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<!--startcut ==========================================================-->
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>More 2 Cent Tips & Tricks Issue 25</title>
</head>
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#A000A0"
ALINK="#FF0000">
<!--endcut ============================================================-->
<H4>"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- QUICK TIPS SECTION ================================================== -->
<center>
<H1><A NAME="tips"><IMG ALIGN=MIDDLE ALT="" SRC="../gx/twocent.gif">
More 2&#162; Tips!</A></H1> <BR>
Send Linux Tips and Tricks to <A HREF="mailto:gazette@ssc.com">
gazette@ssc.com
</A></center>
<p><hr><p>
<H3>Contents:</H3>
<ul>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips25.html#vim">Linux - 2 Cents about vim for pico
users</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips25.html#blink">My 1/50th of a Dollar</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips25.html#sound">sound problems</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips25.html#filter">Filtering output of binary files</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips25.html#eggs">Easter Eggs in Netscape</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips25.html#gabby">RE: Perl and HTML</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips25.html#update">Update locate</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips25.html#spaces">Doing spaces in file names</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips25.html#mail">Mailing binary files to Microsoft
clients</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips25.html#route">Linux and Routing</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips25.html#rout2">Linux and Routing 2</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips25.html#about">Netscape's Abouts</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips25.html#netscape">Netscape on the Desktop</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips25.html#print">Re: Printing Problems</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips25.html#computer">Re: Using a 386 Computer</a>
</ul>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="vim"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Linux - 2 Cents about vim for pico users
</H3>
<P>
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 23:07:20 +0100<br>
From: Sven Guckes <a
href="mailto:guckes@math.fu-berlin.de">guckes@math.fu-berlin.de</a><br>
<p>
I just read the "2 cent tips" again and I thought you might enjoy this tip:
<p>
Several people enjoy the editor "pico" but do not feel comfortable with an
editor like "vim" for several reasons - one of these being that it is so
easy to do reformat the current paragraph with ^J (control-j) within pico
while it is so "difficult" within Vim. Well, all it takes is two mappings
for Vim:
<pre>
nmap &lt;C-J> vipgq
nmap &lt;C-J> gq
</pre>
Put these mappings into your setup file (on Unix and esp Linux this is ~/.vimrc)
and you can use ^J to reformat the current paragraph or the currently
highlighted text (use 'V' and some movement commands to do that, for example).
<p>
More tips can be obtained from these Pages:
<pre>
http://www.vim.org/ Vim Home Page
http://www.vim.org/faq/ Vim FAQ
http://www.vim.org/answ.html Vim Answers Page
(for everything not yet in the VIM FAQ)
http://www.vim.org/rc Sven's Huge Setup File with comments
</pre>
And for those people who use "some vi" but never got the hang of it -
here is a page about "why" you would want to use a vi clone such as Vim:
<pre>
http://www.vim.org/why.html
</pre>
Enjoy!
<p>
Sven
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="blink"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
My 1/50th of a Dollar
</H3>
<P>
Date: Wed, 07 Jan 1998 01:27:09 +0000<br>
From: Michael Katz-Hyman <a
href="mailto:mkatshym@erols.com">mkatshym@erols.com</a><br>
<p>
Here is a small shell script I wrote to blink the scroll lock on my
keyboard when new mail arrived.
<p>
--------------------------------------------------------------
<pre>
#!/bin/bash
#
# Keyboard blinky thingy when you have new mail, sleeps 5 minutes if you
don't
#
# Michael Katz-Hyman (mkatshym@erols.com) running Linux 2.0.33 Red Hat
4.0
Mail_File = "/var/spool/mail/mkatshym"
# The static file is used to make the script a daemon (I just test to
see if /bin/bash is present :- )
Static_File="/bin/bash"
LED_SET_COMMAND_ON = "/usr/bin/setleds +scroll"
LED_SET_COMMAND_OFF = "/usr/bin/setleds -scroll"
Sleep_Command = "/bin/sleep 2m"
# O.k. lets get started
while [ -e $Static_File ]; do
while [ -s $Mail_File ]; do
$LED_SET_COMMAND_ON
$LED_SET_COMMAND_OFF
done
if [ ! -sMail_FIle ]; then
/bin/sleep 5m
fi
done
</pre>
------------------------------------------------------------------
<p>
Michael Katz-Hyman
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="sound"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
sound problems
</H3>
<P>
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 09:48:10 -0600 (CST)<br>
From: Mike Hammel <a
href="mailto:mhammel@stassw10">mhammel@stassw10</a><br>
<pre>
> Have installed RedHat 5.0 and configured the sound card using sndconfig.
> All went well and I heard the demo sound bite of Linus. However, I
> have never heard another sound since. When browsing web sites with sound,
> no audio is played. Anyone have any ideas?
</pre>
First, cat an audio file to the audio device: cat file > /dev/audio. If
you get sound out then the device is fine. The problem is probably that
you haven't configured your browser to play the audio. With Netscape you
would use the Preferences->Navigator->Applications option. You'll need to
configure the various audio types to be played using whatever tool you
choose (I don't play much audio, so don't have anything configured in
my browser to do so). The cat command will work with .au files, and maybe
.wav (I think), but possibly not with others. You might want to look at
the Linux Application and Utilities Page or the Linux Midi and Sound Page for
hints on getting applications for playing sound files. Both of these have
links on the Software Resources page at the Linux Journal:
<a
href="http://www.linuxresources.com/apps.html">http://www.linuxresources.com/apps.html</a>.
<p>
Hope this helps a little.
<p>
Michael J. Hammel
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="filter"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Filtering output of binary files
</H3>
<P>
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 14:56:05 -0500<br>
From: Sylvain Falardeau <a
href="mailto:sfalardeau@clic.net">sfalardeau@clic.net</a>
<p>
When you do a cat/grep/etc. of binary files on a tty, the terminal may
become unusable because of some control character.
<p>
Guido Socher (eedgus@aken104.eed.ericsson.se) suggests a
<p>
sed -e 's/[^ -~][^ -~]*/ /g'
<p>
to filter unprintable characters. You can simply use a
<p>
cat -v
<p>
and all the control characters are escaped to be printable. It's very
useful when you are "cating" files and don't know if they contains control
characters.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="eggs"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Easter Eggs in Netscape
</H3>
<P>
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 11:53:51 +0000 (GMT)<br>
From: Caolan McNamara <a
href="mailto:caolan@skynet.csn.ul.ie">caolan@skynet.csn.ul.ie</a>
<pre>
* From: Ivan Griffin ivan.griffin@ul.ie
*
* These special URLs do interesting things in Netscape Navigator and Communicator.
*
* about:cache gives details on your cache
* about:global gives details about global history
* about:memory-cache
* about:image-cache
* about:document
* about:hype
* about:plugins
* about:editfilenew
*
* view-source:URL opens source window of the URL
*
* Ctrl-Alt-F take you to an interesting site :-)
</pre>
At least some of the netscape developers have an about for themselves,
e.g about:kahern.
<p>
C.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="gabby"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
RE: Perl and HTML
</H3>
<P>
Date: Thu, 08 Jan 1998 16:58:44 +0000<br>
From: Carl Mark Windsor <a
href="mailto:mbdtscw@cerberus.mcc.ac.uk">mbdtscw@cerberus.mcc.ac.uk</a>
<p>
In reply to Gabriele Giansante (gvgsoft@madnet.it), whose return
mail address does not seem to work.
<p>
--------------------------------------------------------------<br>
Gabriele,
<p>
The #!/usr/local/bin/perl line is what is used to indicate
that this is a perl script, but netscape is not clever enough to
know this, it has to be told.
<p>
Go to Options / General Preferences / Helpers and edit (if it
exists) or create (if it doesn't) the following configuration
<pre>
Description: Perl Script
Type: application/perl
Suffix: pl
</pre>
Tick the Application box and put the path
<pre>
Application: /usr/sbin/perl <-----(or the path to your perl)
</pre>
Sorry if you have heard this all before!
<p>
Carl
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="update"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Update locate
</H3>
<p>
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 19:16:31 +0000<br>
From: Joaquim Baptista <a
href="mailto:px@helios.si.fct.unl.pt">px@helios.si.fct.unl.pt</a>
<p>
Both Redhat and Slackware (not sure about Debian) install the package
updatedb. This package has two programs:<pre>
- "updatedb" scans the filesystem and generates a database of existing files.
This is run every night as root.
- "locate" is run by users to quickly locate files on the filesystem,
using the database generated by updatedb.
</pre>
My problem is that "updatedb" runs at 4:40 in the morning, and my machine
is rarely running at 4:40. Thus the database is never updated and "locate"
never finds any recent file.
<p>
The solution is not very simple: updating the database hits the disk hard
and takes some time; it is hardly a task to be performed every hour.
<p>
My solution is to run a script every hour that updates the database only if
it is more than 24 hours old. I (ab)used find to do the task.
<p>
Here is the script "run-updatedb":
<pre>
#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/find /var/spool/locate/locatedb -mtime +1 -exec \
/usr/bin/updatedb \
--prunepaths='/tmp /usr/tmp /var/tmp /mnt /cdrom /floppy /var/spool' \;
</pre>
I also had to change the crontab for root: I commented the old line that
runs updatedb at 4:40, and added a line that runs my script every hour:
<pre>
0 * * * * /usr/local/sbin/run-updatedb 1> /dev/null 2> /dev/null
</pre>
One final note: I believe that both Redhat and Debian have
"super-crontabs." That means that you must fish around in /etc
(/etc/cron?) for extra crontab files (long live Slackware!).
<p>
Best regards,<br>
Joaquim Baptista, alias pxQuim
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="spaces"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Doing spaces in file names
</H3>
<p>
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 18:16:48 -0800 (PST)<br>
From: Mark Lundeberg <a href="mailto:ae885@pgfn.bc.ca">ae885@pgfn.bc.ca</a>
<p>
If you think Win95/NT filenames are better than Linux ones, think again.
In bash, (this may work in csh, but I never use it) use quotes to enclose
the filename in the parameters of a program:
<p>
echo "test" > "spaced name"
<p>
and do an ls, and you see a space in the middle of the filename!
This can be used for confusing people, by going:
<p>
echo "Hi" > "test "
<p>
(notice the space at the end of "test ").
<p>
Then, someone tries to open the file "test" as it looks from ls, but all it
does is open a new file.
<p>
PS: The ext2 filesystem allows names of up to 255 chars long, just like
Loseows 95.
<p>
Go Linux!
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="mail"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Mailing binary files to Microsoft clients
</H3>
<p>
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 12:37:22 +0000 (GMT)<br>
From: Ivan Griffin <a href="mailto:ivan.griffin@ul.ie">ivan.griffin@ul.ie</a>
<h2>Mailing binary files to Microsoft clients...</h2>
<p>
Quite often I receive a mail with an attachment in that weird Microsoft
format which is not quite MIME. It's easy for a Unix client to decode such
attachments -- save the message as a file, and run uudecode or the
excellent freeware uudeview on it.
<p>
However, sending a mail message to such a Microsoft mail user is a little
different -- you cannot send them a standard MIME message (unless they are
using Exchange I believe). I have found the following script useful in
such situations.
<p>
Say, for example, I wanted to send a file foo.gif to user mike. I would
run my script as follows:
<pre>
msmail_encode foo.gif > mail_message
</pre>
<p>
Then I would read the mail message into the body of the message I wanted
to send. This script could easily be improved to include automatic
mailing, and editing of the mail message proper.
<pre>
#!/bin/sh
echo "[[ $1 : 2628 in $1 ]]"
echo ""
echo " Microsoft document attached. "
echo ""
echo " Regards, "
echo " Ivan."
echo ""
echo "The following binary file has been uuencoded to ensure successful"
echo "transmission. Use UUDECODE to extract."
echo
cat $1 | uuencode $1
</pre>
<p>
By the way, I have no idea what the 2628 above refers to. It is
a number generated somehow by Microsoft mail clients, but they don't seem
to need it, so the 2628 is a value I received once in a mail message.
<p>
Regards,<br>
Ivan.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="route"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Linux and Routing
</H3>
<p>
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 11:02:43 -0800<br>
From: James C. Carr <a href="mailto:jccarr@nwlink.com">jccarr@nwlink.com</a>
<p>
I am not sure if you have already received a reply regarding your
question on routing a LAN to the 'net, so I thought I'd go ahead and
give it a shot. The CC to <i>Linux Gazette</i> is just in case no one else
has sent in a more elaborate reply. ;) Also, this is something that was
mentioned back in <i>Linux Journal</i> number 43 ( November 1997 ), so most of
this stems from that particular article, "IP Masquerading Code
Follow-UP". To avoid re-hashing someone else's wonderful article, I'll
just skim over what I use here at my own home.
<p>
======================================================================<br>
Linux and Routing with ipfwadm<br>
======================================================================
<p>
Getting Linux to route information between a LAN and the 'net will
require you to re-compile the kernel with IP Masquerading support. Of
course, one could also use firewalls and disable the routing, but I
don't have experience with that just yet. If your kernel version is <
2.0.30, you'll need to enable the "Code Maturity Level" option at
re-compilation -- this gives you access to the other Network Options in
the kernel, such as IP Masquerading support.
<p>
After installing the new kernel, obtain and install the ipfwadm
program; this usually comes installed on a base Debian 1.3.1 system, and
is easily obtainable for Red Hat. Executing ipfwadm from my end
includes the following commands:
<pre>
/sbin/ipfwadm -F -p deny
</pre>
This portion breaks down as follows:<p>
-F -- Notify ipfwadm that
you're modifying the IP forwarding rules.<br>
-p -- Tell ipfwadm that
you want to deny the forwarding of incoming packets.
<p>
I've
experienced certain web pages that will not open with this option
set; it's probably some Microsoftian plot, you know. ;)
<pre>
/sbin/ipfwadm -F -a m -S 192.168.0.0/24 -D 0.0.0.0/0
</pre>
-F is the same as above.<br>
-a -- Append the following rule to the
list, in this case, we're (m) masquerading the following rule.<br>
-S
-- We're going to masquerade the computers in the 192.168.0.*
address range. Since this is a "local" set of IP numbers, it'll
work with all computers on the LAN with these IP addresses.<br>
-D --
The forwarding destination will be 0.0.0.0, the equivalent of the
gateway address on a PPP defaultroute.
<pre>
/sbin/ipfwadm -F -l -n
</pre>
Let's make sure this thing is up and running.
<p>
-l -- List all IP #
forwarding rules;<br>
-n -- convert the information to numeric format.
<p>
Of course, you'll need to have assigned your computers with IP
addresses within the 192.168.0.* range to use the exact commands above.
On my own setup, the primary computer gets 192.168.0.1, and the others
fall in succession. Be sure to have all the computers that are being
masqueraded set their gateway address to the primary, e.g.
secondary.my.com (192.168.0.2) uses primary.my.com (192.168.0.1) as
its gateway to the 'net.
<p>
For a far more in-depth article regarding this type of set-up, I do
suggest reading Chris Kostick's article "IP Masquerading Code Follow-up"
in the November 1997 issue of <i>Linux Journal</i>. Not only does it cover the
basics, but the author also explains a few more subtle aspects to
ipfwadm. Besides, without the help of this article, I wouldn't even
know the small amount about ipfwadm that I do. :)
<p>
======================================================================
<p>
I hope this helped at least a little,
<p>
-- James
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="rout2"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Linux and Routing 2
</H3>
<p>
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 13:25:57 -0500 (EST)<BR>
From: Paul Lussier, <A
HREF="mailto:plussier@LanCity.COM">plussier@LanCity.COM</A>
<p>
&gt; I plan on getting a cable modem soon, so the bandwidth would be pretty<BR>
&gt; high, so that is why I have decided to try to make this connection<BR>
&gt; provide for my whole house via a LAN connection in my home. What I<BR>
&gt; have read is that you could use the private IPs, meaning the 10.x.x.x<BR>
&gt; or so, 192.168.x.x and some others for the IP of the LAN and have<BR>
&gt; these connect to some box (the LINUX box?) that would provide its<BR>
&gt; connection to the internet to the inside LAN connected to the box. Is<BR>
&gt; the problem that you would have to route the assigned address to the<BR>
&gt; private IPs for the LAN use. I have also read that this would slow<BR>
&gt; down the connection a bit or something, but that is a price I am<BR>
&gt; willing to pay. So, the summary of the question is how would I be able<BR>
&gt; to connect many computers to the internet via just 1 assigned IP<BR>
&gt; address? I would like to be able to do it using my LINUX box connected<BR>
&gt; to the internet via cable modem, and to my LAN via an Ethernet<BR>
&gt; link. Any help is much appreciated, thanks.<BR>
<p>
This caught my attention, especially since I'm the Unix admin for
Baynetworks Broadband Technology Division (formerly LANcity) and we
pretty much invented this technology, along with being the leader in
the Cable modem industry :) Now that I've got the plug in for company
I'll get down to your problem :)
<p>
I first must admit that 1.) I don't own a cable modem (I can't get
cable, long story :( and 2.) I don't do any routing of this nature.
But I have read a lot about it, and I do work with cable modems, so I
think I can help a little :)
<p>
The first thing to understand is that with Linux, you don't want to be
routing, and definitely do not want to run routed to do what you want
to accomplish. Rather, you want to be doing IP forwarding/IP
masquerading which you would enable in the kernel by
re-configuring/re-compiling a new kernel. You'll definitely want to
scour the HOWTOs, I believe there is one on this subject. In
addition, you may want to check out the Linux Network and/or Systems
Administrator's guides, as they too, probably have some good
infomation in them. Other good references may be:
<ul>
<li>The NET-2/3 HOWTO
<li>The Ethernet HOWTO
<li>The Multiple Ethernet Mini HOWTO
<li>Networking with Linux
</ul>
The Firewalling and Proxy Server HOWTO is probably the best bet, now
that I look, since what you really want to do is set up firewall to
prevent people from coming in, and a proxy server to allow your
internal lan to get out.
<p>
Some words of caution. DO NOT HAVE YOUR LAN CONNECTED AT THE TIME OF
THE CABLE MODEM INSTALLATION!!!! MediaOne, Cablevision, Time Warner,
and most of the other cable companies (we deal with them all here)
will refuse to connect a LAN to their broadband network. Simply
remove your hub or coax cable from view, and let them do what they
need to do, then connect everything else up after they leave. =20
<p>
You will need 2 Ethernet NICs in the system which will be connected to
the broadband, one for the cable modem and one for the internal LAN..
Most cable companies will gladly provide and install one for you
(MediaOne charges $120 for a 3C509 + labor). I recommend telling them
you have a NIC, and going out and buying one and installing it yourself.
<p>
The cable modem, in reality, is NOT a modem. It's an Ethernet Bridge.
When the modem^H^H^H^H^Hbridge boots/powers up it does a bootp request
to a server at the cable companies central office to obtain an IP
address. The NIC is also assigned an IP address, which (at least with
MediaOne) is registered to the MAC address on the NIC (MediaOne
doesn't want you to move the modem to another computer after they
leave. They apparently check the modems from time to time to see what
MAC they're connected to). Therefore, you want your proxy
server/firewall configured so that it prevents all incoming
connections from the cable modem and allows only outgoing connections.
You want the IP forwarding/masquerading set up to allow other systems
on your private lan to use the proxy server as a proxy server (I'm not
sure if using the term gateway here is correct).
<p>
Some other interesting tidbits of information about cable modems and
cable companies:
<ol>
<li>Do not expect support for running a LAN over the cable modem
from the cable company. They don't want you to do it, they
won't help you do it.
<li>Do not expect to put up a web server to be accessed by from
the internet. You are a client, not a server. This
technology,though fully capable of performing in this
manner, is not being deployed for use this way. Cable
companies WILL shut you down for running a server of anykind
on your end of the network, and it can be *forever* :(
<li>Spammers love cable/broadband networks. There have been
several cases where a broadband network customer has been
used by spammers and were subsequently shutdown for life by
the cable company. What happens is the person decides to
connect their private LAN to the cable modem but sets the
firewall up incorrectly. Spammers search cable/broadband
networks for proxy servers/firewalls (Usually Win95/NT) that
allow incoming connections and then use that system to spam
the entire cable/broadband network making the spam appear as
if you sent it. Usually you will be given 1 warning by the
cable company, but there have been cases where none was
given and the customer was completely shut down.
<li>The current BayNetworks LANcity modems (the LCp product) being
deployed in homes is limited to 1 MAC address connection
(which means you can't plug the modem into a
repeater/mini-hub in order to connectit to multiple
systems). It is sotfware upgradable to 16 MACs, but you'll
pay a fortune for it to the cable company. However, an
ethernet switch works wonders :)
<li>Current modems are capable of transmitting at 10Mbs in both
directions, but are usually deployed throttled back to a
trasmit speed of 300Kbs and a recieve speed of 1.5Mbs. You
want more bandwidth, they'll be happy to charge you more
money :)
</ol>
I hope this helps a little bit. Feel free to e-mail me if you have
any questions.
<p>
Seeya,
Paul
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="about"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Netscape's Abouts
</H3>
<p>
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 16:00:46 +0100<br>
From: "Stefan K." <a
href="mailto:kampi@physik3.gwdg.de">kampi@physik3.gwdg.de</a>
<p>
I've read the article about the about's of Netscape...
Here's some more (some of them may not work or simply do nothing)
<p>
about:montulli<br>
about:nihongo<br>
about:francais<br>
about:plugins<br>
about:document<br>
about:license<br>
about:cache<br>
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<p>
PEACE!<br>
kampi
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="netscape"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Netscape on the Desktop
</H3>
<p>
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 06:46:22 -0500<br>
From: Tim Hawes <a href="mailto:tim@donet.com">tim@donet.com</a>
<p>
I do a lot of my web development work at home on my Linux box. Netscape
for Linux does not automatically check for an existing Netscape session.
As a result, if you try to run two different Netscape sessions, you will
get an error message box with something like the following:
<pre>
Netscape has detected a /home/thawes/.netscape/lock
file.
This may indecate that another user is running
Netscape using your /home/thawes/.netscape files.
It appears to be running on host localhost under process-ID 316.
You may continue to use Netscape, but you will
be unable to use the disk cache, global history,
or your personal ceritificates.
</pre>
Blah, blah, blah.
<p>
If you are like me, and like to have links to URL's using Netscape on
your menus, FVWM GoodStuff or desktop icons, this can be a real
nuisance, having to completely start a new Netscape session each time.
Or you can have them link with this:
<p>
netscape -remote 'openURL(your.url)
<p>
But then none of your links will work if Netscape is not currently
running. This shell script will look for the lock file that Netscape
creates when it is started. If it does not find the lock file, it will
start a fresh Netscape session. If it does find it, it will send a
netscape -remote command to your current session with the URL you
provide in the argument. If you do not provide a URL, netscape will
simply give you a popup message indicating that you did not specify a
URL. If you do not want Netscape to start up a new window for the URL,
just get rid of the
"new-window"
in the argument in the shell script.
<pre>
#!/bin/sh
if [ -L $HOME/.netscape/lock ]
then exec /usr/local/netscape/netscape -remote
'openURL('$*',new-window)';
else exec /usr/local/netscape/netscape $*;
fi
exit 0
</pre>
There are limitations with this script. First of all, if Netscape did
not exit cleanly after the last session, then the lock file will still
be present in your ~/.netscape directory. The script will then try to
execute a netscape -remote command and will error out with the console
message that Netscape is not running on :0.0. If you are not redirecting
your console messages anywhere, then you will not see anything except
Netscape not-starting.
<p>
1. Do a ps to see if there are any zombie processes left
over from your last netscape session.<br>
2. Kill all zombie processes<br>
3. $ rm ~/.netscape/lock<br>
4. retry
<p>
I am sure there is a way to automate this through a shell script as
well, but I have not yet any time nor motivation to write it.
Some other shortcomings include trying to start Netscape composer with
the -remote argument for a currently running netscape session. But then
this is probably why you should never name a shell script after the
actual binary it attempts to start.
<p>
All in all, if you envy the functionality of Netscape on Windows 95,
automatically checking for an existing netscape session to send the
browser surfing, and starting a new session if it does not find it,
well, here is a simple solution for Linux users, using the power of the
shell.
<p>
Tim Hawes
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="print"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Re: Printing Problems
</H3>
<p>
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 20:09:18 +0100 (MET)<BR>
From: Roland Smith, <A HREF="mailto:rsmith06@ibm.net">rsmith06@ibm.net</A>
<P>
&gt;Anyone that can help me. I'd love to hear it. I try running <BR>
&gt;lpr, but everytime I get no name for local machine.<BR>
&gt;How do I set this and/or what is the problem. <BR>
&gt;Manish Oberoi
<P>
It sounds like you're using LPRng. This is a new version of lpr that's
more suitable for networks. It is included in the newer Slackware releases
and maybe others.
<P>
My solution was to grab the bsdlpr.tgz package from ftp.cdrom.com and use
that (This is meant for Slackware). Otherwise you can search the Net for
"bsdlpr".
<P>
-- Roland
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="computer"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Re: Using a 386 Computer
</H3>
<p>
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 20:13:09 +0100 (MET)<BR>
From: Roland Smith, <A HREF="mailto:rsmith06@ibm.net">rsmith06@ibm.net</A>
<P>
&gt;I used to have a 386 25 MHz computer. Not long time ago I bought a<BR>
&gt;Pentium 200 MHz computer. Since then I have not played with 386.<BR>
&gt;Is there any easy and economical way to connect the 386 to the <BR>
&gt;Pentinum computer where I will install the Release 5.0. If so,<BR>
&gt;what I can do with it or at lease what I can learn from it.
<P>
If you connect both machines with a parallel cable, and configure PLIP
into the kernel on both machines, you can have your own little network. A
386 should at least work nice as a terminal, even if it might not run X
:-)
<P>
-- Roland
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<center>Published in Linux Gazette Issue 25, February 1998</center>
<P> <hr> <P>
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