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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Draft//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD><TITLE>Linux Weekend Mechanic, February 1997</TITLE></HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR=#FFFFFF>
<H4>
&quot;Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more lovable!</I>&quot;
<IMG ALIGN=MIDDLE SRC="../gx/heart.gif"> </H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<CENTER>
<IMG SRC="../gx/fisk/wkndMech.gif" ALIGN=BOTTOM WIDTH=397 HEIGHT=150>
<H1>Welcome to The Linux Weekend Mechanic!</H1>
<H2>Published in the February 1997 Edition of the Linux Gazette</H2>
<FONT SIZE="2"><B>
Copyright (c) 1997 John M. Fisk &lt;fiskjm@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu&gt;<BR>
The Linux Gazette is Copyright(c) 1997 <A HREF="http://www.ssc.com/">
Specialized Systems Consultants Inc.</A>
</B></FONT>
</CENTER>
<P><HR>
<H2>Time To Become... <I>The Linux Weekend Mechanic!</I></H2>
<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD ALIGN=TOP>
<IMG SRC="../gx/fisk/mechanic.gif" ALIGN=BOTTOM WIDTH=147 HEIGHT=66>
<TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP>
You've made it to the weekend and things have finally slowed down. You
crawl outa bed, bag the shave 'n shower 'cause it's Saturday, grab that
much needed cup of caffeine (your favorite alkaloid), and shuffle down
the hall to the den. It's time to fire up the Linux box, break out the
trusty 'ol Snap-On's, pop the hood, jack 'er up, and do a bit of
overhauling!
</TABLE>
<P><HR><P>
<!-- TABLE OF CONTENTS ================================================ -->
<H2>Table of Contents</H2>
<UL>
<LI><A HREF="#welcome">Welcome To the Weekend Mechanic!</A>
<LI><A HREF="#supermount"><I>Supermount</I> for 2.x Kernels!</A>
<LI><A HREF="#dosemu"><I>DOSEMU</I> and WP 6.1 for DOS...</A>
<LI><A HREF="#wallpaper">X Window Wallpapering...!</A>
<LI><A HREF="#closing">Closing up Shop...</A>
</UL>
<!-- END TABLE OF CONTENTS ============================================ -->
<P><HR><P>
<!-- WELCOME SECTION ================================================== -->
<H2><A NAME="welcome"><IMG SRC="../gx/fisk/attndant.gif" WIDTH=129 HEIGHT=99>
Howdy! Welcome to the Weekend Mechanic</A></H2>
<P>
Phew! It's good to be back!
<P>
So how's everyone doing? How are things going? I had a great semester
this past Fall -- got my 4.0 and everything :-) Still, things got rather
hectic toward the end of classes and I'm <EM>still</EM> trying to get myself
shoveled out from beneath a pile of backlogged email. I managed to survive
six finals, the usual glut of &quot;end-of-the-semester projects&quot;,
a flight to Washington D.C. and a drive from there to N.Y. with my brother,
his wife, and three small boys to visit our parents for Christmas, a new HD
installation and complete system re-installation (the story of my life...),
AND I actually managed to show my face at work once or twice before classes
started again. If you're wondering why you haven't heard back from me,
hang in there, I'm coming... :-)
<P>
And is it only me, or does it seem that the 'ol Linux Gazette has really
taken on quite a nice face lift since <b>Marjorie Richardson</b> took the
helm...? I have to admit, the LG looks GREAT -- new graphics, better
organization, a search engine, and so forth. Having worked on the LG in
the past I know how much time and effort goes into each issue and I know
that Marjorie has worked hard on this. I know that a lot of folks have
taken the time to drop a note (the Mail section is as busy as it always
was... :-) but if you haven't, you really need to! Here, let me make it
easy for all of you with mail-capable browsers...
<H2><a href="mailto: gazette@ssc.com">Dear Marjorie...</a></h2>
<P>
See! that wasn't so bad, and the reality of it is that demonstrated interest
and ongoing support are what keeps this 'ol ezine going in the first place!
Remember: &quot;The <EM>masses</EM> may vote with their feet, but hackers
vote with both hands! (...unless you're able to type with your toes or are
gifted with a prehensile tail or something... :-)&quot;
<P>
Anyway, drop Marjorie a note, she'll really appreciate it.
<P>
<!-- END WELCOME SECTION ============================================== -->
<P><HR><P>
<!-- ARTICLE ================================================ -->
<H2><A NAME="supermount"><IMG SRC="../gx/fisk/toolchest.gif" WIDTH=60 HEIGHT=48
ALIGN=BOTTOM><I>Supermount</I> for 2.x Kernels!</A></H2>
<P>
I don't know about you, but one of the things that I <I>really</I> missed
after doing the kernel 2.0 upgrade was being able to use <B>supermount</B>.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, supermount is a program
(in the form of a kernel patch) written by <b>Stephen Tweedie</b> that,
in effect, allows you to insert, take out, and re-insert removable media
such as floppies and CDs without going through all the rigmarole of using
<b>mount</b> and <b>umount</b>. For those of us who are converts from
the DOS era who are perpetually forgetting to umount a floppy before popping
it out of the drive, this comes as blessed succor.
<P>
And the good news is: <B>IT'S BACK!</B>
<P>
Actually, it probably wasn't gone all that long, truth be known. I've been
periodically checking in at the favorite <i>sunsite.unc.edu</i> mirror site
and peeking around the /pub/linux/kernel/patches/ subdir for a newer version
of supermount. No luck. Then recently, I saw a note posted by Stephen in
response to someone's query that the program was available for the 2.0
kernels. To break the suspense, here's the URL:
<H2><a href="ftp://linux.dcs.ed.ac.uk/pub/linux/kernel/supermount/">
ftp://linux.dcs.ed.ac.uk/pub/linux/kernel/supermount/</a></H2>
<P>
There's a patch for kernel versions 2.0.0 and 2.0.23 and a README file that
outlines the fairly simple steps to applying the patch, recompiling the kernel
(and speaking of forgetting to do things, if you don't do a 'make zlilo' then
DON'T FORGET TO RERUN LILO if you install the new kernel), and setting up the
needed /etc/fstab entry to start using it. For those of you who've used
supermount in the past, you'll be pleased to know that the installation and
setup haven't changed since the kernel 1.2.13 version -- you should be able to
use your old /etc/fstab (if it's still lying around somewhere) and have things
come up working like they did in the Good Old Days!
<P>
Also, I wrote a short article on supermount several months ago for the LG and
mentioned that I'd had a lot of trouble getting it to work correctly with the
SoundBlaster 2X CD-ROM that I was using at the time. I was able to change CDs
but the directory listing simply wasn't being updated correctly. Well, after
the system upgrade this past Fall, I've switched to a Toshiba 8X CD and it
works fine with this. Which reminds me...
<P>
If you want to use supermount with a CD-ROM, at least with the ATAPI type drive
that I've got, then you'll likely want to make a small change to one of the
kernel files to allow the CD-ROM drive door to be opened when the drive has
been mounted. As most of you probably have noticed, once you mount the CD
drive, the door is locked -- you have to umount the drive in order to open it
and change CDs. Obviously, this doesn't work well if the point to using
supermount is NOT having to do this type of this. So, to disable door
locking, and PRESUMING YOU'RE USING AN ATAPI TYPE CD-ROM, then edit the file:
<PRE>
/usr/src/linux/drivers/block/ide-cd.c
</PRE>
<P>
Look for the following section which is near the beginning of the file:
<PRE>
/* Turning this on will disable the door-locking functionality.
This is apparently needed for supermount. */
#ifndef NO_DOOR_LOCKING
#define NO_DOOR_LOCKING 0
#endif
</PRE>
<P>
Change that '0' to a '1' after the <b>NO_DOOR_LOCKING</b> and you'll be all
set. This, as the quick-witted will have already surmised, does what it
implies: it disables door locking so you'll be able to change CDs. How
about that for easy, eh?
<P>
So, to summarize what you'll need to do, here's the brief rundown:
<ol>
<LI>get your hands on the supermount patch (I'll help you with this one in
a minute...)
<LI>apply the patch to the kernel:
<PRE>
$ cd /usr/src/linux
$ cp &quot;path-to-patch&quot;/supermount-0.4c-for-2.0.diff .
$ patch -s -p1 < supermount-0.4c-for-2.0.diff
</PRE>
<LI>edit the /usr/src/linux/drivers/block/ide-cd.c file to disable door
locking
<LI>recompile your kernel AND RERUN LILO (ever get the idea that I've
forgotten to do this myself once or twice... :-)
<LI>edit your /etc/fstab to enable mounting of floppy or CD-ROM drives via
supermount
<LI>reboot the system to load the new kernel and enable supermount
<LI>Enjoy!!
</ol>
<P>
Now, for the trusting (or merely lazy like myself... :-), here's a copy of the
patches and the README file:
<P>
<H2><a href="./misc/supermount-0.4c-for-2.0.23.diff">
supermount-0.4c-for-2.0.23.diff</a></H2>
<H2><a href="./misc/supermount-0.4c-for-2.0.diff">
supermount-0.4c-for-2.0.diff</a></H2>
<H2><a href="./misc/supermount.README">
supermount.README</a></H2>
<P>
If you're the suspicious or just plain cautious type then go ahead and get the
files from the URL above. Also, you might want to check there for updates or
newer releases.
<P>
One thing that I've not really tried yet is seeing what happens if the CD-ROM
drive is mounted via supermount and you attempt to play an audio CD. I've not
had the nerve to try this. In this case, it's probably safe to go ahead and
umount the drive, play the CD, and then mount the drive once again -- since
there's an entry for the CD-ROM drive in /etc/fstab, all you should have to do
is something like:
<PRE>
mount /cdrom
</PRE>
presuming that /cdrom is where you normally mount your CD.
<P>
The other thing that I've not tried is using supermount with BOTH ext2 and
MS-DOS type floppies. I suspect that it would cause a bit of trouble but,
again, I've not been daring (or foolish...?) enough to try this little
maneuver.
<P>
Anyway, I hope that give supermount a try! The README file is pretty helpful
in terms of answering basic setup and usage questions and he includes a copy
of his /etc/fstab file as an example. Hope you enjoy!
<P>
John<BR>
Nashville, TN<BR>
Mon Jan 20 10:26:51 CST 1997
<!-- END ARTICLE ================================================ -->
<P><HR><P>
<!-- ARTICLE ================================================ -->
<H2><A NAME="dosemu"><IMG SRC="../gx/fisk/toolchest.gif" WIDTH=60 HEIGHT=48
ALIGN=BOTTOM><I>DOSEMU</I> and WP 6.1 for DOS...</A></H2>
<P>
I hesitate to even bring this up... :-)
<P>
One of the more common USENET postings in almost <i>any</i> of the linux
groups these days is some newbee who innocently ventures a question such as
&quot;Is there a word processor for Linux like Word for Windows...&quot;.
After the poor bloke gets flamed to a crisp with ardent admonitions to eschew
such <i>lollipop-ware</i> and use a <i>real</i> text-processing system such as
LaTeX or GROFF, there usually ensues a heated debate over the virtues of one's
favorite system for getting something into print...
<P>
I think I'd like to avoid such debate... :-)
<P>
I would, however, like to humbly offer one possible solution to the need for a
word processor under Linux -- especially if you're either unfamiliar with
LaTeX or find that it doesn't completely meet your text-processing needs. And
that is, using <b>DOSEMU</b> and one of the common word processors available
for DOS. Now, if you already have a system working for you then by all means
stick with it! However, if you still find yourself rebooting to DOS, OS/2, or
Windows to do a bit of word processing then this might be one possible
alternative.
<P>
But before I go on...
<P>
Let me quickly mention that I'm well aware that the usual business apps which
have long been available for the <i>other OS's</i> -- the word processors,
spreadsheets, desktop publishing packages, PIMs, and so forth -- are starting
to appear as <i>Linux-native applications!</i> This is great news and I
certainly welcome and support such efforts to bring these much-needed tools to
the the Linux OS! Thing is, what I've tried so far really hasn't been helpful
for <i>me</i>. To wit:
<ul>
<li><b>LyX</b> -- a VERY nice, near-WYSIWYG front-end to the LaTeX text
processing system. I've just now started to spend some time with this.
One of the things that I've really liked about this is that it uses a
system that is <i>native</i> to Linux and UNIX -- LaTeX. It means that
the documents are portable and render in a reliable manner. For my own
tastes, the fonts sometimes appear a bit old, but that's <i>strictly</i>
my own tastes. I think this holds a lot of promise.
<P>
<li><b>StarOffice</b> -- I think that this also holds a LOT of promise. It's
currently freely available as beta software and has a very modern
installation routine and very handsome UI (to my conceits). My own pet
peeve about it is the frequency in which I get warnings about the version
expiring and the (admittedly minor) irritation of having to download a
whole new set of files and doing the installation all over again.
<P>
My other fairly minor complaint with it is the look of the output -- I've
not been terribly impressed with the set of default fonts that come with
it. Again, this is strictly a matter of taste, but the output hasn't been
exactly what I'd hoped for..
<P>
<li><b>EZ</b> -- The EZ word processor is part of the <b>Andrew User
Interface System</b> (aka, AUIS) and really is a fairly easy to use word
processor. Overall, I've been pleased with its ease of installation and
use and the output is generally quite acceptable. The range of fonts is
a bit limited, but for short notes and memos it's quite useful. I've not
spent enough time with this to really ascertain the full extent of its
customizations. I suspect that it's capable of more than I'm currently
doing if I only knew how...
<p>
<li>I've also played around some with a few of the other available word
processors -- <b>SciTeXt</b>, <b>Thot</b>, and <b>Papyrus</b>. They all
seem to be &quot;works in progress&quot; and show promise. Still, I've
not found that the output equals what I've been able to achieve using the
usual DOS, OS/2, Win, or Mac apps.
<p>
Sorry, call me a heretic... :-)
<p>
</ul>
<P>
I really don't want to get mired down in a review of all the possible word
processor tools out there -- I mention these in order to say, &quot;I've given
them a a try...&quot; Two other applications that really deserve to be
mentioned include the <b>Caldera's WordPerfect for Linux</b> and the
<b>Applixware Suite available through Red Hat Software</b>. I've not had a
chance to try either of these out, although I've read a good deal of pro's and
con's about each of them in the linux USENET hierarchy. A buddy at school
just got a copy of the academic version of Applixware and I'm pretty
interested in seeing this in action. So far, he's been pretty pleased with
it, so I definitely need to stop by and give this a try!
<p>
Anyway, what I've found is working quite well for me is a combination of
DOSEMU and WordPerfect 6.1 for DOS. If you happen to have an old (or new)
copy of WP for DOS available to you, and you're willing to give DOSEMU a
whirl, let me urge you to give this a try.
<P>
At this point, I'm going to do something I swore to myself I'd never do -- I'm
going to weenie out on you a NOT go through the entire process of setting up
DOSEMU. The reason for this is that, although I've gotten it up and running
on my own box at home here, I really don't feel terribly comfortable with
being able to walk anyone else through the process. I ended up tinkering
around with it and, through an admittedly haphazard process of trial &amp;
(mostly) error, got the thing to work. There are still several things about
it that I don't understand and so I won't inflict my ignorance upon you.
<P>
Still with me... :-)
<P>
Thing is, there's a very helpful little file that comes with DOSEMU called
&quot;QuickStart&quot; that goes through the setup process step-by-step. If a
Neanderthal like me can get this working, I'm confident that you can too!
<P>
What I would like to do is present a brief synopsis of my experiences with
this in the hopes that it might be helpful to someone trying the same things.
Again, let me emphasize that this represents <i>strictly</i> my own
experiences. As the old saying goes, &quot;your mileage may vary...&quot;
<H3>DOSEMU Setup</H3>
<P>
After upgrading to kernel 2.0 I found it necessary to upgrade a number of
packages, including DOSEMU. At the time, I picked up the most recent version
which was dosemu-0.63.1.36. The configuration, compilation, and installation
were as simple as:
<PRE>
$ ./configure
$ make
$ make install
</PRE>
This defaulted to including DPMI support, requiring the emumodule and
syscallmgr modules to be loaded before being able to use DOSEMU. DPMI support
allows you to try your hand at booting up Windows under DOSEMU. Over the past
few months I've had mixed success at best in doing this. Also, since this is
not currently supported by the DOSEMU folks, you're completely on your own if
you want to venture into this! :-)
<P>
After compiling and installing the binaries, I used the QuickStart file as a
guide and created the needed /etc/dosemu.conf and /etc/dosemu.users files.
DOSEMU comes with a <i>heavily</i> commented configuration file -- dosemu.conf
-- that let's you customize in a rational manner. For the curious, here's my
current working version of dosemu.conf:
<H2><a href="./misc/dosemu.conf">/etc/dosemu.conf example file</a></H2>
<P>
Let me make a couple comments about this before going on:
<ul>
<li>I set <b>rawkeyboard</b> to on. This allows the full use of all the
WP keystroke combinations. I found that without this, some of the usual
key combinations simply weren't working. I was able to use the menus
without any problem at all, but I still wanted to be able to keep my hands
on the keyboard.
<P>
Be aware that if you do this, there's a chance that if DOSEMU crashes it
will not correctly reset the keyboard and could potential require a cold
boot (or a remote 'kbd_mode -a' to reset it). See the comments in the
dosemu.conf file about this.
<P>
<li>I also wanted to get mouse support working. I found that the internal
mouse driver that comes with DOSEMU worked fine for most programs but
didn't seem to work for WP. You'll notice that I commented that section
out and set up the Serial stuff so that I could load my own mouse driver
from DOS.
<P>
<li>Under the Video section, I found that I was able to get decent
text-mode AND graphics-mode support using the S3 chipset support. I've
got a Diamond Stealth 64 Video VRAM with 2MB of memory and this has worked
great. There are a number of warnings in this section of dosemu.conf and
it would be advisable to read carefully through them.
<P>
<li>Finally, I really needed to have printer support if this was to be a
viable solution at all. I've been using the <b>apsfilter</b> program for
some time now and really love this a LOT. One of the printer modes that
it sets up is 'raw' mode and I found that this was the key to being able
to print from DOS. Printer support uses lpr, and by using the
&quot;-Praw&quot; option I was able to get printing to work. I also set
up raw access to the lpt1 port.
<P>
</ul>
<P>
After doing all of this (in an incremental fashion) I found myself with a
working version of DOSEMU and a functional WP program!
<P>
I also decided to load the emumodule and syscallmgr modules at boot time so
that I could use DOSEMU more easily. To do so, you'll probably want to the
use 'insmod' program that gets compiled with the rest of the DOSEMU files.
The easy way to do this is to use the 'load_module.sh' script in the root DOSEMU
directory. I found that by editing the first couple lines of the script I was
able to call it from any directory: just add the correct path names at the
top:
<PRE>
#!/bin/bash
MODULESDIR=/usr/local/lib/dosemu-0.63.1.36/0.63.1.36/modules
BINDIR=/usr/local/lib/dosemu-0.63.1.36/bin
[...]
</PRE>
and then add a stanza to /etc/rc.d/rc.local such as:
<PRE>
if [ -x /usr/local/lib/dosemu-0.63.1.36/load_module.sh ]; then
echo "Loading DOSEMU 0.63 modules..."
. /usr/local/lib/dosemu-0.63.1.36/load_module.sh
fi
</PRE>
The modules use up very little memory and the convenience of not having to
remember to load them is probably worthwhile.
<H3>Installing WordPerfect 6.1 for DOS</H3>
<P>
There really isn't an awful lot of startling news here -- if you're used to
installing DOS programs then this is pretty much a &quot;no-brainer&quot;.
The one important point to make, however, has to do with video driver
installation. I discovered something quite valuable recently when I
re-installed my system over Christmas Break.
<P>
The first time I set up WP 6.1 I installed only the S3 drivers (since
I'm using an S3-based Diamond card). I found that doing so provided
graphics mode support under DOS in resolutions up to 1280x1024. However,
I was keenly disappointed to find that the best graphics-mode resolution
I could get under DOSEMU was an abysmal 320x200. No matter how I poked,
prodded, wheedled, cajoled, threatened, and messed with it, that's all I got.
<P>
Serious Bummer... :-(
<P>
Over Christmas, when I reinstalled the system, I noticed that one of the video
drivers was labeled simply &quot;VESA&quot; and so, on a whim, installed that
as well as the S3 drivers. This turned out to be quite fortuitous as although
the S3 drivers still did not give better than 320x200 resolution, the VESA
driver actually allowed me to get 1024x768 in 8-bit color. On a 17" monitor,
this is a very comfortable resolution and provides pretty good WYSIWYG
previewing.
<P>
So, the moral of the story is -- if you're in doubt, give the VESA video
drivers a whirl.
<H3>Running WordPerfect 6.1 under DOSEMU</H3>
<P>
Once I got DOSEMU installed and properly configured (BTW, I also created the
/etc/dosemu.users file that simply has the word &quot;all&quot; as the sole
word on the first line -- this let's anyone (<i>i.e.,</i> me) to execute the
program) and WP 6.1 installed, I was quite pleased to discover that nearly all
the features available from running it under DOS were also available under
DOSEMU:
<ul>
<li>full mouse support
<li>full text mode support
<li>graphics mode for WYSIWYG editing and print preview to 1024x768 in 256
colors
<li>support for all keystroke combinations
</ul>
The one feature that I haven't yet tried is fax support, although ostensibly
it should work.
<P>
A feature of WP that is completely UNAVAILABLE under DOS is that I can be
editing a file in WP under DOSEMU and, using Ctrl-Alt-Fn, switch to another
virtual terminal and continue to work under Linux. Running X Window
concurrently also has shown no signs of causing problems.
<P>
Let me say this again since I get a chill just thinking about it...
<P>
I can run DOSEMU + WP 6.1 in a virtual terminal and have full editing and
printing capabilities while at the same time freely switch to another VT or
even to X Window and have all these processes running concurrently!!
<P>
This is what makes Linux such a seriously cool OS!!
<P>
This is way too cool... ;-)
<P>
The one caveat I'd mention is that of using WP in graphics mode. I don't know
about WP 5.1, but version 6.1 supports a fairly respectable graphics-mode that
provides WYSIWYG editing and print preview. On my system, the performance is
quite acceptable, although not quite as responsive as under DOS (but then
who'd want to run anything under DOS if they didn't really need to... :-)
However, switching to a VT or to an X Window session while in graphics mode
renders the system completely unusable -- the keyboard AND the console both
go into impenetrable lockup which only a cold boot fixes. This has, at least,
been my experience. However, I found that if I simply exited back to text
mode before switching to another VT then everything worked fine.
<P>
Finally, let me make one last comment about using WP under DOSEMU. One of my
ongoing complaints about many (though certainly not all) of the current
&quot;word processors&quot; available for Linux is the quality of the printed
output. The features that drew me to using WP were the familiarity with the
program and the quality of the final output. WP 6.1 supports, among other
things, TrueType fonts and having invested in a Corel Draw some time back (and
its 750+ TT fonts) I was pretty keen to being able to continue to use these.
I've been quite pleased that under Linux I can still do basic word processing
in a known environment with predictable output. That was the clincher for me.
<P>
Again, let me quickly add that this might not be at all what you want or you
might simply dislike the WP system itself. The thing about Linux is that it
give you a <i>choice</i> once again!
<P>
And, for the skeptics out there, those who said, &quot;it can't be
done...&quot;, here's a screen shot of WP 6.1 running under X...
<P>
<img src="./gx/fisk/xdos.gif" align=bottom width=650 height=430
alt="screen shot of WP 6.1 running under xdos">
<P>
Give this a try! If you like it, keep it. If not, delete it and have
a look at something else. Also, if you're looking for something to run
under X then you might be well served to give either the Applixware suite
or the Linux WordPerfect port a try. DOSEMU will run under X (as xdos)
but WP loses some of its functionality -- mouse support and keystroke
support can be a bit flaky and graphics-mode support is completely lost.
So, if X is where you spend most of your time, you might consider investing
in or investigating one of the native X programs.
<P>
Most of all, though...
<P>
Have Fun &amp; Happy Linux'ing!
<P>
John<br>
Nashville, TN<br>
Mon Jan 20 13:18:01 CST 1997
<!-- END ARTICLE ================================================ -->
<P><HR><P>
<!-- ARTICLE ================================================ -->
<H2><A NAME="wallpaper"><IMG SRC="../gx/fisk/toolchest.gif" WIDTH=60 HEIGHT=48
ALIGN=BOTTOM>X Window Wallpapering...!</A></H2>
<P>
Well, here's a little nothingburger that comes pretty close to being a <i>bona
fide</i> FAQ -- the question arises from time to time as to how to
(automatically) wallpaper one's X Window session after starting X. For the
impatient, the short answer is:
<pre>
xv -quit -root image.gif
</pre>
Presuming, of course, that the image that you wanted to use was in fact called
&quot;image.gif&quot; the above would use the ubiquitous <b>xv</b> program by
<b>John Bradley</b> to tile your root window with the specified window. The
&quot;-quit&quot; option causes xv to do its work and then quietly terminate.
<P>
If you're using one of the 1.x versions of FVWM then just add a stanza such as
the following:
<pre>
Function &quot;InitFunction&quot;
Exec &quot;I&quot; exec /usr/X11/bin/xv -quit -root /usr/gx/image.gif &
[...]
EndFunction
</pre>
That is, you simply add a stanza for xv to the &quot;InitFunction&quot; and
this is done automatically!
<P>
Since I've not upgraded to the newer FVWM 2.x version (nor FVWM-95, or any of
the other myriad new window managers) you're rather on your own with this one.
However, I suspect that a quick perusal of the manual page or the
configuration file should quickly point the way.
<P>
At the moment, I'm using <b>olvwm 4</b> (with the 3.2 libraries) and added the
following to the /var/openwin/lib/Xinitrc file:
<pre>
#!/bin/sh
# Xinitrc executed by openwin script to display startup logo
# and restore desktop setup (saved using owplaces)
# Hereby placed into public domain by Kenneth Osterberg 1993.
[...]
# Start programs
<b>exec /usr/X11/bin/xv -quit -root /var/openwin/lib/marbleFlowers.gif &</b>
exec /usr/local/X11/bin/xcalendar -geometry 240x240+0+160 &
exec /usr/X11/bin/xclock -geometry 134x127+252+0 &
exec /usr/local/X11/bin/rxvt -ls -font 9x15 -geometry 80x32+500+195 &
exec /usr/local/X11/bin/rxvt -ls -font 9x15 -geometry 79x31+252+268 &
exec /home/fiskjm/bin/syslogtk -geometry +398+0 &
# Startup the OpenLook window manager
if [ ! -z "$WINDOWMANAGER" ]; then
exec $WINDOWMANAGER
else
exec $OPENWINHOME/bin/olwm
fi
</pre>
This has the identical effect of tiling the root window before olvwm is
launched.
<p>
If you're interested in this, there are actually all sorts of nifty things
that you can play with along this line. Keep in mind that xv has a plethora
of options for setting the root window image interactively. To do so, simply
find an image that you'd like to play with, launch xv with the image filename
as the argument, and then select the &quot;Root&quot; button. I won't list
all the possible options -- try them out and amuse yourself!
<P>
Thing is, to really have a good time you need to have a few images to play
with and question is, where to get these little rascals...?
<P>
Well...
<P>
Here's a couple ideas to get you going:
<ul>
<li>If you're running Windows, Win95, or OS/2 then you have to look no
farther than your C: drive! XV is more than capable of handling the *.BMP
files from Windows and converting them to .GIF or .JPG (or any of several
other formats for that matter) files. I'll use this as an example in a
minute...
<P>
<li>For those of you wanting to get rid of the... er... <i>Windows
motif</i> and if you're connected to the INTERNET, then the world is your
oyster, my friend!!
<P>
There are all KINDS of great images out there that you can play with.
FWIW, the <a href="http://www.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/~gimp/">GIMP
home page</a> has a fantastic marble tile image on its front page. It's
wallpapering my desktop at this moment.
<P>
You might also do a quick Yahoo, Alta Vista, or WebCrawler search for any
of the numerous Online Art Museums and Art Galleries. Or, for all you
60's Baby Boomers who grew up watching the Apollo flights and dreamt of
being an astronaut, check out NASA's huge collection of space related
images. If you're a Netscape user, simply click the right mouse button
over the image and save it to disk. Keep in mind that some images do have
copyright protection.
<P>
<li>For those do-it-yourself'ers out there with a bit of talent, you can
easily play around with programs such as <b>xpaint</b> and draw your
<i>own</i> or modify an image to your likings.
<P>
One of the other fun programs to play with is <b>xfractint</b> which
generates fractal images. It will also SAVE those images in GIF format.
<P>
</ul>
Anyway, you get the picture. If you have a scanner, then you're golden :-)
<P>
So let's do a quick walk through on this.
<P>
After I somewhat reluctantly installed Win95 this past Fall (I was taking a
Visual Programming class and you can guess as to which Visual language we had
to use...) I discovered a few new wallpaper images including one that I really
liked -- the Forest.bmp image. I happen to enjoy hiking around in the nearby
Great Smoky Mountains and grew up in the pine forests of upstate New York.
Anyway, I decided that I'd gotten a bit tired of the 'ol SteelBlue background
and was ready for a change. Here's what I did...
<P>
After mounting my Win95 partition and copying the c:\win95\Forest.bmp file to
my home directory I used xv to have a look at this rascal and convert it to a
GIF image. XV allows you to save an image as any number of different formats
and I chose GIF, Full Color. That done, I had a suspicion that this might be
a bit of a color resource hog -- a suspicion that was confirmed by another
handy little program, <b>xli</b>.
<P>
Xli is a graphics manipulation program that is easily found at any of the
<a href="ftp://ftp.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/X11/">sunsite mirrors</a> in the
X11 directory under the graphics viewers subdirectory. One of its handy
features is the &quot;identification&quot; mode that it can run in. To get
information about an image (from the command line) simply type in:
<pre>
xli -ident image.gif
</pre>
and assuming that the image you were interested was, in fact, named
&quot;image.gif&quot; then it would print out a useful one-liner. Doing this
to the Forest.gif image that we just created using xv, we find:
<pre>
$ xli -ident ~/Forest.gif
/home/fiskjm/Forest.gif is a 256x256 GIF87a image with 256 colors
</pre>
Hmm... the size is OK, but with 256 colors this will definitely burn out my
color map quicker than you can say Netscape! Now, enter the next useful
program to our arsenal of image tools -- <b>ImageMagick</b>.
<P>
ImageMagick is one of those seriously cool, Must-Have programs if you're
playing around with images very often. I recently found the latest version
(nicely pre-compiled, thank you...) at the
<a href="ftp://ftp.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/Incoming">GA Tech</a> sunsite
mirror (ImageMagick-3.7.9-tgz) along with the needed libraries
(libIMPlugin-1.0-tgz). Installing the precompiled bin's was a no-brainer and
I was up and running in no time flat.
<P>
One of the programs that is included with ImageMagick (it's actually a suite
of programs) is <b>convert</b>. <b>convert</b> allows you to quickly and
easily convert images from one format to another and to optionally set its
various attributes. You need to have a look at the manual page (which is
included with the binaries) to really appreciate all the things this is
capable of doing. For what I was trying to do, all I needed was to set the
size of the color map to something a bit more sane.
<P>
Using the &quot;-colors&quot; option I was able to set the &quot;preferred
number of colors&quot; to something that was a bit more X friendly:
<pre>
convert -colors 32 ~/Forest.gif ~/forest.gif
</pre>
Doing this and running xli on it once again, we find that it has, in fact,
been stripped down to a more lean 32 colors:
<pre>
xli -ident ~/forest.gif
~/forest.gif is a 256x256 interlaced GIF89a image with 32 colors
</pre>
That's a bit better. Now I suppose that I could have used an even smaller
number but 32 colors gave an image that differed visually from the original
image very little.
<P>
Anyway, that was it! I now had a 256x256 image with 32 colors that no longer
threatened to burn out my entire color map! I added a stanza to the Xinitrc
file and <i>voila!</i>, instant wallpaper!
<P>
Keep in mind that this is <i>hardly</i> the only way to do this. There are
several other nifty programs out there that provide similar functionality.
Try scrounging around in the X11/graphics/ subdirectory of any of the sunsite
mirrors or at <a href="ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/">ftp.x.org</a> in its contrib
subdirectory.
<P>
Another program that I'll mention before closing this up is the truly awesome
<b>xearth</b> program. If you're looking for a truly impressive, animated X
wallpaper program, look no further. This is one way too cool program! I
don't have a screen shot of it to show you but believe me, it's worth setting
it up and giving it a whirl! At the moment, you should be able to find it in
the <a href="ftp://ftp.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/X11/xapps/graphics/">
/X11/xapps/graphics/</a> subdirectory of any of the sunsite Linux mirrors.
The file to look for is <b>xearth-1.0.tgz</b>.
<P>
Anyway, hope this gets you going! I admit that it's been a bit of a
smorgasbord of suggestions, but you might be able to find something useful
here! :-)
<P>
As usual, hope you enjoy!
<P>
John<br>
Nashville, TN<br>
Mon Jan 20 21:08:25 CST 1997
<!-- END ARTICLE ================================================ -->
<P><HR><P>
<!-- CLOSING UP ================================================ -->
<H2><A NAME="closing"><IMG SRC="../gx/fisk/desklamp.gif" WIDTH=80 HEIGHT=100
ALIGN=BOTTOM>Closing Up Shop...</A></H2>
<P>
Well, as usual, things around here have been busier than I'd hoped and I just
don't have the time to do all of the writing that I'd like to. Also, I'm
trying to keep this page to a reasonable size :-) (those of you who've been
hanging around here for a while might remember those 160K+ size pages...).
<P>
So what has everyone been up to? Found any new toys... :-)
<P>
Over Christmas, I <I>finally</I> started working on something that I'd been
promising to do for ages: I've started to learn emacs! I have to say that
this has been a bit of a paradigm shift after having used VIM for such a long
time. However, I can see why the loyalties run so deep -- Emacs is a
seriously cool and indisputably powerful editor. Truth is, however, that I've
not taken the <I>purist</I> approach: I have to admit that I'm really using
<b>XEmacs</b>. I also got my hands on an xemacs-derivative called
<b>infodock</b> which is another way-too-cool and VERY powerful editor.
<P>
I'd hoped to write a bit on my initial experiences and impressions but I guess
that will have to wait for another month or so. Thing is, there are actually
quite a number of GREAT editors out there to mess around with. And the more
that I try out different ones (I've decided that I really am an &quot;editor
junkie...&quot;) the more I'm convinced that the essence of the editor flame
wars that periodically erupt can be summed up in <I>preference</I>.
<P>
Not to throw a wet blanket on anyone's <I>jihad</I>, but...
<P>
Although feature sets, user interfaces, resource utilization, performance
issues, and so forth are very valid issues when discussing the various merits
and liabilities of one's favorite editor, the bottom line is: you probably
use it because you like it! I have to admit that after using VIM for the past
couple years, emacs is something of an <I>acquired taste</I>. However, if
you've been using emacs for a while, then vi looks a bit stark and your
fingers feel bewildered.
<P>
Anyway, there's no accounting for taste and no apologies for it either. The
great thing about Linux is that &quot;it restores the choice once again!&quot;
Try everything out, use what is useful, keep what you like. And FWIW, those
of you using a VI clone like myself might be interested in giving the latest
iteration of VIM a test drive. As of a little bit ago, VIM 4.5 source was in
the sunsite Incoming directory. It can now be compiled, using the Motif
widget set, to have both a console-based and an honest-to-goodness X-based
interface. The X version is called <b>gvim</b> (for &quot;Graphical
VIM&quot;) and I'm using it right now. It has all of the usual keystrokes
(for all you ten-fingered typers...) but has nice mouse support for cursor
positioning and cut-and-paste operations. It also sports a handsome
scrollbar, handles multiple windows with aplomb, and even touts a rudimentary
but useful menu bar. It has a very extensive online help system that is
vaguely hypertext-like: you can navigate from one &quot;node&quot; to another
using a keystroke similar to that with tags: Ctrl-] selects a node and Ctrl-t
returns you to the original location.
<P>
With any luck, I'll have some time this next month and will try to put
something together -- mostly just chat, nothing terribly profound. I've got a
few screen dumps for the visually-oriented. Those of you who are considering
taking the leap and learning emacs might well be served to have a look at
this rascal. AND, keep in mind that it is NOT just an X Window app -- it'll
run in console mode just as easily as under X. Have a look at the XEmacs home
page for more info:
<H3><A HREF="http://www.xemacs.org/">www.xemacs.org</A></H3>
And while you're there, have a peek at the <b>infodock</b> stuff as well.
Finally, in this month's <b>Linux Journal</b> there's a very nice article by
an old LG regular: <b>Larry Ayers</b>, who has written a review comparing GNU
Emacs with XEmacs. For the curious, it's well worth having a look at what
Larry's impressions of the two were.
<P>
Well, I've got a bit of work to get one tonight and so I'll wrap this up for
the month. I'm <I>still</I> trying to get out from underneath a pile of
email. Hang in there... I'm coming!
<P>
Best Wishes and Happy Linux'ing!!
<P>
John M. Fisk<BR>
Nashville, TN<BR>
Monday, January 27, 1997
<!-- END CLOSING UP ================================================ -->
<P><HR><P>
<IMG SRC="./gx/fisk/mailbox.gif" ALIGN=MIDDLE WIDTH=38 HEIGHT=30> If you'd like,
drop me a note at:
<ADDRESS> John M. Fisk
<A HREF="mailto: fiskjm@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu">
&lt;fiskjm@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu&gt;</A>
</ADDRESS>
<P>
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<P><HR><P>
<center><H4>Previous "Weekend Mechanic" Columns</H4></center>
<P>
<A HREF="../issue11/wkndmech.html">Weekend Mechanic #1, November 1996</A><br>
<A HREF="../issue12/wkndmech.html">Weekend Mechanic #2, December 1996</A>
<P><HR><P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1997, John M. Fisk <BR>
Published in Issue 14 of the Linux Gazette</H5></center>
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