderful experience. You can
navigate in linuxconf and even set bookmarks in your browser.
Ultimatly one can build his corporate administration page with link to
different part of linuxconf on different linux servers or workstation.
Additional information: jack@solucorp.qc.ca
_________________________________________________________________
RED HAT REMBRANDT II
Red Hat Linux - 3.0.4 (Rembrandt II) BETA now available on both the
Intel and Sparc!
The Rembrandt beta releases of Red Hat Linux include the following
nifty features:
Modular kernel (2.0.10) One kernel (one boot disk) for all hardware
Increased hardware support over 3.0.3 New, simpler installation PAM
- Pluggable Authentication Modules More comprehensive X
configuration New network configuration tool New version of RPM -
2.2.3 Dependencies Libc 5.3.12
The Rembrandt II release fixes many bugs, and adds a few features.
Among the improvements over Rembrandt are:
config file handling DOS partitions IDE drives c-h flashing asterisk
System.map interface cleanups /net /.automount updatedb dip, inn,
fvwm95, ypbind, ftpuser module parameters package selection
The Red Hat Linux Rembrandt II is available from:
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/rembrandt
Additional information: rembrandt-list@redhat.com,
http://www.redhat.com/redhat/rembrandt
_________________________________________________________________
SDK SOFTWARE
URL CHANGE from The Boy With The Thorn In His Side
The free Linux software which I release under the name "SDK Software"
(morepkgtools - supplements Slackware's pkgtool; tidylinks - searches
for and tidies dangling and messy symbolic links; LNET-Config -
configuration script for the LNET TCP/IP (KA9Q-like) program) has
moved from AOL to:
http://www.kalika.demon.co.uk/sdk-software/index.html
Revised versions of the software, with the correct URLs in the manual
pages etc., will be released shortly.
If you have my AOL site bookmarked please change your records.
FREE SOFTWARE ANNOUNCEMENT:
http://www.kalika.demon.co.uk/sdk-software/index.html#man2html
http://www.kalika.demon.co.uk/sdk-software/myprogs/unix/man2html
Version 0.15 of this very modest Bourne-shell script is now available.
The script is a CGI-bin interface to "man", converting UNIX (Linux)
manual pages into fully-legal HTML on the fly.
Sample output can be viewed at:
http://www.kalika.demon.co.uk/sdk-software/index.html#manpages
Additional information: steve@kalika.demon.co.uk
_________________________________________________________________
TAPER
This is to announce the latest release of taper - version 6.7.4
Taper is a user friendly, full featured tape backup solution for
Linux. Multiple features are supported including most recent restore,
incremental backups, archive verification and archive management. With
triple buffering, and internal compression, backup performance is
quite good.
Taper supports ftape, zftape, scsi, floppies, regular files and
removable media such as the IOMEGA ZIP drives.
In addition, taper also supports IDE tape drives in ALPHA stage.
PLEASE NOTE:
I am going away for 2.5 months from this week and will be unreachable
via e-mail therefore, there will be no support for this version until
I return mid-late October.
Additional information: yusuf@nagree.u-net.com
_________________________________________________________________
TRANSEND
Advanced Network Products, Inc. announces the alpha release of
TranSend. TranSend, a "middleware" product, is an efficient, reliable
and platform- independent mechanism that provides communications
between your applications.
TranSend is a development toolkit that allows rapid construction of
real-time client/server and distributed applications. TranSend is the
perfect foundation for all of your network development needs,
including:
* Real-time client/server and distributed applications
* High performance data distribution systems
* Cross-platform connectivity
* Fault-tolerant systems
Additional information: anpi@advanced-net.com
http://www.advanced-net.com/examples.html
_________________________________________________________________
WEB-TRAVERSING ROBOT
The VWbot Web-traversing robot is now available as shareware. It was
developed on Linux and hasn't been tested on anything else, but it
ought to run on most Unix. It uses Perl4 and libwww-perl-0.40
The core program may be customised to perform different functions,
such as keeping track of document modifications, operating as a
restricted-domain search engine, or as a free-running agent configured
for tasks such as lexical analysis. The robot adheres to the original
Robot Exclusion Protocol and includes code to implement the newer
ROBOTS META tag.
Additional information: robots@vancouver-webpages.com,
http://vancouver-webpages.com/VWbot/
_________________________________________________________________
[ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next
_________________________________________________________________
This page written and maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette,
gazette@ssc.com
"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun! "
_________________________________________________________________
BINSTATS: FINDING UNUSABLE BINARIES
by Larry Ayers
Copyright (c) 1996
Published in Issue 9 of the Linux Gazette
_________________________________________________________________
Like many other Linux users, I've strayed from the path of my
originally installed distribution (Slackware 3.00) and have updated
quite a large percentage of the packages and libraries. This can lead
to problems; these might come my attention when starting up a
long-neglected executable only to receive a message indicating that an
essential library is missing, or that a library has an incompatible
executable format.
Of course, you could spend a couple of hours every month or so and run
ldd on each and every executable on your system, writing down the
results for every one which has errors. This could become tedious, I
imagine.
Peter Chang is evidently a whiz at cobbling together shell scripts
which use various Unix utilities chained and piped one to another.
Binstats is one of his, and it is truly an ingenious contrivance.
You start it up (after editing it so that it knows where all of your
/bin directories are), the hard disc grinds away for a minute or
three, and this little script presents you with a list of all the poor
orphaned programs which can't run due to a lack of shared libs. It
also lists how many of each type of executable (ELF, QMagic,
statically linked, etc.) you have, and which shared libs you have
which aren't needed by any of your executables.
What really blew my mind was seeing a long list of duplicated
executable names, an unexpected result of many upgrades. This can be a
result of this imaginary scenario: Joe has been maintaining Package X
for several years and is weary of the constant email. He gratefully
transfers the maintenance of Package X to an eager, energetic young
programmer, Ed. Ed is appalled to find an installation procedure which
doesn't follow the Linux Filesystem Standard, and immediately changes
the default installation directory from /bin to /usr/local/bin. Yours
truly logs in at sunsite.unc.edu, finds a new version of Package X,
installs it, and is happy to see the new functionality. Unfortunately
the old Package X executable is living out the remainder of its days,
unknown to all, in /bin. Then Binstats does its work and the old X
binary and all its hoary cohorts are brought to light.
All of the functions of Binstats can be done "by hand", of course. The
beauty of this shell program is the combination of tasks into one,
with the results logged to a text file. Then you can see at a glance
several system administration jobs which should be taken care of.
Binstats is only four and one-half kb. archived in tgz format. A copy
of the latest version is available at this UK site, as well as in this
sunsite directory. It's well worth the short download time, even if
you only run it once.
_________________________________________________________________
Larry Ayers<layers@vax2.rain.gen.mo.us>
_________________________________________________________________
[ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next
_________________________________________________________________
THE EASY WAY TO SET UP A LOCAL NEWS SERVER
By Christophe Blaess (ccb@club-internet.fr).
Introduction
A few months ago, I decided to set up a local news server on my Linux
Box, in order to read off-line the articles. Before then I read the
news directly from the Usenet server of my Internet Provider, at the
detriment of my phone bill...(Here, in France, even the local
communications are rather expensive)
Before trying to install and set up one of the two classical news
servers (Inn and CNews), I browsed a bit the Web, looking for a
possible other product. I then discovered a very powerful small
package "Leafnode" written by Arnt Gulbrandsen. It can be found in
source form at ftp://ftp.troll.no/freebies/leafnode/ and the home page
of this project is accessible at
http://www.troll.no/freebies/leafnode.html.
This package (leafnode-0.9.tar.gz, 29 Kb) contains three little
programs, very easy to install, and to use:
* "Fetch" can feed a local news server from a remote Usenet server
(university, ISP...). It also posts the outgoing articles, using
classical NNTP requests.
* "Leafnode" is a USENET server, run by the inetd daemon, when a
connection in required on the NNTP port, by a newsreader.
* "Texpire" is generally run daily from the crontab to erase the
oldest articles from the news spool.
The main advantage of this system, is the transparent way it is
inserted between the remote news server and the local newsreader. The
remote Usenet server sees Leafnode exactly like a classical newsreader
(like tin, trn, netscape,...) and the local news reader sees Leafnode
just like a USENET server.
I have been happily using Leafnode for several months, and I would
like to describe here the (very simple) steps to install and configure
it. Then I will explain some hints to use it in a multi-users
environment.
_________________________________________________________________
INSTALLING LEAFNODE
I've been using leafnode 0.8 for a few months, but I've recently
upgraded to version 0.9. The process for installing it is the same as
the previous version, but I've had a little problem, maybe due to my
version of make, and I'll describe how I have fixed it.
You first need to download the source code from
ftp://ftp.troll.no/freebies/leafnode/. You'll get
leafnode-0.9.tar.gz.
COMPILING THE SOURCE CODE
Become root and do :
# cd /usr/local/src
# tar -xzf ~/leafnode-0.9.tar.gz
# cd leafnode-0.9/
# make
Everything must compile without any problem...
INSTALLING LEAFNODE
Make sure there is a "news" user and a "news" group on your system.
Then you can type:
# make install
If "make install" complains when making directories in
/var/spool/news/message.id/, you may have the same problem as I've
had. To fix it, I've modified the Makefile, to insert a part of the
leafnode-0.8 Makefile:
replace the lines (in the "install:" section)
cd $(SPOOLDIR)/message.id
for a in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ; do for b in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ; do \
mkdir ${a}${b}0 ${a}${b}1 ${a}${b}2 ${a}${b}3 ${a}${b}4 ; \
mkdir ${a}${b}5 ${a}${b}6 ${a}${b}7 ${a}${b}8 ${a}${b}9 ; done
by the line
-mkdir -p $(SPOOLDIR)/message.id/{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9}{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9}{0
,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9}
Be sure that the first character on the line is a tabulation. Then try
again:
# make install
END OF INSTALLATION
At this point, Leafnode will have installed the following files on
your system:
/usr/local/sbin/fetch
/usr/local/sbin/leafnode
/usr/local/sbin/texpire
/usr/local/man/fetch.8
/usr/local/man/leafnode.8
/usr/local/man/texpire.8
/usr/lib/leafnode/config.example
/var/spool/news/ ... and a lot of subdirectories ...
First you have to copy the file /usr/lib/leafnode/config.example to
/usr/lib/leafnode/config and edit him, to put the name of your remote
NNTP server in place of:
server = news.hiof.no
Edit the file /etc/inetd.conf, and look for a line like:
nntp stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd in.nntpd
then modify it like this:
nntp stream tcp nowait news /usr/sbin/tcpd /usr/local/sbin/leafno
de
Depending on your configuration, there may be no TCP wrapper
installed, so you could have to remove the "/usr/sbin/tcpd" part of
this line.
and do
# killall -HUP inetd
FIRST RUN
Connect to your Usenet provider, and, while being "root" or "news",
run:
$ fetch
You will have to wait for a moment, because Leafnode is asking the
NNTP server the list of all the active groups. Once fetch ends, run a
newsreader, as normal user, and ask him to contact the localhost. for
example, with tin do:
$ export NNTPSERVER=localhost
$ tin -r
(With Netscape you have to put localhost in "Options/Mail and
News/Servers/NNTP server")
You will get the list of all available newsgroups, then choose
interesting ones, and read them. They will appear empty at this time.
It's normal.
As root run again fetch. It will download all the content of the
previously read newsgroups. The first downloading will take a while,
but the next will obviously be very much quicker.
Your local USENET server is installed!
_________________________________________________________________
CONFIGURING LEAFNODE
Now that leafnode run on your Linux box, you can configure some
details:
In the file /usr/lib/leafnode/config, there are two fields you can
edit:
* the expire value tells to Texpire the number of days an unread
thread must be kept.
* the maxcount value limits the number of articles to download from
a newsgroup, during a single execution of Fetch.
Refer to the comments in this file to choose the values (on my system
I use expire=10 and maxcount=3000)
You must run Texpire from time to time, and a daily entry in the
crontab seems to be the best choice:
00 03 * * * news /usr/local/sbin/texpire
This line is for a system-wide crontab (generally /etc/crontab
maintained by root), but you will have to remove the username "news"
on user crontab (/var/spool/cron/news).
You will have to run periodically fetch. If you have a permanent link
with your news server, there's an obvious solution: the crontab again,
to run it once per hour for example.
00 * * * * news /usr/local/sbin/fetch
If you're using a non-permanent PPP connection, you can insert fetch
at the end of the ip-up shell script (see Linux Gazette 7 "Setting up
PPP's ip-up and ip-down scripts!").
Put the name "localhost" in /etc/nntpserver or set the environment
variable (for example in /etc/profile):
export NNTPSERVER=localhost =
_________________________________________________________________
USING LEAFNODE ON MULTI-USERS SITE.
There are problems to avoid, especially if there are other users on
your system, or if the leafnode server is on a local network. First
you must make sure of the validity of the headers in the outgoing
posts, but you also need to limit the list of the accessible
newsgroups. Don't forget that Fetch will download the whole content of
a newsgroup if someone tries to read it. So, be very careful with
newsgroups like alt.binaries.pictures...
Fortunately, we can use some little awk and shell scripts to verify
and correct the outgoing posts, and to limit the local access to
selected newsgroups.
CHECKING THE OUTGOING POSTS
With some newsreaders, the "From:" field of the outgoing articles will
be set to myname@my.station.on.my.lan and not
myname@my.internet.provider.com. With some of them you can configure
the "From:" and "Reply-to:" fields, while the others need you to
recompile them.
This problem can be worse if you have a Linux box with several users.
Some of them can have misconfigured newsreader (sometimes on
purpose...) and it may be safer to check the headers of the outgoing
articles before posting them.
Here's a small awk filter which allows a kind of masquerading of the
"From:" line of an article. It will change the line "From:
username@my.station.on.my.lan (user real name)" to a line "From:
username@my.internet.provider.com (user real name)".
You may also ensure that username is correct (i.e. in a list of
allowed users). The same Perl script will help us to determine the
correct articles. Otherwise it will add a line "*** Wrong From field -
This article must be deleted ***" to the message.
#! /usr/bin/gawk -f
#
# /usr/local/sbin/change_article_from_domain
#
# awk script to change the domain name on the "From:"
# line of outgoing articles.
# If the username is not valid a message will be added
# at the bottom o the file, allowing a 'grep' to delete
# him.
BEGIN {
# replace with the correct domains
local_domain="my.station.on.my.lan"
real_domain ="my.internet.provider.com"
# insert here the name of your users allowed to post articles
# (may be just one)
valid_usernames["user1"]
valid_usernames["user2"]
must_be_deleted=0
}
/^From:/ {
gsub(local_domain, real_domain)
username=substr($2,1,index ($2, "@") - 1)
if (! (username in valid_usernames)) {
must_be_deleted=1
# you can also add a system command
# example : mail to newsmaster with
# the username of the wrong article
}
}
END {
if (must_be_deleted != 0) {
print "*** Wrong From field - This article must be deleted ***"
}
}
{
print
}
This script can be useful if you have up to, say, ten users, otherwise
you'll need to improve it in order to read the list of allowed users
in an otherfile for example.
Now we will execute the above script on all the outgoing articles,
sitting in /var/spool/news/out.going, then delete (or move to another
directory) those with bad usernames.
#! /bin/bash
#
# /usr/local/sbin/modify_outgoing_articles
cd /var/spool/news/out.going
for i in * ; do
/usr/local/sbin/change_article_from_domain /tmp/modified_articles/$i
done
rm -f *
mv /tmp/modified_articles/* .
rm -f `grep -l "*** Wrong From field - This article must be deleted ***" *`
(The backquote is used to catch the result of grep) Don't forget to
create a /tmp/modified_articles/ directory. This script cannot prevent
the fake "From:" lines, when an authorized user is hidden behind an
other correct username. This can not be easily done, and if you really
don't trust your users, you'll have to use another Usenet package like
Inn or Cnews.
Now all the outgoing articles will have a correct "From:" line.
LIMITING THE LIST OF ACCESSIBLE NEWS GROUPS
The second important point to check out is the list of fetched
newsgroups. If you haven't got a huge disk space, it would be better
to avoid downloading alt.binaries groups or alt.2600. for example...
The problem is that fetch will download the content of each newsgroup
corresponding to a file in /var/spool/news/interesting.groups, for
example /var/spool/news/interesting.groups/comp.os.linux.announce
A file in this directory is touched by leafnode every time a user
tries to read the content of the group. Are you sure that none of your
users will try to have a look at alt.binaries.pictures.erotica...? So
there are two possible solutions:
* You can edit the /usr/lib/leafnode/groupinfo file, in order to
suppress the forbidden newsgroups. But this is not a very good
solution, because fetch will re-create it during the next
connection.
* You can suppress the forbidden groups from
/var/spool/news/interesting.groups. This can be done by shell
script, in many different ways, for example:
#! /bin/bash
#
# modify_interesting_groups
cd /var/spool/news
rm -f alt.*
rm -f *windows*
...
touch comp.os.linux.announce
touch comp.windows.x.announce
...
you can also have a definite list of fetched newsgroups, for example
in /var/spool/news/official.list, manually created:
# mkdir /var/spool/news/official.list
# cd /var/spool/news/official.list
# touch comp.os.linux.announce
# touch comp.os.linux.answer
# touch comp.lang.c.moderated
...
And this list will be copied in the interesting.groups directory by a
script before each execution of fetch.
#! /bin/bash
#
# modify_interesting_groups
cd /var/spool/news
rm -f *
copy /var/spool/news/official.list .
Now we have two scripts to insert before running fetch. For example in
/etc/ppp/ip-up:
#! /bin/bash
#
# /etc/ppp/ip-up
...
/usr/local/sbin/modify_interesting_groups
/usr/local/sbin/modify_outgoing_articles
fetch
_________________________________________________________________
CONCLUSION
I think that Leafnode is a very interesting package for those (most of
us) who are running Linux on a standalone box with intermitent
connection to a Usenet server, or on a small local network with few
users. It's powerful and much simpler to install and to configure than
Inn or Cnews, designed for bigger sites. Moreover it does not require
any maintenance.
_________________________________________________________________
Christophe Blaess (ccb@club-internet.fr).
[ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next
"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun! "
_________________________________________________________________
FILERUNNER: A NEW TK/TCL FILE MANAGER
by Larry Ayers
Copyright (c) 1996
Published in Issue 9 of the Linux Gazette
_________________________________________________________________
INTRODUCTION
Recently I happened upon a new Tk-based filemanager, written by Henrik
Harmsen, who evidently lives in Sweden. I've been using TkDesk quite
a lot lately (see my review in LG #8) so at first I was struck by the
resemblance, but the program upon further exploration comes from a
different philosophy of file-management and fills a different niche in
the Linux software world.
_________________________________________________________________
AMIGAN ORIGINS
I'll let Henrik Harmsen relate to you FileRunner's origins:
On my good old Amiga, there were a few great file managers called
things like DirMaster and Directory Opus. They were very simple (in
concept) but highly usable. Especially I came to love the
two-filelistings-and-command-buttons concept which is what I've done
in FileRunner. It's a fast and intuitive way of doing file handling
commands as very many file commands (mv, ln, cp etc) are happy with a
source and a destination argument. It also works great for commands
that only take a list of source files, like an image viewer and an
editor. I was considering the way the FileManager in Windows displays
directory trees, but I came to the conclusion that those tree views
are more often than not a nuisance to navigate. Instead I implemented
the cool Directory menu that can take you anywhere in the file system
by mapping directories to sub-menus (even the ".." directory :-). So,
basically I just wanted to get back the high usability I had with the
old file managers on the Amiga (plus add my own stuff like FTP
browsing, the history and hotlist etc).
I had a look at a few other file managers for Unix/X11 but none of
them were even close to the convenient
two-filelistings-and-command-buttons concept. Some were bloated, some
wouldn't compile, some needed Motif etc, and none were intuitive (to
me :-). So I set out to create my own. Why am I just not a happy
TkDesk user? Well I started working on FileRunner long before TkDesk
came out and TkDesk wasn't quite what I was shooting for so I
continued on FileRunner. That also gave me exactly the file manager I
wanted, of course :-)
After I read the above explanation, I realized what FileRunner reminds
me of: I used to use a Norwegian OS/2 filemanager called Dirmaster,
which was also inspired by the Amiga filemanagers of yore. It had a
layout similar to FileRunner's, with programmable function buttons and
twin directory panes.
It's interesting that software has been around long enough that
traditions have evolved. In the text editor world there are emacs, vi,
and "windows/CUA" strains of editors, while many filemanagers have
followed either a "Norton Commander" tradition, an Amiga tradition, or
a mouse-based iconic tradition, with various hybrid strains emerging
and recombining.
_________________________________________________________________
FEATURES
FileRunner will inevitably be compared to TkDesk, as they share many
features and are both Tk-based. The two programs aren't really
designed for the same purposes, though. TkDesk is more of a desktop
manager combined with a filemanager, as it has an integral icon-bar
which can serve the same purpose as Fvwm's buttonbar, or several other
similar utilities. It's best used as an app you would open when
starting an X-window session and leave open for the duration.
FileRunner is a much less resource-hungry application which starts
quickly and lends itself to quick tasks followed by dismissal. It uses
around one-third the memory TkDesk uses. It is probably a more
appropriate choice for a slower, memory-constrained machine, whereas
if you have a fast CPU with plenty of RAM TkDesk or Moxfm will run
well without using a disproportionate amount of your system resources.
Among the many thoughtfully designed features in FileRunner, the
following I found to be particularly useful:
* A button for each directory pane which will start an xterm or rxvt
in the current directory
* Directory hotlists in a drop-down menu
* A dynamically expanding directory tree which allows quick
traversal of the entire filesystem
* Quick views of text files via a single right-mouse-button-click
* Function buttons in a column dividing the directory panes, with
instructions for creating new ones
* Menu showing directories visited during the session
* Ability to open remote directories via FTP and browse them as if
they were local
Here's a screenshot of a Filerunner window:
FileRunner
FileRunner also has a feature which has become fashionable lately in
many of the newer apps: quick rereading of the configuration file(s),
allowing customization to be done quickly. I first saw this in Fvwm;
it's a real time-saver.
_________________________________________________________________
QUIRKS
FileRunner is almost entirely mouse-based in this first release. I
like to use a mouse, but I'm fond of arrow-keys and page-up and
page-down keys as well. Henrik Harmsen mentioned in an email message
that keyboard support is in the works.
When using the FTP function, any downloading activity prevents you
from doing anything else until its done. A separate process or thread
would be nice for this. One way around this limitation is to open
another instance of FileRunner. The program is small and fast enough
that this is feasible.
Aside from these two minor complaints, I found the program to be
stable and reliable. It's a relatively small download; why not give it
a try?
_________________________________________________________________
AVAILABILITY
As of August 15, 1996, FileRunner can be found in the
/pub/Linux/Incoming directory of ftp://sunsite.unc.edu and its
mirrors. I imagine that it will eventually be moved to
/pub/Linux/X11/xutils/managers.
_________________________________________________________________
Larry Ayers<layers@vax2.rain.gen.mo.us>
_________________________________________________________________
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_________________________________________________________________
"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun! "
_________________________________________________________________
GETTING UP AND RUNNING ON STAROFFICE 3.1
by Dwight William Johnson johnson@olympus.net
Copyright (c) 1996
Published in Issue 9 of the Linux Gazette
_________________________________________________________________
Happy as can be, I am composing this in Linux on StarWriter, the
extremely capable word processor that is part of the StarOffice 3.1
suite of business applications. Below I will guide you through the
labyrinth of tricks and fixes that you will need to get this first
beta of StarOffice working on your Linux system.
Star Office 3.1 is a suite of office productivity applications
containing StarWriter 3.1 (word processor), StarCalc 3.1
(spreadsheet), StarDraw 3.1 (graphics and presentation package),
StarImage 3.1 (image manipulation) StarChart 3.1 (bar-, pie- and other
charts) and StarMath 3.1 (formula design). StarOffice 3.1 makes heavy
use of common code in shared libraries, therefore using relatively few
resources for the level of functionality.
If you don't have the patience to fix things that aren't right, you
should wait for the next beta release. But if, like me, you don't mind
fixing a few things to get the immediate gratification of
state-of-the-art business software on Linux that you would pay $400
for on Windows 95, read on.
To save you frustration and disappointment, I must also caution you
that you will need about 200 megabyes on your hard drive to install
StarOffice the way I outline below.
Like many Linux users, I was delighted when the German company
StarDivision announced it would release an international Linux version
of its major office suite StarOffice, which competes head to head with
Microsoft Office in Europe. And still more pleased when I learned that
for non-commercial use StarOffice would be free.
I am almost never, however, the first to jump into a new application.
Let others find the bugs; let me find a productive application is my
credo.
Nevertheless, the prospect of having a high-end WYSIWYG word processor
to use in Linux was irresistible. When StarDivision was pressured into
an early release of the first beta of StarOffice 3.1 for Linux on July
31, I rushed up to the StarDivision Home Page at
http://www.stardivision.de/index.html and linked to one of a number
of possible download sites which in my case was
ftp://ftp.io.org/pub/mirrors/linux/sunsite/apps/staroffice.
What I saw stopped me. StarOffice3.1 is a more than a 40Mb download in
53 files, mostly diskette images. The installed product takes over 120
megabytes.
I decided to see what the feedback was on StarOffice before investing
in that kind of bandwidth. I aimed my Netscape newsreader for a place
I knew I could count on: comp.os.linux.development.apps.
The news was bad. Many users were having problems installing
StarOffice and those who could were finding lots of bugs, mostly
segmentation faults.
The worst news of all was being reminded that StarOffice 3.1 requires
Motif 2.0. Even though StarOffice was free, it did not seem worth the
$100-$200 investment in Motif 2.0 to bring up an application that
might be useless because of segmentation and other faults.
As the days passed, however, the news began to come in that some were
getting StarOffice installed and were quite thrilled with its look and
feel.
Then on August 18 Peter Klein wrote in the Redhat-List:
"to run and even to install Star Office 3.1. you don't need Motif."
I found his tips and tricks irresistible. I decided to try StarOffice.
Below is step-by-step how I installed StarOffice 3.1 on my Red Hat
3.0.3 system with Metro-X server upgraded to the 2.0.10 kernel using
Peter Klein's recipe garnished with a few additional tricks and fixes
which I gleaned from the usenet and mailing lists.
1. I went to my chosen ftp site,
ftp.io.org/pub/mirrors/linux/sunsite/apps/staroffice,
(Alternatively, you can go to any sunsite mirror. Sunsite is at
sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/staroffice.) and downloaded the
file 'staroffice.README'. Here I learned about the StarOffice for
Linux license, StarDivision's plans for the product, how to
connect with the StarOffice technical support and development
system and valuable installation notes.
2. My internet service provider has free hours from midnight to 7:30
A.M. So I waited till midnight, fired up xtftp, pointed it to the
ftp site, created a ~/download/staroffice directory for the
download, highlighted all 53 files, pressed 'copy' and 'ok' and
went to bed.
(The 'staroffice.README' mentions that you can install only part
of StarOffice. So my first attempt, not recommended, was to
install just the common files with StarWriter. Unfortunately, the
install program comes to an error which has to be stepped past
each time it finds a file from the complete package that is
missing. After clicking 'ignore' with my mouse for the first
hundred or so times, I abandoned this attempt.)
3. If you are fortunate to have Motif 2.0 installed on your system,
you can skip down to step 6.
4. Peter Klein: "You have to install the SO libraries before you can
start the install program."
+ I created the directory ~/so-temp and executed:
cp ~/download/staroffice/file.01-? ~/so-temp
cd ~/so-temp
unzip file.01-1
unzip file.01-2
unzip file.01-3
unzip file.01-4
unzip file.01-5
unzip file.01-6
unzip file.01-7
In the ~/so-temp file you now have a bunch of subdirectories with
the unzipped files in them.
+ Create a directory to hold the 'so' files. I created mine in
/usr/X11R6/lib with the command:
mkdir /usr/X11R6/lib/so-libs.
+ Among the subdirectories created in ~/so-temp you will find
the ~/so-temp/lib* directories. I manually went through the
~/so-temp/lib* directories and copied every file to
/usr/X11R6/lib/so-libs. I used Midnight Commander, a handy
two-panel file manager for the virtual console, for this
task.
+ Next, in the /usr/X11R6/lib/so-libs directory I created the
symbolic links:
cd /usr/X11R6/lib/so-libs
ln -s libso312.so libMrm.so.2
ln -s libso312.so libXm.so.2
+ I edited the /etc/ld.so.conf file to contain the line:
/usr/X11R6/lib/so-libs
+ I executed ldconfig from root.
Thank you Peter Klein.
5. Not recommended because of the large number of failures reported,
but still worth checking out for an install approach, is the
'StarInst' Perl script by Steffen Winterfeldt which can be
downloaded at:
http://www.physik.uni-leipzig.de/~wfeldt/starinst/starinst.html.
This script is alleged to work with installed versions of Motif
1.2.
6. I next ran StarOffice Install which must be executed from root.
Install is very easy to use. Just make sure you have enough disk
space (about 125 Mb) and follow the simple prompts that Install
presents in its dialog boxes. If you have Red Hat and you are
executing Install from its own directory, you will need to
remember to enter './Install'. I installed StarOffice into
/usr/local/StarOffice3.1.
At the end of Install, I was given directions for proceeding with
the second part, the user installation. During the user
installation, a user-specified directory and configuration files
are created for each user. I found it very easy to just follow the
directions in the dialog boxes. I answered 'yes' to the prompt to
copy the templates and demo documents to my directory tree because
I had been informed that if I answered 'no', I would not be able
to modify these documents, although I could still access them as
read-only master copies.
7. It is now necessary to fix a couple of things that StarDivision
didn't think of in order to actually use StarOffice. I had to
glean these fixes from posters to comp.os.linux.development.apps
and the Redhat-List after finding that my installation of
StarOffice didn't work.
Logged in users must get permission to use StarOffice's fonts and
other files. Log ('su') into root, and
chgrp -R users /usr/local/StarOffice3.1/Xp3.
J. Maynard Gelinas proposed the alternate
chmod -R a+r /usr/local/StarOffice3.1/Xp3
for this fix on the Red-Hat List.
8. Printing is impossible without this next fix. While logged as
root,
mkdir /tmp/XpSp_
mkdir /tmp/Xp_
mkdir /tmp/XpSp_/tmp
mkdir /tmp/Xp_/tmp
chgrp -R users /tmp/XpSp_
chgrp -R users /tmp/Xp_
9. To get the on-line help system (unfortunately only in German in
this release), you will need to start the two daemons, 'svdaemon'
and 'svportmap' before starting StarOffice. This is how I did it.
While logged as root, I added the lines:
/usr/local/StarOffice3.1/linux-x86/bin/svdaemon &
/usr/local/StarOffice3.1/linux-x86/bin/svportmap &
to my /etc/rc.d/rc.local.
10. Finally, as directed by the StarOffice user installation, I edited
my ~/.bashrc file to contain the line:
. ~/.sd.sh
and rebooted my computer.
And, if you followed along with me -- you are finished! All the
download and intermediate directories can now be deleted. (Wait a few
days, in case you find you have to redo something.)
Log into your user account, 'startx' and open an 'xterm'. The
StarOffice applications start at the command line with:
swriter3
scalc3
sdraw3
schart3
simage3
smath3
You will find bugs in this release of StarOffice. But by
experimenting, you will also find work-arounds.
For example, I found that exiting the search and replace dialog in
StarWriter would generate a fatal segmentation fault. But by
activating the cursor in the search area and pressing I can close the
dialog box and continue working.
Also, when you use the scroll bar, StarWriter loses its blinking
cursor. I just go to the menu bar and activate a pull-down menu and
then click my mouse in the document area. Wherever the mouse touches
down places the blinking cursor.
For printing on my Postscript printer I have found that I need to set
the printer to 'NULL' and the default options to 'lpr'.
There is a neat little button bar, 'soffice3', that is designed to
coordinate all these applications. Unfortunately, bugs make it
unfunctional. So look, but don't touch until the next release.
Tip of the day for enjoying StarOffice beta one: save your work often.
StarDivision operates a news server with StarOffice newsgroups at:
news://starnews.stardivision.com/beta.staroffice.linux
where users share their experiences. Be sure to connect during German
business hours -- no nights or weekends. The same goes for their Web
site.
StarDivision is eager to get your bug reports at:
linux-suggest@stardivision.com
I am still getting my feet on the ground in StarOffice. But I found
composing this article in StarWriter quite easy and fun. I used a lot
of cut and paste between multiple windows, formatting, changing fonts,
printing, search and replace -- all the basic things you do in word
processing. But I didn't even scratch the surface of the capabilities
of just StarWriter. And I haven't even looked at the other
applications yet. I am looking forward to exploring StarOffice in the
coming months.
I congratulate the vision of StarDivision to recognize that Linux is
an important platform for major application development.
_________________________________________________________________
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_________________________________________________________________
"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun! "
_________________________________________________________________
YODL: A NEW, EASY-TO-USE TEXT FORMATTING LANGUAGE
_________________________________________________________________
by Larry Ayers
Copyright (c) 1996
Published in Issue 9 of the Linux Gazette
INTRODUCTION
Linux/un*x is rich in difficult-to-learn, intricate text formatting
systems. Though the quality of printed output can be extremely high,
the learning curve can be concomitantly steep.
This has led to the development of "meta-formatting" systems, which
allow one common text mark-up system to be output in several formats.
An example is SGML, which is very capable but hardly intuitive.
Karel Kubat, a Dutch programmer, has written a new text formatting
system which he calls YODL, for Yet OneOther Document Language. (I get
the impression that the awkward "oneother" word construct exists
because Mr. Kubat wanted to have .yo as a filename suffix, rather than
.ya.)
_________________________________________________________________
ORIGINS
Karel Kubat had found himself spending an inordinate amount of time
marking up documents for HTML, then having to repeat the process for
Latex; in other words, he wanted to have a nicely formatted printout
of a document and also make it available on a web-page. For various
reasons SGML was not satisfying his needs so he set out to write an
easy to use document language. His criteria included a minimum of
awkward-to-type tags and the ability to include or reference other
files in one master file. I think he succeeded remarkably well.
_________________________________________________________________
FEATURES
A sample document will give you a good idea of what a .yo file looks
like:
COMMENT(File for testing purposes.)
htmlbodyopt(fgcolor)(#0000E0)
htmlbodyopt(bgcolor)(#E0E0C0)
article(Test article for YODL)
(Karel Kubat)
(1996)
sect(First section) label(first)
This is the first section. Now for a subsection:
subsect(Subsection of first section.)
This is the subsection.
sect(Second section.)
This is the second section, but ref(first) is the first one.
Lets try some verbatim text.
verb(
#include
int main ()
{
printf ("Hello World!\n");
return (0);
})
Now some weird characters: !@#$%^*[]{}\|"~`'.
Accents? em(Ich m\"ochte bitte \"uberhaupt ein Bier!)
bf(Apr\`es moi la d\'eluge.)
subsect(Some lists.)
subsubsect(An itemized list.)
itemize(
it() Item one.
it() Item two.
)
subsubsect(A descriptive list.)
description(
dit(First:) Item one.
dit(Second:) Item two.
)
subsubsect(An enumerated list.)
enumerate(
eit() Item one.
eit() Item two.
)
This test file shows you what some of the tagging is like. Here's a
brief excerpt from a .yo file showing how other files from the current
directory can be included:
sect(Using the yodl program)
includefile(using)
subsect(Language elements)
includefile(elements)
As you can see the tags are in an abbreviated verbal form, which makes
them easier to remember. The included files can be completely devoid
of tagging. This allows you to concentrate more on content rather than
structure; the structure can be mostly contained within the master
document. YODL documents are noticeably easier to read in their source
format than either HTML or Latex source. Format-specific tags are also
allowed, as in the above HTML body tags. They will be ignored by the
Latex parser, for example.
YODL is very well documented, and the installation of the docs is an
effective demonstration of the system. The docs come in .yo source
form; these files are copied to /usr/local/yodl/doc, and then YODL is
run on them during the installation, with the end result being several
HTML files.
As is true with any "meta-formatter", a user is better-off knowing
something about the output format. I think it's necessary to at least
glance through the output, just to catch any obvious errors. The
advantage of a program like YODL is that it will enable you to avoid
the grunt-work of starting from scratch.
_________________________________________________________________
PACKAGE CONTENTS
The main YODL program is written in C, and it works in conjunction
with several shell scripts and macro files. The main supported formats
are HTML, Latex, and the troff/groff man and ms formats. There is
limited support for conversion to plain ASCII and SGML, as well. As
previously mentioned, the documentation is unusually extensive, being
about sixty pages worth of well-written material.
_________________________________________________________________
AVAILABILITY
YODL can be downloaded from its home site under the filename
yodl-X.YY.tar.gz, with X.YY being a version number. It is also
available from ftp://sunsite.unc.edu and its mirrors, as of this
writing in the /pub/Linux/Incoming directory.
_________________________________________________________________
Larry Ayers<layers@vax2.rain.gen.mo.us>
_________________________________________________________________
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_________________________________________________________________
LINUX GAZETTE
THE BACK PAGE
Copyright (c) 1996 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.
For information regarding copying and distribution of this material see
the COPYING document.
_________________________________________________________________
Plans
Now that Linux Journal has taken over the Linux Gazette from John
Fisk, I plan to post a new issue of the Gazette sometime during the
first week of each month -- preferably on the first. Whether or not I
can make this happens will depend on writers getting articles to me
each month, AND on time constraints due to my other projects for Linux
Journal and SSC.
I wish to keep the Gazette both helpful and fun as John has over the
past year. And, of course, it will also remain free. Any ideas and
suggestions, as well as criticisms that you might have, for
improvements to the Gazette will be welcome. Most of all, I will
welcome your contributions -- after all, without you Linux Gazette
would disappear.
I'd also like to thank our webmaster, Michael Montoure, for his
invaluable help in checking the HTML and designing neat graphics.
_________________________________________________________________
Not Linux
In the hopes that everyone had a nice Labor Day weekend, I thought I'd
tell you about mine. I went camping in Northern Washington and Canada
with my husband, Riley, our son, Keith, and Keith's dog Lucky. We had
a grand time exploring the Okanagan Lake area of British Columbia. In
driving to a campground on Pennask Lake, we traversed what must be one
of the worst roads in Canada -- thank goodness for high clearance
vehicles! Keith was ahead of us in his 4 wheel drive truck, and was
really bouncing through the ditches and holes in the road. Our camper
was bouncing and swaying enough to make me worry that it might cause
us to tip over -- Riley assured me it would not. At any rate, after 30
minutes of hard driving, we reached the beautiful lake only to find
the campground full of fishermen. So we headed back out that wonderful
road, looking for side roads, and anyplace that we might camp. We
found a place down a side road that had only two huge ditches across
it, and set up camp. No bears showed up to spoil the fun, so we had a
very good time playing in an isolated spot away from other campers.
Canada is certainly a very beautiful country, and the British
Columbians very friendly. This jaunt was not our first trip to Canada
nor will it be the last.
If you would like some personal information about me, clicking on my
name below will take you to my home page. It's not very jazzy at the
moment, but I'm looking for the time to fix it up.
_________________________________________________________________
Marjorie L. Richardson
Editor, Linux Gazette gazette@ssc.com
_________________________________________________________________
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_________________________________________________________________
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