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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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<CENTER><FONT SIZE=-1>Set your browser as wide as you'd like now.&nbsp;
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<CENTER><FONT SIZE=-2>&copy; 1998 by <A HREF="mailto:mjhammel@graphics-muse.org">mjh</A>&nbsp;</FONT></CENTER>
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<TD VALIGN=TOP><B><FONT SIZE=+1>muse:</FONT></B>&nbsp;
<OL>
<LI>
<I>v;</I> to become absorbed in thought&nbsp;</LI>
<LI>
<I>n;</I> [ fr. Any of the nine sister goddesses of learning and the arts
in Greek Mythology ]: a source of inspiration&nbsp;</LI>
</OL>
&nbsp;<IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/w.gif" ALT="W" HEIGHT=28 WIDTH=36 ALIGN=BOTTOM>elcome
to the Graphics Muse! Why a "muse"? Well, except for the sisters aspect,
the above definitions are pretty much the way I'd describe my own interest
in computer graphics: it keeps me deep in thought and it is a daily source
of inspiration.&nbsp;
<CENTER><FONT SIZE=-1>[<A HREF="#mews">Graphics Mews</A>][<A HREF="#webwonderings">WebWonderings</A>][<A HREF="#musings">Musings</A>]
[<A HREF="#resources">Resources</A>]</FONT></CENTER>
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&nbsp;
<BR><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/t.gif" ALT="T" HEIGHT=28 WIDTH=26 ALIGN=LEFT>his column
is dedicated to the use, creation, distribution, and discussion of computer
graphics tools for Linux systems.
<BR>&nbsp;
<BR>Last month's comment on GGI, made mostly as a passing remark, generated
quite a bit of email.&nbsp; A few were very nice letters explaining where
I was mistaken in my perception of GGI.&nbsp;&nbsp; I now have to admit
that I was wrong about what GGI is with respect to X.&nbsp; It does not
try to replace X and for that I'm grateful.&nbsp; But even after getting
numerous emails on the subject from GGI developers and supporters and reading
all the material at the GGI site (plus discussion on various forums including
<A HREF="http://slashdot.org">slashdot.org</A>), I'm still not convinced
GGI is the right thing to do.&nbsp; Call it a gut feeling.
<P>I also got not just a few letters that were a little less than friendly.&nbsp;
So to them, I'll put it plainly - convince the commercial X server vendors
GGI is a good idea and I'll believe it.&nbsp; I trust them.&nbsp; That
said, I should also point out that as a reader of this column you should
make your own decisions.&nbsp; Go to the <A HREF="http://www.ggi-project.org/">GGI
Web site</A> and read their material.&nbsp; Don't trust it simply because
you read it here.&nbsp; Writers make mistakes too.&nbsp; The web makes
it very easy to distribute information, but there are very few checks in
place to force writers to be accurate.&nbsp; The morale:&nbsp; verify your
information with more than one source.
<P>One other thing:&nbsp; one responder very politely suggested that I
should know more about what I write before distributing it in a place that
carries such "authority" - the Linux Gazette.&nbsp; He is correct:&nbsp;
I need to try to be as accurate as possible.&nbsp; But to those who were
not so polite, try to remember:&nbsp; this is just a hobby.&nbsp; I'm not
really a graphics expert and I do get things wrong.&nbsp; If you're going
to nudge me in the right direction, please do so politely.&nbsp; And please,
no more email on GGI.&nbsp; The kernel team is better qualified to decide
GGI's fate in Linux than I.&nbsp; I'm not even certain any of the kernel
developers read this column!
<BR>&nbsp;
<BR>Ok, on to the work at hand.&nbsp; This month I conclude the two part
status update on X servers with information on Metro Link.&nbsp; Last month,
if you recall, I covered XFree86/S.u.S.E and Xi Graphics.&nbsp; Also in
this months issue of the Muse is a little bit of information I gathered
while trying to find some decent offline storage media.&nbsp; I'll kill
the ending - I ended up with an Iomega Jaz drive.&nbsp; But you'll still
want to read about why I chose it and what it takes to install the beast.
<P>Finally, I do a little review of XFPovray.&nbsp; This is an XForms based
front end to POV-Ray, the 3D raytracing engine.&nbsp; I used it recently
in working on another cover for the Linux Journal.
<P>Enjoy!
<P><A NAME="mews"></A>
<BR>&nbsp;
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&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Disclaimer: Before I get too far into this
I should note that any of the news items I post in this section are just
that - news. Either I happened to run across them via some mailing list
I was on, via some Usenet newsgroup, or via email from someone. I'm not
necessarily endorsing these products (some of which may be commercial),
I'm just letting you know I'd heard about them in the past month.
<BR>&nbsp;
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<H2>
XFree86 3.3.2 is released</H2>
XFree86 version 3.3.2 is now available.&nbsp; The XFree86 3.3 distribution
is available in both source and binary form.&nbsp; Binary distributions
are currently available for FreeBSD (2.2.2+ and 3.0-CURRENT), NetBSD (1.2
and 1.3), OpenBSD, Interactive Unix, Linux (ix86 and AXP), SVR4.0, UnixWare,
OS/2, Solaris 2.6 and LynxOS AT.&nbsp;
<P>The XFree86 documentation is available on-line on their Web server.&nbsp;
The documentation for 3.3 can be accessed at <A HREF="http://WWW.XFree86.org/3.3/">http://WWW.XFree86.org/3.3/</A>.&nbsp;
<P>The XFree86 FAQ is at <A HREF="http://WWW.XFree86.org/FAQ/">http://WWW.XFree86.org/FAQ/</A>.&nbsp;
<P>The XFree86 Web site is at <A HREF="http://WWW.XFree86.org/'">http://WWW.XFree86.org</A></TD>
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<H2>
Moonlight Creator - 3D modeller</H2>
There's a relatively new GPL modeller available. It's call moonlight creator
and can be found at <A HREF="http://www.cybersociety.com/moonlight/">http://www.cybersociety.com/moonlight/</A>&nbsp;
<P>This modeller generated almost as much email as my comment on GGI -
and I didn't even say anything about it last month!&nbsp;
<P>
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<H2>
Pad++</H2>
The NYU Center for Advanced Technology has released a new drawing tool
with some object placement and scaling features possibly worthy of attention
as they continue to extend The Gimp.&nbsp;
<P>Precompiled binaries for several flavors of UNIX.&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="http://www.mrl.nyu.edu/">http://www.mrl.nyu.edu/</A>&nbsp;
<P>Click on Pad++.&nbsp;
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<H2>
LParser Source Code Released</H2>
Laurens Lapr&eacute; has released the source code for his popular LParser
tool.&nbsp; LParser creates 3D forms using a descriptive language called
an L-System.&nbsp; It can be used to produce 3D trees, plants and other
organic items.&nbsp; Output formats include VRML, POV-Ray, and DXF.&nbsp;
<P>On his web page Larens writes:&nbsp;
<UL>Source code of the lparser ZIP file (18Kb) can also be downloaded,
for those who want to port or just play with new options. The code is straight,
no frills ANSI-C with even less documentation but it should run on pretty
much anything with a C or C++ compiler. My current job will leave me with
neither the time nor the inclination to do serious code hacking so I'm
throwing the code into the wind, hoping that it will germinate and produce
lots of mutated offspring ! The Lparser source may be freely distributed.</UL>
The Web page for the LParser tool is at <A HREF="http://www.xs4all.nl/~ljlapre/">http://www.xs4all.nl/~ljlapre/.</A></TD>
<TD>
<H2>
SART - 3D Rendering Library for Guile</H2>
SART is a 3D rendering library for Guile. It supports zbuffering, raytracing
and radiosity, with advanced textures, and image processing and other features.
This is the first public release announcement, as the 0.5a2 version is
in the developers opinion sufficiently stable and simple enough to compile
to meet a wider circle of developers (and even users).&nbsp;
<P>SART is freely distributable under GPL. To read more, visit the webpage:&nbsp;
<P><A HREF="http://petra.zesoi.fer.hr/~silovic/sart">http://petra.zesoi.fer.hr/~silovic/sart</A>&nbsp;
<P>The develper asks:&nbsp;
<UL>Now would somebody help me interface this thing with script-fu and/or
guile-gtk?</UL>
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<H2>
BMRT 2.3.6 Announcment:</H2>
Larry Gritz sent out this announcement this past month:
<UL>Hello, and thanks to everybody for putting up with my extended Beta
period.&nbsp; They say each new group of users discovers a new class of
bugs.&nbsp; Indeed, with the BMRT port for Windows and the nice RIB support
of Rhino (www.rhino3d.com), lots of difficulties with trimmed NURBS came
to the surface and were subsequently fixed.&nbsp; Thanks to those who stuck
it out with me.
<P>BMRT 2.3.6 is finally officially shipping.&nbsp; Er, well, you know
what I mean -- it's on the <A HREF="http://www.seas.gwu.edu/student/gritz/bmrt.html">FTP
site</A>.
<P>Please get the latest and replace the beta, if you had it.&nbsp; I managed
to squash many bugs in the beta, and also reduced both time and memory
by about 15% for large scenes!
<P>Other News: Tony Apodaca and I are co-organizing a course for this summer's
Siggraph conference.&nbsp; The course is titled "Advanced RenderMan: Beyond
the Companion", and will taught by myself and Tony, Ronen Barzel (Pixar),
Clint Hanson (Sony Imageworks), Antoine Durr (Blue Sky|VIFX), and Scott
Johnston (Fleeting Image Animation).
<BR>Hope to see some of you there!
<P>Enjoy the software,
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -- lg
<BR>&nbsp;</UL>
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<P>&nbsp;<!--
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<H4>
Did You Know?</H4>
...that the Linux Focus online magazine has articles on OpenGL, GLUT, hardware
acceleration issues, and POV-Ray?&nbsp; Take a look at <A HREF="http://mercury.chem.pitt.edu/~angel/LinuxFocus/">http://mercury.chem.pitt.edu/~angel/LinuxFocus/</A>
in issues #2 and #3 (that latter is the current issue).
<BR>&nbsp;
<BR>...there is an article on the future of VRML on the C|Net News Web
site:
<UL><B>VRML spec to drive 3D on Net</B>
<BR>By Erich Luening
<BR>Staff Writer, CNET NEWS.COM
<P><A HREF="http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,19992,00.html">http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,19992,00.html</A></UL>
...there is a Java based modeller that works under Netscape's Java environment?&nbsp;
Take a look at <B><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Mondfarilo: the Java Applet</FONT></B>
at <A HREF="http://userpages.itis.com/philip/applet.html">http://userpages.itis.com/philip/applet.html.</A>&nbsp;
The modeller includes support for blobs and lathe objects and can produce
the model information as POV-Ray 3.0 source (although it only does it to
a window - you have to use cut and paste to save it to a file).&nbsp; the
<P>...a description of the Kodak DC120 .KDC File Format can be found at
<A HREF="http://www.hamrick.com/dc120/">http://www.hamrick.com/dc120/</A>.&nbsp;
This format is the one used by the popular Kodak DC120 digital camera.&nbsp;
There is Windows command line source there for converting the files to
JPEG or BMP formats.&nbsp; Anyone looking for a project might look into
porting this to Linux for use with, for example, NetPBM, ImageMagick, or
the GIMP.
<P>...and speaking of digital cameras, did you know there is a small software
package called PhotoPC for Linux that supports a number of digital cameras,
including:&nbsp; Agfa, Epson PhotoPC models, Olympus Digital cameras line,
Sanyo, and Sierra Imaging.&nbsp; Take a look at the PhotoPC Web page at
<A HREF="http://www.average.org/digicam/">http://www.average.org/digicam/</A>.
<P>...there is a good <A HREF="http://triton.slashdot.org/slashdot.cgi?mode=article&artnum=721">editorial
on the future of games</A> on Linux at <A HREF="http://slashdot.org">Slashdot.org</A>.&nbsp;
The editorial was written by <A HREF="mailto:rhuffstedtler@InPhact.com">Rob
Huffstedtler</A>.&nbsp; It's a good piece, and I have to say I agree with
Rob's sentiments about commercial software - it isn't evil and shouldn't
be viewed that way.&nbsp; Any development on Linux - free or commercial
- helps spread the word.&nbsp; Linux isn't just about free software.&nbsp;
It's about having a choice, whether you are a developer or a user.
<P>...the address for the AMAPI modeller has changed (I don't know how
long ago this happened, but I was just notified by a reader):
<UL><A HREF="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/graphics/modeling/amapi.linux-elf.us.tar.gz">ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/graphics/modeling/amapi.linux-elf.us.tar.gz</A>
<BR>or
<BR><A HREF="http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/graphics/modeling/amapi.linux-elf.us.tar.gz">http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/graphics/modeling/amapi.linux-elf.us.tar.gz</A></UL>
...there is a very good article on the future of 3D gaming on Linux, including
an interview with Dave Taylor, at <A HREF="http://www.planetquake.com/articles/linux.shtm">PlanetQuake</A>.
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<H2>
Reader Mail</H2>
Nick Cali (<A HREF="mailto:Mktnc@aol.com">Mktnc@aol.com</A>) wrote:
<UL>Just want to drop a line thanking you for your effort at the Gazette
and with Linux.&nbsp; Really, thanks a lot.</UL>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#993300">'Muse:</FONT></I></B>&nbsp; You're quite welcome.&nbsp;
I had gotten some rather harsh email from someone recently that had me
considering dropping out of the Linux world altogether.&nbsp; Getting little
notes like this, however, helps keep me going.&nbsp; Thanks!
<P>Tristan Savatier (<A HREF="mailto:tristan@mpegtv.com">tristan@mpegtv.com</A>)
wrote:
<UL>In Issue 26 of the Linux Gazette (<A HREF="http://www.ssc.com/lg/issue26/gm.html">http://www.ssc.com/lg/issue26/gm.html</A>)
the link:
<UL>Linux Multimedia Page&nbsp; -> <A HREF="http://www.digiserve.com/ar/linux-snd/">http://www.digiserve.com/ar/linux-snd/</A></UL>
should be renamed: Linux MIDI and Sound Page.</UL>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#993300">'Muse:</FONT></I></B>&nbsp; Although it is
too late to change it in that issue, I'll make a note of it in the next
issue.&nbsp; Many thanks for the update
<P>Glenn McCarter &lt;<A HREF="mailto:gmccarter@hotmail.com">gmccarter@hotmail.com</A>>
wrote to the IRTC Discussion List:
<UL>I have uploaded a POV-Ray include file "stereo.inc" to my website.&nbsp;
It can produce a stereoscopic view of any POV-Ray scene.&nbsp; This was
the technique I used in my current IRTC entry, "Dawn Patrol".&nbsp; The
url is http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/2006/include.htm.&nbsp; Feel
free to download and experiment.&nbsp; Non POV-Ray users: you can also
take a look at the text file to&nbsp; understand the approach involved.&nbsp;
Any raytracing program should be able to utilize this technique.&nbsp;
Feedback and comments welcomed.</UL>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#993300">'Muse:</FONT></I></B>&nbsp; If anyone takes
a look at this and wants to offer some commets, feel free to drop me a
line.&nbsp; Keep in mind that Glenn may or may not be a Linux/Unix person.&nbsp;
You should keep that in mind if you contact him.
<P>David R. Heys originally asked the GIMP Discussion List (or possibly
the IRTC-L list, I think I may have logged this incorrectly):
<UL>It's been more years than I can count since I've been in school learning
the various formulae for calculating waves, points within objects, distances,
etc. As well, all those old school books are long gone.&nbsp; Can anyone
recommend a good, comprehensive book? I'm looking for something that will
summarize the theories and formulae and present it in layman's terms, or
as close to layman's terms as possible.</UL>
Jerry Anning &lt;<A HREF="mailto:clem@dhol.com">clem@dhol.com</A>> replied:
<UL>The <B><I><FONT COLOR="#006600">Schaum's Outline</FONT><FONT COLOR="#FFCC33">
</FONT></I></B>series of books, published by McGraw-Hill, are mostly good
no-nonsense material.&nbsp; Some of them move a little fast if you are
learning the material for the first time, but they are excellent for reference
and refresher.&nbsp; If you have a little "mathematical maturity" and take
the time to work the problems, you can learn the basics of new subjects
with them as well.&nbsp; The most info-rich ones from a ray tracing perspective
are probably <B><I><FONT COLOR="#006600">Analytic Plane and Solid Geometry</FONT></I></B>,
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#006600">Trigonometry</FONT></I></B>, <B><I><FONT COLOR="#006600">Matrices</FONT></I></B>,
and <B><I><FONT COLOR="#006600">Mathematical Handbook.&nbsp; Descriptive
Geometry</FONT></I></B> and <B><I><FONT COLOR="#006600">Projective Geometry</FONT></I></B>
have their uses, too.&nbsp; For rendering specific math, the standard book
is <B><I><FONT COLOR="#006600">Computer Graphics Principles and Practice</FONT></I></B>
by Foley, vanDam, et al.&nbsp; Here you can learn about splines, antialiasing
theory and many other useful things.&nbsp; I also suggest that you visit
the nearest vocational college bookstore and look for books on shop trigonometry,
particularly compound angles.&nbsp; Standard math books give this material
very short shrift at best.&nbsp; To design things like polyhedra and complex
csg's compound angles are very useful.&nbsp; If you find a used copy of
Bowditch, or some other navigation manual, you can learn a few useful things
about sections of spheres as well.&nbsp; Good luck.</UL>
'<B><I><FONT COLOR="#993300">Muse:</FONT></I></B>&nbsp; I thought this
information might be of general interest to my readers.&nbsp; I know this
is a question I've been asked a few times in the past, but didn't have
quite as complete an answer.&nbsp; By the way, for those that don't know,
CSG is constructive solid geometry - the joining of simple shapes to make
more complex ones.
<P>David Robertson &lt;saga@cs.otago.ac.nz> from the Computer Science Department
of the University of Otaga wrote:
<UL>I enjoyed your summary of X Windows hardware support (or lack thereof).&nbsp;
There is a very interesting web page at
<UL><A HREF="http://parallel.nas.nasa.gov/Parallel/Projects/FOGL/index.html">http://parallel.nas.nasa.gov/Parallel/Projects/FOGL/index.html</A></UL>
which gives NASA Ames position regarding Mesa hardware support.&nbsp; Sadly
the page has not been updated since last October, despite the date at the
bottom of the page.</UL>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#993300">'Muse:</FONT></I></B>&nbsp; Thanks for the
info Dave.&nbsp; If any of my readers missed it, the first part of the
X Servers Update was in <A HREF="http://www.graphics-muse.org/muse/mar98/gm.html">last
month's issue of the Muse</A>.&nbsp; This month I conclude the report with
information on <A HREF="#xserver">Metro Link</A>.
<P>Alejandro &lt;Cmm.compu@lanet.losandes.com.ar> wrote:
<UL>I read your four article in Linux Journal, now I'm trying to update
my version of gimp. I download a file in rpm format, but it doesn't&nbsp;
work. Could you please tell me where to find the las versions of Gimp,
and what file I should download?</UL>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#993300">'Muse:</FONT></I></B>&nbsp; www.gimp.org will
point you to the latest versions of both the GIMP and&nbsp; GTK.&nbsp;
If you have updated GTK recently, then you need to update GIMP.&nbsp; Also,
if you've updated the GIMP, you'll need updated GTK libraries.&nbsp; The
two are tied together pretty closely right now since both are getting ready
to go to their respective 1.0 releases.
<P>You're problem, assuming the file you downloaded was a newer version
of the GIMP than what you already had on your system, is probably that
the version of GIMP you downloaded doesn't work with the GTK libraries
you have.&nbsp; In that case, you need to get a compatible version of the
GTK libraries.
<P>Larry S. Marso (larry@marso.com) wrote to the GIMP User list:
<UL>The manual says that Wacom's Artpad is supported, but that patches
are required to take advantage of some features, including the pressure
sensitive pen.&nbsp; (The ArtzII is the 6x8 tablet version).
<P>Where are such patches?</UL>
Dmitry Yaitskov replied:
<UL>If you haven't found them yet, take a look at:&nbsp; http://www.msc.cornell.edu/~otaylor/gtk-gimp/step-by-step.html
<P>But I had some problems with pressure sensitivity, like random pointer
lockups and such, and generally did not like the feel of that much, so
although I still use the patched version of gimp -.99.18 - I turned pressure
sensitivity off.. I have ArtPad II.</UL>
And to this, Larry S. Marso added:
<UL>I should mention that I've found the patched 0.99.18 for Wacom ArtZII
absolutely flawless (including the pressure sensitivity feature).
<P>Well, I wish it was faster ... and had more options.&nbsp; But I've
never experienced "pointer lockups and such".&nbsp; The gsumi app available
on the same web site provides a bitmap drawing capability at extremely
high resolution (the default is 4000x4000) with pressure sensitive drawing
(including caligraphic tips).&nbsp; Great for creating postscript signatures,
and also for high resolution drawings suitable for subsequent manipulation
by Gimp.</UL>
&nbsp;
<P>
<HR WIDTH="100%">
<BR><A NAME="webwonderings"></A>
<BR><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/webwonderings.jpg" HEIGHT=57 WIDTH=246>
<BR>No time for Web Wonderings this month.&nbsp; I'll try to come up with
something for next month.
<BR>
<HR WIDTH="100%">
<P><A NAME="musings"></A>
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<H2>
&nbsp;Offline storage using a Jaz Drive</H2>
&nbsp;In playing with all the graphics software I've talked about in this
column over the past year, I've managed to fill up the relatively modest
4Gig of disk space I have in the two systems currently running in my home.&nbsp;
When I finish with a project I generally don't need to keep all the work
files on my main hard disks.&nbsp; I also don't want to get rid of them
- they may have something I can use in a later project.&nbsp; So I need
some form of offline storage.
<P>Last year I attempted to address the problem by installing a 450Mb floppy
tape drive on my file server.&nbsp; Once installed, this worked fairly
well with the <A HREF="http://www-math.math.rwth-aachen.de/~LBFM/claus/ftape/">zftape
driver</A> and the <A HREF="http://www.multiline.com.au/~yusuf/">taper</A>
backup software, but initially I had quite a time getting the zftape driver
installed.&nbsp; From the point of view of cost the floppy tape drive is
a good solid solution.&nbsp; A floppy tape drive currently runs less than
$150US.&nbsp; From the point of view of convenience, well, it takes a long
time to backup 1G of data onto a tape drive running off of a floppy controller.&nbsp;
Taper does provide a fairly convenient curses based interface for selecting
the files to be backed up or retrieved, but my needs were less administrative.&nbsp;&nbsp;
I simply wanted to copy over a directory tree to some offline media and
then clean up that tree.&nbsp; Later, if I needed them, I wanted to be
able to copy them back in.&nbsp; I'm wasn't quite at the point where offline
media management was a real problem - I didn't need special tools for keeping
track of what I had on the offline media.&nbsp; What I needed was a removable
hard disk.
<P>Fast forward to this year.&nbsp; Technology once again has heard the
cry of the meek and a flurry of removable hard disk solutions are now hitting
the shelves.&nbsp; One of the first, and currently the most popular if
you believe the noise in the trade magazines, is the <B><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Iomega
Zip drive</FONT></B>.&nbsp; This is a drive with a cartridge that looks
somewhat like a fat floppy disk.&nbsp; The cartridge holds 100Mb of data,
good enough for 3 or 4 of my smaller projects or one large project.&nbsp;
The drives are running under $130US (I've seen them as low as $119) and
the cartridges are about $20 each, cheaper if bought in bundles of 3 or
more.&nbsp; The drives are available as either parallel or SCSI connected
devices.
<P>The problem with this solution is simply size.&nbsp; 100Mb of data can
be generated fairly fast using the GIMP - I've had swap files from this
tool larger than that.&nbsp; I also had a hard time finding an external
drive.&nbsp; Most of the drives I could find locally were internal drives.&nbsp;
This was probably just a local distribution or supply problem, but then
I didn't look very hard for these drives once I'd decided they simply were
too small.
<P>The next step up from this for Iomega is the <B><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Jaz</FONT></B>
drive.&nbsp; The first versions of these drives, which is what I purchased,
hold about 1G of data.&nbsp; The latest versions will support the old 1G
cartridges and the newer 2G cartridges.&nbsp; An external SCSI version
is available so I was able to connect the drive to my recently purchased
Adaptec 2940 (which is what I hooked my scanner to) without having to dig
into the innards of my hardware.&nbsp; Again, convenience is a key here
- I was willing to pay a little more for ease of use.
<P>There are a number of removable hard drive solutions on the market today,
however I wasn't able to find information on support for any of these devices
except the Iomega drives.&nbsp; This information is available at the <A HREF="http://www.cnct.com/~bwillmot/jaztool/">Jaztool
</A>page.&nbsp; Jaztool is a package for managing the drive, which I'll
discuss in a moment.&nbsp; Strangely, the Jaz Drive Mini-Howto does not
appear to be on the <A HREF="http://www.linuxresources.com/LDP/index.html">Linux
Documentation Project </A>pages, although a Mini-Howto for the Zip drive
can be found there.
<P>Since the drive is connected to a SCSI controller there aren't any Jaz-specific
drivers necessary.&nbsp; You just need to find a SCSI card with supported
drivers.&nbsp; I chose the Adaptec 2940 because the driver for it (aic7xxx)
was a loadable module that was precompiled in the Red Hat 4.2 distribution
that I currently use.&nbsp; In other words, I was able to simply plug the
card in, run <B><FONT SIZE=-1>insmod aic7xxx</FONT><FONT SIZE=-2>,</FONT></B>
and the card was running.&nbsp; The 2940 has a high density SCSI connector
which is the same sort of connector used by the Jaz drive.&nbsp; I had
previously purchased a high density to 25 pin cable converter to connect
my 2940 to the UMAX scanner (which has the 25pin connector), so I simply
stuck the Jaz driver between the scanner and the adapter.&nbsp; The Jaz
drive comes with a converter, if you need it (the UMAX scanner did not).&nbsp;
Total time for hardware install - about 20 minutes.
<BR>&nbsp;
<BR>As mentioned earlier, there is a tool for managing the Jaz drive called
Jaztool.&nbsp; This package provides a software means to eject, write protect
or read/write enable, and retrieve drive status.&nbsp; Password protection
is available but not officially supported. The man page gives information
on how to use this feature if you wish to give it a try.&nbsp; <I>Mode
5</I> (password protected write <I>and</I> read) is not supported by jaztool,
even though the Jaz drive supports it.&nbsp;&nbsp; You cannot access the
cartridge that comes with the drive in write mode, so you'll need to use
the jaztool program to allow you write access to that cartridge.&nbsp;
The Jaz Drive Mini-Howto explains how to do this quite clearly.&nbsp; The
disk can be mounted as delivered using the VFAT filesystem type, which
means that long file names can be used.&nbsp; This removes the need to
reformat disk with native Unix filesystem.&nbsp; However, the disk that
comes packaged with drive is nearly full.&nbsp; It contains a large number
of MS-related tools for DOS, Win3.1, Win95 and WinNT.&nbsp; Since I didn't
need these I simply mounted the drive and used <B><FONT SIZE=-1>rm -rf
*</FONT></B> on it to clean it up.&nbsp; Once I'd done that, I decided
to go ahead and just place an ext2 filesystem on the driver.&nbsp; This
is simple enough following the information provided in the Jaz Driver Mini-Howto
on the Jaztools page at <A HREF="http://www.cnct.com/~bwillmot/jaztool/">http://www.cnct.com/~bwillmot/jaztool/.</A>
<P>Speed on the drive is quite good - the Jaz drive has an average of 12ms
seek times, compared to the 29ms of the Zip drive.&nbsp; This provides
the sort of file management I was looking for by allowing me to simply
copy files to and from the drive and at a speed comparable to my regular
disk drives.&nbsp; It's certainly faster than the floppy tape solution.
<P>As I was writing this article I started to consider if I had gotten
my moneys worth.&nbsp; The Jaz drive runs about $299US for an external
SCSI drive, about $199US for internal drives.&nbsp; Compared to the floppy
tape I got about twice the storage space for about twice the price.&nbsp;
At least I thought I had, until I added in the cost of the SCSI card and
the media.&nbsp; The cost for the SCSI card I can significantly reduce
by making full use of the 7 devices I can connect to it, but it still ran
about $240US.&nbsp; The media, on the other hand is significantly higher.&nbsp;
Travan 3 tapes (which are what you use with the floppy tape drive) run
about $30US or so (I think - it's been awhile since I purchased them).&nbsp;
The Jaz cartridges are $125US each!&nbsp; You can save a little by purchasing
them in packs of 3 for about $300US.&nbsp; The good news here is that recent
court rulings have allowed another company (whose name escapes me right
now) to sell Zip and Jaz compatible media here in the US.&nbsp; The result
should be a drop in the price of the media over the next 6 months to a
year.&nbsp; The one cartridge I have now will hold me for another couple
of months at least.&nbsp; By then, keeping my fingers crossed, I'll be
able to get a 3 pack for $250 or less.
<P>So, adding the Iomega Jaz drive was simple enough.&nbsp; The information
and software provided by Bob Willmot (the Jaztools author) made getting
the cartridge running almost a no-brainer.&nbsp; And I now have over a
Gigabyte of external storage that I can access nearly as fast as my regular
hard drives.&nbsp; All things considered, it's been one of my better investments.
<BR>&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;
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<H2>
<A NAME="xserver"></A>X Server Update Part II - Metro Link</H2>
Last month I provided the first part of an update on 3D support available
in X Servers and from other places.&nbsp; I had gotten a number of emails
from readers asking where they could find drivers for various 3D video
cards.&nbsp; I also wanted to find out to what extent the X Input Extension
is supported.&nbsp; Since I hadn't done so in the past, I decided to contact
the various X server vendors and see what they had to say on the subject.&nbsp;
<P>I sent out a query to the 4 X server vendors I knew of:&nbsp; Xi Graphics,
Metro Link, XFree86 and S.u.S.E.&nbsp; The query read as follows:&nbsp;
<P><I>Do you have any information which I may use in my column related
to your current or planned support for 3D hardware acceleration (specifically
related to OpenGL/Mesa, but not necessarily so)?&nbsp; What about support
for alternative input devices via the X Input Extension.&nbsp; The GIMP,
and its X toolkit Gtk, both make use of X Input if available and I expect
many other tools will do so as well in the near future.</I>&nbsp;
<P>Last months article covered 3 vendors, Xi Graphics and XFree86/S.u.S.E,
plus the Mesa package.&nbsp; This month I'll cover <A HREF="http://www.metrolink.com/">Metro
Link</A>.&nbsp; Due to a bit of poor time managment on my part, I wasn't
able to cover Metro Link at the same time as the others.&nbsp; My apologies
to all parties for this.&nbsp;
<P>While reading this article please keep in mind that my intent was to
simply query for information about X Input and 3D hardware support.&nbsp;
It is not intended for this to be a comparison of the vendors products
nor do I offer any editorial on the quality of their products.&nbsp; I
have tried to remove some of the marketing information both from last months
article and this months, but I also want to be fair to the respondents
and provide as much of the information that they provided that is relevent
to the topic.&nbsp;
<P>My first contact with Metro Link was through the assistance of Dirk
Hohndel at S.u.S.E., who forwarded my request to Garry M. Paxinos.&nbsp;
Garry was quite helpful and offered information on his own and had Chris
Bare contact me with additional information.&nbsp;
<P>Garry first provided me with a few dates:&nbsp;
<UL>
<LI>
March 30 - Metro-X 4.3 server release.</LI>
<LI>
May - CDE 2.1.10</LI>
<LI>
July - Hardware Accelerated OpenGL</LI>
</UL>
This he followed up with a little more detail:&nbsp;
<UL>We have a Level II OpenGL source code license from SGI.&nbsp; This
makes it difficult for us to work with GPL'd source.&nbsp; We have been
shipping a software only version of OpenGL since October 8, 1995.&nbsp;
Due to both the competitive nature of this activity and that things might
change before release, it is rather difficult for us to have detailed comments
on:&nbsp;
<UL>
<LI>
Architectural issues.</LI>
<LI>
Chip/Board Support</LI>
<LI>
Relationships with Chip/Board Vendors (most are under NDA anyway)</LI>
<LI>
Relationships with OS vendors</LI>
<BR>&nbsp;</UL>
We plan on making our plans public when we get closer to our release.&nbsp;
Count on quite a few press releases.&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;</UL>
&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;
<CENTER><A HREF="#next-column">-Top of next column-</A></CENTER>
</TD>
<TD ROWSPAN="3" WIDTH="2" BGCOLOR="#000000" NOSAVE><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HEIGHT=2 WIDTH=2></TD>
<TD WIDTH="49%" NOSAVE><LH><A NAME="next-column"></A><B>More Musings...</B>&nbsp;</LH>&nbsp;
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF="xfpovray.html">XFPovray</A></LI>
</UL>
</TD>
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<UL>Current plans are for 3 to 4 specific chip types to be supported in
our initial OpenGL hardware release.&nbsp; We plan on supporting at least
two different CPUs in that release.&nbsp; We've had a policy since our
FCS (First Customer Shipment) back in 1995 that all customers will receive
a copy of the hardware version when it is released.</UL>
Garry noted that Metro Link supports 5 different CPUs:&nbsp; x86, PPC,
Alpha, 68k, and Sparc.&nbsp; He also mentioned that they support multiple
operating systems.&nbsp; Although I didn't mention it last month, both
XFree86 and Xi Graphics servers are also available for other operating
systems besides Linux.&nbsp;
<P>Not long after my first contact with Garry, Chris Bare provided a more
detailed description of what is in the works.&nbsp; Chris is the engineer
responsible for Metro Link's X Input Support.&nbsp;
<UL>Metro-X 4.3 (due out in the next month or so as I write this) will
include support for dynamically loadable X Input driver modules. The 4.3
release will include drivers for Elo Graphics, Carroll, Micro Touch and
Lucas/Deeco touch screens. We are also going to make available a skeleton
driver and documentation for anyone interested in supporting devices on
their own.&nbsp; This technology will also be donated to Xfree86 for inclusion
in one of their future releases.&nbsp;
<P>Our graphical configuration tool provides a fast and accurate on-screen
calibration procedure for any supported touch screen.&nbsp;
<P>Future plans include support for the Wacom tablet as a loadable X Input
module and support for 3D input devices like the Space Orb. We are interested
in supporting any device there is a reasonably demand for, so if there
are any devices your readers have asked about, please let me know.</UL>
As you can see, Metro Link did not list specific boards which they plan
to support.&nbsp; Neither XFree86 nor Xi specifically mentioned any boards
last month.&nbsp; There appears to be quite of bit of work in the pipe
line, however, and according the Garry we should see a flurry of announcements
in the relative near term.&nbsp; Chris does point out some specific input
devices that will be supported in the next release, however.&nbsp;
<P><B>Contact Information</B>&nbsp;
<UL>
<LI>
Announcement: <A HREF="news:comp.os.linux.announce">comp.os.linux.announce</A>&nbsp;</LI>
<LI>
Web Site: <A HREF="http://www.metrolink.com">http://www.metrolink.com</A>&nbsp;</LI>
<LI>
Business:&nbsp; <A HREF="mailto:sales@metrolink.com">sales@metrolink.com</A>,
which is an autoresponder&nbsp;</LI>
<LI>
Human sales contact:&nbsp; <A HREF="mailto:holly@metrolink.com">holly@metrolink.com</A>&nbsp;</LI>
</UL>
Garry added:&nbsp; We do make announcments to c.o.l.a.&nbsp; And we are
working on updating our web site including plans on keeping it up to date.
The sales@metrolink.com address is our standard public address.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
However, that is an autoresponder.&nbsp;&nbsp; The address holly@metrolink.com
is referenced in the autoreply and is the 'human' that handles any sales
questions manualy.</TD>
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<TD><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/resources.gif" ALT="Resources" HEIGHT=57 WIDTH=246 ALIGN=LEFT></TD>
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The following links are just starting points for finding more information
about computer graphics and multimedia in general for Linux systems. If
you have some application specific information for me, I'll add them to
my other pages or you can contact the maintainer of some other web site.
I'll consider adding other general references here, but application or
site specific information needs to go into one of the following general
references and not listed here.
<BR>&nbsp;
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=2 WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
<TR NOSAVE>
<TD NOSAVE>Online Magazines and News sources
<BR><A HREF="http://www.news.com/">C|Net Tech News</A>
<BR><A HREF="http://www.eklektix.com/lwn/">Linux Weekly News</A>
<BR><A HREF="http://slashdot.org/">Slashdot.org</A>
<P>General Web Sites
<BR><A HREF="http://www.graphics-muse.org/linux/lgh.html">Linux Graphics
mini-Howto</A>&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="http://www.graphics-muse.org/ugu/ugu.html">Unix Graphics Utilities</A>&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="http://www.digiserve.com/ar/linux-snd/">Linux Multimedia Page</A>&nbsp;
<P>Some of the Mailing Lists and Newsgroups I keep an eye on and where
I get much of the information in this column:&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="http://www.gimp.org">The Gimp User and Gimp Developer Mailing
Lists</A>.&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="http://www.irtc.org">The IRTC-L discussion list</A>&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="news:comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing">comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing</A>&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="news:comp.graphics.rendering.renderman">comp.graphics.rendering.renderman</A>&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="news:comp.graphics.api.opengl">comp.graphics.api.opengl</A>&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="news:comp.os.linux.announce">comp.os.linux.announce</A>&nbsp;</TD>
<TD><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/gmuse.jpg" HSPACE=10 HEIGHT=270 WIDTH=190></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<A NAME="future"></A>
<H2>
Future Directions</H2>
Next month:&nbsp; XFont3D/Font3D probably.&nbsp; Beyond that I'm not certain
yet.
<P><A HREF="mailto:mjhammel@graphics-muse.org">Let me know what you'd like
to hear about!</A>
<P>
<HR WIDTH="100%">
<DIV ALIGN=right><FONT SIZE=-1>&copy; 1998 <A HREF="mailto:mjhammel@graphics-muse.org">Michael
J. Hammel</A></FONT></DIV>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H4>Previous ``Graphics Muse'' Columns</H4></center>
<p>
<A HREF="../issue11/gm.html">Graphics Muse #1, November 1996</A><br>
<A HREF="../issue12/gm.html">Graphics Muse #2, December 1996</A><br>
<A HREF="../issue13/gm.html">Graphics Muse #3, January 1997</A><br>
<A HREF="../issue14/gm.html">Graphics Muse #4, February 1997</A><br>
<A HREF="../issue15/gm.html">Graphics Muse #5, March 1997</A><br>
<A HREF="../issue16/gm.html">Graphics Muse #6, April 1997</A><br>
<A HREF="../issue17/gm.html">Graphics Muse #7, May 1997</A><br>
<A HREF="../issue18/gm.html">Graphics Muse #8, June 1997</A><br>
<A HREF="../issue19/gm.html">Graphics Muse #9, July 1997</A><br>
<A HREF="../issue20/gm.html">Graphics Muse #10, August 1997</A><br>
<A HREF="../issue22/gm.html">Graphics Muse #11, October 1997</A><br>
<A HREF="../issue23/gm.html">Graphics Muse #12, December 1997</A><br>
<A HREF="../issue25/gm.html">Graphics Muse #13, February 1998</A><br>
<A HREF="../issue26/gm.html">Graphics Muse #14, March 1998</A>
<P><HR><P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1998, Michael J. Hammel <BR>
Published in Issue 27 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, April 1998</H5></center>
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