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<!--=================================================================-->
<H1 align="center">Table of Contents <BR>September 1998 Issue #32</H1>
<P> <HR> <P>
<table><tr>
<td rowspan=4>
<UL>
<LI><A HREF="../index.html">The Front Page</A>
<LI><A HREF="./lg_mail32.html">The MailBag</A>
<ul>
<li><a HREF="./lg_mail32.html#help">Help Wanted</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_mail32.html#gen">General Mail</a>
</ul>
<LI><A HREF="./lg_tips32.html">More 2 Cent Tips</A>
<ul>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#hammel">2 Cent Tip from the 'Muse</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#hristev">Tips and Tricks: Keeping track of your config files</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#hefferson">2 cent tip: Cross platform text conversion.</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#leggett">XFree86 and the S3ViRGE GX2 chipset</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#peda">Clearing the Screen</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#kelly">Re: Shell Scripting Resources <-- TIP</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#kerr">Re: Recognising the AMD K5-PR166</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#brooke">Your atapi CDROM</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#looijaard">Tips: simulataneous kernel versions</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#siew">Creating man pages made easy!</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#samuelson">2c Tip Re: Cross-platform Text Conversions</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#scgmille">Un-tar as you download</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#burns">megaraid drivers</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#wood">Re: simultaneous versions of Kernels</a>
</ul>
<LI><A HREF="./lg_bytes32.html">News Bytes</A>
<ul>
<li><a HREF="./lg_bytes32.html#general">News in General</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_bytes32.html#software">Software Announcements</a>
</ul>
<LI><A HREF="./lg_answer32.html">The Answer Guy</A>, by James T. Dennis
<LI><A HREF="./stemen.html">A Convenient and Practical Approach to Backing
Up Your Data</a>, by Vincent Stemen
<LI><A HREF="./gm.html">Graphics Muse</A>, by Michael J. Hammel
<li><A HREF="./henning1.html">Installing StarOffice 4.0 on Red Hat 5.1</A>, by
William Henning
<li><A HREF="./rubini.html">An Interview with Linus Torvalds</A>, by
Alessandro Rubini
<li><A HREF="./vermeer.html">It Takes Its Toll</A>, by Martin Vermeer
<li><A HREF="./rojansky.html">Java and Linux</A>, by Shay Rojansky
<li><A HREF="./jenkins1.html">Linux Installation Primer</A>, by Ron Jenkins
<li><A HREF="./henning2.html">Linux Kernel Compilation Benchmark</A>, by
William Henning
<LI><A HREF="./bandel.html">Linux Kernel Installation</a>,
by David A. Bandel
<LI>New Release Reviews, by Larry Ayers
<ul>
<li><A HREF="./ayers1.html">Patch For Beginners</a>
<li><A HREF="./ayers2.html">A Simple Typing Tutor</a>
</ul>
<li><A HREF="./hughes.html">Open Source Developer Day</A>, by Phil Hughes
<li><A HREF="./barr.html">Paradigm Shift</A>, by Joe Barr
<li><A HREF="./jenkins2.html">Running Remote X Sessions on Windows
95/98/NT/Mac/PPC Clients</A>, by Ron Jenkins
<li><A HREF="./williams.html">Searching a Web Site with Linux</A>,
by Branden Williams
<li><A HREF="./rogers.html">The Standard C Library for Linux, Part 3</A>,
by James M. Rogers
<LI><A HREF="./lg_backpage32.html">The Back Page</A>
<ul>
<li><a HREF="./lg_backpage32.html#authors">About This Month's Authors</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_backpage32.html#notlinux">Not Linux</a>
</UL>
</UL>
</td>
</tr><tr>
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<A HREF="../issue31/lg_bytes31.html#als">
<img src="./gx/als-1998.jpg" border=0 alt="">
</a>
</td>
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<td align=center>
<A HREF="lg_answer32.html">
<img src="../gx/dennis/answerwiz-255.gif" border=0 alt="">
</a><BR>
<A HREF="lg_answer32.html"><i>The Answer Guy</i></a>
</td>
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<td align=center>
<A HREF="gm.html">
<IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/banner-3.gif" border=0 alt="">
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This page written and maintained by the Editor of <I>Linux Gazette</I>,
<A HREF="mailto: gazette@ssc.com">gazette@ssc.com</A>
<H4>"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"</H4>
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<H2><a NAME="mail"><IMG SRC="../gx/mailbox.gif" ALIGN=MIDDLE ALT=" ">
The Mailbag!</a> </H2>
Write the Gazette at <A HREF="mailto:gazette@ssc.com"> gazette@ssc.com</A>
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<H3>Contents:</H3>
<ul>
<li><a HREF="./lg_mail32.html#help">Help Wanted -- Article Ideas</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_mail32.html#gen">General Mail</a>
</ul>
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<a name="help"></a>
<p><hr><p>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<center><H3><font color="maroon">Help Wanted -- Article Ideas</font></H3></center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 09:50:38 -0500<BR>
From: The Wonus House, <A HREF="mailto:wonus@w-link.net">
wonus@w-link.net</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>Accessing Microsoft SqlServer vi DB-lib or CT-lib</B>
<P>
Do you have additional information sources on connecting to MS SqlServer
via the Sybase CT/DB libraries? I am most interseted in how this could be
done from a Solaris client machine.
<P>
Any info is greatly appreciated (thanks),
Kevin Wonus
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Sun, 2 Aug 1998 21:55:03 -0400 (EDT)<BR>
From: Paul 'Tok' Kiela, <A HREF="mailto:tok@gemini.physics.mcmaster.ca">
tok@gemini.physics.mcmaster.ca</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>R2000 Mips 2030</B>
<P>
I just recently came into a used R2000 "Mips 2030" desktop slab.
Aside from opening the box and finding that it is indeed running an R2000
CPU, I know nothing else about the computer -- literally. I have found
absolutely zero information about any computer bearing the markings 'MIPS
2030'. To make matters worse, I don't have a proper BNC monitor to
actually use the box yet, but I'm searching. My question, where can I find
information about the R2000 port of Linux? I have visited the Linux/MIPS
page, but the only mention of the R2000/3000 CPU port is an URL which
points at SGI's statistics on the R3000 CPU. I was hoping I could pop
Linux on on the box, and happily run it alongside the little army of Linux
boxen I have now. Any help would be very appreciated.
<P>
Thanks.<BR>
Paul.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 12:57:21 +0000<BR>
From: Gulf Resources Co, <A HREF="mailto:grc2000@kuwait.net">
grc2000@kuwait.net</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>Some Ideas</B>
<P>
Anyone there who is dreaming of running Delphi in Linux?
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 09:21:12 +0200<BR>
From: Jesus A. Muqoz, <A HREF="mailto:jesus.munozh@mad.sener.es">
jesus.munozh@mad.sener.es</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>LILO Problems</B>
<P>
I installed Linux in a secondary IDE hard disk booting from a floppy
disk. Then I tried to install LILO in the MBR of the primary IDE hard
disk and I did it. My idea was to maintain Windows 95 in the primary
disk. I configured LILO to be able to start Windows 95, but after
installing LILO the primary disk cannot be seen either by DOS nor by
Linux. If I run msdos-fdisk it says that the disk is active but in the
row where it should appear FAT16 puts unknown or something like that.
Can I recover the information of the hard disk ?
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 09:17:54 +0300<BR>
From: Mehmet Mersinligil, <A HREF="mailto:memo@tr-net.net.tr">
memo@tr-net.net.tr</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>Matrox Productiva G100 8M AGP !!???</B>
<P>
Is there a way to configure my Matrox Productiva G100 8MB AGP under X?
Except buying a a new accelerated X server for 125$ from
http://www.xig.com ?
What should I do?
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Sat, 08 Aug 1998 18:21:54 +0000<BR>
From: Alexander I. Butenko, <A HREF="mailto:alexb@megastyle.com">
alexb@megastyle.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>Some questions to be published</B>
<P>
1. I wonder can I use the EPSON Stylus Color 400 printer with Linux...
The interesting thing is that my buggy GIMP beta says to be supporting it
but can't really print anything....
<P>
2. Has anybody encountered such a bug? JavaICQ doesn't run properly under
KDE (when I open the send or reply or even preferences window this
window closes immediately). This problem is only under KDE...
3. I can't use this Real Player 5.0, because it reports the compression
errors even with files obtained from www.real.com or that file that was
installed with it on my hard drive...
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 15:33:37 -0400<BR>
From: Bob Brinkmann, <A HREF="mailto:Bob.Brinkmann@mindspring.com">
Bob.Brinkmann@mindspring.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>Being new to the Linux community</B>
<P>
I'm in the process of developing a secure, encrypted tunnel for access to
my company's enterprise network. The clients on the outside dialing
into the system will be of a Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0 and probably 5.0
when it decides to rear its ugly head. My question is this, are there
solutions on the terminating server side written in Linux to handle
clients' tunnel access and also provide for IPSEC level encryption?
<P>
A while back I played with Red Hat's 2.0 release of the software and I
just purchased Red Hat's 5.1 (Manhattan) version utilizing 2.0.34 kernel
and find it to run quite nicely on both a desktop and several Toshiba
portables.
<P>
Thanks for any advice or information you can provide.
<P>
Bob Brinkmann
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 13:07:22 -0500<BR>
From: Dennis Lambert, <A HREF="mailto:opk@worldnet.att.net">
opk@worldnet.att.net</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>Help Wanted : newbie</B>
<P>
I recently purchased Red Hat 5.1 and got it running. Evidently I was lucky in
that I have a fairly full FAT 32 Win 98 drive and kind of stumbled through
the defrag / fips / boot to CD / repartition / full install with LILO
process. Everything worked, but I'm a little nonplussed. A few topics I'd
absolutely love to get feedback on...
<ul>
<li>Turns out I have a lousy WinModem. I can see the feedback now, (Run
it over with your car)
<li>I have grown fat and lazy with Win 98 and find myself looking for
"Display Properties" and such. I'm very familiar with C and such and am not
afraid of hacking scripts or the like, but my problem is thus: Where is a
(succinct) list of what gets run when, from where, and why. I'd love to
tweak everything if only I could find it.
<li>I have something called an "Ensoniq Audio PCI" sound card with
"legacy emulation" I don't even know how to begin to get this thing working.
What are the first steps in enabling hardware?
<li>Where do I get information on mounting drives (FAT 32 especially)
<li>I think my printer works (at least text does), but how do I print
things (man pages)
</ul>
I'm not an idiot, not even a "dummy", but what is a good book to answer
the basic questions? I have "Linux in a Nutshell" and it has a very good
command reference and a few other things, but doesn't help in tweaking
things.
<P>
I don't really expect anyone to answer all of these concerns, but any little
help would be greatly appreciated.
<P>
Dennis Lambert
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998 16:54:20 +0100<BR>
From: <A HREF="mailto:Fabrice_NORKA_-_SAPHIR@PECHINEY.COM">
Fabrice_NORKA_-_SAPHIR@PECHINEY.COM</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>Deb to RPM translator</B>
<P>
I changed from a Debian distribution to a Red Hat 5.0 lately and was
wandering if there were a tool like 'alien' to convert Debian packages to
Red Hat packages.
My personal e-mail is NORKAF@AOL.com
<P>
Thank you and God save Linux community :-)
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998 13:18:31 -0400<BR>
From: Chris Bruner, <A HREF="mailto:cbruner@compulife.com">
cbruner@compulife.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>Idea's for improvments and articals</B>
<P>
An idea for an article. (You may have already done this but I couldn't
find a search engine to look up past articles). I have yet to get my
Red Hat 5.1 to connect to the Internet. (Their support is GREATLY
overstated.) I'm consquently using Win95 to do my Internet work. The reason
for this is that my modem, network adapter and sound card are all Plug and
Play (PnP). I would like to see an article detailing step by step, for a
Linux beginner, how to install Tom Lee's PnP Package. This would involve
recompiling the kernel which I'm not afraid of, but have no idea how to go
about it. The more step by step the better. I'm from the DOS world and
any assumed knowledge that I have might be wrong.
<P>
Thanks for a great magazine.
<P>
Chris Bruner
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1998 21:23:27 +1200<BR>
From: Andrew Gates, <A HREF="mailto:andrewga@fcf.co.nz">
andrewga@fcf.co.nz</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>Help wanted for a (Cheap) COBOL combiler for Linux</B>
<P>
I have a friend who is doing a refresher course in Cobol in a Unix
environment. I have suggested that she run Linux, and pick up a cheap /
shareware copy of a Cobol compiler for Linux from somewhere. Knowing
absolutely nothing about either Linux or Cobol, am I dreaming, or is there a
realistic alternative to the compilers I have seen retailing for ~$1,500 US?
I'd really appreciate any help/advice anyone can offer.
<P>
Andrew Gates
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1998 18:37:34 +0200<BR>
From: <A HREF="mailto:ppali@friko6.onet.pl">ppali@friko6.onet.pl</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>RadioAktiv radio tuner</B>
<P>
I am one of those Linux users, who are not experts, even after a year or
more of working with the OS. I like very much discovering by myself
various aspects of Linux, trying out the many programs and help tips.
What is important is that it works well and that I can use it for most
of the common computer tasks (after a bit of tinkering). Now I have
decided for the first time to post a following question:
<P>
After trying many radio tuners available on the net and failing to
make my RadioAktiv radio card work under Linux I am stuck. Maybe someone
would give me a few tips (or one TIP)?
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 15:59:21 -0500<BR>
From: Hilton, Bradley D. (Brad), <A HREF="mailto:HiltonBD@bv.com">
HiltonBD@bv.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>Trident 985 AGP</B>
<P>
Is it possible to get X running on a Trident 985 AGP video card? What
server would I use?
Thanks,
<P>
Brad Hilton
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 17:19:21 -0700<BR>
From: dk smith, <A HREF="mailto:dks@MediaWeb.com">dks@MediaWeb.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>IDE disks</B>
<P>
If I could only find a definitive reference on setting up IDE disks,
SCSI disks, and partitioning issue for running with Linux, NT, and LILO. I
am new to this stuff. The docs at Red Hat, although extensive, were not
enough for me.
<P>
-dk
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 16:05:15 +1200<BR>
From: Mark Inder, <A HREF="mailto:mark@tts.co.nz">
mark@tts.co.nz</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>Help Wanted: Looking for an Xwin Server software that runs
under win95/nt</B>
<P>
We use a Red Hat 4.2 machine in our office as a communications server. This
is running well with the facility of telnet connections for maintenance,
diald for PPP dial up - internet and email, and uucp for incoming mail.
<P>
I would like to run an X server on my windows PC to be able to use X client
software on the Linux PC over the local Ethernet. Does anyone know of a
shareware for freeware version which is available.
<P>
TIA Mark
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 00:02:28 -0500<BR>
From: Todd Thalken, <A HREF="mailto:tdthalk@megavision.com">
tdthalk@megavision.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>Looking Into Linux For PPP Server</B>
<P>
I am interested in implementing Linux in our office network.
<P>
Specifically, we would like to set up a Linux box as a dial-up PPP
server so that remote users can access the office intranet.
<P>
Could you explain what hardware (multiport controllers) works best with
Linux, and explain the steps necessary to set the Linux box up as a PPP
server. Most of our client computers will be using Windows 95/98
dial-up networking. We would like to have the server assign IP addresses
dynamically.
<P>
This seems like it would be a relatively common question, so if there is
already good information available please let me know where I can find
it.
<P>
I have read a lot about Linux, but still consider myself a green
"newbie".
<P>
Thanks!<BR>
Todd Thalken
<a name="gen"></a>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<center><H3><font color="maroon">General Mail</font></H3></center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Sun, 02 Aug 1998 18:25:16 +0000<BR>
From: Gulf Resources Co, <A HREF="mailto:grc2000@kuwait.net">
grc2000@kuwait.net</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>Delphi for Linux</B>
<P>
I am a Delphi Developer. I am also a big fan of Linux and GNU Softwares.
<P>
Anybody there who wants to join me in knocking the doors of Inprise Corp
(Borland ) to convince them to port C++ Builder and Delphi to X Window.
<P>
If these things happen, Microsoft will be very upset.
<P>
What Linux needs is an innovative company like Borland or Symantec.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 1998 02:16:54 +0100 (BST)<BR>
From: Hugo Rabson, <A HREF="mailto:hugo@rabson.force9.co.uk">
hugo@rabson.force9.co.uk</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>response to Ruth Milne</B>
<P>
I tell you, .....
<P>
Are you familiar with Nietzsche's description of the ordinary man's
journey from man to superman? ...how he "goes down" into the abyss and
comes up the other side? Moving from Windows to Linux is a bit like that.
;)
<P>
My adventure started in late April. I was sick and tired of Windows NT
bluescreening. I read an article saying how stable Linux was in
comparison. I looked into GUIs & found KDE to be to my liking.
<P>
In the end, I vaped NT because I needed the hard disk space. ;-P
<P>
It is now August. I have had ro reinstall almost a dozen times because I
am still getting used to "The Linux Way". I have been using computers
since i was 6; PCs since I was 16; Windows since I was 18. Linux is very
stable indeed but it is eccentric & definitely not user-friendly, unless
your definition of user differs wildly from mine.
<P>
I have written a "HOWTO" so that I can recover quickly if I have to
reinstall the entire OS and GUI. It is currently 3500 words long, and
tells me how to install RedHat, compile a new kernel, compile&install KDE
1.0, install the BackUPS software, configure dial-up networking &
autodial, install AutoRPM, and .. umm... that's it, so far.
<P>
Don't get me wrong: Linux _is_ a wonderful thing. It's just ... It's
_such_ a leap from Windows! I am convinced my primary client (with a dozen
Windows machines) could function very well with Linux & Applixware instead
of Windows & Office, just so long as they have someone competent to
maintain their systems. Of course, they'll need much less maintenance
under Linux than under Windows ;)
<P>
Linux requires a lot of competence & intelligence (and downloads!) if
you're going to set it up. Windows doesn't. On the other hand, it seems
much less prone to these embarrassing GPFs.
:)
<P>
Hugo Rabson
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 13:01:42 +0200 (CEST)<BR>
From: Hugo van der Kooij, <A HREF="mailto:hvdkooij@caiw.nl">
hvdkooij@caiw.nl</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>Linux Gazette should not use abusive language!</B>
<P>
This is my final note to you about this subject. I have not heard nor seen
a single response in the past regarding this issue.
<P>
I will however request mirror sites to stop mirroring unless you remove
your abusive language from the Linux Gazette.
<P>
The following text should be removed from ALL issue's:
<P>
The Whole Damn Thing 1 (text)
The Whole Damn Thing 2 (HTML)
<P>
I presume I am not the only person that find this text not at all suited
for a Linux publication. It is in effect offensive and could easily be
removed
<P>
Hugo van der Kooij
<blockquote> <I>
Actually, I have answered you at least twice about this issue. I don't find
the word Damn either abusive or offensive and have had no objections from
anyone else. So, why don't we put it to a vote? Okay, you guys out there,
let me know your feelings about this. Should I remove the "Damn" from "The
Whole Damn Thing" or not? I will abide by the majority. --Editor)
</I> </blockquote>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Sun, 09 Aug 1998 15:48:34 -0600<BR>
From: Mark Bolzern, <A HREF="mailto:Mark@LinuxMall.com">
Mark@LinuxMall.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>Some History and Other Things LG #31</B>
<P>
http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue31/richardson.html
<P>
Marjorie,
<P>
Neat issue of the Gazette, thanks for all the hard work. I'm proud to
be a sponsor, Just sent another $1K.
<P>
One little teensie issue of fact though:
<P>
First the quote:
The first two issues of Linux Journal were published by Robert Young.
After the second issue, Robert decided to start up Red Hat
Software, and Specialized Systems Consultants took over as publisher.
Also with the third issue, Michael Johnson took on the role
of Editor and continued in that role through the September 1996 issue. I
became Editor on February 1, 1997 and began work on the
May issue.
<P>
And the correction:
Actually Bob (Robert) started a Linux catalog within the ACC
Bookstores. It wasn't until quite a bit later when he met Marc Ewing
that he folded ACC into Marc's Red Hat Software.
<P>
I wuz there ;->
<P>
Thanks<BR>
Mark
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Sat, 8 Aug 1998 15:06:37 -0700 (PDT)<BR>
From: Heather Stern, <A HREF="mailto:star@starshine.org">
star@starshine.org</A>
Subject: <B>Re: those crazy links</B>
<P>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
On http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue31/tag_95slow.html, the link pointing back
to the table of contents points to index.html instead of index.html. No,
wait... all of the issue 31 answer guy pages seem to be mislinked (except the
main one.)
Also, the "previous section" button on the pages mentioned above seem to be
mislinked as well...
This isn't really important since most normal people like me use the back
button like a religion, but it always helps to be consistent and have
links pointing where they should, doesn't it? :)
</font> </blockquote>
Yes, actually, it *is* important to me, and the base files are mostly generated
by a script (making it hard to get wrong). But, I broke some stuff in the
footer logic, so I did a proper footer by hand and propoagted it into the tag_
files myself. So, as I go look at the template I used...
<P>
Dad-blammit, you're right!! All of the 30's in there should be 31's.
(Although the copyright notice is correct.) Mea culpa!
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
Thanks for your time...
--Charles Ulrich.
p.s. May be worth the effort to try one of those link checker bots that seem
ever so popular on the web these days...
</font></blockquote>
Maybe, but it's being worked on in a private Linux network. Most of those
"web bots" only access external sites properly.
<P>
I should have run the command 'lynx -traversal' at the top of it, so I'd
have a badlink report, but I was in a last-minute rush. I've done so now,
and found another error that you missed.
<P>
One of the beautiful things about the web, is that a minor misprint can
actually be undone, unlike the world of print. I've submitted a corrected
packet to our editor. Thanks for mentioning it.
<P>
-*- Heather Stern -*-
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 11:13:47 +0000<BR>
From: <A HREF="mailto:kengu@credo.ie">kengu@credo.ie</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>news from Irish LUG</B>
<P>
Hello,
I'm involved with the Irish Linux Users Group website and was wondering
if you would please mention that we are currently compiling a list of
people
in Ireland that would be interested in getting the 'Linux Journal' -
details
are available at our website http://www.linux.ie/.
<P>
thanks<BR>
Ken Guest
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 17:30:55 +0100<BR>
From: James Mitchell, <A HREF="mailto:james-t.mitchell@sbil.co.uk">
james-t.mitchell@sbil.co.uk</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>Re: The other side of the story (or, on the other, other
hand)</B>
<P>
Just before I launch into the meat of this email, I'd like to say that
the Linux Gazette is excellent. good articles, and good tips and
comments.
<P>
I'm writing about the mail in the August issue "The Other Side of the
Story", in which Antony Chesser compares the Windows GUI to the shell
prompt, especially the line
<P>
"When Linux finishes installing, you're left with a # prompt. When WIN95
finishes installing, you've a fairly intuitive GUI that allows you to
quickly and easily install and run programs, connect to the net, and
**apply updates without re-compiling the
kernel**"
<P>
My quibble is with the underlying assumption that a GUI (and here I
assume that includes Mac, and X, as well as Windows) is more intuitive
then a command line. I argue that for a complete novice one is as bad as
the other, neither a command line nor a screen full of little coloured
icons and a START button are instantly comprehensible to a complete
computer novice.
<P>
(Before you write me off as insane - remember that a GUI is supposed to
shorten the time it takes to learn how to operate the computer, they
don't eliminate the time altogether.)
<P>
Do you remember the scene in the Star Trek movie (the one with the
whales...) where Scotty tries to use a Mac? He talks to it, and nothing
happens... the operator says "You need to use this [the mouse]", so
Scotty picks up the mouse and uses it like a microphone - "Good morning
computer."
<P>
Can you see where I'm going? Until someone teaches the "complete novice"
the relationship between the pointer and the mouse, and what happens
when you click, double-click, or drag with the mouse, they will be just
as lost as a novice sitting in front of a command line. Actually, they
may be worse off... we have had typewriters for a lot longer then mice,
and people will grasp the concept of typing faster then clicking on
pictures.
<P>
So, in summary, I think that a complete novice will have a learning
curve to cope with whether they use a GUI, or a command line; and the
rest of us should remember that there is a difference between "ease of
use", and "what I'm used to".
<P>
Cheers,<BR>
James
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 09:22:46 EDT<BR>
From: Roger Dingledine, <A HREF="mailto:arma@seul.org">arma@seul.org</A>
<BR>
Subject: <B>Linux News Standardization/Distribution Project</B>
<P>
We've been making progress on our proposal to standardize the format and
distribution of Linux news. Our design uses the NNTP protocol to create a
network of servers that will quickly and robustly share news that is
interesting to the Linux community. This will allow websites like Freshmeat
and Slashdot, as well as lists like Threepoint's and linux-announce, to
reduce duplication of effort while still customizing their presentation.
In addition, this will provide a single easy method of submitting an item
of news, whether it's an announcement about a new software release, or a
description of the latest article in Forbes magazine.
<P>
The end goal of organizing the Linux announcements and news articles is
to encourage smaller ISVs to port to Linux, since they will see advertising
their software to a wide audience as less of an obstacle. Other important
benefits include greater robustness (from multiple news servers), less work
for the moderators (messages will be presorted and people can specialize in
their favorite type of news, resulting in faster throughput), and a uniform
comprehensive archiving system allowing people to search old articles more
effectively.
<P>
We are currently at the point where we are designing the standard format
for a news item. We want to make it rich enough that it provides all the
information that each site wants, but simple enough that we can require
submissions to include all fields. At the same time we're sorting out how
the NNTP-based connections between the servers should work. We've got
Freshmeat and Threepoint in on it, and other groups like Debian and
LinuxMall are interested. We need more news sites to provide input and
feedback, to make sure everybody will want to use the system once it's
ready.
<P>
If you're interested, please check out our webpage at
http://linuxunited.org/projects/news/ and subscribe to the mailing list
(send mail to majordomo@linuxunited.org with body 'subscribe lu-news').
<P>
Thanks for your time (this is the last mail I will send directly about this),
<P>
Roger (SEUL sysarch)
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 23:49:36 +0200<BR>
From: Martin M&oslash;ller, <A HREF="mailto:martin_moeller@technologist.com">
martin_moeller@technologist.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>Linux Gazette to be featured on Alt Om Data's CD-ROM
monthly.</B>
<P>
This is just to inform you that some of our readers have pointed out
that we ought to distribute your magazine on our Cover CD, and after
having read through the lisence, I believe this will be no problem. I
have, just to be safe, saved a copy of the copy lisence together with
the archives and plan on distributing the new issues as the show up.
<P>
Keep up the good work!
<P>
Martin Moeller.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1998 20:52:14 -0400 (EDT)<BR>
From: Timothy D. Gray, <A HREF="mailto:timgray@lambdanet.com">
timgray@lambdanet.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>Linux reality letter</B>
<P>
In LG#31 Michael Rasmusson wrote: "the majority of Linux users are IT
professionals in some way" and alluded to the fact that Linux will be slow to
be accepted due to this fact. This is very untrue. Most Linux users are in fact
College and high school students. These forward thinking young minds aren't
tied down by archaic IT department policy (many of which were penned in the
70's when IT was called the Processing/programming/systems/data-processing
department) Linux will explode, it will do so violently. In fact it will
explode so fast and vast that Microsoft will say "What happened?" The local
Linux Users groups are all populated by 90% college and high school students.
What do you think will happen when these students hit the computer departments
at large corporations? They will install Linux, they will use Linux, and they
will recommend Linux. The "explosion" has already started. Many large companies
have already abandoned NOVELL and Microsoft for their servers. (The makers of
the CG effects in the movie Titanic are far from small)
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 03:37:22 -0400 (EDT)<BR>
From: Paul Anderson, <A HREF="mailto:paul@geeky1.ebtech.net">
paul@geeky1.ebtech.net</A> <BR>
Subject: <B>Linux and new users</B>
<P>
I've been reading the LG mailbag... A lot of people think Linux should be
made easier to use. I don't think that's quite right - the idea, IMHO,
should be to make it so that Linux can be used by someone who's new to
computers, BUT they should have to learn to use it's full power. With
power, knowledge must come or disaster will follow instead. The goal, in
the end, is that the person becomes a self-sufficient user, capable of
sorting out most difficulties without needing help. TTYL!
<P>
Paul Anderson
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<center>Published in <i>Linux Gazette</i> Issue 32, September 1998</center>
<!--====================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<A HREF="./index.html"><IMG SRC="../gx/indexnew.gif" ALT="[ TABLE OF
CONTENTS ]"></A>
<A HREF="../index.html"><IMG SRC="../gx/homenew.gif" ALT="[ FRONT
PAGE ]"></A>
<A HREF="./lg_tips32.html"><IMG SRC="../gx/fwd.gif" ALT=" Next "></A>
<P>
<h5>This page written and maintained by the Editor of <I>Linux Gazette</I>,
<A HREF="mailto: gazette@ssc.com">gazette@ssc.com</A><BR>
Copyright &copy; 1998 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. </H5>
<P> <HR> <P>
<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_tips32.html#hammel">2 Cent Tip from the 'Muse</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#hristev">Tips and Tricks: Keeping track of your config files</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#hefferson">2 cent tip: Cross platform text conversion.</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#leggett">XFree86 and the S3ViRGE GX2 chipset</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#peda">Clearing the Screen</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#kelly">Re: Shell Scripting Resources <-- TIP</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#kerr">Re: Recognising the AMD K5-PR166</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#brooke">Your atapi CDROM</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#looijaard">Tips: simulataneous kernel versions</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#siew">Creating man pages made easy!</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#samuelson">2c Tip Re: Cross-platform Text Conversions</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#scgmille">Un-tar as you download</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#burns">megaraid drivers</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips32.html#wood">Re: simultaneous versions of Kernels</a>
</ul>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="hammel"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
2 Cent Tip from the 'Muse
</H3>
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1998 00:13:07 -0600 (MDT)<BR>
From: Michael J. Hammel, <A HREF="mailto:mjhammel@fastlane.net">
mjhammel@fastlane.net</A>
<P>
You know, I don't think anyones mentioned it before in the Gazette, but
there is this little program that is handy as all get out: units. You give
it the units you have and specify what you want it converted to and Viola!
It converts it for you! It won't do Celsius/Farenheit conversions, but
handles Grams/Pounds conversions just fine. And for all those Linux cooks
out there, it converts cups to quarts, teaspoons to tablespoons and cups to
tablespoons.
<P>
Its the units freaks Swiss Army Knife. No hacker forced to make his own
Thai curries should be without it.
<P>
Michael J. Hammel
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="hristev"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Tips and Tricks: Keeping track of your config files
</H3>
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 1998 11:00:16 +1200<BR>
From: Ryurick M. Hristev<A HREF="mailto:physrmh@phys.canterbury.ac.nz">
physrmh@phys.canterbury.ac.nz</A>
<P>
This is my trick for keeping track of the many config files you find
on a Linux/Unix system.
<p>
Most config files are in the /etc directory. However, particularly on a
home machine you won't change them all and sometimes you want to save
(e.g. on a floppy) only the files you have changed. Besides, you don't
want to have to remember the exact location for every one.
<p>
So here's what I do:
<ul>
<li>created a /root/config directory
<li>Each changed config file for whatever program gets a symlink
in the /root/config
</ul>
<p>
Then every time I want to change something I go directly to /root/config.
If I want to backup my system configuration, I just copy the files
by dereferencing the symlinks, etc. ...
<p>
Cheers,<br>
Ryurick M. Hristev
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="hefferson"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
2 cent tip: Cross platform text conversion.
</H3>
Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 13:07:59 -0400<BR>
From: Jim Hefferon, <A HREF="mailto:jim@joshua.smcvt.edu">
jim@joshua.smcvt.edu</A>
<P>
To convert to a DOS text file, mount a DOS floppy and copy the text
file.
<PRE>
$ su (you are prompted for a password)
# mount /dev/fd0 -t msdos /mnt/floppy (the # says that you are root
BE CAREFUL!)
# cp myfile.tex /mnt/floppy
# exit
$
</PRE>
For instance, after these, I can use SAMBA to get myfile.tex to an
NT network printer
(Z:> copy \\mymachinename\mnt\floppy\myfile.tex lpt2). It makes sense
if you do this often
to have a DOS disk always mounted, but if you mount as above, remember
to umount before
you try, say, mounting a different floppy.
<P>
I find this easier than a solution with the tr command, because I always
forget how to
do such solutions, but I can remember how to copy.
<P>
Jim Hefferon
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="leggett"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
XFree86 and the S3ViRGE GX2 chipset
</H3>
Date: Wed, 05 Aug 1998 16:51:53 -0500<BR>
From: Ti Leggett, <A HREF="mailto:tlegget@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu">
tlegget@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu</A>
<P>
At work, we just got in a whole slew of computers that use the S3ViRGE
GX2 chipset. Upon trying to install X on these things, I found that the
default Red Hat 5.0 XFree doesn't cut it. This is how I've been able to
fix the XFree86 problems with the S3V GX/2 chipset. First, do not use
the S3V server despite what Xconfigurator says. The GX/2 chipset is not
supported for that server. You must use the SVGA server (besides, it's
accelerated and supports DPMS). Currently, these are the modes supported
as of XFree86-3.3.2pl3:
<PRE>
8bpp:
640x480 works
800x600 works
1024x768 works
1280x1024 works
15/16bpp:
640x480 works
800x600 works
1024x768 works
1280x1024 works
24 bpp:
640x480 works
800x600 works
1024x768 works
1280x1024 works (very picky about monitor modelines though)
32 bpp:
640x480 works
800x600 works
1024x768 does not work
1280x1024 does not work
</PRE>
The card I'm using to test this is a #9 9FX Reality 334 w/8MB RAM. Also
I cannot verify that this works on any version less than
XFree86-3.3.2pl2. pl2 actually has less modes/depth combinations that
work - such as, no 16 bit depths work and 1280x1024 doesn't work in
almost all depths. I suggest upgrading to XFre86-3.3.2pl3. Now onto the
fix.
<P>
Step 1. Make sure you're using the SVGA server (ls -l /etc/X11/X for RH
users, maybe the same on other distros). It should point to
/usr/X11R6/bin/XF86_SVGA. If it's not, link it to it (ln -sf
/usr/X11R6/bin/XF86_SVGA /etc/X11/X).
<P>
Step 2. Open your /etc/X11/XF86Config file for editing.
<P>
Step 3. Find the Graphics Device Section.
<P>
Step 4. Find the device that is the Standard VGA Device (usually has the
line -
<PRE>
Identifier "Generic VGA"
</PRE>
Step 5. Remove the line that says:
<PRE>
Chipset "generic"
</PRE>
Step 6. Uncomment the line that says:
<PRE>
VideoRam "256"
</PRE>
and change it to recognize the amount of RAM your card has in kilo
<PRE>
VideoRam "8192" # 8MB RAM
</PRE>
Step 7. Add the following line (*CRUCIAL*):
<PRE>
Option "xaa_no_color_exp"
</PRE>
This turns off one of the accelerated option that gives trouble.
<P>
Step 8. Add whatever other options you want (for a list see the man
pages on XF86Config, XF86_SVGA, and XF86_S3V)
<P>
Step 9. Change the bit depth and resolution to whatever you want.
<P>
Step 10. Save and close the file and (re)start X.
<P>
Note: I do not claim this will work for all cards using the GX2 chipset. I
can only verify for the video card I'm using. I'm interested to hear how
other video cards handle it. Hope that helps everyone involved. I've
heard from people on Usenet that it works perfectly, and from others it
doesn't.
<P>
Ti Leggett
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="peda"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Clearing the Screen
</H3>
Date: Wed, 05 Aug 1998 12:59:13 -0400<BR>
From: Allan Peda, <A HREF="mailto:allan@interport.net">
allan@interport.net</A>
<P>
A few days ago a classmate "accidentally" cat'ed a file
to the screen. He asked asked me what he could do to
reset his confused vt100, as "clear" wasn't sufficient.
<P>
At first I figured he would need to close and re-open the
connection, but then I realized that there are codes to
reset a vt100.
<P>
Here is some C code that resets, and clears the screen.
Save it as vt.C, then run "make vt". Place the executable
in your path, and when the screen looks like heiroglyphics, type
(blindly at this point) "vt". That should clear it up.
<PRE>
/*
** Small program to reset a confused vt100 after
** `cat'ing a binary file.
*/
#include &lt;stdio.h&gt;
int main(void)
{
printf("\033c"); // reset terminal
printf("\033[2J"); // clear screeen
return(0);
}
/*
For more info, see the following URLs:
www.mhri.edu.au/~pdb/dataformats/vt100.html
www.sdsu.edu/doc/texi/screen_10.html
www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal/ansi_x3.64.html
They have more vt100 escape codes.
**
*/
</PRE>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="kelly"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Re: Shell Scripting Resources <-- TIP
</H3>
Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 17:34:50 +0100 (BST)<BR>
From: Sean Kelly, <A HREF="mailto:S.Kelly@newcastle.ac.uk">
S.Kelly@newcastle.ac.uk</A>
<P>
In issue 31 it was mentioned that someone had been looking for
some shell scripting help.
<P>
Take a look at http://www.oase-shareware.org/shell/ as I have
heard many people mention this site in response to shell scripting
queries.
<P>
Sean.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="kerr"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Re: Recognising the AMD K5-PR166
</H3>
Date: Wed, 05 Aug 1998 11:22:43 -0400<BR>
From: Shane Kerr, <A HREF="mailto:kerr@wizard.net">
kerr@wizard.net</A>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
I'm wondering whether any other readers have used the AMD K5-PR166 with
Linux. It's just that my system seems to think it's a K5-PR133 and states
that it's running at 100MHz. Also, the BogoMips value indicates that the
processor is running at 100MHz.
Anyone any advice?
</font></blockquote>
I'm running a K5 P133+ on one of my systems - it actually is running at
100 MHz, that's why it's a "P133+". It's like the Cyrix processors, the
name is basically a lie for marketing.
<P>
I wouldn't put too much stock in the BogoMips value - it is bogus after
all! My system clocks in at an equivalent to a 112 MHz system when I run
the distributed.net client - the reason AMD claims a higher clock value
is probably because some instructions run faster, and those may just not
happen to be the instructions used in to BogoMips loop.
<P>
As for your system thinking your K5-PR166 is a K5-PR133, it's probably
because you have the motherboard jumpered wrong and/or the BIOS
configured wrong. Are you sure that your motherboard & BIOS support the
chip?
<P>
Shani
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="brooke"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Your atapi CDROM
</H3>
Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 16:50:04 -0500<BR>
From: Ian and Iris, <A HREF="mailto:brooke@mail.jump.net">
brooke@mail.jump.net</A>
<P>
Your /dev directory is the culprit. Current installs use:
<PRE>
/dev/hda
/dev/hdb
/dev/hdc
/dev/hdd
(/dev/hde)
(/dev/hdf)
</PRE>
for the first, second, (and third) ide interfaces, m,s,m,s(,m,s). Older installs
had the /dev directory written a little differently. You would have the old
standard, which was
<PRE>
/dev/hdnx
</PRE>
where n was interface, and x was a/b for master/slave.
<P>
The only difference is in the names of the files. If you rename them, you will
be in compliance. Alternatively, you could run makedev from a recent kernel,
though I do not pretend to know all the details of that.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="looijaard"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Tips: simulataneous kernel versions
</H3>
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 17:35:14 +0200<BR>
From: Frodo Looijaard, <A HREF="mailto:frodol@dds.nl">frodol@dds.nl</A>
<P>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
From: Renato Weiner, reweiner@yahoo.com<BR>
Recently I was looking at the Gazette and I think I have a good
suggestion of an article that will be very useful for the Linux
community. I have had some technical difficulties of having two
simultaneous versions of Kernels in my system. I mean a stable one
and a developing one. I searched the net looking for information of
how to co-exist both but it's completely fragmented. If somebody
more experienced could put all this information together, it will
certainly help a lot of people from kernels developers to
end-users.
</font></blockquote>
This may come a bit late, but I am in the process of writing a (mini)HOWTO
on this subject. It is not quite trivial, especially with modules lying
around, or if you want several kernels with the same version number.
<P>
Check out <A HREF="http://huizen.dds.nl/~frodol/howto.html">
http://huizen.dds.nl/~frodol/howto.html</A> for now. I am still in
the process of getting it approved as an official mini-HOWTO.
<P>
Frodo
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="siew"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Creating man pages made easy!!!
</H3>
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 16:14:34 +1000<BR>
From: Steven K.H. Siew, <A HREF="mailto:ksiew@tig.com.au">
ksiew@tig.com.au</A>
<P>
Below is something I wrote to help lay people create their own man pages
easily
<P>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
<P>
If you ever wrote a program using gcc in linux, you may have come across
this problem. You have just finished your wonderful little program which is
of great use to you and you need a man page for it.
<P>
Of course, you have absolutely no idea how to write a man page. Don't you
need to know how to use troff? Or is it nroff to write a man page? Luckily
there is a much easier way to write a man page.
<P>
Here I shall describe an easy and quick (and dirty) way of writing a man
page without learning troff or nroff. In order to do so, you must have the
Perl version 5.004 (or higher) installed on your Linux box.
<P>
There is a man page in the various Perl man pages on the creation of a man
page using the Perl util "pod2man". It is called "perlpod.1". Below is a
step by step guide to finding the man page and the util.
<PRE>
ksiew> su
password:
#|/root>locate perlpod.1
/usr/man/man1/perlpod.1
#|/root>locate pod2man
/usr/bin/pod2man
</PRE>
Now, to write your own man pages, you must first read the perlpod.1 man page.
You can do this by "man perlpod". However, to read the pod2man man page, you
must first create it by using pod2man itself.
<PRE>
#|/root>pod2man /usr/bin/pod2man > pod2man.1
#|/root>ls -al pod2man.1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 13444 Aug 16 12:12 pod2man.1
#|/root>mv pod2man.1 /usr/man/man1/pod2man.1
</PRE>
Okay, now you can read the pod2man man page you have just created by using
the command "man pod2man". After reading it, you can now create your own man
pages. As an example, I shall describe a simple man page for one of my own
C programs called "addline". I first create a textfile called "addline.pod"
and then turn it into a manpage using 'pod2man --center="Addline program
manpage" addline.pod > addline.1'.
<P>
Finally, I move the addline man page into its proper place using "mv
addline.1 /usr/man/man1/addline.1". There; creating your own man page is
simple, isn't it?
<P>
Below is a sample addline.pod file
<PRE>
-------------------Cut here and do not include this line---------------------
=head1 NAME
addline - addline numbers to textfiles
=head1 SYNOPSIS
B&lt;addline&gt;
[ B<-c> ]
[ B<-v> ]
[ B<-3> ]
[ B<--colon> ]
I&lt;inputfile&gt;
=head1 DESCRIPTION
B&lt;addline&gt; inserts line numbers into textfiles. It was written to automate
the insertion of numbers into a data file of results from a neural network
program.
=head1 OPTIONS
=over 8
=item -c
Ignores comments lines. A comment line is any line that starts with a '#'.
This makes it easier to insert comments in the textfile without messing up
the line numbers.
=item -v
Displays the version number of the addline.
=item -3
Uses 3 digits for the line numbers even if the number requires less than 3
digits. For example, 013 instead of 13. The default is to use as few
digits for the line number as possible.
=item --colon
Separates the line number from the rest of the line with a ':' character.
=back
=head1 EXAMPLES
addline textfile
addline -c textfile
addline -c --colon textfile
=head1 NOTES
Addline is written in C and compiled using gcc version 2.7.8. It uses the
standard C library and is designed to be fast and efficient.
=head1 RESTRICTIONS
Never ever use addline on a binary file.
=head1 BUGS
There are no bugs in addline, there are just some undocumented features.
=head1 AUTHORS
Original prototype by Steven Siew, but so massively hacked over by
his sister such that Steven Siew probably doesn't recognize it anymore.
-------------------Cut here and do not include this line---------------------
</PRE>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="samuelson"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
2c Tip Re: Cross-platform Text Conversions
</H3>
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998 07:52:17 -0500 (CDT)<BR>
From: Peter Samuelson, <A HREF="mailto:psamuels@sampo.creighton.edu">
psamuels@sampo.creighton.edu</A>
<P>
In LG31 you published a 2c tip for a unix2dos replacement written in Tcl.
The author asserts that "It turned out to be really easy to do this in
Tcl." Even easier in Perl, I say. Symlink the following code to the
same names (d2u, u2d, m2d, m2u, u2m, d2m) Matt used. Make sure this
file has execute permission, of course.
<P>
Also, if you just want Perl to edit the input files in place, change
the "perl -wp" to something like "perl -wpi.orig"....
<P>
Peter Samuelson
<PRE>
#!/usr/bin/perl -wp
#
# Simpler unix2dos2mac utility for 2-cent tip, mainly because Tcl is ugly.
# No comments that Perl is ugly too, please.
#
# Usage: a standard Unix filter:
# input: filename(s) or stdin
# output: stdout
# Buglet: u2m leaves lone CR at the end of file if it didn't end in LF
# (Fixing it would use more memory.)
BEGIN {
$_=$0 =~ s|.*/||;
$pcmd='s/$/\r/' if ($0 eq 'u2d');
$pcmd='s/\r$//' if ($0 eq 'd2u');
$pcmd='s/$/\r/;chop' if ($0 eq 'u2m');
$pcmd='s/\r/\n/g' if ($0 eq 'm2u');
$pcmd='chomp' if ($0 eq 'd2m');
$pcmd='s/\r/\r\n/g' if ($0 eq 'm2d');
unless($pcmd) {
print STDERR "This script must be invoked under one of the names:\n",
" u2d, d2u, u2m, m2u, d2m, m2d\n";
exit 1;
}
}
eval $pcmd;
</PRE>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="scgmille"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Un-tar as you download
</H3>
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1998 13:08:52 -0500<BR>
From: <A HREF="mailto:scgmille@indiana.edu">scgmille@indiana.edu</A>
<P>
It's time for fun with pipes. Recently, when downloading the latest kernel
over a ridiculously slow connection, I wanted to see where the download
was by checking which file in the tarball was being received. After
pondering the pipes and GNU utils, this thought came to mind.
<P>
You can decompress and un-tar your files as they download, sort of a
"streaming decompressor", if you will. Form the command line:
<PRE>
tail -f --bytes=1m file-being-downloaded.tar.gz | tar -zxv
</PRE>
Tail will display downloaded portion of the file, then remain open
displaying bytes as they come. Make sure the 1m (1 megabyte in this case) is
LARGER than what you have already downloaded. The piped output of tail
goes to tar and the rest is history. Similarly for bz2 files:
<PRE>
tail -f --bytes=1m file.tar.bz2 | bunzip2 - | tar -xv
</PRE>
Enjoy!
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="burns"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
megaraid drivers
</H3>
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 18:34:32 -0400<BR>
From: "Michael Burns2, <A HREF="mailto:rburns@shaw.wave.ca">
rburns@shaw.wave.ca</A>
<P>
Hi,
It's been a long fight to get AMI to produce this
<A HREF="./megaraid.patch">patch</A> and the <A
HREF="./megaraid.doc">install documentation</A>.
<P>
Mike Burns
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="wood"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Re: Suggestion for Article, simultaneous versions of Kernels
</H3>
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1998 21:35:27 -0400 (EDT)<BR>
From: R Garth Wood<A HREF="mailto:rgwood@itactics.itactics.com">
rgwood@itactics.itactics.com</A>
<P>
I think Hans-Georg is talking about having a
stable linux kernel version X and a dev version X
(ie not 2.0.34 and 2.1.101 but 2.0.34 and 2.0.34).
I assume when you issue:
# make modules_install
it tromples your old stable modules and gives
you errors when you use your stable version X.
This is not as trivial a problem as it first
seems. However there is a solution. Have a
look at the make-kpkg docs (debian distro);
specifically the "flavour" option. This will
solv your problem. It won't be easy, though.
<P>
Have a look at:<BR>
/etc/conf.modules<BR>
to see what I mean.
<P>
R Garth Wood
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<center>Published in <I>Linux Gazette</I> Issue 32, September 1998</center>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<A HREF="./index.html"><IMG SRC="../gx/indexnew.gif" ALT="[ TABLE OF
CONTENTS ]"></A> <A HREF="../index.html"><IMG SRC="../gx/homenew.gif"
ALT="[ FRONT PAGE ]"></A> <A HREF="./lg_mail32.html"><IMG SRC="../gx/back2.gif" ALT=" Back "></A>
<A HREF="./lg_bytes32.html"><IMG SRC="../gx/fwd.gif" ALT=" Next "></A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<h5>This page maintained by the Editor of <I>Linux Gazette</I>,
<A HREF="mailto: gazette@ssc.com">gazette@ssc.com</A><BR>
Copyright &copy; 1998 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. </H5>
<P>
<center>
<H1><A NAME="answer">
<img src="../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif" alt="(?)" border="0" align="middle">
<font color="#B03060">The Answer Guy</font>
<img src="../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif" alt="(!)" border="0" align="middle">
</A></H1>
<BR>
<H4>By James T. Dennis,
<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com">linux-questions-only@ssc.com</a><BR>
Starshine Technical Services,
<A HREF="http://www.starshine.org/">http://www.starshine.org/</A>
</H4>
</center>
<p><hr><p>
<!-- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -->
<H3>Contents:</H3>
<p><a href="#tag_greeting"
><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" alt="(!)" border="0"
align="middle">Greetings From Jim Dennis</A></p>
<DL>
<!-- index_text begins -->
<dt><A HREF="#tag_phreak"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"><STRONG>phreaking</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_abandon"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"><STRONG>ISP Abandons User in Move
to NT</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_javaterm"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
></A>Driving Terminals w/Java
--or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag_javaterm"><STRONG>Java Telnet/Terminal</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_BBS"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG>Finding BBS Software for Linux</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_flaws"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"><STRONG>The Five Flaws of <em>the</em>
Unix System</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_doslinux"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"><STRONG>XFree86 Installation in
DOSLinux</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_resume"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
></A>resume on AS/400
--or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag_resume"><STRONG>Resume Spam
</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_softwindows"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif"
height="28" width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG>Linux Port of SoftWindows
</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_convert"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
></A>Connecting Linux to Win '95 via Null Modem
--or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag_convert"><STRONG>A Convert!
</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_apache"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG>MS FrontPage for Linux/Apache</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_emulate"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG>Virtual System Emulator for Linux and Why NOT to Use Them</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_database"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG>FoxPlus for Linux ?</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_distrib"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG>More on Distribution Preferences</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_proxy"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG>IP Masquerading/Proxy?</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_disable"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
></A>PPP
--or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag_disable"
><STRONG>The &quot;Difficulty&quot; is in <em>Disabling</em> the Services</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_DVI"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG>How to read DVI files?</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_superblock"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG>Bad Super-block on Filesystem</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_serial"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
></A>Mulitiple processes sharing one serial port
--or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag_serial"><STRONG>Multiplexing the Computer
-- ISDN Modem Connection
</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_permission"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG>Permission to Set up a Linux Server</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_detach"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG>Detaching and Re-attaching to Interactive Background
Processes</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_cdr"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG>[announce] Cdrdao 1.0 -
Disc-at-once writing of audio CD-Rs</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_rs422"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG>High Speed Serial (RS422) under Linux</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_modem"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG>ANOTHER MODEM PROB</STRONG></A> Plus, More on Grammar
<dt><A HREF="#tag_notfound"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif"
height="28" width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG><tt>/usr/bin/open</tt> command not found</strong></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_tuning"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG>Tuning X to work with your Monitor</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_libc5"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
></A>The last Linux C library version 5, 5.4.46, is released.
--or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag_libc5"><STRONG>The End of libc5:
A Mini-Interview with H.J Lu</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_startup"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
></A>Linux System Administration.
--or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag_startup"><STRONG>Where to put '<tt>insmod</tt>' and
'<tt>modprobe</tt>' Commands for Start-up</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_clock"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG>The BIOS Clock, Y2K, Linux and Everything</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_ping"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
></A>Online Status Detector
--or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag_ping"><STRONG>Failover and High Availability for Web Servers
</STRONG></A>: Conditional Execution Based on Host Availability
<dt><A HREF="#tag_accounts"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG>SysAdmin: User Administration: Disabling Accounts</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_lilo"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"></A>Thank you
--or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag_lilo"><STRONG>Articles on LILO Saves Life?
</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_NDS"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
></A>Netware NDS Client
--or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag_NDS"><STRONG>NDS (Netware Directory Services) for Linux:
Clients and Servers</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_95slow"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG>More 'Win '95 Hesitates After Box Has Run Linux?'</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_nonlinux"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif"
height="28" width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
></A>Bad Clusters on Hard Drive
--or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag_nonlinux"><STRONG>Another Non-Linux Question!
</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_progenv"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
></A>Help with C/C++ Environment Program
--or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag_progenv"><STRONG>Integrated Programming Environments
for Linux</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_cluster"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28"
width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
><STRONG>Web Server Clustering Project</STRONG></A>
<dt><A HREF="#tag_ftpd"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50" alt="(?)" border="0"
></A>wu-ftpd guest account on a Linux Box
--or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag_ftpd"><STRONG>WU-FTP guestgroup problems</STRONG></A>
<!-- index_text ends -->
</DL>
<P><HR width="40%" align="center"></P> <!-- :::::::::::::::::::::::: -->
<H3><a name="#tag_greeting"
><img src="../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif" alt="(!)" border="0"
align="middle">Greetings From Jim Dennis</A></H3>
<h4 align="center">Linux as a <em>Home</em> Users System</h4>
<p>
We're all getting used to the idea that Linux can attract corporate
users, for deployment as web, ftp, file (SMB and NFS), print and
even database servers; and we're getting used to seeing it used for
routers, mail, and DNS.
</p>
<p>
We're even getting used to the idea that corporate user put Linux
on their desktops (in places where they might have spent a small
fortune on a workstation).
</p>
<p>
But, what about the home/personal user? Most of us consider this
to be an impossible dream. Even those few enthusiasts <em>in</em> the
Linux community who dare to hope for it --- have been saying that
it will take years to gain any percentage of that market.
</p>
<p>
However, I'm starting to wonder about that. I've seen a number
of trade rag articles naysaying Linux on the desktop. Ironically,
when a reporter or columnist explains why Linux isn't suitable for
the desktop --- it actually raises the possibility that it <em>is</em>
suitable for that role.
</p>
<p>
A denial or refutation tells us <em>that the question has come up</em>!
</p>
<p>
What prevents the average IT manager from deploying Linux on their
desktop today? In most cases it's fear. The users are used to
MS Word, MS Excel, and MS PowerPoint. Any user who uses any of
these is forcing all of the rest to do so as well (since these
applications all use proprietary, non-portable, file formats).
</p>
<p>
Everyone who uses Office has to use a PC or a Mac (and many of them
switched away from Macs due to lags in upgrades and subtle file
compatibility problems between the Mac and PC versions of these
applications).
</p>
<p>
Why do Mac users run VirtualPC --- to deal with the occasional
<tt>.DOC</tt>, <tt>.XLS</tt>, or <tt>.PPT</tt> file that they get
--- or some other
proprietary file format (like some of those irritating CD-ROM
encyclopedia) which is only accessible through one application.
</p>
<p>
However, these proprietary formats are not secret codes. Linux
and other Open Source (tm) hackers will turn their attention to them
and crack their formats wide open. This will allow us to have
filters and converters.
</p>
<p>
'<tt>catdoc</tt>', LAOLA, and MSWordView are already showing some progress
on this area (for one of these formats).
</p>
<p>
Microsoft will undoubtedly counter by releasing a new version of
their suite which will carefully break the latest third-party
viewers and utilities (free or otherwise). They may even apply
the most even perversion of intellectual property law yet devised:
the software patent.
</p>
<p>
However. I think that the public, after a decade of following
along with this game, is finally starting to wise up. The next
release that egregiously breaks file format compatibility
may be the end of that ploy (for awhile at least).
</p>
<p>
But what about the home user. How do home users choose their
software? What is important to them?
</p>
<blockquote>
Most of them don't choose their software --- they use
what came on the system and only add things later.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
When they go out to buy additional software, home users are
the most price conscious of all buyers. Commercial,
government, and other institutional buyers can make a business
case to justify their purchases. Home users just look in
their wallet.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
The other common influences on the novice home user include
the retail store clerks and their kids. That's one reason why
the school and University markets were always so crucial to
Apple's success.
</blockquote>
<p>
I noticed that the Win '98 <em>upgrade</em> was going for $89. I
couldn't find a "non-upgrade" box anywhere in that store (CompUSA).
</p>
<p>
People are starting to hear that for half that price they can get
this other OS that includes enough games and applications to fill
a 2Gb hard drive.
</p>
<p>
I think MS is actually starting to price itself out of the market.
(It seems that my MS-DOS 5.0 upgrade was only about $35 or $40).
If MS Office weren't bundled with so many new systems, there
probably would be about a tenth the legal copies in home use.
</p>
<p>
With a little more work on LyX and KLyX and a few of its bretheren
--- and a bit more polishing on the installation/configuration
scripts for the various distributions I think we'll see a much more
rapid growth in the home market than anyone currently believes.
I think we may be at 15 to 20 per cent <em>of the home market</em> by
sometime in the year 2000.
</p>
<p>
So, what home applications do we really need to make that happen.
</p>
<dl><dt>I like the "Linux Software Wishlist"
<dd>(http://www.linuxresources.com/wish/)
</dl>
<p>
... because it gives all of us a place to vote on what we
would buy.
</p>
<p>
One class of packages that remember used to be very popular
was the "greeting card" and "banner/sign" packages: PrintShop,
PrintMaster, and Bannermania. Those used to have the cheesiest
clipart/graphics and a fairly limited range of layouts. Limited
enough to make any TeXnician scream with frustration.
</p>
<p>
However, they were incredibly popular precisely because of those
constraints. Having a few dozen to a couple hundred choices to
pick from is far less intimidating to home users than all the
power and flexibility you get with TeX, LaTeX, and the GIMP.
</p>
<p>
I would dearly love to see a set of pre-designed greeting cards,
certificates ("John Doe has Successfully Completed the Yoyodyne
Tiddly Winks Seminar" --- with the lacy border --- you know the
kind!), etc. all done in TeX or PS or whatever. This and a
front end chooser and forms dialog to fill in the text would be
a really killer home app.
</p>
<p>
(Bannermania was geared to creating large banners, either on
fanfold paper or as multiple sheets to be cut and pasted together
on to a backing board (piece of cardboard).
</p>
<p>
I think that a new Linux implementation of this sort of app
built over the existing software (TeX, GhostScript, etc) would
end up being vastly better than anything that was possible under
the old PrintShop --- and still be as simple.
</p>
<p>
I'm sure most of us have that one old DOS, Windows, Mac, or
other application or game that we'd like to see re-done for Linux.
So, dig out the publisher's address or phone number (assuming they
still exist) and let them know what you want. Then post your
request to the wishlist.
</p>
<p>
Even these trivial bits of action can make Linux the choice
of home users. I say this because I think it's about time that
they <em>had</em> a choice.
</p>
<!-- :::::::::::::::::: begin letters :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -->
<A name="tag_phreak"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"width="50" height="28"
align="left" border="0">phreaking </H3>
<p><strong>From an00997 on 30 Jul 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>Hi,I'm Dodo.I'm just finishing a course of computer operations and I
would like to know about phreak,hacking...
Can you tell me about it ???
Tips or news ???
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Thanks...
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>My first thought is that this is some sort of troll
(message intended to generate flames --- often forged
to appear from an unsuspecting party so as to harass
the apparent sender).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>That doesn't make sense in this case since getting
one flame from "The Answer Guy" is hardly worth
the trouble.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There for I have to assume that you have chosen an
unusually apt handle for yourself.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>So, you're finishing a course in computer operations.
That's nice and productive. You should also considering
taking a course in basic composition and grammar.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>(Hints: commas and periods are normally followed by
spaces; question marks normally are used in sequences
of one (the "triple question mark" is for emphasis);
and you finish courses that are "in" or "on" topics,
not "of" them).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Normally I don't flame people on their spelling
grammar, or punctuation. However, there doesn't
seem to be much else to say to you.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You want to know about phreaking and "hacking."
The first think to know about phreaking (the study
of practical phone fraud techniques) is that use of
most of the techniques used by phreaks is illegal
in just about any jurisdiction. In many places you
can a) go to jail and b) insure that you can never
work in the computer industry again by getting
convicted of crimes involving telephone and computer
fraud.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The term "hacking" as applied to techniques for
bypassing system security and gaining unauthorized
access (or privileges on) them is highly controversial.
It is accepted practice among computer <EM>enthusiasts</EM>
to use the term "cracking" to discuss those activities
and "hacking" to discuss the lawful and legitimate
pursuit of their hobby.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>In this latter sense we call Linus, Alan Cox, and
others "Kernel hackers."
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The media prefers to use the term "hacker" in the
former sense. This is one of many reasons that
"hackers" and "crackers" alike tend to be disgusted
by the media. (As a regular contributor to LG
I'm considered by some to be in "the media" and thus
worthy of suspicion and disgust. Others have other
opinions --- some of those are even less complimentary).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I personally find the whole "phreak mystique" to be
disgusting. There is a tendency to romanticize
phreaks and crackers ---- to create a mythology of
the "uberhacker" (a Nietsche-an reference that
very few of them understand). That whole subculture
is permeated with a smug "superiority" that tries to
say: "we know something you don't."
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Of course, to them I'm a nobody. I've never cracked
into anyone's system. I've never written any
"warez" or "sploits" and I don't even know all the
buzz words and jargon to participate in their
conversations. I'm a "lam3r" that's not even good
enough to be a "wannabe." In other words, I'm not
an "3l33t d000d."
</blockquote>
<blockquote>It also tends to be quite juvenile. They seem to
have an inordinate fondness for bad grammar and
intentionally crazy spelling. I suppose it's part
of the general affectation of 'tude --- the
rebellious aversion to authority and convention,
even the conventions of language itself. Trite!
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Now this is not to say that you have no business
learning about phreaking and cracking. There's
nothing wrong with learning about these things, nor
even anything inherently wrong with experimentation
and research. However, there is a major problem if
you conduct your "research" on "subjects" without
their informed consent.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>As a sysadmin's (and sometimes security) consultant I
study these things as much as my time allows. Most
of my information comes from mailing lists like bugtraq,
and from web sites like rootshell and the l0pht. I'll
let you find those on your own. You can also subscribe
to 2600 and Phrack magazines (printed) to learn more.
Phrack is also available online.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>All of the real "cracker" socializing seems to be done
via IRC (Internet Relay Chat). This has tended to give
the whole IRC system a bit of a bad rap. The popularity
of IRC for this stems from at least two factors: it is
immediate and interactive (instant gratification is
very important in these circles), and it allows for
direct client-to-client communications (DCC) which makes
it easy for participants to exchange "warez" and other
files. From what I gather the old-fashioned BBS is
also still pretty popular in that crowd. These seem to
be "by invitation only" --- so you'll have to curry
favor and do some horse trading to get any phone
numbers on any of them.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Naturally it is important for these crackers and phreakers
to maintain their elite status by locking out the lamers
and wannabes. So anything published about them is wrong,
or will be right after they read it.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I suspect that this message by itself will probably get
me flamed and possibly attract some cracks on my systems
(d00dz, don't bother; it's not sporting --- I don't do
anything special to protect my servers, honest! My
web and ftp servers are just virtual hosts on some poor
ISP, no challenge at all).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Meanwhile my best advice to you, Dodo, is to cut your
moniker in half and just "do" something constructive.
If you want to make a serious study of "cracking" and
"phreaking" than the Linux Gazette Answer Guy is a
pretty lame place to start. In short: get a life!
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_abandon"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>ISP Abandons User in Move to NT</H3>
<p><strong>From Tsyplakov Maxim V. on 28 Jul 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>Regard!
Help to solve a problem:
Beside my ISP installed by Windows NT.
Can will Not be connected with him through dial-up from Linux.
Scenario waits <tt>login:</tt> and <tt>password:</tt>, but from there
does not come no lines.
Links Linux-Linux, Linux-Free BSD, worked without any problems.
Who known what is wrong?
<tt>CCL: Invalid command (c)</tt>.
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>It sounds like you should try talking to your ISP. If
they won't co-operate or help, switch to another one.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>If there aren't any others in your area, find some friends
and form your own -- either a co-op or a commercial. Welcome
to the free market!
</blockquote>
<blockquote>They are probably using some proprietary MS RAS (remote access
service) or they've done something weird with their terminal
servers or PPP software --- though the fact that it connect
and prompts for a login and password doesn't sound like
a MS NT RAS or PPTP sort of symptom --- those are text and
MS prefers to use proprietary binary in their protocols and
document formats.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>In any event I don't have nearly enough information to help.
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_javaterm"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Java Telnet/Terminal: </H3>
<p><strong>From Spencer T. Kittelson on 28 Jul 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>They're out there but not <EM>all</EM> there.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>We have some old code that runs on terminals that we would like to
drive with a Java based server. We are looking for the reverse
equivalent of a terminal emulator, i.e. a Java toolkit that
multiplexes serial/network character streams and provides support
for character based devices. In particular we are looking for the
Java equiv. of the C curses library.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Any ideas if and where such a thing exists?
<br>Spencer
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>The canonical resource for finding Java applets
and applications on the web is at "developer.com"
(formerly known as Gamelan).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Here's URL that will provide you with a list of
some telnet and terminal emulators writting in Java
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code
><A HREF="http://www-c.developer.com/directories/find.cgi?search=Java+Telnet&amp;num=50&amp;sp=sp"
>http://www-c.developer.com/directories/find.cgi?search=Java+Telnet&amp;num=50&amp;sp=sp</A>
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>(Be sure to cut and paste that without the linebreak,
and the extraneous backslash that I use to indicate
the line continuation).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There are a number of these listed there and I
haven't tried any of them (well, I tried WebTerm
awhile back and I did look at the online demo
of JXterm, and Crosstie).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I've played with <a href="http://www.sco.com/">SCO</a>'s
Tarantella --- which seems to
be more of an X Windows in a Java frame --- and
also provides support to access NT desktops through
a Java frame. Alas, that seems to be a proprietary
technology and it seems to require a SCO OpenServer
to host part of it. (I suspect that means that it
doesn't qualify as a "Pure Java" solution --
though the client side of it might be "pure Java").
</blockquote>
<blockquote>WebTerm seems to be available for non-commercial use
--- but doesn't define the term (do they mean
you can't use it in your business environment or
just that you can't sell copies of it). JXTerm
and Crosstie seem to be commercial products.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>One limitation of most of the Java implementations
in existing web browsers is that the Java applets
can normally only open connections to the same
address from which they were fetched. This means
that your host would have to run a web server with
some HTML pages that contained the required
applet markup. You could also distribute these
to your systems along with an installation of the
JRE (Java Runtime Environment) and a copy of
'appletviewer' --- that would allow you to run
these without the common browser restrictions.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Another problem with these is that they are not
trivial to install and run via the 'appletviewer'
WebTerm 2.0 gave me grief about "missing resources"
while the same copy of appletviewer was
perfectly content to run the various other
demos that I had laying around. I'm sure that it's
some fussing with the <tt>CLASSPATH</tt> variable or
some other thing that I don't have configured
to it's liking. Frankly I haven't worried about it
much.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I presume that your clients are PC's or NC's rather
than Linux boxes. Otherwise I presume you'd just
configure your browswers with 'telnet' configured
as a helper app and just embed URL's of the form:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>&lt;a href="telnet://appserver.mydomain.org"&gt;
Telnet to our Application Server&lt;/a&gt;
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... and be done with it.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Naturally you can do that on your Windows boxes
as well --- just install some sort of telnet utility
and configure the browsers to use it. I personally
like C-Kermit for telnet -- so you might consider
using K'95 (the Win32 Kermit from Columbia University).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>That would give you a consistent scripting, telnet and
file transfer environment across your systems.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>That approach (using helper apps) is likely to be much
faster, more robust and probably and cheaper than trying
to do this with Java applets. The usual telnet utilities
have had years to mature and are written to the clients
native API's --- so there's no fussing about that.
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_BBS"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Finding BBS Software for Linux</H3>
<p><strong>From Li-cheng Hsu in the
<a href="news://comp.os.linux.development.apps"
>comp.os.linux.development.apps</a>
newsgroup on 29 Jul 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>Greetings,
</strong></p>
<p><strong>I used to be a sysop of FidoNet using Maximus as my BBS system in
DESQview environment. Now I have switched from DOS/Windows to Linux
as my major working platform.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>The question is, is there any BBS system that is recommended to run
in Unix ? It should be able to handle both dial-up &amp; TCP/IP, of
course. <IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" height="24" width="20" align="middle">
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>There's a tree of directories at the master Linux
archive:
</blockquote>
<code><blockquote><blockquote><A HREF="http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/bbs">http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/bbs</A>
</blockquote></blockquote></code>
<blockquote>There are several packages there --- including a number of
utilities for ifmail (the Internet to FIDO gateway).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Most of these are free or shareware.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There are also Linux ports of MajorBBS and MMB Teammate
(a couple of major commercial BBS packages --- which are
pretty expensive).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I haven't used any of them so I can't offer specific
suggestions. However, I've crossposted the two newsgroups
that are most likely to have interested and informed
participants (alt.bbs.unixbbs and comp.bbs.misc).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There are about 50 newsgroups devoted to BBS'
(including various specific BBS packages like TBBS,
MajorBBS, Citadel, etc).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>(I've been a sysop on two large corporate systems,
for Symantec and for McAfee --- so, I used to subscribe
to some of these. However I've never run a small hobbyist
system so I just haven't kept up in the field).
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Thanks in advance. <IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" height="24" width="20" align="middle">
</strong></p>
<blockquote>Linux can handle dial-up as well as console login and give a remote user
normal shell. But you probably want to restrict access for BBS users.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You can set them up with simple shell script (or <tt>perl</tt>,
or <tt>tcl</tt>) which
would emulate maximus as close as you wish, but I think that better
approach is to use text-based web-browser
<tt><a href="http://lynx.browser.org/">lynx</a></tt> for their shell.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>These are likely to be severe security problems unless
you are a phenomenally good (and careful) programmer.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I'd did play with a configuration that ran <tt>lynx</tt> in a
chroot jail. That was to prototype a "dial in kiosk"
</blockquote>
<blockquote>One sticking point for my application was that I wanted
a replacement '<tt>getty</tt>' that could auto-detect ANSI PC
emulation (which many BBS' can do with some sort of
magic escape code) and bypass the Unix login command
--- I think I replaced /bin/login in the jail with an
SUID "nobody" copy of <tt>lynx</tt>, and put a &lt;chroot&gt;<tt>/etc/issue</tt>
that just said: "Hit any key to ...."
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Thus you set up normal Web site instead of BBS, solving problem with
TCP/IP instantly, and let dial-in users to view it in <tt>lynx</tt>.
<tt>Lynx</tt>
includes provisions to download/upload files using Z-Modem and Xmodem
(by calling external programs <tt>sz</tt> and <tt>rz</tt>) and allows to
restrict users almost as much as you wish.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>However, those various restrictions may not be foolproof.
There have been exploits that bypassed <tt>lynx</tt> restrictions before.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>So, if security is an issue, you definetely want to
lock this in a jail with no shell and take some other
precautions.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You are right that this is an interesting way to
provide "kiosk" style dial-up using stock HTML/web pages
and off the 'net freeware. That was the whole point of
my prototype (which took all of about three hours one
afternoon).
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_flaws"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>The Five Flaws of <EM>the</EM> Unix System</H3>
<p><strong>From Ashley G. on 29 Jul 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>JIM,
HI I WAS WONDERING IF YOU CAN SEND ME SOME INFO.ALL I NEED IS THE
NAMES OF THE 5 FLAWS IN THE UNIX SYSTEM,JUST THE NAMES.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>IF YOU CAN SEND THEM TO ME I WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE IT&gt;
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>I think some flames are in order here:
</blockquote>
<ol>
<li>This is not the "We do your homework for you" service.
<li>I volunteer many hours per month answering
questions about Linux. There are others out
there who can answer your questions about
other forms of Unix. I frequently answer
questions about how to interoperate between
Linux and other OS' including many forms of
Unix. Most of what I say about Linux applies
to most other forms of Unix. However the
distinction is important.
<li>You need to learn where your <tt>[Caps Lock]</tt> key is
and keep it turned off if you plan to get
any co-operation or respect from anybody
on the 'net (in Usenet netnews or on any
technical mailing lists).
<li>There is no such thing as "the Unix System"
there are many different versions of Unix ---
and there have been for almost thirty years.
<li>If someone told you that there were "five"
specific "flaws" in Unix they were suffering
from horrible misconceptions.
<li>As likely it may be the case that you've
critically misundertood someone.
</ol>
<blockquote>Now to answer your question:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There is no list of generally held "flaws" in Unix or
Linux that I know of. There are a number of problems
with even postulating such a list.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>First there isn't any one Unix system. C-Kermit claims
to support about 700 versions and implementations of Unix
(and Unix-like operating systems).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There is considerable ongoing academic debate about what
precisely is Unix. I won't bother trying to provide
my own definition --- it would just get me flame mail
and perpetuate the debate. There are many people who
will even deny that there's any doubt. They will say:
Unix is any system that has been "branded" by The
Open Group as conformant to the X/Open portability
guidelines (XPG4 or XPG3). Others will pipe in and
say that any thing that meets Spec1170 is Unix, while
others will claim that POSIX is the one true standard.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>At that point we'll go through the whole debate as to
whether Unix is limited to just those systems which are
dubbed to be "Unix" by this or that standards body,
or whether it applies to Unix like systems --- such as
Linux.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Indeed we could argue for days about what precisely is
Linux. In the strict sense it is considered to be a
set of kernel sources and the ancillary device drivers,
and makefiles. In common usage Linux refers to any of
a number of collections of software that run under a
compilation of those (kernel) sources. Others, notably
Richard Stallman, argue that the term Linux should be
applied only to the kernel sources and that a different
term should be applied to larger aggregations of
software built around it.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>His argument is valid -- since most Linux distibutions
are about 5% to 10% Linux kernel sources, and drivers
and about 25% GNU software. Since RMS is the principle
of the Free Software Foundation (the organization that
owns the copyright over the GNU sources) he has a
reasonable interest in seeing that people know where
some of the major components of their Linux based
GNU systems come from.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Eventually the FSF will have a full operating system of
it's own: the HURD. The GNU project was started to
build such a system and the fact that they released
a large number of vital components for public use
is what made Linux possible.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>At the same time there are other bodies that have
produced major software subsystems that are
conventionally included in a Linux distribution.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The computer science research group (CSRG) at
University of California, Berkeley released a large
number of packages and a large body of source code
for public use (BSD). Many of the common utilities
under Linux (most of the NetKit, I think) are from these
sources.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The X Window system comes from MIT's Athena project and
the free implementation of that which we use under Linux
is principally from the XFree86 Project. XFree86 is the
X Window system that's used by a number of Unix
implementations including FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>So, if we were to try to fairly represent these parties
in our nomenclature we'd have to refer to our systems
as:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Linux/GNU/BSD/XFree86/"MIT X Window System" Systems
</blockquote>
<blockquote>... which is why a respectfully decline to comply
with rms' desire for me to use the phrase Linux/GNU when
I mean "Linux" (in the common broader sense).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The other reason I choose not do to this most of the time is
that I find it more difficult to read in that form. This is
undoubtedly a horrible character flaw on my part but I find
that I sometimes subvocalize (mentally "sound out") passages
of technical text in my efforts to understand and proofread
it. So, if rms likes he can simply say that my refusal to
refer to this is symptom of my stupidity. I'll cop to that.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>So, I suppose we could say that the "first flaw" of Unix
is that no one seems to know what Unix is.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>While it is tempting to try to follow this line of logic
and devise four more for you --- I think it will be much
quicker and more amusing for you to read <em>The Unix-Haters
Handbook</em> by Simson Garfinkel, et al (IDG Books, (c) 1996).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Conveniently this book is in four "Parts":
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Part 1: User Friendly?
<br>Part 2: Programmer's System?
<br>Part 3: Sysadmin's Nightmare
<br>Part 4: Et Cetera
</blockquote>
<blockquote>... and I think that every serious student of Unix and Linux
should read this book. For one thing it requires an advanced
understanding of Unix to understand the complaints --- and
a really advanced knowledge to see how many of these
complaints don't apply to many "modern" Unix variants (Linux
in particular).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>For the rest of it I found it amusing, frustrating and
significant that the many contributors to Unix_Haters did not
list modern available alternatives that exhibited the features
they preferred in an OS and environment (or at least that lack
the features that they hate). There were references to
the ancient "Lisp Machines" but there was no clear endorsement
nor were there any suggestions about how things "should be."
</blockquote>
<blockquote>So, as the title suggests this is a curmudgeonly book without
constructive merit. However, the Unix and Linux enthusiast
should be thoroughly familiar with the material for the same
reason that a self-respecting agnostic should be thoroughly
familiar with the major religious works of whatever society
surrounds him or her.
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_doslinux"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<!-- begin body1 -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>XFree86 Installation in DOSLinux</H3>
<p><strong>From STEVEN SCHILLY on 20 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<p><strong>Hey sorry about 'council' sometimes my mind is wondering about in
many green fields at once! Anyway I figured that out before I got
your mail it was in the init and inittab (although I have no idea
what was wrong!) I copied an init file from a working version of
micro linux to mine and a new kernel of DOSLinux x.xx? (will have
to look). I'd like to run X86Free; where is the best place or way
to download this entire package. What will make installing it as
easy as possible? I like to hack at the system level but don't have
the time right now .. so I'd like the easy way out....Any sug.?
</strong></p>
<!-- end body1 -->
<p><hr align="center" width="40%"></p>
<!-- ..................... -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>XFree86 Installation in DOSLinux</H3>
<p><strong>From Rick, Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>I have doslinux on my PC b/c i wanted to keep Win95. I want to load
Xwindows but i cannot figure out how to do it on DOSlinux... Could
you please point me in the right direction like what files i need
and how to install and run. thanks ...
</strong></p>
<!-- end body -->
<p><hr align="center" width="40%"></p>
<!-- ..................... -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" alt="(!)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Jim answers both...</H3>
<em>[His two messages weren't precise copies, but you, our web readers,
only need to read the cut-and-pasted portions once. -- Heather]</em>
<blockquote>I think the easiest way would be to install the
RPM utilities using the unRPM-Install package that's
Available on the DOSLinux "Home Page."
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Then I'd fetch the XFree86 packages from a
<A HREF="http://www.redhat.com">Red Hat</A>
mirror and just use the '<tt>rpm -i</tt>' command.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You could also consider one of the other "tiny"
Linux distibutions like "Xdenu" or "Dragon"
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Here's a copy of another message
that covers almost the same question:
</blockquote>
<em>[copy omitted]</em>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The easy way out of manually installing XFree86 is to
pick a distribution that includes it. I gather that you're
running DOSLinux --- which is similar to "MiniLinux" in
that you can install a functional Linux subsystem into
an MS-DOS subdirectory in about 20Mb of disk space (maybe
30 or 40 these days).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Oddly enough I just got another question on the same
topic. I'll paste copies of my suggestions:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There were a couple of predecessors to DOSLinux, including
Mini-Linux and Xdenu. Xdenu is still available at sunsite:
</blockquote>
<code><blockquote><blockquote
><A HREF="http://sunsite.anu.edu.au/archives/linux/distributions/xdenu/umsdos"
>http://sunsite.anu.edu.au/archives/linux/distributions/xdenu/umsdos</A>
</blockquote></blockquote></code>
<blockquote>... and it included the X windows subsystem. That apparently hasn't
been updated in about 3 years.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Just a couple of directories over from that you'll find tinyX at:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code
><A HREF="http://sunsite.anu.edu.au/archives/linux/distributions/tinyX"
>http://sunsite.anu.edu.au/archives/linux/distributions/tinyX</A>
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... which is a set of implementations that each fit on a single
floppy. (You pick the file that matches your video card type.
Most of these are from '93 or '95).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>MiniLinux itself is still there: it fits on about four diskettes
and includes X. It also dates back to '95. However, it's programs
should probably still run on any more recent system (you might need
a kernel with support for the old COFF/a.out format --- since I
don't think MiniLinux was updated to ELF).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Also on sunsite we find a page that links us to "Monkey-Linux" which
does include X and was updated at least as recently as May of '97.
The author notes: "English documentations is still not fine..."
So you might feel more comfortable with this if Czechloslovakian is
your native language. The web page is at:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code
><A HREF="http://www.spsselib.hiedu.cz/monkey"
>http://www.spsselib.hiedu.cz/monkey</A>
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>He does note that Monkey is compiled for ELF format.
</blockquote>
<p><hr align="center" width="40%"></p>
<!-- ..................... -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>XFree86 Installation in DOSLinux</H3>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>From Rick on 20 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<p><strong>thanks for the help... i think i have learned from doslinux
so i can go ahead and install redhat... i will still use this information
to try to get dos linux working on my laptop. thank you.
</strong></p>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_resume"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Resume Spam</H3>
<p><strong>From Prblnd on 24 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>AnswerGuy
</strong><//p>
<p><strong>I'm just a LittleGuy, out-of-work..Looking for AS/400 platform
and somebody said I should tell you!
</strong><//p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0">Who?
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Your assertion that "somebody said" you should tell <EM>me</EM>
sounds very suspicious. If it is true that "somebody" said
you should tell <EM>me</EM> about your plight --- that person is
either stupid or cruel. I'm not a hiring manager. I'm not
a recruiter. I have nothing whatsoever to do with AS/400's
(no slight intended, they sound like nice enough systems).
</blockquote>
<p><strong><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0">Question: Can you assist me to find a new start?
<br>Answer:</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0">I probably could. However, the fact that you
blindly sent this to me without any evident research into who I
am and what I do suggests that time spent on assisting
you would be wasted.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>However, here's the assistance I will offer:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<dl><dt>Research:
<dd>Don't waste your time or anyone else's
by blindly spamming addresses out of the
blue. Do your homework. Send messages to
those who are looking for them and expecting
them. Make it clear in your message how you
selected them and why you hold an expectation
that they have requested your message.
<dt>Writing:
<dd>You message's semantics are horrible. The spelling
and punctuation are reasonable. However, the
phrase "looking for AS/400 platform" doesn't make
sense. I presume you are looking for work that is
"related to the AS/400" or that "requires expertise
with AS/400's." I understand the difficulties
faced by people for whom English is not native;
however, you want to find someone who is literate
and fluent in English to help you edit your messages
to potential employers.
<dt>Tone:
<dd>Desperation is repugnant to most well-balanced
people. Are you really looking for a "new start?"
I would suggest that you focus on just getting
a new job. You don't want to throw suggestions
about "other" problems into the faces of potential
employers.
<p>The phrase "a new start" is idiomatic to Americans
and suggests such unsavory failures as incarceration/
institutionalization, divorce, and/or drug treatment.
These are the sorts of total failures that require
someone to look for a "new start." Merely getting
laid off or even fired is merely enough to look for
a "new job."
<p>Also it is generally useless to appeal to a potential
employer's sympathies. If I were a hiring manager
I don't care if you are a "LittleGuy" or a major
political, philosophical or intellectual figure.
<p>Hiring managers care if you can do the job they need
for the price they are willing to pay. Given multiple
applicants that meet their pre-requisites they are
generally swayed by much more subjective criteria
(such as whether you are related to them, whether
you are previously aquainted, and whether they "like"
you, etc).
<p>So, you want to maintain a "positively neutral"
(and "upbeat") tone in your dealings with
potential employers.
</dl>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>With that in mind let's re-write your message to me:
</blockquote>
<p align="center">------------------------ Begin Rewrite ---------------------------
</p>
<blockquote>Dear Mr. Dennis,
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Sam Ockman told me that you have lots of contacts throughout
the industry. When I mentioned to him that I'm looking for
a new position (systems administration, preferably on AS/400)
he suggested that I drop you a note.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I've attached my resume. Please feel free to share it with
any of your associates that might be interested. I'm in
Sri Lanka, North Dakota --- but I'm happy to relocate.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Also, any suggestions you have would be deeply appreciated.
I've looked through some of the sites that are listed in Yahoo!'s
"Employment" sections. There are so many of those that I'm not
sure where to start.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Thanks.
</blockquote>
<p align="center">------------------------ End Rewrite ---------------------------
</p>
<blockquote>Note: we use a real name here. We don't use an alias.
You could have searched for "answerguy" on Yahoo! gives
242 references and apparently 222 of them point to me.
(I'm not the one on CAGTV --- <A HREF="http://www.linux-questions-only@ssc.com">http://www.linux-questions-only@ssc.com</A>, and
I'm not the one from Square One Tech (<A HREF="http://www.squareonetech.com">http://www.squareonetech.com</A>)
Nor am I listed on Global Online Electronic Services
(<A HREF="http://www.goes.com">http://www.goes.com</A>)). My full name is published in every
article.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>We start of by saying precisely who sent you to me, and why.
If you were referred through some traffic on a newsgroup or
mailing list --- say so!
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Next we state our purpose. Nothing fancy --- just ask as
directly and simply as possible. If you expected that I would
be hiring --- tell me why you thought so. In that case you'd
also want to say way you think that you're a suitable candidate
for the specific positions you think I might have open.
For example:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>... some participants on the comp.unix.security
newsgroup suggested that you might have an opening
for a new webmaster. I've been working in HTML for
three years, and I'm experienced with the installation
and configuration of a number of popular CGI packages
(including several from Matt's script archive).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I'm particularly interested in working for your consulting
firm because I want to learn more about Unix and Internet
security and I've heard that you're widely respected in this
field. ...
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>(note: this is all hypothetical --- Starshine Technical Services
does do some security consulting --- but is not "widely" regarded
in the field, yet).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Lastly, when we ask for more general help we also give some
idea of what we're already doing. We do this for two reasons
--- first is allows are respondent to avoid redundant suggestions.
More importantly, it shows that we are motivated and that we've
done <EM>some</EM> homework.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The point is that everything you say is relevant to the matter
at hand. You cannot do that unless you do some research.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Incidentally, people posing technical questions should
take note of this advice. It applies as much for an
"application for technical support" as it does for any
other.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>At this point I get enough mail for the "Answer Guy" that
I don't wonder where people heard of me (when they're
talking about Linux). However, it would be nice if I
knew a bit more about where some of these questions came
from. If someone at a users group meeting says: "You should
send mail to that guy from the Linux Gazette" --- I'd like
to hear about which UG it was.
</blockquote>
<p><strong><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0">Question: WILL you assist me in finding the
new career job?
<br>Answer...
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0">No.</blockquote>
<p><strong><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0">okay, two questions, only one right answer...
thanks for your time....
</strong><p>
<p><strong>resume attached............................
</strong><p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0">... (apparently in .DOC format) and deleted
without a glance.
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<p><hr width="40%" align="center"></p>
<!-- ...................... -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>More on Resume Spam</H3>
<p><strong>From Prblnd on 24 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>you made me laugh thru your entire response ..
</strong></p>
<p><strong>thank you -
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Paul
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0">Glad I could help!</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_softwindows"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"width="50" height="28"
align="left" border="0">Linux Port of SoftWindows</H3>
<p><strong>From <em>The Answer Guy</em> to Insignia Solutions
on 25 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p>Dear Sir or Madam,
</p>
<p>You recently sent me a business reply card offering me SoftWindows
'95 for any of three relatively popular RISC-based Unix platforms.
This offer is useless to me since I use Linux on my PC's.
</p>
<p>As a long time user of Linux. I, my employees, and my customers
occasionally need access to files in some proprietary document format
(usually generated by Windows Office) and we are willing to pay a
reasonable sum (I could probably buy 20 copies tomorrow).
</p>
<p>I am a member of a local users group (Silicon Valley LUG) with about
400 regular members. I can take a poll at our next meeting and
give you the results if you'd like.
</p>
<p>Most of us are not choosing Linux because it's "free" (in the
financial sense). The time and energy most of us have spent
is far more valuable than a couple hundred bucks here or there.
Also most of us have purchased new computers and recieved "free"
copies of Win '95 or Win '98 with them. We've then gone out
and purchased
<A HREF="http://www.redhat.com"
>Red Hat</A> (http://www.redhat.com) Linux ($50) to replace those.
</p>
<p>The need (among Linux users) to run 32-bit Windows applications
without rebooting is perhaps a bit difficult for most Windows
users to understand. We could, after all, simply reboot.
</p>
<p>MS Windows users are used to rebooting a couple times a day.
</p>
<p>However, for most Unix and Linux users this is the problem. We
depend upon a much higher degree of stability. Most of my systems
stay up for months at a time. These workstations are not "busy"
--- they are mostly just "maintaining state" -- my editors, email
programs, web browsers and newsreaders are all in different states.
</p>
<p>When I get blocked on one task (perhaps because I need to look
something up) or interrupted (perhaps to go to lunch, as I did
while writing this message) --- my cursors all stay where I put
them.
</p>
<p>I don't have to remember each of these tasks that are "in process"
and I don't have to resort to reams of "Post-It" notes (though I
put the occasional XPost-It on my display). I can simply move to
another window, another virtual desktop, another virtual console,
even another user account concurrently running a whole different
session of X. I can leave such processes running throughout my
network running with confidence that nothing sort of a power outage
or a major sysadmin error will disrupt my work.
</p>
<p>To us the notion of rebooting to get into MS Windows (usually
just to read some .XLS, or PowerPoint e-mail attachment) is
analogous to sweeping all of the paper work off of your desk,
emptying all of the drawers, and turning the desk upside down.
</p>
<p>For me to just go though an find all my running processes and
write down which files were open in which applications would
probably take at least a fifteen. Later, to restart all
of them and get back to "my place" (reposition my windows,
cursors, etc) would take at least a half hour. That's 10% of
a workday lost to just rebooting a system!
</p>
<p>Since I bill $100 per hour --- it doesn't take much of that to
convince me to get a package like WABI, VirtualPC (if
<a href="http://www.connectix.com/">Connectix</a>
responds to my inquiries), or (if you make it available) SoftWindows
for Linux.
</p>
<p>There were an estimated 5 to 10 million Linux users by the beginning
of this year. IDC estimates that 2.2 million <EM>revenue generating</EM>
workstation installations of Linux were installed during 1997.
That beats their estimates of all non-PC based Unix' combined and
outstrips the reported NT workstation installations almost two to
one.
</p>
<p>The number one problem faced by most business Linux users is
lack of access to 32-bit Windows applications (most of it for
document sharing). <a href="http://www.stardivision.com/">StarOffice</a>
and <a href="http://applix.com/">Applix</a>ware are not yet mature
enough and certainly don't have sufficiently robust document
filters to be a solution for most of us.
<a href="http://www.corel.com/">Corel</a>'s WordPerfect
for Linux is "on its way" but it probably won't have quite the
quality of document filters and translators that we require for
reasonable interoperation with some companies.
</p>
<p>WABI will probably never run Win '95 or Win '98 apps.
<a href="http://www.winehq.com/">WINE</a> is
still not ready for broad use (only the most technically
adroit Linux enthusiasts can use it --- and it has virtually
no Win32S suppport). So, there is clearly a niche for your
market. That niche is almost certainly bigger than the
combined niches for HP-UX, Solaris/SPARC, and AIX.
</p>
<p>PS: I keep hearing this persistent rumor that Insignia
<em>can't</em> release a version of SoftWindows for any PC based OS,
allegedly due to some clandestine cross-licensing arrangement
with Microsoft. That would certainly explain why you've been
ignoring the larger PC/Unix markets. If this rumor ever
makes its way to the DoJ it should make for some interesting
reading.
</p>
<p>I also notice that MS has recently been "legitimizing" the
non-Intel Unix platforms and has been making announcements to the
affect that they are releasing native ports of MS Office, and
Internet Explorer for a select few of these platforms (all
non-Intel, naturally). I wonder what affect that will have
on your market.
</p>
<!-- end body -->
<p><hr width="40%" align="center"></p>
<!-- ... -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" alt="(?)"width="50" height="28"
align="left" border="0">Re:Linux Port of SoftWindows </H3>
<p><strong>From <em>Insignia Solutions Unix Customer Service</em>
on 25 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>Jim-
<br>Thanks for your interest in SoftWindows for Linux and in Insignia
Solutions.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Right now, we do not have a product for Linux or any Intel-based
Unix.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Unfortunately this is not a simple port of an existing SoftWindows
for Unix on RISC product - a completely different design is required as the
Intel cpu does not help as much as you might expect. Consequently, a large
investment on our part would be required to produce this product. We are
prepared to do this, but only given enough customer demand.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>To assess this demand we will be producing a web based survey,
to determine what would constitute acceptable pricing, product functionality
(in particular whether DOS/Windows would have to be included) and performance.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Please check
<a href="http://www.insignia.com/">www.insignia.com</a> periodically for
further information.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Thank You,
<br>Christopher Wood
<br>Insignia Customer Service
<br>800-848-7677 option 5
</strong></p>
<p>____________________Reply Separator____________________
<br>[attached copy of original message omitted]</em></p>
<p><hr width="40%" align="center"></p>
<em>
<p>[As of press time, they are not plugging a "market expansion survey"
or anything similar directly on their home page. However, they are offering
a "free UNIX Solutions kit" if you fill out the form at:</p>
<blockquote><a href="http://www.insignia.com/banner/unixkit.html"
>http://www.insignia.com/banner/unixkit.html</a></blockquote>
<p>
...where they don't mention Linux, but will let you fill in an Other
space for your platform. It doesn't mention price. If you have a
<strong>serious</strong> interest in buying Softwindows should it come
to pass, let them know, so they can't claim "there's no demand". But it
should be legitimate demand... if you wouldn't be willing to talk to a
sales rep about it, I'd say don't bother hitting the above link.</p>
<p>-- Heather]</p></em>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_convert"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<p>Chris Gushue's question about
<a href="../issue30/tag_nullmodem.html">nullmodems</a> was posted in
July (Issue 30).</p>
<p><hr width="40%" align="center"><p>
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>A Convert!</H3>
<p><strong>From Chris Gushue on 29 Jul 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>About a week after asking for help about connecting Linux and
Windows 95 via null modem, I totally switched over to Linux (well,
with a small Windows partition for the occasional game). I got fed
up after numerous crashes while just installing it, plus my brand
new Gravis GamePad Pro didn't work in 98 at the time. I can make my
Linux system do pretty much anything I want, either in text mode or
in X. Plus, I don't have to reboot at least once a day. To
summarize, it's much better to run Linux than Windows (well,
everyone knows that, of course!). Instead I think I'll work on
setting up a LAN with my Linux system (on a cable modem) with two
Windows 95 systems (my roommates-to-be systems). Shouldn't be too
hard - except for maybe the Windows configuration (I expect no less
than 3 reboots)
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" height="24" width="20" align="middle">
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Great column - keep up the great work!
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0">Glad I could help.</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_apache"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>MS FrontPage for Linux/Apache:</H3>
<p><strong>From Terry Singleton on 18 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>Hi there,
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Being a newbie LINUX user I searched YAHOO and found your site. It
is a relief to actually find a site which has some newbie
material..thanks.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>I am hoping you can shed some light on this subject.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>I recently put up a LINUX server, I am hoping to use it for email
and http purposes. However our users are not knowledgeable enough to
be able to ftp html files into their directories and therefore we
would like to use Front Page. I have downloaded and installed APACHE
1.3.1 and noticed that MS does have FP extensions that are supposed
to run on LINUX and APACHE.
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>I think you are underestimating your users. You might
want to find the WS_FTP and/or the "CuteFTP" package.
These shareware Windows packages are pretty easy for
Windows users --- and work pretty much like the old
file manager.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>(As for e-mail, I suppose some/many of them will be
use Netscape Communicator's POP client. You can also
offer them Eudora and Pegasus Mail. These will work
with any POP server --- including whichever one was
almost certainly already installed with your distribution).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The easiest way to allow your Windows users access to their
files on your web server is to install and use Samba. Samba
implements the SMB protocol --- which is the native file sharing
system that's implemented in Windows for Workgroups, Windows '95,
Windows '98, Windows NT, and OS/2 (LAN Manager and LAN Server).
files.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>With Samba you'd give each user access to their home directory
(possibly creating symlinks from their home directories to any
shared directories). You users would simply drag and drop
files using the same file manager and "Explorer" interfaces
that they'd use with any other WfW or NT fileserver.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You can also create group shares (on your Linux or other Unix
system) which will automatically show up to the appropriate
users in their browse lists.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The last time one of my associates looked into using
Microsoft's FrontPage server extensions the idea was abandoned
without even attempting the installation. There were
showstopper limitations and design features that obviated any
need to look further at it.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Her conclusion was also supported by a number of messages that
I've read on the Bugtraq and NTSecurity mailing lists.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>So I recommend that you reconsider your options and avoid
FrontPage if you have any choice in the matter.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>If you insist on using FP despite these limitations then
you'll probably want to look at:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><dl><dt>The Unofficial FP Server Extensions Home Page
<dd><A HREF="http://compy.ww.tu-berlin.de/FP-Server_Extensions/default.htm"
>http://compy.ww.tu-berlin.de/FP-Server_Extensions/default.htm</A>
<dd><A HREF="http://www.bewley.net/httpd/frontpage.html"
>http://www.bewley.net/httpd/frontpage.html</A>
</dl></blockquote>
<blockquote>Although I've never used it, I've read about another way to
upload files to a web server using HTTP POST commands. It's
described in the O'Reilly book on _CGI_Programming_ (one with
a mouse on the cover) on page 414 (Appendix D).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Basically you create a form that looks like so:
</blockquote>
<pre>
&lt;!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//IETF//DTD HTML//EN"&gt;&lt;HTML&gt;&lt;HEAD&gt;&lt;TITLE&gt;
File Upload Form &lt;/TITLE&gt;&lt;/HEAD&gt;&lt;BODY&gt;&lt;H1&gt;
File Upload Form &lt;/H1&gt;&lt;HR&gt;
&lt;FORM ACTION="/cgi-bin/upload.pl"
ENCTYPE="multipart/form-data" METHOD="POST"&gt;
Your Name: &lt;INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="username"&gt;
File to Upload: &lt;INPUT TYPE="file" NAME="filename"&gt;
&lt;INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="Send the Multi-part (MIME) file..."&gt;
&lt;INPUT TYPE="reset" VALUE="Clear/Restart"&gt;
&lt;/FORM&gt;&lt;/BODY&gt;&lt;/HTML&gt;
</pre>
<blockquote>At the time it was only supported in Netscape. This will show
up as a form with a filename field, and a "Browse" button next
to that. I don't know if any other browsers ever added
support for it. (I just check with Lynx 2.7.2 --- it
recognized the <tt>INPUT TYPE="file"</tt> and rendered it as "Not
Implemented")
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Also you'll have to create/find a cgi script/program that
implemented the file/MIME decoding portion of this (I just
used "<tt>upload.pl</tt>" as a placeholder for this example).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>That same book listed some Perl 5 modules that might be useful
for this sort of thing --- I think one of them was
"BasePlus.pm" --- you'd want to search CPAN (the Comprehensive
Perl Archive Network: <A HREF="http://www.cpan.org">http://www.cpan.org</A>,
<A HREF="http://www.perl.com/CPAN-local">http://www.perl.com/CPAN-local</A> among many) for related work.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I don't know for sure but you might start at:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><dl><dt>CPAN: By Category: WWW, HTML, HTTP and CGI
<dd><A HREF="http://www.perl.com/CPAN-local//modules/by-category/15_World_Wide_Web_HTML_HTTP_CGI/"
>http://www.perl.com/CPAN-local//modules/by-category/15_World_Wide_Web_HTML_HTTP_CGI/</A>
</dl></blockquote>
<p><strong><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>Being new to LINUX I have no idea how to get started.
<br>Some of the questions I have:
</strong></p>
<strong><ol>
<li>How do install them,,do they run on 1.3.1?
<li>After installation how are they configure?
<li>How do we setup permissions?
</ol>
</strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>I don't know the answers to any of these questions. However,
I think you'll find some instructions at the two sites listed above.
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>4. Virtual hosting would be nice but I think simply subdir
will suffice for each user (using the <tt>~username</tt> notation).
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>There are a couple of HOWTO's on this.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The one you'll want to start with is:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><dl><dt>Linux WWW HOWTO
<dd><A HREF="http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/WWW-HOWTO.html"
>http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/WWW-HOWTO.html</A>
</dl></blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0">Any help or direction would help.
<br>thanks
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0">This is a start.</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<p><hr width="40%" align="center"><p>
<!-- .................. -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Re: Linux Gazette</H3>
<p><strong>From Terry Singleton on 20 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<p><strong>thanks...I would love some more information on getting SAMBA
working. I have read alot about a NFS client. Will I still need the
NFS client to connect when using SAMBA.
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>No. You won't need NFS to access your Samba systems.
As for more info on Samba --- there's a whole book on
the subject. There's also an SMB-HOWTO that's quite old
but should still get you started;
</blockquote>
<code><blockquote><A HREF="http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/SMB-HOWTO.html"
>http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/SMB-HOWTO.html</A>
</blockquote></code>
<blockquote>... I gather that this hasn't been updated since '96!
I know that Samba has been under constant, sometimes
intense, development throughout that time. However,
the basics still work that same.
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>Or if I implement SAMBA will the machine be accessible by
\\linuxmachinename like other NT boxes...do I have to create a WINS
entry for the LINUX box??
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>Yes. You can use UNC naming and normal "Explorer" browsing
to access your Linux box. It will look "just like" an
NT box to those protocols. (Many sysadmin's have reported
that they've replaced NT servers with Linux with increases
in performance, capacity, reliability --- and no complaints
or comments from their users).
</blockquote>
<p><hr width="40%" align="center"><p>
<!-- .................. -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Terry comments about Linux' Future</H3>
<p><strong>From Terry Singleton on 20 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>You really are the answer guy, thanks for your time.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>General Comments:
Being new to LINUX I am very impressed with it. I initially bought a copy of
RedHat to get started with UNIX. The college just bought this bohemith DEC
ALPHA server which is to run DEC UNIX. Because I was now to learn this OS I
thought it prudent to play with LINUX as it would install on my machine
quite easily.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>After inserting my setup boot diskette and 20 minutes of answering quite
simple questions I am up and running with LINUX and a GUI called CDE.
Although I would not install the GUI on a server for a desktop environment
it is quite nice.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>The RedHat install detected by 3COM905 NIC card, my ATI video card and used
my DHCP server to set itself up on the network, I must say that even with NT
or 95 most of the time I need to supply additional drivers for the install,
not in LINUX's case. Now I must say that I am not sure that these drivers
are optimized for the OS but they are functioning fine.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>After having great success with LINUX on the desktop and learning most of
the basic shell commands I installed LINUX again, this time in a server
environment(kind of a rogue operation). Configured sendmail, qpopper and
dns; now this little LINUX box handles all our student email and DNS
requirements. It replaced 2 NT servers and handles 2000 POP3 users and
1000's of emails per day.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Future Directions: I am hoping LINUX can provide some much needed LDAP
services for email address books and I may even consider using LINUX as our
corporate web server OS, because LINUX also provides SAMBA file services we
may even look to LINUX for our file and print services needs. The only thing
holding me back in this arena is MS's ASP technology which is a great server
side scripting language. Perhaps when SUN et al finalize JSP (JAVA Server
Pages) and the JDK is released for LINUX I will re-examine this issue.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>To move this environment to the desktop for the <EM>masses</EM> I would say to
COREL, keep up the good work(they ported Word Perfect to LINUX), to Triteal,
keep working on the CDE environment.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>LINUX definetly is an OS with much greater potential than any other OS
currently in development.
</strong></p>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_emulate"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Virtual System Emulator for Linux and Why NOT to Use Them</H3>
<p><strong>From Jeff on the L.U.S.T List on 20 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>Now that I have LINUX installed on a machine, the question becomes
what can I do with it?
</strong></p>
<p><strong>I've heard there is an application that will allow me to run my standard
windows programs (office, etc), anyone know anything about that?
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Jeff
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>There are several efforts to provide this sort of thing.
Page down to the end to see some notes about those. Meanwhile
here's a rambling rant:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Installing Linux in the hopes of running your Windows/Office
programs is certainly misguided if you intend to get any
"normal" work done.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>What you do with any OS is run programs. When selecting which
OS(es) to install and use your chief consideration is: what
programs do I want to run?
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Thus, if you wanted to run WordPerfect, or Mathematica, or
Applixware (an applications suite which is available on
several forms of Unix, and in a Windows version as well) ---
you'd then have <EM>choices</EM>. These applications are available
under a few operating systems.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>However, with Microsoft Office you only have two (real)
choices: MS Windows, or MacOS.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>As noted below many people have attempted to expand your
choices (by allowing you to run Windows programs under various
forms of emulation and capability interfaces).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I personally think it's silly to install an OS and <EM>then</EM> ask
"now what do I do with it?" It seems analagous to ripping the
powertrain out of a car, fitting it with a "formula 1" engine,
blowers, and a custom tranny and asking: "Now what do I do
with it? Can I use this for my daily commute and grocery
shopping?"
</blockquote>
<blockquote>(The answer, in this hypothetical case is, "Maybe, but why? A
racing car is for racing, it makes a poor choice for more
general use").
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Of course my analogy breaks down at this point since Linux is
not so specialized. I don't want to perpetuate the notion that
Linux is a "server" OS. That's just where it's currently popular.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There are general applications for Linux --- they just aren't
the same brands that you're used to seeing for Windows
software. There are more office applications suites for Linux
than there are for Windows. This is nice from the point of
view of the consumer that wants choices; but crippling from a
"big business" perspective.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Under Windows there is essentially <EM>one</EM> dominant office
suite. (A couple of others exist, like Lotus Smartsuite, and
Corel's Office, and Applixware --- but they get essentially no
press coverage and have just about nil "mindshare"). It is
almost certainly no accident that the company that controls
this proprietary OS also dominates the applications that are
available for it. That is a major point in this DoJ
investigation of Microsoft's business practices.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Other companies have dominated other fledgling industries
in our nation's history. At least three of them were subject
to "consent decrees" (agreements with our federal government
regarding their responsibilities as recognized monopolies)
--- I'm referring to <a href="http://www.ibm.com/">IBM</a>,
<a href="http://www.xerox.com/">Xerox</a>, and
<a href="http://www.att.com/">AT&amp;T</a>. However this
is not a history lesson --- which is good since I don't
have textbook summaries of those cases handy.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>So, under Linux you can run Applixware, WordPerfect,
StarOffice, Cliq (a character based suite) and various
freeware packages like LyX, SIAG (Scheme in a Grid ---
a spreadsheet package), and Maxwell (a word processor) and
others (like '<tt>sc</tt>' or '<tt>slsc</tt>' the "spreadsheet calculator"
and the "SLang version of '<tt>sc</tt>'").
</blockquote>
<blockquote>A more popular way for many Linux users to work is with text
editors (rather than word processors) --- and using markup and
typesetting languages. These are whole different approaches
to the situation. Instead of using some proprietary word
processor interface and document/file format I use simple text
like:
</blockquote>
<pre>
% Template for a LaTeX Letter
\documentclass{letter}
\begin{document}
\begin{letter} {%
\\ % full name and title
\\ % address
% city, state, zip-code
\vfill
\opening{Dear %
Sir or Madam%
,}
\vfill
\closing{Sincerely,}
\vspace{1in}
\signature{Jim Dennis,}
\vfill
\end{letter}
%% end letter (Repeat as necessary)
\end{document}
</pre>
<blockquote>I can use this template for all of my personal letters and a
similar one (with spacing set aside for a letterhead --- or
even with letterhead macros --- etc) for business.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>With that I can simply run a command like:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>latex myletter.tex
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... to typeset it and either print the resulting "dvi" file or
run the '<tt>dvips</tt>' command to convert it to PostScript and print
that (even on non-PostScript printers).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Note that the letters are <EM>typeset</EM> --- with kerning,
leading, etc. I don't have to concern myself with the details
about line length, pagination, etc. The <tt>\vfill</tt> commands
(macros) are hints about how I want the portions the first and
last pages filled (providing visual separation between the
addressing and salutation, and between the text and the
signature/closing).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I can create my own "styles" and "document classes" and I can
create my own abbreviations and macros for doing things my
way. For example a friend of mine has a couple of macros for
his resume (which can be easily rendered with a properly
accented 'e' under LaTeX) which allow him to put in a line
like:
</blockquote>
<pre>\job {Big Former Employer} {Chief Bottle Washer}
{Feb, 29, 1931 --- May 1, 1942}
</pre>
<blockquote>... and have each element of that (company, title, date range)
typeset in a particular fashion (such as "Large bold" for the
company, "large italics" for the title and "small caps" for
the dates, with "<tt>\hfill</tt>" to fill these lines).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>If he decides that he doesn't like the look of one resume ---
he can redefine his "job" macro and all of the jobs will be
consistently rendered the new way. He and I don't have hand
edit all of the jobs on the list --- just the definition of
<tt>\job</tt>.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>As another example; there are many things that Windows users
put in spreadsheets (Excel) that are more like databases or
tables (that is tabular data without any computations
involved). They use Excel (or other spreadsheets) for this
because the things are already available and they know how to
use them. In some cases this is a reasonable choice. In
others they make <EM>more</EM> work for themselves than they would by
using a database, or using a "big text file" (say, tab and
line delimited).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Under Unix it is more common to put these sorts of things in a
text file and use the many text processing tools (<tt>sort</tt>, <tt>diff</tt>,
<tt>cut</tt>, <tt>paste</tt>, <tt>join</tt>, <tt>grep</tt>, <tt>awk</tt>,
<tt>perl</tt>, ... ) to work with them.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>As the Windows user continues to use a spreadsheet (especially
for tracking lots of data and importing long tables) he or she
hits the capacity limits imposed by their memory and
applications. Spreadsheets programs typically have to load
whole spreadsheets into RAM. I don't know of any of them that
can "page through" a large spreadsheet effectively.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The Unix user's capacity is typically limited by diskspace. In
other words the text processing approaches usually scale well.
Things like awk, grep, join, etc just filter through the
file(s) and don't have to load any more than a small buffer's
worth at any given time. Even '<tt>sort</tt>' --- which necessarily
must go through whole files --- scales pretty well (I've
sorted files that were hundreds of megabytes --- it takes a
while and plenty of temporary disk space --- but GNU sort will
do it).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>As a side note most programs under Linux/Unix are "toolkits"
or "little languages." For example you can simply "sort" a
list by "ASCII collating sequence" by just using a command
like:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>sort file &gt; file.sorted
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... which is the simple case. But you can also deal with more
complex cases like this: let's say I have a list of
appointments of the form: MMM, DD, YYYY Notes (three letter
abbreviation for the month, on or two digit date, four digit
year followed by some text).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I can sort that with a command like:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>sort +2n +0M +1n
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... note that I sort first, numerically by year (+2 columns
from the start of each line), secondarily by the first column
by "Month" (a special sorting key per your locale), and
tertiarily by date (also numerically).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>It's the same sort utility --- and it has <EM>lots</EM> of other
options (about things like "folding/ignoring the case"
specifying field separators, using an offset within the
column/field, counting consecutive blanks as singular or
multiple field seperators, and things like that).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Under Unix it's also easy to use programs <EM>with</EM> one another.
This is obvious when by pipe the output of one filter into
another (also available under DOS --- but much less widely
used due to the relative obscurity/unavailability of good
filters to use, and crippled by the implementation of pipes
--- which is basically a set of "anonymous tempfiles" with
"transparent redirection" --- as opposed to Unix pipes in
which the processes are running concurrently).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>It is less well known but equally handy to see how the
dominant Unix/Linux editors ('<tt>vi</tt>' and '<tt>emacs</tt>') allow one to
interface with "standard" Unix commands and filters.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Under '<tt>vi</tt>' I can mark a line in my text ("<tt>[Esc]ma</tt>"
to set the "<tt>a</tt>" mark) search for an arbitrary regular expression
("<tt>/regex[Enter]</tt>") and then I can filter that block of text
(from my cursor to the mark) through an arbitrary Unix command
(such as '<tt>sort</tt>') using just 3 or 4 keystrokes (plus the
command's name). (In my example that would be "<tt>!'a</tt>" followed
by "sort." All of the lines of text would be fed to the
filter, and anything returned by the filter would replace them
in my text). To read the output of some simple command under
'<tt>vi</tt>' I just type "<tt>[Esc]:r!</tt>" followed by the command. Any
output from such a command is inserted into my text.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There are similar features in '<tt>emacs</tt>' (just use <tt>C-u</tt>,
<tt>M-|</tt> <em>[That's C for "ctrl" key, M for "Meta" usually meaning the Alt key,
in case yo're not familiar with Emacs documentation -- Heather]</em> to
pipe a block through a filter, and <tt>C-u</tt>, <tt>M-!</tt> to read input
from a command --- I have those bound to simpler commands like
"<tt>[F3]!</tt>" in my startup files).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Those examples are "power users tricks" --- but the point out
something more important. Many Unix/Linux commands
autommatically and transparently use other programs in their
normal operation. Thus you can type the command:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>tar -tzf foo.tar.gz
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... and the "<tt>tar</tt>" (tape archiver) will transparently
decompress the .gz file using '<tt>gzip -d</tt>' while it extracts the
"table of contents" (<tt>-t</tt>) from it. Similarly I can type a
command like:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>tar cf otherhost:/home/myhome/new.tar ./*
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... to create a "<tt>new.tar</tt>" file on a different system
(<tt>tar</tt> will transparently call the '<tt>rsh</tt>' command to let me do
that --- assuming that I have set up the permissions and security to
allow it --- in other words, assuming that my security if very lax).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>More obvious examples show up in most mail programs and
newsreaders under Unix. Most of them (elm, pine, tin, trn)
don't implement text editing functions. They pass your
replies, compositions, and other texts to your preferred
editor.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Under DOS/Windows every mail package, newsreader and many
other applications implement some cheesy little "editing mode"
(or screen/dialog) -- each with its own quirks and none with
as much power or flexibility as the old '<tt>ed</tt>' (Unix line
editor).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>If you installed Linux to learn about it --- then get out
there and learn about the commands you've installed. Try this
series of commands:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>cd /usr/bin/; man *
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>--- that will bring up most of the man pages for most of the
commands on your system (one at a time --- hit "<tt>q</tt>" then
"<tt>Ctrl-C</tt>" to break out). Many of them are little tools,
intended to be use for a small part of your overall work.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>On a couple of my systems I have over 2200 commands available.
(From bash you can quickly find out how many commands are on
your <tt>PATH</tt> by just tapping on the <tt>[Tab]</tt> key a couple of quick
times to get a warning message like: "<tt>Display all 2209
possibilities? (y or n)</tt>").
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Some are as simple as '<tt>cat</tt>' (concatenate one or more file
streams into standard output) and '<tt>echo</tt>' (print a bit of text
on "stdout").
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Others are as complex as Perl, C, and emacs. GNU emacs and
Xemacs are complete programming and applications environments
--- with hundreds of packages and about 1800 user accessible
commands (a quick way to find this is to type "<tt>M-x</tt>" and then
use the same double-tap on the <tt>[Tab]</tt> key, switch buffers and
count the number of entries in the "<EM>Completions</EM>" buffer that
pops up --- which is easier if you have your status line
displaying the line count).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I think there are about 1000 functions (system calls, stdio
and stdlib, etc) in a standard C programming package, and
there are several hundred in Perl and maybe one or two hundred
in awk. Then there's othe programming languages like TCL,
expect, Python, etc). Luckily many of these overlap and are
essentially "dialects" of a common set of "Unix conventions"
There's also quite a bit of overlap and duplication among
these.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>To get some idea of what's available for Linux, browse
around on Freshmeat
(<A HREF="http://www.freshmeat.org">http://www.freshmeat.org</A>) for
about a week. Note that those daily changes are new
releases and updates to these programs. Also take a
look at the home site for the LDP (Linux Documentation Project)
<A HREF="http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP">http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP</A>.
Then follow their link to one of the Linux Apps home pages:
<A HREF="http://www.linuxapps.com/">http://www.linuxapps.com/</A>
and then round out your tour with visits to Linas Vepstas'
page: <A HREF="http://www.linas.org/linux/">http://www.linas.org/linux/</A>
and Christopher B. Browne's pages:
<A HREF="http://www.hex.net/~cbrowne/">http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/</A>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Those should give you a pretty good idea of what applications
are out there.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Also get into Netnews and subscribe to
<a href="news://comp.os.linux.announce"
>comp.os.linux.announce</a>.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<em><font color="navy">
&gt; You can get the DosEmu program, it emulates dos and can even run
<br>&gt; windows 3.11(unofficially) so theoretically you could run office 4.2
<br>&gt; or less on it but that's a stretch. However it is still in
<br>&gt; development(just like linux) and eventually may officially run
<br>&gt; win3.11. There is no support for win95/98 apps that I know of, do to
<br>&gt; the structure of the OS it would require <em>alot</em> of time to emulate
<br>&gt; it in all of its instability and glory. Hope that helped. reds
</font></em>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<em><font color="navy">
If you really want to do it, look for an app called BOSCH (I think).
With it you can run WIndows 95 (Probably 98 too) from Linux. I know
that they have the opposite too. A version to run Linux from a
Windows 95 box (I wouldn't recommend it).
</font></em>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<em><font color="navy">
cheers,
<br>Raul Dias
</font></em>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The name is "Bochs" and it's at:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<dl><dt>The Bochs Software Company
<dd><A HREF="http://std.world.com/~bochs/">http://std.world.com/~bochs/</A>
<br>FTP site: <A HREF="ftp://ftp.std.com/pub/bochs"
>ftp://ftp.std.com/pub/bochs</A>
</dl>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>This implements a virtual PC under Linux or other
forms of Unix (it's shareware distributed sources).
There is also, as Raul says, a port to Win32S that allows
one to run Linux under Win '95 or NT!
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I've never run it --- but I've heard that it is pretty
slow.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>dosemu purportedly works for some Windows 3.1 programs
--- and I know it works find with many DOS programs
(use the "alphas" --- the betas are old and less functional).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There's also WABI, a commercial package developed by
Sun and licensed to <A HREF="http://www.caldera.com">Caldera</A>;
(the sole distributor of the Linux port). This is also limited to Windows 3.1.
Search around at <A HREF="http://www.caldera.com">http://www.caldera.com</A>
for details on that. (It, like Bochs and dosemu, requires that you install
the copy of Windows that you intended to run
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Finally there's WINE (Wine Is Not an Emulator, or WINdows
emulator --- depending on who you ask). WINE is an ongoing
attempt to implement a full set of the MS Windows API's libraries
and DLL's sufficient to run a typical Windows application
without requiring any Microsoft code on the system.
You can read more about it at:
<A HREF="http://www.winehq.com">http://www.winehq.com</A>.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Another approach that might be amusing is to buy a copy
of Executor (a Mac emulator for Linux) and try to run
the Mac version of MS Office under that.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I personally these these approaches are silly and worthless
except for the most casual use and (for the amusement and
research value of those that enjoy that sort of thing).
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_database"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<p>The original thread about
<a href="../issue30/tag_database.html">FoxPlus</a>
appeared in July (Issue 30).</p>
<p><hr width="40%" align="center"></p>
<!-- ........................ -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"width="50" height="28"
align="left" border="0">FoxPlus for Linux ? </H3>
<p><strong>From L.U.S.T List on 20 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>I'd just like to thank you (Jim Dennis) for your very comprehensive and
helpful responses to the XBase question. I had no idea there were so
many database options available for Linux. I joined this conversation
out of idle personal interest, but now I think I see some possibilities
for solutions for current needs we have at our company.
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0">I'm glad to hear it.</blockquote>
<blockquote>This is one of the reasons that I copy many of these messages
to "The Linux Gazette's Answer Guy" column. That way they'll
be found by the search engines and pop up in many (relevant)
queries.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>It's also one of the reasons that I include so many URL's
in my messages. This is also for the "teach a man to fish"
philosophy (don't provide just the answer --- but pointers
to lots of related answers).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Linux has grown to the point where no one knows how big
it is or how many ways in which it is being used. The
fact that there is no "central Linux authority" (or vendor)
makes it difficult to size up the Linux market.
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_distrib"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>More on Distribution Preferences</H3>
<p><strong>From mlees on 20 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>Answerguy,
What do you think of this distribution?
Mike
</strong></p>
<font color="navy">
<p><strong>OpenLinux Base</strong></p>
<p><strong>OpenLinux<EFBFBD>: A complete Linux operating
system with all the system tools you<6F>ll need.
Plus valuable add-ons, like Netscape<70>
Communicator and backup utilities.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>US and Canadian orders can take advantage of a $20.00
rebate from <A HREF="http://www.caldera.com/">Caldera</A>, bringing the price of
OpenLinux Base to $31.95
</strong></p>
</font>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>I haven't used any of the Caldera distributions
recently. This is a much more recent version the those
that I've used. So, I don't have an informed opinion on
them.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Since you just asked about Yggdrasil yesterday I'm wondering
if this is a pattern. I hope you aren't going to send me
of these every day.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>My opinion about Caldera <EM>Standard</EM> is that it is the best
choice for a site that has existing Netware servers or
clients. It was also the first distribution that was
supported by WordPerfect for Linux. There are a number of
other commercial software companies that work with Caldera
for releasing Linux versions of their product.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>If the Caldera Base includes a copy of StarOffice (as your
press release says it does) than that is a very good reason
to try it. (The installation of StarOffice that I have from
an early 4.0 CD is very unstable --- it dies quickly and
horribly under my <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/">S.u.S.E.</A> 5.1 system.
I've heard that that there are new libraries and releases that fix that --- but I
haven't been particularly motivated to go get them since I
still mostly live in text consoles).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>StarOffice is a very promising product --- and the competition
between it Corel Office, and Applixware should be
interesting. The most important feature of either is to
provide me with stable, reliable access to MS Office .DOC and
.XLS files. The first one to successfully do that with MS
Office '97 wins my vote. (Since that is one of the few
reasons for me to get out of a text console and into X --- the
others being Netscape Navigator (when I need something that
just doesn't look right in <tt>Lynx</tt>), '<tt>xfig</tt>' (to draw diagrams for
the book that I'm working on), and '<tt>xdvi</tt>', and '<tt>gv</tt>' (to
preview the LaTeX and dvips output for same).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>At the same time I recognize the potential of these office
suites (and some others). As these get better we see Linux as
a more serious contender on the desktops of home and corporate
users. According to some surveys we're already winning
against NT in a number of server categories (including web,
mail, DNS, and SMB/Samba). We've gained a lot of ground in
the technical and scientific workstation market (although the
push to get EDA and CAD/CAM suites ported is just barely
started). But all the "mom's" and "pop's" out there that have
their college kids buying systems for them need something a
bit less intimidating than '<tt>emacs</tt>' and '<tt>vi</tt>' --- and TeX and
friends.
</blockquote>
<blockquote><A HREF="http://www.kde.org/">KDE</A> and <A HREF="http://www.gnome.org/">GNOME</A> will provide the main interface and many of the
toys and widgets. StarOffice, Applixware, Corel Office, SIAG,
LyX, Wingz, Xess, and others are all vying to provide the
main user applications.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>(I personally think we'll also need multi-media GUI "Welcome to
Linux/XFree86/KDE" and "Welcome to Linux/XFree86/GNOME"
interactive tutorials --- with sound, music, via, and a
dancing, talking Tux. I want a system I can install on a
box and send to my Mom!).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Getting back to your implicit question:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Which Linux distribution should you try?
</blockquote>
<blockquote>... the answer is:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I have no idea!
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Unlike the marketeering weenies that you encounter in
every magazine, and newspaper, on every TV and radio
show and on billboard and busses every time you drive
anywhere ... unlike them, I don't want to push a bunch
of <EM>features</EM> on you and I have nothing to sell you
(except my time --- which is pretty expensive).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Helping someone select a Linux distribution (or anything
else) is a matter of requirements analysis. What do
you need? What do you want? How much are you willing to
spend? (Time and money). It is quite possible that I
would recommend <A HREF="http://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</A>, <A HREF="http://www.netbsd.org/">NetBSD</A>, <A HREF="http://www.openbsd.org/">OpenBSD</A>, BSDI/OS, or
even Win '95, NT, or MS-DOS --- <EM>if</EM> I understood your
requirements sufficiently.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Before you send me a list or essay on your requirements
consider that the Answer Guy is time I volunteer to show
my appreciation for all the work that people like Richard
Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Arnold Robbins, and
so many others have put into the GNU project, Linux and
other freeware. I try to answer questions that I think
are of broad interest to many Linux users and potential
Linux users. (And possibly of interest to *BSD'ers
and eventually GNU HURD'ers).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The easy answer to selecting a distribution is: pick one!
Since many of them are freely distributable you might want
to start with one of those. <A HREF="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</A> and <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">Red Hat</A> are definitely
freely accessible. I think <A HREF="http://www.slackware.org/">Slackware</A> is still available online
--- and I suspect that it's perfectly O.K. to borrow a friend's
copy of the CD. Walnut Creek might have exclusive rights on
CD distribution of Slackware --- I don't know. I think S.u.S.E.
is free for "personal" use (although it is a bit unclear my
S.u.S.E. 5.2 manual says:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote>Copyright
This work is copyrighted [sic] by S.u.S.E. GmbH and
is placed under conditions of the GNU General Public
License.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You may copy it in whole or in part as long as the
copies retain this copyright statement.
</blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... (overleaf of the title page). It's not clear whether
"this work" is intended to refer to the book or to the
distribution that included it. The box and CD case (4CD's)
don't list any other copyright or licensing notices that I
can find. The only index entry under the term "license"
points that the Appendix of their manual that contains the
full text of the FSF GPL. That would suggest that you can
borrow my set of S.u.S.E. CD's and install it, and would
even suggest that someone could start creating derivative
works (other CD sets) to sell in competition with S.u.S.E.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>However, I've always been under the impression that S.u.S.E.
is a commercial distribution. I purchased both of my copies
for it -- 5.1 and 5.2 --- and I've purchased many copies of
various Red Hat versions (the boxed set and the lower-priced
archives sets). So, you might want to ask a S.u.S.E. rep
before you go into production against them. However, I doubt
that they'd even want you to waste their time asking if it's
O.K. to install from a friend's set on an evaluation basis.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You're clearly willing to buy some distribution once you
find one you like. Personally I usually select Red Hat
for my customers (after I've considered their needs) simply
because Red Hat has a pretty good balance of the various
factors they care about.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Debian has more packages (slightly) -- but the last copy of
<ttt>dpkg</tt> that I used was very convoluted (I'm hoping to get a 2.0
CD as soon as it goes out of beta). Slackware was nice when
I needed it --- but most of my customers aren't interested
in fussing with tarballs --- they want something with a
decent package manager (one that can be operated easily
from command lines as well as throught a GUI).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Under RH it's pretty simple to write a script to poll an
internal FTP site for package updates and automatically apply
any of them that appear. (I think there's a package called
'<tt>rpmwatch</tt>' floating around some '<tt>contrib</tt>' directories somewhere
that does precisely that). I haven't looked at RH 5.1 yet.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>S.u.S.E. and Caldera both use the RPM format.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>S.u.S.E. includes more packages that the last couple RH CD's
I used (4.2 and 5.0). It seems to have a pretty good
installation interface though I have mixed feelings about
their interpretation of the SysV init scripts. They have a
large shell script named /etc/rc.config (mine is about 770
lines long --- of which about 500 are comments). This file
contains a long list of shell variables and values. You
can edit this file by hand or you can use YaST (Yet another
Setup Tool) which is their curses based system's administration
interface. The idea is that the other scripts all "source"
this one file and use the variables that apply to their
operation.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>On the one hand this is very nice. Concievably I could
create a particular installation profile (which they support
via their installation interface), install the system,
configure it via YaST and put it into production.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Let's assume I use the '<tt>chattr +i +d</tt>' (immutable and no-dump)
flags on all the files that came with the distribution and
unset them as a pair whenever I change any of them; this would
allow me to use the '<tt>dump</tt>' program and <EM>never</EM> backup files
that were from the initial installation off of the CD). This
is for a "data+config" backup strategy.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>If I've stored the rescue floppy they created, and the
rc.config file --- I should be able to restore the whole
system to its configuration with just my installation
CD's, my rescue diskette, and the rc.config file. (Naturally,
I'll have to restore all my data as well).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Another nice thing is that I might be able to create
a little script to generate new rc.config files from a
master form and a couple of other data files. If I have
<EM>lots</EM> of new machine trickling in I might have a few
files that contain lists of IP addresses, hostnames,
NIS domain names, shared printers, and other local (LAN)
data. I might conceivably be able to generate a new custom
rc.config file for each new box and automate even more
of the deployment.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Under other distributions I have to mess with over a dozen
separate files. Unfortunately it's not that easy even under
S.u.S.E. If you use NFS you really want to use NIS or synchronize
the '<tt>passwd</tt>' and '<tt>group</tt>' files across your systems (since
maintaining ugidd maps is not scaleable and NFS relies on
the uid/gid values to determine access and permissions.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>None of the distributions I've seen prompt me for a
passwd/group file set prior to installation. So, if I use
Red Hat on one system and S.u.S.E. on another (I do)
--- there will be some base files that differ between them
(most of the uid's created by most of the distributions
<EM>do</EM> match -- there were only a couple that I had to
run through a "<tt>masschown</tt>" script). (Distribution Dudes!:
This is my enhancement plea for the month! Please let me
hand you a passwd/group file set --- from floppy or over
ftp/nfs/http --- and use that to map the ownership as you
install).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>These days, for large sites, I recommend creating one
"template" installation one a typical box, cutting that whole
installation to tape or CDR after configuration but <EM>before</EM>
any <EM>use</EM> (data). Now you can do all new system installations
as "restores" from your backups. You can also take that
opportunity to make sure that your recovery plans, rescue
diskettes and backup media are all in working order. One
reason I recommend that is that it takes me about
four hours to fix various permissions and configurations
(<tt>hosts.allow</tt>, <tt>hosts.deny</tt>, etc) after I've completed a new
installation.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>One final note about choosing a distribution: don't just
ask me. I'm only one person. I've only used about a half
dozen Linux distributions (some of which no longer exist!).
Don't just go to the newsgroups and mailings lists and ask
"Which is best?"
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Ask questions that relate to your situation: Will you be
integrating this into a Novell network? Do you have friends
or family that will be working on your Linux box? Do any of
them have experience with a Linux distribution? Do any of them
use some other form of Unix (free or otherwise)? Do you have
any particular applications preferences? Is system security
a concern? What are the risk profiles that are acceptable to
you? What is your native language (German speakers will probably
be much happier with the German S.u.S.E. or the DLD (?)
distributions, Japanese users seem to prefer FreeBSD, the French
have their own distribution, etc.)?
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_proxy"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"width="50" height="28"
align="left" border="0">IP Masquerading/Proxy? </H3>
<p><strong>From Peter Mastren on 20 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>James,
</strong></p>
<p><strong>I appreciate your in depth coverage of the IP Masquerading topic last
month.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>My own private network now is able to talk through my Linux box using
the techniques you described.
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0">Glad to help.</blockquote>
<strong><p>I, however, can't seem to find an answer to my next problem anywhere
in the literature. My Linux proxy is connected via ISDN to my
employers intranet which itself is behind a firewall and served by a
proxy server. From Linux, I can browse, telnet, ftp etc... using
SOCKSified clients, i.e. rtelnet, rftp. From any other machine in my
private network, I am only able to get as far as the companies
intranet, but not all the way to the internet.
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>If your other machines were using SOCKSified clients they
would probably work as well. So the first suggestion would
be to find SOCKSified clients for your other systems.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>It is also possible to configure SOCKS (v5 at least) for
multi-hop traversal (so that one zone or subnet in an
organization, such as yours can use a SOCKS server to
relay traffic to another SOCKS server.
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0">How do I get modules,
<tt>ip_masq_ftp.o</tt>, <tt>ip_masq_raudio.o</tt> etc... to use
SOCKSified protocols? Basically, another level of indirection is
required to actually reach the internet. Can this be done?
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>I supposed someone could "SOCKSify" the IP Masquerading
modules or use 'ipfwadm' to redirect all the appropriate
traffic to custom, SOCKSified, programs through the
transparent proxying features.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>One of the features of the Linux IPFW (kernel packet
filters) is a provision to redirect incoming TCP connections
into Unix domain sockets on the localhost, where a user
space program can be attached to them. This user space
program can either handle the request directly or
relay/proxy the connection through whatever interfaces and
protocols you'd want to build into it.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I think the squid cache and the DeleGate proxy can each be
configured to support this.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>To find out a little bit more about this redirection feature
look for the "<tt>-r</tt>" switch on the '<tt>ipfwadm</tt>' man pages.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Just off hand I don't see that the newer IP-chains code
(apparently intended to replace <tt>ipfwadm</tt> in future kernels)
offers any particular help for your situation. It does add
significant new features to Linux packet filtering and it
well worth the work that's going into it. However, I don't
see anything on it's web site:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code
><A HREF="http://www.adelaide.net.au/~rustcorp/ipfwchains/"
>http://www.adelaide.net.au/~rustcorp/ipfwchains/</A>
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... that applies directly to your situation.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Some other work in this field is at:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<dl><dt>The HOWTO for IPChains
<dd><A HREF="http://www.adelaide.net.au/~rustcorp/ipfwchains/HOWTO.html"
>http://www.adelaide.net.au/~rustcorp/ipfwchains/HOWTO.html</A>
</dl>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>As I said It looks like IPChains is going to be the default
kernel packet filtering code for the 2.2 kernels.
</blockquote>
<blockquote><dl><dt>The Home of Linux IP NAT
<dd><A HREF="http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/HyperNews/get/linux-ip-nat.html"
>http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/HyperNews/get/linux-ip-nat.html</A>
</dl>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>(NAT -- network address translation -- is more
generalized then IP masquerading. While IP masquerading
implements a specific many-to-one NAT, IP NAT allows
complex many-to-many translations. It might be able to
co-exist with IP masquerading and/or IP Chains).
</blockquote>
<blockquote><dl><dt>Darren Reed's IP Filter
<dd><A HREF="http://cheops.anu.edu.au/~avalon/"
>http://cheops.anu.edu.au/~avalon/</A>
</dl>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>This is the free filtering package used by
<A HREF="http://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</A> and
its brethren and it is the most popular packet filtering
package for Solaris and a few other forms of Unix
(which don't include packet filtering in their standard
kernels).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Reportedly this has been successfully run under Linux
as well.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>As we move beyond packet filtering we look into proxying
systems. We can look in at the home site of NEC SOCKS
at:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code
><A HREF="http://www.socks.nec.com">http://www.socks.nec.com</A>
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>(Just hit the "Download" link if you want the
package itself).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>On a whim I used their "Search" link and found 844 results
for "Linux" and 578 results for "Solaris" The numbers are
interesting though meaningless and I don't have time to
do an analysis to say whether the disparity is good or bad
for the Linux community.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>We can also look at Thede Lod's "Simple SOCKS Daemon" page
at:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code
><A HREF="http://www.leverage.com/users/tlod/ssockd/ssockd.html"
>http://www.leverage.com/users/tlod/ssockd/ssockd.html</A>
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>
This seems to be a simplified replacement/alternative
to the stock SOCKS v4.x server.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>It seem that this as only been tested under FreeBSD
--- so it might require some coding to port it to
Linux.
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
<blockquote>Thanks for time and keep up the good work. Your efforts are
appreciated.
</p></strong>
<strong><p>Peter F. Mastren
</p></strong>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_disable"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>The &quot;Difficulty&quot; is in Disabling the Services</H3>
<p><strong>From CARqb on 20 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<strong><P>How can I set my computer to act as a network server?
I'm running RedHat 5.0
Thanks in advance.
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>Usually you don't have to do anything special to any Unix or Linux box
to enable a variety of network services. In fact it is far more common
for sysadmins to put their energy into <EM>disabling</EM> the large variety of
services that are enabled by default (as every service is a potential
security hole).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Now that applies to services like HTTP (web servers), FTP, POP and IMAP
("post office procotol" and mail access protocols), telnet, rlogin/rsh,
and various others.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>If you specifically mean "network <EM>file</EM> server" then the
answer is a bit more involved. There are a number of filesharing protocols that
are supported by Linux. NFS is most commonly used between Unix
systems. Samba is common when you want to use Unix/Linux servers in
a Windows for Workgroups, Win '95, NT, OS/2 or LANMan/LANServer
network. In environments with plenty of Apple Macintosh clients the
natural choice would be '<tt>netatalk</tt>' ('net Appletalk). On a LAN with
DOS client systems, particularly with existing Novell Netware servers
the choice would probably to use the '<tt>mars-nwe</tt>' (Netware emulator).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Hopefully in the near future we'll see increased support for TCFS
(a transparently cryptographic filesystem -- which is far more secure
than NFS, even NFS over SRA (secure RPC authentication) and for CODA
a new, enhanced version of AFS (the "Andrew filesystem" when it was
developed at Carnegie-Mellon University, later called DFS when it was
aquired? by Transarc -- which I gather is an IBM affiliate).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Thoroughly retro Linux heads could even try the RFS (remote filesytem)
package (runix100.tar.gz???). RFS was a SysV network filesystem that
lost mindshare to Sun's NFS and is thus virtually unheard of today.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>It is basically possible to support many of these system concurrently
on a single Linux host. A truly ambitious (and sick) sysadmin might
try enabling them <EM>all</EM>.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>It should be obvious that the Linux philosphy is to support whatever
protocol the client wants. This is vastly preferable (from the IS
manager's point of view) to certain systems that try to dictate what
software must be installed on all clients as part of their server
licensing.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I hope this all helps. To give a better answer I'd have to know
a lot more about which services you want to provide. Most of them
have FAQ's and HOWTO's at the LDP mirrors like:
<A HREF="http://www.linuxresources.com/LDP"
>http://www.linuxresources.com/LDP</A>
(which should be the first
stop shopping URL for every Linux user's questions --- followed
by Yahoo! and its Alta Vista database at
<A HREF="http://www.yahoo.com">http://www.yahoo.com</A>).
</blockquote>
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<A name="tag_DVI"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
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<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>How to read DVI files? </H3>
<p><strong>From Gregory F.I. Sewbalak on 20 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<strong><p>Dear Answer Guy,
</p></strong>
<strong><p>A few weeks ago I've purchased the S.u.S.e. 5.2.
</p></strong>
<strong><p>With this 6 CD-Box there was no user manual available, therefore I
tried to read the "books.dvi" on the CD. However, I don't seem to
succeed in opening this file, because I don't know which program I
need to do so! So, with which program can I read the dvi-files and
the psz-files?
</p></strong>
<strong><p>Reminder: I used to be a Microsoft fan, but since I've tried
<a href="http://www.redhat.com/">RedHat</a>
5.0 I've completely switched to Linux! How about that?!!
</p></strong>
<strong><p>Yours Sincerely,
<br>Gregory F.I. Sewbalak
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>.dvi files are created by the TeX and LaTeX typesetting
(desktop publishing) packages. These are in a "device
independent" format --- and are normally processed further
by printer drive like '<tt>dvips</tt>' or '<tt>dvilj</tt>' (for PostScript
and LaserJet printers respectively).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>If you have the X Window System up and running you can use
'<tt>xdvi</tt>' to "<tt>preview</tt>" these (view them on screen). You could
also use '<tt>dvips</tt>' to generate a Postscript file and use '<tt>ghostview</tt>'
or '<tt>gv</tt>' (both are PostScript viewers for X) to view them.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>When you have questions of this sort it's often helpful to
use the '<tt>apropos</tt>' or '<tt>man -k</tt>' command to get a list of commands
and man pages that may related to some key word. Thus, on my
<A HREF="http://www.suse.com/">S.u.S.E.</A> 5.1 system typing the command:
<tt>man -k dvi</tt> gives me:
</blockquote>
<pre>dvi2tty (1) - preview a TeX DVI-file on an ordinary ascii terminal
dvibook (1) - rearrange pages in DVI file into signatures
dviconcat (1) - concatenate DVI files
dvilj (1) - convert dvi files to PCL, for HP LaserJet printers
dvips (1) - convert a TeX DVI file to PostScript
dvired (1) - print dvi-files
dviselect (1) - extract pages from DVI files
dvitodvi (1) - rearrange pages in a DVI file
dvitype (1) - translate a dvi file for humans
grodvi (1) - convert groff output to TeX dvi format
xdvi (1) - DVI Previewer for the X Window System
</pre>
<blockquote>... and reading those would give me some cross references.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Allegedly there are also SVGAlib dvi and PostScript viewers
--- though I've never used one. One of these day I'll hunt
one down and play with it. Although my wife doesn't mind
running X on the old 386 --- it seems too slow to me (I finally
changed to this 150Mhz Pentium system that I built because
I've been using <tt>xdvi</tt> and <tt>Gnus</tt> so much)..
</blockquote>
<blockquote><em>[In fact, I'm using it right now, very effectively. But I'm
cheating... I'm really using the networking power of X. Betel, our
VarStation II, is running Netscape and two sterms for me, and Antares
is just serving display, keyboard and pointer functions to my desktop.
<br>-- Heather]</em></blockquote>
<blockquote>The TeX typesetting language, and the LaTeX set of macros
for it, are very popular among academic and technical
publishers. The system was orginally created by Donald
Knuth --- the most respected professor in the field of
programming. He designed it and the the WEB &quot;Literate
Programming&quot; system while he was writing the first editions
of his &quot;<em>Art of Computer Programming</em>&quot; series (between the
2nd and 3rd volumes, if I recall correctly).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>TeX is not just a typesetting language like troff --- it
is an extensible programming language for creating typesetting
commands. Leslie Lamport used this facet of the system to
create a set of macros, LaTeX, to allow people to focus on
a document's structure and let his macros and the TeX system
do almost all of the page layout.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Thus a bit of plain text like the following:
</blockquote>
<pre>% Template for a LaTeX Letter
\documentclass{letter}
\name{Jim Dennis}
\address{903 Harriet Ave.\ \\Campbell, CA 95008-5119}
\makelabels
\begin{document}
%% for each letter do:
\begin{letter} {%
\\ % full name and title
\\ % address
} % city, state, zip-code
\vfill
\opening{Dear %
% greeting name
,}
\vfill
\closing{Sincerely,}
\vspace{
\signature{Jim Dennis,}
\vfill
\end{letter}
%% end letter (Repeat as necessary)
\end{document}
</pre>
<blockquote>... is all you need to create nicely typeset letters.
Basically you just fill in the blanks, run a command like:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>latex myletter.tex
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>.. and (if all goes well) send the <tt>.dvi</tt> file to the printer
(or run it through the '<tt>dvips</tt>' command and then to the printer).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>If you've been hearing about XML (the next generation
"extensible" enhancements to HTML) then this should give you
an idea of what they're doing. LaTeX and TeX are extensible
--- and there are packages to do all kinds of interesting
and specialized typesetting and layout with them (things
like "chess" and "backgammon" diagramming and all sorts of
scientific and technical diagrams, tables and bibliographies).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>(Frankly XML sounds like a bit of a mess --- something like
the old LU6.2 and APPC morass that my mainframer friends used
to describe).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The problem for many people is that this mode of thinking
and working is totally alien. They're used to WYSIWIG
interfaces and manual/visual layout (make it "look right"
rather than "make it clear what you mean").
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There are some efforts to provide a friendlier interface
to LaTeX --- the most notable is "LyX" (pronounced "licks")
and the <A HREF="http://www.kde.org/">KDE</A> variant called <tt>KLyX</tt>).
You can read more about
LyX at its own web site: <A HREF="http://www.lyx.org">http://www.lyx.org</A>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Anyway, I hope that helps.
</blockquote>
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<P> <hr width="40%" align="center"> <P>
<!-- ............................. -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>How to read DVI files?</H3>
<p><strong>From Gregory F.I. Sewbalak on 22 Aug 1998</strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>Thanks for the explanation!
</strong></p>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_superblock"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
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<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Bad Super-block on Filesystem</H3>
<p><strong>From Mike Klicpera on 20 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<strong><p>I am trying to correct a corrupted super-block on my Linux (Redhat
ver. 4.2) system. When using the command "<tt>e2fsck -av /dev/hda2</tt>"
the resulting message is that "<tt>a bad magic number in super-block</tt>"
When using the command "<tt>e2fsck -b 8193 /dev/hda2</tt>" the resulting
message is "<tt>attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short
read while trying to open /dev/hda2</tt>". In neither case did the
program <tt>e2fsck</tt> correct the super-block. Could you provide any
advice or point me in the right direction?
</p></strong>
<blockquote>I'd start by looking at the partition table.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Use <tt>fdisk -l</tt>
<em>[the letter ell, not the number one -- Heather]</em>
to list all the partitions that your Linux
system can see. Make sure that the <tt>/dev/hda2</tt> really
is supposed to be a Linux native partition (that you
haven't swap devices and the partition has moved to
<tt>/dev/hdb2</tt> --- and that it isn't a swap partition or
whatever).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>It's also possible that you've switched from some
autotranslation mode to linear (LBA) or otherwise changed
how the system addresses this drive. Normally this
shouldn't affect Linux --- but I don't know what sort
of situation you have.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The "short read" error causes me to suspect that
the partition table is wrong or that you're pointing
fsck to the wrong device/slice. That's the error I get
if I run <tt>debugfs</tt> on a directory or file rather than the
proper <tt>/dev/</tt> node. It's also possible to get this if
you've got a partition that's listed as Linux native
that has <EM>no filesystem</EM> yet made on it or when you
try the <tt>e2fsck -b</tt> on an MS-DOS filesystem.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You can try a number of other superblocks (they should
be scattered every 8K clusters)
</blockquote>
<blockquote>In a particularly bad case you can try <tt>mke2fs -S</tt>
(make superblocks and group descriptors only). This
is described in the man page --- and is for "last ditch"
efforts only.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>If you have a tape drive or a suitably large extra
disk drive you can make an "image" backup of this
device before you try any other (more radical) attempts
at data recovery. You'd just use a command like:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>dd if=/dev/hda2 of=/dev/nst0
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... or better:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>dd if=/dev/hda | buffer /dev/st0
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... to backup the entire drive through the "<tt>buffer</tt>"
program to stream all of the data out to your SCSI
tape drive.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You can write the image to another block device, such
as <tt>hdc3</tt> using a command like:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdc3
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>(assuming you have a large enough blank partition on
the extra or loaner drive).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You can even send the data to another system with
a command like:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>dd if=/dev/hda | rsh $othersystem dd of=/dev/hdc3
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>(or whatever).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The advantage of any of these techniques is that
it allows you to experiment with various recovery
techniques with less chance of "making it worse"
(any time you think you've "made it worse" you
use the reverse commands to "start over").
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There are a number of hex editors for Linux, some
with nice ncurses interfaces. These can allow you
to explore a filesystem trying to find out where
things are. I haven't played with any of these
enough to be any good with them --- and I've never
read through the sources to find out where the
interesting data structures should be, or what they
should look like.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Eventually I'd like to see the Linux programming
community produce a set of fs recovery tools to rival
the Norton Utilities for DOS (for which I used to be
a professional support rep). The first such tool would
be one that could scan a raw device, find superblocks
and report the information from them.
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0">Thanks in advance for any help.
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0">I hope it helps.</blockquote>
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<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Multiplexing the Computer -- ISDN Modem Connection</H3>
<p><strong>From Todd on 29 Jul 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>Is it possible to have more than one process accessing a single
serial port simultaneously? I have a USR Courier I ISDN, and would
like to use the analog B-channel for serving faxes using
Mgetty+Sendfax while the data channel is engaged. The problem is
that <tt>pppd</tt> locks the port and <tt>Mgetty</tt> times out while waiting on it.
Is there a way around this?
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Cheers,
<br>Todd
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>The short answer is: you can <EM>NOT</EM> do what you want
from standard Unix/Linux. It would have to be via some
special (and probably proprietary) protocols and drivers
that would have to be supported by the Courier.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>It's certainly possible for multiple Unix/Linux processes
to concurrently access a file or device. It's just a
bad idea for serial devices. That, indeed, is the reason why
we mess with lock files. Without file locking our processes
will blithely step all over one another, disrupting
communications.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Let's think about this a bit. You have your ISDN device
(If I recall correctly the Courier I is a combined NT1
and TA with analog modem/FAX support) connected to your
PC via a single serial line.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>When that line is carrying data, it's busy. In order
for it to carry two distinct streams of data there
would have to be some form of multiplexing going on.
This multiplexing would have to involve some protocol.
The device would have to have a method for encoding
and interlacing data from these two sources --- and
the system would have to have some way (some DRIVER)
for de-multiplexing it (splitting the original two
streams back out the single serial string).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I've never heard of a device that does this. Any that
did would have to have drivers on the PC side ---
a Unix/Linux driver of this sort would undoubtedly
make the one serial port appear to be two (or more)
tty devices. (That would allow it to work with any
standard Unix/Linux utilities).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>PPP and SLIP have the effect of multiplexing multiple
connections over a serial line. Theoretically a smart
enough ISDN device could have its own IP address
assigned to it and insert its own TCP/IP packets over
your PPP/SLIP link when that was active. I've never
heard of such a device.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Bonding the two B channels using the MP (multi-link
protocol) simply allows your two channels to act as
on highspeed interface. However this requires that
both B channels connect from your end to the same
point at the other end of the connenction (usually
the other B channel on the same physical device --
NT1 or NT2 at your ISP's end).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>In addition the top speed of a standard PC serial line
is 115200bps. The total bandwidth of your two B channels
is 128Kbps. Any multiplexing would involve some overhead
on this bandwidth. So the PC serial line becomes a
bottleneck even when you're just bonding the two B channels.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Another approach would be to simply have two serial ports
on the ISDN TA/NT1. That would allow you to access the
analog services via one tty and the digital services
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The best resource I know of for info on ISDN would be
from Dan Kegel's pages:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code
><A HREF="http://alumni.caltech.edu/~dank/isdn"
>http://alumni.caltech.edu/~dank/isdn</A>
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>That should provide more than you wanted to know.
</blockquote>
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<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Permission to Set up a Linux Server</H3>
<p><strong>From ChipX on 20 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>Hi,
OK, just a quick question (sort of)...
</strong></p>
<p><strong>My friend came over one day and we were just surfing like usual
(using Win95).
</strong></p>
<p><strong>He asked if he could check his mail; I said "Sure."
So he opens up telnet and logs onto a friend's RedHat Linux 4.2 Server.
He checks mail, updates his finger, and leaves.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>I really need to know how to set up a server of my own.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Do I need my isp's permission or some junk like that, cuz they wont be
willing to give up any of their ethernet for me and my linux box <IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" height="24" width="20" align="middle">
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>Alright, I finally figured out what you were asking.
It took a little work, though.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>First note: when you set up a Linux system it defaults
to providing many services. It is already a "server."
</blockquote>
<blockquote>What you seem to be asking is: "How do I make my server
accessible via the Internet?"
</blockquote>
<blockquote>As you surmised you would have to make arrangements with
some ISP to have some dedicated (or at least "dial on demand")
connection to the net, or to "co-locate" your hardware with
them.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There are a number of ISP's that provide co-location services.
This is where you provide a system that they plug into
their network (and power). Generally these are moderately
expensive services (about $150 to $500 per month usually with
a limited average bandwidth utilization per month).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Some of these plug you into their ethernet, others provide a
null modem (serial) connection over which you'd configure a
"local" (direct) PPP link. This allows them to effectively
limit the amount of bandwidth you're using. (The latest 2.1
Linux kernels have an experimental "shaper" interface that
allows one to limit bandwidth utilization on ethernet --- but
I don't know of any ISP that's using that).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I know some businesses that co-locate an extra server for
redundancy. If their dedicated network connection gets
hit by the proverbial (and sometime very <EM>real</EM>) 'backhoe'
then their web site and mail server is still accessible to
their customers. This is relatively low cost to companies
that are used to paying for T-1, T-3, or fiber charges.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>This brings up to the second option. You can get a
dedicated connection to your home or office. These range
from 28.8 dial-up over POTS (plain old telephone service) to
OC-48 (optical connections --- even past 622Mbps). As you
might expect most of these are prohibitively expensive
for home use (not to mention potential zoning and regulatory
issues).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>For practical purposes you have the following options for
home and SOHO (small office, home office) dedicated connections:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<dl><dt>modem over POTS:
<dd>least expensive, might be as low as
$130 (US) per month. Slowest. As
discussed in my articles about modems
you usually won't get 56Kbps out of a
"56K" modem.
<dt>ISDN (Centrex or not):
<dd>This is usually at least $200/mo.
Centrex is a little confusing. Typically it
allows you and your ISP, if you are located in the
same telephone CO (central office), to have an
ISDN line that is essentially an extension of
your ISP's office. This typically just eliminates
the "per-minute" charges of keeping the ISDN line
up. It also limits your ISDN line so that it can
only be used with that ISP. (This also implies
a very limited selection of ISP's for each user).
<dt>DSL:
<dd>Not available in all areas. Somewhat confusing
right now since it is a fairly recent offering.
Basically DSL takes advantage of an old obscure
feature in the pricing structure and responsibilities
of US phone companies. They used to provide "dry
copper" lines (that is telephone wires with no
dial-tone or signal) to alarm companies and similar
services. Using these lines and connecting DSL
routers at each end (rather than alarm monitoring
equipment) one can get various speeds (depending
on the distances between client, CO, and ISP).
</dl>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>DSL typically costs about $300/mo where it's
available.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>If I was getting a DSL line I'd get it
from Idiom (<A HREF="http://www.idiom.com">http://www.idiom.com</A>) or some other
Covad partner (<A HREF="http://www.covad.com">http://www.covad.com</A>). I know
the owner and founder of Idiom, and one of the
principles of Covad. Those are both SF Bay
Area companies.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<dl><dt>56K leased line:
<dd>(I'm not a telco expert but I think this
is the same as a "fractional T1" --- that is that
is a a fraction, 1/24th of a T-1 --- which in
turn is a bundle of 24 channels for a total of
1.54Mbps). This is about as much as any sane
person would pay to put in his or her home. They
cost about $300 or more per month.
<dt>cablemodem:
<dd>These are very fast, and only available
in a <EM>very</EM> limited number of places. Also
they frequently limit your ability to provide
services (through packet filtering or by
periodically disconnecting you and assigning
new IP addresses. While they sound great for web
<dt>Frame Relay:
<dd>I've seen these in various speeds, from
56K or 64Kbps to 1.5Mbps and in various prices
ranging from $200 per month to over $1000.
<dt>Wireless:
<dd>A couple of providers in the Silicon Valley
(and San Francisco Bay Area) offer wireless
dedicated connections. One of them is
Innetix (<A HREF="http://www.innetix.com">http://www.innetix.com</A>)
</dl></blockquote>
<blockquote>Conceivably an ISP could provide "dialout" or "service
on demand" services --- that is that they could dynamically
dial your server when TCP/IP traffic is destined for your site.
(It would work almost the same way that your copy of diald
allows your system to dynamically call your ISP --- only the
underlying routes would be different).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I've never heard of a company that actually offered this
service and I doubt that there's any advantage for them to
do so. This would probably be quite expensive for them ---
and there's probably almost no demand for it (I doubt that
one customer in a thousand would understand or care about
such a service --- and I can see any pricing niche that would
make it worthwhile).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I only mention as a theoretical possibility.
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0">Can I do this with X?</p></strong>
<strong><p>Thanks.
<br>ChipX
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>X is a communications protocol for windowing (GUI)
and keyboard/mouse events. The X Window System provides
a client/server windowing environment --- which allows
programs on your local machine, and on selected remote systems,
to act as clients on your "display server" (a display is
one or more screens, a keyboard and a mouse and/or other
pointing device).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>This is why you call the program that you run on your
Linux system an "X server" --- because it provides display
services to programs like '<tt>xterm</tt>' 'netscape' etc. The
fact that most of these programs are usually running on the
same host as the server is of no consequence to X. The
X server communicates with all of its clients via sockets.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Those are unix domain sockets ("<tt>s</tt>" special nodes on your file
system --- usually under <tt>/tmp</tt>) for most localhost clients,
internet domain sockets (TCP/IP networking) for most others).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>So, I suppose you can do "this" with X (that is, you could
have an ISP co-located a server on the Internet, or you could
have a dedicated connection fed into your home such that you
could allow access to an X server from any client on the
Internet. This would be horrible from a security standpoint
--- but that's not something you've expressed any concern about.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Shifting into "requirements analysis" mode we ask:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>What information, applications and resources
to you want/need to make available to whom?
</blockquote>
<blockquote>... which leads to a more fundamental requirements question:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Who are the involved parties? (You, and each person
or class of persons to whom you would like to provide
access to the aforementioned resources).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You can use these two lists (resources, parties/customers)
to build a table of "business relationships" (even if this
isn't really a business, the principle applies --- you relate
groups/users to the resources with verbs like "read" "write"
"execute" "append/add" etc.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>When you have a clear understanding of these things you can
evaluate and prioritize them. That is to say: you can
place values on each of these relationships. You may find
that many the items you listed are not really requirements
--- but are really preferences or constraints. That's fine,
keep them on the list.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You could then look at your possible approaches (from the
list above, and by doing additional research into ISP
offerings in your area). All possible designs/plans which
fit your requirements without violating any of your
constraints form a "solution space." This may be an empty
set (there may be not solutions to your set of requirements
within your stated constraints). If there are multiple options
a mapping of these overlaid on your preferences may find an
optimal solution (that's why you prioritize/evaluate the
preferences --- so you can do sums and scoring).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>At that point you'd be in a position to do a cost/benefit
analysis. Undoubtedly costs/pricing formed some of your
constraints. Presumably your preference (all other things
being equal) would be to pay less. However, it is possible
that you're costs will exceed perceived or potential benefits
in such a way as to convince you to abandon the solution set
(and a whole project).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Actually all you said about your requirements was that
you "need to know how to ...." --- hopefully you now "know";
presumably you are, or were, considering actually setting
something up and I'll have to guess beyond that.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>All I can guess about your requirements was that you
want to be able to remotely get your mail, telnet to your
machine, and update your .plan (finger info). You currently
think you want to be able to do this "over the Internet."
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I'm not sure that you've really considered alternatives
regarding this last one. If you connect a modem to your
Linux box at home you can dial in and use it from anywhere
that you can get at a modem and dial your home number. Unless
you are a real globetrotter your home is probably a local
call to you most of the time. In addition if your area
has "Ricochet" or "<a href="http://www.metricom.com/">Metricom</a>"
or <em>[Ricochet is the product sold or leased by Metricom. -- Heather]</em>
any similar service it may be that you can get a wireless "modem"
(provides a Hayes compatible AT command set and serial interface to your
computer) with optional dial out service. (This allows you
to use a "Ricochet" on your laptop, from the local coffee
house or wherever you can get a signal to dial into your
machine at home).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Actually, oddly enough, this service has a strange idea
of locality. I subscribe to it in the SF Bay Area. This
lets me dial to any modem number in the 408, 415, 650, 510,
and nearby area codes. It also allows me to dial to 800
numbers. I can dial to these, toll free and without connect
time charges from any where that Metricom's service extends.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Thus I've dialed into my home computer from the Burbank
Airport near L.A. and from a hotel lobby in Seattle while
I was at a USENIX conference.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Another thing that's not evident from your question is
just what benefits you hope to get from all of this. Is
it just "coolness" --- so you can do the same thing
your friend did? If so, see if you can get an account
on this other friend's machine. Is it convenience? Do
you have any security concerns? How much is it worth do
have this much "coolness" or convenience?
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_detach"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Detaching and Re-attaching to Interactive Background Processes</H3>
<p><strong>From Lawrence Tung on 16 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<strong><p>Hi, James: When I run a background interactive process, e.g.
<tt>ncftp</tt>, I logout. Is it possible to reattach this process to a terminal
again after I relogin?
</p></strong>
<strong><p>Lawrence
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>Look for a program called '<tt>screen</tt>'. It's included with
most distributions and it's available at the UNC repository
(Sunsite) at:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code
><A HREF="http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/utils/console"
>http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/utils/console</A>
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>(which technically isn't the the best place for it since
it isn't a "console" specific utility --- you can use it
from any terminal, dial-up line, xterminal, or over <tt>telnet</tt>
and <tt>rlogin</tt> sessions).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>'<tt>screen</tt>' gives you the ability to multiplex a number of
interactive shell sessions through a single terminal
session. You reserve one keystroke (<tt>[Ctrl]+[A]</tt> by default)
which is the meta key that provides access to all '<tt>screen</tt>'
functions.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Thus the key sequence <tt>[Ctrl]+[A], [D]</tt> will
&quot;detach&quot; your currently running screen session from the
current terminal connection. To re-attach later (from that terminal session
or any other) you use the '<tt>screen -r</tt>' command.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>When you first start '<tt>screen</tt>' you might first think that
"nothing" happened. It normally just starts a single shell
session. If you start a command (such as '<tt>vi</tt>' or '<tt>emacs</tt>')
and use the key sequence <tt>[Ctrl]+[A], [C]</tt> you'll &quot;create&quot;
a new session. You can now toggle between the current
subsession and the most recently active one by by typing
<tt>[Ctrl]+[A]</tt> twice.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You can "cycle" from one screen to the "next" (through
all of them in a round robin fashion) by typing:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>[Ctrl]+[A] [Space]
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>
... and you can get to any of your subsessions (interactive
windows) using the meta key (<tt>[Ctrl]+[A]</tt>) followed by a
single digit. You can have up to ten '<tt>screen</tt>' subsessions
for any screen session. You can even have multiple
screen sessions detached. Your '<tt>screen -r</tt>' command will
list the PID's/sockets of the sessions that you own and
will let you specify the PID (socket extension) of the
one you want to resume.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>To send a <tt>[Ctrl]+[A]</tt> through to your applications
(to move your point/cursor to be beginning of an '<tt>emacs</tt>' line, for
example) you'd type <tt>[Ctrl]+[A], [A]</tt>. (Note that the first is
a "control" character and the next is just the normal,
unshifted, letter).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Of course you can change the &quot;meta&quot; key --- but I like it
just the way it is. There are the usual sorts of command
line options, and there are also "colon" commands to set
many parameters modes and options.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>When you &quot;detach&quot; a screen session then all of the
&quot;windows&quot; or &quot;subsessions&quot; are left running. They are
not suspended (as they'd be if you used <tt>[Ctrl]+[Z]</tt> on
them.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There are many other '<tt>screen</tt>' features:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Interactive Backscroll (using '<tt>vi</tt>' keys for
paging, searching, and scrolling).
<li>Keyboard driven cut and past of anything in
the backscroll buffer.
<li>"Screen shot" (quick paste of current screen
to a file).
<li>"Log to file" (open a log file for a given
subsession --- similar to a typescript '<tt>script</tt>'
command).
<li>Command/shell driven creation of new subsessions
(if you issue a '<tt>screen</tt>' command from within a
'<tt>screen</tt>' session you can start a command
asynchronously in a new subsession).
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>... and many others.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>About the only three features I think are missing from
'<tt>screen</tt>' are:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>support to '<tt>split</tt>' your terminal (to see parts
of two subsessions concurrently --- either top and
bottom, or side-by-side). (You can run '<tt>splitvt</tt>'
under '<tt>screen</tt>' to get this effect).
<li>embedded '<tt>expect</tt>'/TCL support for context sensitive
keyboard remapping (although you can run '<tt>expect</tt>'
under '<tt>screen</tt>' spawning other programs and using
the same '<tt>interact</tt>' logic you would in any other
'<tt>expect</tt>' script).
<li>multi-user "co-pilot" (allowing two or more users
to "share" a 'screen' session).
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>It appears that the authors were playing with some "co-pilot"
features and gave up on them. Some of the colon commands
have to do with controlling in memory "access control lists"
(ACL's) which are apparently preliminary support to allow
multiple users, on multiple terminals to have concurrent
access to one screen session (with some or all of them
being "read-only" and others having full "read-write"
to the session).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>It is possible to do very simple two way collaboration
using '<tt>kibitz</tt>' (an '<tt>expect</tt>' script that's included
with some Linux distributions). It's a bit clunking but
functional. However it does give the "kibitzer" full
terminal access to your session, including the ability
to kill or suspend a running program and access to your
shell. Thus '<tt>kibitz</tt>' (as it's written) should be used
only to work with trusted parties (someone that you'd
sit down at your keyboard with access to one of your
login sessions).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>It might be possible to modify '<tt>kibitz</tt>' for
read-only access. This would be conception similar to running a
command like:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>script /tmp/mytypescript.broadcast
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... and having your 'clients' run the command:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>tail -f /tmp/mytypescript.broadcast
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... except that it would flushing it's buffers
far more frequently. (If you actually try running
the '<tt>script</tt>/<tt>tail</tt>' pair as shown --- or you use
'<tt>screen</tt>' "log to file" feature and slap a <tt>tail -f</tt>
on <EM>that</EM> file --- you'll see that a few kilobytes of
buffers are not written to the <tt>tail -f</tt> process until
enough other activity has occurred on that screen/subsession
or shell.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>By comparison '<tt>kibitz</tt>' is writing synchronously
--- it's flushing each character out to its file (which I think
is actually a Unix domain socket rather than a regular file).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>So, the things that I'd like to see added to
'<tt>screen</tt>' are merely a consolidation of tools that are already
available, and that all seem to be completely compatible with it.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>In any event, I highly recommand '<tt>screen</tt>' ---
it's the closest thing to DESQview that I've ever found for Unix.
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<P> <hr width="40%" align="center"> <P>
<!-- ............................. -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Detaching and Re-attaching to Interactive Background Processes</H3>
<p><strong>From Lawrence Tung on 17 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<strong><p>Hi, Jim: Thanks for your reply. I've used "screen" before. I need to
start "screen" before I "detach" the terminal. right? Is it possible
to reattch a process to a terminal after you relogin without
starting any utilities in advance?
</p></strong>
<strong><p>Lawrence
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0">Not under current versions of Linux.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Conceptually you could have a kernel feature
that allowed you to do something like this ---- for
example if you were using a 'streams' based
terminal driver (or some custom terminal driver).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Basically the gist of it is that you have to know
what you want in advance. There is no "normal"
(standard or conventional) Unix/Linux mechanism for
this --- so you have to either use a utility for it
--- or you have to select an implementation that has
"nonstandard" features.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Frankly I don't know of any Unix that does support
this sort of thing (except via '<tt>screen</tt>' of course).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>As a couple of side notes:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><tt>ncftp</tt> has direct support for background
and "re-dial" file fetching. Some of these
are enhanced in the at <a href="http://www.ncftp.com/">ncftp.com</a>.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>If you need this sort of "attach and detach"
feature for X the best I've been able to find
thus far is to use the VNC Xserver and attach
to it via the VNC client of your choice.
Look at <A HREF="http://www.orl.co.uk/vnc"
>http://www.orl.co.uk/vnc</A> for details.
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_cdr"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<p>Mark Heath asked about a <a href="../issue30/tag_cdr.html">Disk At Once</a>
CDR driver in July (Issue 30)
and described different kinds of
<a href="../issue31/tag_cdr.html">CDR sessions</a> in August
(Issue 31). The following was found in the
<a href="news://comp.os.linux.announce">comp.os.linux.announce</a>
newsgroup, and should be very useful to those who've been
following this thread...</p>
<P> <hr width="40%" align="center"> <P>
<!-- ............................. -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" alt="(!)"width="50" height="28"
align="left" border="0">Cdrdao 1.0</H3>
<blockquote>From <em>The Answer Guy</em> on 18 Aug 1998 </blockquote>
<!-- begin body -->
<blockquote>Mark,
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Hopefully this package will fit your needs.
Please consider writing up a review of it and submitting
that to Linux Journal and/or Linux Gazette.
</blockquote>
<P> <hr width="40%" align="center"> <P>
<!-- ............................. -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" alt="(!)"width="50" height="28"
align="left" border="0">Cdrdao 1.0 - Disc-at-once writing
of audio CD-Rs</H3>
<blockquote>From Andreas Mueller to the
<a href="news://comp.os.linux.announce">comp.os.linux.announce</a>
newsgroup on 5 Aug 1998 </blockquote>
<p align="center">-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----</p>
<blockquote>This is the first release of cdrdao - a tool for writing
audio CD-Rs in disc-at-once mode. Currently only the Philips CDD2600
writer is supported but it may work with other Philips writers, too.
Contributions for other CD writers are welcome.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Features:
<ul>
<li>variable pre-gap length (down to zero)
<li>non zero audio data in pre-gaps
<li>control over sub-channel information like ISRC code, pre-emphasis
<li>tracks may be composed of several audio files
<li>support for audio CD copy
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Andreas -</blockquote>
<h4>LSM entry:</h4>
<pre>
Begin3
Title: cdrdao
Version: 1.0
Entered-date: 03AUG1998
Description: Writes audio CD-Rs in disc-at-once (DAO) mode allowing
control over pre-gaps (length down to 0, nonzero audio
data) and sub-channel information like ISRC codes. All
data that is written to the disc must be specified with
a text file. Audio data may be in WAVE or raw format.
Keywords: CD-recording, audio, disc-at-once
Author: <A HREF="mailto:mueller@daneb.ping.de">mueller@daneb.ping.de</A> (Andreas Mueller)
Maintained-by: <A HREF="mailto:mueller@daneb.ping.de">mueller@daneb.ping.de</A> (Andreas Mueller)
Primary-site: sunsite.unc.edu <a href="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/utils/disk-management/">/pub/Linux/utils/disk-management/</a>
67 kB cdrdao-1.0.src.tar.gz
103 kB cdrdao-1.0.bin.x86.linux.tar.gz
Alternate-site:
Platforms: Linux
Supported hardware: Philips CDD 2600
Copying-policy: GPL
End
</pre>
<blockquote>- - --
<br><em>[PGP and other moderation details omitted for clarity]</em>
<br>This group is archived at <A HREF="http://www.iki.fi/mjr/linux/cola.html"
>http://www.iki.fi/mjr/linux/cola.html</A>
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_rs422"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>High Speed Serial (RS422) under Linux</H3>
<p><strong>From Sujeetharan Sivasubramaniyam on 18 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<strong><p>Hi I want to use RS422 card under linux. I am not sure whether this
is suppored by linux already. Also I would like to see some
documentation on this. Any pointers will be greatly appreciated!
</p></strong>
<strong><p>Thanks
</p></strong>
<blockquote>Since you don't mention <EM>which</EM> specific card you are
hoping to use, I'll assume that you are willing to
buy a new/supported card if necessary.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Naturally, with any question about supported hardware,
the first place to check is the Hardware-HOWTO
(<A HREF="http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO.html"
>http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO.html</A>).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>At first we might be led astray (searching on serial
gets us to section 26.6: "Modems and Serial Cards"
--- but that's in reference to PCMCIA cards). However,
we don't find any references to 422 under "Controllers, I/O"
and "Controllers, Multiport" nor anywhere else in the HOWTO.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Running the Excite search on the LDP site using the string
&quot;<tt>422</tt>&quot; doesn't net any useful results either.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>So, we have to dig a bit deeper. A Yahoo search using the
string &quot;<tt>+rs422 +linux</tt>&quot; nets about 53 hits. The first
of these is from NTLUG (North Texas Linux User's Group)
which lists a company called Vikom, in Irving, TX with
the note:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><dl><dt>"manufactures RS232 and RS422 multiport cards
for Linux"
<dd>(<A HREF="http://www.ntlug.org/lint/index.html"
>http://www.ntlug.org/lint/index.html</A>).
</dl>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>... No URL or contact information is provided.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Another result of this Yahoo! search is for GTek Inc.
(a long-time manufacturer of serial hardware for PC's).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>They list a Cyclone 6 and note that there are "RS422 and
RS485 interfaces available" and separately they say:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><dl><dt>"Drivers are available for all popular operating
systems: WindowsNT, Windows95, Linux, OS/2 and DOS."
<dd><A HREF="http://www.gtek.com/news.html"
>http://www.gtek.com/news.html</A>.
</dl> </blockquote>
<blockquote>(Granted, this second lead is buried under about a
dozen unlikely results that I didn't follow).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You might also search the Equinox, Digi, Specialix,
and other web pages for manufacturers of specialized
and multi-port serial hardware to see if they have
something that suits your needs.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Presumably there is some RS422 support built into the
Kernel --- at least in the PPC (PowerPC) port. As far
as I know most Mac's and Mac clones shipped with built-in
RS-422 (a.k.a. EIA-422) ports for their modems (and
printers?).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I also found a note that seems to confirm my own experience
--- that is is possible to interface RS-422 connectors to
most RS-232 devices using the proper cabling (the classic
"Mac to PC Modem" cable). There is even one message
about using a special cable to connect an Apple printer
to a PC's serial port. This suggests that some RS-422 devices
can be interfaced to RS-232, as well. (I mention this since
your requirements aren't clear from your message --- potentially
you don't need an RS-422 interface at all).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Obviously if you already have a specific device and
you are interested in details about <em>that RS-422 card</em>
you'll have to provide details about it. Since I don't
have any first-hand experience with any RS-422 hardware on
PC's and I've shown exactly how I did my searches, it would
make sense to do your own searches for support on your
card. If you can't find a manufacturers label or any
docs on the card (i.e. you inherited it in "used" condition)
then you're probably out of luck.
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_modem"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<p><em>[We seem to be coming in at the middle of this thread, but I don't see
where the previous might be found. We'll have to make do with
what's been quoted here, Sorry, readers! -- Heather]</em></p>
<P> <hr width="40%" align="center"> <P>
<!-- ............................. -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"width="50" height="28"
align="left" border="0">ANOTHER MODEM PROB </H3>
<p><strong>From CodeWaRi0r on 18 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<em><font color="navy"
><p><strong
>&gt; It sounds like a "winmodem." (These are devices which don't
<br>&gt; support the standard AT command set and which require proprietary
<br>&gt; drivers in order to function. Currently those drivers are only
<br>&gt; available for Windows --- I gather that some of them don't even
<br>&gt; work under Windows NT).
</strong></p>
<p><strong>&gt; The acid test for this is to try to use the modem under DOS (boot
<br>&gt; from DOS and try run a program like Telix). If that also can't
<br>&gt; "see" the modem --- then it's not a real modem; it's a "winmodem."
</strong></p>
<p><strong>&gt; Although I've read rumors about an effort to reverse engineer the
<br>&gt; "Rockwell chipset" (RPI) --- which is the one commonly used in
<br>&gt; these "winmodems" --- I believe that you're only reliable recourse
<br>&gt; for now is to exchange this piece of junk with a real modem.
</strong></p>
</font></em>
<p><strong>nope.. im sure i dont have a winmodem. actually, I have to modems on
my computer .. one winmodem on COM1 and a regular modem by BOCA on
COM3.. ok.. just help me out with one more thing and ill be out of
your hair <IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" height="24" width="20" align="middle"> ok.. ive established that i dont have a winmodem.. i
start up X. run the modem configurer (this program makes a link
between <tt>/dev/modem</tt> and <tt>cua2</tt>.. or so it says... i just select the COM
port and press ok and thats it. Am i missing a step here?)
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>It could also be an IRQ conflict --- on a conventional
PC COM1 and COM3 share IRQ's with COM4 and COM2
respectively.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I don't know how you're sure that you don't have a winmodem
--- unless it's external, or you've been able to connect
to it under DOS or Linux with standard AT commands.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>However, I'll assume for the moment that this is the case.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I would leave X completely out of this for now. I wouldn't
use any "modem configurator" (that's just one more piece
of junk between me and the troubleshooting).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>One way to do this testing is to run minicom or C-Kermit
to connect to the modem, Then you should be able to
type AT commands directly to the modem and get responses
back. Before you do this, look at the nodes under the
<tt>/dev/</tt> directory with the '<tt>ls -l</tt>' command. Make sure that
they look something like:
</blockquote>
<pre>lrwxrwxrwx 1 root uucp 5 Jul 13 16:52 /dev/modem -&gt; ttyS2
crw-rw---- 1 root uucp 4, 64 Aug 18 15:17 /dev/ttyS0
crw-rw---- 1 root uucp 4, 65 Aug 18 15:17 /dev/ttyS1
crw-rw---- 1 root uucp 4, 66 Nov 30 1997 /dev/ttyS2
crw-rw---- 1 root uucp 4, 67 Nov 30 1997 /dev/ttyS3
</pre>
<blockquote>.... where the "modem" entry is a symlink to the appropriate
serial port (<tt>ttyS2</tt> for a normal PC's COM3).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You should also make sure that the permissions on most
of your communications software are such that it is
run by '<tt>root</tt>' (such as <tt>pppd</tt>) or is at least SGID
'<tt>uucp</tt>' (you could chgrp all these to '<tt>modem</tt>',
create a '<tt>modem</tt>' group, etc --- I use '<tt>uucp</tt>' since
that is an older Unix convention).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>So, an '<tt>ls -l</tt>' of your <tt>minicom</tt>,
<tt>kermit</tt>, <tt>uucico</tt>, <tt>pppd</tt>, <tt>chat</tt>,
should look something like this:
</blockquote>
<pre>-rwxr-sr-x 1 root uucp 119280 Nov 30 1997 /usr/bin/minicom
-r-sr-sr-x 1 uucp uucp 395148 Nov 30 1997 /usr/lib/uucp/uucico
-r-xr-sr-x 1 root uucp 632609 Feb 10 1997 /usr/local/bin/kermit
-rwsr-x--- 1 root dialout 83856 Nov 30 1997 /usr/sbin/pppd
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root bin 12224 Nov 30 1997 /usr/sbin/chat
</pre>
<blockquote>Note that <tt>minicom</tt>, <tt>uucico</tt> and <tt>kermit</tt>
are SGID <tt>uucp</tt> --- they don't need higher privileges.
<tt>uucico</tt> is the actual communications engine for the
<tt>uucp</tt> suite --- it's normally only called by the <tt>uucp</tt>
command, but it needs access to some directories (usually
<tt>/var/spool/uucp*</tt> or <tt>/usr/spool/uucp*</tt>) to work properly.
So we make it SUID to the <tt>uucp</tt> user as well as SGID to the
<tt>uucp</tt> group.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You can ignore all of those details for <tt>pppd</tt> since
it must be run as root (in order to set IP addresses and add routing
entries). Here I've set it to be in the 'dialout' group
--- so that I can restrict who can execute this (thus
limiting who could try to use exploits on <tt>pppd</tt> to gain
'<tt>root</tt>' privileges). This is a simple and far too uncommon
way to narrow the security holes on a system.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Note that the '<tt>chat</tt>' program gets no special
permissions. It is invoked by pppd which is already running as
'<tt>root</tt>' --- and thus, it needs no "extra" privileges.
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>so i do that, and quit X. I run chat with the following script
</p></strong>
<pre>TIMEOUT 5
"" ATZ
OK ATDT6161038
ABORT "NO CARRIER"
ABORT BUSY
ABORT "NO DIALTONE"
ABORT WAITING
TIMEOUT 45
CONNECT ""
TIMEOUT 5
"ogin:" blah
"assword:" blah
</pre>
<strong><p>i run chat
</p></strong>
<strong><p>$<tt>chat -f /etc/ppp/chatscript</tt> (where i store the above script)
i see linux go:
</p></strong>
<strong><p><code>AT</code></p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>Aha! That's your problem. You aren't supposed to run '<tt>chat</tt>'
directly. You are supposed to run <tt>pppd</tt>, and let <EM>it</EM>
invoke the '<tt>chat</tt>'. This is due to some technical internals
about how file descriptors are inherited.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The '<tt>chat</tt>' program writes to its '<tt>stdout</tt>'
file descriptor and expects input (modem responses) from it's '<tt>stdin</tt>'
For that to work you have to provide it with suitable
open standard files. One way to do that would be to type:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code
>chat -V "" "ATZ" "OK" &lt; /dev/modem &gt; /dev/modem
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... which engages in the simplest meaningful dialog that
I know of with a Hayes compatible modem. It simply
"waits for an empty string" (nothing), sends an <tt>ATZ</tt>, and
waits for an "<tt>OK</tt>"
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The <tt>-V</tt> switch here tells '<tt>chat</tt>' to
"be versbose to '<tt>stderr</tt>' which will, in this case, by our
console/terminal.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>On my system that command returns:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>AT&amp;FS2=255
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... and an exit value (errorlevel) of <tt>0</tt> (no-error).
This isn't exactly the output I would expect from my interpretation
of the <tt>man</tt> page. But it's close enough (it suggests that my
modem returns this string when it recieves an <tt>ATZ</tt> comment
--- which suggests that this modem is translated <tt>ATZ</tt> into
"AT&amp;F" (return to factory zettings), and setting the <rr>S2</tt>
register to 255).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>If I issue the command:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code
>chat -V "" "ATZ" "OK" &lt; /dev/ttyS3 &gt; /dev/ttyS3
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... (a serial line with no modem attached) I get no output
and a return error of <tt>3</tt>.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>In any event you need to let pppd start your '<tt>chat</tt>'
command. The way to do that is to provide <tt>pppd</tt> with a
suitable "options" file.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>In my case I have multiple PPP accounts (some with
customers, some with ISP's). So I create an <tt>/etc/ppp/options</tt>
file that just consists of one line:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>lock
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... and I create different supplemental options files
that contain the details specific to a given provider.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>For example one looks pretty much like:
</blockquote>
<pre>asyncmap 0
crtscts
defaultroute
mtu 296 mru 296
modem /dev/modem 57600
connect "/usr/sbin/chat -f /etc/ppp/options.myisp"
</pre>
<blockquote>I'll skip the first several lines (you can read the PPP-HOWTO
and/or the <tt>pppd</tt> man pages for details about those) and focus
on the last couple of lines.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The modem directive tells pppd to use serial line settings
(ioctls?, stty) that's appropriate for a modem. The other
option would be "local" (use a null modem cable or some
sort of network connection). This has purely to do with
how the line is "conditioned" and how the handshaking
lines are handled.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The <tt>/dev/modem</tt> parameter tells it which device
to open (and thus what file descriptors to pass to the command
that will be invoked via the "<tt>connect</tt>" directive.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The 57600 is simply the speed to which pppd should should
set the serial line (I presume this is also used at part
of an '<tt>stty</tt>' like function call).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The last line is the "<tt>connect</tt>" directive. It
tells pppd what command to invoke to deal with the modem.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>So, you then invoke pppd with a command like the
following:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>pppd file /etc/ppp/options.myisp
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... this processes the "global" options in /etc/ppp/options
and then the options that you've specifed with the file
directive.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Many examples I've see specify many of the options one
the command line. For example it's pretty common to
see a command like:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<code>pppd modem /dev/modem 57600 file /usr/local/etc/ppprc
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... which should be reasonably comprehensible once you
understand that pppd basically interprets all its command line
in the same way as it processes directives in it's options
files. Carefully reading the '<tt>man</tt>' page should clarify
what order and precedence affect the processing of all of
these directives and options. For example, you have to be
sure to avoid any conflicting options <tt>~/.ppprc</tt> (just
get rid of any such file unless you know what you're doing
with it).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Another simple testing trick is to use 'minicom' to
dial the phone and establish your connection (log in).
Then use the "Quit without Resetting the Line" option
(using the [Ctrl]+[A], [Q] key sequence). This should
dump you out of minicom and back to a shell prompt
<EM>without</EM> disconnecting your modem. (It is then possible
to invoke pppd on that line --- using an alternative version
of the ISP options file without any "connect" directive).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>That trick doesn't work with kermit --- it won't exit
without resetting the communications line. From what
Frank de la Cruz tells me you can't use C-Kermit as a
replacement for 'chat' because of this. Basically he
says it violates some programming standards to do this.
(I still don't understand that --- but it's not currently
a priority to me. If someone understands it and wants
to explain --- write an article and send me a copy).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>but the modem doesnt respond... i know its weird.. but i just dont
think linux knows its there.. is the "linking" i do in X all that's
necessary? or am i missing something?
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The problem is that you haven't understood the PPP-HOWTO.
I can sympathize with that --- I spent quite a few hours
banging my head on it (at least an earlier version of it).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>However, try reading it again.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There are several GUI and dialog driven frontends to
configure your PPP connection for you. I've never used
any of them (they didn't exist back when I was doing my
head banging). In any event a search of the Linux Software
Map using Boutell's search page
(<A HREF="http://www.boutell.com/lsm">http://www.boutell.com/lsm</A>)
on the term PPP will give a list of several of these and
a couple dozen related samples and utilities. There are
<A HREF="http://www.kde.org/">KDE</A>, Motif, and Tk interfaces
(among others).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You could try a few of those to see if any of them
works for you. You should also be able to get your ISP
to help. If they refuse to help with Linux/Unix ppp
technical support --- consider getting a new ISP.
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>again sorry to bother u.
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>The question doesn't bother me. No apologies are necessary
for that. If I seemed grumpy, it's because I don't like
to see this sort of "hakkerboyz" text. I don't think it's
cool and I do find it difficult to read. It is only a bit
less offensive than GETTING MESSAGES IN ALL CAPS.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>People who won't take the time to use reasonable punctuation
and spelling in their questions cause me to wonder why I should
take the time to answer them. I'm sure that many don't even
pause to wonder; they just hit the delete key and move on.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I have no idea how old you are, or why you choose to write
this way. Perhaps you have some very good reasons --- and
perhaps you think I'm some sort of pedantic curmudgeon.
You're welcome to hold and share that opinion (and I'll even
agree with part of it).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>However, one of the few liberties I take in this column is
the opportunity to occasional jump up on my soapbox and
express my opinion. The evidence is that some of my readers
find at least some of my tirades amusing, even (according
to some reports) "inspiring."
</blockquote>
<blockquote>For those that don't like it --- I can only say "Well, I did
at least attempt to answer the question." (I don't remember
of any occasion where I just flamed someone without answering
their question. I just won't say "RTFM" --- I'll at least
say which "FM" to "R").
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Anyway, I hope that the hint about how to invoke '<tt>chat</tt>'
helps. If that doesn't work (and direct invocations
with the redirection as shown, and '<tt>minicom</tt>' tests) all
don't work,
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<P> <hr width="40%" align="center"> <P>
<!-- ............................. -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>More on Grammar</H3>
<p><strong>From CodeWaRi0r on 18 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<strong><p>BTW: I apologize for my sloppy spelling and grammer... it's just the
internet talk that does that to you <IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" height="24" width="20" align="middle"> Despite my erronious writing
(I'm sure I spelled that wrong.. LoL), I'm an accompilshed
programmer in C\C++ (including Window's MFC and UNIX), Visual Basic,
Perl, and Assembly languages
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>Thanks. I knew you <EM>could</EM> do it. I do recognize that
particular style of writing as a symptom of too much time
in "chat lounges" (or in IRC depending on your preferences).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>However, it is still difficult to read --- and it still
does say something about the relative importance you
place on a given communication. (Certainly you wouldn't
expect a resume' to be taken seriously if it was written
in this style).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Incidentally the word is normally rendered as "erroneously."
</blockquote>
<blockquote>If you are an emacs user you can "quick check" a word using
the <tt>M-$</tt> key binding. Since I use '<tt>viper</tt>' mode, which
makes it irritating to get at the <tt>[Esc]</tt> for use as <tt>[Meta]</tt>
I add the following binding to my <tt>.emacs</tt> file:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>(global-set-key '[f3 ?$] 'ispell-word)
<br>(global-set-key '[f3 ?%] 'ispell-buffer)
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... which means that the two key sequence: <tt>[F3], [$]</tt>
will check the word at point and <tt>[F3], [%]</tt> will check
the whole buffer.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>(I suspect that vim also has some features for running
<tt>ispell</tt> --- though I've never used any of the IMprovements
of that editor).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The fact that using emacs (<tt>xemacs</tt>, actually)
gives me '<tt>ispell</tt>' in all of my editing (including in my
favorite mail reader, <tt>mh-e</tt>, and my preferred newsreader,
<tt>Gnus</tt>) is one of the reasons why I use it.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I personally despise the default emacs key bindings (which I
think are designed to torture the pinky until you're ready to
chop it off). So, I use <tt>viper-mode</tt> (a '<tt>vi</tt>'
emulation package) for the majority of my editing --- and I
supplement it with a fairly long list of custom binding, most of
which start with <tt>[F3]</tt> (the first available function key
that had nothing assigned to it --- <tt>[F1]</tt> was used as a
"Help" prefix and [F2] had some weird two column mode function
bound to it).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>So, I switch buffers with <tt>[F3] [b]</tt> and bring up a
"buffer menu" with <tt>[F3] [B]</tt> (capitalized). I bring up
the '<tt>emacs</tt>' calendar package with <tt>[F3] [C]</tt> (capitalized)
and a "shell-mode" buffer with <tt>[F3] [c]</tt> (lower case ---
for "command"). I check my diary (appointment list) with
<tt>[F3] [D]</tt> (capitalized), and bring up "dired" (file-manager
buffers) with <tt>[F3] [d]</tt> (uncapitalized). I "unsplit" my
display with <tt>[F3] [1]</tt> and split it vertically with
<tt>[F3] [2]</tt> or horizontally with <tt>[F3] [4]</tt>. (The experienced
'<tt>emacs</tt>' buff may note that most of these are functions
that are normally accessed via <tt>C-x</tt> keybindings; a prefix
that I find truly abominable).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>But ... I'm rambling. Some day maybe I'll write an
article on how I use '<tt>xemacs</tt>' --- it may be amusing
to some.
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_notfound"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
><tt>/usr/bin/open</tt> not found</H3>
<p><strong>From Jesus Alejandre on 16 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<strong><p>I tried to use your solution in "User Shell on Virtual Console 1"
(Linux Gazette issue 30), but the command /usr/bin/open doesn<73>t
exist in my system. I installed it from S.u.s.e. 5.2 , kernel
2.0.33 distribution.
</p></strong>
<strong><p>Could you please tell me where can I find it?. Thank you very much.
Jes<EFBFBD>s Alejandre.
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>It should be one the CD's somewhere. I've got it on
my <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/">S.u.S.E.</A> 5.1 and my 5.2 systems, and
I've seen it on several of my old <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">Red Hat</A>
4.x and 5.x systems over the years.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You can also look under:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code
><A HREF="http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/utils/console"
>http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/utils/console</A>
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... which will get you the a "tarball" (rather than
an RPM). This probably contains source code which
you'd compile for yourself. If you'd prefer to avoid
that you could look in the "contrib" directories
at Red Hat, it's mirrors and at S.u.S.E. That might net
you an RPM if you have a strong preference for using
the package manager.
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_tuning"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Tuning X to work with your Monitor</H3>
<p><strong>From Alan Morton on the L.U.S.T Mailing List
on 14 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>I am wondering if anyone on the list has any experience with a vid
card/monitor combination similar to mine, or have any experience
with this particular problem that can either give me some
constructive advice or can point me to some relevent documentation.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>I am using a Jaton 67-P video card with 4 megs of RAM. I am trying
to use it with a HP 4033A monitor. The problem is that whem I use
Xconfigurator (I'm using a RH5.0 distro) irregardless of what it
says about an acceptable configuration, when I start up X it trips
the Power Saving function on the monitor and it goes blank.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>When I use the cntrl-alt-backspace it naturally kills X, plus it
retrips the monitor and my screen begins to reappear. I am making
the assumption that it is engaging some error procedure in the
monitor, which is fine. But I really want to get this working at a
reasonable resolution. If I use a setting of 800x600 and 8 bit
color it works just fine, but that seems a bit wasted on a 21"
monitor.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>I know the monitor will handle a lot because I can use it at
1024x748 in 16 bit color with my Windows NT boot-up. And I have a
friend with an identical monitor running 1280x1024 in 24 bit color
under Win95.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>I don't think the problem is the card because I have been running
it with a 14" Magitronic monitor previously at 800x600 in 24 bit
under both NT and Linux with no problems.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Any assistance with this will be greatly appreciated.
<br>Alan Morton
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>The problem you are having is related to the refresh rate that X is
trying to use for the mode you are trying to display. The rate may
be either too high or too low. I am not sure exactly about the
specifics of what needs to be done to change the refresh rate that X
uses, but I'm sure there is a good source of information for
configuring the display properties of X. Hopefully this will narrow
your scope in searching for an answer, because I don't really know
what else would cause this problem. Any other suggestion welcome.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Configuring X on a system is like a classic "three-body problem."
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You have to get the correct software and libraries all
installed (which any distribution makes pretty easy).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You have to select the correct "server" for your video card.
This is complicated by the number of video card manufacturers
--- many of whom have many models of video card, often
identified by a stream of very similar sound digits and
letters while using completely different combinations
of chipsets, clock chips, and RAMDAC's (digital to analog
coverters?).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You have to provide a "tuned" set of video timings. This
is primarily dependent on your monitor.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Getting all of these things to work together is still a
pain. However, the xf86config, SuperProbe, and Xconfigurator
have helped alot. I've heard that Eric S. Raymond's
Video-Timings-HOWTO has helped alot of people (though I've never
used it myself). I've played with '<tt>vidtune</tt>' (an X program that
allows you to tune your video times after you've gotten
"close enough") --- but it's still a bit mysterious to me.
(How to I get it to write the timings out to a format I can
use in my XF86Config?)
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I usually just use a "hit and miss" approach by looking
through the list of samples in <tt>/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/doc/Monitors</tt>
(or thereabouts). The one on my
<A HREF="http://www.suse.com/">S.u.S.E.</A> box lists about
65 different samples for various monitors. I just play with
them a bit while I hand hack on the <tt>/etc/X11/XF86Config</tt> file
(which is probably the least efficient way of doing it ---
but usually <tt>Xconfigurator</tt> and a good multisync monitor
get along O.K. so I usually don't have to fuss too much).
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_libc5"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>The End of libc5: A Mini-Interview with H.J Lu</H3>
<p><strong>From <em>The Answer Guy</em> on 29 Jul 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<blockquote>
<br>H.J.
<br>I hate to bother you with a more discussion on this
topic. However, I'd like to have a definitive posting
for the Linux Gazette (I do the Answer Guy column there)
to allay people's concerns about this migration.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>So, I'd like to ask a couple of questions:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Is there a definitive archive or document on the web that
you feel accurately answers most questions about the
glibc vs. libc 5 controversy?
</blockquote>
<p><strong><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>No. I have posted a few articles from time to time. As far as I
know, glibc 2 is very good now. The only problem it has is some
Linux specific programs use the kernel header files directly. It
won't work with glibc 2. We have to change those programs and
we have to add those missing pieces to glibc 2 if necessary. So far,
everything looks good. RedHat and <A HREF="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</A>
have built their entire Linux on glibc 2.
</strong></p>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>It is my impression that libc.5 and glibc can co-exist
on a system concurrently and transparently. Is that so?
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0">Yes.</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0">Are there exceptional cases?</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
<blockquote>All those binaries compiled by <tt>egcs</tt> and <tt>gcc 2.7.2.3</tt>
should be ok. But if you have a C++ binary which uses <tt>libg++</tt> and was
compiled by gcc 2.7.x.x other than 2.7.2.3, it may load the wrong <tt>libg++.so</tt>.
But I don't know if there is a case where you cannot recompile it.
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>I gather that a couple of the major advantages to glibc
have to do with: support for NIS, thread-safe library
calls, transparent support for the shadow password suite
in the <tt>getpwent()</tt> and related functions, and much easier
compatibility with other GNU sources (without requiring
as much porting effort on the one side nor as much library
maintenance by you, personally, on the other). Is that
all true? Are there other compelling advantages to
glibc over libc.5?
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>How about conforming all those standards, like ANSI C, POSIX,
XOPEN and UNIX98?
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>I've heard complaints that glibc takes up significantly
more disk space and run-time core (RAM). I've also heard
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>glibc is compiled with -g by default so it does take more disk space.
The harddrive is cheap. I'd like to keep those debug info in library.
In anycase, you can run strip on them. But I won't recommend it unless
you are building a very small Linux installation. As for memory, glibc
2 has more stuff than libc 5. It has to bigger libc 5. I don't call it
libc 6 if it is smaller than libc 5. But Unix has demand paging. Those
unused portions won't be loaded into memory anyway.
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>that running '<tt>strip</tt>' on it can significantly reduce its
disk footprint. Where can I find a more comprehensive
comparison of the speed, disk space and memory requirements
of the two sets of libraries?
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>We have to pay the price on speed and size for a MT-safe C library.
But there are so many new optimizations in glibc 2. I would say glibc
2 is faster than libc 5. As for disk space, it depends on if you want
to run strip or it. By default, glibc 2 provides much more debug info
than libc 5. With libc 5, when something goes wrong with the C library,
I have to use a speciial C library just to debug it. With glibc 2, I
just run <tt>gdb</tt> on the binary compiled with <tt>-g</tt>. As for
memory requirement, I believe it is the similar to libc 5.
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>I presume that someone else could (if they wanted) take
up the maintenance and continue to improve <tt>libc.5</tt> (in the
spirit of the GPL) if they really wanted to do so. Is there
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>Sure. Anyone is free to do so.
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>any argument you would present to, or question you would ask
of someone who was proposing to do this?
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>libc 5 is quite stable. Most of the fixable bugs are fixed. All the new
developments have gone to glibc 2. glibc 2 also has fixed those bugs
which are hard to fix in libc 5. I don't see why we should spend more
time on libc 5.
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>Last one:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Now that you're free of libc.5, are there any projects that you
are particularly interested in pursuing (open source or
otherwise)?
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>I have been working on <tt>egcs</tt>/<tt>gcc</tt>, <tt>binutils</tt> and
<tt>gdb</tt> for Linux. I will keep doing so. In the meantime, I am very
interetsed in projects using
C++, thread and distributed technology, something like CORBA. I have
been thinking a new paradigm for Unix. Instead of a C or C++ library,
we use something on the line of CORBA or DCOM.
</p></strong>
<strong><p>Another thing, every program is compiled with <tt>-fPIC</tt> as a shared
library, i.e.:
</p></strong>
<pre># gcc -shared -o ls.so -fPIC ls.c ......
# gcc -o ls ls.so
</pre>
<strong><p>Now, we have both <tt>ls</tt> and <tt>ls.so</tt>. Another program can do
</p></strong>
<pre>int (*ls_main) (int, char **);
void *handle;
handle = dlopen ("ls.so", ...);
ls_main = dlsym (handle, "main");
ls_main (argc, argv);
</pre>
<strong><p>We can also use it instead of expensive
</p></strong>
<strong><p>i<code>system ("ls");</code></p></strong>
<strong><p>It can go with the CORBA/COM idea. That is we define an object oriented
interface for a service, which can be a local shared library or a
different process which can be local or remote.
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>With your permission I'd like to submit your answers for
possible publication in next month's Linux Gazette (whichi
is available online and distributed under the terms of the
LDP GPL). Please feel to add any comments you like to your
response, (or to tell me to buzz off for that matter).
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>It is fine with me.
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>Regardless of your response I'd like to personally express
my gratitude for all the work you've done for Linux over
these last few years. If you're ever in the SF Bay Area,
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_startup"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Where to put 'insmod' and 'modprobe' Commands for Start-up</H3>
<p><strong>From <em>anonymous</em> on 14 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<strong><p>If it entertains you, a couple of questions:
</p></strong>
<strong><p>Where the bleep should one specify modules to be installed when a
system boots? I can't find it stated directly in any of the books,
maybe <tt>/lib/modules/default</tt> ?
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>There are three ways to do this.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The simplest is to load and unload the modules as you need
them (thus you find your first 'ifconfig' command and
insert an '<tt>insmod</tt>' or a '<tt>modprobe</tt>' command for your ethernet
card before it; you change your ppp startup script to load
the ppp module, etc).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Another way is to put all of you '<tt>modprobe</tt>' or '<tt>insmod</tt>'
commands in some file like <tt>/etc/rc.d/init.d/modules</tt> and
call that from one of your early rc scripts. You can trace
through these rc script by starting with the inittab which
generally has a set of references like:
</blockquote>
<pre># /etc/inittab
l0:0:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 0
l1:1:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 1
l2:2:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 2
l3:3:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 3
l6:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc 6
</pre>
<blockquote>... all of these call the <tt>/etc/rc.d/rc</tt> script -- with
a parameter to specify the runlevel, of course.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>So you look in that script and insert a call to your
<tt>/etc/rc.d/init.d/modules</tt> in the appropriate block <EM>or</EM>
you put a set of symlinks under each of the <tt>rcX.d/</tt>
directories that correspond to each of the runlevels where
you want these modules loaded. You'll want to prefix
any of those symlink names with the <tt>SXX</tt> --- using a low
number like <tt>S01modules</tt> --- to make sure that the "<tt>modules</tt>"
script is called very early in the boot process, before
anything that depends on them is called.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The difference between '<tt>insmod</tt>' and '<tt>modprobe</tt>' is that
'<tt>insmod</tt>' is a somewhat simpler program. You usually have
to specify a full path with it -- and you much load modules
in the correct order. '<tt>modprobe</tt>' relies an a modules
dependency tree to find and load the specified module *and
any that it requires*. To prepare the dependency tree you
must run '<tt>depmod -a</tt>' at least once after building and
installing any new kernel or modules. Some distributions
will run a '<tt>depmod -a</tt>' command as part of the normal
startup sequence.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Yet another way, ultimately the one that is most
convenient, is to run <tt>kerneld</tt> (2.0.x) or <tt>kmod</tt> (2.1.x and
eventually 2.2). These kernel module loaders will dynamically
load and unload modules and their dependents. This is
similar to the way that Solaris does it (although it doesn't
seem to be optional under Solaris).
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>The "multiple configuations" thing in linuxconf
(control-panel/system) seems to be reasonably broken; are you
writing about any of this?
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>I played with linuxconf only briefly. It seemed like
it was often trying to do "too much" and I'd've preferred
a mode where I could just use it to spit out configuration
files and instructions on where I should put them.
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>Boy does the world need your book; the docs that are there seem
pretty hopeless...
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>They can be frustrating. I try to help because I figure
I've beat my head against that wall enough for any ten
people.
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_clock"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>The BIOS Clock, Y2K, Linux and Everything</H3>
<p><strong>From Ward, David on 12 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<strong><p>How does linux keep track of "real time". Does it get its
information from the BIOS system clock, or can it keep track of time
by setting the correct time zone, and setting the time, even though
the BIOS is incorrectly reporting the "real time"?.
</p></strong>
<strong><p>Thanks,
<br>David Ward
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>Linux's initial clock settings (at boot up) are from
the BIOS. However, the kernel internally keeps its
own time thereafter.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>It turns out that there is an immense about of work that
is done on system clock synchronization over the Internet
and among Unix systems.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I'm assuming that you're concerned about some specific
systems that have a buggy BIOS --- that you know will
report invalid dates after the year 2000.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>To detect this condition you could use a script like:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>CURRENT_YEAR=$( date +%Y )
<br>FILE_YEAR=$( find /etc/README -printf "%TY" )
<p>
<br>[ $CURRENT_YEAR -eq $FILE_YEAR ] || {
<br># We've suffered a backslip: the current 4 digit
<br># year arimetically precedes the date on our
<br># marker file
<br>logger "Backslip in Time Detected ... Fixing"
<br># Recover here....
<br># After recovery and during shutdown, when
<br># the clock is in a known good state, we can
<br># touch the marker file to unsure that it's
<br># date is periodically updated.
<br>}
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... note that I'm using the <tt>$()</tt> (Korn/bash) construct
rather than the equivalent "backtick" operators. This is
to avoid ambiguity; the effect is the same.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>One way to ensure that you have the correct date set on
your system is to use the '<tt>ntpdate</tt>' command around boot
time. This sets your clock based on that of another
system. Oddly enough, though this command is included on
many Linux systems, there often seems to be no man page
installed for it. However I've read the man pages at
(<A HREF="http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~ntp"
>http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~ntp</A>) --- and they don't
make things any easier.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>With all due respect to Mr. Mills (one of the key figures
in the NTP system) these pages (man and web) look like they
were written for a federal funding grant. A simple HOWTO
would be nice. (Maybe I'm just stupid but these pages seem
to talk about everything <EM>other than</EM> how does a typical
home or SOHO sysadmin configure their systems to have the
correct time).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>In any event here's the command I use to initially set
my date:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code
>/usr/sbin/ntpdate -s ntp.ucsd.edu ns.scruz.net ntp1.cs.wisc.edu
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... this calls the ntpdate command and lists three time
servers (stratum-2 in this case). In the complicated world
of NTP the "stratum" of a clock is a measure of how "far" it
is from the NIST atomic clocks which are used as the international
standards. In essense it is a measure of the time server's
"authority" (as in 'how authoritative is that answer'). It
isn't actually a measure of how "accurate" that clock is, just
how many hops are between it and the top of the hierarchy.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Thus my system (betelgeuse) becomes a "stratum-3" NTP server
after I refer to these "stratum-2" servers. It is the system
that I use to set the time for the rest of the house. After
the time is initially set I periodically re-run this command
to reset it. It reports to me the adjustment that it makes
(typically under one second).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>This is <EM>NOT</EM> recommended practice.
(Mixing <tt>ntpdate</tt> and <tt>xntpd</tt>
on a system). However, in my case, I don't want to configure
my <tt>xntpd</tt> to refer to those same servers since it would mean
that my ISDN router would fire up an unnecessary connection to
the Internet every twenty minutes round the clock. Since I
have no easy way to prevent this (the ISDN router I'm using is
a separate box) I choose do use my method.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>If you have a full time connection to the Internet then the
best solution is to use the <tt>xntpd</tt> (extended Network Time
Protocol Daemon) to keep your system clocks in sync with a set
of time servers. I'd set up one or two systems on your
'perimeter' network (the one that's exposed to the Internet
--- assuming you have a firewall). Then I'd have the rest
of your systems use that (or those) as their time reference.
</blockquote>
<blockquote><tt>xntpd</tt> also includes support for a couple of dozen GPS and
radio clock devices. These range from a couple hundred
to a few thousand dollars (and typically connect to your
host via a serial line).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>In all cases <tt>ntpdate</tt> and <tt>xntpd</tt> use
sophisticated protocols to measure latency and network communications delays and
to account for deviations between the reference servers.
You're pretty well guaranteed sub-second accuracy when you use them.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>In some versions and configurations, the NTP suite supports
cryptographic integrity preservation methods, to prevent
spurious and hostiles changes to your network time references.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The web pages I referred to above does have a wealth of
details about the protocols and the suite. If you can manage
to decode it into a set of simple instructions for us
"tape apes" I'd love to see it written up as a HOW-TO.
Perhaps the subscribers to the
<a href="news://comp.protocols.time.ntp">comp.protocols.time.ntp</a>
newsgroup might be more helpful.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>(My e-mail exchange with Mr. Mills on this issue was not
terribly helpful).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There is one existing mini-HOWTO that could be expanded
to suit the bill:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<dl><dt>Clock Mini-HOWTO:
<dd><A HREF="http://www.ssc.com/linux/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Clock.html"
>http://www.ssc.com/linux/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Clock.html</A>
(written by Roy Bean).
</dl>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>... it only contains a few words about <tt>xntpd</tt>.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Also, someone once told me about a GPS reciever that was
very inexpensive. It had no display, only a DB-9 serial
connector. If anyone out there knows of a reliable source
for these, I'd like to know about it, and I'll be happy to
publish the URL. I wouldn't mind paying $100 for a good
time source --- but two or three hundred is just too much
for my applications.
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_ping"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Conditional Execution Based on Host Availability</H3>
<p><strong>From the L.U.S.T Mailing List on 07 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<pre>#!/path/to/perl
$ping = `ping -c 1 10.10.10.10`;
exec ("program") if $ping =~ /100\% packet loss/;
</pre>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>What's wrong with a simple:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code
>ping -c 1 $target &amp;&amp; $do_something $target || $complain
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... where you fill <tt>$do_something</tt> and <tt>$complain</tt> with
commands that you actually want to run on success or failure
of the '<tt>ping</tt>'.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>That's what shell "conditional execution operators"
(<tt>&amp;&amp;</tt> and <tt>||</tt>) are <EM>for</EM> after all.
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0">or something similar with a shell script...
or, a quick socket program (probably a <EM>little</EM> easier on the system)
<br>john
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0">I don't know why any other socket operations would be
"easier on the system" than a single '<tt>ping</tt>' (ICMP echo request).
</blockquote>
<em><font color="navy"></blockquote>
<blockquote>&gt; Hi, </blockquote>
<blockquote>&gt; I'm looking for a program that can ping a host, and based on whether or not
<br>&gt; the host is unreachable execute a program. Anyone know of something like
<br>&gt; this, (or how to write one...)?
</blockquote>
<blockquote>&gt; Thanks for any help.
<br>&gt; -Corey
</blockquote>
</blockquote></font></em>
<!-- end body -->
<P> <hr width="40%" align="center"> <P>
<!-- ............................. -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Failover and High Availability for Web Servers</H3>
<p><strong>From L.U.S.T List on 12 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<strong><p>Re a command like: </p></strong>
<p><strong><code>ping -c 1 $host &amp;&amp; do_if_up || do_if_unreachable_or_down
</code></strong><p>
<em><font color="navy">
<strong><p>&gt; The orginal poster asked a very simple question with
<br>&gt; a very simple answer. He (or she) did not go into any
<br>&gt; details about his (or her) requirements.
</p></strong>
</font></em>
<p><strong>Jim,
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Thanks for your spirited post. It made my morning... <IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" height="24" width="20" align="middle"> It's a
sure bet that if you ask a bunch of technical guys a simple
question, you're going to get about 10 different, complicated, and
lengthy answers.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>But, we do live in the real world, and the simplest answer is often
the best. Although I liked John Lampe's perl script because of its
flexibility, I think I'll be using the shell conditionals that you
proposed.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>In case you're curious, here's what I actually want to do... I have
a web server over here, and it's pretty important that it remains
up. PC's are cheap, so why buy one when you can have two for twice
the price? <IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" height="24" width="20" align="middle"> I use IP aliasing for my important machine names,
"www" "mail" etc. I'd like the backup machine to ping the primary
machine. Should the primary machine stop responding, I'd like the
backup machine to run another script and pick up the important
aliases. As soon as the primary machine goes back up, the secondary
machine will drop the aliases and go back to its "waiting" state...
</strong></p>
<p><strong>The only part of this little mess I didn't know how to do was
execute a script based on the result of a ping... So that was all
that I asked. <IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" height="24" width="20" align="middle"> Maybe next time I'll just lay out the whole thing
so nobody starts guessing.
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Anyhow, thanks to everyone who offered advice. I'm now able to
complete this project.
</strong></p>
<strong><p>-Corey
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>This set of requirements is pretty common --- common enough
to have a name: "failover"
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I'd suggest that you assign each of these two systems
<EM>two</EM> IP addresses (one on each can be from RFC1918 ---
something like <tt>192.168.1.*</tt>). We'll call that the "control
address" and the one that the web server is on the "service
address." Now, when you detect a failure on the service address
you take it over (address assumption). You can then
get messages from the control address to let your failover
host know that the other system is back up and running
--- which is when you relinquish control of that address.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Naturally you can expect some discontinuities in sessions that
were running at failover point. Luckily normal HTTP is
pretty robust and stateless --- so it should be O.K. for that.
If you are running complex systems of CGI scripts which maintain
state via local temp files, you might have some problems with
this simple failover approach.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Look for the "High Availability HOWTO" for some other ideas
on this.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>In addition I recommend that you look at the <tt>panic=</tt> kernel
parameter and that you consider running your web servers
out of your inittab (so that 'init' will automatically
respawn them as necessary). You can also consider configuring
the built-in watchdog support (re-compile your kernel) and
even installing a hardware watchdog timer card.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>A WDT (watchdog timer) is basically a "deadman's switch" for
your computer. Once initialized it must be updated periodically
(by the kernel or some daemon) or it will trigger the reset
line on your system bus.
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_accounts"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>SysAdmin: User Administration: Disabling Accounts</H3>
<p><strong>From Glenn Jonsson on 05 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<strong><p>Answerguy,
</p></strong>
<strong><p>I'm doing a course on unix administration, unfortunatly i don't
recall being taught to disable a user, I was hoping you would be
able to tell me how to do this?
</p></strong>
<strong><p>Thanks
<br>Glenn
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>I suppose you could disable a user by taking a sledgehammer
or other LART to his or her kneecaps (least gruesome among
many means that come to mind). However, I presume the intended
question at hand was:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>"How does a Unix/Linux sysadmin disable a user's
<EM>account</EM>?"
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Now, I should preface this answer with a bit of a flame
(more of a spark, really): This is not the "do-your-homework"
line. When you get an assigment as part of your coursework
you've either been presented with the information needed to
answer the question --- or you're expected to know where to
find that information (how to do the research).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>So, before I answer this question let me answer the meta-question:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>"How does a sysadmin find out how to perform routine
user and group management operations on his systems?"
</blockquote>
<blockquote>One way is to look for commands that relate the operation,
to find out what might be '<tt>apropos</tt>' --- so we issue the
'<tt>apropos</tt>' command (or '<tt>man -k</tt>' --- keyword search command).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Since this relates to a user's account let's try:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>man -k account
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>On my system that gives me two commands:
</blockquote>
<pre>userdel (8) - Delete a user account and related files
usermod (8) - Modify a user account
</pre>
<blockquote>These and many others will show up when we issue:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code>man -k users
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... and '<tt>man -k login</tt>' will give us just about the right
number of other alternatives.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>However, '<tt>usermod</tt>' sounds promising. Looking at the man
page for usermod and searching on the word "disable" leads be to
the following paragraph:
</blockquote>
<pre>-f inactive_days
The number of days after a password expires until
the account is permanently disabled. A value of 0
disables the account as soon as the password has
expired, and a value of -1 disables the feature.
The default value is -1.
</pre>
<blockquote>... so that's one way to do it. If we near the end of the
man pages we'll often find a "SEE ALSO" section which will
point us to related man pages. So we look at <tt>passwd(1)</tt>
(the section/chapter 1 command '<tt>passwd</tt>') and search on disable
and find:
</blockquote>
<pre>Account maintenance
User accounts may be locked and unlocked with the -l and
-u flags. The -l option disables an account by changing
the password to a value which matches no possible
encrypted value. The -u option re-enables an account by
changing the password back to its previous value.
</pre>
<blockquote>... so that's method number two.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>This note about "changing the password to a value which
matches no...." sounds in intriquing. Technically it is
using the wrong terminology since passwords in the <tt>/etc/passwd</tt>
file are technically not "encrypted" --- they are "hashed"
using a cryptographically strong algorithm (DES by default, MD5
or others on some systems). The distinction is lost on most
writers and it is a bit longer to explain --- but the way that
DES hashing of a password under Unix works is that the password
and a "salt" (a random 12 bit value) are used as a "key" to
"encrypt" a string of ASCII NUL's using the DES (data encryption
standard --- a 20 year old U.S. mandated encryption system derived
from IBM's "Lucifer" research). The result value is expressed as
a subset of the printable characters with the "salt" prepended to it.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>(The "salt" exists simply to make "dictionary attacks" more
expensive --- computationally and in terms of storage. It
means that the "crack-er" has to have about 4000 different
hashes for every word in his or her 'crack' dictionary).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>One of the properties of DES that made it attractive for
commercial deployment is that that it is highly resistant
to "known plaintext attacks." That means that it was
computationally infeasible to recover the key even if one
had arbitrary samples of the plain text (our string of NUL
characters in this case) and the crypt text (the hashed form of
the password from the <tt>/etc/passwd</tt> file).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There are two reasons why this, technically, is not being
used for "encryption." First, is a matter of semantics; if
I know the plain text (the string of NUL's) then I'm not
"encrypting" anything becuase I'm not "hiding information."
I am "using cryptographic protocols and algorithms" for
other purposes (such as authentication, digital signatures,
etc). The other reason is more technical and pedantic. Conceivably
there might be multiple keys (passwords) that encrypt a string
of NUL's into the same hash. This is a defining property of
hashes (checksums, CRC's, etc). You can verify that there is
a given "message" has a given likelihood of being valid
(you can measure its probability of integrity) --- but you can
not definitively say that a given specific message was <EM>the</EM>
same one that generated a given hash. (Given other constraints
on the use of DES for Unix passwords it's possible to try all
1 to 8 character combinations to detect collisions --- but that
is a different matter).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>In any event, given an alleged password the '<tt>login</tt>' program
(or the <tt>xdm</tt>, <tt>xlockmore</tt>, POP/IMAP daemon, or PAM module, etc)
will attempt to encrypt a string of NUL's with it (and the
"salt") and compare the resulting hash to the one stored in the
<tt>/etc/passwd</tt> or the <tt>/etc/shadow</tt> file. (Generally this is done
via the '<tt>crypt(3)</tt>' library call). There are minor differences
in the details (particularly on '<tt>shadow</tt>' vs. non-shadowed systems)
but that's the gist of it. If the hashes match than the user
is presumed to have entered the correct password.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>If we follow another cross-reference from the <tt>passwd(1)</tt>
man page we might find a list of characters that cannot be
generated by the <tt>crypt(3) function</tt>. Actually we'll find a
list of characters that <EM>can</EM> result from the operation and
a bit of thought about that (taking the complement) will
show us some characters that will never work.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Now, the Linux man pages don't just come out and say this
but logically we can see that we could use the following
procedure to "manually" disable an account:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<ul><li>Edit the <tt>/etc/passwd</tt> ('<tt>vipw</tt>' command)
(or the <tt>/etc/shadow</tt>, as appropriate)
<li>Find the user.
<cwliblockquote>Insert an '*' into the the password field
(i.e.prepend the password has with an asterisk)
</ul></blockquote>
<blockquote>... and it makes sense that <EM>no</EM> password will <em>ever</em>
result in a matching hash. Thus the user will be locked out
of direct logins. To re-enable the account *with the same
password it used to have* just remove the asterisk. That's
why we don't overwrite the passwd --- then we'd have to
go through extra work to securely re-enable the password and
get the user's new password set. (Most organizations are
quite sloppy about this procedure --- sending initial passwords
over e-mail, setting them to well-known and easily guessed
values, etc. I recommend much better protocols).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Now, I have a confession to make: I didn't figure this all
out on my own. I didn't read all of these man pages. I
learned about the "prepend with an asterisk" trick from other
sysadmins. It was so long ago, I really don't remember where
I saw it first. It might have been netnews. It might have been
over someone's shoulder. Who knows.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The point here is that you should find some of those sysadmins
to "hang out" with. To be an effective sysadmin you need to
become part of a sysadmin community. You and your classmates
should probably form such a community and work together ---
there's too much in this field for anyone to "know it all"
(as a perusal of my back issues will sure prove with regards
to me). The most organized and widespread community of
sysadmins would be SAGE (the "System Adminsitrator's Guild"
--- the 'e' is silent). Look at
<A HREF="http://www.usenix.org/sage">http://www.usenix.org/sage</A>
for details.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Of course none of this is to suggest that you should neglect
your textbooks. There are two standard textbooks on systems
administration today:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<dl><dt>Unix System Administration Handbook, 2nd Edition
<dd>by Evi Nemeth, Trent R. Hein, Scott Seebass and
Garth Snyder
<br>(Prentice Hall, 1995, ISBN 0-13-151051-7)
<br>Known as the "cranberry book."
<dt>Essential System Administration, 2nd Edition
<dd>by Aeleen Frisch
<br>(O'Reilly &amp; Associates, 1995, ISBN 1-56592-127-5)
<br>... the "armadillo book"
</dl>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>... I'm working on one that I hope will go well beyond these
--- although it will appear as a &quot;Linux&quot; title.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Of the two Frisch's work tends to give a more "step-by-step"
HOWTO approach to these things --- so I'd look in there
(indeed I tried to review it so I could remind myself of
what she says --- but my copy must be out on loan somewhere).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Glancing in the cranberry book's index I find no entry
under "accounts" and "users" refers me to "logins" where
I find "disabling" on pp. 95 &amp; 95:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Occasionally, a user's login must be temporarily
disabled. Before networking invaded the UNIX world
we would just put a star in front of the encrypted
password, making it impossible for the user to log in.
However the user could still log in across the network.
These days we replace the user's shell with a program
that prints a message explaining why the login as been
disabled and provides instructions for rectifying the
situation.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There is no further explanation of this at that point ---
and they don't cover a number of other issues related to
the situation.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>They are, of course, referring to the fact that this
user might have a <tt>.rhosts</tt> file that permits them access
to their account without a password. Their approach is
<EM>part</EM> of a solution --- but it is incomplete.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>In the <em>Linux System Administration Handbook</em>
by Mark F. Komarinski and Cary Collett they go into a bit more detail
(p. 24) but show a bit less experience:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote>If you want to disable a user account (that is,
prevent the user from logging in again), replace the
password in the <tt>/etc/passwd</tt> file with an * or some
other character. Since the * isn't a valid encrypted
password, there is no password that will allow you to
log into that account (2).
</blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... no notion of re-enabling the account with its old
password here. We've replaced it.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Komarinski and Collett also mention that the account can
receive mail --- but doesn't mention that there may be
other forms of access that are possible by this "disabled"
user. They miss the same things that Nemeth et al
gloss over --- and a bit more.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>A few of the problems with just knocking out the password
--- and changing the shell:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You might have various other services, like <tt>ssh</tt>,
that don't require a password.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Their <tt>.forward</tt> file might route their mail through
a script or customer filtering program (like <tt>procmail</tt>).
That script could do anything that they could do
under their UID --- including opening up some sort of
connection to some system to which they still have
access and allowing them to have interactive access
to a shell. (I don't know of a tool that does this
--- but I know it's possible and I could probably
cook one up in a few hours using '<tt>netcat</tt>' and/or
'<tt>expect</tt>' --- there's probably a set of "warez" that
does this for you.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>They might have started a daemon. This might wake
up periodically and change their password and shell
back to some setting (we didn't prevent their UID
from running the <tt>chsh</tt> and <tt>passwd</tt> commands, perhaps
via an '<tt>expect</tt>' or a <tt>Perl/comm.pl</tt> script).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>They might leave in '<tt>cron</tt>' or '<tt>at</tt>' jobs
to periodically renable their access or as a logic bomb.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>If their directory was on a writable NFS volume and they
can get at any of the hosts that are trusted by that
NFS server ---- they can put in new <tt>.forward</tt> and
other "magic" files to do these sorts of things.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There might be other mechanisms that I don't even know
about. In fact there almost certainly are.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Many of these won't apply to many hosts. However they should
all be considered.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>One potential method would be to remove their line from the
<tt>/etc/passwd file completely</tt>. Perhaps you'd save it in a
special file so you could restore it later. I don't
like that approach since it leaves their files as 'orphans'
(an <tt>ls -l</tt> command will show numeric ID's for the ownership
and they will be found by a '<tt>find -nouser</tt>' command).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>So, the minimum I recommend to disable an account is:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><ul>
<li><EM>star</EM> out the password.
<cwliblockquote>Change the shell to a <EM>binary</EM> such as
<tt>/usr/sbin/nologin</tt>
--- DO NOT USE A SHELL SCRIPT FOR THIS! I'd also
recommend not linking it against any standard libraries
--- it should use a few direct <tt>write()</tt>'s and
one <tt>exit()</tt> system calls and that's it!
(Various magic environment
variables are used by most any shell and by the
standard I/O libraries --- these can sometimes be
overflowed or subverted).
<li>Change the user's home directory to /home/.graveyard
<li>Remove any 'cron' or 'at' jobs for that user (or
review them thoroughly, if there's some reason to
retain them).
<li>Kill all processes owned by that user. (Manually
go through a ps listing or use a command like:
<blockquote><code>ps -u | while read user pid rest; do
<br>kill $pid; done
</code></blockquote>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Using PAM you can do other things, in addition to this.
For example you can use the <tt>listfile.so</tt> (module) to check
a magic file in <tt>/etc/</tt> (one that you create for yourself)
with the "sense=deny" parameters.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Another thing I personally recommend (at least optionally)
is to scour your filesystems for files owned by this user
--- move them all into a "graveyard" <tt>.tar</tt> file.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>You can use a command like:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote><code
>{ cd / &amp;&amp; find . -user $GOING \
<br>| tee /root/tmp/scourge.$$ \
<br>| tar cTzf - /home/.graveyard/$GOING.tar.gz } \
<br>&amp;&amp; cat /root/tmp/scourge.$$ | xargs rm -f \
<br>cat /root/tmp/scourge.$$ | xargs rmdir 2&gt; /dev/null
</code></blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>... this is intentionally simplified (I usually do this by
hand since I have reason to go through a disabled users files
to re-assign them to other users. That's appropriate for
former or suspended employees while it wouldn't be in most
educational or ISP environments).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The point of this process is to create a "graveyard" file
that contains <EM>every</EM> file that this user owned. I remove them
(dangerous if they used degenerate filenames --- this part
I'm glossing over since I usually manually look over the list to
catch them and I suggest running a 'skulker' to warn you about
'weird' filenames anyway).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>In most cases I don't recommend re-using user names (for
several months at least) or UID's (until you've "wrapped around"
on the UID's). This is a complex issue, but it really amounts
to avoiding the confusion when you restore from backups, or
encounter other files (perhaps members from .tar files)
etc. This is another case where the standard practice for
ISP's and educational institutions is necessary quite different
from business and government sites (typically the turn over
in ISP's and at colleges, etc, is far to quick to worry about
UID re-use after about one fiscal quarter).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Note: there may be other things you'll have to do in sites
that use NIS/NIS+ (make sure you update the account entry in
the master yp maps), and in Kerberos realms (remove their
credentials on the KDC). I don't know all the details of
these.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Hopefully I've made some important points here:
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Read the man pages. (I have never left it at
RTFM --- I prefer to tell you which M to F'ing
R).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Look beyond the first answer. If you'd stopped
at the <tt>usermod -f 0</tt>, you'd be stumped at the
first box you came to that didn't have the shadow
suite installed, or that had a different
implementation. Likewise with the <tt>passwd -l</tt> (which
I think is not supported in the PAM suite that came
with <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">Red Hat</A> 5.1).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Knowing about "star-ring out" the password is pretty
portable --- it works with DES, MD5, and "Big-DES",
at least. HOWEVER, you have to check on each new
version of UNIX that you encounter! Try it on a test
account and make sure you method works. Tomorrow
someone may implement a Unix passwd scheme that uses
SHA-1 (the NIST secure hashing algorithm) in some
way --- possibly with a bug --- that ignores the
"*'s." A minute's test on each new system is probably
worth a professional sysadmin's time.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Look beyond the initial question. It sounds like
you were told to just stop the user from "logging in"
--- which might lead to an incomplete solution (prevent
<EM>password authenticated</EM> logins). If the requirement
is <EM>disable the account</EM> then perhaps you need to do
more than merely prevent password authentication.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>This last point is crucial. Just knowing how Unix and Linux
work is not enough. Knowing that many sites have the r*
(<tt>rsh</tt>, <tt>rlogin</tt>, et al) utilities enabled, and knowing that
a <tt>.forward</tt> file can be used to run arbitrary shell scripts
with arbitrary side effects; these go beyond just knowing
how Unix works. More importantly you have to think about
the implications of these things, and know people who've
experienced some of them.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Reading the threads on <a href="news://comp.unix.admin"
>comp.unix.admin</a> for a few months will
help quite a bit with that. Netnews for all the bad rap
that it takes and all of the spam it endures, is still the
largest set of open, ongoing technical discussions in the
world. The regulars in comp.unix.admin are particularly helpful
<EM>UNLESS YOU EXPECT THEM TO DO YOUR HOMEWORK</EM>.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Finally: it's more important that you know *how to find
answers* than how to perform a specific operation. It is even
more important that you learn how to ask the right questions.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>This goes beyond the nitpick (disabling the user vs. his or her
account) --- and asking "disable access to <EM>which services</EM>"
(which requires some understanding of all of the services and
forms of access that are available on the system at hand.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Anyway, good luck on your studies.
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_lilo"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Articles on LILO Saves Life?</H3><p><strong>From Erik Liles on 07 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<p><strong>Thank you! I just install Linux on my PC and LILO was corrupted.
You are a life saver! Thanks again!
</strong></p>
<p><strong>Erik Liles</strong></p>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)" width="50" height="28"
border="0" lign="bottom">You're welcome. I presume that this is in
response to one of the many back issues where I've described various
scenarios involving LILO.
</blockquote>
<blockquote><em>[Some of the more recent Answer Guy notes about LILO:
<ul>
<li>30: <a href="http://www.ssc.com/lg/issue30/tag_lilostop.html"
>Installed on a Secondary SCSI HD: Lilo Stops at LI</a>
<LI>29: <a href="http://www.ssc.com/lg/issue29/tag_lilo.html"
>Removing Lilo from a multi-boot machine</a>
<LI>20: <a href="http://www.ssc.com/lg/issue20/lg_answer20.html#lilo"
>LILO</a> and
<a href="http://www.ssc.com/lg/issue20/lg_answer20.html#lilo2"
>More on LILO</a>
<LI>19: <a href="http://www.ssc.com/lg/issue19/lg_answer19.html#lilo"
>Weird LILO Problems</a>
</ul>
He's not the only one who's written something useful about LILO, though.
If you want more, check out the Search Linux Gazette feature at the bottom
of the <a href="http://www.linuxgazette.com/">main index</a>. -- Heather]
</em></blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_NDS"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Novell NDS Support for Linux</H3>
<p><strong>From ac in the</strong>
<a href="news://comp.unix.questions">comp.unix.questions</a>
<strong>newsgroup on 23 Jul 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<STRONG><P>Mr Dennis,
<BR>Does the new version of red hat linux support
<a href="http://www.novell.com/">Novell</a>'s NDS.
</p></strong>
<STRONG><P>-AC-
</p></strong>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)" width="50" height="28" border="0" lign="bottom"
>Support what aspects or services of NDS?
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>Do you mean the user account management and authentication?
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>I've heard of a PAM module that allows one to authenticate
(user) against an NDS domain (using a Novell or compatible
server). I don't know where that is, but I'm sure there are
archives of the PAM (pluggable authentication modules) mailing
list. I think <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">Red Hat</A> was hosting
the PAM list and providing the archive and search space for it for awhile,
so I'd start there.
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>Are you referring to the ability to ncpmount Netware 4.x
filesystems?
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>I have no idea.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Generally I'd suggest
<A HREF="http://www.caldera.com/">Caldera</A> OpenLinux (Standard?) for any
interoperability with Netware. They have the exclusive
commercial implementation of the Netware NDS and bindery
client code (which is apparently licensed such that they can't
make it freely available).
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<P> <hr width="40%" align="center"> <P>
<!-- ............................. -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>NDS (Netware Directory Services) for Linux: Clients and Servers</H3>
<p><strong>From Dave Kauffman on 07 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<strong><p>Do you know if the NDS client is now free?
</p></strong>
<strong><p><A HREF="http://www.caldera.com/">Caldera</A> just released their
Netware for Linux product and the 3 user license is free.
</p></strong>
<strong><p>Included in this package is their Netware client.
<br>-Dave
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>That's an interesting question.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>As far as I know their Netware client software (nwclient)
(which supported bindery and NDS servers) was proprietary and
under exclusive license with Caldera's distribution. From,
what I gather, you could use the package with another Linux
installation -- but I suspect that you were legally required
to own a copy of Caldera OpenLinux (Standard?) for every
copy of '<tt>nwclient</tt>' you deployed.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>(I'm a bit unclear on this since the only occasions when
I've deployed Caldera were in situations where it was a
gateway between a set of Netware domains and a set of
Unix systems --- basically a set of cron jobs existed to
<tt>rdist</tt> files from Netware servers out to Unix ftp and
web hosts (in one case) and all of the Linux/Unix users had
shell accounts to access Netware servers (in another case).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>It would have been handy if I could have deployed nwclient
through the workgroup in the second case --- but a number of
them were able to use ncpfs (the free, OpenSource Netware client)
for their needs.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>So, with this release of Netware for Linux we get a ability
to download a copy of nwclient for free. The question becomes
--- what rights does this entail.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I really don't know, but it is an interesting question ---
one that I didn't think to ask when I was talking to Ransom
Love (the General Manager for OpenLinux) last night.
(He was in town to speak at the Silicon Valley Association
of Software Entrepreneurs (<A HREF="http://www.svase.org"
>http://www.svase.org</A>) along
with a number of other OpenSource and Linux notables.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>So, I'll defer it to Caldera's support address.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>At the same time I'd suggest taking a careful look at the
copyright notices and licensing that are included in the
package, as you downloaded it. That should state any
intended limitations on the use and redistribution of the
package or its components. It may be that the included
copy of '<tt>nwclient</tt>' is only legally valid for use with that
server --- that, technically, you are only allowed to deploy
upto three copies of '<tt>nwclient</tt>' and that all three of those
are to be used only with that particular server.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Their licenses and copyright notices are really the
final authority in the matter.
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_95slow"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<p>This refers to an issue raised in August (Issue 31) about a second drive
with linux <a href="../issue31/tag_95slow.html">slowing down a Windows boot</a>
sequence.</p>
<P> <hr width="40%" align="center"> <P>
<!-- ............................. -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>More 'Win '95 Hesitates After Box Has Run Linux?'</H3>
<p><strong>From Zdenek Kabelac on 07 Aug 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<strong><p>Hi
</p></strong>
<strong><p>As I read your answer book for this question in LG Issue 31
"Win '95 Hesitates After Box Has Run Linux?"
</p></strong>
<strong><p>I have to say I had (and still have) similar problem - I have one
HARD HD (6.5MB hda) and 1 mobile (1.5MB hdb) HD and 16xWearnesCDROM
(hdd)
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>It is odd that your Wearnes/ATAPI CDROM is accessed as
/dev/hdd --- if it was the "master" or "standalone" on
the second IDE channel I'd expect to see it as /dev/hdc
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Perhaps it would work better if you reconfiged the CDROM
(changed to to "master" or "standalone" mode).
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>When my computer goes up and I run WIN95 from the begining I can
access CDROM normaly, but when I run Linux before windows and don't
push RESET button W95 can't locate CDROM and it also takes some time
for W95 to figure this out (about 10-15sec) but linux can access
CDROM always. I have tryied all combination of reboot=cold,bios
... as kernel boot parameters, but it was no good. (I'm quite
experienced linux user, but this is probably some HW magic)
</p></strong>
<strong><p>But I can easily live with this problem as I run W95 rarelly and
pressing the reset button is not that big problem.
</p></strong>
<strong><p>I suppose the problem will be with the combination: board &amp; W95 &amp;
CDROM - something in HW setup - for a few days I had connected
32xSamsung CDROM to the same computer and there were NO such
problems - the only problem was toooo big noice from my computer and
I hate this - so I rather bought the 16x - anyway I don't have
UltraDMA board so the reading speed on my computer is the same
(~2.4MB/s)
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>It is an interesting anomaly. As you say there is an
easy workaround. I'd recommend that.
</blockquote>
<strong><p><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>Small advice which might be interested to other users
(those who likes silent):
</p></strong>
<strong><p>If they don't want to hear such a big noice from their computers, they
should switch power suply from 12V to 5V to the computer funs. (its cheap and about
an 1/2 hour of work) - don't know how this works in 44C
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" height="24" width="20" align="middle">
but in my country with temperatures around
~30C everythings run quite well and when HD spin down my computer is
completely silent.
</p></strong>
<strong><p>Zdenek Kabelac
</p></strong>
<blockquote><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
>While I don't like the excess noise I haven't have much
incentive to play with the fans and power supplies in my
machines.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I've seen some people who swear that they've just disconnected
their power supply fan and left it that way for years. However,
I'm too much of a wimp to do that --- I just don't want to
have to replace those parts if this does cause them to fail.
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_nonlinux"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Another Non-Linux Question!</H3>
<p><strong>From weasel_90 on 02 Aug 1998</strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<strong><p>Hi,
</p></strong>
<p><strong>I have a 1.2GB Hard Drive. It has a few Bad Clusters, which
are mostly at the end of the drive. Everytime I use <TT>Scandisk</TT> it
freezes on 99%. All my programs run fine, but sometimes they freeze
and I have to reboot the computer. I assume it is accessing data
from the bad clusters and it freezes sometimes. I thought <TT>scandisk</TT>
was suppose to mark bad clusters and tell the computer not to use
them. Is there any way that is really safe where I can either
seperate or put all those bad clusters away so that the computer
doesn't use them and store data on them? I would appreciate your
help. This one has stumped me. Thank You!
</strong></p>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)" width="50" height="28" border="0" lign="bottom"
>So, what happens when you install Linux and run the
'<TT>badblocks</TT>' program (or make the filesystem using the
<TT>mke2fs -c</TT> option)?
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>This may seem like an unsatisfying answer --- but you
should probably be aware that
"<A HREF="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com">linux-questions-only@ssc.com</A>" is
for the "<a href="http://www.linuxgazette.com/">Linux Gazette</a>
Answer Guy." I volunteer my time to answer questions that related to
Linux. I do that to show my appreciation for all the effort that Linus
Torvalds, Alan Cox, Stephen Tweedie, Ted T'so, and hundreds of other
programmers have put into creating the operating system that
I use. </blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>I do NOT volunteer my time to answer questions that are
purely about Microsoft's operating system (or any other
proprietary software, for that matter). The companies that
produce these products can pay for their own support staff.
If they choose not to do so, or are otherwise unwilling or
unable to provide you with support that meets your needs
--- you should probably reconsider your purchasing decisions.
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>Sigh!</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>Since I suffer from a compulsion to answer questions
thoroughly here's a few suggestions:
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>Your obvious alternative would be to replace that
drive with a newer, less defective one. Normal, modern IDE
and SCSI drives have extra sectors on every track which are
"mapped" over any bad sectors on that track. Thus it is
relatively rare for bad sectors to be visible to the operating
system's drivers. You could put the new drive in as the
"master" and you could install Linux over the old drive ---
just to learn more about it.
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>Another alternative would be to use something like
the <a href="http://www.symantec.com/">Norton</a> Utilities.
Perhaps one of those is more robust than the
accessories that came with your OS.
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>If none of that works, backup your system, re-install the OS
from scratch and see if the re-FORMAT detects and properly
handles these bad sectors --- or re-partition, make the last
partition a couple of percent smaller and then re-install.
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>If you don't have a backup system which is sufficiently reliable
and of sufficient capacity to do a full system backup and
restore --- then you're hopeless.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>While we're on the subject of "hopeless" --- it may
seem awfully curmudgeonly of me, but surely <em>some</em> of these
options must have occurred to you. I really hope that you
weren't actually "stumped" by this!
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_progenv"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"
width="50" height="28" align="left" border="0"
>Integrated Programming Environments for Linux</H3>
<H4>More Nostalgia for the old Turbo C Package</H4>
<p><strong>From BiN on 29 Jul 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<STRONG><P>Do you know of a programming environment c/c++ as
Turbo C for linux?
</p></strong>
<strong><p>Tnx!</p></strong>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)" width="50" height="28"
border="0" lign="bottom">There are a number of these.
The first couple that come to mind are:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><a href="http://www.softwarebuero.de/wipeout-eng.html">Wipeout</a>
<br><a href="http://www.rpi.edu/~payned/xwpe/">xwpe</a>/wpe
</blockquote>
<blockquote>One good place to look for these is at Goob's Linux Links:
</blockquote>
<code><blockquote><blockquote
><A HREF="http://www.linuxlinks.com/Software/Programming/Development/"
>http://www.linuxlinks.com/Software/Programming/Development/</A>
</blockquote></blockquote></code>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_cluster"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"width="50" height="28"
align="left" border="0">Web server clustering project</H3>
<p><strong>From Jim Kinney
in the</strong>
<a href="news://comp.unix.questions">comp.unix.questions</a>
<strong>newsgroup on 22 Jul 1998 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<STRONG><P>
I am starting the research into the design and implementation of a 3
node cluster to provide high availability web, database, and support
services to a computer based physics lab. As envisioned, the primary
interface machine will be the web server. The database that provides
the dynamic web pages will be on a separate machine. Some other
processes that accept input from the web process and output to the
database will be on the third machine.
</P></STRONG>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)" width="50" height="28" border="0" lign="bottom"
>Have you looked at the &quot;High Availability HOWTO&quot;?
</blockquote>
<code><blockquote><blockquote
><A HREF="http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/ALPHA/linux-ha/High-Availability-HOWTO.html"
>http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/ALPHA/linux-ha/High-Availability-HOWTO.html</A>
</blockquote></blockquote></code>
<blockquote>There's also the common "round robin DNS" model ---
which is already used by many service providers. It
has its limitations --- but it's the first thing
to try if the clients can be configured to gracefully
retry transactions on failure.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>There's also the MOSIX project which was developed
under BSD/OS and is allegedly being ported to Linux.
This provides for process migration (again, more of
a performance clustering and load balancing feature set).
</blockquote>
<code><blockquote><blockquote
><A HREF="http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/mosix/">http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/mosix/</A>
</blockquote></blockquote></code>
<blockquote>However, there is another concept called "checkpointing."
You can think of this as having regular, transparent,
non-terminal "core dumps" (snapshots) taken of each
process (or process group). These are written to
disk and can be reloaded and restarted at the point where
they left off. I'm not aware of any projects to
provide checkpointing to Linux (or checkpointing subsystems).
(Obviously any application can do its own checkpointing
in a non-transparent fashion --- roughly equivalent to the
periodic automatic saves performed by '<TT>emacs</TT>' and other editors).
</blockquote>
<blockquote>I have a pointer to some miscellaneous notes on checkpointing:
</blockquote>
<code><blockquote><blockquote
><A HREF="http://warp.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/warp/systems/checkpoint/"
>http://warp.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/warp/systems/checkpoint/</A>
</blockquote></blockquote></code>
<blockquote>The implication here is that you could create a hybrid
checkpointing <EM>and</EM> process migration model that would
provide high availability. In a client/server context
this would probably only be suitable for situations where
the communications protocols were very robust --- and
it might still require some IP and/or MAC address assumption
or some specialized routing tricks.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>One such routing trick might be the IP NAT project.
IP masquerading is one form of NAT (allowing many
clients to masquerade as a single proxy system).
</blockquote>
<code><blockquote><blockquote
><A HREF="http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/"
>http://www.csn.tu-chemnitz.de/~mha/</A>
</blockquote></blockquote></code>
<blockquote>Another form of NAT is many-to-many. Let's say you
connected two disconnected sites that both chose
<tt>10.1.*.*</tt> addresses for their use --- you could put
a NAT router between them that would bidirectionally
translate the <tt>10.1.*.*</tt> to corresponding <tt>172.16.*.*</tt>
addresses. Thus the two sites would be able to
interoperate over a broader range of protocols than
would be the case for IP masqurading --- since the
TCP/UDP ports would not be re-written --- each <tt>10.1.*.*</tt>
address corresponds on a one-to-one basis with a <tt>172.16.*.*</tt>
counterpart.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>The one other form of NAT is one-to-many (or "load
balancing"). This makes one simple router look like a server.
In actuality that "server" is just dispatching the packets it
receives to any one of the backend servers it chooses
(statistically or based on metrics that they communicate
amongst themselves, privately). Cisco has a product called
"Local Director" that does exactly this. One of the experimental
versions of the Linux IP NAT code also appeared to do this
with some success. I don't know if any further work as
progressed on these lines.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Yet another approach that might make sense is to provide
for replication of the data (files) across servers and
to use protocols that transparent select among available
servers (mirrors). This sounds just like CODA.
</blockquote>
<code><blockquote><blockquote>
<A HREF="http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/top.html"
>http://www.coda.cs.cmu.edu/top.html</A>
</blockquote></blockquote></code>
<BLOCKQUOTE>A less sophisticated approach to replication is to
use the <TT>rsync</TT> package to maintain some failover servers
(mirrors) --- and require that writes all go to one
active server.
</blockquote>
<STRONG><P><IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)" width="50" height="28" border="0" lign="bottom"
>So, I am open to suggestions, comments, info, links to sites, book
titles, etc. I have proposed a one year development time for the whole
cluster, with a single machine application prototype of the user
visible/used portion by around the Jan 1999. I love my job!
</p></strong>
<P><STRONG>Jim Kinney M.S.
<BR>Educational Technology Specialist
<BR>Department of Physics
<BR>Emory University
</strong></p>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)" width="50" height="28" border="0" lign="bottom"
>Web, mail, DNS and a number of other Internet services
are naturally robust. With DNS you normally list up to
three servers per host (in the <TT>/etc/resolv.conf</TT>) and all
of these will be checked before a name lookup will fail.
With SMTP the client will try each of the hosts listed
in the results of an MX query. Round robin DNS will force
most clients to try multiple different IP addresses on
failure most of the time.
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>However, the applications that really need HA (fail over)
and clustering for performance are things like db servers.
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>Having two systems monitor and process something like
a set of db transactions in parallel (one active the
other "mimic'ing" the first but not returning results)
would be very interesting. The "mimic" would attempt
to maintain the same applications state as the server
--- and would assume the server's IP and MAC (ethernet
media access control) addresses on failure --- to then
transparently continue the transaction processing
that was going on.
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>You might prototype such a system using web and ftp
(the FTP application is a more dramatic demonstration
--- since a web server involves many short transactions
and mostly operates in a "disconnected" fashion).
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>One approach might be to have a custom ethernet
driver that can be instructed to throw all of its
output into the bit bucket. Thus the mimic is
normally silent, but following a failure on the
server it does the address assumption and rips off
the muzzle. I suspect you'd have to have another
interface between the two servers, one which is
dedicated to maintaining the same state between
the server and the mimic.
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>(For example if the server get a collision or
an error that wasn't sensed by the mimic -- or
vice versa -- the two might get horribly out
of sync when the upper layer protocols require
a resend. With special drivers the two systems
might resolve these discrepancies at the kernel/driver
layer --- so that the applications will always get
the same data on their sockets).
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>I really have no idea how much tweaking this would
take and whether or not it's even feasible.
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>However, it seems that your intent is to provide
failover that is transparent to the applications
layer. So, the work obviously has to happen below that.
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>It is unclear whether you are primarily interested
in deploying a set of servers for use by your
Physics team or whether you are interested in
doing research and development in the computer science.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>In any event your project will probably involve a
hybrid of several of these approaches:
</blockquote>
<ul>
<li>Round robin DNS
<li>Failover with IP and MAC address assumption.
(and/or load balancing NAT).
<li>Replication and or "mirroring" (more failover).
<li>Multi-initiator SCSI (where a single SCSI
bus has multiple computers active on it, such
that these computers have shared access to
the attached peripheral devices).
</ul>
<blockquote>It would be very interesting to see someone develop
process migration and checkpointing features for Linux
though there doesn't seem to be any active work going
on now.
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>I'd also love to see an
"<a href="http://google.stanford.edu/linux?query=doc:cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux-web/beowulf/beowulf.html">Beowulf</a> enabled" SQL dbserver
(where a couple of failover capable "dispatchers" could
farm out transactions to multiple clustered Linux boxes
in some sensible manner). I'm not even sure if that's
feasible --- but it sure would knock down the scaleability
walls that I hear about from those dbadmins.
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<A name="tag_ftpd"><P><hr width="75%" align="center"></P></A>
<!-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -->
<H3><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" alt="(?)"width="50" height="28"
align="left" border="0">WU-FTP guestgroup problems</H3>
<p><strong>From Marco Iannacone on the
<a href="news://comp.unix.questions">comp.unix.questions</a> newsgroup
on 9 Jun 1997 </strong></p>
<!-- begin body -->
<blockquote>It looks like I never answered this question.
(I'm going through my old archives).
</blockquote>
<strong><p>Hi James,
how you doing?
</p></strong>
<strong><p>I'm writing to you as <EM>The Answer Guy</EM> 'cause I have
some problem with setting up the guest trick with wu-ftpd.
What I mean is to have a chrooted enviroment for some special user
with their home directory and user-id and password.
</p></strong>
<strong><p>I'm using <A HREF="http://www.slackware.org/">Slackware</A>
'96 Linux with the wu-archive-ftp that comes already compiled with it.
</p></strong>
<strong><p>This is what I did:
</p></strong>
<strong>
<ul>
<LI>I compiled gnu ls statically and put it in ~ftp/user-foo/bin
directory.
<LI>I did the <TT>/etc</TT> hack:
<ul>
<li>added the guest group in<TT>/etc/group</TT>
<li>modify the<TT>/etc/passwd</TT> file for the user I want to be
chrooted giving him <TT>/home/ftp/user-foo./</TT> directory
</ul>
</UL>
</strong>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)" width="50" height="28"
border="0" lign="bottom">I think this is supposed to be</blockquote>
<code><blockquote><blockquote>/home/ftp/./user-foo
</blockquote></blockquote></code>
<blockquote>... if you want the guestgroup directive in
wu-ftpd's ftpaccess file to chroot to <TT>/home/ftp</TT> and
initially place this user in the<TT>/home/ftp/user-foo</TT>
directory.
</blockquote>
<STRONG><P><IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)" width="50" height="28" border="0" lign="bottom"
>I don't recall whether the "ftponly" (or whatever you
call your "guestgroup" group) has to be that user's
<EM>primary</EM> group (the one listed in <TT>/etc/passwd</TT>) or whether
it can be one of the supplemental groups (as listed in <TT>/etc/group</TT>)
</p></strong>
<strong><UL>
<ul>
<LI>added <TT>/etc/ftponly</TT> to <TT>/etc/shells</TT>
<LI>I modify the <TT>/etc/ftpaccess</TT> file adding
<code>...
<BR>path-filter guest /etc/pathmsg ^[-A-Za-z0-9_\.]*$ ^\. ^-
<BR>....
<BR>guestgroup guest
</code>
</ul>
<LI>I created the user home directory which has the following
attribute:
<pre>[root]:/home/ftp&gt;ls -la
total 104
dr-xr-xr-x 9 root root 512 Jun 2 14:01 .
drwxrwxr-x 6 user-foo guest 512 Jun 3 13:54 user-foo
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 512 Jun 3 09:45 bin
</pre>
</UL>
</strong>
<strong><p>Now the ftp server is running fine (both with normal and anonymous
users) and even the chrooted enviroment for guest is working fine:
the user can login, upload and download files and it is locked in
that directory... i.e. can go in all the subdirectory but can't go
up. So it is perfect!
</p></strong>
<strong><p>The only problem is that <TT>ls</TT> and <TT>dir</TT> are not
working and he can only list files using <TT>nlist</TT>.
</p></strong>
<strong><p>For example:
</p></strong>
<strong><pre>Name (localhost:root): user-foo
331 Password required for user-foo.
Password:
230 User amex logged in. Access restrictions apply.
ftp&gt; nlist
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for file list.
bin
.profile
etc
.rhosts
.forward
.sh_history
test-directory
test-file.txt
226 Transfer complete.
ftp&gt; dir
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for '/bin/ls'.
226 Transfer complete.
ftp&gt; ls
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for '/bin/ls'.
226 Transfer complete.
ftp&gt;quit
</pre></strong>
<strong><p>What am I missing? how can I allow him to do ls and dir?
Note: i'm sure that the new ls is working:
</p></strong>
<strong><pre>[root@Goliath /home/ftp/user-foo//bin]#./ls
compress cpio gzip ls sh tar
[root@Goliath /home/ftp/user-foo/bin]#
</pre></strong>
<strong><p>
and that is statically linked:
</p></strong>
<strong><pre>[root@Goliath /home/ftp/user-foo/bin]#ldd ./ls
Statically linked (ELF)
[root@Goliath /home/ftp/user-foo/bin]#
</pre></strong>
<p><strong>Thanks a lot,
Marco
</strong></p>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)" width="50" height="28" border="0" lign="bottom"
>Everything else sounds right to me.
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>Naturally I hope you've long since solved this problem.
I just hate to leave a question unanswered.
</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>Incidentally, you might look at <TT>ncftpd</TT> (a newer
FTP daemon from Mike Gleason, author of the popular <TT>ncftp</TT> client).
<TT>ncftpd</TT> allegedly offers better options for locking users into their
home directories and it contains built-in support for '<TT>ls</TT>' and
similar commands.</blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE><TT>ncftpd</TT> is shareware, rather than freeware, and
Mike wants $40 (US) for small servers (50 concurrent
sessions or less) and about $200 for larger servers.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>However you can evaluate the whole package for free.
Start by taking a look at:
</blockquote>
<code><blockquote><blockquote><A HREF="http://www.probe.net/~mgleason/ncftpd/"
>http://www.probe.net/~mgleason/ncftpd/</A>
</blockquote></blockquote></code>
<blockquote>... or at:
</blockquote>
<code><blockquote><blockquote
><A HREF="http://www.ncftp.com/">http://www.ncftp.com/</A>
</blockquote></blockquote></code>
<blockquote>... and reading about the features list.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>Naturally this hasn't been around as long as
<TT>wu-ftpd</TT>, and the sources don't seem to be openly
available. So <TT>ncftpd</TT> doesn't benefit from the
informal process of code review that we take for
granted for most Linux networking packages.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>(This informal process of auditing does not seem
to have been terribly effective, however, since we
still find new security problems in code that's been
free for decades. For this reason there are have a
couple of more organized and formal efforts ---
the <a href="http://www.openbsd.org/">OpenBSD</a> project and
the Linux Security Audit
<A HREF="http://www.att.net">http://www.att.net/~Bandit2006/</A>
to name the two with which I'm familiar).
</blockquote>
<!-- end body -->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 align="center"><a href="http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html"
>Copyright &copy;</a> 1998, James T. Dennis <BR>
Published in <I>Linux Gazette</I> Issue 32 September 1998</H5>
<P> <hr> <P>
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<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">A Convenient and Practical Approach to Backing Up Your Data</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:bu@hightek.org">Vincent Stemen</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
July 19,1998<br><br>
<p>
Every tool I have found for Linux and other UNIX environments seems to
be designed primarily to backup files to tape or any device that can
be used for streaming backups. Often this method of backing up is
infeasible, especially on small budgets. This led to the development
of bu, a tool for backing up by mirroring the files on another file
system. bu is not necessarily meant as a replacement for the other
tools (although I have set up our entire disaster recovery system
based on it for our development servers), but more commonly as a
supplement to a tape backup system. The approach I discuss below is a
way to manage your backups much more efficiently and stay better
backed up without spending so much money.
</p>
<dl>
<h4>* Some problems I have found with streaming backups</h4>
<dd>
<dl>
1. The prices and storage capacities often make it infeasible.
<dd><br>
The sizes of hard drives and the amount of data stored on an
average server or even workstation is growing faster than the
capacity of the lower end tape drives that are affordable to
the individual or small business. 5 and 8 gig hard drives are
cheap and common place now and the latest drives go up to at
least 11 gig. However, the most common tape drives are only a
few gig. Higher capacity/performance tape drives are
available but the costs are out of the range of all but the
larger companies.
<br><br>
For example:<br>
Staying properly backing up with 30GB of data (which can be
just 3 or 4 hard drives) to a midrange tape drive, can cost
$15,000 to $25,000 or more inside of just 2 to 4 years. There
is a typical cost scenario on
<a href="http://www.exabyte.com/home/press.html">
http://www.exabyte.com/home/press.html</a>.
<br><br>
This is just the cost for the drive and tapes. It does not
include the cost of time and labor to manage the backup system.
I discuss that more below. With that in mind, the comments I
make on reliability, etc, in the rest of this article are based
on my experience with lower end drives. I haven't had thousands
of extra dollars to throw around to try the higher end drives.
<br><br>
</dl>
<dl>
2. The cost of squandered sys admin time and the lost productivity
of users or developers waiting for lost files to be restored, can
get much more expensive than buying extra hard drives.
<dd><br>
To backup or restore several gig of data to/from a tape can take
up to several hours. The same goes for trying to restore a
single file that is near the end of the tape. I can't tell you
how frustrating it is to wait a couple of hours to restore a
lost file only to discover you made some minor typo in the
filename or the path to the file so it didn't find it and you
have to start all over. Also, if you are backing up many gig of
data, and you want to be fully backed up every day, you either
have to keep a close eye on it and change tapes several times
throughout the day, every day, or do that periodically and do
incremental backups onto a single tape the rest of the days.
With tapes, the incremental approach has other problems, which
leads me to number 3.
<br><br>
</dl>
<dl>
3. Incremental backups to tape can be expensive, undependable
and time consuming to restore.
<dd><br>
First, this kind of backup system can consume a lot of time
labeling, and tracking tapes to keep track of the dates and
which ones are incremental and which ones are full backups, etc.
Also, if you do incremental backups throughout a week, for
example, and then have to restore a crashed machine, you can
easily consume up to an entire day restoring from all the tapes
in sequence in order to restore all the data back the way it
was. Then you have Murphy to deal with. I'm sure everybody is
familiar with Murphy's laws. When you need it most, it will
fail. My experience with tapes has revealed a very high failure
rate. Probably 20 or 30% of the tapes I have tried to restore
on various types of tape drives have failed because of one
problem or another. This includes our current 2GB DAT drive.
Bad tape, dirty heads when it was recored, who knows. To
restore from a sequence of tapes of an incremental backup, you
are dependent on all the tapes in the sequence being good. Your
chances of a failure are very high. You can decrease your
chance of failure, of course, by verifying the tape after each
backup but then you double your backup time which is already to
long in many cases.
<br><br>
</dl>
</dl>
<dl>
<h4>* A solution (The history of the bu utility)</h4>
<dd>
With all the problems I described above, I found that, like most
other people I know, it was so inconvenient to back up that I
never stayed adequately backed up, and have payed the price a time
or two. So I set up file system space on one of our servers and
periodically backed up my file systems over nfs just using cp.
This way I would always be backed up to another machine if mine
went down and I could quickly backup just one or a few files
without having to mess with the time and cost of tapes. This
still wasn't enough. There were still times I was in a hurry and
didn't want to spend the time making sure my backup file system
was NFS mounted, verifying the pathname to it, etc, before doing
the copy. Manually dealing with symbolic links also was
cumbersome. If I specified a file to copy that was a symbolic
link, I didn't want it to follow the link and copy it to the same
location on the backup file system as the link. I wanted it to
copy the real file it points to with it's path so that the backup
file system was just like the original. I also wanted other
sophisticated features of an incremental backup system without
having to use tapes. So, I wrote bu. bu intelligently handles
symbolic links, can do incremental backups on a per directory
basis with the ability to configure what files or directories
should be included and excluded, has a verbose mode, and keeps log
files. Pretty much everything you would expect from a fairly
sophisticated tape backup tool (except a GUI interface :-) but is
a fairly small and straight forward shell script.
<br><br>
</dl>
<dl>
<h4>* Backup strategy</h4>
<dd>
Using bu to backup to another machine may or may not be a good
replacement for a tape backup system for others as it has for us,
but it is an excellent supplement. When you have done a lot of
work and have to wait hours or even days until the next scheduled
tape backup, you are at the mercy of Murphy until that time, then
you cross your fingers and hope the tape is good. To me, it is a
great convenience and a big relief to just say "bu src" to do an
incremental backup of my whole src directory and know I
immediately have an extra copy of my work if something goes wrong.
<br><br>
It is much easier and faster to restore a whole file system over
NFS than it is from a tape. This includes root (at least with
Linux). And, it is vastly faster and easier to restore just one
file or directory just using the cp command.
<br><br>
So far as cost: You can get extra 6GB hard drives now for less
than $200 dollars. In fact I can buy a whole new computer with
extra hard drives to use as a backup server for $1000 or less now.
Much less than the cost of buying just a mid to high end tape
drive, not counting the cost of all the tapes and extra time spent
managing them. In fact, one of the beauties of Linux is, even
your old 386 or 486 boat anchors make nice file servers for such
things as backups.
<br><br> For those individuals and small businesses who use zip
drives and jaz drives for backing up so they can have multiple
copies or take them off site, bu is also perfect, since
incremental backups can be done to any file system. I often use
it to back up to floppies to take my most critical data and recent
work off site.
<br><br>
Here is an interesting strategy we have come up with using bu that
is the least expensive way to stay backed up we could come up with
for our environment. It is the backup strategy we are setting up
for our development machines which house several GB of data. Use
bu to backup daily and right after doing work, to file systems
that are no more than 650 mb. Then, once or twice a month, cut
worm CD's from those file systems to take off site. WORM CD's are
only about a dollar each in quantities of 100, and CD WORM writers
have gotten cheap. This way your backups are on media that
doesn't decay like tapes and floppies tend to do. Re-writable
CD's are also an option if you don't mind spending a bit more
money. If you have just too much data for that to be practical,
hard drives are cheap enough now that it is feasible to have extra
hard drives and rotate them off site. It is nice to have one of
those drive bays that allow you to un-plug the drive from the
front of the machine if you take this approach. Where bu will
really shine with large amounts of data, is when we finally can
get re-writable DVD drives with cheap media. I think, in the
future, with re-writable DVD or other similar media on the
horizon, doing backups to non-random access devices such as tape
will become obsolete and other backup tools will likely follow the
bu approach anyway.
<br><br>
</dl>
<dl>
<h4>* Getting bu</h4>
<dd>
bu is freely re-distributable under the GNU copyright.<br>
<a href="http://www.hightek.org/bu/"><i>http://www.hightek.org/bu/</i><br></a>
<a href="ftp://www.hightek.org/pub/vstemen/bu/bu.tar.gz">
<i>ftp://www.hightek.org/pub/vstemen/bu/bu.tar.gz</i><br></a>
</dl>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1998, Vincent Stemen<BR>
Published in Issue 32 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, September 1998</H5></center>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
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<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
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<TD VALIGN=BOTTOM>
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<BR><FONT SIZE=-2>&copy; 1998 by <A HREF="mailto:mjhammel@graphics-muse.org">mjh</A></FONT></CENTER>
</TD>
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BORDER=0 USEMAP="#nav-main" HEIGHT=200 WIDTH=185 ALIGN=LEFT></TD>
<TD VALIGN=TOP><B><FONT SIZE=+1>muse:</FONT></B>
<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>
<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>
</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<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.&nbsp;&nbsp; Well, there were quite a
few announcements in the past month and I'm finding that not all are being
cross posted to both comp.os.linux.announce and to freshmeat.net.&nbsp;
It takes a little more diligence on my part to catch all the announcments
but since I visit both places fairly often it really isn't that big of
a problem.&nbsp; On the other hand, is it really necessary to repeat those
announcements here?&nbsp; I thought about this for a while and finally
decided it is worth the effort since both c.o.l.a and freshmeat are sites
for general announcements and the graphics specific items can easily be
overlooked.&nbsp; By gathering them up and reprinting them here I can let
my readers worry less about missing the important stuff through the sea
of other announcements at other sites.
<P>I've finally started to catch up on my Musings too.&nbsp; This months
issue includes discussions on:
<UL>
<LI>
Managing your CGI Perl scripts using "require" in <I>Web Wonderings</I></LI>
<LI>
A closer look at the libgr package of image file format libraries</LI>
<LI>
A little fun with the Gimp plugin "QBist"</LI>
</UL>
I also considered taking a look at Blender, but I'm not certain my system
is stable enough for that right now.&nbsp; Its been acting a little strange
of late - I'm beginning to think some recent power outages may have corrupted
some libraries.&nbsp; I have plans to upgrade to Red Hat 5.2 whenever it
comes out (I expect the difficulties with dealing with libc/glibc will
all be worked out, much like the 4.2 release had worked out most of the
a.out vs. ELF issues), plus take a look at Xi Graphics Maximum CDE at some
point too.&nbsp; But I hadn't planned on doing either until the October
time frame.&nbsp; I may have to change my plans.
<P>Anyway, a review of Blender is a definite future Musing.&nbsp; The last
time I tried it the program seemed to be stable, but the interface is rather
complex.&nbsp; A general examination showed that this modeller is quite
feature rich.&nbsp; Its just that the interface is not intuitive to a 3D
newbie, perhaps not even to an experienced 3D graphic artist.&nbsp; A better
set of documentation is reported to be on the way, due out some time in
September.&nbsp; I'll wait and see what this might offer before stepping
up for a review of Blender.
<P><IMG SRC="./gx/hammel/gm-new.jpg" HSPACE=10 VSPACE=10 HEIGHT=216 WIDTH=225 ALIGN=RIGHT>You
can also keep an eye out for a new and improved Graphics Muse Web site
coming soon.&nbsp; I expect to be able to launch the new site sometime
in the middle to end of September.&nbsp; It will combine the Linux Graphics
mini-Howto with the Unix Graphics Utilities into a single searchable database,
provide recommended reading material and allow you to post reviews of software,
hardware and texts, plus it will provide more timely news related to computer
graphics for Linux systems.&nbsp; And of course all the back issues of
the Graphics Muse column from the Linux Gazette will be there too, in a
semi-searchable format with topics for each month provided next to the
links to each months issue.&nbsp; I'll probably post an announcement about
it to c.o.l.a when its ready.
<P><A NAME="mews"></A>
<BR>&nbsp;
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" >
<TR>
<TD><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/mews.gif" ALT="Graphics Mews" HEIGHT=53 WIDTH=242 ALIGN=LEFT></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
&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;
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=3 WIDTH="100%" NOSAVE >
<TR>
<TD COLSPAN="3" WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" ALT="indent" HSPACE=30 VSPACE=2 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1 ALIGN=LEFT></TD>
<TD></TD>
</TR>
<TR NOSAVE>
<TD VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="50%" NOSAVE>
<H2>
The ParPov and Pov2Rib Homepage</H2>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">ParPov</FONT></I></B> is a free (GNU), object-oriented
library written in C++ for parsing Scene Files from the Persistence of
Vision (POV-Ray) Ray-Tracer. It will read a scene written using version
1-3 syntax and creates a structure of C++-Objects, representing all details
of the original description. You can query those objects and use the information
to convert the scene to other formats or many other uses. <B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Pov2Rib</FONT></I></B>
is also a freely available progam, which allows you to convert scene files
from POV-Ray to a RenderMan Interface Bytestream (RIB). The tool is the
first application of libParPov.&nbsp;
<P><A HREF="http://www9.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/~cnvogelg/pov2rib/index.html">http://www9.informatik.
uni-erlangen.de/ ~cnvogelg/pov2rib/index.html</A>
<P>
<HR WIDTH="100%">
<H2>
GQview 0.4.0</H2>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">GQview</FONT></I></B> is an X11 image viewer
for the Linux operating system. Its key features include single click file
viewing, external editor support, thumbnail preview, thumbnail caching
and adjustable zoom. GQview is currently available in source, binary, and
rpm versions and requires the latest GTK and Imlib libraries.&nbsp;
<P><A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Haven/5235/">http://www.geocities.com/
SiliconValley/Haven/5235/</A>
<BR>&nbsp;</TD>
<TD ROWSPAN="3" WIDTH="2" BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" ALT="indent" HSPACE=1 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>
<TD WIDTH="49%">
<H2>
TKMatman</H2>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">TKMatman</FONT></I></B> is a tool that lets
you interactively set and adjust parameters to RenderMan shaders and preview
images with the given parameters. It can handle surface, displacement,
interior, exterior, atmosphere, light and imager shaders and their combinations.
The idea for the program comes from Sam Samai, who wrote the very useful
IRIX version. With the availability of the Blue Moon Rendering Tools for
different platforms the author of TkMatman thought that a lot more people
will use the RenderMan interface and need ways to select their shaders.
That's why he published his private LINUX version of MatMan. The program
was initially only meant for his own use, but it is in a pretty stable
state now.&nbsp; All feedback is appreciated and new versions will be made
available at the following site:&nbsp;
<P><A HREF="http://www.dfki.uni-sb.de/~butz/tkmatman/">http://www.dfki.uni-sb.de/
~butz/tkmatman/</A>
<BR>
<HR WIDTH="100%">
<H2>
ImPress</H2>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">ImPress</FONT></I></B> allows you to create
good quality documents using vector graphics. You can use ImPress within
a web browser with the Tcl/Tk plugin. It's a reasonable desktop publishing
and presentation tool in a small package designed for Linux and for integration
with Ghostscript.&nbsp;
<P>The GPL'd .03alpha release fixes many bugs and adds better web and presentation
functionality.&nbsp;
<P><A HREF="http://www.tcltk.com/tclets/impress/index.html">http://www.tcltk.com/tclets/impress/index.html</A>
<BR>&nbsp;</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HSPACE=1 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>
<TD BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HSPACE=1 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD>
<H2>
LibVRML97/Lookat 0.7</H2>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">LibVRML97</FONT></I></B> is a toolkit for incorporating
VRML into applications, and <B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Lookat</FONT></I></B>
is a simple VRML browser based on that library. This code is currently
being developed and is one of the more complete open source VRML browsers
available. All VRML97 nodes except Text/FontStyle and the drag sensors
(CylinderSensor, Plane, Sphere) are supported. The Script node supports
much of the Javascript API with more on the way.&nbsp;
<P>Version 0.7 adds Javascript scripting, MovieTextures, TouchSensors,
Anchors, Inlines, and command line arguments -url and -geometry for running
under XSwallow as a Netscape plugin.&nbsp;
<P><A HREF="http://www.vermontel.net/~cmorley/vrml.html">http://www.vermontel.net/
~cmorley/vrml.html</A></TD>
<TD>
<H2>
Slidedraw</H2>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Slidedraw</FONT></I></B> is a drawing program
in Tcl/tk for presentation slides with postscript output and full-featured.
You can see snapshots, get slide collections or the very latest package
available from it's new web page.&nbsp;
<P>URL: <A HREF="http://web.usc.es/~phdavidl/slidedraw/">http://web.usc.es/~phdavidl/slidedraw/</A>
<P>Beta testers are welcome.&nbsp; Contributors for slide collections and
documentations are also invited.&nbsp;
<BR>
<HR WIDTH="100%">
<H2>
MindsEye 0.5.27</H2>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">MindsEye</FONT></I></B> is a project to develop
a free (in terms of the GPL) available 3D modelling program for Linux.
It features modular design, Multi-scene/user concept, Kernel-system view
instead of Modeler-system view, Object oriented modelling design and network
support in a MindsEye-kernel way.&nbsp;
<P><A HREF="http://mindseye.luna.net/">http://mindseye.luna.net/</A></TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD COLSPAN="3" WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#000000"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HSPACE=1 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<H2>
Visual DHTML</H2>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">Visual DHTML</FONT></I></B> is a free Web-based
authoring tool that lets you create interactive web content using various
DHTML technologies. Visual DHTML brings JavaScript1.2 and DHTML towards
its full and future potential at the application level by bringing more
traditionally low-level programming techniques and features to Web-based
scripting languages.&nbsp; Features include such things as an object oriented,
component-based ("Bean" style) architecture with "Drag and Drop" functionality.&nbsp;
Also included are several pre-built DHTML widgets, such as the dynamic
Drawer and Ticker that you can customize along with component properties
that you can modify. Also, if you like the functionality of this tool,
you can copy and paste the source code by viewing the Page Source from
within Navigator.
<P><A HREF="http://developer.netscape.com/docs/examples/dynhtml/visual/index.html">http://developer.netscape.com/docs/examples/dynhtml/visual/index.html</A>
<BR>
<HR WIDTH="100%">
<H2>
Javascript Debugger 1.1</H2>
Netscape <B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">JavaScript Debugger</FONT></I></B>
is a powerful tool for debugging JavaScript on multiple platforms. Written
in Java, the debugger runs in Netscape Communicator.&nbsp; Netscape JavaScript
Debugger 1.1 supports client-side JavaScript debugging capabilities, including
such features as a watch mechanism, conditional breakpoints, enhanced error
reporter, signed script support, and the ability to step through code.
Using the debugger while developing your JavaScript application, you can
debug scripts as they run, determine what's going on inside your script
at any moment, and find problems quickly. A Linux version is not mentioned
explicitly, but the Unix version works perfectly.
<P><A HREF="http://developer.netscape.com/software/jsdebug.html">http://developer.netscape.com/software/jsdebug.html</A>
<BR>
<HR WIDTH="100%">
<H2>
S.u.S.E. announces XFCom_P9x00 and new version of XFCom_3DLabs</H2>
XFCom_P9x00-1.0
<P>It took a while, but finally a free server for Weitek P9100 based cards
is available. XFCom_P9100 is not yet accelerated and has not received as
much testing as we would have liked it to, but it should work fine on most
P9100 boards.
<P>XFCom_3DLabs-4.12
<P>With this version of XFCom_3DLabs several problems with earlier versions
should be solved. New features and fixes include:
<UL>
<LI>
Permedia 2v support</LI>
<LI>
Permedia 2 AGP hangs fixed</LI>
<LI>
24bpp mode improved</LI>
<LI>
many drawing bugs removed</LI>
<LI>
DPMS support added</LI>
</UL>
You can find both servers (and the rest of the XFCom-family) at our web
site <A HREF="http://www.suse.de/XSuSE/XSuSE_E.html">http://www.suse.de/XSuSE/XSuSE_E.html</A>
<P>As always, these servers are freely available, the sources to these
servers are already part of the XFree86 development source. Binaries for
other OSs will be made available, time permitting.
<H2>
XSuse Matrox Millenium G200 support</H2>
Suse appears to have also added support for the Matrox Millennium G200
AGP to their Matrox X server.&nbsp; No official announcement has been seen,
but word of this development first appeared to 'Muse's eyes via <A HREF="http://Slashdot.org">Slashdot.org</A>.
<P>The driver is available from <A HREF="ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse_update/XSuSE/xmatrox/">ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/suse_update/XSuSE/xmatrox/.</A>
<BR>
<HR WIDTH="100%">
<H2>
<A HREF="http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/00371/index.htm">The
Visual Computer Journal</A></H2>
Special Issue on Real-time Virtual Worlds
<BR>Submissions due: October 31, 1998
<P>Real-time Virtual Worlds are now possible on most workstations and PCs.&nbsp;
The challenge is to design user-friendly systems for creating new applications
and tools. This special issue of the Visual Computer is dedicated to new
algorithms, methods, and systems in Real-time Virtual Worlds.&nbsp; Original,
unpublished research, practice, and experience papers are sought that address
issues in all aspects of Real-time Virtual Worlds. Topics include, but
are not limited to:
<UL>
<LI>
Modeling for Real-time Virtual Worlds</LI>
<LI>
Real-time animation</LI>
<LI>
Real-time rendering algorithms</LI>
<LI>
Real-time motion control and motion capture</LI>
<LI>
Real-time talking heads</LI>
<LI>
Intelligent interfaces for real-time computer animation</LI>
<LI>
Avatars and Real-time Autonomous Virtual Humans</LI>
<LI>
3D interaction with Virtual Worlds</LI>
<LI>
Networked Virtual Environments</LI>
<LI>
Artificial Life in Virtual Worlds</LI>
<LI>
Virtual Worlds on the Web</LI>
<LI>
Real-time audio and speech for Virtual Worlds</LI>
<LI>
Real-time simulation</LI>
<LI>
Games and entertainment applications</LI>
</UL>
Schedule:
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=2 WIDTH="65%" NOSAVE >
<TR NOSAVE>
<TD NOSAVE>Paper Submission:&nbsp;</TD>
<TD>October 31, 1998</TD>
</TR>
<TR NOSAVE>
<TD NOSAVE>Acceptance/Rejection Notification:&nbsp;</TD>
<TD>January&nbsp; 15, 1999</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD>Final Manuscript Submissions:&nbsp;</TD>
<TD>February 15, 1999</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD>Publication:&nbsp;</TD>
<TD>Summer 1999</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
The editors for this issue of the Visual Computer are:
<P>Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann
<BR>Associate Editor-in-Chief
<BR>MIRALab, University of Geneva
<BR>Email: <A HREF="mailto:thalmann@cui.unige.ch">thalmann@cui.unige.ch</A>
<P>Daniel Thalmann
<BR>Computer Graphics Lab
<BR>EPFL
<BR>Email: <A HREF="mailto:thalmann@lig.di.epfl.ch">thalmann@lig.di.epfl.ch</A>
<BR>&nbsp;
<P>Submission guidelines: Authors may submit their paper either as an HTML
URL or by ftp. For ftp, the electronic version of your manuscript should
be submitted in PDF (preferred) or Postscript (compressed with gzip) using
anonymous ftp to <A HREF="ftp://ligsg2.epfl.ch">ligsg2.epfl.ch</A>. The
paper should be submitted as one file.&nbsp; The file name should be first
author's name.&nbsp; Please follow the procedure:
<UL><TT>ftp ligsg2.epfl.ch</TT>
<BR><TT>username: anonymous</TT>
<BR><TT>password: &lt;your email address></TT>
<BR><TT>cd tvc</TT>
<BR><TT>put &lt;filename></TT></UL>
In any case, you should send an email to <A HREF="mailto:tvcanim@lig.di.epfl.ch">tvcanim@lig.di.epfl.ch</A>
with the title of the paper, the authors with affiliation, the contact
author, and either the URL or the filename used for ftp. For author guidelines,
please consult:&nbsp; <A HREF="http://www.computer.org/multimedia/edguide.htm">http://www.computer.org/multimedia/edguide.htm</A>
<BR>
<HR WIDTH="100%">
<H2>
KIllustrator 0.4</H2>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">KIllustrator</FONT></I></B> is a freely available
vector-based drawing application for the K Desktop Environment similiar
to Corel Draw(tm) or Adobe Illustrator(tm).
<P>Features include:
<UL>
<LI>
different object types: polylines, circles, ellipses, squares, rectangles,
(symmetric) polygons, freehand lines, bezier curves and multiline text</LI>
<LI>
tools for moving, scaling, rotating as well as grouping, ungrouping, aligning,
distributing and reordering objects</LI>
<LI>
various line styles and arrows</LI>
<LI>
a multilevel undo/redo facility</LI>
<LI>
a property editor</LI>
<LI>
multi-window support with cut/copy/paste between the windows</LI>
<LI>
zooming and snapping to grid</LI>
<LI>
multilevel undo/redo</LI>
<LI>
(network-transparent) drop support with the KDE filemanager</LI>
<LI>
printing to PostScript (file or printer)</LI>
<LI>
preliminary WMF support</LI>
<LI>
export to raster image formats (GIF, PNG, XPM) and Encapsulated Postscript</LI>
<LI>
import of Xfig files</LI>
</UL>
The installation requires a working KDE 1.0, QT 1.40 as well as gcc-2.8.1
or egc-1.03. KIllustrator is tested on Linux, FreeBSD and Solaris.
<P>For further information (screenshots, download) please consult my homepage
at:
<UL><A HREF="http://wwwiti.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/~sattler/killustrator.html">http://wwwiti.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/~sattler/killustrator.html</A></UL>
Please, for question, comments, bug reports or contributions e-mail me
at <A HREF="mailto:kus@iti.cs.uni-magdeburg.de">kus@iti.cs.uni-magdeburg.de</A>.
<P>Kai-Uwe Sattler
<BR>
<HR WIDTH="100%">
<H2>
RenderPark</H2>
<B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">RenderPark</FONT></I></B> is a photo-realistic
rendering tool being developed at the Computer Graphics Research Group
of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, in Belgium. The goal is to offer
a solid implementation of many existing photo-realistic rendering algorithms
in order to compare them on a fair basis, evaluate benefits and shortcomings,
find solutions for the latter and to develop new algorithms that are more
robust and efficient than the algorithms that are available today. RenderPark
will offer you several state-of-the-art rendering algorithms that are not
yet present in other rendering packages, not even in expensive ones. Allthough
RenderPark is in the first place a test-bed for rendering algorithms, it
is evolving towards a full-featured physics-based global illumination rendering
system.
<P><A HREF="http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/cwis/research/graphics/RENDERPARK/">http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/cwis/research/graphics/RENDERPARK/</A>
<BR>&nbsp;
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<!--
-- Did You Know Section
-->
<H4>
Did You Know?</H4>
<UL>...there are two True Type<SUP>&reg;</SUP> font servers based on the
<A HREF="http://www.freetype.org/">FreeType</A>
package:&nbsp; <A HREF="http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/jec/programs/xfsft/">xfsft</A>
and <A HREF="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/X11/fonts">xfstt</A>.&nbsp;&nbsp;
The latter is reported to have some problems with fonts over 90 pixels
high and appears to go into "memory starved mode" after extensive use of
the Text tool in the Gimp.&nbsp; Aside from these issues, however, both
are reported to be fairly stable servers.
<P>...The computer magazine PC Chip will be publishing an interview with
<B><FONT COLOR="#006600">Ton
Roosendaal,</FONT></B> owner of <B>Not a Number
</B>which is the company
bringing us the 3D modeller <A HREF="http://www.neogeo.nl/blender.html">Blender</A>.&nbsp;
This interview has been placed <A HREF="http://lji.purger.com/cool/pcchip/ton.html">online</A>
so readers can get an early glimpse at it.</UL>
<!--
-- Q and A Section
-->
<H4>
<B><FONT SIZE=+0>Q and A</FONT></B></H4>
<I>Q: Is there a way to include carriage returns with the text tool, or
to align phrases created with individual uses of the text tool?</I>
<P>A:&nbsp; I didn't know the answer to this one, but found the following
answer on the Gimp-User mailing list (unfortunately I didn't get the responders
name - my apologies to that person):
<BLOCKQUOTE>Try the "Script-fu --> Utils --> ASCII 2 Image Layer" command.
This allows you to import a text file as one or more layers of text.</BLOCKQUOTE>
Note that this Script is available either from the <B>Image Window</B>
menu's Script-Fu option or from the <B>Xtns</B> menu's Script-Fu option.
<P><I>Q: Mark Lenigan (<A HREF="mailto:mlenigan@umdsun2.umd.umich.edu">mlenigan@umdsun2.umd.umich.edu</A>)
wrote to the Gimp User mailing list:</I>
<BLOCKQUOTE><I>I'm trying to create a transparent GIF with a drop shadow
for the title graphic on my Web page.&nbsp; I'm pretty much following the
cookbook from <A HREF="http://www.gimp.org/tutorials">www.gimp.org/tutorials</A>,
except that I'm not including the background color layer and using "Merge
Visible Layers" to keep the final image transparent.&nbsp; Everything goes
fine until I need to convert the image to an indexed image just before
I save it in the .gif format file.&nbsp; At that point the shadow in my
image immediately disappears and the text seems to lose its anti-aliasing.
Can anyone shed some light on to this?</I></BLOCKQUOTE>
A: <A HREF="mailto:Simon.Budig@unix-ag.org">Simon Budig</A> responded:
<BLOCKQUOTE>Yes. Gimp can only handle 1-bit transparency in indexed color
mode. So when you convert an image to indexed the different levels of transparency
will get lost. There is the great "Filters/Colors/Semiflatten" plugin.
It merges all partially transparent regions against the current Backgroundcolor.
Select a BG-Color (i.e. matching to the BG-Color of your Web-page) and
watch the effect of the plugin. Then you can convert your Image to Indexed
and save it as GIF. (GIF can also handle just 1-bit transparency).</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<H2>
Reader Mail</H2>
<P><BR><A HREF="mailto:zen@getsystems.com">zen@getsystems.com</A> wrote:
<UL>I'd like to hear more technical details of the internals of Gimp, and
comparing Gimp to photoshop - eg. Photoshop 5 is now out with multiple
undo - undo history list, even.</UL>
<B><FONT COLOR="#993300">'Muse</FONT></B>:&nbsp; Unfortunately, I can't
do this sort of comparison.&nbsp; I don't run anything but Unix boxes (specifically
Linux) at home and don't have access to any Photoshop packages.&nbsp; I
might be able to do the comparison based on Photoshop texts, but thats
the best I could do.
<UL>Also modelling tools. Gimp is 2D. Where is 3D? Pov-Ray can render,
but is there anything to compare with say Lightwave, or 3D-StudioMax?</UL>
<B><FONT COLOR="#993300">'Muse</FONT></B>:&nbsp; There are no real competitors
to Lightwave or 3D-StudioMax for Linux.&nbsp; There are quite a few modellers
available, each with different levels of sophistication.&nbsp; But none
that compares to the sophistication of either of the two tools you mention.&nbsp;
You can find a list of modellers in my <A HREF="http://www.graphics-muse.org/muse/jun97/gm.html">June
1997 Graphics Muse </A>column.&nbsp; Not all of the links in that issue
are still valid.&nbsp; Some of the modellers seem to have disappeared and
some have changed URLs.&nbsp; You can try a search using the package name
through <A HREF="http://freshmeat.net">freshmeat.net</A> if the links in
the June 1997 issue don't work for you.
<P>One modeller that was not listed in that issue but that looks quite
interesting is Blender, which is a commercial package that has only recently
been released for free (no source code) to Linux users.&nbsp; I hope to
do a review of it soon.&nbsp; However, the last version I tried was not
documented sufficiently to allow me to understand how to do even the most
basic tasks.&nbsp; The interface is complex and feature rich, but not intuitive
to 3D newbies.
<UL>Distributed rendering.</UL>
'<B><FONT COLOR="#993300">Muse</FONT></B>:&nbsp; I'll see what I can do
about this.&nbsp; One tool to consider is <A HREF="http://www-mddsp.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/adilger/povray/pvmpov.html">PVMPOV</A>,
a patch to POV-Ray to allow for distributed rendering across multiple systems
on a network.&nbsp; <A HREF="http://netlib2.cs.utk.edu/pvm3/">PVM</A> is
the Parallel Virtual Machine, a package for distributed processing used
on many Unix systems.&nbsp; You should probably note that this is a patch
to POV-Ray, so you'll need to understand how to apply patches to source
code in order to use it.
<UL>Just some things I'd be delighted to read about.
<BR>Cheers,
<BR>Zen.</UL>
<B><FONT COLOR="#993300">'Muse</FONT></B>:&nbsp; Again, thanks for the
ideas.&nbsp; I'll see what I can do.
<BR>&nbsp;
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<H2>
Managing your Perl scripts:&nbsp; using 'require'</H2>
<A HREF="http://www.graphics-muse.org/muse/aug98/gm.html">Last month</A>
we talked about accessing an mSQL database from CGI scripts using Perl
with two modules:&nbsp; CGI.pm and Msql.&nbsp; In the example described
there we built a couple of HTML tables and embedded some text stored in
a table in an mSQL database.&nbsp; It turns out that generating HTML using
CGI.pm is quite simple and using Perl with the Msql module makes combining
your HTML output with information from a database really rather painless.
<P>But that example was extremely simple.&nbsp; Real world examples often
have dynamic pages that are built from multiple databases.&nbsp; And each
page often links to other dynamically built pages that provide some, or
even all, of the same information from those databases.&nbsp; In other
words, parts of each page contain the same HTML formatting and data.&nbsp;
How can you avoid having to duplicate that HTML in each page?
<P>With older static page development methods there really weren't any
methods for including common regions into multiple pages unless you used
frames.&nbsp; The frames allowed you to create a region on the browser
display that would be a single page of HTML that could be displayed along
with various other pages.&nbsp; In this way you need only maintain a single
copy of that one common page.&nbsp; From a Web developers point of view
this was an ideal situation - it meant the probability of error in trying
to update identical HTML in multiple pages was eliminated.&nbsp; It also
meant less work.&nbsp; But to readers of those pages it could mean frustration,
since not all browsers at the time supported frames.&nbsp; Even now, frame
handling is not consistant between the two main browsers, Netscape Navigator
and Microsoft's Internet Explorer.&nbsp; Although frames can be used to
produce some terrific Web pages, they are not the ideal solution for supporting
different browsers, especially older browsers.
<P>Fortunately, this problem can be overcome with our new friend Perl.&nbsp;
The method for inclusion in multiple pages of common formats and data is
simple.&nbsp; However, the management of these common regions takes a little
thought.&nbsp; Lets first look at how to include Perl code from different
files into your main Perl script.
<P>In perl, a subroutine or other piece of common code would be written
in a <B><FONT COLOR="#006600">module</FONT></B>, a separate file of perl
code.&nbsp; Modules can be included at any point within a perl script.&nbsp;
By default, Perl looks at a special variable called <TT><FONT SIZE=-1>@INC</FONT></TT>
to determine where to find these modules.&nbsp; Also by default, the current
working directly, ".", is listed in the <TT><FONT SIZE=-1>@INC </FONT></TT>variable
as the last directory to search for modules.&nbsp; <B>Note</B>:&nbsp; <TT><FONT SIZE=-1>@INC</FONT></TT>
is a list variable, that is, it is an array of strings with each string
being the name of a directory to search for modules.
<P>To include a module into your main Perl cgi script you would use the
require function.&nbsp;&nbsp; The format is simple:
<UL><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>require 'modulename.pl';</FONT></TT></UL>
This function tells the Perl interpreter to include the named module <I>but
only if it has not been included previously</I>.&nbsp; In this way you
can include the same module multiple times without worry that doing so
will cause serious problems.
<P>When the module is included the code within it is run at the point of
inclusion.&nbsp; You can, if you so desire, write the module to have code
that runs right then and there using variables with a global scope (ie
they are visible to the original program as well as the included module).&nbsp;
However, it would probably make more sense to write the module as a subroutine
call instead.&nbsp; You can still use globally scoped variables but by
making the module a subroutine call you can guarantee the code is not run
until you specifically request it.&nbsp; You can also run it more than
one time if you want.
<P>So how do you make a subroutine?&nbsp; Just wrap the code inside the
following construct:
<UL><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>sub subname {</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>}</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>1</FONT></TT></UL>
The 1 at the end is important - modules must include this or else the require
function will fail.&nbsp; Now invoke the subroutine with the following
command:
<UL><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&amp;subname();</FONT></TT></UL>
The ampersand is important - you should always prefix calls to your subroutines
with the ampersand.&nbsp; Although things may work properly if you don't,
proper Perl syntax suggests the results can be unexpected if you don't
use the ampersand.
<P>If you want to pass parameters into the subroutine you can do so as
a list.&nbsp; For example:
<UL><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&amp;subname("one item");</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&amp;subname("one item", "two items");</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&amp;subname(@listitems);</FONT></TT></UL>
To access the command line arguments in the subroutine you can do something
like the following:
<UL><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>sub subname</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>{</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; # @_ contains all parameters to the
subroutine.</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; # We first assign these to the @params
variable because the variable</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; # name "@params" is a bit more intuitive
than "@_".</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; @params = @_;</FONT></TT>
<P><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; foreach $arg (@params)</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; {</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; # now run through
each parameter one at a time</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; # and process it.</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; if ( "$arg" eq ""
)</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; {</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
...</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; }</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; }</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>}</FONT></TT></UL>
<CENTER>&lt;<A HREF="more-musings.html#1">continued</A>></CENTER>
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<H2>
libgr - A collection of image libraries</H2>
Many users of graphics tools discussed in this column will find that those
tools are dependent on any number of file format specific libraries.&nbsp;
For example, the Gimp needs libraries for JPEG, PNG, PNM, MPEG and XPM
in order to support these file formats.&nbsp; The Gimp doesn't understand
how to read these files directly - it is dependent on the image format
libraries for assistance in reading and writing files in these formats.&nbsp;
Since the Gimp (and other tools) don't include these libraries in their
source distributions, users are often required to retrieve and install
these libraries manually.&nbsp;
<P>Normally users would download format specific libraries and build them
separately.&nbsp; Each of the formats mentioned earlier, plus a few others,
are available somewhere on the Net in source format.&nbsp; Most are available
somewhere on the Sunsite archives.&nbsp; Unfortunately, not all of these
format specific libraries are easily built on Linux.&nbsp;&nbsp; The Gimp
User Mailing list is often flooded with questions about how to get the
JPEG library to build shared libraries.&nbsp; By default this library doesn't
build a Linux ELF shared library.&nbsp; In fact, even with the proper configuration
it still only builds a.out shared libraries.&nbsp; A better solution is
needed.&nbsp;
<P>Enter <B><I><FONT COLOR="#CC6600">libgr</FONT></I></B>.&nbsp; This is
a collection of image format libraries that have been packaged together
and organized to easily build and install on Linux systems.&nbsp; The package
builds both static and ELF shared libraries automatically.&nbsp; The distribution
is maintained by Neal Becker (<A HREF="mailto:neal@ctd.comsat.com">neal@ctd.comsat.com</A>)
and is based on the work done originally by Rob Hooft (<A HREF="mailto:hooft@EMBL-Heidelberg.DE">hooft@EMBL-Heidelberg.DE</A>).&nbsp;
The latest version, 2.0.13, of libgr can be retrieved from <A HREF="ftp://ftp.ctd.comsat.com:/pub/linux/ELF">ftp.ctd.comsat.com:/pub/linux/ELF</A>.&nbsp;
<P>Libgr contains the following set of graphics libraries:
<UL>
<LI>
fbm</LI>
<LI>
jpeg</LI>
<LI>
pbm</LI>
<LI>
pgm</LI>
<LI>
pnm</LI>
<LI>
ppm</LI>
<LI>
png</LI>
<LI>
rle</LI>
<LI>
tiff</LI>
</UL>
It also contains the <I>zlib</I> compression library which is used specifically
by the TIFF and PNG graphics libraries.&nbsp; It may also, although I'm
not sure of this, be used by the FBM library to (at a minimum) support
the GIF format.&nbsp;
<P>FBM is the Fuzzy Pixmap Manipulation library.&nbsp; This package is
related to, but not part of, the PBMPlus package by Jef Poskazner.&nbsp;
The library can read and write a number of formats, including:&nbsp;
<UL>
<LI>
Sun rasterfiles&nbsp;</LI>
<LI>
GIF files&nbsp;</LI>
<LI>
Amiga IFF&nbsp;</LI>
<LI>
PCX&nbsp;</LI>
<LI>
PBM&nbsp;</LI>
<LI>
Face files (CMU format for 1bit files)</LI>
<LI>
FBM&nbsp;</LI>
<LI>
Utah RLE files (from the Utah Raster Toolkit)</LI>
</UL>
It also supports quite a number of image operations, all of which are described
in the <I>Features</I> text file in the fbm directory.&nbsp; Like PBM,
FBM is a format designed specifically by the FBM library author for handling
images internal to the library (although you can write that format to a
file too).&nbsp;
<P>JPEG is actually a standard that defines a suite of encodings for full-color
and continuous-tone raster images<SUP><A HREF="#footnote-1">1</A></SUP>.&nbsp;
The software for this library, which is essentially the same as the software
that comes in the standalone JPEG library package found on the <A HREF="ftp://ftp.gimp.org/pub/gimp/libs">Gimp's
ftp site</A>, comes from the Independent JPEG Group and, as far as I can
tell, supports the complete JPEG definition.&nbsp; JPEG is a common format
for the Web since it is one of the formats listed by the WC3 in the early
HTML specifications for Web images.&nbsp;
<P>The PBM, PGM, PNM, and PPM formats are all part of the NetPBM/PBMPlus
packages.&nbsp; These formats are often used as intermediary formats for
processing by the NetPBM/PBMPlus tools.&nbsp; Although these libraries
provide the capability of saving image files in these formats, I have not
seen this as a common practice.&nbsp; This is probably due to the fact
that the files tend to be rather large and the image formats are not generally
supported by non-Unix platforms.&nbsp; These formats are widely supported,
however, by Unix-based graphics software.&nbsp;
<P>The PNG library supports the relatively new Portable Network Graphics
format.&nbsp; This format was designed, at least in part, to replace the
GIF format which had both licensing as well as a few format limitations.&nbsp;
PNG is now an officially supported format by the WC3 although support for
these images is not commonly mentioned by either Netscape or MSIE.&nbsp;
I'm not sure if either supports PNG yet.&nbsp;
<P>RLE is Run Length Encoding, a format from the University of Utah designed
for device independent multilevel raster images.&nbsp; Although the format
is still in use today, you won't see it referenced often in relation to
tools like the Gimp (though the Gimp does support the format) or 3D rendering
engines like BMRT or POV-Ray.&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<CENTER>
<P><A HREF="#next-column">-Top of next column-</A></CENTER>
</TD>
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<TD WIDTH="49%" NOSAVE><LH><A NAME="next-column"></A><B>More Musings...</B></LH>
<UL>
<LI>
&nbsp;<A HREF="more-musings.html#2">Fun with QBist</A></LI>
</UL>
</TD>
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<TD VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE>Finally, the TIFF library is a set of routines for
supporting the reading and writing of TIFF files.&nbsp; TIFF files are
popular because of their wide support on multiple platforms (Mac, MS, and
Unix) and because of their high quality images.&nbsp; However, they tend
to be extremely large images since they do not use any form of compression
on the image data.&nbsp;
<H3>
Building the package</H3>
Once you have retrieved the libgr package you can unpack it with the following
command:&nbsp;
<UL><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>% tar xvzf libgr-2.0.13.tar.gz</FONT></TT></UL>
This will create a directory called libgr-2.0.13.&nbsp; Under this directory
you will find the format specific directories, Makefiles and a number of
text files.&nbsp; In the INSTALL text file you will find instructions on
how to build the software.&nbsp; For Linux this is a simple process of
typing&nbsp;
<UL><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>% make most</FONT></TT></UL>
which will build all the software but not install it.&nbsp; I recommend
doing this once to test that the build actually completes successfully
for all directories before trying to install anything.&nbsp; If the build
fails and you attempt to install you may confuse yourself as to what has
and hasn't been installed correctly.&nbsp; After the build completes, check
each directory and see if the lib*.so files - the shared libraries - have
been created.&nbsp; If all appears to have gone well, type&nbsp;
<UL><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>% make install</FONT></TT></UL>
This will install the libraries for you.&nbsp; There are other options
available for building and installing.&nbsp; Read the <I>INSTALL</I> text
file in the top level directory for details on the other options.&nbsp;
<P>At this point you're ready to use these libraries with other tools,
such as the Gimp.&nbsp;
<H3>
Why use libgr vs the individual libraries?&nbsp;</H3>
Libgr provides support for a large range of image file formats, but it
doesn't support every common and/or popular format.&nbsp; So why use it
instead of the individual format libraries?&nbsp; One reason is convenience.&nbsp;
Instead of having to retrieve a whole slew of packages you can grab one.&nbsp;
Second, as mentioned earlier, not all of the individual packages are setup
to build proper ELF shared libraries for Linux.&nbsp; Libgr is specifically
designed for building these type of libraries.&nbsp;
<P>What libraries does libgr not include that you might want?&nbsp; One
fairly common X Windows format is XPM.&nbsp; Libgr does not support this
format so you'll need to retrieve the XPM library separately.&nbsp; Fortunately,
most Linux distributions already come with this library prebuilt and available
to you during installation of the operating system.&nbsp;
<P>Libgr also does not support any animation file formats.&nbsp; If you
have need to read or write files in MPEG, FLI or FLC formats, for example,
you will need to locate and install those libraries individually.&nbsp;
<H3>
Caveats</H3>
One minor caveat to using the libgr package exists with the zlib distribution.&nbsp;
According to the documentation for libgr (in the <I>NEWS</I> text file)
the zlib release numbers went <B>down</B> at some point.&nbsp; This means
its possible for you to have an older version of zlib installed even though
its version number is higher than the one in libgr.&nbsp; How to resolve
this is a tricky question but in my opinion it makes sense to install the
zlib that comes with libgr because its known to work with the rest of the
image libraries in the libgr package.&nbsp; If you agree with this logic
then you will probably want to remove the old version of zlib first, before
doing the <TT><FONT SIZE=-1>make install </FONT></TT>for libgr.&nbsp;
<P>
<H3>Summary</H3>
<P>Libgr is not a drop-in replacement for all your image file format needs,
but it does offer added convenience to the Linux users by providing a Linux-specific,
easy to use build and install environment.&nbsp; Since the libraries included
in the libgr package do not change all that often it makes good system
management sense to deal with the one distribution than to try to deal
with updates to multiple image format packages.&nbsp; And if you're dealing
with building the Gimp, which requires many image libraries, libgr is a
much simpler solution to get you up and running in the least amount of
time and with the least amount of frustration.&nbsp;
<BR>&nbsp;
<CENTER>
<P><IMG SRC="./gx/hammel/qbist-small.jpg" BORDER=2 HEIGHT=200 WIDTH=200></CENTER>
<BR>&nbsp;
<HR WIDTH="100%">
<BR><A NAME="footnote-1"></A><FONT SIZE=-2>1.&nbsp; C. Wayne Brown and
Barry J. Shepherd, Graphics File Formats:&nbsp; Reference and Guide, Prentice
Hall/Manning, 1995.&nbsp;</FONT></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#000000" NOSAVE >
<TR NOSAVE>
<TD NOSAVE><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" HEIGHT=2 WIDTH=2></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<A NAME="resources"></A>
<TABLE BORDER=0 COLS=1 WIDTH="100%" >
<TR>
<TD><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/resources.gif" ALT="Resources" HEIGHT=57 WIDTH=246 ALIGN=LEFT></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
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&nbsp;
<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>
<BR><A HREF="http://www.dv.com">Digital Video</A>
<BR><A HREF="http://www.cgw.com">Computer Graphics World</A>
<P>General Web Sites&nbsp;
<BR><A HREF="http://www.graphics-muse.org/linux/lgh.html">Linux Graphics
mini-Howto</A>
<BR><A HREF="http://www.graphics-muse.org/ugu/ugu.html">Unix Graphics Utilities</A>
<BR><A HREF="http://www.bright.net/~dlphilp/linux_soundapps.html">Linux
Sound/Midi Page</A>
<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>
<BR><A HREF="news://comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing">comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing</A>
<BR><A HREF="news://comp.graphics.rendering.renderman">comp.graphics.rendering.renderman</A>
<BR><A HREF="news://comp.graphics.api.opengl">comp.graphics.api.opengl</A>
<BR><A HREF="news://comp.os.linux.announce">comp.os.linux.announce</A></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:
<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><H5>Copyright &copy; 1998, Michael J. Hammel <BR>
Published in Issue 32 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, September 1998</H5></center>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<A HREF="./index.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM SRC="../gx/indexnew.gif"
ALT="[ TABLE OF CONTENTS ]"></A>
<A HREF="../index.html"><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM SRC="../gx/homenew.gif"
ALT="[ FRONT PAGE ]"></A>
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<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =============================================================
This Page Designed by Michael J. Hammel.
Permission to use all graphics and other content for private,
non-commerical use is granted provided you give me (or the
original authors/artists) credit for the work.
CD-ROM distributors and commercial ventures interested in
providing the Graphics Muse for a fee must contact me,
Michael J. Hammel (mjhammel@csn.net), for permission.
============================================================= !--><A NAME="musings"></A>
<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD>
<H2>
More...</H2>
<IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/musings.gif" ALT="Musings" HEIGHT=52 WIDTH=247 ALIGN=LEFT></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" ALT="indent" VSPACE=5 HEIGHT=1 WIDTH=1 ALIGN=LEFT>
<TABLE WIDTH="100%" >
<TR>
<TD ALIGN=RIGHT WIDTH="100%"><FONT SIZE=-2>&copy; 1998 <A HREF="mailto:mjhammel@graphics-muse.org">Michael
J. Hammel</A></FONT></TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD VALIGN=TOP BGCOLOR="#000000" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" ALT="indent" ALIGN=LEFT></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<A NAME="1"></A>
<H2>
Managing your Perl scripts:&nbsp; using 'require' - continued</H2>
Ok, so now you know how to make a subroutine and how to include it in your
Perl cgi script.&nbsp; What does this have to do with building common HTML
code for multiple pages?&nbsp; Simple:&nbsp; by assigning the HTML constructs,
plus any associated database information, to global variables you can then
simply add the variable to your main pages at the point of interest.&nbsp;
For example, lets say you want to include an advertising banner across
the top of all pages.&nbsp; You can write a small module that builds a
table for the ad, centers it on the page and assigns it to the global variable
$adbanner.&nbsp; This might look something like this:
<UL><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>#!/usr/bin/perl5</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1># Include the CGI.pm and Msql modules</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>use CGI&nbsp; qw/:standard :html3 :netscape/;</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>use Msql;</FONT></TT>
<P><TT><FONT SIZE=-1># The subroutine to create a table for our ads.</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>sub setads</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>{</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; # Open a connection to the database.</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; my $dbh1 = Msql->connect();</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; $dbh1->selectdb('mydb');</FONT></TT>
<P><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; # Get the ads from the database.&nbsp;
We assume</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; # here that there is at least 1 ad in
the</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; # "ads" table.&nbsp; We also assume
the table has</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; # the format of</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; #&nbsp; 1. imagename</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; #&nbsp; 2. URL</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; # The results from the database query
are stored</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; # in the @results variable.&nbsp; This
list variable</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; # will contain one array element for
each field</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; # in the "ads" table.</FONT></TT>
<P><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; $sth2 = $dbh1->query("SELECT * FROM ads");</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; while ( (@result = $sth->fetchrow)</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; {</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; # Add a &lt;td> entry
with the image for the ad</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; # linked to the specified
URL.&nbsp; The "a({-href"</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; # portion is where
we use the CGI.pm</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; # a() function to
establish the hyperlink.</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; push</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
(@tableelments,</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
td({-align=>'CENTER', -valign=>'CENTER'},</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
a({-href=>"$result[1]"},</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
img( { -src=>"/images/$result[0]",</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-alt=>"$results[1]",</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-border=>'0',</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-hspace=>'0', -vspace=>'0' }</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
)</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
)</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
)</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
)</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; }</FONT></TT>
<UL>&nbsp;</UL>
<TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; # Now assign a table to our global variable
and include the</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; # table elements we just created.</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; $adbanner = center(</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; table( {-border=>1,
-width=>'100%', -height=>'60'},</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
Tr( @tableelements ),</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; )</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; );</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>}</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1># Return true from included modules.</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>1</FONT></TT></UL>
Since embedding one Perl function inside another, especially with the use
of the CGI.pm functions, is such a common occurance I tend to align the
closing paranthesis so that I can keep track of which function has been
closed.&nbsp; You'll note in this example that the img() function (which
will print an HTML IMG tag) is an argument to the a() function (which assigns
a hypertext link to the image).&nbsp; This in turn is an argument to the
td() function.&nbsp; Such multilayer embedding becomes quite extensive
when you use CGI.pm table function (table(), Tr(), td()) to align elements
of your HTML pages.&nbsp; This is why you will often find yourself using
variables to which you assign Tr() and td() constructs and then simply
reference the variables within the table() construct.&nbsp; At a minimum
this makes the code easier to read.&nbsp; But even more important is that
you can create lists of td() constructs to stuff inside a Tr() construct
later by simply referencing the list variable.
<P>If we now include this module in our main script we can then print out
the advertisement table at any time we wish:
<UL><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>require 'setads.pl';</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&amp;setads();</FONT></TT>
<P><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>print header,</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; start_html(</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -author=>'webmaster@graphics-muse.org',</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -title=>'Our Little
Web Site',</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -bgcolor=>'#000000',
-text=>'#000000'</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ),</FONT></TT>
<P><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; $adbanner,</FONT></TT>
<P><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; table(</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; {-border=>0, -width=>'100%',
-height=>'97%',</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-cellpadding=>0, -cellspacing=>0},</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Tr(</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
td({-align=>'LEFT', -valign=>'TOP',</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-rowspan=>2, -width=>'110',</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-bgcolor=>'#FFCC00'},</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
$news_table),</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
td({-align=>'CENTER', -valign=>'CENTER',</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-width=>'78%',</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-bgcolor=>'#FFCC00'},</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
$nav_bar),</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
td({-align=>'CENTER', -valign=>'TOP',</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-rowspan=>2,</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-bgcolor=>'#FFCC00'},</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
$book_table)</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ),</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Tr(</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
td({-align=>'CENTER', -valign=>'TOP',</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-height=>'80%',</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
-bgcolor=>'#ffffff'}, $qd_table</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
)</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; )</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; );</FONT></TT>
<BR><TT><FONT SIZE=-1>&nbsp;&nbsp; end_html;</FONT></TT></UL>
Here we printed out the ad banner right above another table that will contain
other information for this page.&nbsp; The variables $news_table, $nav_bar,
$book_table, and $qd_table were filled in by parts of the code not shown
here.&nbsp; They could just as easily have been filled in by other external
modules, just like $adbanner was.
<P>This last bit of code actually comes from the code I'm writing for the
new Graphics Muse web site.&nbsp; I have a common table definition for
all pages (the table printed after the $adbanner in the last example),
and modules for assigning HTML formats and data to the $news_table, $nav_bar
and $book_table.&nbsp; Then each main CGI script fills in the $qd_table
variable with page specific data.&nbsp; In this way I can make modifications
to the way data is displayed in, for example, the news_table by only having
to edit one script.&nbsp; Management of the site becomes much more simple
than having to edit all the scripts each time a single change to news_table
needs to be made and I avoid annoying many users by avoiding the use of
frames.
<P>In the short time I've been using Perl I've grown to truly appreciate
both its sophistication and its simplicity.&nbsp; Things that should be
simple to do are simple.&nbsp; Additional tools like CGI.pm and Msql make
integrating Perl with my Web site a breeze.&nbsp; I've managed to rebuild
my Web site from the ground up in less than a a couple of weeks and I'm
not even making full use of what Perl can do for me.&nbsp; If you manage
a Web site and have access to the cgi directory you should definitely consider
learning Perl, CGI.pm, and one of the many databases which Perl supports.
<BR>&nbsp;
<TABLE WIDTH="100%" >
<TR>
<TD VALIGN=TOP COLSPAN="4" BGCOLOR="#000000" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" ALT="indent" ALIGN=LEFT></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<!-- ------------------------------------------------------------- --><!-- Part 2, if any --><!-- ------------------------------------------------------------- --><A NAME="2"></A>
<H2>
&nbsp;Fun with Qbist</H2>
<IMG SRC="./gx/hammel/qbist-example-1.jpg" HSPACE=15 VSPACE=10 BORDER=3 HEIGHT=400 WIDTH=400 ALIGN=RIGHT>One
of the more interesting plug-ins in the Gimp is <B><I><FONT COLOR="#993300">Qbist</FONT></I></B><FONT COLOR="#000000">,
written by <A HREF="mailto:jchrr@hrz.uni-bielefeld.de">Jens Ch. Restemeier</A>
and based on an algorithm from J&ouml;rn Loviscach that appeared in the
magazine <B><U>c't</U></B> in October 1995</FONT>.&nbsp; I've had quite
a good time playing with this plug-in creating backgrounds for logos and
other images.&nbsp; The filter is really pretty easy to use.&nbsp; The
plug-in dialog is made up of a set of 9 preview windows.&nbsp; By clicking
on any one of these the entire set is updated with new previews and the
preview you clicked on is displayed as the new middle preview.&nbsp; This
central preview is used as a <I>basis</I> to generate the rest of the previews.&nbsp;
You can generate a set of previews that are somewhat similar to the basis
preview by clicking on the middle preview.&nbsp; In most cases, at least
one of the previews will be significantly different from the basis.&nbsp;
Selecting another preview usually generates quite different previews, but
this isn't always guaranteed.&nbsp;<IMG SRC="./gx/hammel/qbist-dialog.jpg" HSPACE=15 VSPACE=10 HEIGHT=314 WIDTH=293 ALIGN=LEFT>The
algorithm is sufficiently random to make it possible that not only can
the other non-basis previews be radically different, they can also be nearly
exactly the same as the orginal.&nbsp; From a creative standpoint, I find
this rather interesting.&nbsp; At times, when I'm tired of coding or writing,
I pull this filter up and start to become creative.&nbsp; The patterns
it generates are on the edge of randomness, with just enough recognizable
geometry to make you say "No, thats not quite right, but its close".&nbsp;
The problem, of course, is it keeps you saying this ad infinitum until
you realize its long past midnight and you have just enough time for one
cup of coffee and a shower before you have to be to work.&nbsp; But this
is the kind of creativity I used to feel with coding when I first got my
hands on PC (ok, it was a TRS-80, but you get the point).&nbsp; Its refreshing
to feel it again.
<P>Once you've selected the preview you want in your image, making sure
its been selected and is displayed as the basis preview, you can add it
to the current layer of your Image Window by clicking on OK.&nbsp;<IMG SRC="./gx/hammel/qbist-example-2.jpg" HSPACE=15 VSPACE=10 BORDER=2 HEIGHT=400 WIDTH=400 ALIGN=RIGHT>Qbist
will fill the entire layer, or the active selection, with a scaled version
of the basis preview.&nbsp; Since there are no blend modes for Qbist the
selection/layer will be completely overwritten with the Qbist pattern.&nbsp;
The real trick to using these patterns comes from being able to make selections
out of the geometrically connected pieces, creating drop shadows from the
selections and slipping other images or text inbetween the layers.
<BR>&nbsp;
<H3>
Some drawbacks and limitations</H3>
Although I really like this filter, it does have a few drawbacks.&nbsp;
First, opening the dialog doesn't always get you the same set of previews
as the last time you opened the window, although the basis is the same.&nbsp;
It would be nice if you could get the same set of previews since you may
see another preview in the current Qbist session that you'd like to use
after selecting the current basis.&nbsp; Unfortunately you won't be able
to do that since the dialog closes after you click on the OK button.&nbsp;
You can save the basis preview, but reloading it later has the same effect
- the rest of the previews are random and not likely to be the same as
the ones you had seen originally with that basis.
<P>Another problem is that the Save/Load options don't deal with a Qbist-specific
directory.&nbsp; A number of other plug-ins manage saved files within directories
under the users $HOME/.gimp directory.&nbsp; It shouldn't be difficult
to update Qbist to do the same.&nbsp; Its just a matter of getting around
to updating the code.
<P>Speaking of the code, a quick examination of the source to Qbist shows
some hard coded values used in various places that appear to be the sort
of values that should be user configurable.&nbsp; The interface could be
expanded to allow the user to change these.&nbsp; I may try this sometime
soon, just as an experiment to see how changes to these values affect the
previews.&nbsp;<IMG SRC="./gx/hammel/qbist-example-3.jpg" HSPACE=15 VSPACE=10 HEIGHT=400 WIDTH=400 ALIGN=LEFT>Since
I'm not familiar with the algorithm its unclear if these values are necessarily
specific or just good initial seed values.&nbsp; Another option might be
to allow the user to choose some color sets from which Qbist could render
its patterns.&nbsp; Right now Qbist chooses colors on its own, without
input from the user.
<P>Finally, probably the most annoying aspect to Qbist is that there are
no blend modes available.&nbsp; I'd love to be able to render a Qbist pattern
in one selection and then use another selection to blend a different pattern
over a corner of the first selection.&nbsp; I can do this with multiple
layers, but it would be more convenient to be able to do this from within
Qbist itself.&nbsp; Qbist renders it patterns in both the previews and
the image window fairly quickly, so changes like adding blend modes shouldn't
cause serious performance problems.
<P>Qbist is a plain fun filter.&nbsp; Like many of the Render menu filters,
Qbist gives you a chance to explore some of your true creativeness.&nbsp;
By letting you wander through a random collection of patterns it lets you
play with your computer in a way that a game can never quite equal.&nbsp;
Although your control over these patterns is a bit limited, the patterns
themselves are sufficiently fascinating to make Qbist a filter well worth
exploring.<BR CLEAR=BOTH>
<BR>
<TABLE WIDTH="100%" >
<TR>
<TD VALIGN=TOP COLSPAN="4" BGCOLOR="#000000" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><IMG SRC="../gx/hammel/cleardot.gif" ALT="indent" ALIGN=LEFT></TD>
</TR>
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<TABLE WIDTH="100%" >
<TR>
<TD ALIGN=RIGHT><FONT SIZE=-2>&copy; 1997 by <A HREF="mailto:mjhammel@graphics-muse.org">Michael
J. Hammel</A></FONT></TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<H2>Installing StarOffice 4.0 on RedHat 5.1</H2>
<FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS">
by <A HREF="mailto:editor@cpureview.com"><I>William Henning</I></A><BR>
Editor, <A HREF="http://www.cpureview.com">CPUReview</A></FONT><BR>
Copyright July 29, 1998<BR>
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<BR>
<P></P>
<P>Today while shopping, I found StarOffice 4.0 (Commercial version) at a
local cdrom shop. I already own (and use) ApplixWare, but I could not
resist - given the usually positive reviews, I just *had* to try it. </P>
<P>Please note that <A HREF="http://www.caldera.com">Caldera</A> currently
has a special on StarOffice 4.0 - $49.95US. That is an excellent price for
a commercial license. Also note that StarOffice is available via ftp
without cost for non-commercial use.</P>
<P>I wanted to see how it would perform on a fairly low performance system,
so I loaded it onto my server. In order to benefit others, I thought I
would document my installation. I will use it for a few days, after which
I will write a review on my 'user' experiences.</P>
<H3>The Software</H3>
<P>StarOffice comes on two cd's, in a jewel case. The first CD contains
StarOffice and also appears to contain OpenLinux Lite along with some
additional contrib packages. The second CD, a pleasant surprise, appears
to be OpenLinux Base. This means I will have a busy couple of nights - I'm
going to have to try out OpenLinux. </P>
<H3>The Computer</H3>
<UL>
<LI>Tyan Titan-II motherboard (Socket 5, 256k sync cache) </LI>
<LI>WinChip 200Mhz (yes, it does work in single voltage motherboards!)</LI>
<LI>S3-968 video card, 4Mb of VRAM running at 1024x768x16M</LI>
<LI>32Mb FPM memory, 127Mb swap</LI>
<LI>24x Panasonic cdrom</LI>
<LI>6.4Gb Quantum ST</LI>
<LI>DLINK 500TX 10/100Mbps 10BaseT, running at 10Mbps</LI>
</UL>
<H3>The Operating System</H3>
<UL>
<LI>RedHat 5.1</LI>
<LI>reasonably up to date with updates from RedHat</LI>
</UL>
<H3>The Installation<BR>
</H3>
<P>I read the instructions - and the 'README' file. I logged in using my
regular user account, went to /mnt/cdrom/StarOffice_40, and entered
'./setup'.</P>
<P>After the installation program started up, I got the infamous dialog &quot;line
1: syntax error at token 'I' expected declarator; i.e. File...&quot;
prompting me to press ok.</P>
<P>In all honesty, I must admit I was expecting this problem - I remember
people asking for help with this very same problem while reading the Linux
news groups. I went to <A HREF="http://www.dejanews.com">Dejanews</A> to
find out how people solved this problem.</P>
<P>I used &quot;Staroffice 4.0 RedHat 5.1&quot; as my search string, and
got 61 matches. </P>
<H3>First Try</H3>
<P>The very first match was a posting from Simon Gao, who on July 27 wrote:</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>This is a well known problem with RedHat 5.x. The problem is
that StarOffice4 requires libc.5.4.28 above file system. Check out at
<A HREF="http://www.waldherr.org/soffice/">www.waldherr.org/soffice</A>
and you find how to solve this problem.</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>Off I went to Stefan Waldherr's
<A HREF="http://www.waldherr.org/soffice/">web site</A>. There I found
that the version of StarOffice I purchased today is already outdated - and
that I should download the latest version. As most people who purchase the
commercial StarOffice package will get the same version I got (and as I
did not want to wait to download 4.0.3 yet) I just downloaded the
staroffice wrapper and proceeded to see if I could install 4.0 as shipped
on the CD.</P>
<P>I become root to install the rpm. The rpm would not install, I was
treated to an error message: </P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>Error during install, staroffice tar file not found.<BR>
Looking for any of the following files or directories<BR>
/tmp/so40sp3_lnx_01.tar.gz<BR>
/tmp/so40sp3_lnx_01.tar.gz</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>Since I *REALLY* did not want to download 4.0.3 yet, I got stubborn.</P>
<H3>Second Try</H3>
<P>I looked through some more messages, and based on the information I
found, I tried the following:</P>
<P>I ftp'd libc-5.4.46-1rh42.i386.rpm from ftp.redhat.com/pub/contrib/i386,
and tried to instal it.</P>
<P>I got a &quot;failed dependencies: ld.so &gt;= 1.9.9 is needed by
libc-5.4.46-1rh42.i386.rpm&quot; message. </P>
<P>Good thing I kept my ftp session open. I now ftp'd
ld.so-1.9.9-1rh42.i386.rpm. This time I got a pile of glibc conflicts.
Nope, there *HAS* to be a simpler way.</P>
<H3>Conclusion: Third Time Lucky</H3>
<P>Back to the drawingboard - or DejaNews, as the case may be. I found an
article by Tommy Fredriksson, originally posted in
stardivision.com.support.unix. Tommy wrote:</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>In article &lt;35A4B35E.CAA00699@actech.com.br&gt;<BR>
wrote:<BR>
&gt; I just got StarOffice 4.0 ServicePack 3 but I can't run on my RedHat
Linux <BR>&gt; 5.1 box, it shows that dreaded &quot;line 1 syntax error at token 'l'&quot;,
etc. RH <BR>&gt; 5.1 is libc6-based (glibc), but I also put libc-5 on my /lib
directory. <BR>&gt; Even this would not make it work. Could someone help me on this? <BR><BR>
Put your &quot;libc-pack&quot; anywhere you can find it - tell
/etc/ld.so.conf (on top) where you put it and run ldconfig -v and look for
errors - if non, install SO. That's all...</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>Based on this message, I improvised. To save all of you some work, here
are some step by step instructions on how to install StarOffice 4.0 on
RedHat 5.1:</P>
<OL>
<LI>Go to <A HREF="http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/GCC/">http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/GCC/</A>
</LI>
<LI>cd to the home directory of the user you are installing it for</LI>
<LI>download libc-5_4_46_bin_tar.gz into the current directory</LI>
<LI>become root</LI>
<LI>mkdir ~/tmp</LI>
<LI>cd ~/tmp </LI>
<LI>tar xvfz ../libc-5_4_46_bin_tar.g</LI>
<LI>cd lib</LI>
<LI>cp * /lib</LI>
<LI>edit /etc/ld.so.conf</LI>
<LI>add a new line at the top, &quot;/lib&quot; (without the quotes)</LI>
<LI>ldconfig -v</LI>
<LI>go back to the normal user session under X (stop being root)</LI>
<LI>cd /mnt/cdrom/StarOffice_40</LI>
<LI>./setup</LI>
<LI>follow the prompts - I chose custom install, and let it install
everything.</LI>
<LI>you can safely remove ~/tmp after you have installed StarOffice</LI>
</OL>
<H3>It Works!</H3>
<P>Following the README, I typed Office40/bin/soffice. After some disk
activity, it ran! Note, I did not time how long it took, but it seemed
like 20-30 seconds. </P>
<P>I chose to create a new document. I resized the window, and docked the
paragraph style floating bar on the left hand side. The text in the
default view was pretty poor, so I chose the 'Optimal' view (why don't
they default to Optimal?) under the 'View' menu. This looked much better.</P>
<P>I proceeded to type a few lines, and chose to print. I let it print as
if to a PostScript printer. Lo and behold, my HP4L printed out the text
quite nicely!</P>
<H3>Conclusion</H3>
<P>I am afraid that a review of StarOffice will have to wait for another
day. So far, I like what I see, however I will only be able to
intelligently comment on its features after using it for a while.</P>
<P>Caldera or StarDivison has to make installation easier. I fully intend
to try OpenLinux, and I am sure that the StarOffice installation will be much
smoother than under RedHat. At this point, a Linux beginner who tried to
install StarOffice on a RedHat system, and was not used to using excellent
resources such as Dejanews, would have a very frustrating experience. </P>
<P>The fine help available on the net from individuals like Tommy
Fredriksson, Stefan Waldherr and many others, makes a mockery of the
assertion that Linux has no support. I hope their postings and this
article will save some time for those trying Linux for the first time.</P>
<P>I hope you enjoyed this article,</P>
<FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS">
<A HREF="mailto:editor@cpureview.com"><I>William Henning</I></A><BR>
Editor, <A HREF="http://www.cpureview.com">CPUReview</A></FONT><BR>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1998, William Henning <BR>
Published in Issue 32 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, September 1998</H5></center>
<!--===================================================================-->
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">An Interview with Linus Torvalds</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:rubini@pop.systemy.it">Alessandro Rubini</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<P>
<B>Alessandro</B>: Can you please dedicate some of your time to us?
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: Sure, no problem, I'll try my best.
</font></blockquote>
<B>Alessandro</B>: Are you happy with living in the States? I preferred having
a Finnish leader rather than another american ruler.. how do
you feel in this respect? Do you plan to come back?
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: I've been very happy with the move: I really enjoyed being at the
University of Helsinki, but I decided that trying out something different
was worthwhile, and so far the experience has been entirely positive.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
I agree that Finland is a lot more "neutral" in many ways, and that had
its advantages in Linux development: I don't think anybody really dislikes
Finland, while a lot of people are nervous about or even actively dislike
the US. So in some sense that could have been a downside, but I felt that
most people trusted me more as a person than as a Finn, so I didn't feel
it to be a major issue.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
Moving to the US has meant a lot better weather (even though this has been
one of the rainiest winters in a _long_ time here in the Bay Area), and
has also been very interesting. While I really liked my work at the
University, the new stuff I'm doing is more exciting - more on the edge,
so to say.
</font></blockquote>
<B>Alessandro</B>: We all know about the USA restrictions on cryptography; do
they affect Linux features in the field?
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: It doesn't seem to be a real issue. The idiocy of the US cryptography
export rules were a problem even before I moved here: mainly because
if/when we add strong cryptography to the kernel we would have to make it
modular anyway in order to let the CD-ROM manufacturers (many of whom are
based in the US) take it out in order to sell overseas. So me moving here
didn't really change that fact - it only made it apparent that I can't be
the person working on cryptography (something that was fairly obvious
anyway, as I'm not really an expert in the area).
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
Anyway, regardless of the above I sincerely hope that the US cryptography
rules will be changed in the near future. The US rules have made a lot of
things more difficult than they should have been. (In all fairness the US
isn't the only country with problems: the French have even more of a
problem in this area and are trying to get other European countries to do
the same thing. Happily the French are a fringe group of loonies in this
matter, while the US has been a real problem due to being so central when
it comes to information technology).
</font></blockquote>
<B>Alessandro</B>: Did you ever think about leaving your role as Linux coordinator
or is it fun like it was in the beginning? If you would
leave, what would your next project be?
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: I've never seriously considered leaving - the only times the issue has
come up is really when somebody has asked me what the succession would be
in the case I no longer felt interested. Linux has always been so much fun
to coordinate that while it obviously takes a lot of my time I have always
felt that it was more than worth it.
</font></blockquote>
<B>Alessandro</B>: Out of curiosity, how long do you write code daily, and what
is your current main activity?
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: I usually don't spend all that much time coding on Linux any more:
occasionally I have bursts of things I do when I code full-day for a few
weeks or so, but those are fairly rare, and mainly happen when there is
some fundamental shift in the kernel that I want to get done. During the
last year it's happened four or five times, mainly with regards to SMP or
the so-called "dentry" filesystem cache.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
Most of the time I spend reading and reacting to emails - coordinating the
others working on things, commenting on ideas, and putting together
patches. This is by far the most work: I'd say that my coding is only
about 10%, while the coordination is 90% of the work.
</font></blockquote>
<B>Alessandro</B>: How did you manage to write a free kernel and still earn your
living?
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: Initially, I was a university student at the University of Helsinki. What
that means in Finland is that you get support by the goverment for a
number of years in order to be able to finish your degree, and there is
also a possibility to get special student loans. I suspect Italy has
something similar, although probably not as comprehensive as the Finnish
system.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
And after a year or two I was actually employed by the university as first
a teaching assistant and then later a research assistant, and the
university also actively encouraged me to be able to write Linux at the
same time.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
Right now, I obviously work at a commercial company, but even here I get
to do a lot of Linux work even during work hours because even though
Transmeta doesn't sell Linux or anything like that, there is a lot of
_use_ of Linux inside the company, so me continuing to work on it is
obviously supportive of the company.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
So I've always been able to do Linux together with doing my "real" work,
whether that was studying or working for a university or working for a
commercial entity. There has never been much of a clash, even though
obviously my working hours aren't exactly nine to five..
</font></blockquote>
<B>Alessandro</B>: Why didn't you turn to commercial support like Cygnus did? (I think I
know why :-)
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: I just never felt the interest to turn any part of Linux commercial: it
would have detracted a lot more from my time to maintain a company or
something like that, and it was never what I was interested in.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
It would also have implicated Linux money-wise: I wouldn't have been free
to do what I wanted technically because I would be bound by constraints
brought about by having to feed myself and my family. In contrast, working
at the University or here at Transmeta, I make a living without having to
involve doing Linux-decisions into it - so I'm free to do whatever I want
with Linux without having to worry whether it will pay my next months
rent..
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
I feel a lot happier not having those kinds of pressures on Linux, and I
think most other developers feel the same way (they don't have to worry
about my technical judgement being corrupted by any financial issues).
</font></blockquote>
<B>Alessandro</B>: Do you think you changed the world or just fired the straw? (Again,
I know you)
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: I started it, and I feel very proud of that. I don't hink I "changed the
world", but I feel privileged in being instrumental in changing a lot of
lives - it's a good feeling to know that what you do really matters to a
lot of people.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
I wouldn't go as far as saying that it "gives my life meaning", but Linux
definitely is a _part_ of my life, if you see what I mean.
</font></blockquote>
<B>Alessandro</B>: What's your opinion of Richard Stallman's work and philosophy?
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: I personally don't like mixing politics with technical issues, and I don't
always agree with rms on a lot of issues. For rms, there are a lot of
almost religious issues when it comes to software, and I'm a lot more
pragmatic about a lot of things. As a result, we know we disagree about
some things, and we actively don't try to work together too closely
because we know it wouldn't work out very well.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
The above may make it sound like I dislike rms, and at the same time that
is not at all true. Rms has obviously been the driving force behind most
of the current "free software" or "open source" movement, and without rms
the world would be a poorer place. And he _needs_ to be religious about it
to be that driven.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
So I guess the best way of saying it is that I really admire rms, but I
wouldn't want to be him, because our worldviews are different.
</font></blockquote>
<B>Alessandro</B>: On the practical side, what's the schedule for 2.2? What are the
main differences between 2.0 and the upcoming 2.2?
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: As I looks now, 2.2 should be sometime early summer or so, but it's hard
to judge: there are a few things that really need to get fixed, and before
they are fixed there's no point in even thinking about it. Right now
there's a bad TCP performance problem that is holding things up:
everything _works_ ok, but it is serious enough that I can't imagine a 2.2
before it is fixed.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
The changes 2.2 will have are mainly much more mature support for the new
things in 2.0, namely SMP and multiple architectures. There are a _lot_ of
other things in there (the new dentry code, totally rewritten NFS etc),
but the SMP and architecture maturity is one of the most fundamental
things that 2.2 will have.
</font></blockquote>
<B>Alessandro</B>: Bruce Perens claims "world domination: 2003"; is that realistic?
In your opinion, will the concept of free software gain
polularity in the mass market? In this respect, what's your
opinion about the move of Netscape Corp.?
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: The "World Domination" thing is obviously always a bit tongue-in-cheek,
but I think that yes, a five-year timeframe for the free software movement
and Linux to make a major noticeable impact is not at all unrealistic. The
Netscape open source thing is one of the first indications of this, and I
think we'll see others doing similar things.
</font></blockquote>
<B>Alessandro</B>: How will the various free OS's coexist, in your opinion?
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: I think the current setup where people are aware of each other, but there
is no organized or official co-operation is probably how it will continue.
The whole point of Linux is that there is definitely room for more than
one operating system (especially if that one operating system is a bad one
made by microsoft ;), and I don't see that changing - the FreeBSD's and
other operating systems will be around. Maybe not in the same form (more
specialization etc), but I don't see any fundamental issues here..
</font></blockquote>
<B>Alessandro</B>: Or do you think that development of Wine and other tools will
lead to the cohexistence of two systems of similar technical
value, one free and the other proprietary, running the
same application programs? (Horrible question, IMHO).
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: No, I think the development of Wine will be an important step for the PC
operating systems arena, but that step will be in the way of leveling the
playing ground: when just about everybody can run the basic legacy Windows
applications like MS Office etc, that allows the systems to really compete
on being good at other things.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
So rather than having two systems of similar technical value, I think that
you'd have many systems that are all able to run the same basic
applications, but where the emphasis is on different things. Microsoft,
for example, ha salways emphasized mediocrity and high volume, while Linux
has (and will continue to) emphasized more technical issues.
</font></blockquote>
<B>Alessandro</B>: Currently we lack free office applications. Is this a matter of
time, or do you think that these programs will only be available
from commercial companies?
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: I think that there will always be a niche for commercial programs, and
while I think we'll see free office applications proliferate, I don't
think that we necessarily _have_ to have them.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
The reason I personally want a free operating system and basic
applications is that I really think that if the basics aren't stable and
you can't modify them to suit your own needs, then you are in real
trouble. But when it comes to many other areas, those issues are no longer
the most pressing concerns, and then it is not as critical that you have
free access to sources.
</font></blockquote>
<B>Alessandro</B>: Sometimes we hear of so-called ``standards'' that remain proprietary
(like I2O), is this the last rant of dying companies, or
is free software at risk?
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: I don't worry too much about I2O and other proprietary standards. The
whole idea of a proprietary standard has always failed - all of the
successful standards these days are fairly open. Sometimes they are
proprietary because the company that made them had enough clout to force
it to be that way on its own, but I don't think that kind of clout exists
anywhere else than at Intel and at Microsoft, and that even those two are
being eroded by competition.
</font></blockquote>
<B>Alessandro</B>: What is your position about the availability of Linux
modules in binary-only form?
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: I kind of accept them, but I never support them and I don't like them.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
The reason I accept binary-only modules at all is that in many cases you
have for example a device driver that is not written for Linux at all, but
for example works on SCO Unix or other operating systems, and the
manufacturer suddenly wakes up and notices that Linux has a larger
audience than the other groups. And as a result he wants to port that
driver to Linux.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
But because that driver was obviously not _derived_ from Linux (it had a
life of its own regardless of any Linux development), I didn't feel that I
had the moral right to require that it be put under the GPL, so the
binary-only module interface allows those kinds of modules to exist and
work with Linux.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
That doesn't mean that I would accept just any kind of binary-only module:
there are cases where something would be so obviously Linux-specific that
it simply wouldn't make sense without the Linux kernel. In those cases it
would also obviously be a derived work, and as such the above excuses
don't really apply any more and it falls under the GPL license.
</font></blockquote>
<B>Alessandro</B>: What do you think about the KDE-Qt question? Is Gnome going to
succeed?
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: I personally like Qt, and KDE seems to be doing fairly well. I'm taking a
wait-and-see approach on the whole thing, to see whether gnome can do as
well..
</font></blockquote>
<B>Alessandro</B>: An interesting challenge is "band reservation" in the network
subsystem; is that going to happen any soon in Linux?
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: I'll have to pass on this one. It's not one of the areas I'm personally
involved with or interested in, and as such it's not something I'm going
to be very involved with any efforts that way. That's how Linux works: the
people who need or want something get it done, and if it makes sense on a
larger scale it gets integrated into the system..
</font></blockquote>
<B>Alessandro</B>: Many people ask why the kernel is written in C instead of C++. What
is your point against using C++ in the kernel? What is the
language you like best, excluding C?
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: C++ would have allowed us to use certain compiler features that I would
have liked, and it was in fact used for a very short timeperiod just
before releasing Linux-1.0. It turned out to not be very useful, and I
don't think we'll ever end up trying that again, for a few reasons.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
One reason is that C++ simply is a lot more complicated, and the compiler
often does things behind the back of the programmer that aren't at all
obvious when looking at the code locally. Yes, you can avoid features like
virtual classes and avoid these things, but the point is that C++ simply
allows a lot that C doesn't allow, and that can make finding the problems
later harder.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
Another reason was related to the above, namely compiler speed and
stability. Because C++ is a more complex language, it also has a
propensity for a lot more compiler bugs and compiles are usually slower.
This can be considered a compiler implementation issue, but the basic
complexity of C++ certainly is something that can be objectively
considered to be harmful for kernel development.
</font></blockquote>
<B>Alessandro</B>: What do you think of the Java phenomenon? Did you ever consider
integrating a Java VM, like kaffe, in the kernel?
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
<B>Linus</B>: I've always felt that Java had a lot too much hype associated with it, and
that is still true. I _hope_ sincerely that Java will succeed, but I'm
pragmatic and I'm not going to jump on the Java bandwagon prematurely.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
Linux already supports seamless running of Java applications as it is, and
the fact that the kernel only acts as a wrapper for the thing rather than
trying to run the Java VM directly I consider to be only an advantage.
</font></blockquote>
<P> <HR> <P>
This article is reprinted with the permission of Infomedia, Italy. An Italian
translation of this article can be found at <A
HREF="http://www.pluto.linux.it/journal/pj9807/linus.html">
http://www.pluto.linux.it/journal/pj9807/linus.html</A>. The
interview was done by e-mail in February, 1998.
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1998, Alessandro Rubini <BR>
Published in Issue 32 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, September 1998</H5></center>
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<CENTER>
<H1>
<FONT COLOR="#663300">It takes its toll</FONT></H1></CENTER>
<CENTER><FONT COLOR="#663300">by</FONT></CENTER>
<CENTER>
<H2>
<FONT COLOR="#663300">Martin Vermeer</FONT></H2></CENTER>
<CENTER><FONT FACE="Courier New,Courier"><FONT COLOR="#663300"><A HREF="mailto:mv@liisa.pp.fi">mv@liisa.pp.fi</A></FONT></FONT></CENTER>
<FONT COLOR="#663300"></FONT>
<P><FONT COLOR="#663300"><B>The origin of the current mess </B>can be traced
back to a short spell of ultra-liberalism, when the government caved in
to the pressure to cut taxes and eliminate the national debt by selling
off the road network. Politicaly, it has been a success; taxes are consistently
lower than they have been for long, and the man in the street seems to
be satisfied.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#663300"></FONT>
<P><FONT COLOR="#663300">Of course in the beginning, the situation was
quite messy; highway segments were auctioned off, and the result was toll
booths everywhere, so you had to stop many times and have a lot of petty
cash handy if you wanted to get anywhere.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#663300"></FONT>
<P><FONT COLOR="#663300">But then, gradually, a market leader appeared.
Federal Transport Corp. bought strategically placed road segments, connected
them into a countrywide network, made it impossible for anyone else to
do the same, and slowly took over the rest.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#663300"></FONT>
<P><FONT COLOR="#663300">By the motorists, it was felt to be a blessing.
Sure, prices went up; but you could get by with getting a yearly license
and putting the barcode sticker on the roof of your car; you didn't even
have to brake anymore when passing the toll station. And the more roads
FT acquired, the better the offer they could make their customers; such
are the ways of "network externalities".</FONT><FONT COLOR="#663300"></FONT>
<P><FONT COLOR="#663300">Obviously as many of us now realise, the net effect
was no tax drop at all. The yearly fee to FT is just another tax, if you
want to use your car to go anywhere at all; and what's worse, it is paid
to an authority we didn't elect ourselves. There has been a groundswell
of resistance, such as the freetown (or "open roads") movement, and I sympathise
fully with this.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#663300"></FONT>
<P><FONT COLOR="#663300">I live in a freetown now; a small one, at the
foot of the mountains. Others are on the coast, or around airports. Few
are inland. We have our own road network that we own ourselves collectively,
just like in the old days. If you want to go to another freetown, you have
the options of air, rail and water transport, which are not (yet) under
FT's control. If you want to visit people outside freetown land, you have
to pay the toll, of course :-(&nbsp; This&nbsp; -- referred to as "gating
out" --&nbsp; is minimized by careful planning.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#663300"></FONT>
<P><FONT COLOR="#663300">You may ask, why did I choose to live in a place,
and under a regime, that limits my freedom of movement so much? Well first
of all, it is my own choice. I don't want to owe my "freedom" to an authority
that does not represent me. And then, there are compensations. The people.
Freetowners are active, involved citizens; everything is debated, and decisions
are taken by informed people. Compare that to the way outside. It's a different
culture really, and I like it. They are my kind of people.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#663300"></FONT>
<P><FONT COLOR="#663300">And, except in the matter of transport, life in
a freetown is just as good or better than outside. There is a lot of employment
in hi-tech; as I said, we are a sophisticated lot. And there are no advertisements
of FT, like there are everywhere outside, enquiring politely but insistently
where you would feel like going today... that really gets my blood pressure
up.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#663300"></FONT>
<P><FONT COLOR="#663300">These are interesting times we live in; recently
the freetown movement has gained a lot of interest and newcomers are flowing
in. Resentment at the Federal Transport monopoly is tangible, now that
fees are going up and road maintenance is being neglected. Earlier, just
after the sell-off, roads were maintained well; you had the option of choosing
alternative routes, and the toll revenue was channeled to maintenance and
improvement. Now, many road segments seem to be in free fall down towards
their natural state. You still have alternative routes to choose from;
but they are all under FT's control and in uniformly poor shape.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#663300"></FONT>
<P><FONT COLOR="#663300">And then there is this crazy project called the
RoadPlane. It is a gigantic vehicle, carrying hundreds of people at 200
mph along the highways, rolling along smoothly on smart-strutted wheels,
navigated by satellite, electronic map and road radar. I have heard of
people riding one of those things; quite an impressive experience, it appears.
FT's slogan is "A Better Plane Than The Plane", but some bad accidents
have happened already. It is a very complex system; OK as long as everything
works, but winter weather, the poor state of the roads, and errors in the
maps -- or an animal straying on to the road -- are hard to foresee and
take into account. These problems have generally been glossed over in the
media; FT represents a major advertising budget for them.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#663300"></FONT>
<P><FONT COLOR="#663300">RoadPlane is FT hybris at its best. It is a white
elephant and that fills me with glee. This could be the undoing of FT,
who knows. But it will only happen if people take the trouble to inform
themselves, understand how they are being ripped off, and become active!</FONT><FONT COLOR="#663300"></FONT>
<P><I><FONT COLOR="#663300">Similarity to real events and circumstances
is, again, purely and wholly intentional.</FONT></I>
<BR><FONT COLOR="#663300"></FONT>&nbsp;
<BR><FONT COLOR="#663300"></FONT>&nbsp;
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1998, Martin Vermeer <BR>
Published in Issue 32 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, September 1998</H5></center>
<!--===================================================================-->
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<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Java and Linux</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:">Shay Rojansky</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
Not long ago, Javasoft celebrated Java's third birthday. Java, once seen
as merely another way to animate and spice up web pages, has become much
more than that. Nowadays, well-known software corporations have pledged
their support to Java, and new Java APIs are being defined in record time. The
Java technology enables programmers to finally write truly multi-platform
programs, offers an advanced cross-platform GUI toolkit, embedded
threading in the language and much more.
<p>
At the same time, we are seeing remarkable events in the computer
software world. Microsoft, the behemoth of the industry, is being seriously
threatened by anti-trust action from both the Justice Department and 20
different states. Netscape has released the source code for
Communicator and may be the first company to break free of Open Software
prejudice. This has attracted much interest in Open Software from companies
who have traditionally feared the concept.
<p>
What do all of these events mean for the Linux operating system?
It means we have a window of opportunity. Never before has the
time been so right. On one hand, the industry is seriously taking
a look at Linux as an open (and free) OS. Hey, if Netscape is doing
it with their browser, why not an Open OS? On the other hand, Java
technology offers a machine-independant way to write applications,
and much of the industry has rallied behind it.
<p><HR> <P>
<h3>Java and the Linux Community</h3>
<p>
The Linux community itself, however, has always treated Java with an
ambivalent attitude. The language that has promised to topple the hegemony
of Microsoft, a dream like that of any Linux enthusiast, hasn't been
accepted into the mainstream of Linux development. There are several reasons
for this.
<p>
First and foremost, Java is a proprietary language owned by Sun
Microsystems. This means that Sun controls every aspect of the language,
the APIs and their licensing conditions. Tactics by Microsoft, like changing
APIs in their Java suite J++ and rendering their virtual machine
incompatible with other Java virtual machines, have forced Sun to seek
exclusive rights to dub a product ``Java-compatible''. Although this
may be the only way to fight Microsoft's unfair tactics, never before has a
language been so much in the hands of a single corporation. The Linux
community was born much in protest of this kind of ownership.
<p>
Second, the multi-platform concept of Java, the Java Virtual Machine
(JVM), means that programmers feel they are programming for the Java
environment and not for the Linux environment. This also means that
it's much more difficult to exploit the features of Linux.
<p>
Third, Java is still slow. Many promising enhancements are available such
as Just-in-Time compilers and Sun's Hotspot (still in beta).
Java has certainly improved since it was first created, but it
still requires a powerful platform. The Linux world is
relatively speed-minded, and one of the main advantages of Linux
is its ability to run on obsolete hardware.
<p><HR> <P>
<h3>The Advantages of Programming in Java</h3>
<p>
Despite all these shortcomings in the nature of Java, it
is the only real challenge made in the last few years to Microsoft's
rule. It is also an advanced language, written from the ground up
with modern programming concepts in mind; all the flaws
C++ retained from C for backwards compatibility are gone in Java,
along with other complex features (multiple inheritance, for example).
An automatic garbage collector removes the need to free memory,
drastically reducing development time. Threads are so embedded
in the language they become an indispensible tool for the programmer.
<p>
I hope Linux developers take a second look at Java as a development language
and start using it regularly. Some Linux developers have already made
impressive progress with Java tools, including several Java virtual
machines (JVMs), several Just-In-Time (JIT) compilers and others. Take a
look at these if you are considering using your Linux platform for developing
Java. The Java-Linux resources page can be found at:
http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux.html
<p>
I will now go over some of the key features in JDK 1.1.x. Note that
the next version, 1.2 is in beta but should be available soon.
<p><HR> <P>
<h3>Object Serialization</h3>
<p>
Object serializing means taking an object and flattening it into a
stream of bytes. In practice, this is usually used for two
things--passing objects through a network and storing objects in files.
Usually, a programmer who wishes to store a data structure on
disk has to write a specific algorithm for doing so, which can
be quite tedious. Java simplifies all this by doing it
automatically for you. For example, if you have a tree in memory
and wish to pass it to another Java program on the network, all
you have to do is to pass the root object--Java will follow the
pointers and copy the entire tree. If you have special considerations
(like security), you may design the way the object is serialized.
<p><HR> <P>
<h3>Java Foundation Classes (Swing)</h3>
<p>
The original AWT, which is the windowing toolkit for Java, was very
clunky and uncomfortable. Many components were missing and the
programming model was needlessly painful. The current accepted
toolkit for Java is code-named Swing. Swing offers a large number
of lightweight components; they are fully implemented in
Java but do not use the underlying windowing architecure as
in AWT. This assures the same functionality across platforms.
Another appealing feature is the completely pluggable look and feel,
which lets you switch between Windows and Motif, for example, while
the program is running. You can also design your own look.
<p><HR> <P>
<h3>RMI (Remote Method Invocation)</h3>
<p>
RMI is the Java equivalent of CORBA, which is a way to invoke methods
in objects that are in a different JVM (or even machine). For those
of you who know the RPC (Remote Procedure Call) frequently used in
UNIX machines, RMI (and CORBA) are its object-oriented counterparts.
The concept of ``distributed programming'' has gotten very popular
lately. In general, it means a very tight integration between programs
across the network; objects in different machines can talk to each other
simply by calling each other's methods. This is accomplished by having a
Java program hold a ``stub'' of a remote object. Then, when a method is invoked
on that stub, Java transparently sends the request over the network
and returns the requested value. The extent by which distribution and
serialization are embedded in Java show the advantage of a
modern language designed to support these concepts.
<p><HR> <P>
<h3>JNI (Java Native Interface)</h3>
<p>
Often programmers can get frustrated when they wish to use
the benefits of Java to do something that is system dependant.
The JNI allows you to interface with a native-shared object
and run its functions. This means you can write system-dependant
code in C (or any other language) and use it from Java. Of course,
as a result, your program would not be portable unless you supply
the shared object to all platforms. This could be useful, for example,
to catch signals in UNIX and to access the registry in Windows.
<p><HR> <P>
<h3>JDBC (Java Database Connectivity)</h3>
<p>
Java Database Connectivity is an SQL database access interface.
It provides a database-independent way to perform SQL queries
on any database that provides JDBC drivers. Currently, many popular
databases do, and those that don't can still be accessed via
the JDBC-ODBC bridge, which allows you to use ODBC drivers instead.
For a list of database drivers see:
http://java.sun.com/products/jdbc/jdbc.drivers.html.
<p>
Take a good look at Java. If we could manage to separate the
applications from the operating systems running them, we'd have the
freedom to choose shich OS we like best. Although in spirit the Linux
community has a ``renegade'' non-conformist element in it, Java has a great
potential and deserves our attention. The Linux-Java combination can turn
into a winning one.
<p>
<h3>Java Resources</h3>
<p>
Java home: <A HREF="http://java.sun.com/">"http://java.sun.com/</A>
<p>
Java developer connection (free registration):
<A HREF="http://java.sun.com/jdc/">http://java.sun.com/jdc/</A>
<p>
Swing (JFC): <A HREF="http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/index.html">
http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/index.html</A>
<p>
Java for Linux: <A HREF="http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux.html">
http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux.html</A>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1998, Shay Rojansky <BR>
Published in Issue 32 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, September 1998</H5></center>
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<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Linux Installation Primer</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:rjenkins@unicom.net">Ron Jenkins</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
You've heard all the hype, and decided to find out what this "Linux"
thing is all about. Or maybe you need a low cost alternative to one of
the commercial operating systems. Perhaps you need an easy way to
connect diverse systems and let them all communicate with each
other..tomorrow.. or you'll be encouraged to "seek new employment
challenges." In any case, you have a problem that needs a solution, or
a curiosity that needs to be satisfied. Well, you have come to the
right place. Join me as we take a journey into the exciting world of
the Linux operating system. Please keep your hands inside the car at
all times, and remain in your seat.
<P><HR> <P>
<H3>What the heck is Linux anyway?</H3>
<P>
Linux is a freely distributable version of Unix developed by Linus
Torvalds and thousands of other programmers scattered all over the
world. What started as a hacker's system, designed primarily for the
technically adept, has now evolved in to a viable, stable operating
system with a robust set of applications and tools making it suitable
for both personal and mission critical commercial use.
<P>
In just the past six months Linux growth has undergone an exponential
expansion. Every day Linux gains more and more press and exposure. Many
commercial vendors are announcing support, or ports of their products
to the Linux operating system. I saw just the other day that Oracle and
Informix, both major players in the Unix database world, have ports to
Linux underway.
<P><HR> <P>
<H3>Well, that's fine and dandy, but what does it mean to me?</H3>
<P>
This is incredibly significant, not just to the techno-geeks (yes,
that's me) but to the entire spectrum of computer users. One of the
benchmarks of the commercial viability of any product is the support of
the application vendors.
<P>
While it's great fun for me to write my own programs and applications,
most people just need to get some work done, on time, as easily as
possible. Or perhaps you want to surf the net for entertainment, or
playing games. Without the "killer apps", an operating system is doomed
commercially.
<P>
What this all means to you is never before has there been an operating
system, with a robust set of applications and development tools,
available for little or no cost, other than the "sweat equity" required
to learn to use it effectively.
<P>
An additional point to consider is that as you progress in your Linux
education you are also increasing your skill level and, ultimately,
your worth in the marketplace.
<P>
One of the strengths of Linux is that you have the power to choose the
depth of knowledge required to accomplish your tasks. Want to just bang
out a document or two, or play games? You can. Want to surf the
Internet and exchange e-mail with your friends and coworker's? No
problem. Want to learn to program in a variety of different languages?
Go ahead.
<P>
The point here is Linux can do all these things, and much more.
Additionally, with Linux, you are not required to fork over more money
for each function you want to add.
<P><HR> <P>
<H3>Okay. That sounds great, but I've heard that Unix is difficult to
configure, hard to install, only for the pocket protector crowd, etc.</H3>
<P>
While this was the case at one time, here and now, in 1998, it's simply
not true. Major advancements have been made in the installation and
configuration process, and in most cases Linux is no more difficult to
install than any other operating system. With the advent of package
managers, Graphical User Interfaces, and "smart" probing of your
system's components, installation has become largely a moot issue.
<P>
The truth is, you could not have picked a better time to join the Linux
world. Granted, once you get to networking issues, there is more to it
in a Unix machine than a Windows box, but with the new configuration
utilities, combined with an intuitive, easy to understand process, I
firmly feel that Linux is about as easy to configure as Windows.
<P><HR> <P>
<H3>Well, if you say so, but if Linux is not a commercial product, where
do I go if I get in trouble?</H3>
<P>
Luckily, there are commercial distributions of Linux available, as well
as commercial support contractors who will be happy to help you out.
And usually for quite a bit less than the people in Redmond, and the
Linux vendors actually answer the phone. And call you back.
<P>
Now I'm going to tell you about Linux's secret weapon. Remember, those
thousands of people I mentioned before? Well, there is a virtual
universe, populated with people who are ready, willing, and able to
help you out. You will find them on USENET, commonly called newsgroups,
on Internet Relay Chat, commonly called IRC and in your local area, in
the form of Linux User's Groups. As a matter of fact, this free
noncommercial group of people have made such an impact on the end user
community, that in an unprecedented move, Infoworld magazine named the
Linux support community as a whole, as the 1997 Product of the Year!
<P> <HR> <P>
<H3> Okay, that all sounds good, but I've got an old 486 DX2/66 that's real
slow. Would Linux do me any good?</H3>
<P>
The answer is a resounding yes! Linux will run on anything from a
diskless workstation, to an XT, to the latest whizbang hardware. As a
matter of fact, I've used these machines for everything from routers to
web servers, from dialup servers to file servers. I currently run 2 486
66's as my backup DNS machines, each hosting multiple zones.
<P>
This is another one of Linux's strengths. The ability to take
"obsolete" machines and do great things with them. This is a great low
cost method for nonprofit organizations, and cost conscious
organizations to squeeze extra value from "old" machines.
<P>
The one exception to this is your video subsystem. X, the Graphical
User Interface , is very picky about the video cards it will and will
not support. This is primarily due to the fact that many video card
manufacturers are reluctant to release specification information to
Linux developers.
<P>
However, support is improving every day, and there are also commercial
X servers available to address these issues. The bottom line here is to
try to make sure your video card is supported by X if you want to run
more than VGA at 16 colors.
<P>
That said, different distributions of Linux have different hardware
requirements. And of course, I don't mean to imply that you should not
take advantage of a newer machine if you have access to one. I simply
want to convey to you that you don't have to have a Pentium II with 256
Megs of RAM, or a 600Mhz Alpha to be able to use Linux.
<P>
As a general guideline, any 386 or better with 4MB of RAM or more
should run quite nicely. If you plan on running X, 8MB would be better,
16MB better still.
<P>
Generally speaking, the more RAM, the better. As a matter of fact, I
often tell my clients that I would rather have a slower processor with
more RAM, than a faster processor with less RAM.
<P>
Contrary to what you may have been told, the processor speed is NOT the
primary determining factor of performance. In reality the performance
of your system is determined by the amount of RAM you have, The speed
of your Disk subsystem, and your processor. In that order.
<P>
Any type of IDE HDD, and any ATAPI CD-ROM drive will work quite nicely,
as will most SCSI hosts and disks. However, SCSI installations can
often be more involved, and will be covered in a separate document.
<P><HR> <P>
<H3>Okay, you've sold me on the idea. What next?</H3>
<P>
The first thing you will need to do is pick a distribution. Linux is
packaged as collections of programs, applications, utilities, and the
operating system, by different people and vendors. These are called
distributions. There are many, fine distributions out there, and
choosing the "right" one is a nebulous process. This is somewhat
analogous to picking the "best" vacation spot, or the "best" outfit to
wear.
<P>
I will be discussing the Slackware 3.5, and RedHat 5.1, as these are
the ones I am familiar with. Many of the descriptions and configuration
options, most notably the autoprobing of PCI devices, and support for
many newer video cards, are applicable ONLY to these distributions. All
my comments and recommendations are just that - comments and
recommendations. Your preferences may be entirely different.
<P>
<B>Slackware 3.5</B>
<P>
The first distribution I ever used, and still my favorite. It has the
option for either a Command Line Interface (CLI) install, or a
Graphical User Interface (GUI) install. Uses Tarballs, or .tgz package
format. I like this because I am not "forced" to install X just to use
my system like some of the other distributions ( see below.) I am also
given more control over what does and does not get installed. (Upgrade
path is not too good.) Best for people who want to really learn about
how the system works, and like installing and compiling their own
software. A full install will eat up ~400MB of disk space.
<P>
<B>RedHat 5.1</B>
<P>
This is the current "darling" of the commercial side of the Linux
community. Probably the easiest to install. Forces the installation of
the X window system, whether you want it or not. Uses the RPM package
format to ensure all packages and programs are installed correctly
(sort of.) Upgrade path is good. Currently has the lion's share of the
media attention, and thus, application support. This is the one I
recommend for people who want a working system quickly, and are less
concerned about the internal workings of the Operating System. A full
install will eat up ~600MB of disk space.
<P>
I had originally intended to do an in-depth comparison of the various
distributions, but the August issue of the Linux Journal just arrived
in my mailbox today, and I see that Phil has beat me to it. I
respectfully disagree with regard to the Caldera Distribution. I am
overwhelmed by it's cost, and underwhelmed by it's performance. Other
than that, I would suggest you refer to his article for a more in-depth
comparison. He has done an outstanding job, much better than I could
have ever done.
<P><HR> <P>
<H3>How do I get the software?</H3>
<P>
Here you have several options. All the distributions I mention are
freely available on the Internet for download. Additionally, RedHat,
and Slackware are available for purchase, either directly from the
manufacturers, or through third parties. Finally, some or all of them
are often bundled with books on Linux or can be had at your local Linux
User's Group's Install Party, an event where people bring in their
computers and the hosts at your Linux users Group will install the
software for you.
<P>
IMPORTANT NOTE: While it is possible to install some of these
distributions using FTP or NFS, I strongly urge you to acquire a CD-ROM
for your first installation. See the resources section at the end of
this document for vendors, or check your local book store.
<P>
While an Install Party is probably the easiest method to get your
system up and running, You will get more out of it by doing the
installation yourself. Messing up, and doing it yourself is the best
way to learn.
<P><HR> <P>
<H3>What sort of planning should I do beforehand?</H3>
<P>
Excellent question. Here are some things to consider:
<P>
While it is possible and feasible to have multiple operating systems
residing on one system, I recommend using a separate machine if
possible, or at least a separate disk or disks on your machine just for
Linux.
<P>
This will give you the confidence to bang away at it, install multiple
times, and decrease the chance of harming your primary OS or data.
Also, in later installments, I will show you how to make this machine
do all kinds of neat tricks, like serve up your Internet connection,
store files and applications, even become the starting point for your
own home network.
<P><HR> <P>
<H3>I'm not rich, where can I find a cheap machine like you mention?</H3>
<P>
Check around in the paper, your local Linux user group, your place of
employment or even your local community college for one of those "old"
machines. They can often be had at little or no cost.
<P>
What we are aiming for here is maximizing your chances for a successful
installation, there will be plenty of time for you to learn the more
esoteric methods as your Unix skills increase.
<P>
If at all possible try to get a separate machine, preferably with two
Hard Disk Drives, and an ATAPI compliant CD-ROM.
<P><HR> <P>
<H3>That sounds like a lot of trouble. Can't I just try it out without all
that extra stuff?</H3>
<P>
<P>
If you absolutely must disregard my warnings, and intend to try out
Linux on your primary machine, BACKUP ANYTHING YOU CAN NOT AFFORD TO
LOSE ONTO FLOPPY DISK, TAPE, OR WHATEVER BACKUP DEVICE YOU PRESENTLY
USE. IF YOU DON'T HAVE ONE, PUT THIS DOWN AND GO GET ONE! YOU HAVE BEEN
WARNED. Consider the Slackware distribution. It offers the option of
running directly off of the CD-ROM.
<P><HR> <P>
<H3>Okay, I have the machine or extra disk(s), what next?</H3>
<P>
If you have not acquired a separate machine, refer to the warning
above. BACKUP ANYTHING YOU CANNOT AFFORD TO LOSE.
<P>
The first thing you will need to do is create your boot disk, and in
some cases, a root or supplemental disk.
<P>
If you purchased the commercial distribution of RedHat, the required
disks should already be included. The commercial version of Slackware
should be bootable directly from the CD-ROM on newer systems.
<P>
If you obtained the software bundled with a book, you will probably
need to create the disk or disks yourself.
<P>
You will need one or two DOS formatted disks for this.
<P>
What boot image you need will depend on which distribution you are
installing.
<P>
For RedHat, look for the /images directory, which should contain two
files named boot.img and supp.img. Normally only the boot.img disk will
be required.
<P>
For Slackware, look for a directory called /bootdsks.144, and another
called /rootdsks. Unless you have something other than IDE devices in
your machine, the bare.i image is the one you will be looking for as
your boot disk. In the rootdsks directory, you will need the color.gz
image for your root disk.
<P>
The method used for creating your boot and/or root disks will depend on
whether you are using a Linux (or Unix) machine, or a DOS based machine.
<P>
If you are on a DOS based machine, I.E. Windows 3.x, Windows 95,
Windows 98 or Windows NT, you will need to use RAWRITE.EXE to create
your images. This program should be included either in the same place
as the images we just discussed, or under an /install, or /dosutils
directory in some cases.
<P>
You will need to open a command prompt (sometimes called a DOS box) on
your machine, or exit windows to get to the command prompt.
<P>
Then type: <tt>RAWRITE &lt;enter&gt;</tt>
You will be asked for the source file name:bare.i &lt;enter&gt;
<P>
You will next be asked for your target drive: A: &lt;enter&gt;
<P>
If the program errors out, and complains about "Attempting to DMA
across 64k boundary," FTP to sunsite.unc.edu, then <tt>cd</tt> to:
<P>
/pub/Linux/distributions/redhat/redhat-5.1/i386/dosutils/
<P>
And retrieve the version of RAWRITE there. It will be smaller than the
one you were using (~14k,) and the problem should go away. As I recall
this is only an issue on NT and possibly Windows 98 boxes.
<P>
If you are on a Linux or Unix box, the command to get it done is:
<PRE>
dd if=&lt;your boot or root image&gt; of=&lt;where to write it to&gt; bs=1440k
</PRE>
So, if you are making a Slackware boot disk:
<PRE>
dd if=bare.i of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440k &lt:enter&gt;
</PRE>
For the root disk:
<PRE>
dd if=color.gz of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440k &lt;enter&gt;
</PRE>
<P><HR> <P>
<H3>Okay, I've got the proper disk(s). Now what?</H3>
<P>
Now insert the boot disk into your floppy drive and re-boot your
machine.
<P>
At this point, you will be prompted to login as root. After you login,
you must partition your disk or disks to prepare the HDD for
formatting, and ultimately, the installation of your software.
<P>
Linux requires at least two partitions for installation. You must have
a partition for your root or top level directory to live in, and you
also need a partition for your swap file to live in.
<P>
This is just a fancy way of saying you need at least one place on your
hard drive to store your operating system, and one place on your hard
drive to be used as a temporary storage area for your operating system
to put things that are not immediately needed.
<P>
If you are familiar with a Windows based system, the root partition is
the equivalent of your C:\ drive, and the swap file is the equivalent
of your pagefile.sys.
<P>
Just as it is always a good idea on a Windows box to store your data on
a separate device, apart from the operating system, the same rule
applies to Linux. This is why I urge you to have two HDD's in your
Linux machine.
<P>
Depending on which distribution you choose, the process required to
create the necessary partitions will vary. Similarly, whether you have
one or two HDD's will also make the best partitioning scheme vary.
<P>
<B>Slackware:</B>
<P>
Use the cfdisk utility. It is fairly easy to understand, and has decent
help.
<P>
<B>RedHat:</B>
<P>
You will probably want to use Disk Druid here.
<P>
For a single disk system, I would suggest two partitions:
<P>
One swap partition, between 16 and 32MB in size, depending on how much
RAM you have in your machine. The utility you are using, may or may not
ask you to specify the hex code to tell Linux that this is a swap
partition. If prompted for it, the proper code is type 82.
<P>
The rest of the disk should be partitioned as Linux native.
<P>
Some might argue that there should be three partitions here, in case
something goes wrong with the root partition, thus saving your data. I
have rarely seen a disk fail in just "spots", usually if a disk commits
suicide it's an all or nothing kind of deal.
<P>
I recommend two disks for precisely this sort of situation. The only
time I have ever seen two disks fail at once was due to a lightening
strike, which smoked the whole machine.
<P>
For a two disk system, I would suggest the following:
<P>
On the primary or first HDD (usually called hda in most distributions:)
<P>
Create two partitions, as stated above.
<P>
On the second HDD or secondary IDE interface:
<P>
Another swap partition of 16 or 32MB as above.
<P>
The rest of the drive should be partitioned Linux native.
<P>
After partitioning the disk or disks, you will be prompted to format
them.
<P>
Depending on the distribution used, at some point you will be asked
where you want the Linux native partition or partitions to be mounted.
This simply is asking you where in the filesystem hierarchy each
formatted partition should reside.
<P>
For single disk systems, mount your single Linux native partition as
your root, or / partition.
<P>
For two disk systems, mount your first disk as described above, then
mount the Linux native partition on your second drive as your /home
directory. This will be where all of your user specific information and
files will be stored, thus preventing an OS failure from taking all
your hard work and critical data with it.
<P>
THIS IS INTENDED TO COMPLEMENT, NOT REPLACE A DILIGENT, REGULAR BACKUP
SCHEME. I CAN'T STRESS ENOUGH THE IMPORTANCE OF REGULAR, RELIABLE
BACKUPS.
<P>
If I seem to be a bit paranoid about backups, I proudly state that I
am. I cannot begin to count the times my clients, friends and coworkers
have snickered, giggled, and laughed outright when I talk about this. I
am a constant source of jokes and entertainment for them. Until
something goes wrong. Then I am suddenly a savior to them.
<P>
By the way, when something like this happens to you, and it will, when
all the suits are sweating bullets, and looking to you like Moses with
the backup tablets in each hand, this is a great time for salary
negotiation.
<P><HR> <P>
<H3>Well, I've got the partitions made, and my disks are hungry for 1's
and 0's. What are my options for installation, and what programs do I
really need?</H3>
<P>
You have, with one notable exception, four possible choices for your
Linux installation. I will list them in order, from the smallest to the
largest. EXCEPTION - Option one, running directly off of the CD-ROM is
not available with the RedHat Distribution.
<P>
1. Running directly off of the CD-ROM, called a "live" filesystem.
<P>
This is the best option for just trying out Linux with a minimum impact
to your present system. Performance will be degraded, particularly if
you have a slow CD-ROM. This is the ONLY option I can safely recommend
if you are not doing this on a machine other than your primary system.
<P>
The exact actions required to accomplish this will vary between the
distributions, but will be called something like "run from CD-ROM", or
"run from live filesystem"
<P>
2. A minimal, or base installation, with just enough stuff to get you
up and running.
<P>
<B>Slackware:</B>
<P>
Select the following disk series:<BR>
A<BR>
AP (optional)<BR>
<P>
<B>RedHat:</B>
<P>
You can safely accept the defaults.
(Not much choice here, accept the default, or it won't boot. You will
be assimilated ;-).
<P>
3. A well rounded installation, consisting of the base stuff, plus some
productivity, network, and development tools
<P>
<B>Slackware:</B>
<P>
Select the following disk series:<BR>
A<BR>
AP<BR>
F<BR>
D<BR>
N<BR>
X<BR>
XAP<BR>
<P>
<B>RedHat:</B>
<P>
To the default selections, add:
<P>
X applications<BR>
Development tools<BR>
<P>
4. The entire distribution, sometimes called the "let's see how much
this sucker can take" installation.
<P>
<B>Slackware:</B>
<P>
Select the top option, "complete installation"
<P>
<B>RedHat:</B>
<P>
Select the "Everything" option.
<P>
A couple of suggestions concerning the everything install:
<P>
Below the dialog box where you chose "Everything", there will be
another box with the phrase "Choose individual packages." Select it.
<P>
You will then be taken to another dialog box listing the categories of
all the software that will be installed on the system. Scroll down to
Documentation.
<P>
For some reason RedHat wants to install the How-To's and things in
every format known to man, and in every language spoken by man.
<P>
Choose the text format and html format of the documents. The one
exception to this is if for whatever reason, you would find it useful
to have these documents in another language, in which case you should
select the appropriate language desired as well. When you are finished,
select done. This will save you a significant amount of disk space.
<P>
Common to both of the distributions, the following tasks are ones you
need to perform regardless of which distribution you use:
<P>
<H4>1. Creating boot and rescue disks.</H4>
<P>
<B>Slackware:</B>
<P>
Toward the end of the installation process, you will be asked to
configure your new Linux system. I strongly recommend making both a
lilo bootdisk, and a default, or vmlinuz bootdisk for your new machine,
and choosing NO to the install LILO option.
<P>
<B>RedHat:</B>
<P>
Toward the end of the installation, you will be asked if you want to
make a boot disk. Answer yes. Make several.
<P>
If prompted to configure either X windows, or your networking, answer
no. If you are forced to do either of these things for X, accept the
defaults. For networking, if asked for a network address, use
127.0.0.1, or choose the "loopback" option if available. We will be
configuring these things in the next installment.
<P>
<H4>2. Logging in as root for the first time and creating a user account for
yourself.</H4>
<P>
While there are times when it will be useful to be logged into your
system as root, most of the time, you will want to be logged in to your
own account on the machine.
<P>
There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is that when
logged in as yourself, just about the worst thing you can do is screw
up your own account.
<P>
However, when logged in as root, most of the safeguards built into the
system go away. You can do anything, even things you should not do.
Like hose the entire filesystem. This is both the strength, and the
weakness of the superuser account.
<P>
Treat it like a loaded gun. Don't pull it out unless you mean to use
it. If you mean to use it make sure you have a clear target and put it
right back in the holster as soon as you're done.
<P>
Now that I hope I've properly scared you, here's what you need to do:
<P>
Login as root. Then create a user account for yourself:
<PRE>
adduser rjenkins
</PRE>
You will be asked a series of questions. You can safely press enter to
accept the defaults for these things.
<P>
<H4>3. Selecting and entering your root and personal user account
passwords.</H4>
<P>
Now you need to password protect the root account and your user
account. Logged in as root, use the passwd command to do this for both
the root or superuser account, and your personal account.
<PRE>
passwd root
</PRE>
And then your user account:
<PRE>
passwd rjenkins
</PRE>
A short comment on password selection and security. Good password
discipline is very important, whether you are connected to a network or
not. Briefly, here are a few guidelines:
<P>
Choose something you can easily remember, say kibble.
<P>
Now, add a punctuation mark and a number to it, say ?kibble4.
<P>
Finally, for best security, a neat trick is to take the word you can
remember easily, in this case kibble, and for each letter in the word,
move up one row on the keyboard, and over either to the left or the
right.
<P>
So for ?kibble4 if we move up and to the left, we get: ?u8ggi34.
<P>
If we go up and to the right we get: ?o9hhp44.
<P>
This is easy to remember, and will defeat all but the most
sophisticated password cracking programs.
<P><HR> <P>
<H3>Navigating the Linux system, and obtaining help and information from
the documentation.</H3>
<P>
The first thing you will want to do is learn how to navigate your
system. You will find a wealth of documentation in the /usr/doc
directory. In particular, look at the /usr/doc/how-to directory, and
check out the installation and user's guide.
<P>
If you purchased your CD bundled with a book, make use of it. There
should be enough information there, or in the doc directory to get you
started.
<P>
While the editors and document tools available will vary from
distribution to distribution, every distribution should have vi
available. You will probably either learn to love or hate it. There
does not seem to be any middle ground, but I suggest you at least learn
to use it, since it will allow you to plunk down at any Unix machine
and use it.
<P>
Much abbreviated, here's a short list of relevant commands:
<P>
To open a file:<BR>
<tt>vi filename </tt>
<P>
To insert text in a file:<BR>
Press the i key to enter insert mode, then enter your text.
<P>
To write your changes to a file:<BR>
Press the escape &lt;Esc&gt; key, then :w &lt:enter&gt;
<P>
To close a file:<BR>
Press the escape &lt;Esc&gt; key, then :q &lt;enter&gt;
<P>
An even better option is to use the Midnight Commander, if it is
available on your system. Simply enter <tt>mc</tt>.
<P>
It looks and acts a lot like the N*rton Commander, and makes an easy
transition for anyone who has used that program, or is familiar with
the DOSSHELL.
<P>
Well, that's about it for now, Congratulations! See, that wasn't so
hard now was it? In the next installment, we'll configure the X
windowing system and your networking setup.
<P><HR><P>
<H3>Resources</H3>
<P>
Software Manufacturers:<BR>
RedHat Linux: <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">http://www.redhat.com/</A>
<BR>
Slackware: <A HREF="http://www.cdrom.com/">http://www.cdrom.com/</A>
<P>
Third Party Distributors:<BR>
<A HREF="http://www.cheapbytes.com/">http://www.cheapbytes.com</A> <BR>
<A HREF="http://www.linuxmall.com/">http://www.linuxmall.com</A> <BR>
<A HREF="http://www.infomagic.com/">http://www.infomagic.com/</A> <BR>
<A HREF="http://www.cdrom.com/">http://www.cdrom.com</A>
<P>
Local User Groups:<BR>
Most areas have several local computer-oriented publications available.
Have a look for a local user group in your area. There are also list of
user groups by area at <A HREF="http://www.ssc.com/glue/groups/">
http://www.ssc.com/glue/groups/</A>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1998, Ron Jenkins <BR>
Published in Issue 32 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, September 1998</H5></center>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
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<H1>Linux Kernel Compilation Benchmark</H1>
<FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS">
by <A HREF="mailto:editor@cpureview.com"><I>William Henning</I></A><BR>
Editor, <A HREF="http://www.cpureview.com">CPUReview</A></FONT><BR>
Copyright July 1, 1998<BR>
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<BR>
<P>I have purchased a K6-2/266Mhz processor and a Soyo 5EHM Super7
motherboard specifically so that I would be able to benchmark the K6-2
against Intel PII and Cyrix processors. Since I have been running Linux
since the v0.10 days, I thought it would be useful to perform some
benchmarks under Linux. Here are my findings.</P>
<P>As I have time (and access to equipment) to add additional results, I
will update this page. Soon I hope to add PII results (ABIT LX6, 64Mb 10ns
Hyundai SDRAM, Riva 128, same 1.6Gb WD hard drive).</P>
<H2>System Description - Super Socket 7</H2>
<UL>
<LI>Soyo 5EHM motherboard (MVP3, AGP, 1M cache, Super7)</LI>
<LI>64Mb 10ns SDRAM (Hyundai, 2x32Mb sticks)</LI>
<LI>1.6Gb Western Digital hard drive</LI>
<LI>Asus 3DExplorer AGP (Riva 128)</LI>
</UL>
<H2>System Description - Slot 1</H2>
<UL>
<LI>ABIT LX6 Slot 1 motherboard</LI>
<LI>64Mb 10ns SDRAM (Hyundai, 2x32Mb sticks)</LI>
<LI>1.6Gb Western Digital hard drive</LI>
<LI>Asus 3DExplorer AGP (Riva 128)</LI>
</UL>
<H2>Methodology</H2>
<UL>
<LI>'make clean; make dep; time make zdisk'</LI>
<LI>using the same kernel configuration under Redhat 5.0 </LI>
<LI>Linux v2.0.32, with this <A HREF="config.txt">.config</A> file</LI>
<LI>GCC v2.7.2.3</LI>
</UL>
<P> <HR> <P>
<H2>Cyrix/IBM PR233 Results</H2>
<P> <HR> <P>
<TABLE WIDTH="80%" BORDER="1">
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">PR Rating</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">Voltage</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">Setting</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">BogoM</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">User</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">System</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">Elapsed</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">CPU util</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">PR200</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">2.9</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">2.5X66</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">166.30</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">283.22</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">21.26</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">5:28.56</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">92%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">PR233</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">2.9</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">2X100</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">199.88</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">236.4</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">17.48</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">4:35.97</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">91%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">PR233</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">2.9</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">2.5X75</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">187.19</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">257.99</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">20.17</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">5:01.32</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">92%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">PR266</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">2.9</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">2.5X83</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">207.67</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">233.75</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">19.51</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">4:35.40</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">91%</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<H2>AMD K6-2 266 Results</H2>
<TABLE WIDTH="80%" BORDER="1">
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">PR Rating</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">Voltage</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">Setting</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">BogoM</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">User</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">System</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">Elapsed</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">CPU util</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">166</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">2.3</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">2.5x66</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">332.60</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">274.57</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">24.11</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">5:22.43</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">92%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">187.5</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">2.2</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">2.5x75</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">374.37</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">244.5</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">20.38</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">4:47.52</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">92%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">200</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">2.3</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">3x66</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">398.95</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">242.10</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">21.42</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">4:37.33</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">91%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">210</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">2.2</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">2.5x83</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">415.33</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">221.5</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">19.96</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">4:18.61</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">93%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">233</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">2.3</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">3.5x66</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">465</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">220.53</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">19.55</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">4:24.61</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">90%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">250</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">2.2</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">2.5x100</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">499.71</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">183.13</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">17.64</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">3:43.42</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">89%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">266</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">2.3</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">4x66</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">530.84</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">199.90</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">19.55</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">4:04.19</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">89%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">280</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">2.2</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">2.5x112</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">558.69</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">164.17</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">15.29</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">3:23.83</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">88%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">300</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">2.3</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">4.5x66</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">598.02</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">187.84</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">19.63</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">3:51.50</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">89%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">300</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">2.3</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">4x75</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">598.02</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">176.94</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">19.26</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">3:37.84</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">90%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">300</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">2.3</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">3x100</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">599.65</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">161.73</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">15.06</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">3:20.87</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">88%</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<H2>Intel Pentium-II 233 Results</H2>
<TABLE WIDTH="80%" BORDER="1">
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">PR Rating</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">Voltage</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">Setting</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">BogoM</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">User</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">System</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">Elapsed</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">CPU util</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">233</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">Default</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">3.5x66</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">233.47</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">197.46</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">15.25</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">3:57.26</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">89%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">262.5</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">Default</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">3.5x75</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">262.14</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">180.75</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">12.73</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">3:38.96</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">88%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">291.7</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">Default</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">3.5x83</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">291.64</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">157.49</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">11.69</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">3:12.69</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">87%</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<H2>Simulated Celeron Results - Intel Pentium-II 233 with L2 Cache disabled</H2>
<TABLE WIDTH="80%" BORDER="1">
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">PR Rating</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">Voltage</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">Setting</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">BogoM</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">User</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">System</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">Elapsed</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">CPU util</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">233</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">Default</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">3.5x66</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">233.47</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">324.07</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">20.19</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">6:08.43</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">93%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">262.5</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">Default</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">3.5x75</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">262.14</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">291.43</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">16.96</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">5:32.61</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">92%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="67" ALIGN="CENTER" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">291.7</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">Default</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">3.5x83</TD>
<TD WIDTH="55" ALIGN="CENTER">291.64</TD>
<TD WIDTH="54" ALIGN="CENTER">262.19</TD>
<TD WIDTH="52" ALIGN="CENTER">16.10</TD>
<TD WIDTH="58" ALIGN="CENTER">5:02.45</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" ALIGN="CENTER">92%</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<P> <HR> <P>
<H2>Discussion of results</H2>
<P> <HR> <P>
<P>Please note, in the comparisons below, only the "User" time of the
kernel compilations is used.</P>
BogoMips is equivalent to the megahertz it is running at, and the AMD K6-2
has a BogoMips rating that is twice the megahertz it is run at.</P>
<P>In order to be able to make a direct, Mhz-to-Mhz comparison of the
processors, I underclocked the K6-2 to run at 2.5x75 (Cyrix PR233 rating)
and 2.5x83 (PR266 rating). Comparing the total elapsed time for the
compilation, we find that:</P>
<H3>Comparison by actual Mhz</H3>
<TABLE WIDTH="50%" BORDER="1">
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="84" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">CPU</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">Cyrix</TD>
<TD WIDTH="56" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">Amd</TD>
<TD WIDTH="92" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">Amd % faster</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="84" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">2.5x75</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60">257.99</TD>
<TD WIDTH="56">244.5</TD>
<TD WIDTH="92">5.23%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="84" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">2.5x83</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60">233.75</TD>
<TD WIDTH="56">221.5</TD>
<TD WIDTH="92">5.24%</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<P>The AMD K6-2 processor seems to be 5.25% faster than a Cyrix MX
processor at the same clock speed. The PR rating system would not seem to
apply to Linux kernel compilations.</P>
<H3>Comparison by PR rating</H3>
<TABLE WIDTH="50%" BORDER="1">
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="84" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">CPU</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">Cyrix</TD>
<TD WIDTH="56" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">Amd</TD>
<TD WIDTH="92" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">Amd % faster</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="84" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">PR233</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60">257.99</TD>
<TD WIDTH="56">220.53</TD>
<TD WIDTH="92">14.52%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="84" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">PR266</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60">233.75</TD>
<TD WIDTH="56">199.90</TD>
<TD WIDTH="92">14.48%</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<P>The AMD K6-2 is 14.5% faster than a Cyrix/IBM 686MX when comparing
a K6-2 at the same Mhz as a Cyrix chip is PR rated for.
</P>
<H2>How about the Pentium II?</H2>
<P>
I wanted to see how the P2 would compare to the K6-2. As I only have
a P2-233, I had to overclock it to approach 300Mhz. Please note, I used
an extra 3" fan blowing air at the CPU.
</P>
<H3>Comparison between P2 and K6-2</H3>
<TABLE WIDTH="50%" BORDER="1">
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="84" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">CPU</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">P2</TD>
<TD WIDTH="56" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">Amd</TD>
<TD WIDTH="92" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">P2 % faster</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="84" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">266Mhz #1</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60">180.75</TD>
<TD WIDTH="56">183.13</TD>
<TD WIDTH="92">1.3%</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH="84" BGCOLOR="#80FFFF">300Mhz #2</TD>
<TD WIDTH="60">157.49</TD>
<TD WIDTH="56">161.71</TD>
<TD WIDTH="92">2.6%</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<P><FONT SIZE="-1">NOTES</FONT></P>
<OL>
<LI><FONT SIZE="-1">P2 at 262.5Mhz (75x3.5), K6-2 at 250Mhz (2.5x100)
</FONT></LI>
<LI><FONT SIZE="-1">P2 at 291.6Mhz (83x3.5), K6-2 at 300Mhz (3x100)
</FONT></LI>
</OL>
<P>
The P2 was faster for compiling the kernel by less than three percent.
There is no point in comparing the K6-2 to the Celeron - see the
simulated Celeron benchmarks on the previous page. The Celeron is not
suitable for use as a Linux development machine.
</P>
<P> <HR> <P>
<H3>Price Comparison</H3>
<P> <HR> <P>
<P>As we all know, absolute performance is just part of deciding which
processor to get. If cost was no object, we would all be running Kryotech
Alpha 767's, or dual PII-400's. For reference purposes, here are some
prices, in US$, as 1:14pm PST of July 5 from PriceWatch. </P>
<TABLE WIDTH="50%" BORDER="1">
<TR>
<TD BGCOLOR="#80FFFF" ALIGN="CENTER">CPU </TD>
<TD BGCOLOR="#80FFFF" ALIGN="CENTER">233</TD>
<TD BGCOLOR="#80FFFF" ALIGN="CENTER">266</TD>
<TD BGCOLOR="#80FFFF" ALIGN="CENTER">300</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD BGCOLOR="#80FFFF" ALIGN="CENTER">Cyrix</TD>
<TD ALIGN="CENTER">$49</TD>
<TD ALIGN="CENTER">$74</TD>
<TD ALIGN="CENTER">$96</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD BGCOLOR="#80FFFF" ALIGN="CENTER">AMD K6-2</TD>
<TD ALIGN="CENTER">n/a</TD>
<TD ALIGN="CENTER">$113</TD>
<TD ALIGN="CENTER">$163</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD BGCOLOR="#80FFFF" ALIGN="CENTER">AMD K6</TD>
<TD ALIGN="CENTER">$68</TD>
<TD ALIGN="CENTER">$93</TD>
<TD ALIGN="CENTER">$125</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD BGCOLOR="#80FFFF" ALIGN="CENTER">Pentium II</TD>
<TD ALIGN="CENTER">$158</TD>
<TD ALIGN="CENTER">$177</TD>
<TD ALIGN="CENTER">$235</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>
<H2>Conclusion</H2>
<P>There is no question that the Cyrix processors provide excellent
performance for a low cost. The K6 (non-3d) processors are also an
excellent value, however as I don't have such a CPU I was unable to run
tests on one - but I would expect that on the same motherboard with
similar memory and hard disk the performance of the plain K6's would be
very close to the K6-2's.</P>
<P>The K6-2 appears to be an excellent value for a developer's machine. A
14.5% increase in speed over the 686MX is difficult to ignore.
The P2 is less than three percent faster than the K6-2 at comparable
speeds. I do not think that such a small difference in speed justifies
the price differential between the P2 and the K6-2.</P>
<P>I hope you found this article to be of use. Please remember that I
welcome feedback on this (or other) articles. I can be contacted at
<A HREF="mailto:editor@cpureview.com">editor@cpureview.com.</A></P>
<P>Regards,</P>
<FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS">
<A HREF="mailto:editor@cpureview.com"><I>William Henning</I></A><BR>
Editor, <A HREF="http://www.cpureview.com">CPUReview</A></FONT><BR><BR>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1998, William Henning <BR>
Published in Issue 32 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, September 1998</H5></center>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
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<P> <hr> <P>
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<font color="navy">A <I>Linux Journal</I> Review</font>:
This article appeared in the November 1997 issue of <I>Linux Journal</I>.
<P> <HR> <P>
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Linux Kernel Installation</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:dbandel@ix.netcom.com">David A. Bandel</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
Linux is many users' introduction to a truly powerful,
configurable operating system. In the past, a Unix-like operating
system was out of reach for most. If it wasn't the operating
system's 4-digit price tag, it was the hardware. Even the now
free-for-personal-use SCO Unixware requires a system with
SCSI drives, and most of us are using IDE to keep costs down. Along with
the power that Linux brings
comes the need to perform a task users have not had to do on
simpler operating systems: configure the kernel to your hardware
and operations.
<p>
Previous installation kernels from 1.2.x and before <i>suggested</i>
that you rebuild; however, with the new 2.0.x kernel, rebuilding has almost
become a necessity. The kernel that comes with the installation packages from
Red Hat, Caldera, Debian
and most others, is a generic, ``almost everything is included''
kernel. While rebuilding a kernel may seem like a daunting task
and living with the installed kernel may not be too bad, rebuilding is a
good introduction to your system.
<p><HR> <P>
<h3>Why Roll Your Own?</h3>
<p>
The standard installation kernels are an attempt to make
as many systems as
possible usable for the task of installing a workable Linux system. As
such,
the kernel is bloated and has a lot of unnecessary code in it for
the average machine. It also does not have some code a lot of users
want.
<p>
Then, of course, there's always the need to upgrade
the kernel because you've bought new hardware, etc. Upgrading within
a series is usually very straightforward. When it comes to
upgrading, say from 1.2.something to 2.0.something, now the task is
beyond the scope of this article and requires some savvy.
Better to get a new distribution CD and start fresh--this is also true
for upgrading to the experimental 2.1.x kernels.
<p><HR> <P>
<h3>Kernel Version Numbering</h3>
<p>
All Linux kernel version
numbers contain three numbers separated by periods (dots). The
first number is the kernel version. We are now on the third kernel version,
2. Some of you may be running a version 1 kernel, and I am aware of
at least one running version 0 kernel.
<p>
The second number
is the kernel major number. Major numbers which are even numbers
(0 is considered an even number) are said to be stable. That is, these
kernels should not have any crippling bugs, as they have been fairly
heavily tested.
While some contain small bugs, they can usually be upgraded for
hardware compatibility or to armor the kernel against system
crackers. For example, kernel
2.0.30, shunned by some in favor of 2.0.29 because of reported bugs,
contains several patches including one to protect against SYN denial
of service attacks.
The kernels with odd major numbers are developmental kernels. These
have not been tested and often as not will break any software packages
you may be running. Occasionally, one works well enough that it will
be adopted by users needing
the latest and greatest support before the next stable release.
This is the
exception rather than the rule, and it requires substantial changes
to a system.
<p>
The last number is the minor number and is
increased by one for each release. If you see kernel version 2.0.8,
you know it's a kernel 2.0, stable kernel, and it is the ninth release
(we begin counting with 0).
<p><HR> <P>
<h3>Assumptions</h3>
<p>
I hate to
make any assumptions; they always seem to come back to bite me. So I
need to mention a few things so that we're working off the same sheet of
music. In order to compile a kernel, you'll need a few things. First,
I'll assume you've installed a distribution with a 2.0.x kernel,
all the base
packages and perhaps a few more. You'll also need to have installed
<b>gcc</b> version
2.7 and all the supporting gcc libraries. You'll also need the
libc-dev library and the binutils and bin86 packages (normally
installed as part of a standard distribution install). If you download
the source or copy it from a CD, you'll also need the <b>tar</b> and <b>gunzip</b>
packages. Also, you'll need lots of disk real estate.
Plan on 7MB to download, another 20MB to unpack this monster and a few more
to compile it.
<p>
Needless to say, many of the things we will discuss
require you to be logged in as root. If you've downloaded the kernel
as a non-privileged user and you have write permission to the /usr/src
subdirectory, you can still do much of this task without becoming root.
For the newcomers to Linux, I highly recommend you do as much
as possible as a non-privileged user and become root (type:
<tt>su&nbsp;-&nbsp;face</tt>) only for those jobs that require it.
One day, you'll be glad you acquired this habit. Remember, there are
two kinds of systems administrators, those who have totally wrecked a running
setup inadvertently while logged in as root, and those who will.
<p><HR> <P>
<h3>Obtaining/Upgrading the Source</h3>
<p>
Kernel sources for
Linux are available from a large number of ftp sites and
on almost every Linux distribution CD-ROM. For starters, you can
go to ftp.funet.fi,
the primary site for the Linux kernel. This site has a
list of mirror sites from which you can download the kernel. Choosing
the site nearest you helps decrease overall Internet traffic.
<p>
Once you've obtained the source, put it in the /usr/src directory.
Create a subdirectory to hold the source files once they are unpacked using
tar. I recommend naming the directories
something like linux-2.0.30 or kernel-2.0.30, substituting your
version numbers. Create a link to this subdirectory called linux using the
following command:
<p>
<pre>
ln -sf linux-2.0.30 linux
</pre>
I included the <tt>-f</tt> in the
link command because if you already have a kernel source in /usr/src,
it will contain this link too, and we want to force
it to look in our subdirectory.
(On some versions of <b>ln</b> (notably version 3.13), the force option
(<tt>-f</tt>)
does not work. You'll have to first remove the link then establish
it again. This works correctly by version 3.16.)
The only time you may have a problem is if linux is a
subdirectory name, not a link. If you have this problem, you'll
have to rename the subdirectory before continuing:
<p>
<pre>
mv linux linux-2.0.8
</pre>
Now issue the command:
<p>
<pre>
tar xzvf linux-kernel-source.tar.gz
</pre>
I have a habit of always including <tt>w</tt> (wait for
confirmation) in the tar option string, then when
I see that the .tar.gz or .tgz file is going to unpack into its
own subdirectory, I <tt>ctrl-C</tt> out and reissue
the command without the <tt>w</tt>.
This way I can prevent corrupted archives from unpacking into the current
directory.
<p>
Once you have the kernel unpacked, if you have any
patches you wish to apply, now is a good time. Let's say you don't
wish to run kernel 2.0.30, but you do want the tcp-syn-cookies. Copy
the patch (called tcp-syn-cookies-patch-1) into the /usr/src
directory and issue the command:
<p>
<pre>
patch &lt; tcp-syn-cookies-patch-1
</pre>
This command
applies the patch to the kernel. Look for files with
an .rej extension in in the /usr/src directory.
These files didn't patch properly. They may be unimportant, but
peruse them anyway. If you installed a Red Hat system with some but not all of
the kernel source (SPARC, PowerPC, etc.), you'll see some of these files.
As long as they're not for your architecture, you're okay.
<p><HR> <P>
<h3>Preparation</h3>
<p>
As a final note, before we change (<b>cd</b>) into the
kernel source directory and start building our
new kernel, let's check some links that are needed. In your
/usr/include
directory, make sure you have the following soft links:
<p>
<pre>
asm - /usr/src/linux/include/asm
linux - /usr/src/linux/include/linux
scsi - /usr/src/linux/include/scsi
</pre>
Now, you see another reason to
standardize the location of the kernel. If you don't put the latest
kernel you wish to install in /usr/src/linux
(via a link), the above links will not reach their intended target
(dangling links), and the kernel may fail to compile.
<p><HR> <P>
<h3>How to proceed</h3>
<p>
Once everything else is set up, change directories into /usr/src/linux.
Although you may want to stop off and peruse some of the documentation in the
Documentation directory, particularly if you have any special hardware
needs. Also, several of the CD-ROM drivers need to be built with
customized settings. While they usually work as is, these drivers
may give warning messages when loaded. If this doesn't bother
you and they work as they should, don't worry. Otherwise, read the
appropriate .txt, .h (header) files and .c (c code) files. For
the most part, I have found them to be well commented and easy to
configure. If
you don't feel brave, you don't have to do it. Just remember you
can always restore the original file by unpacking the gzipped tar file (or
reinstalling the .rpm files) again.
<p><HR> <P>
<h3>Beginning to Compile</h3>
<p>
The first command I recommend you issue is:
<p>
<pre>
make mrproper
</pre>
While this command
is not necessary when the kernel source is in pristine condition,
it is a good habit to cultivate. This command ensures that old object files are
not littering the source tree and are not used or in the way.
<p><HR> <P>
<h3>Configuring the Kernel</h3>
<p>
Now, you're ready to configure
the kernel. Before starting, you'll need to understand a little
about modules. Think of a module as something you can plug into the
kernel for a special purpose. If you have a small network at home
and sometimes want to use it (but not always), maybe you'll want to
compile
your Ethernet card as a module. To use the module, the machine must
be running and have access to the /lib/modules
This means that the drive (IDE, SCSI, etc., but could be an
ethernet card in the case of nfs), the file system (normally ext2 but could be
nfs) and the kernel type (hopefully elf) must be compiled in and cannot be
modules. Modules aren't available until the kernel is loaded, the drive (or
network) accessed, and the file system mounted.
These files must be compiled into the kernel or
it will not be able to mount the root partition. If you're mounting
the root partition over the network, you'll need the network file
system module, and your Ethernet card compiled.
<p>
Why use
modules? Modules make the kernel smaller. This reduces the
amount of protected space never given up by the kernel. Modules load and
unload and that memory can be reallocated. If you use a module more
than about
90% of the time the machine is up, compile it. Using a module in
this case can be wasteful of memory, because while the module takes up the
same amount of memory as if it were compiled, the kernel needs
a little more code to have
a hook for the module. Remember, the kernel runs in protected
space,
but the modules don't. That said, I don't often follow my own
advice. I
compile in: ext2, IDE and elf support only. While I use an Ethernet
card almost all
the time, I compile everything else as modules: a.out, java, floppy,
iso9660, msdos, minix, vfat, smb, nfs, smc-ultra (Ethernet card),
serial, printer, sound, ppp, etc.
Many of these only run for a few minutes at a time here and there.
<p>
The next step is to configure the
kernel. Here we have three choices--while all do the same thing,
I recommend using one of the graphical methods. The old way was to
simply type: <tt>make&nbsp;config</tt>. This begins a long series of
questions. However, if you make a mistake, your only option is to press
<tt>ctrl-C</tt> and begin again. You also can't go
back in the sequence, and some questions
depend on previous answers. If for some reason you absolutely
can't use either of the graphical methods, be my guest.
<p>
I recommend using either <tt>make&nbsp;menuconfig</tt> or
<tt>make&nbsp;xconfig</tt>. In order to use <b>menuconfig</b>,
you must have installed the ncurses-dev and the
tk4-dev libraries. If you didn't install them and you don't want to
use the next
method, I highly recommend that you install them now. You can always
uninstall them later.
<p>
To run <tt>make&nbsp;xconfig</tt>, you must install and configure X.
Since X is such a memory hog, I install, configure and
<b>startx</b> only for this portion of the process, going back to a console
while the kernel compiles so it can have all the memory it needs. The
xconfig menu is, in my opinion, the best and easiest way to
configure the kernel. Under menuconfig, if you disable an option, any
subordinate options are not shown. Under xconfig, if you disable an
option, subordinate options still show, they are just greyed out. I
like this because I can see what's been added since the last kernel.
I may want to enable an option to get one of the new sub-options in order
to to experiment with it.
<p>
I'm going to take some
space here to describe the sections in the kernel configuration and tell
you some of the things I've discovered--mostly the hard way.
<p>
The first section is the code-maturity-level option. The only
question is whether you want to use developmental drivers and code. You
may not have a choice if you have some bleeding edge hardware. If
you choose ``no'', the experimental code is greyed out or not
shown. If you use this kernel for commercial production purposes,
you'll probably want to choose ``no''.
<p>
The second section concerns
modules. If you want modules, choose ``yes'' for questions 1
and 3. If you want to use proprietary modules that come with certain
distributions, such as Caldera's OpenLinux for their Netware support, also
answer ``yes'' to the second question since you won't be able to recompile
the module.
<p>
The third section is general setup. Do compile the
kernel as ELF and compile support for ELF binaries. Not compiling
the proper support is a definite ``gotcha''.
You'll get more efficient code compiling the kernel for the machine's
specific architecture (Pentium or 486), but a 386 kernel will run in any 32-bit
Intel compatible clone; a Pentium kernel won't.
An emergency boot disk for a large number of computers (as well as
distribution install disks) is best compiled as a 386. However, a 386 will
not run a kernel compiled for a Pentium.
<p>
Next comes block
devices--nothing special here. If your root device is on an IDE drive,
just make sure you compile it.
<p>
Then comes networking. For
computers not connected to a network, you won't need much here unless
you plan to use one computer to dial-out while others connect through
it. In this case, you'll need to read up on such things as masquerading and
follow the suggested guidelines.
<p>
SCSI support is next, though
why it doesn't directly follow block devices I don't know. If your
root
partition is on a SCSI device, don't choose modules for SCSI support.
<p>
SCSI low-level drivers follow general SCSI support. Again,
modules only for devices that don't contain the root partition.
<p>
The next section takes us back to networking again. Expect
to do a lot of looking for your particular card here as well as some
other support such as <b>ppp</b>, <b>slip</b>, etc. If you use <b>nfs</b> to
mount your root device, compile in Ethernet support.
<p>
For
those lucky enough to be needing ISDN support, the ISDN subsection will
need to be completed.
<p>
Older CD-ROMs may require support from the next
section. If you're using a SCSI or IDE CD-ROM, you can skip
this one.
<p>
Next comes file systems. Again, compile
what you need, in most cases ext2 and use modules for the rest.
<p>
Character devices are chosen next. Non-serial mice, like
the PS/2 mouse are supported. Look on the bottom of your mouse. Many
two-button mice are PS/2 type,
even though they look and connect like serial mice. You'll almost
certainly want serial support (generic) as a minimum. Generic printer support
is also
listed here.
<p>
The penultimate section is often the most troubling:
sound. Choose carefully from the list and read the available help.
Make sure you've chosen the correct I/O base and IRQs
for your card. The MPU I/O base for a SoundBlaster card is listed as
0. This is normally 330 and your sound module will complain
if this value is incorrect. Don't worry. One of the nice things about
modules is you can recompile and reinstall the modules as long as the
kernel was compiled with the hook. (Aren't modules great?).
<p>
The final section contains one question that should probably be
answered as ``no, kernel hacking''.
<p>
Save your configuration and exit.
<p>
I have, on several occasions,
had trouble editing the numbers in menuconfig
or xconfig to values I knew were correct. For whatever reason, I
couldn't change the
number or <b>config</b> wouldn't accept the number, telling me it
was invalid. For example, changing the SoundBlaster IRQ from the
config default of 7 to 5, and the MPU base I/O from 0 to 300. If
you experience this problem, but everything else went well, don't
despair. The file you just wrote when you did a ``Save'' and
``Exit'' is an
editable text file. You may use your text editor of choice: Emacs, vi,
CrispLite, joe, etc. Your configuration file is in the /usr/src/linux
directory and
is called <tt>.config</tt>. The
leading dot causes the file to be hidden during a normal directory listing
(<b>ls</b>), but it
shows up when the <tt>-a</tt> option is specified.
Just edit the numbers in this file that
you had trouble with in the configuration process. Next, type
<tt>make&nbsp;dep</tt>
to propagate your configurations from the .config file to
the proper subdirectories
and to complete the setup. Finally, type <tt>make&nbsp;clean</tt>
to prepare for the final kernel build.
<p><HR> <P>
<h3>Building the Kernel</h3>
<p>
We're now ready to begin
building the kernel. There are several options for accomplishing this task:
<p>
<ul>
<li> <tt>make zImage</tt>: makes the basic,
compressed kernel and leaves it in the /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot
directory as zImage.
<li> <tt>make zlilo</tt>: Copies
the zImage to the root directory (unless you edited the top-level
Makefile) and runs LILO. If you choose to use this option,
you'll have to ensure that /etc/lilo.conf is preconfigured.
<li> <tt>make zdisk</tt>: Writes zImage to a
floppy disk in /dev/fd0
(the first floppy drive--the a: drive in DOS). You'll need the disk
in the drive before
you start. You can accomplish the same thing by running
<tt>make&nbsp;zImage</tt> and copying the
image to a floppy disk
<tt>cp&nbsp;/usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/zImage&nbsp;/dev/fd0</tt>
Note that you'll need to use a high-density
disk. The low density 720k disks will reportedly not boot the kernel.
<li> <tt>make boot</tt>: Works just
the same as the zImage option.
<li> <tt>make bzImage</tt>: Used for big kernels
and operates the same as zImage. You will know if you need this
option, because <b>make</b> will fail with a message that
the image is too big.
<li> <tt>make bzdisk</tt>: Used for big kernels
and operates the same as zdisk. You will know if you need this
option, because make will fail with a message that
the image is too big.
</ul>
Other <b>make</b> options are available,
but are specialized, and are not covered here. Also, if you need
specialized support, such as for a RAM disk or SMP,
read the appropriate documentation and edit the Makefile in
/usr/src/linux (also called the top-level Makefile) accordingly.
Since all the options I discussed above are basically the same
as the zImage option, the rest of this article deals with
<tt>make&nbsp;zImage</tt>--it is
the easiest way to build the kernel.
<p>
For those of you who wish to speed up the process and won't be doing
other things (such as configuring other applications), I suggest you
look at the man page
for make and try out the <tt>-j</tt> option (perhaps with a limit like 5) and also the <tt>-l</tt> option.
<p>
If you chose modules during the configuration process,
you'll want to issue the commands:
<p>
<pre>
make modules
make modules_install
</pre>
to put the modules
in their default location of /lib/modules/2.0.x/,
x being the kernel minor number. If you already have this
subdirectory and it has subdirectories such as
block, net, scsi, cdrom, etc., you may want to remove
2.0.x and everything below it unless you have some proprietary modules
installed, in which case don't remove it. When the modules
are installed, the subdirectories are created and
populated.
<p>
You could just as easily have combined the last three
commands:
<p>
<pre>
make zImage; make modules; make modules_install
</pre>
then returned after all the disk churning
finished. The ; (semicolon) character separates sequential commands on one line and
performs each command in order so that you don't have to wait around just
to issue the next command.
<p>
Once your kernel is built and your
modules installed, we have a few more items to take care of. First, copy
your kernel to the root (or /boot/ or /etc/, if you wish):
<p>
<pre>
cp /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/zImage /zImage
</pre>
You should also copy the /usr/src/linux/System.map
file to the same directory as the kernel image. Then
change (cd) to the /etc directory
to configure LILO. This is a very important step. If we don't install
a pointer
to the new kernel, it won't boot. Normally, an install kernel
is called vmlinuz. Old-time Unix users will
recognize the construction of this name. The trailing ``z'' means the
image is compressed. The ``v'' and ``m'' also have significance and
mean ``virtual'' and ``sticky'' respectively and
pertain to memory and disk management. I suggest you leave the
vmlinuz kernel in place, since you know it works.
<p>
Edit the /etc/lilo.conf file
to add your new kernel. Use the lines from the
<tt>image=/vmlinuz</tt> line to the next
<tt>image=</tt> line or the end. Duplicate what you see, then
change the first line to <tt>image=/zImage</tt>
(assuming your kernel is in the root directory) and choose a
different name for the <tt>label=</tt>.
The first image in the file is the default, others will have to be
specified on the command line in order to boot them. Save the file and
type:
<p>
<pre>
lilo
</pre>
You will now see the kernel labels, and the first
one will have an asterisk.
If you don't see the label that you gave your new kernel or LILO
terminates with
an error, you'll need to redo your work in /etc/lilo.conf
(see LILO man pages).
<p>
We're almost ready to reboot. At this point, if you know your
system will only require one reboot to run properly, you might want
to issue the command:
<p>
<pre>
depmod -a 2.0.x
</pre>
where x is the minor number of the kernel you just built. This command creates the dependencies
file some modules need. You'll also want to make sure you don't boot
directly into <b>xdm</b>. For Red Hat type systems,
this means ensuring the /etc/inittab file
doesn't have a default run level of 5, or that you remember to pass
LILO the
run level at boot time. For Debian systems, you can just type:
<p>
<pre>
mv /etc/init.d/xdm /etc/init.d/xdm.orig
</pre>
for now and move it back later.
<p><HR> <P>
<h3>Normal Rebooting the New Kernel</h3>
<p>
Reboot your machine using:
<p>
<pre>
shutdown -r now
</pre>
While typing <tt>reboot</tt> or pressing the
<tt>ctrl+alt+del</tt> key combination usually
works, I don't recommend either one.
Under some circumstances, the file systems won't be properly
unmounted and could corrupt open files. At the LILO
prompt, if you need to boot the old kernel or pass some parameters for
bootup and you don't see the <tt>boot:</tt> prompt, you can try
pressing either the
<tt>shift</tt> or <tt>ctrl</tt> key, and the
<tt>boot:</tt> prompt should appear. Once you have
it, press <tt>tab</tt> to see the available kernel labels. Type the label and
optionally enter any parameters for bootup. Normally, however, the default
kernel should boot automatically after the timeout interval specified in
the /etc/lilo.conf file. During bootup,
you may see a few error messages containing: SIOCADDR or the
like. These usually indicate that a module (normally a network module)
didn't load.
We'll handle this shortly. If you got the error, ``VFS, cannot mount
root'', you didn't compile the proper disk or file-system support into
the kernel.
<p><HR> <P>
<h3>Troubleshooting</h3>
<p>
Due to the different
ways in which each distribution handles daemon startup
from /etc/inittab, it is difficult in this article to cover all the
possible
reasons your bootup may not have gone smoothly and the
reasons why.
However, I can tell you where to start looking.
<p>
First, run <tt>depmod&nbsp;-a</tt>
to ensure you have an up-to-date, module dependency file (it will
be
created in the appropriate subdirectory). If you
get a string of errors about unresolved dependencies, old modules
are present in the modules subdirectories, and you didn't configure
the kernel with ``Module Versions''
enabled. This is not a fatal error. The
modules you compiled and installed are good. Check the
/etc/conf.modules file and make sure that any lines pointing to
/lib/modules are complete:
<pre>
/lib/modules/`uname -r`/xx
</pre>
(Note: the grave quote on each side of <tt>uname&nbsp;-r</tt>
is located above
the Tab key in the upper left corner of the keyboard on a
U.S. keyboard).
<p>
Make sure <b>kerneld</b> is running and that it is
loaded early in the bootup process. If it is, then
the system doesn't need to explicitly load modules, kerneld will
handle it. Be careful about calling kerneld too early in the first
rc script. kerneld will stop the bootup process forcing a hard reboot
via the reset button or power switch, if it is called before the system
knows its host name. If this happens to you, you can reboot passing LILO
the <tt>-b</tt> argument which prevents <b>init</b> from executing any rc scripts.
Next, look in /etc/rc.d/ at the
rc, rc.sysinit and rc.modules files. One or more may point to a directory
such as /etc/modules/`uname -r`/`uname -v`
where a list of bootup modules are located. You can just copy the old
file over to the new directory;
<pre>
mkdir /etc/modules/`uname -r` ;
cp /etc/modules/2.0.xx/g#1 Thu 3 Sep 1997.\
default /etc/modules/`uname -r`/\
`uname -v`.default&quot;&quot;
</pre>
Your system will almost certainly have a different
date for the modules file. Your system also may or may not use the
default extension. Pay close attention to the use of grave quotes
and double quotes in the above example, since both are needed in the proper
places. Once you have found the keys to your system, you should be
able to reboot into a properly functioning system. If
you experience further problems, the best place to get quick, expert advice
is on a mailing list dedicated to your particular distribution. Those
successfully running a particular distribution usually delight in
assisting novices with problems they may encounter. Why? Because
they hit the same brick walls when they were novices and received
help with many problems. Lurk a few days on a list, and
if your question isn't asked by someone else, ask
it yourself. Check the mail-list archives first, if any are present.
These archives contain answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ).
<p><HR> <P>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<p>
While building a kernel tailored to your
system may seem a daunting challenge for new administrators, the time
spent is worth it. Your system will run more efficiently, and more
importantly, you will have the satisfaction of building it yourself.
<p>
The few areas
where you may encounter trouble are in remembering to rerun LILO after
installing the new kernel, but you didn't overwrite your old one (or
did you?), so you can always revert to one that worked from the
<tt>lilo:</tt> prompt. Distribution
specific problems during bootup may also be encountered
during the
first reboot but are usually easily resolved. Help is normally
only an e-mail
away for those distributions that don't come with technical support.
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1998, David A. Bandel <BR>
Published in Issue 32 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, September 1998</H5></center>
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<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Patch for Beginners</font></H1>
<h4>By <a href="mailto: layers@marktwain.net">Larry Ayers</a></h4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<center><h3>Introduction</h3></center>
<p>The aim of this article is to introduce new Linux users to an invaluable
resource, Larry Wall's <i>patch</i> program. <i>Patch</i> is an interface to
the GNU <i>diff</i> utility, which is used to find differences between files;
<i>diff</i> has a multitude of options, but it's most often used to generate a file
which lists lines which have been changed, showing both the original and
changed lines and ignoring lines which have remained the same. <i>Patch</i>
is typically used to update a directory of source code files to a newer
version, obviating the need to download an entire new source archive.
Downloading a patch in effect is just downloading the lines which have been
changed.
<p><i>Patch</i> originated in the nascent, bandwidth-constrained internet
environment of a decade ago, but like many Unix tools of that era it is still
much-used today. In the February issue of the programmer's magazine
<b>Dr. Dobb's Journal</b> Larry Wall had some interesting comments on the
early days of <i>patch</i>:
<pre><blockquote>
DDJ: By the way, what came first, patch or diff?
LW: diff, by a long ways. patch is one of those things
that, in retrospect, I was totally amazed that nobody had
thought of it sooner, because I think that diff predated
patch by at least ten years or so.
I think I know why, though. And it's one of these little
psychological things. When they made diff, they added an
option called -e, I think it was, and that would spit out an
ed script, so people said to themselves, "Well, if I wanted
to automate the applying of a diff, I would use that." So it
never actually occurred to someone that you could write a
computer program to take the other forms of output and apply
them. Either that, or it did not occur to them that there
was some benefit to using the context diff form, because you
could apply it to something that had been changed and still
easily get it to do the right thing.
It's one of those things that's obvious in retrospect. But
to be perfectly honest, it wasn't really a brilliant flash
of inspiration so much as self defense. I put out the first
version of rn, and then I started putting out patches for
it, and it was a total mess. You could not get people to
apply patches because they had to apply them by hand. So,
they would skip the ones that they didn't think they needed,
and they'd apply the new ones over that, and they'd get
totally messed up. I wrote patch so that they wouldn't have
this excuse that it was too hard.
I don't know whether it's still the case, but for many
years, I told people that I thought patch had changed the
culture of computing more than either rn or Perl had. Now
that the Internet is getting a lot faster than it used to
be, and it's getting much easier to distribute whole
distributions, patches tend to be sent around only among
developers. I haven't sent out a patch kit for Perl in
years. I think patch has became less important for the
whole thing, but still continues to be a way for developers
to interchange ideas. But for a while in there, patch
really did make a big difference to how software was
developed. </blockquote></pre>
<p>Larry Wall's assessment of the diminishing importance of <i>patch</i> to
the computing community as a whole is probably accurate, but in the free
software world it's still an essential tool. The ubiquity of <i>patch</i>
makes it possible for new users and non-programmers to easily participate in
alpha- and beta-testing of software, thus benefiting the entire community.
<p>It occurred to me to write this article after noticing a thread which
periodically resurfaces in the linux-kernel mailing list. About every three
months someone will post a plea for a split Linux kernel source distribution,
so that someone just interested in, say, the i386 code and the IDE disk driver
wouldn't have to download the Alpha, Sparc, etc. files and the many SCSI
drivers for each new kernel release. A series of patient (and some
not-so-patient) replies will follow, most urging the original poster to use
patches to upgrade the kernel source. Linus Torvalds will then once again
state that he has no interest in undertaking the laborious task of splitting
the kernel source into chunks, but that if anyone else wants to, they should
feel free to do so as an independent project. So far no-one has volunteered.
I can't blame the kernel-hackers for not wanting to further complicate their
lives; I imagine it would be much more interesting and challenging to work
directly with the kernel than to overhaul the entire kernel distribution
scheme! Downloading an eleven megabyte kernel source archive <i>is</i>
time-consuming (and, for those folks paying by the minute for net access,
expensive as well) but the kernel patches can be as small as a few dozen
kilobytes, and are hardly ever larger than one megabyte. The 2.1.119
development kernel source on my hard disk has been incrementally patched up
from version 2.1.99, and I doubt if I'd follow the development as closely if I
had to download each release in its entirety.
<center><h3>Using Patch</h3></center>
<p><i>Patch</i> comes with a good manual-page which lists its numerous
options, but 99% of the time just two of them will suffice:
<ul>
<li><kbd>patch -p1 &lt; [patchfile]</kbd>
<li><kbd>patch -R &lt; [patchfile]</kbd> &nbsp;(used to undo a patch)
</ul>
<p>The <i>-p1</i> option strips the left-most directory level from the
filenames in the patch-file, as the top-level directory is likely to vary on
different machines. To use this option, place your patch within the directory
being patched, and then run <i>patch -p1 &lt; [patchfile]</i> from within that
directory. A short excerpt from a Linux kernel patch will illustrate
this:<br>
<pre><kbd>
diff -u --recursive --new-file v2.1.118/linux/mm/swapfile.c linux/mm/swapfile.c
--- v2.1.118/linux/mm/swapfile.c Wed Aug 26 11:37:45 1998
+++ linux/mm/swapfile.c Wed Aug 26 16:01:57 1998
@@ -489,7 +489,7 @@
int swap_header_version;
int lock_map_size = PAGE_SIZE;
int nr_good_pages = 0;
- char tmp_lock_map = 0;
+ unsigned long tmp_lock_map = 0;
</kbd></pre>
<p>Applying the patch from which this segment was copied with the <i>-p1</i>
switch effectively truncates the path which <i>patch</i> will seek;
<i>patch</i> will look for a subdirectory of the current directory named
<kbd>/mm</kbd>, and should then find the <i>swapfile.c</i> file there, waiting
to be patched. In this excerpt, the line preceded by a dash will be
replaced with the line preceded by a plus sign. A typical patch will contain
updates for many files, each section consisting of the output of <i>diff
-u</i> run on two versions of a file.
<p><i>Patch</i> displays its output to the screen as it works, but this output
usually scrolls by too quickly to read. The original, pre-patch files are
renamed <i>*.orig</i>, while the new patched files will bear the original
filenames.
<center><h3>Patching Problems</h3></center>
<p>One possible source of problems using patch is differences between various
versions, all of which are available on the net. Larry Wall hasn't done much
to improve patch in recent years, possibly because his last release of the
utility works well in the majority of situations. FSF programmers
from the GNU project have been releasing new versions of patch for the past
several years. Their first revisions of patch had a few problems, but I've been
using version 2.5 (which is the version distributed with Debian 2.0) lately
with no problems. Version 2.1 has worked well for me in the past. The source
for the current GNU version of <i>patch</i> is available from the
<a href="ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu">GNU</a> FTP site, though most people will
just use the version supplied with their distribution of Linux.
<p>Let's say you have patched a directory of source files, and the patch
didn't apply cleanly . This happens occasionally, and when it does
<i>patch</i> will show an error message indicating which file confused it,
along with the line numbers. Sometimes the error will be obvious, such as an
omitted semicolon, and can be fixed without too much trouble. Another
possibility is to delete from the patch the section which is causing trouble,
but this may or may not work, depending on the file involved.
<p>Another common error scenario: suppose you have un-tarred a kernel source
archive, and while exploring the various subdirectories under
<kbd>/linux/arch/</kbd> you notice the various machine architecture
subdirectories, such as <kbd>alpha</kbd>, <kbd>sparc</kbd>, etc. If you, like
most Linux users, are running a machine with an Intel processor (or one of the
Intel clones), you might decide to delete these directories, which are not
needed for compiling your particular kernel and which occupy needed
disk space. Some time later a new kernel patch is released and while
attempting to apply it <i>patch</i> stalls when it is unable to find the Alpha
or PPC files it would like to patch. Luckily <i>patch</i> allows user
intervention at this point, asking the question "Skip this patch?" Tell it
"y", and <i>patch</i> will proceed along its merry way. You will probably
have to answer the question numerous times, which is a good argument for
allowing the un-needed directories to remain on your disk.
<center><h3>Kernel-Patching Tips</h3></center>
<p>Many Linux users use <i>patch</i> mainly for patching the kernel source, so
a few tips are in order. Probably the easiest method is to use the
shell-script <i>patch-kernel</i>, which can be found in the
<kbd>/scripts</kbd> subdirectory of the kernel source-tree. This handy and
well-written script was written by Nick Holloway in 1995; a couple of years
later Adam Sulmicki added support for several compression algorithms,
including *.bz, *.bz2, compress, gzip, and plain-text (i.e., a patch which has
already been uncompressed). The script assumes that your kernel source is in
<kbd>/usr/src/linux,</kbd>, with your new patch located in the current
directory. Both of these defaults can be overridden by command-line switches
in this format: <kbd>patch-kernel [ sourcedir [ patchdir ] ]</kbd>.
<i>Patch-kernel</i> will abort if any part of the patch fails, but if the
patch applies cleanly it will invoke <i>find</i>, which will delete all of the
<kbd>*.orig</kbd> files which <i>patch</i> leaves behind.
<p>If you prefer to see the output of commands, or perhaps you would rather
keep the <kbd>*.orig</kbd> files until you are certain the patched source
compiles, running <i>patch</i> directly (with the patch located in the kernel
source top-level directory, as outlined above) has been very reliable in my
experience. In order to avoid uncompressing the patch before
applying it a simple pipe will do the trick:
<p><kbd>gzip -cd patchXX.gz | patch -p1</kbd><br>
<p>or:
<p><kbd>bzip2 -dc patchXX.bz2 | patch -p1</kbd>
<p>After the patch has been applied the <i>find</i> utility can be used to
check for rejected files:
<p><kbd>find . -name \*.rej</kbd>
<p>At first the syntax of this command is confusing. The period indicates
that <i>find</i> should look in the current directory and recursively in all
subdirectories beneath it. Remember the period should have a space both
before and after it. The backslash before the wildcard "*" "escapes" the
asterisk in order to avoid confusing the shell, for which an asterisk has
another meaning. If <i>find</i> locates any <kbd>*.rej</kbd> files it will
print the filenames on the screen. If <i>find</i> exits without any visible
output it's nearly certain the patch applied correctly.
<p>Another job for <i>find</i> is to remove the <kbd>*.orig</kbd> files:
<p><kbd>find . -name \*.orig -print0 | xargs -0r rm -f</kbd>
<p>This command is sufficiently cumbersome to type that it would be a good
candidate for a new shell alias. A line in your ~/.bashrc file such as:
<p><kbd>alias findorig 'find . -name \*.orig -print0 | xargs -0r rm -f'</kbd>
<p>will allow just typing <kbd>findorig</kbd> to invoke the above command.
The single quotes in the alias definition are necessary if an aliased command
contains spaces. In order to use a new alias without logging out and then
back in again, just type <kbd>source ~/.bashrc</kbd> at the prompt.
<center><h3>Incidental Comments and Conclusion</h3></center>
<p>While putting this article together I upgraded the version of <i>patch</i>
on my machine from version 2.1 to version 2.5. Both of these versions come
from the current FSF/GNU maintainers. Immediately I noticed that the default
output of version 2.5 has been changed, with less information appearing on the
screen. Gone is Larry Wall's "...hmm" which used to appear while <i>patch</i>
was attempting to determine the proper lines to patch. The output of version
2.5 is simply a list of messages such as "patching file [filename]", rather
than the more copious information shown by earlier versions. Admittedly, the
information scrolled by too quickly to read, but the output could be
redirected to a file for later perusal. This change doesn't affect the
functionality of the program, but does lessen the human element. It seems to
me that touches such as the old "...hmm" messages, as well as comments in
source code, are valuable in that they remind the user that a program is the
result of work performed by a living, breathing human being, rather than a
sterile collection of bits. The old behavior can be restored by appending the
switch <kbd>--verbose</kbd> to the <i>patch</i> command-line, but I'm sure
that many users either won't be aware of the option or won't bother to type it
in. Another difference between 2.1 and 2.5 is that the <i>*.orig</i> back-up
files aren't created unless <i>patch</i> is given the <kbd>-b</kbd> option.
<p><i>Patch</i> is not strictly necessary for an end-user who isn't interested
in trying out and providing bug-reports for "bleeding-edge" software and
kernels, but often the most interesting developments in the Linux world belong
in this category. It isn't difficult to get the hang of using <i>patch</i>, and the
effort will be amply repaid.
<p>
<hr>
<!-- hhmts start -->
Last modified: Mon 31 Aug 1998
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<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1998, Larry Ayers <BR>
Published in Issue 32 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, September 1998</H5></center>
<!--===================================================================-->
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<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Typist: A Simple Typing Tutor</font></H1>
<h4>By <a href="mailto: layers@marktwain.net">Larry Ayers</a></h4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
Recently a small, ncurses-based typing tutor program appeared on the
Sunsite archive site. Typist is a revision of an old, unmaintained Unix
program. Simon Baldwin is responsible for this updated version, and he has
this to say about the origin of his involvement:
<pre><blockquote>
This program came from a desire to learn 'proper' typing, and not the
awkward keyboard prodding I've been doing for the past 10 years or
more. Since I usually run Linux rather than Windows or DOS, I looked
around for a tutor program, and surprisingly, found nothing in the
usual places.
Eventually, I stumbled across Typist - a little gem of a program for
UNIX-like systems. The original worked great, but after a while I
started noticing odd things - some lessons seemed to go missing, and
the programs were apt to exhibit some strange behaviours. After
fixing a few bugs it seemed that the time was right for something of a
rewrite.
</blockquote></pre>
<p>Don't expect a Linux version of Mavis Beacon; Typist has a simple but
efficient interface without extraneous graphical fluff. Start it up and here is
what you will see:<br>
<p><img alt="1st Typist screenshot" src="./gx/ayers/typist-1.gif">
<p>Once a choice of lessons has been made, a series of help screens explain
the usage of the program. Here is a lesson screenshot:<br>
<p><img alt="Typist lesson screenshot" src="./gx/ayers/typist-2.gif">
<p>The general idea is to type the exact letters or words shown on the screen;
if a mistake is made a caret is shown rather than the letter typed. If no
mistakes were made, the next section of the lesson appears; otherwise the
first section is repeated until there are no errors. After each run through
a lesson, a box appears showing typing speed and number of errors.
<p>A Dvorak lesson is even included for those willing to swim against the tide
in the pursuit of greater typing speed. I've considered learning the Dvorak
system, but have refrained due to my family's occasional need to use my
machine. I don't want to make the transition between Windows and Linux
systems more of a culture shock than it already is!
<p>Typist's small size and spartan interface does have the advantages of quick
start-up and low overhead, making it ideal for quick usage in the intervals
between other tasks, or while waiting for a web-site to load.
<p>Typist also exemplifies one my favorite scenarios in the free software
world: an old source code archive languishing on an FTP site somewhere is now
revived and given new life and new users.
<p>At the moment, the only source of the program seems to be the
<a href="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/Incoming">/pub/Linux/Incoming</a>
directory at the Sunsite archive site. Presumably Typist will eventually be
filed away elsewhere on the site, but I don't know just where it will end up.
Incidentally, Typist has now been re-released under the GNU GPL.
<p>
<hr>
<!-- hhmts start -->
Last modified: Mon 31 Aug 1998
<!-- hhmts end -->
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<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1998, Larry Ayers <BR>
Published in Issue 32 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, September 1998</H5></center>
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<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Paradigm Shift</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:joe@pjprimer.com">Joe Barr</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<P>
<B>paradigm shift</B> <I>paradigm shift (pair uh dime
shift) 1. a profound and
irreversible change to a different model of
behavior or perception. 2. an
epiphany with staying power. 3. a sea change of
such magnitude that it alters
the course of all who pass through it. </I>
<P>
Paradigm shifts. Thinking back over my years in
the industry, there haven't been
that many. Especially when you consider the
thousands of times the term has been
used. The move of the center from the glass
house to the desktop certainly
qualifies. Likewise the rethinking of systems
analysis and design, from the physical
to the logical, was echoed by structured
programming.
<P>
But programming was to be swept by a second,
perhaps even more fundamental
change in perspective as we moved from
procedural languages to object oriented.
And to put it in everyday terms, there is a
whole new mindset today when you
connect to the internet than there was when you
reached out to touch a BBS.
<P>
There have been plenty of impostors: bubble
memory, the death of mainframes,
quality management, cold fusion, new Coke and
"push content" on the web. It's
<P>
often impossible to tell the difference
between la buzz de jour and the first stirrings
of a new-born, honest to baud, as real as the
day is long, paradigm shift.
<P>
The incubation period can last for years.
Eventually, though, a thing either emerges
and changes everything or it quietly fades
away. Only then can you know for sure. I
believe we are at the edge of the largest
paradigm shift in the history of the industry.
This one will smash the current model beyond
recognition. Our children and our
children's children will look back at the first
age, the first 30 years of personal
computing, and see it for the barbaric,
archaic, self inhibiting, self impeding dinosaur
that it is.
<P>
A paradigm shift does not mean one thing is
simply replaced by another. A new
force field appears, draws attention to itself,
and may coexist with, perhaps even
languish alongside for some period of time, the
model that it will replace.
<P>
There may even be a longer period of time
during which the original gradually fades
away. The shift occurs, quite simply, when you
wake up one day and find yourself
seeing things in a new way, from a new
perspective.
<P>
The glass house and the personal computer? That
one has been underway for many
years. Microsoft has eclipsed IBM as the
largest seller of software in the quarter
just ended.
<P>
The shift, by definition, never occurs in
isolation. There must be related spheres,
energizing pulses, co-dependent orbs circling
the prime. It is when the catalyst
works its magic that you are transported.
Suddenly you are "there."
<P>
Object oriented programming has been around for
quite awhile now. I remember in
the early 80's my brother asking if I had taken
a look at Smalltalk yet. He seemed
quite taken with the language and what it was
about. I toyed with the turtle and got
some inkling of objects and inheritance, but I
really couldn't see that much would
ever happen in the real world with Alan Kay's
brainchild.
<P>
Years later C++ would begin to move into the
mainstream. Not replacing Cobol
and C but just establishing its own place in
the landscape. OO methodologies
<P>
began to abound as more and more people
crossed the line. But the big push hadn't
even happened yet, Oak hadn't even dropped the
acorn that became Java.
<P>
Today, with the wildfire popularity of Java
among developers, with its entry into the
enterprise not only assured but an established
fact, with its continued maturing and
fleshing out, it is Java that is carrying the
banner of object oriented programing to
the dwindling herd of procedural programmers.
<P>
Of course, in the time between Kay's
conceptualization of objects, GUIs and
cut-and-paste, and where we are today, it has
not always been clear that this was
the kind of stuff that would have profound,
far-reaching impact on the way we look
at software and design, the way we look at the
tasks to be done and how we plan
to do them.
<P>
To many of the brightest and the best, at least
to many outside of the Learning
Research Group at Xerox Palo Alto Research
Center during the 70's and 80's,
bubble memory was much more likely to be the
next big thing. And so it is with
some trepidation that I hereby formally and
officially predict that we are today
awash in the first tides of a sea change that
will once again change everything.
<P>
But keep in mind, my dweebs, that my track
record as a Karmac for Computing is
something less than perfect. It was in the fall
of 1978 that I told Sam Skaggs, then
president of Skaggs-Albertsons superstores, the
first marriage of drug and grocery
emporiums, that scanning technology would never
work in a grocery store.
<P>
And in 1994 I predicted OS/2 would win the
desktop from Windows. So don't bet
the digital dirtfarm on this just yet. Your
narrator is guessing, just as every other
pundit who looks out past the breakers for
first signs of the swell that will become
the next big wave.
<P>
My hunch is this: free/open source software
will emerge as the only sensible choice.
Feel the tremors in the Northwest? This one
could be killer. There has been much
debate over which term ("free software" or
"open source") is the best choice, the
most descriptive, and the truest to its
philosophical roots. I am not going to go
there. I will compromise by using both terms
interchangeably.
<P>
But please note that the word free in "free
software" applies to a state of being, not
to its price. It is about freedom. Also note
that the hottest software product in the
world today, Linux, qualifies as free software
under this definition, whether you
download it for free from the internet or pay
anywhere from $1.99 to $99.99 for
specific distributions.
<P>
Linux is the only non-Windows operating system
in the world that is gaining market
share. How hot is it? It's almost impossible
these days to keep up with articles in
the press about Linux. A mailing list dedicated
to Linux News recently had to split
into three separate lists in order to handle
the load. Linus Torvalds, its creator, is on
the cover of the August issue of Forbes.
<P>
Every major computer trade publication is
showering it with attention. Oracle,
Ingres, and Informix have just announced they
will be porting their database
products to Linux. Caldera has just announced
(and has available for free
download today) a Netware server for Linux. And
that's just the news from the
past two weeks. Linux has cache, bebe.
<P>
The roots of Linux-mania began in the early
80's when Richard Stallman founded
the GNU Project. Stallman had worked at MIT
during the 70's and witnessed the
destructive (in terms of group productivity and
effort) nature of restrictive licensing
of proprietary software. He wanted to create a
free, modern operating system that
could be used by everyone.
<P>
In the GNU Manifesto (1983), he explained why
he must write GNU: "I consider
that the golden rule requires that if I like a
program I must share it with other people
who like it. Software sellers want to divide
the users and conquer them, making
each user agree not to share with others.
<P>
I refuse to break solidarity with other users
in this way. I cannot in good conscience
sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software
license agreement.
<P>
For years I worked within the Artificial
Intelligence Lab to resist such tendencies
and other inhospitalities, but eventually they
had gone too far: I could not remain in
an institution where such things are done for
me against my will.
<P>
So that I can continue to use computers without
dishonor, I have decided to put
together a sufficient body of free software so
that I will be able to get along without
any software that is not free.
<P>
I have resigned from the AI lab to deny MIT any
legal excuse to prevent me from
giving GNU away."
<P>
By the time (almost ten years later) Linus
Torvalds had a good working Linux
kernel available, the GNU project had most of
the non-kernel essentials ready. It
was a marriage made in free/open source
software heaven, and Linus converted the
original Linux license to the GPL (GNU's
General Public License).
<P>
After all, it seemed the obvious choice to the
young college student who had
wanted to create a free version of Unix that
everyone could use. Not only is Linus a
true code wizard, he is delightfully perfect
for his role today as poster boy of the
free/open source movement.
<P>
Every interview, every public appearance, each
bit of history about him and Linux
unearthed reveals a warm, wise, friendly,
candid and particularly unpretentious
personality. How else could someone whose views
are so diametrically opposed to
those of Bill Gates and the money mongers end
up on the cover of Forbes? But
Linux is not the only success story in the
world of free/open source.
<P>
Netscape rocked the commercial world earlier
this year when it announced it
would free the source code for its browser and
make it available for download to
<P>
anyone who wanted it. Netscape now claims that
the browser has been improved
as much over the past couple of months as it
would have in 2.5 years in its closed
source environment.
<P>
FreeBSD, a rival for Linux in the UNIX like,
free/open source sector, has its own
fanatical users and supporters. Just this past
week it shattered an existing world
record for total bytes transferred from an FTP
site in a single day. CRL Network
Services, host of the popular Walnut Creek
CD-ROM ftp site, announced on July
30th that they had moved over 400 gig of files
on July 28, 1998. The previous
mark of about 350 gig had been set by Microsoft
during the Win95 launch period.
<P>
Oh, one other thing. The FreeBSD record was set
on a single 200Mhz Pentium
box. The Microsoft record was set using 40
separate servers. Results like those are
probably the driving force behind the emerging
model. The performance just blows
away what Windows is able to deliver in their
closed, sealed, NDA protected,
shoot you if you see it source code,
proprietary model.
<P>
Eric S. Raymond, keeper of the tome on
internetese called "The Jargon File" and
author on the must read essay "The Cathedral
and The Bazaar," talks about the
success he had with FETCHMAIL using the Bazaar
model of development. Lots
of eyes on the code: bugs are found more
quickly, enhancements made more
quickly, design becomes more normalized.
<P>
But Linus is the candle for the moth. Leo
LaPorte had him as a guest on his ZDTV
show the night that Win98 was launched. I
caught him in chat on the way out and
asked him how SMP was looking for the next
release. He said it looked very good.
<P>
It seems he is always this accessible, and that
is part of his magic and part of the
reason for the success of Linux and shift in
thinking about software development.
For open software to not only flourish but
become the norm, at least for those
essential bits, like operating systems, that
everyone needs to run, there must be
huge successes to attract the rest of the crowd.
<P>
Linux and FreeBSD are two of those attractions.
Linus is the advantage that Linux
holds over FreeBSD, not in a technical sense,
but in a human sense. To get a sense
of what Linus is like, it's interesting to
follow his exchange of USENET messages
with Andy Tanenbaum, the creator of Minix.
<P>
Linus began his 386 experience with Minix and
began to extend it to create Linux.
He and Andy exchanged a series of messages in
comp.os.minix over the issues of
microkernel architecture, truly free software,
and the relative merits of Minix and
Linux.
<P>
It began with a post by Tanenbaum which said in
part:
<P>
"MINIX is a microkernel-based system. The file
system and memory management
are separate processes, running outside the
kernel. The I/O drivers are also
separate processes (in the kernel, but only
because the brain-dead nature of the
Intel CPUs makes that difficult to do otherwise).
<P>
LINUX is a monolithic style system. This is a
giant step back into the 1970s. That
is like taking an existing, working C program
and rewriting it in BASIC. To me,
writing a monolithic system in 1991 is a truly
poor idea."
<P>
To which Linus replied:
<P>
"True, Linux is monolithic, and I agree that
microkernels are nicer. With a less
argumentative subject, I'd probably have agreed
with most of what you said. From
a theoretical (and aesthetical) standpoint
Linux loses. If the GNU kernel had been
ready last spring, I'd not have bothered to
even start my project: the fact is that it
wasn't and still isn't. Linux wins heavily on
points of being available now.
<P>
&gt;&gt;MINIX is a microkernel-based system.
&gt;&gt;LINUX
is a monolithic style system.
<P>
If this was the only criterion for the
"goodness" of a kernel, you'd be right. What
you don't mention is that minix doesn't do the
micro-kernel thing very well, and has
problems with real multitasking (in the
kernel). If I had made an OS that had
problems with a multithreading filesystem, I
wouldn't be so fast to condemn others:
in fact, I'd do my damnedest to make others
forget about the fiasco."
<P>
Notice what is missing from the post? Even
though his pet project, the fledgling
Linux, has been slapped around pretty hard by
the man who created its
predecessor, Linus did not fall into the trap
of name calling and hysterics that too
often goes hand-in-glove with online debate.
<P>
Notice what is present in the post? Concession
of valid points made by
Tanenbaum. Factual assertions that represent
Linux quite nicely, thank you very
much. And even for this well behaved defense,
Linus closed with this:
<P>
"PS. I apologize for sometimes sounding too
harsh: minix is nice enough if you have
nothing else. Amoeba might be nice if you have
5-10 spare 386's lying around, but
I certainly don't. I don't usually get into
flames, but I'm touchy when it comes to
Linux :)"
<P>
For all his dweebness, Linus is a people
person. He is likable. He is brilliant. He is
passionate about Linux but not to the point of
resorting to bashing its detractors or
alternatives to it. Earlier I mentioned an
ongoing debate among proponents of the
terms "free software" and "open source
software." That is really symptomatic of a
deeper argument over what type of licensing
free/open source software should
have.
<P>
There is the GNU GPL that Linux uses, and there
is the BSD model. Listen to
Linus the diplomat walk that tightrope (while
still making his preference known) in
an interview with Linux Focus's Manuel Martinez:
<P>
"I'd like to point out that I don't think that
there is anything fundamentally superior in
the GPL as compared to the BSD license, for
example.
<P>
But the GPL is what _I_ want to program with,
because unlike the BSD license it
guarantees that anybody who works on the
project in the future will also contribute
their changes back to the community. And when I
do programming in my free time
and for my own enjoyment, I really want to have
that kind of protection: knowing
that when I improve a program those
improvements will continue to be available to
me and others in future versions of the program.
<P>
Other people have other goals, and sometimes
the BSD style licenses are better for
those goals. I personally tend to prefer the
GPL, but that really doesn't mean that
the GPL is any way inherently superior - it
depends on what you want the license to
do.."
<P>
His views on the Evil Empire? Strong, perhaps,
but certainly not inflammatory or
angry. In his words, from the same interview:
<P>
"I can certainly understand the "David vs
Goliath" setup, but no, I don't personally
share it all that much. I can't say that I like
MicroSoft: I think they make rather bad
operating systems - Windows NT is just more of
the same - but while I dislike their
operating systems and abhor their tactics in
the marketplace I at the same time
don't really care all that much about them.
<P>
I'm simply too content doing what I _want_ to
do to really have a very negative
attitude towards MicroSoft. They make bad
products - so what? I don't need to
care, because I happily don't have to use them,
and writing my own alternative has
been a very gratifying experience in many ways.
Not only have I learnt a lot doing
it, but I've met thousands of people that I
really like while developing Linux - some
of them in person, most of them through the
internet."
<P>
Three potentially disasterous discussions on
red button issues: Linux versus Minix,
the GNU GPL license versus that of BSD, and
Linux versus Windows. In each he
makes his points politely but with utter candor.
<P>
One last example. There is finally an official
Linux logo. It is the cute, fat and
friendly Penguin you often see on Linux sites.
There was heated debate among the
Linuxites on the choice of the logo. Many
wanted something other than a cute, fat
penguin. Something more aggressive or sleek,
perhaps.
<P>
Linus calmed these waters at the release of
Linux 2.0 by saying:
<P>
"Some people have told me they don't think a
fat penguin really embodies the grace
of Linux, which just tells me they have never
seen an angry penguin charging at
them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a lot more
careful about what they say if they
had."
<P>
He is completely believable, obviously
passionate about the project, and possessed
of a contagious good humor. Linux could have no
better leader from a technical
point of view, and it couldn't have a better
poster boy either. Its success more than
anything else is pulling the rest of the
world's mindset towards the notion of
free/open source software.
<P>
Nicholas Petreley raised the issue of open
source software recently in his forum at
InfoWorld Electric. It triggered a huge number
of responses about the
phenomenum. There may even be an Open Source
magazine in the works. I credit
my rethinking on this software dynamic to the
reading I did there. I believe it is what
finally made me realize that a paradigm shift
has already occurred. That we are no
longer discussing a possibility, but simply
what is.
<P>
The conclusion to the Forbes article behind the
Linus cover calls for the
Department of Justice to take note of the
success of Linux in growing market share
and to call of the investigation of Microsoft
as unregulated monopoly. While I
consider that a lame conclusion, the DOJ should
be interested in enforcing antitrust
law whether Linux is flourishing or not, I
can't help but wonder if there's not some
truth to the inspiration for that thinking.
That it won't be government intervention or
regulation that busts up Microsoft, but a
revolution in our thinking about software.
<P>
The Dweebspeak Primer, <A HREF="http://www.pjprimer.com/">
http://www.pjprimer.com/</A>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1998, Joe Barr <BR>
Published in Issue 32 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, September 1998</H5></center>
<!--===================================================================-->
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<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Running Remote X Sessions on Windows 95/98/NT/Mac/PPC Clients</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:rjenkins@unicom.net">Ron Jenkins</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<I>Copyright &#174; 1998 by Ron Jenkins. This work is provided on an
&quot;as is&quot; basis. The author provides no warranty whatsoever, either
express or implied, regarding the work, including warranties with respect to
its merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose.</I>
<P>Corrections and suggestions are welcomed by the author. He can be
reached by electronic mail at rjenkins@unicom.net.
<P>This document came about as a result of a client's problem and my
solution. I have since seen this question asked a zillion times on USENET
right up there with &quot;Why can't Linux see all my (insert your &gt;64MB
number here,) of RAM?&quot;
<P> <HR> <P>
<H3>The original problem</H3>
<P>One of my clients had a rather classical old-style Unix host to dumb
terminal setup, connected through multiple serial termservers.
<P>They also had a PC on every desk, also connecting through a
&quot;dumb&quot; serial connection.
<P>The problem was that they needed to administer the host, as well as run
many other programs on the host that required a GUI. To accomplish this, they
utilized a couple of Unix workstations.
<P>Obviously this was unacceptable, as they had everyone fighting for time
on the workstations.
<P>The version of Unix they were running, had no CLI other than a network
telnet session or the aforementioned serial setup, only administration through
their proprietary interface running on top of X.
<P>A quick investigation showed an X server running on the host, but not
being utilized. A previous consultant from the company they purchased the two
systems from had suggested X Terminals as a solution, which by coincidence,
they just happened to have handy.
<P>They never did tell me what his quote was, but rumor has it was
staggering. (Look the price of an X Terminal sometime and you'll see what I mean.)
<P>Enter Linux. First, I did away with the serial connections on the PC's
and got them on a switched 10 base T network.
<P>Next, I setup a couple of 486/100's as file servers and proxy hosts,
using ip_masq and Samba. These machine then connected to the external WAN over
a 10 base 2 bus. All the suits had quota'd storage, could e-mail and memo the
begeezus out of each other, surf the &quot;net, and were happy as clams.
<P><HR> <P>
<H3>What does this have to do with X sessions and Windows?</H3>
<P>One word - POLITICS.
<P>To convince the suits (the ones with the money) to let me use Linux to
solve the problem for the programmers and administrators (the ones who
actually do the work to produce the money), I had to impress them first.
<P>While they don't understand diddly squat about the technical side of
the business, they do understand I gave them e-mail, file services, intranet,
and Internet access for just the cost of my time, since they had the 486's
setting in a closet collecting dust.
<P>Now I had the go-ahead for the X solution I proposed, which was 2 more
486's also already on site, also not being used, upgraded to SCSI-3 Ultra Wide
Disks, and honked up the RAM, to serve as X proxies, for reasons I can't go
into. This interposes an additional barrier between the Xhost and the clients.
You shouldn't need this, so I'm going to pretend everything behind the 486's
does not exist.
<P>Just to make it really fun, I was also asked to include the web design
department on this subnet, who were all on Mac's and Power PC's.
<P>After creating a 10 base T subnet with the 486's and the clients wired
up and TCP/IP configured on all the clients, it was time to show 'em some magic.
<P>From this point forward, the 486 will be referred to as the &quot;X
host&quot;, and any Windows 95/98/NT/Mac/PPC machine will be referred to as
&quot;the client&quot;.
<H4>Step One:</H4>
<P>On the X host, create a user account for each of the desired clients.
<H4>Step Two:</H4>
<P>Acquire X server software for the clients.
<P>I am a freeware fanatic, so I chose to use MI/X, available from
http://tnt.microimages.com/www/html/freestuf/mix/, or my mirror, ftp.brokewing.com/pub/mix/.
<P>An additional factor that led me to choose the MI/X package, is that it
runs on all three platforms.
<P> Install the MI/X software
<P>Note for Windows clients - either install the program in it's own place
like C:\mix, or if you put it in Program Files, create a shortcut directly to
$BASEDIR\TNTSTART.EXE startmix (note the space) for some reason, on the 95
machines you may get a not enough memory message when you try to run it if you don't.
<H4>Step Three:</H4>
<P>Acquire Telnet software for the clients.
<P>In my case they were already setup for telnet, from the previous serial thing.
<P>All Windows clients should already have telnet, the Mac's may or may not.
<P>If not, NCSA produces a telnet client that runs on the Mac platform.
<H4>Step Four:</H4>
<P>You should be ready to go. I am sure that this whole thing could be
done more elegantly, but here's what I did:
<ul>
<li>Start MI/X on the client.
<li>Open a telnet session to the Xhost:
<li>telnet 192.162.0.1
<li>After logging in, you need to tell the Xhost to display the output of a
program running on the Xhost on a different machine (the client.)
</ul>
<P>For the bourne shell:<BR>
DISPLAY=&lt;the IP of the client machine&gt;:0.0<BR>
For example, <tt>DISPLAY=192.0.0.3:0.0</tt>
<P>Now you need to tell the Xhost to use this Environment Variable for all
subsequent programs.
<P>The command to accomplish this is:<BR>
<tt>export DISPLAY</tt>
<P>For the csh:<BR>
<tt>setenv DISPLAY &lt;client IP as above&gt;</tt>
<P>You should now be able to run any X application you want on the Xhost
and have it display on your client machine.
<P>In the telnet window, to launch an xterm, type:<BR>
<tt>xterm &amp;</tt>
<P>After the xterm comes up in the MI/X window, you can close the telnet session.
<P>That's all there is to it!
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1998, Ron Jenkins <BR>
Published in Issue 32 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, September 1998</H5></center>
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<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Searching a Web Site with Linux</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:brw@inetinc.net">Branden Williams</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
As your website grows in size, so will the number of people that visit
your site. Now most of these people are just like you and me in the
sense that they want to go to your site, click a button, and get exactly
what information they were looking for. To serve these kinds of users a
bit better, the Internet community responded with the ``Site
Search''. A way to search a single website for the information you are
looking for. As a system administrator, I have been asked to provide search
engines for people to use on their websites so that their clients can get to
their information as fast as possible.
<p>
Now the trick to most search engines (Internet wide included) is that
they index and search entire sites. So for in
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