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<A HREF="http://www.linuxgazette.com/">
<H1><IMG SRC="../gx/newlogo.jpg" ALT="Linux Gazette" border="0"></H1></A>
<H4>April 1999, Issue 39 Published by <I>Linux Journal</I></H4>
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<H1><font color="#BB0000">Table of Contents:</font></H1>
<UL>
<LI><A HREF="../index.html">The Front Page</A>
<LI><A HREF="./lg_mail39.html">The MailBag</A>
<ul>
<li><a HREF="./lg_mail39.html#help">Help Wanted & Article Ideas</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_mail39.html#gen">General Mail</a>
</ul>
<LI><A HREF="./lg_bytes39.html">News Bytes</A>
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<li><a HREF="./lg_bytes39.html#general">News in General</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_bytes39.html#software">Software Announcements</a>
</ul>
<LI><A HREF="./lg_answer39.html">The Answer Guy</A>, by James T. Dennis
<LI><A HREF="./lg_tips39.html">More 2 Cent Tips</A>
<LI><A HREF="./bennet.html">Boot Disk Failure and Recovery</a>, by Bill Bennet
<LI><A HREF="./bullington.html">Comparison of Server-Based Operating Systems</a>, by Sean Bullington
<LI><A HREF="./sevenich.html">Compiler Construction Tools</a>, by Richard A.
Sevenich
<LI><A HREF="./marsden.html">EMACSulation: Templating Mechanisms</a>, by Eric Marsden
<LI><A HREF="./pollman.html">Expanding Your Home Network</a>, by JC Pollman
<LI><A HREF="./pennington.html">Free Philosophy: Part II</A>, by J. W.
Pennington
<LI><A HREF="./woods.html">Linux Day at H-P Labs</a>, by Paul R. Woods
<LI><A HREF="./jenkins8.html">Linux Installation Primer, Part 8</a>,
by Ron Jenkins
<LI><A HREF="./richardson.html">LinuxWorld Conference & Expo</a>, by Marjorie
Richardson
<LI>New Release Reviews, by Larry Ayers
<ul>
<li><A HREF="./ayers1.html">Books on the Screen: XEmacs</a>
<li><A HREF="./ayers2.html">A Remembrance of Text Past</a>
</ul>
<LI><A HREF="./rogers.html">The Standard C Library for Linux Part 5</a>, by
James M. Rogers
<LI><A HREF="./telgarsky.html">Web Page Design under Linux</a>, by Matus
Telgarsky
<LI><A HREF="./stein.html">Xenmenu: An ASCII Menu Generator</a>, by Karyl F.
Stein
<LI><A HREF="./lg_backpage39.html">The Back Page</A>
<ul>
<li><a HREF="./lg_backpage39.html#authors">About This Month's Authors</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_backpage39.html#notlinux">Not Linux</a>
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<A HREF="./issue39.txt.gz">TWDT 1 (text)</A><BR>
<A HREF="./issue39.html">TWDT 2 (HTML)</A><BR>
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<I>Linux Gazette</I><img src="../gx/tm.gif">, <A HREF="http://www.linuxgazette.com/">http://www.linuxgazette.com/</A><BR>
This page maintained by the Editor of <I>Linux Gazette</I>,
<A HREF="mailto: gazette@ssc.com"> gazette@ssc.com</A>
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<H5>Copyright &copy; 1996-98 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.</H5>
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<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_mail39.html#help">Help Wanted -- Article Ideas</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_mail39.html#gen">General Mail</a>
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<center><H3><font color="maroon">Help Wanted -- Article Ideas</font></H3></center>
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Answers to these questions should be sent directly to the e-mail address of
the inquirer with or without a copy to gazette@ssc.com. Answers that are
copied to <I>LG</I> will be printed in the Tips column of the next issue.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 1999 13:08:48 -0800<BR>
From: Abdul Rauf, <A HREF="mailto:arauf@lums.edu.pk">
arauf@lums.edu.pk</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">Intel NIC</font>
<P>
I have a problem while I am trying to implement firewall on a Linux box.
Problem is that I have installed two Intel NIC's in the system and gave
them two IPs with the same subnet, when I ping them from the other
machines both of them reply but when I ping to each other they don't.
What could be the reason?
Thanks
<P>
--<BR>
Abdul Rauf
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 1999 15:44:28 -0800<BR>
From: Sudhakar Chandrasekharan, <A HREF="mailto:thaths@netscape.com">
thaths@netscape.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">DSL Access</font>
<P>
My telephone carrier slashed the prices on DSL access
http://public.pacbell.net/dedicated/dsl/dsl_basic.html. I am currently
on the waiting list to get connected via DSL. The PacBell page lists the
following under the "Hardware Requirements" section -
<P>
* Alcatel 1000 DSL Modem<BR>
* POTS Spliter<BR>
* Kingston KNE 40T Network Interface Card
<P>
I have a dual-boot (Debian GNU/)Linux - Win '95 machine at home. How is
the support for the above hardware under Linux?
<P>
--<BR>
Sudhakar
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Sat, 06 Mar 1999 23:06:49 +0000<BR>
From: "graham.drake", <A HREF="mailto:graham.drake@virgin.net">
graham.drake@virgin.net</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">video card</font>
<P>
The Linux desktops running under X do not fit my monitor, I suppose I
have not got the resolution correct. I have a Compaq Presario 2110 but
have not got any video card details. If anybody out there has set up on
the same computer please would you send me details.
Thanks,
<P>
--<BR>
Graham
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 1999 20:15:23 +0000<BR>
From: Huub van Niekerk, <A HREF="mailto:niekerk@igr.nl">
niekerk@igr.nl</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">E-mail</font>
<P>
I'm looking for an email program that equals Windows' Eudora. Who can do
a suggestion?
Thanks.
<P>
--<BR>
Huub
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Sat, 06 Mar 1999 02:57:15 +0000<BR>
From: DanBarnes, <A HREF="mailto:DanBarnes@worldnet.att.net">
DanBarnes@worldnet.att.net</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">Joystick Article</font>
<P>
I've been puttering around off and on with getting a joystick working
with Linux and I realize that I can't recall coming across an article
anywhere on this, this might be a good article idea for Linux Gazette.
<P>
--<BR>
Dan
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 1999 16:39:55 -0600<BR>
From: Mark Forstneger, <A HREF="mailto:mark@advancenet.net">
mark@advancenet.net</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">new kernel</font>
<P>
I am looking for information on what differentiates kernel 2.2.x from
2.0.x. Perhaps you could do an article on it? There were many articles
on the Windows98 release and how it different from Windows95, whether
one should upgrade, etc. Jump on the bandwagon. Thank you very much.
<P>
--
Mark
<blockquote> <I>
(Check out the article by Joseph Pranevich, <A HREF="../issue37/pranevich.html">"The Wonderful World of Linux
2.2."</A> in our February issue. --Editor)
</I> </blockquote>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 14:31:00 -0800<BR>
From: "Michel A. Lim", <A HREF="mailto:support@whl-international.com">
support@whl-international.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">Does Linux like WINS?</font>
<P>
Hello all. Now that my network card is working, I am trying to connect my
Linux box (Red Hat 5.2, kernel 2.0.36-0.7) to my Windows network. After
some struggling, the Linux machine now appears and is accessible in the
Network Neighborhoods of all my Win 9x/NT4 workstations. Furthermore, I can
ping and telnet from each workstation to the Linux server by its host name
(WHL31) and by its static IP address (192.168.34.6).
<P>
However, I can only ping from the Linux box to the workstations by their
respective IP address. Since the workstations receive IP addresses
dynamically from the DHCP service on my NT3.51 server, I cannot simply add
the host names for all workstations to /etc/hosts. Therefore, my NT3.51
server (192.168.34.1) also acts as the WINS server for my network. I have
configured Samba (1.9.18p10) with the following entries in /etc/smb.conf:
<PRE>
wins server = 192.168.34.1
name resolve order = wins hosts lmhosts bcast
</PRE>
but the Linux machine does not seem to be querying the WINS database.
<P>
What am I missing here? Is there another way to direct Linux to the WINS
database? I was hoping to try things this way first, before trying to set
up the Linux server as the WINS and/or DNS-caching server for my network.
<P>
Thank you for your attention in this matter. Any suggestions and ideas
would be most welcome. However, please bear in mind that I am not very
network savvy. For that matter, I'm also do not have any formal IS
training.
<P>
Regards,
--<BR>
Michel A. Lim
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 16:14:27 -0300<BR>
From: "AcidBrain", <A HREF="mailto:AcidBrain@ThePentagon.com">
AcidBrain@ThePentagon.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">Linux to Netware Problem</font>
<P>
Hi, I liked your zine very much.
I'm mailing you, because it appears that no one knows how to solve my
problem ( at least here, in Brazil).
The problem appears when I try to connect ( dialing ) to my ISP, that is
a Novell Netware. Look at the logs.
<P>
First, I tried to connect with minicom :
<PRE>
CONNECT 33600/ARQ/V34/LAPM/V42BIS
</PRE>
[ after some time: ]
<PRE>
Connected to NetWare CONNECT 2.0.30 Service Selector on port AIO_111913000.
Sorry, there are no services available at this time.
</PRE>
Ok, I thought. Minicom is not the best way to connect. So, someone
said that connecting with pppd would be the solution. The result was the
same. Then, I read about ezppp in one home page that said it works works
with Win NT. The result was the same. My modem is an USR Sportster 33.6 -
Slack 3.5 and I can connect normally in other ISPs.
<P>
Would you know the solution ? If so, please help-me.
Thanks,
<P>
--<BR>
AcidBrain
<blockquote> <I>
(The best guide I know of for connecting to the Internet using PPP is
an article by Terry Dawson "The 10-Minute Guide for Using PPP to Connect
Linux to the Internet" found at <A
HREF="http://www.linuxjournal.com/issue36/ppp.html">
http://www.linuxjournal.com/issue36/ppp.html</A>. --Editor)
</I> </blockquote>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 17:45:41 -0000<BR>
From: Robert Karlsson, <A HREF="mailto:rknna98@robertsfors.se">
rknna98@robertsfors.se</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">Problem with the proxy</font>
<P>
I am running Slackware 3.4 with the kernel 2.0.36. I am trying to get my Linux
to work with our schools proxy. I need some kind of proxy client that can
handle SOCKS5. We tried some clients for SOCKS4 (homemade) but they don't
work so it got to SOCKS5. What should I do?? I have no idea how to make it
work. I don't know so much about SOCKS5 so I cant program my own program. Is
there some program for SOCKS5? Please answer. (I want to throw W95 in the
wall) /SiD_V
<P>
--<BR>
Robert
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 20:50:03 +0000<BR>
From: Michael Wilson, <A HREF="mailto:michael.wilson5@virgin.net">
michael.wilson5@virgin.net</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">Dodgy Hard Drive</font>
<P>
Before I start, excellent resource, keep up the good work... to my problem now.
I have 3 HD's two on the master and slave on the primary controller and the
last on the primary of the secondary controller.
<P>
The dodgy drive is a Segate Medallist ST34321A. I have included a part of the
boot.msg so as you can so what I mean...
<PRE>
<4>PIIX4: IDE controller on PCI bus 00 dev 11
<4>PIIX4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
<4> ide0: BM-DMA at 0xf000-0xf007, BIOS settings: hda:pio, hdb:pio
<4> ide1: BM-DMA at 0xf008-0xf00f, BIOS settings: hdc:pio, hdd:pio
<4>hda: SAMSUNG SV0644A, ATA DISK drive
<4>hdb: FUJITSU MPC3064AT, ATA DISK drive
<4>hdc: ST34321A, ATA DISK drive
<4>hdd: CR-2801TE, ATAPI CDROM drive
<4>ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
<4>ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15
<6>hda: SAMSUNG SV0644A, 6105MB w/490kB Cache, CHS=778/255/63, UDMA
<6>hdb: FUJITSU MPC3064AT, 6187MB w/0kB Cache, CHS=838/240/63, UDMA
<6>hdc: ST34321A, 4103MB w/128kB Cache, CHS=8894/15/63, UDMA
<4>hdd: ATAPI 8X CDROM CD-R drive, 512kB Cache
<6>Uniform CDROM driver Revision: 2.51
<4>Partition check:
<4> hda: hda1 < hda5 hda6 hda7 hda8 > hda2
<4> hdb: hdb1 < hdb5 >
<4> hdc:hdc: set_multmode: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
<4>hdc: set_multmode: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }
<4> [PTBL] [523/255/63] hdc1 < hdc5 >
</PRE>
As you can see the drive is detected as CHS 8894/15/63 I originally used this
as my primary boot drive but had to install Linux on another drive and not
mount the then hda2 hda5 etc as Linux it would corrupt the files on reboot or
shutdown with an error message such as can't find fs signature. I have
subsequently purchased a replacement primary drive and have changed the
settings in the bios to reflect LBA for the Segate so as you can see the CHS is
re-interpreted as CHS 523/255/63 but that is showing an error.
<P>
Any ideas, or the scrap heap for it ??
<P>
--<BR>
Michael
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 04:47:23 +0000<BR>
From: "Rod King", <A HREF="mailto:kingr@mervbak.nex.net.au">
kingr@mervbak.nex.net.au</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">Uninstalling Software</font>
<P>
Have you had any articles on uninstalling application software in Linux. I am having some trouble finding
information on this subject.
Thanks
<P>
--<BR>
Rod King
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 15:35:34 +0000<BR>
From: Ben, <A HREF="mailto:ben.metcalfe@ntli.net">
ben.metcalfe@ntli.net</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">retrieving Win9x / NT user names with Linux.</font>
<P>
I've searched high and low for info on how to do this - something like an nbtstat on a win32 box from a UNIX server.
I just need a way to allow a Linux server to retrieve the user name that a win9x / NT user is logged in to a hot-desking machine with.
<P>
So if I log in to a Win95 box as fubaruser / password, then try and open a local intranet page on the Linux server, it will allow me to log in with my own personal profile for the intranet site - and this profile will follow me from Win9x machine to Win9x machine.
Because of the unclean nature of these machines, and the multiplicity of browsers in use, cookies are impractical.
<P>
help me pleeeeease?
<P>
--<BR>
Ben
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 23:03:52 -0800<BR>
From: David Gardner<A HREF="mailto:gardner@transport.com">
gardner@transport.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">Advice on Linux Internet gateway box...</font>
<P>
I'm using an old i486-66 box (16 MB RAM, 250 MB HD) running Linux 2.0.32
kernel with Diald, pppd, routed and other assorted daemons. I also use
masquerading to allow all workstations on my home network to get onto
and use the Internet. It works okay but the syslogd tends to get stuck
and blocks any additional dial-out sessions. Once I kill the syslogd
process, everything goes fine again but ... nothing is logged. Can you
make recommendations on how to solve this problem?
<P>
I'm also considering ADSL to replace my POTS connection. Do you have any
specific recommendations for converting the Internet gateway system?
<P>
--<BR>
David
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 11:20:04 -0000<BR>
From: Brian Lycett, <A HREF="mailto:BrianLycett@Regis-intl.com">
BrianLycett@Regis-intl.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">PC CHIPS Problem</font>
<P>
I recently bought a brand spanking new PC-CHIPS motherboard, model
598, with a SiS530 onboard AGP 3D graphics card.
I was quite eager to run Linux on this, but imagine my disappointment when I
started X and got a corrupted, garbled screen.
When I came out of X, the fonts were also all messed up.
<P>
I tried the latest XFree86 release, which is supposed to support the
PC-Chips mainboard, but it still didn't work.
Does anyone know of any fixes for this?
The VGA uses shared system memory - could this be a problem?
<P>
This is the first problem in Linux I've come across that I can't find help
for anywhere.
<P>
So if anyone out there could help me get X Windows up and running on my new
box, I'd be very, very happy.
Thank you.
<P>
--<BR>
Brian
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 14:44:06 -0600<BR>
From: Mark Zolton, <A HREF="mailto:mcz@wheat.ksu.edu">
mcz@wheat.ksu.edu</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">Linux, PalmIII, and Email</font>
<P>
I just purchased a PalmIII and I am interested in using it to compose
and send email. The Pilot utilities for Linux contain a pilot-mail
program which is capable of retrieving email from a POP client and
sending it to the PlamIII. It sends email from the PalmIII via sendmail.
I have no trouble getting email from the POP client, however, I have not
played around with sendmail enough to know how to set it up to send
email to my service providers SMTP host. What I would really like to
find is an application which would allow me to use the PalmIII's serial
connection to send email to an SMTP host so I don't have to mess with
sendmail. If that isn't possible, can anyone recommend a good tutorial
on setting up sendmail for personal use?
<P>
-- <BR>
Mark
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 04:49:26 PST<BR>
From: "Ar San", <A HREF="mailto:san_hk@hotmail.com">
san_hk@hotmail.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">TACACS is year 2000 compliance</font>
<P>
I would like to know that TACACS/TACACS PLUS is/are year 2000
compliance?? (NetWare Server)
Thanks!!
--<BR>
San
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 21:40:52 +0100<BR>
From: "Wojtek P&ecirc;kala", <A HREF="mailto:wojtekp@infonet.wroc.pl">
wojtekp@infonet.wroc.pl</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">Scanner Mustek Cp 600</font>
<P>
The CP 600 scanners are really cheap, and that's the reason why my
employer has equipped me with one. Right now the scanner is the only
reason why I still have a Windows partition on my disk, as the lpt
scanners lack generally support under Linux. I tried to use the Win3.1
software for the scanner under Wine but to no avail. The failure
surprised me since Wine generally handles the old small W3.1 progs quite
well. Here is what I got:
<PRE>
Unexpected Windows program segfault - opcode = 8b
Page fault in 32-bit code (0x0809ddfc).
Fault address is 0x03780345
Loading symbols: wine /usr/X11R6/lib/libSM.so.6
/usr/X11R6/lib/libICE.so.6
/usr/lib/libMesaGL.so.3 /usr/X11R6/lib/libXpm.so.4
/usr/X11R6/lib/libXext.so.6 /usr/X11R6/lib/libX11.so.6
/usr/lib/libncurses.so.4 /lib/libdl.so.2 /lib/libm.so.6
/lib/libc.so.6
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 /lib/libnss_files.so.1
TOOLHELP SHELL COMMDLG KEYBOARD WIN87EM LEAD52 PANEL USER GDI KERNEL
WINEPS WPROCS DISPLAY SYSTEM USER32 GDI32 KERNEL32
In 32 bit mode.
Register dump:
CS:0023 SS:002b DS:002b ES:002b FS:03b7 GS:002b
EIP:0809ddfc ESP:40a6f5b8 EBP:40a6f61c EFLAGS:00010246( R- 00 I Z-
-P1 )
EAX:03780345 EBX:000003ff ECX:0000037c EDX:03780345
ESI:03780345 EDI:000008d4
Stack dump:
0x40a6f5b8 (USER32..code+0x33e090): 00000000 40307818 000008d4 01c004b1
08abd96 0 00000001 00000413 00000081
0x40a6f5d8 (USER32..code+0x33e0b0): 00000413 402e2598 00000000 00000413
0000000 1 00000000 00000001 00000000
0x40a6f5f8 (USER32..code+0x33e0d0): 00000000 00000001 00000000 4031754c
40a6f62 8 080c33f8 402e2598 00000081
0x40a6f618 (USER32..code+0x33e0f0):
Backtrace:
=>0 0x0809ddfc (MENU_SetItemData+0x15c [menu.c])
1 0x0809e6e8 (MENU_ExecFocusedItem+0x5c [menu.c])
2 0x081c7862 (TOOLBAR_SetMaxTextRows+0x22 [toolbar.c])
3 0x081c7d53 (TOOLBAR_LButtonDown+0x47 [toolbar.c])
4 0x081b419a (TSXFree+0x2e)
5 0x081b4a81 (TSXMapWindow+0x65)
6 0x0807d3a0 (CallFrom16_p_long_tp+0x8 [callfrom16.s])
7 0x08067e87 (BUILTIN_Init+0x6b)
...
</PRE>
Seems like some bug in user interface to me ? Is there any workaround ?
(I enabled the lpt's for WINE to write)
Regards
--<BR>
Wojtek
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 06:23:44 -0800 (PST)<BR>
From: Jonathan Markevich, <A HREF="mailto:jmarkevich@yahoo.com">
jmarkevich@yahoo.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">Mac client over LocalTalk</font>
<P>
Does anyone know if it is possible to do file sharing over a simple
LocalTalk (serial) connection? I had a modem cable so I could plug
into a RS232 modem, and a null modem cable. Sounds good so far...
<P>
Getting netatalk to use the serial connection instead of the Ethernet
one was another issue... SuSE 5.2-6.0 doesn't include slattach and the
HOWTOs claim that's what I need.
<P>
This machine is a Mac Plus and it really really needs some storage
space. It would be an awesome client otherwise; I should be able to
run MacTCP, Eudora and Mosaic! Except... I can't LOAD them on the
machine without some sort of networking. Incompatible floppies, you
know.
<P>
Any ideas? I've also read the netatalk HOWTO and it says "First you
need TCP/IP running" and doesn't seem to include the thought of a
SERIAL connection.
<P>
Thanks for your help!
--<BR>
Jonathan
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 12:31:13 +0100<BR>
From: tuezney, <A HREF="mailto:tuezney@mailserv.oma.be">
tuezney@mailserv.oma.be</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">opengl accelerated?</font>
<P>
Are there already free accelerated opengl1.1 compliant drivers for e.g.
riva TNT based cards for Linux? Is there anybody working on this?
Xi-graphics do make them but than they are commercial!
<P>
--<BR>
tuezney
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 07:46:02 -0700<BR>
From: "K.A. Steensma", <A HREF="mailto:steensma@flash.net">
steensma@flash.net</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">What is a *.ajr file?</font>
<P>
I had kind of forgotten that your message about issue #38 had come in
via email. So last night (on my desktop computer), I went over to you
home page and found the "Linux Gazette Downloading Information" section,
pointed at the "here" in "Linux Gazette can be downloaded by clicking
here" and went to download issue #38. As my pointer went over the
"here", my status line (in Netscape) indicated that I would be
downloading "ftp://ftp.ssc.com/pub/lg/lg-issue38.tar.gz". But when I
clicked on the "here" and the dialog box game up for me to decide where
I wanted to put the file, the file name was "lg-issue38_tar.arj". (I
should have said earlier that I use Win98/Netscapte on my desktop.) And
that is exactly what I downloaded; a "ajr" file.
<P>
Supper was on the table, so I left it as that and (later) sat in the
bedroom (with my laptop that has the same combination of software) and
(since I still hadn't read you issue) downloaded another copy of the
issue. That copy was downloaded as a 'gz' file which I then
decompressed, stored and read. It didn't come to me that (earlier) I
had downloaded a 'ajr' file before. Now this morning, using the deaktop
computer, I downloaded another copy and that copy was (again) a 'ajr'
file.
<P>
What is a 'ajr' compressed file? Do you have any idea why (with my
desktop computer) I download a 'ajr' file but with my laptop, download a
'gz' file. I really don't think that I have made some 'silly' mistake
or that I have different versions of the OS or Netscape (as far as I can
remember, both machines were derived from the same CD/disk file (Win98
from the CD; Netscape from a downloaded installation file).
<P>
I just started to download the base files (from the next 'here' in the
web page) and the same thing happened again. The status bar for
Netscape indicated that I would be accessing a 'gz' file, but the
'Download To' dialog file indicated that I would be receiving a 'ajr'
file.
<P>
I've been around computers and the Internet long enough that I am
considered an 'expert'. But this one kind of flips me out.
<P>
--<BR>
TIA - KAS
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 23:18:25 -0000<BR>
From: "Monaghan Consultants Ltd", <A HREF="mailto:alex@monaghan.co.uk">
alex@monaghan.co.uk</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">fdisk</font>
<P>
My fdisk (Debian 1.3) does not recognize my SCSI drive correctly. I'm using
a Future Domain TMC8xx card using the ST01 setting in the kernel config,
this is fine on my current small SCSI drives, but I'm wanting to replace
these with a couple of HP C2247's.
<P>
When running fdisk the initial message (and also at boot time) is showing
>64 heads, but fdisk will only allow me to set 64 heads.
<P>
How can I create a partition to use all of the disk ?
<P>
Is this a limitation of fdisk, the kernel or the SCSI card ?
Thanks
<P>
--<BR>
Alex Monaghan
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 14:34:08 -0000<BR>
From: "Victor Gibson", <A HREF="mailto:victor.gibson@onlinemagic.com">
victor.gibson@onlinemagic.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">winmodems</font>
<P>
Being a complete newbie where Linux is concerned and working for a company
that has few Unix servers running WINS and DHCP and hosting a few websites.
I was asked if I would be interested in learning Unix to cover sysadmin. I
jumped at the chance, although the training is not for a few months I
decided to ditch my win98 system at home and go head long into a Linux
install(Red Hat 5.1)
<P>
It has taken me all weekend to get it up and running, with the X Window
System configured, now this is not a long time as I like to read all the
instructions, learn from past mistakes and many hair pulling moments that
manuals and HOWTOs and FAQ are there for a reason. My next step along the
Linux path is to get my modem working............It's a winmodem so I appear
to be stuck, I do not really want to spend any more money on a modem; is
there anyway I can get a winmodem (internal) to work under Linux, I read somewhere
this is not possible as the CPU does most of the modem's work (driven by
software.
<P>
Can anyone point me in the direction of any info on getting winmodems to
work under Linux?
Thanks,
<P>
--<BR>
Victor
<blockquote> <I>
(To my knowledge, there's no way to get a winmodem to work with Linux.
Anyone out there have a different answer? --Editor)
</I> </blockquote>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 17:14:04 +0600
From: "sujon", <A HREF="mailto:sujon@ncll.com">sujon@ncll.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">Red Hat and sendmail</font>
<P>
I installed Red Hat 4.2 and sendmail 8.5.Recently I upgraded to Red Hat 5.1 and
sendmail 8.9.Sendmail is working on server. But when other user (work
station/dialup line) send a mail it does not work and give a message
recipient must be change.......<BR>
Please help......................
<P>
--<BR>
Sujon
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 16:26:53 -0000<BR>
From: "Matthew Pearson", <A
HREF="mailto:matthew.pearson@infomatrix.ltd.uk">
matthew.pearson@infomatrix.ltd.uk</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">Article ideas for you...</font>
<P>
I've only just discovered your site, and it looks very useful.
<P>
A decent collection of how to set up and use a DAT drive with Linux would
have made my life a lot easier recently. There are bits about it all over
the place, but they really are all over the place.
<P>
I'd like to be able to centrally administer my Linux boxes (we now have 6 in
the office). The boxes are used for file serving, mail, and anything else to
software development (we've got about 10 engineers here). I know that one
way of centrally administering Unix is to centralize the /usr partition and
NFS mount it. It doesn't look like RPM will allow that very easily. I don't
need to be able to boot via the network, but it would be useful to have a
more centralized system, than a whole bunch of boxes that have to be updated
with every new fix or application to be added. Do you have any
ideas/inspiration on this?
<P>
--<BR>
Matt Pearson
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1999 15:23:19 +0600<BR>
From: "sujon", <A HREF="mailto:sujon@ncll.com">sujon@ncll.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">Multi-login protect</font>
<P>
I am looking for a software multi-login protect for (RED HAT 5.1)
Thanks
<P>
--<BR>
sujon
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 08:43:02 -0600<BR>
From: "Jonathan", <A HREF="mailto:flymolo@eatel.net">
flymolo@eatel.net</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">ext2fs problems</font>
<P>
I recently bought a copy of partition magic 4. I used it to steal more
space from windows and add it to my / ext2 partition .... apparently it
resized the partition but not the file system. Is there any way I can tell
the file system to non-destructively rebuild itself using more space?
<P>
--<BR>
Jonathan
<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: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 12:56:46 -0000 <BR>
From: "Thorp, Alexander", <A HREF="mailto:athorp@lucent.com">
athorp@lucent.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">Own domain over part-time dial-up (article, issue 36)</font>
<P>
Interesting article. Just a couple of comments about the script:
<P>
First, the comment "for some reason this didn't work". It's not altogether
clear what you expected it to do, but the exit 0 is entirely superfluous.
If you hoped to exit from the entire script, this cannot be done from within
a sub-shell. Is there any reason for executing such a phenomenal number of
sub-shells? It is not as if you are doing the sorts of things which
sub-shells make easier, such as localizing changes to the environment or to
the current working directory.
<P>
If one assumes that really you wanted to exit from your script here, then
you would be better off writing:
<PRE>
if [ -f /var/lock/LCK..modem ] ; then
echo "modem not available" 1>&2 # redirect stdout to stderr
exit 1 # error exits should not exit 0
else
/etc/ppp/ppp-on
sleep 45
fi
</PRE>
Second, test -e is bash-specific syntax. The habitual use of bash-specific
syntax results in scripts that are non-portable. All versions of test (and
of /bin/sh that have test as an in-built) that I know of support test -f;
this is standard syntax for this operation. For example, HP-UX /bin/sh
does, as it happens, support test -e, but on Solaris this doesn't work. For
/bin/ksh the situation is reversed, with the Solaris version accepting test
-e but the HP-UX version not. All Linux distributions come with a /bin/sh
(sometimes just a symlink to /bin/bash), so better to use /bin/sh for shell
programming, as per Unix convention, and to stick to the standard part of
the shell programming language.
<P>
It is not altogether clear whether you think that the line #!/bin/bash half
way down the script as the first line of a sub-shell section will have an
effect, but this could be confusing to a reader less familiar with shell
programming.
<P>
--<BR>
Alex Thorp
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 1999 13:26:07 -0500<BR>
From: Siddharth Kashyap, <A HREF="mailto:skashya@cs.concordia.ca">
skashya@cs.concordia.ca</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">Wharf</font>
<P>
I am using Red Hat Linux 5.2. In FVWM95 I start Wharf. From this Wharf I click
at xterm icon I get a blank xterm window. This is because the person who wrote
the code in the file fvem2rc.modules.m4 is calling xterm as :
<PRE>
xterm -bg black -fg black
</PRE>
Now, what annoys me is how come such a big company would do something as stupid as this.
<P>
--<BR>
Siddharth Kashyap
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 18:34:16 +0000BR
From: Paul Dunne, <A HREF="mailto:paul@DUNNP.CIX.CO.UK">
paul@DUNNP.CIX.CO.UK</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">Linux & the impeachment -- is there a link I'm missing?</font>
<P>
Sorry to gripe, but just browsing through the Linux Gazette mail bag,
and... what are all those letters about the US President and his, er,
"recent problems" doing there? The title is `Linux Gazette', right?
Please, let's keep this sort of irrelevant material out of LG.
<P>
--<BR>
Paul
<blockquote> <I>
(Sorry Paul -- they are there because I wrote about it in the "Not Linux"
section and felt they had a right to reply to my remarks. Guess I should
have put the responses in the "Not Linux" section too. Just didn't think of
it at the time. --Editor)
</I> </blockquote>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 09:11:55 -0600<BR>
From: "Louis C. Lohman", <A HREF="mailto:llohman@kissane.com">
llohman@kissane.com</A> <BR>
Subject: <font color="navy">KDE - so what?</font>
<P>
Am I just being obtuse, or does KDE feel like a heavy, bloated,
resource-intensive desktop environment? If that's what I wanted, I
would stay with M(I'm sorry, I can't say the word)t. Features and
benefits be damned, FVWM2 comes real close to the type of responsiveness
I feel should be expected of the desktop ... KDE doesn't even come
close.
<P>
And WHY hasn't anyone else complained? At least, not in a forum that
I've been aware of. Is it that everyone is so enamored of the
acceptance that Linux has been getting that they are afraid to rock the
boat?
<P>
On the other hand, I suppose that we (the Linux user community) feel
like we can pass this KDE thing off as a ready replacement for W(I'm
sorry, but I can't say that word, either)s, given that it is so slow and
bloated that W(you know)s users will feel right at home.
<P>
Yeah, that's the ticket, we'll make 'em feel right at home.
<P>
--<BR>
Lou Lohman
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<center>Published in <i>Linux Gazette</i> Issue 39, April 1999</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_bytes39.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; 1999 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. </H5>
<P>
<H4>"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"</H4>
<HR>
<center>
<table cellpadding=7><tr><td>
<IMG SRC="../gx/bytes.gif" border=1 ALT="News Bytes">
</td><td>
<H3>Contents:</H3>
<ul>
<li><a HREF="./lg_bytes39.html#general">News in General</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_bytes39.html#software">Software Announcements</a>
</ul>
</td></tr></table>
</center>
<a name="general"></a>
<p><hr><p>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<center><H3><font color="green">News in General</font></H3></center>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<center><IMG ALT=" " SRC="./gx/cover61.jpg"></center>
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
May 1999 <I>Linux Journal</I>
</font>
</H3>
<P>
The May issue of <A HREF="http://www.linuxjournal.com/"><I>Linux
Journal</I></A> will be hitting the newsstands April 12.
This issue focuses on Programming with an interview with Larry Wall, the
guru of Perl.
<I>Linux Journal</I> now has articles that appear "Strictly On-Line".
Check out the Table of Contents at
<A HREF="http://www.linuxjournal.com/issue61/index.html">
http://www.linuxjournal.com/issue61/index.html</A> for articles in this
issue as well as links to the on-line articles.
To subscribe to <I>Linux Journal</I>, go to <A
HREF="http://www.linuxjournal.com/ljsubsorder.html">
http://www.linuxjournal.com/ljsubsorder.html</A>.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
Linux Without Borders
</font>
</H3>
<P>
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 08:48:20 -0500 (EST)<BR>
Linux Without Borders is an
E-list dedicated to discussion and implementation of the
vision that in countries whose citizens are not yet rich enough
to own Personal Computers(PCs), computers must be *shared*; and
that the way to enable sharing while preserving individual
privacy is to install Linux, a multi-user, multi-tasking
operating system, on PCs owned cooperatively, or by businesses.
<P>
This will enable citizens to establish their own accounts on a
commonly owned, or rented, computer, where they can do all the
things that citizens of wealthier countries can do: write, do
accounts, and -- perhaps most important -- use "their" computer
to communicate with other people, in their own country and
throughout the world.
<P>
To subscribe, send E-mail to:
<A HREF="mailto:Majordomo@tux.org">Majordomo@tux.org</A>
with the following line in the body of the message:
<PRE>
subscribe linux-without-borders
</pre>
For more information:<BR>
Alan McConnell, <A HREF="mailto:alan17@his.com">alan17@his.com</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
Tech Talk
</font>
</H3>
<P>
The Chicago Tech Talk radio show, "The Linux Show", will be celebrating
UNIX's 30th birthday with a special show on April 6 at 8PM CST. Host Jeff
Gearhart will be interviewing Peter Salus. Listen in on-line at <A
HREF="http://www.ttalk.com/shows/thelinuxshow/thelinuxshow.shtml">
http://www.ttalk.com/shows/thelinuxshow/thelinuxshow.shtml</A>.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
Silicon Graphics Positions Available
</font>
</H3>
<P>
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 16:37:20 -0800<BR>
Silicon Graphics, Inc. is a leading supplier of visual computing and
high-performance systems. The company offers the broadest range of products
in the industry - from low-end desktop workstations to servers and high-end
supercomputers. Silicon Graphics and its subsidiaries have offices
throughout the world and corporate headquarters in Mountain View,
California.
<P>
Silicon Graphics has several key teams doing Linux development
here in the bay area, and looking for experienced engineers to join.
<P>
The Linux Kernel Development team is defining and developing operating
systems for SGI open source platforms, evolving the Linux technology to
address SGI's key markets.
<P>
The Linux Platform Development team is putting Linux on our
next-generation scalable multiprocessor servers. This work involves
the Intel IA64 processor, and high performance scalable I/O subsystems.
<P>
The Storage Team will be taking the best File System SGI has to offer
and moving that to the Linux community. They will also be moving our
clustered File System technology based on XFS to Linux.
<P>
For more information:
Carol Stanford, <A HREF="mailto:stanford@engr.sgi.com.">
stanford@engr.sgi.com</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
Linux Links
</font>
</H3>
<P>
LINUXCANADA.NET, The Future of Linux in Canada:
<A HREF="http://www.linuxcanada.net/">http://www.linuxcanada.net/</A>
<P>
Give your opinion on Linux Certification:
<A
HREF="http://www.linuxcertification.org/">http://www.linuxcertification.org/</A>
<P>
Centuries 5,4,3,2,1,0 + Circadian Theory of Learning:
<A HREF="http://people.tamu.edu/~carlson/bryson.html">
http://people.tamu.edu/~carlson/bryson.html</A>
<P>
The LINUX Forum:
<A
HREF="http://www.mediadrone.com/linux/">http://www.mediadrone.com/linux/</A>
<P>
Index of Alternative Operating Systems, Linux news page:
<A HREF="http://www.indexos.com/OS/Operating_Systems/UNIX/Linux/News/">
http://www.indexos.com/OS/Operating_Systems/UNIX/Linux/News/</A>
<P>
The UNIX Guru Universe:
<A HREF="http://www.ugu.com/">http://www.ugu.com/</A>
<P>
The LinuxStart.Com Project:
<A HREF="http://www.LinuxStart.Com/">http://www.LinuxStart.Com/</A>
<P>
Cool URL:
<A HREF="http://www.newsnow.co.uk/cgi-bin/NewsNow/NewsFeed.htm?Topic=*.Tech&Section=ASearchW&Search=Open+Source&ASearch=Open+Source,OSS,Apache,Linux,GNU,copyleft">
http://www.newsnow.co.uk/cgi-bin/NewsNow/NewsFeed.htm?Topic=*.Tech&Section=ASearchW&Search=Open+Source&ASearch=Open+Source,OSS,Apache,Linux,GNU,copyleft</A>
<P>
Marc Merlin's LinuxWorld Expo Page:
<A HREF="http://marc.merlins.org/linux/lwce_winter99/">
http://marc.merlins.org/linux/lwce_winter99/</A>
<P>
O'Reilly Summit Highlights Business Case for Open Source:
<A HREF="./oreilly.pr">Press Release</A>
<P>
Investors in Red Hat: <A HREF="./redhat.pr">Press Release</A>
<a name="software"></a>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<center><H3><font color="green">Software Announcements</font></H3></center>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
NetBeans Ships One of the First Cross-Platform IDEs to Support Java 2
</font>
</H3>
<P>
Prague, Czech Republic, March 2, 1999 - NetBeans today launched DeveloperX2
2.1, one of the first full-featured Integrated Development Environments
(IDEs) to support and run on Sun Microsystems, Inc.'s Java 2(tm) platform.
DeveloperX2 2.1 enables software developers to build sophisticated Java
Foundation Classes (JFC) GUIs, compile, and debug applications on the
platform of their choice. NetBeans also simultaneously launched a concurrent
version, Developer 2.1, which supports Swing 1.1 and Java Development Kit(tm)
(JDK) 1.1.
<P>
NetBeans Developer combines support for all stages of application development
including visual design, coding, compiling, and debugging in a comprehensive
visual programming package. It is available in two versions which run on all
platforms that support JDK 1.1 and 1.2, respectively, including Windows
95/98/NT, Linux, Solaris(tm), HP-UX, OS/2, AIX, SGI Irix, and others. The IDE
is based on JFC and JavaBeans Components, and all parts of the IDE are
actually themselves JavaBeans. The result is an IDE where the user can fully
customize the interface, modify component behavior and easily add new
components.
<P>
NetBeans Enterprise will allow teams of developers to build full-scale
distributed Java technology-based applications. In addition to the features
of Developer, Enterprise will feature several additional modules: Version
control systems support (integration with multiple vendors); database
connectivity - JDBC; Enterprise JavaBeans support - EJB; distributed computing
support - RMI and CORBA; and directory services - JNDI.
<P>
For more information:<BR>
<A HREF="http://www.netbeans.com/">http://www.netbeans.com/</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
Programming Web Graphics With Open Source Software
</font>
</H3>
<P>
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 10:13:39 -0800 (PST)
Sebastopol, CA--Many people assume that creating web graphics requires
graphics editors like Adobe Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. But with Open
Source software like Perl and GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) you
have the power to dynamically generate graphics based on user input and
activity, easily manipulate graphics content, and optimize graphics for
compression and quality.
<P>
Programming Web Graphics with Perl & GNU Software<BR>
By Shawn P. Wallace<BR>
1-56592-478-9, 470 pages, $29.95 (US$)<BR>
<P>
It's a little-documented field, and the valuable free libraries and
tools available on the Internet are little publicized. From access
counters and log-report graphs to scientific plots and on-the-fly
animated GIFS, graphics scripting is within the grasp of most web
scripters. "Programming Web Graphics with Perl & GNU Software" was
written to provide a practical resource for intermediate and advanced
web programmers who want to use CGI Scripts to generate dynamic graphic
content.
<P>
For more information:
<A HREF="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/prowg/">http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/prowg/</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
Kudos to Trident
</font>
</H3>
<P>
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 16:20:15 -0500<BR>
I'm writing you to let you know of a recent hardware company's
exceptional support to the GNU/Linux community and the GPL.
<P>
The Advanced Linux Sound Architecture project (<A HREF="http://alsa.jcu.cz/">
http://alsa.jcu.cz/</A>) is
a project designed to build an architecture for pro-quality sound and
MIDI applications, from low-level drivers for sound and MIDI hardware
to high level libraries and sequencers. The project is committed to
releasing all work under the GPL.
<P>
As you may know, many sound card manufacturers are reluctant to give
any technical help, and even some of those that offer help require
NDA's, which of course excludes the possibility of release source. We
have blacklisted some companies (http://alsa.jcu.cz/black.html) who
have either refused to release information or have decided to release
binary-only drivers, which ALSA will not use.
<P>
Trident (<A HREF="http://www.tridentmicro.com/">http://www.tridentmicro.com/</A>)
recently contacted the ALSA
developer mailing list, having written their own drivers for their 4D
Wave chipset for ALSA, and offering the source for the drivers. They
graciously allowed all of it to be put under the GPL, including
technical documents.
<P>
I am hoping to drum up support for their hardware in order for the
community to demonstrate how cooperation of this sort can aid
sales. Maybe this will convince more companies to follow.
<P>
Their chipset is used in the following products. If GNU/Linux users
are looking towards purchasing a sound card, perhaps they would
consider some of the following, since these cards are well-supported
under ALSA.
<pre>
Company Product Name
=======================================
Best Union Miss Melody 4DWave PCI
HIS 4DWave PCI
Warpspeed ONSpeed 4DWave PCI
AzTech PCI 64-Q3D
Addonics SoundVision (model SV 750)
CHIC True Sound 4Dwave
Shark Predator4D-PCI
Jaton SonicWave 4D
Paradise WaveAudio Interactive (Model AWT4DX)
Promedia Opera CyberPCI-64
Stark PCI
</PRE>
You can read more about ALSA and the call to sound card manufacturers
at <A
HREF="mailto:http://alsa.jcu.cz/call.html">http://alsa.jcu.cz/call.html</A>
For more information:<BR>
Thomas Hudson, Cygnus Solutions
<A HREF="mailto:thudson@cygnus.com">thudson@cygnus.com</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
Linux services new from VC3
</font>
</H3>
<P>
COLUMBIA, SC March 15, 1999: VC3, Inc. announced today that the
company will begin offering Linux services to corporations regionally.
The announcement comes at a time when the Linux operating system, a
UNIX-like operating system available at no charge to businesses, is
gaining momentum as a cost-effective system of choice for running many
business applications.
<P>
VC3 will provide Linux setup, configuration, and ongoing administration
services for both mid-size and large companies in the Southeast. In
addition, VC3 will support all Linux distributors that build their own
versions of the Linux operating system, including Red Hat Software,
Caldera Systems, and SuSE. This will enable VC3 to service and support
all "flavors" of Linux.
<P>
VC3 will provide the Linux operating software as well as set up,
configure, and administer the operating system for large and mid-size
corporations. Installation requires about a half-day to one day.
Installation and configuration prices vary from $200 to $5,000 depending
on the project scope and number of servers.
<P>
For more information:
<A HREF="http://www.vc3.com/">http://www.vc3.com/</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
JES Linux Class
</font>
</H3>
<P>
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 1999 12:43:38 -0800<BR>
Newport Beach, CA JES & Associates, Inc. is once again
stepping to the forefront to meet industry demands in
announcing a new course, 200L Linux Fundamentals. Designed
for newcomers to Linux, the three-day course will have its
debut run beginning April 5, 1999.
<P>
For more information:<BR>
<A HREF="http://www.jes.com/">http://www.jes.com/</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
Applix Launches Open Source Initiative With Applix SHELF
</font>
</H3>
<P>
WESTBORO, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 2, 1999--Applix, Inc. (NASDAQ: APLX)
a leader in decision support applications for Linux and Unix workstations,
today launched its first Open Source initiative with Applix SHELF, an
embeddable, full-featured programming language. With SHELF, application
developers will be able to increase customization and extensibility of their
applications by embedding Applixware language in their products.
<P>
Both Applixware and Applix SHELF are available for all major distributions
of Linux, including Red Hat, SuSE, Caldera, and Slackware. They are also
available for Sun, IBM, Compaq, and Hewlett Packard Workstations, as well as
for Microsoft Windows 98 and NT. Applix SHELF is being released under the
GNU Library Public License (LPGL), as defined by the Free Software
Foundation, Cambridge, MA. Under LPGL, Applix SHELF is freely usable in
either the original or modified form. It is available now for free download
at Applix's new Open Source-oriented website.
<P>
For more information:<BR>
Applix, Inc., <A HREF="http://www.applixware.org">http://www.applixware.org</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
esh -- A New UNIX Shell
</font>
</H3>
<P>
esh is a new shell for Unix, written completely from scratch. It is very
small, both in
number of lines of source code and in memory consumption.
The whole shell is about 5000
lines of C source code, and occupies
about twice as little memory as bash in some cases.
<P>
However, esh is also extremely flexible, with a real programming
language at the core. The syntax is a simplified form of Scheme.
<P>
For more information:<BR>
Ivan Tkatchev, <A HREF="http://esh.netpedia.net">http://esh.netpedia.net</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
Debian GNU/Linux 2.1 'Slink' released
</font>
</H3>
<P>
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 12:06:46 -0500<BR>
Debian GNU/Linux 2.1 'Slink' has officially been released on March 9, 1999
for the SPARC, Intel x86, Alpha, and Motorola 680x0 architectures. Release
notes, installation instructions, and other information is available at
<A HREF="http://www.debian.org/releases/slink/">
http://www.debian.org/releases/slink/</A>
<P>
Debian GNU/Linux 2.1 contains over 2250 precompiled binary packages
contributed from over 400 developers, including all of the favorites: web
servers, GIMP, gcc, egcs, XFree86, SQL servers and many other tools and
utilities.
<P>
Debian's new powerful package manager 'apt' allows for easy installation,
maintenance and updating of packages including sophisticated handling of
dependencies and configurations. Packages from other distributions can
easily be installed using the 'alien' utility.
<P>
For more information:<BR>
Debian Press Contact, <A HREF="mailto:press@debian.org">press@debian.org</A>
<BR>
Debian homepage: <A HREF="http://www.debian.org/">http://www.debian.org/</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
PROFUSO Mail Gateway
</font>
</H3>
<P>
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 13:00:24 +0000 (/etc/localtime)<BR>
PROFUSO proudly announces version 1.0 of PROFUSO Mail Gateway
"Personal Edition", the freely available personal email to WWW
gateway.
<P>
We can make this powerful software available for free because the
development of Personal Edition is supported by its commercial
edition (PROFUSO Mail Gateway Server Edition), that is multiuser
and lets you create web based e-mail services (like H*tmail).
<P>
PROFUSO Mail Gateway is a server software for the Linux operating
system that allows to send and receive e-mail using only a web
browser. PROFUSO Mail Gateway extends all the functionality of e-
mail, including multimedia and attachments, over the WWW. When
installed on your Linux web server, all you need for e-mail is
your favourite browser.
<P>
PROFUSO Mail Gateway is available in two versions: "Personal Edi-
tion", that is single user and freely available from our WWW site
and "Server Edition", that is commercial and multiuser and lets
you create your own free web e-mail service in minutes.
<P>
You can download your free copy or obtain more information on the
Server Edition at our site:
<P>
<A HREF="http://www.profuso.com/products.html">
http://www.profuso.com/products.html</A>
<P>
For more information:<BR>
Giuseppe Zanetti, <A HREF="mailto:beppe@profuso.com">
beppe@profuso.com</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
WebEvent! Web-based calendar software
</font>
</H3>
<P>
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 01:15:42 -0500<BR>
Please add WebEvent, our web-based calendar and scheduling software
to your list of Internet applications. WebEvent has been available
for Linux since 1995 and the commercial version has been around for
over a year and a half.
<P>
WebEvent is an interactive web-based calendar that allows you to
view and modify calendar-type events from any computer that can
run a web browser. Features include multiple views and formats,
event types, repeating events, event reminders, searchable
calendars, meta-calendars, conflict resolution, source coude,
and an easy to use web-based interface.
<P>
For more information:
<A HREF="http://www.MatadorDesign.com/">
http://www.MatadorDesign.com/</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
SuperAnt CD-ROM with Mini-Distributions
</font>
</H3>
<P>
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 17:56:19 -0800<BR>
SuperAnt is announcing that effective immediately,
they will be making available a Mini Linux Distribution CD-ROM.
The Mini Distribution CD-ROM contains small rescue releases of Linux
and packaged Linux systems that require only diskettes to boot from.
Some contain XFree for Linux, allowing graphics use on properly
configured systems. Some of the included distributions are Small Linux,
Trinux, Linux Router Project, muLinux, Toms Disk, and LEM.
The CD-ROM contains more than 600 megabytes of files.
<P>
SuperAnt is a Linux and Open Source technology provider and packager,
selling and marketing business and recreation CD-ROMS on the Internet.
<P>
For more information:
<A HREF="http://www.superant.com/">http://www.superant.com/</A> <BR>
Steven Gibson,
<A HREF="mailto:superant@superant.com">superant@superant.com</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
HELIOS products and support for Linux
</font>
</H3>
<P>
March 18, 1999- CeBIT '99, Hannover, Germany, Hall 9, Booth C25- HELIOS
Software GmbH announces the availability of its EtherShare 2.5,
EtherShare OPI 2.0, PDF Handshake and Print Preview products for the
Linux operating system on computers based on Pentium processors. HELIOS
PCShare 3 will also be available for Linux later this summer.
<P>
HELIOS Software supports Linux with its file server, print server and
PrePress applications on the HELIOS CD014, available in April. HELIOS
CD014 includes a minimal Redhat Linux runtime to support the HELIOS
software applications as well the Linux TCP/IP, NFS, FTP and Web
services to serve Macintosh, Windows, UNIX and Internet clients.
<P>
For more information:
<A HREF="mailto:info@ugraf.com">info@ugraf.com</A>, <A HREF="http://www.ugraf.com/">http://www.ugraf.com/</A>
<P>
HELIOS Software Gmb,
<A HREF="http://www.helios.com/">http://www.helios.com/</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
Communicator 4.51 now available for Linux
</font>
</H3>
<P>
Date: Tue, 09 Mar 1999 08:49:20 -0800<BR>
Netscape
just released Communicator 4.51 today (Tuesday, March 9), including the
Linux version. This is the first update to Communicator 4.5 since its
release last October. It includes a Netscape branded version of AOL
Instant Messenger 2.0 (enabling group chat), Quotes Anywhere (via Smart
Browsing keywords), improved stability and in addition to several
performance enhancements, this release corrects potential security
vulnerabilities reported in recent months by independent programmers.
<P>
Communicator 4.51 is available for download via Netscape Netcenter at
<A HREF="http://home.netscape.com/download/">
http://home.netscape.com/download/</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<center>Published in <i>Linux Gazette</i> Issue 39, April 1999</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_tips39.html"><IMG SRC="../gx/back2.gif" ALT=" Back "></A>
<A HREF="./lg_answer39.html"><IMG SRC="../gx/fwd.gif" ALT=" Next "></A>
<P><HR><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; 1999 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. </H5>
<P>
<!-- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -->
<H4>"The Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"</H4>
<P> <hr> <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>
LinuxCare,
<A HREF="http://www.linuxcare.com/">http://www.linuxcare.com/</A>
</H4>
</center>
<p><hr><p>
<!-- endcut ======================================================= -->
<H3>Contents:</H3>
<p><a href="#tag/greeting"
><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" alt="(!)" border="0"
align="middle"><strong>Greetings From Jim Dennis</strong></A></p>
<DL>
<!-- index_text begins -->
<dt><A HREF="#tag/2"
><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
></a>a small question --or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag/2"
><strong>
Using a 286 as a Serial Terminal
</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="#tag/3"
><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
><strong>What's wrong with internal modems?</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="#tag/4"
><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
><strong>Error starting recompiling process?</strong></a><dt><A HREF="#tag/5"
><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
></a>How Can I Delete? --or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag/5"
><strong>
Deleting Files and UNIX Permissions
</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="#tag/6"
><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
></a>No rule to make target '<tt>config</tt>' --or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag/6"
><strong>
Recompiling Kernel to Support CD-ROM
</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="#tag/8"
><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
></a>Fvwm95-Wharf --or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag/8"
><strong>
fvwm95-Wharf: xterm comes out black?
</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="#tag/9"
><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
><strong>Another "No Login" Problem: A little tip</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="#tag/10"
><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
></a>Multilink PPP using Linux --or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag/10"
><strong>
Modem Multi-link PPP: EQL
</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="#tag/11"
><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
></a>New Linux Distribution --or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag/11"
><strong>
How to Create a New Linux Distribution: Why?
</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="#tag/12"
><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
></a>login source code --or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag/12"
><strong>
Seeing Stars During Login
</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="#tag/13"
><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
></a>Personal LAN setup... --or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag/13"
><strong>
Setting up a Personal/Home LAN
</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="#tag/15"
><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
></a>Good morning!!! --or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag/15"
><strong>
Essay Quiz
</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="#tag/16"
><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
></a>diald dials every hour... --or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag/16"
><strong>
Overactive diald
</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="#tag/18"
><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
></a>Modem Problem --or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag/18"
><strong>
Another Lost Soul
</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="#tag/19"
><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
><strong>Plee for help</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="#tag/21"
><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
></a>security issue, /etc/passwd --or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag/21"
><strong>Secure Shutdown from the Console</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="#tag/22"
><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
><strong>Linux and Y2K</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="#tag/23"
><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
></a>Your approach to Y2K problem --or--
<dd><A HREF="#tag/23"
><strong>Y2K Cause Arithmetic Failures?</strong></a>
<!-- index_text ends -->
</DL>
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="tag/greeting"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(!) " border="0"
>Greetings from Jim Dennis</H3>
</DL>
<!-- begin greet -->
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Dear Bill,
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Thanks for the offer letter. Of course, I'll take that promotion.
I'd love a senior marketing position at Microsoft's sunny Seattle
campus.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I'll be happy to help MS focus on its core competencies (making mice,
joysticks, keyboards, and the exciting new "Talking Teletubby (TM)"
line of toys. It's definitely the best thing since "Teddy Ruskin
(TM)" and the "Cabbage Patch (TM)" dolls.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
(I have some interesting strategic proposals for dealing with the
Mattel and Fisher-Price problems, but we'll discuss them when you
meet me at SeaTac next week. Not that they're anti-competitive or
anything like that! But be sure to "secure delete" this e-mail after
reading it. Too bad you don't have that new "one-time reader" code
integrated into Outlook (TM) yet. We're still stuck using that old
Norton code)
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I agree with your assessment about software. That's definitely
passe. We'll only have a couple more years before those Linux geeks
completely eat our lunch. Believe me, after this prolonged
undercover assignment that I've been on I know all about Linus'
subversive plan. BTW, thank Paul for starting that company to hire
Linus. I would have hated to go to Helsinki and attempt the
infiltration during one of their winters. I'm sure he was right to
put that down here in the Silicon Valley; the ploy might have been a
little too transparent if we'd put it up in King county.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
It's too bad that MSN has been such a flop so far. How are the AOL
acquisition plans going? I still think you should set up a European
shell to do that. If Daimler-Benz can buy Chrysler than I don't see
why we can't have British Telecom come in and nab AOL.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Luckily MSNBC is doing pretty well, and should be ripe for the Senate
elections in 2002. We definitely have to finish our diversification
out of software before then, since I don't think we can string out
the W2K delays much longer than that.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
By the way, we should fire that red bearded freak that's been
ghostwriting "The Answer Guy" for me. He's actually been HELPING our
customers put Linux on OUR computers and I heard that he said some
choice personal things about YOU. I even heard he got access to some
of our internal memos and is planning on leaking them to "Obi Wan
Raymond."
(<A HREF="http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/archives/98dec/19981203.html"
>http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/archives/98dec/19981203.html</A>)
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
After those "Halloween" fiascos I'd hate to see an "April
Fool's Document...."
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- end greet -->
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="tag/2"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<!-- begin 2 -->
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>Using a 286 as a Serial Terminal</H3>
<p><strong>From Richard Mills on Sun, 07 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<!-- ::
Using a 286 as a Serial Terminal
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P><STRONG>
Is there anyway to set-up a 286 ps/2 with and without a hard
drive, for use as a dumb terminal over null modem? Specific
program names would be great, I cant find a good terminal emulator
for it. Also instructions for how to set it up on the client end
would be super.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Thanks for your help.
<IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)"
height="24" width="20" align="middle">
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Sure, it's possible. It's easy. Just install a copy of
DOS (MS-DOS, DR-DOS, FreeDOS, or whatever) and a
terminal emulator like Telix, Procomm, Qmodem, etc.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
You can still find many MS-DOS compatible programs
at <a href="ftp://ftp.simtel.net/">ftp.simtel.net</a> ---
(which is actually an alternative name to
<a href="ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/">ftp.cdrom.com</a> ---
the largest archive on the net)
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
You can find some in
<a href="ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/commprog/"><TT>/pub/simtelnet/msdos/commprog</TT></a> and
others in
<a href="ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/msdos/telix/"><TT>/pub/simtelnet/msdos/telix/</TT></a>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Note that Telix, Procomm, Qmodem, Telemate and most of the
good terminal emulation packages for MS-DOS were not free.
They are shareware. The last time I tried to register a
copy of Telix I found that the company which had aquired
the rights to the package had basically no interest in the
MS-DOS version. They have a Windows version which seems to
be the only one they still update. Luckily we don't need
updates for simple terminal emulation over null modems and
simple file transfers.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Another approach would be to use the MS-DOS version of
Kermit from Columbia University. This should be adequate
for most simple terminal operations and it has an excellent
scripting language (as does Telix).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Good luck!
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- sig -->
<!-- end 2 -->
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="tag/3"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<!-- begin 3 -->
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>What's wrong with internal modems?</H3>
<p><strong>From Darrell Spice, Jr. on Sat, 06 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<!-- ::
What's wrong with internal modems?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P><STRONG>
I was reading your response about the "winmodems" and wonder what's
wrong with an internal modem? Not all internal modems are "winmodems",
the USR 56K modem I use works fine with better operating systems
everywhere
<IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":-)"
height="24" width="20" align="middle">
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Of course I realize that "internal modem" != "winmodem"
--- that winmodems are a subset of internal modems.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
My opinion on internal modems was gelled long before
Windows was written. I think they are a bad idea. It's
a matter of personal prejudice, borne of long years of
experience. It is an opinion shared by most BBS sysops
ISP sysadmins and other "industrial grade" computer users.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
One reason I avoid them is that I've seen internal
modems meltdown and take out a motherboard with it. I've
seen that twice. I've never heard of an external modem
damaging a system through a serial line.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
However, it works for you --- so, by all means, use it.
(They can be a bit cheaper, and many will only expect
about two years use out of <EM>any</EM> modem they get so it
might make sense for some users on financial rather than
technical grounds).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- sig -->
<!-- end 3 -->
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="tag/4"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<!-- begin 4 -->
<H3 align="left"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>Error starting recompiling process?</H3>
<p><strong>From darod on Fri, 05 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<P><STRONG>
I get an error when I try to recompile the kernel. Actually, I
get the error before I even get into the recompiling process.
Here it is:
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG><BlockQuote>
When I try to run "<tt>make menuconfig</tt>" I get the errors ( I've
included a screenshot of what errors show up) in question. I'm a
newbee pretty much. I've had Linux on my machine for about 2
months. I've recompiled before but, I was using the "workstation"
option in Mandrake. I am now using the latest version of Mandrake
with the latest version of <A HREF="http://www.kde.org/">KDE</A>.
I chose the "custom" option for
install this last time and now I'm running into these problems. I
talked to several people about this and they have advised me to
install these files;
</BlockQuote></STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
kernel headers (I knew about this one)
<br>kernel source (I knew about this one too)
<br><tt>gcc</tt> (I didn't know about this one, but I loaded it and it
still gives me the errors)
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Headers just the portions of the kernel that some other
programs need to know to run compile and run under it.
So, if you install just the headers you can't compile
a new kernel --- but you can compile various programs
that need to refer to kernel function prototypes and
defined values (constants).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
The sources are needed to compile a new kernel, of course.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<tt>gcc</tt> is the compiler (GNU C compiler). It's the tool you use
to compile <EM>anything</EM> on a typical Linux system. There are
also some derivative alternative compilers like egcs
available.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><STRONG><IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
I need help with this, I hope you can help me. I want to
recompile the kernel so that I can setup my iomega zip drive.
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Looking at your screenshot I see errors in compiling
<tt>lxdialog</tt> (the Linux kernel "dialog" utility which is
what <tt>menuconfig</tt> uses to display dialog boxes, with
menus etc).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
These errors are from the compiler's inability to find
various header files. This is almost certainly due to a
problem with your installation.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
On a properly configured system you should have
a couple of symlinks from <TT>/usr/include</TT> to directories
under <TT>/usr/src/linux.</TT> On my system these look like:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><Pre>
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 26 Nov 23 16:39 /usr/include/asm
-&gt; /usr/src/linux/include/asm
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Nov 23 16:39 /usr/include/linux
-&gt; /usr/src/linux/include/linux
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 27 Nov 23 16:39 /usr/include/scsi
-&gt; /usr/src/linux/include/scsi
</Pre></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Once these sylinks are in place (and there's a symlink
from <TT>/usr/src/linux</TT> to the actual location of your kernel
sources) you should be able to build your new kernel and
other software properly. (In your situation I'd expect
that almost nothing would compile --- those symlinks are
used by alot of software).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><STRONG><IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Thanks in advance,
Darrin Rodriguez
</STRONG></P>
<!-- sig -->
<!-- end 4 -->
<hr width="40%" align="center"><!-- ::::::::::::::::::::: -->
<!-- begin 1 -->
<H3 align="left"><img src="../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>Error starting recompiling process?</H3>
<p><strong>From darod on Sun, 07 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<P><STRONG>Ok,
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
So your telling me that you think I probably won't be able to
compile anything with the way things are now on my machine
configuration, right? Well, what can I do short of installing the
OS again? I don't want to loose all the tweaking I've done
already if possible! What can I do with this thing?
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Darrin
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
What I was trying to say is:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><BlockQuote>
MAKE THE SYMLINKS
</BlockQuote></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
... and:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><BlockQuote>
MAKE SURE THE SYMLINKS ARE RIGHT
</BlockQuote></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I realize that my long description of what these symlinks
are and why you need them didn't actually spell that out in
simple, bold terms like this --- but that's what I meant.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- sig -->
<!-- end 1 -->
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="tag/5"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<!-- begin 5 -->
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>Deleting Files and UNIX Permissions</H3>
<p><strong>From martin a. salazar on Fri, 05 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<!-- ::
Deleting Files and UNIX Permissions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P><STRONG><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Hi,
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
How can I delete files with attributes like these.
</STRONG></P>
<Pre><STRONG>
b---r----- 1 10080 24640 96, 68 Feb 10 1977 csh.cshrc
b---rwxr-- 1 24672 8231 32, 39 Dec 16 2010 exports
</STRONG></Pre>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
These look CORRUPT. See below.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><STRONG><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Regards,
Marty Salazar
Newgen IT Corp.
<A HREF="mailto:marty@newgen.net.ph"
>marty@newgen.net.ph</A>
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Your ability to remove files has nothing to do with
the permissions of the files themselves, and often
nothing to do with the ownership of the files.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Under UNIX (and Linux, of course) you need write access
to the <EM>directory</EM> in which a link occurs to remove that
link. So in a mode 777 directory you can remove <EM>any</EM>
filename (link) REGARDLESS OF WHO OWNS THAT FILE AND
REGARDLESS OF THE PERMISSIONS ON IT.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
(As a special case under Linux and most modern versions
of Unix if the mode of the directory is "sticky" ---
mode 1xxx --- then you must have write access to the
directory <EM>and</EM> you must own the file, or be root, to
unlink/remove it).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Note that I've made a distinction here between the file
and its names (links). In a Unix/Linux filesystem a
file is an association between an inode (a management and
meta-data structure) and a set of data blocks (the
data or file contents). The file's <EM>name</EM> is a link from
a directory to the inode. There can be many such links
or "hard links.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Thus the process of removing a file involves "unlinking"
it. When the link count is zero (there are no remaining
links to a file) and there are not processes with a
file open, then the filesystem driver removes the actual
file (that is it marks the inode as deleted and adds
all of its data blocks back to the "free" list.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
So the '<tt>rm</tt>' command doesn't actually "remove files" ---
technically it "unlinks files from directories" (which
often has the side effect of reducing the link count to
zero and consequently deleting the file).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Understanding this hopefully explains why write access
to a directory is generally sufficient to remove files
in it.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Now regarding your example:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><BlockQuote>
The filenames you show here would normall be related
to regular files in the <TT>/etc/</TT> directory. However the
"permissions" you show suggest that these are block
device nodes (links to thinks like your <TT>/dev/hda1</TT>, etc).
</BlockQuote></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Moreover the ownership/group fields are rather
unlikely to be valid UIDs or GIDs on your system. This
suggests that you have a rather thoroughly corrupted
filesystem. So, my first suggestion would be to
boot from a clean rescue floppy and try '<tt>e2fsck -c</tt>'
Then consider re-installing Linux (after backing up any
data, of course).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- sig -->
<!-- end 5 -->
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="tag/6"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<!-- begin 6 -->
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>Recompiling Kernel to Support CD-ROM</H3>
<p><strong>From PEREZ, Martin on Fri, 05 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<!-- ::
Recompiling Kernel to Support CD-ROM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P><STRONG>
Hi,
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I am new to Linux and I though I would start on <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">Red Hat</A> 5.1, I'll
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
upgrade to 5.2 when I am happy and used to installing 5.1. Now I am able to
install without an error, however, when ever I attempt to mount a CDROM with
the -tiso9660 I get the error saying the format is not recognize.
Therefore, I try to recompile the kernel using a 'make config', but WHAM!! I
get a response of 'Nor rule to make target 'config&quot;. I have installed the
relevant C libraries and the like on install. Please Help!!!
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Martin Perez
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Let's take this one step at a time.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I usually put a space between my <tt>-t</tt> and my filetype
specification. That might not be a problem, let's
see...
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
O.K. The mount command doesn't care.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I can't say whether there is some other problem with
the mount command that you are attempting since you
don't give a full example of that command line.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
In most Recent versions of Red Hat Linux the kernel is
modular. Thus the <tt>iso9660</tt> filesystem type is often
contained in a module rather than being linked directly
into the kernel. You can see which filesystem are currently
linked into your kernel and/or provided by loaded modules by
using the command
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><blockquote><code>
cat /proc/filesystems
</code></blockquote></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
... which is a dynamic list.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Perhaps you need to load the iso9660 module from
its home under <TT>/lib/modules/X.Y.ZZ/fs/</TT> (where
X.Y.ZZ is your currently loaded kernel's version number).
You could use the '<tt>insmod</tt>' or '<tt>modprobe</tt>' commands.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
But wait. Many of us don't have to manually load these
modules. What's going on?
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Well, there is a daemon (<tt>kerneld</tt>) which dynamically loads
kernel modules "on demand" --- when it's properly loaded
and configured. The phrase "on demand" means slightly
different things (under the hood) for device drivers,
filesystems, and network protocols. Also <tt>kerneld</tt> was a
2.0 thing. The new 2.2 kernels should be using a different
facility called '<tt>kmod</tt>' instead.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
So, it could be that you have a problem with your dynamic
module loading subsystem.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
This all suggests that you've either changed things a bit
from the default Red Hat installation, or that you haven't
successfully completed that installation. You might
want to build/rebuild your modules "dependencies" table.
You can do that with the command:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><BLOCKQUOTE><CODE>
depmod -a
</CODE></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
... which is often in the startup scripts (<TT>/etc/rc.d/*</TT>)
somewhere. "<tt>modprobe</tt>" and the dynamic module loaders
require this information in order to load interdependent
sets of modules in the proper order. For example, the
<tt>iso9660</tt> filesystem module depends upon lower level
CD-ROM device support. (They aren't combined into a
single module for a few reasons: first a CD can have
non-ISO9660 filesystems on it; Linux allows this; also,
there are many different CD device drivers for non-SCSI
and non-ATAPI CD-ROM controllers).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
So, try that.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
No, regarding your problem with building a new
kernel. Naturally you have be "in" the proper
directory when you start this process. That would
usually be <TT>/usr/src/linux</TT> --- which is usually a symlink
to the top level diretory of a specific set of kernel
sources.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
It's possible that you've installed just the kernel
headers. This allows you to build other programs
(which need to know about certain kernel prototypes and
defined values (constants). However, you need to install
the full kernel source set to actually build a kernel.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
You can try the command: <tt>make menuconfig</tt>
<br>or: <tt>make xconfig</tt>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
... to get a more attractive and friendly interface for
configuring your kernel. It's also possible to manually
edit your <tt>.config</tt> file --- if you insist.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Anyway, make sure that you actually have the kernel
sources installed, not just the kernel headers. Also
make sure that you're in the correct directory and,
if you're following a symlink, that the symlink(s)
point to the right place.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- sig -->
<!-- end 6 -->
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="tag/8"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<!-- begin 8 -->
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>fvwm95-Wharf: xterm comes out black?</H3>
<p><strong>From Siddharth Kashyap on Fri, 05 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<!-- ::
fvwm95-Wharf: xterm comes out black?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P><STRONG>
In fvwm95, I start Wharf. Through I click at xterm icon. This
gives me a DARK BLACK xterm window. Please help. This only happens
when I enter as a user, not root. I am using
<A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">Red Hat</A> Linux 5.2
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Try renaming your user's <tt>~/.Xdefaults</tt> file temporarily.
The possibility is that you have some weird settings
therein that are starting your xterm with both the
foreground (<TT>-fg</TT>) and the background (<TT>-bg</TT>) set to black.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I'm not familiar with this "Wharf." I presume it's a
fvwm-95 "module" or a small applet which gives you a
little "applications dock" --- like AfterStep and the
old NeXT desktop, perhaps. If that's the case ---
perhaps you have to check some configuration file for
Wharf to see if it is starting your xterm with weird
command line options.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
One trick you can try is to go to a text mode terminal
using [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[F2] or such (log in as the same user
that is running your X session) and start an xterm from
there. You could use the following command:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><BLOCKQUOTE><CODE>
xterm -display :0 -bg cyan -fg black
</CODE></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
... which will start the '<TT>xterm</TT>' from outside of that
process group. Assuming that this works --- it suggests
that your configuration somehow has some weird settings
for launching its xterms. We're bypassing those settings
and manually starting one.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
The the challenge is to track down which part of your system
is harboring those settings.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- sig -->
<!-- end 8 -->
<hr width="40%" align="center"><!-- ::::::::::::::::::::::: -->
<!-- begin 7 -->
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>More on fvwm95 Wharf</H3>
<p><strong>From Siddharth Kashyap on Fri, 05 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<!-- ::
More on fvwm95 Wharf
~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P><STRONG>
I have <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">Red Hat</A> Linux 5.2
I want to know is this a bug. In the
fvwm95 I start something called Wharf. (If you click your mouse
on the desktop, you get some options. One of them is Sytem
Utilities. In System Utilities, there is Wharf). When you
click at Wharf it opens an icon bar. One of the icon is for
xterm. When I click at the icon I get a blank xterm
window. Please help me.
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
See my other answer to this question.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Incidentally, it is conventional to keep your
<tt>.sig</tt> (signature) to about 4 lines. Your correspondents
probably won't appreciate receiving mail where the
"signature" is longer than the message at hand.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Even after all these years, Brendan Kehoe's "Zen and
the Art of the Internet" is an excellent guide to the
customs and etiquette conventions for many Internet
protocols (including e-mail and netnews).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- sig -->
<p><em>[ <strong>Zen and the Art of the Internet</strong>
can be found online at
<a href="http://www.cs.indiana.edu/docproject/zen/zen-1.0_toc.html"
>http://www.cs.indiana.edu/docproject/zen/zen-1.0_toc.html</a>.
-- Heather ]</em></p>
<!-- end 7 -->
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<A NAME="tag/9"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<!-- begin 9 -->
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(!) " border="0"
>Another "No Login" Problem: A little tip</H3>
<p><strong>From Jens Christian Gram on Wed, 03 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<P><STRONG>
I have experienced the "no login" problem in both RH 5.1 and RH 5.2.
The problem seems to be that the <TT>/bin/passwd</TT> command has applies some
restrictions to the entered passwords (they can not be to short, to
simple ...). When you use the graphic tool, no restrictions are applied,
but you can not log in, if the password violates the restrictions from
passwd.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I hope you understand what I mean, and that you can use my help, even
though I am relatively new at linux.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Jens Christian Gram
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Of course! That explains it.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
The normal Linux 'passwd' command does attempt to enforce a
"strong passwords" policy --- to ensure that the user will
pick passwords that are unlikely to be in a potential
attacker's 'crack' dictionary. 'crack' is a program that
hashes (encodes) a list of words (a dictionary) into every
variant of the way it might appear in a given password
file (<TT>/etc/passwd</TT>). This is much more efficient than a
true "brute force" attack.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
In any event --- the GUI tool obviously has a bug it
it --- since it just calls the underlying 'passwd'
command and doesn't relay the error messages back to
the user. I personally consider that to be a major
flaw and would suggest that sysadmins remove this
program (python script?) from their systems until it's
fixed.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- sig -->
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<A NAME="tag/10"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
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<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>Modem Multi-link PPP: EQL</H3>
<p><strong>From Spears, Michael T. on Tue, 09 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<!-- ::
Modem Multi-link PPP: EQL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P><STRONG>
Are you familiar with setting up a Multilink PPP connection using two
dial-up modems (v.90) and Linux as the client? Is so, can you point me
in the direction of the documentation for setting this up?
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Thank you,
Mike Spears
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Use the search feature at <A HREF="http://www.linuxgazette.com"
>http://www.linuxgazette.com</A> and
search on the term: EQL I know I discussed it a bit in
<a href="./../issue36/lg_answer36.html">issue #36</a>.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
You can also get broader results doing Google
(<A HREF="http://www.google.com"
>http://www.google.com</A>), Yahoo! and other search using the
phrase: "<tt>linux eql</tt>" or "<tt>+linux +eql</tt>"
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
The Linuxcare search engine (<A HREF="http://www.linuxcare.com"
>http://www.linuxcare.com</A>)
comes up with the <tt>README.eql</tt> file on this keyword. It
also comes up with a number of interesting links on
the phrase: "<tt>multilink ppp</tt>"
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
See if those help. The <tt>README.eql</tt> file is included in
your Linux kernel sources.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- sig -->
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<A NAME="tag/11"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
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<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>How to Create a New Linux Distribution: Why?</H3>
<p><strong>From Cesar A. K. Grossmann on Tue, 09 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<!-- ::
How to Create a New Linux Distribution: Why?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P><STRONG>
Hi James, it's me again...
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
A friend asked me how to build a new Linux CD-based distribuition,
but I have only some clues, can you help me?
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I have identified some major tasks a future Linux distributor must
deal:
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG><ol>
<li>Decide how the distribuition will be and what it will have (BSD or
SYSV, complete or desktop/server versions,
<A HREF="http://www.kde.org/">KDE</A>?,
<A HREF="http://www.gnome.org/">GNOME</A>?, NONE?, etc.);
<li>Create a installer/configure script/programm according the first step;
<li>Create the boot/root/rescue disk(s) for the install;
<li>Create the CD structure and image;
<li>Make it work (make/"burn" the disks and test, repeat steps 2 to 5
until it works)!
<li>Create documentation to help installing, and make some money with
support;
<li>Endless work, endless happiness...
</ol></STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Did I missed something (or: is this the "New CD Based Linux Distribution
HOWTO")? There are any documents at the Internet that can help anyone
who wants to make a new Linux CD based distribution?
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
There is no "HOWTO Create New Distributions" that I know of.
That is good.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
The most important step that you seem to have missed is to
ask: "Why?"
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
..
Why create a new distribution?
Why are the current crop of distributions inadequate
to your task?
..
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
This leads to other logical questions:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><BlockQuote>
What other distributions are out there? What
are their weaknesses for your purposes? Could
any of them be modified to your needs?
</BlockQuote></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Someone wanted <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">Red Hat</A> Linux <EM>with</EM> KDE. So we have
Mandrake. Someone wanted <A HREF="http://www.slackware.org/">Slackware</A> with support for RPMs
so we have <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/">S.u.S.E.</A> Some people didn't want to use RPMs so we
have <A HREF="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</A>. (Actually the roots and histories of these
distributions is far more colorful and involved than I'm
implying; but I'm trying to make a point).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Keep in mind that you could start with an existing
distribution and create a "installation profile" (S.u.S.E.
even allows you to store these on floppy and use them for
future installations). With Red Hat's distribution you can
create a "KickStart" script which is effectively an
installation profile (and installation automation tool).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
With Debian you'd have to do more scripting on your
own. However it could certainly be done.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Incidentally, you missed one of the chief differences
among distributions in your list:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><BlockQuote>
Pick a Package Format
</BlockQuote></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
... personally I don't like the Linux penchant for
re-inventing wheels. The <A HREF="http://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</A> "ports" (<A HREF="http://www.netbsd.org/">NetBSD</A>
"packages") system is rather nice in that it's basically
a huge set of Makefiles. These get the "canonical" version
of a package and do whatever is necessary to unpack,
patch, build and install it. Naturally 'make' handles
dependencies.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
So, if you really want to make a new distribution and you
don't have an over-riding vision for "why" ---
think about creating one around this concept.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
However, I think we've got enough variations of this
wheel for now.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- sig -->
<!-- end 11 -->
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<A NAME="tag/12"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
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<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>Seeing Stars During Login</H3>
<h4 align="center">Re: login source code</h4>
<p><strong>From john walshe on Tue, 09 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<!-- ::
Seeing Stars During Login
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P><STRONG>
Hi Jim,
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I am wondering how you would get the <tt>*</tt> to come up on a screen
for each character pressed when someone is entering a login password
on a unix platform.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Thanks,
John.
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
As your subject suggests, you'd have to modify the sources
to the '<tt>login</tt>' program. You'd have to put the terminal
in a particular mode so you're getting each character
(rather than getting whole lines at a time). This is
possible on any terminal through which one can run '<tt>vi</tt>'
'<tt>emacs</tt>' or any other full screen text program. However,
the existing '<tt>login</tt>' programs, and your shell, and
the '<tt>ex</tt>' (or '<tt>ed</tt>') line editors don't require this ---
so they can still be used with teletype devices.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I suspect that this is at least one reason why the
login program doesn't provide visual cues for each
character you type. Another is that it would reveal
the length of your password to any shoulder surfers
in your vicinity any time you logged in.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I was amused that the Lotus Notes login dialog (under
Windows) would spit out a random number of *'s for every
keystroke you entered in the password field of the dialog.
So you knew that the keyboard was responding --- but
couldn't tell if you'd "bounced" some keys. That
doesn't seem like much of a "solution."
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
In any event --- feel free to play with it. Understand
that '<tt>login</tt>' is a security sensitive program. The slightest
mistake you make there can probably be exploited to
take over your whole system. So, I wouldn't deploy this
on exposed servers unless you are <EM>very</EM> sure of your
programming skills (or very foolhardy --- as the case
would more likely be).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<A NAME="tag/13"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<!-- begin 13 -->
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>Setting up a Personal/Home LAN</H3>
<p><strong>From DrDave on Tue, 09 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<!-- ::
Setting up a Personal/Home LAN
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P><STRONG>
Hi!
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
You <EM>may</EM> remember me from a couple of months ago, when I wrote you in
my first weeks of using Linux, asking about the correct way to put
together a bash script to remove spaces from filenames being copied from
a Win98-generated CD. Since then, I've fallen for Linux like a stone,
and I only return to Win98 when I need to do something with minimal or
no support under Linux. (I'm working on the C chops, but they're
nowhere near close to solving many of my problems elegantly. Grrrr.)
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
One of these things is the operation of a WebCam. Now, I've been
through the bttv etc. sites and tried a number of things, but I'm forced
to face the fact that my capture card is <EM>not</EM> supported under Linux.
</STRONG></P>
<p><em>[ Did you try WebCam World? Their developer's area seems to be
trying to track all software that supports webcams, including
Linux based apps, at
<a href="http://developers.webcamworld.com/slist.html"
>http://developers.webcamworld.com/slist.html</a>
</em></p>
<p><em>With our fast pace of development it's also worthwhile to keep checking.
I found this by feeding "<tt>+webcam software +linux</tt>" to Yahoo!
-- Heather ]</em></p>
<P><STRONG>
My first thought was that I'd put together a driver in C for the card.
After the laughter quieted to a dull roar, I dropped that idea. My
second thought was that I'd just have to buy a new capture card. Not
bad, but I do like a fair amount of the software I have that works with
my current card. Hmmm.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Third thought: Build a mini-LAN. Rehab the old 90MHz Pentium in the
closet, throw an ethernet card in it, and run the webcam/software on
that box, but get access to the images/clips it produces from my "main
system" running Linux. I like this idea because it seems like it will
work well for most things I like to do with my cam, and because I can
learn a ton about networking in the process.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Pardon my circumlocution. I'll get to the point: (hehe)
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I've done some looking at the most available docs, including the
networking HOWTO and a couple of books I bought on general Linux things,
but none of them address my situation directly, and I'm a complete
novice to networking, so I'm having trouble bridging the gaps. Perhaps
you can help...
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Question 1:
What networking protocol should I aim for? A friend who runs a major NT
based network suggested setting things up with NetBEUI, since I'd have
next to zero configuration to do before getting things running. I
haven't seen this addressed anywhere directly.
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
NetBIOS/NetBEUI "native" protocols are not supported
under Linux. They probably won't be supported under future
versions of NT. They are non-routable and extremely
"noisy" (involving many broadcasts which force the
software on all hosts to sift through many of the packets
that would be more targeted and handled in ethernet hardware
on other protocols).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
You want TCP/IP. In a <EM>real pinch</EM> you might use IPX (the
Novell protocols). However, the whole Internet uses TCP/IP
and even the latest versions of Netware and Windows prefer TCP/IP.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><STRONG><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Question 2:
I need to be able to access the mini-LAN and my PPP connection from my
linux box concurrently so, for example, I can have the webcam generate
and stamp a .jpg image on my w98 box, and have a background job on the
linux box ftp'ing the files to my ISP's web server. What are my major
concerns here? If I can't avoid a using an IP-based protocol on my LAN
(so my w98 box needs an IP address), how do I make this work?
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
You can have multiple interfaces on a Linux system. Each
interface will have it's own IP address. Typically, on
small home LANs you'll have one IP address from your ISP ---
usually a dynamically generated one like <tt>206.123.234.56</tt> ---
and you'll use "reserved/private net" addresses (as
defined by RFC 1918) for all of your other systems.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Thus your PPP interface will use the "real" IP address
and all of your other systems will speak to the Internet
through that one system (which is then your "router" and/or
your "proxy").
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
There is a technical, though somewhat blurred, distinction
between a "router" and a "proxy host." Linux can act as
either or both concurrently.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
One feature that's built into Linux is "IP masquerading" a
particular form of "NAT" (network address translation).
This allows it to re-write packet headers <EM>as it routes</EM>
packets. When properly configured this will allow a whole
network LAN to look like a single, busy, system to the
rest of the Internet.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
So, let's assume that you set up an ethernet. You decide
to use <tt>192.168.99.*</tt> for your IP addresses. According to
RFC 1918 you can use any of the <tt>192.168.*.*</tt> addresses,
and/or you can use <tt>10.*.*.*</tt> and/or you can use <tt>172.16.*.*</tt>
through <tt>172.31.*.*</tt> (now you don't have to read the RFC ---
since that's all of the most important notes from it right there).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
So, your Linux system sees that as <tt>eth0</tt> (the first, and
probably only ethernet interface on your host). So you'd
have a script that looked something like:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<blockquote><pre>ifconfig eth0 192.168.99.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.99.255
route add -net 192.168.99.0 eth0
ipfwadm -F -a acc -m -S 192.168.0.0/16 -D 0/0
</pre></blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
... which would configure the interface, add the route
(automatically done in 2.2.x --- but necessary in 2.0.x and
earlier), and add a special entry to the "forwarding" table
for the kernel's IP packet filtering (so-called "firewall").
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Your PPP configuration would set the default route (out
to the Internet). You might use manual dialing or a
program like '<tt>diald</tt>' to automatically dial your ISP whenever
packets get directed for it (dial on demand). I've heard
that newer versions of the PPP daemon (pppd) support
dial-on-demand directly --- though I haven't tried it.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Search through the back issues of my column. I've
described IP masquerading, diald, PPP, and routing in
considerable detail and on a number of occasions.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
There are also HOWTOs on these subjects --- look at
the canonical LDP (Linux Documentation Project) website
at: <A HREF="http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP"
>http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP</A>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
In particular you might want to look at these:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><DL><DT>
Networking Overview HOWTO, by Daniel Lpez Ridruejo
<DD><A HREF="http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/Networking-Overview-HOWTO.html"
>http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/Networking-Overview-HOWTO.html</A>
</DL></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><DL><DT>
ISP Hookup HOWTO, by Egil Kvaleberg
<DD><A HREF="http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/ISP-Hookup-HOWTO.html"
>http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/ISP-Hookup-HOWTO.html</A>
</DL></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><DL><DT>
ISP Connectivity mini-HOWTO, by Michael Strates
<DD><A HREF="http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/ISP-Connectivity.html"
>http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/ISP-Connectivity.html</A>
</DL></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><DL><DT>
PPP HOWTO, by Robert Hart
<DD><A HREF="http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/PPP-HOWTO.html"
>http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/PPP-HOWTO.html</A>
</DL></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><DL><DT>
Diald mini-HOWTO, by Harish Pillay
<DD><A HREF="http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Diald.html"
>http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Diald.html</A>
</DL></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><DL><DT>
IP Masquerade mini-HOWTO, by Ambrose Au
<DD><A HREF="http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/IP-Masquerade.html"
>http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/IP-Masquerade.html</A>
</DL></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
... those are a good start.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><DL><DT>
SMB HOWTO, by David Wood
<DD><A HREF="http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/SMB-HOWTO.html"
>http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/SMB-HOWTO.html</A>
</DL></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
... this will give you an idea of how to use your
Linux system as a file/print server for your Windows
boxes --- using Samba. That may be necessary or
at least helpful for your application.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><DL><DT>
IPCHAINS HOWTO, by Paul Russell
<DD><A HREF="http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/IPCHAINS-HOWTO.html"
>http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/IPCHAINS-HOWTO.html</A>
</DL></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
... the 2.2.x kernels use this instead of ipfwadm
--- so you may need to read this if you've upgraded
your kernel.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><STRONG><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Question 3:
Am I getting in way over my head here?
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
How else would you learn to swim?
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><STRONG><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
I realize this is a pretty broad question for this forum, but any advice
you can send my way would be greatly appreciated. I also figure there
are probably a fair number of people out there making the Windows-&gt;Linux
transition who might be interested in a similar solution for a multitude
of problems.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Thanks again,
David
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Look back through my back issues. It's all there,
somewhere. Then again, maybe I've consolidated enough
(by linking to the related HOWTOs) to obviate all that.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- sig -->
<!-- end 13 -->
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="tag/15"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<!-- begin 15 -->
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>Essay Quiz</H3>
<p><strong>From Nilda on Wed, 10 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<!-- ::
Essay Quiz
~~~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P><STRONG><ol>
<li>What are the differences between Linux and Windows in terms how they
work?
<li>What types of products are currently available to use with Linux
vs.Windows?
<li>Who is currently using Linux?
<li>Form a conclusion as to whether Microsoft has reason to worry about
Linux taking over as the main operating system.
</ol></STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Nilda,
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Thanks for the refreshing essay assignment, but I have work
to do. I don't remember signing up for a class in
comparative OS religions and I don't have the time for this
sort of childish prattle.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
If you are really interested in answers to these questions
please feel free to search through some web sites ---
particularly through the archives of the main "Linux
media watchers" web sites:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><dl><dt>Linux Weekly News
<dd><A HREF="http://www.lwn.net"
>http://www.lwn.net</A>
</dl></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><dl><dt>Linux Today
<dd><A HREF="http://www.linuxtoday.com"
>http://www.linuxtoday.com</A>
</dl></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><DL><DT>LinuxWorld
<DD><A HREF="http://www.linuxworld.com"
>http://www.linuxworld.com</A>
</DL></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
... these have links to hundreds of recent press clippings
from sources as diverse as small local newspapers and
magazines like Scientific American. Those are a more
suitable source of this sort of information.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
When corresponding with people in the Linux community
it's unwise to "come off with a 'tude" --- like doling
out an writing assignment or as though we "owe you"
something. Most of us are volunteers. Those who
ask me for free support at least owe me some courtesy
--- and doing some preliminary research and/or explaining
your <EM>specific</EM> needs and background is the least of that.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Your questions are very broad --- there are rows of books
devoted to the workings of Linux, and several (&quot;Unix for
the MS-DOS User&quot; et al) that specifically compare Unix (and
therefore Linux) to other operating systems. As for the
marketing hype and drivel that you seem to be inviting ---
the web sites I've listed above should provide links to
plenty of that.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I hope those help answer your questions. Please also feel
free to read a few back issues of my column to get an
idea of it's true purpose.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- sig -->
<!-- end 15 -->
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="tag/16"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<!-- begin 16 -->
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>Overactive diald</H3>
<p><strong>From PCTech1018 on Wed, 10 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<!-- ::
Overactive diald
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P><STRONG>Hello Jim,
<br>I have been following Linux Gazette and your Answer Guy column for about
6 months now. You do a good job as far as I need (other people may need
more than I do).
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Situation: I have a Linux PC (RedHat 5.2) running as a dial-on-demand
Internet Gateway using <tt>diald</tt>. It works great. I have Samba up and
running as well as named. I can connect to the internet from both my
Linux PC and Windows95 boxes. When the connection is down, and I attempt
to connect with <tt>ftp</tt>, <tt>ping</tt>, <tt>http</tt> or whatever,
<tt>diald</tt> correctly establishes the internet connection to my ISP.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Everything is hunky-dory except one annoyance: <tt>diald</tt> dials every hour
whether or not someone is attempting an internet connection. How do I
get this to stop?
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Thanks,
Darren
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
You almost certainly have a <tt>cron</tt> script that is doing
this. Look at your <TT>/etc/crontab</TT> file to see what's
running at that time. Some fairly subtle things can
involve DNS/MX or other Internet services which are
dynamically bringing up your connection.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
'<tt>diald</tt>' has features to filter out some sorts of traffic
from its consideration as "activity" for the line. Thus
it can be configured to ignore some sorts of packets.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Read the diald man pages for more details on that.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- sig -->
<p><em>[ The University of Oregon hosts a site which points at lots
of documentation for Linux. At
<a href="http://limestone.uoregon.edu/woven/linux-doc-other.html#LMP"
>http://limestone.uoregon.edu/woven/linux-doc-other.html#LMP</a>
you should be able to find a website near you carrying manpages,
if there aren't adequate ones on your installation.
-- Heather ] </em></p>
<!-- end 16 -->
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="tag/18"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<!-- begin 18 -->
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>Another Lost Soul</H3>
<p><strong>From gme947 on Fri, 12 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<!-- ::
Another Lost Soul
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P><STRONG>
I recently bought a 56K V.90 modem. I am currently using the old
Windows 3.1 and the information sheet included with the modem tells
me to set the jumpers. I did all of this for Com2 IRQ3. Where do I
put the Modem inf files so that my computer will recognize my new
modem. I was able to use the dialup in DOS but not in Windows. I
could not get Netscape to recogize the new modem. What should I do?
The Modem is a NewCom
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Thanks
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
The problem is that you're running MS-DOS and Windows 3.1
and asking the Linux Gazette Answer Guy questions about it.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
One problem with that is that you bought a modem from
a manufacturer and retailer that apparently won't provide
you with any technical support (otherwise it seems unlikely
that you'd be asking me this question).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
A related problem is that you're using an OS and set of
software packages which is also unsupported by its
manufacturer. (Remember that next time someone says
"Linux is unsupported" --- clearly MS-DOS and Windows
are even more so).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Yet another problem is that you are suffering from some
misconception about how Netscape's Navigator works. A
web browser doesn't interact with your modem at all. It
communicates with a TCP/IP networking protocol suite
or "stack" as they are commonly called.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
In all likelihood any modem using programs on your system
can already recognize your modem. There is some set of
options you might have to pu in your <tt>SYSTEM.INI</tt> file so that
Win 3.x programs can determine the COM port and IRQ that
you've installed this modem at. I don't remember the
specifics (as it's been years since I used or supported
Windows 3.x). So you'll have to play with "Control Panel"
and "Setup" until you bumble across the widgets that set
these --- or read some manuals to find examples that you can
put in with a text editor.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- sig -->
<!-- end 18 -->
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<A NAME="tag/19"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<!-- begin 19 -->
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>Plee for help</H3>
<p><strong>From Ian on Wed, 17 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<P><STRONG>
Hi there Jim....
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Actually, this is Heather; you sent this message to our consulting
services. However, since you addressed it to Jim specifically, I'll take
a first shot on behalf of The Answer Guy, since he's been really busy
this week.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><STRONG><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
My name is Ian van Battum and I am a desperate man.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I have recently wanted to further my computer studies and have found
Linux to be a great OS to learn and master. Being a complete newbie
to Linux, I am not a stranger to OS's and what have you.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I have how ever a small problem. I have a laptop on which I would like
to load Linux. Unfortunately it only has a floppy drive. So I need to go
through the slog of installing off a 'million' and one floppies. This
is not a hassle though but I am stuck when it comes the old procedure
of doing this task.
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Actually, you don't need to go through as many floppies as all that.
TurboLinux (from Pacific HiTech), <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">Red Hat</A>, and <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/">S.u.S.E.</A> all offer single
floppy starter disk images that you can download from the internet, put
in your machine to boot it, and then they'll use FTP across the internet
to get the rest. Of course this works best if you have a fairly solid
link to the net, and you have a buddy to help you cut the initial disks.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Somewhat more durable in their efforts are a 6-diskette <A HREF="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</A> base
packages install (after which it will be able to use even a fairly
fragile connection, and retry as necessary).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Of course Linux hasn't got the only spot in this limelight.
<A HREF="http://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</A>
will also install via FTP given its single boot floppy, but you do need a
solid enough link to get the 'bin' distribution... although they do
have their 'distributions' (base file sets; yeah, I know, it kind of
confused me the first time I saw it, too) split into parts so they can
be copied onto floppies and recombined, I've never actually done an
install that way.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
If it weren't a laptop then it would be pretty easy to swap your hard
drive into another system, apply the new OS, and then return it to your
system. Of course if it weren't a laptop, it would be worth buying a
super-cheap 2X CD-ROM... maybe even used, or as a giveaway from a friend
joining the multimedia age.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
As for adding peripherals, you may not be as out of luck as you think.
Most laptops have a parallel port, and ZIP support across parallel ports
has been in Linux for a while now. So, you could potentially get a lot
more files onto a ZIP. There are a few parallel based CD-ROMs such as
the Backpack, but I'm not sure how well Linux supports them. And, there's
usually your CardBus or PCMCIA slots... which I call "piecemeal"... as in
that's how they let you upgrade your laptop, by pieces.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
My own <a href="http://www.ricoh-usa.com/prodshw/minipc/">Ricoh Magio E
laptop</a> installed TurboLinux great from an Addonics PCMCIA based CD-ROM
(ATAPI/IDE drivers were used) with only the help of also using its
'additional hardware' disk, and making sure that the CD's
card/cord was plugged into the lower bay in the type III cardbus slot.
The only trick there is, the install floppy has to be able to spot your
CardBus or pc-card controller, and you have to use a device whose card
can be found in the card manager's database.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
If you have a 3'5" sized drive, you might actually be able to do this the
same way a non-laptop user would, anyway. (I had an ordinary 3.5" drive
on my Sager-Midern Pentium-60 laptop, in a special removable slide. It
was great. It's a shame the video finally broke and now it won't start.
Eventually I'll make enough free time to take it by a repair shop and see
if they can do anything for it.) If it has a PCMCIA sized drive, then
there are PCMCIA ports for desktop machines, as well. However, many
laptops have proprietary internal setups, and some manufacturers have a
policy that says you void the hardware warranty if you take out anything.
So, be sure what you're getting into before you consider that route.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Of much greater concern for an older model system, since Linux has pretty
darn good support for older hardware, is whether your hard disk has enough
space for what you want to do with it. The Sager-Midern mentioned above
fit a <A HREF="http://www.caldera.com/">Caldera</A> Network Desktop on a 500 MB drive fairly easily, but newer
distributions have more stuff, and certain packages (like X networking,
emacs, and source trees) have grown quite large over time.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><STRONG><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Do you have any suggestions to resolve my problem as I have gone through
all the web sites? I would be really greatfull if you could shead some
light on this for me.
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Try the ftp sites instead of the websites. I hope I'm correct in assuming
you have an x86 based laptop, not a PowerBook or Sparctop:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><DL><DT>
Red Hat
<DD><A HREF="ftp://ftp.redhat.com/redhat/current/i386/images"
>ftp://ftp.redhat.com/redhat/current/i386/images</A>
</DL></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><DL><DT>
S.u.S.E
<DD><A HREF="ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/SuSE-Linux/6.0/disks"
>ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/SuSE-Linux/6.0/disks</A>
</DL></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><DL><DT>
Pacific HiTech
<DD><A HREF="ftp://ftp.pht.com/pub/turbolinux/images"
>ftp://ftp.pht.com/pub/turbolinux/images</A>
</DL></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><DL><DT>
Debian
<DD><A HREF="ftp://ftp.debian.org/pub/debian/dists/stable/main/disks-i386/current"
>ftp://ftp.debian.org/pub/debian/dists/stable/main/disks-i386/current</A>
</DL></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
...though admittedly they don't make it clear <EM>which</EM> disk images are the
one you need to do an FTP-based install. Their in-flight questions have
gotten pretty clear about telling you which disk to put in, and you
shouldn't need anything special from Red Hat unless you have an unusual
controller for your internal hard disk.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><STRONG><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" ALT="(?)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Many thanks
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Ian van Battum
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
Well, I hope that helps out. If you still have trouble, though, drop us
a line.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- end 19 -->
<hr width="40%" align="center"><!-- ::::::::::::::::::::: -->
<!-- begin 20 -->
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(!) " border="0"
>Plea for help</H3>
<p><strong>From <em>The Answer Guy</em> on Tues, 23 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Pretty good, but you missed the possibility of establishing a
network with PLIP, then using a network-based install. All you'd need
is a parallel "laplink" style cable. Unfortunately I don't think the
distributions support this directly (though Debian might, I haven't checked).
So, you'll probably need to get the minimal installation onto your system
first, but this would probably make the rest a lot easier.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><dl>
<dt>The PLIP mini-HOWTO was just updated this month:
<dd><a href="http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/PLIP.html"
>http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/PLIP.html</a>
</dl></BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- end 20 -->
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<A NAME="tag/21"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<!-- begin 21 -->
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>Secure Shutdown from the Console</H3>
<p><strong>From Werner Ackerl on Sun, 28 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<!-- ::
Secure Shutdown from the Console
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P><STRONG>
Dear jim,
<br>I've been using Linux for - well, it must be four years by now,
and I've finally got around to do my first donation to the community.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I'm a bit concerned about security - part of my tip is about creating
a new user to run <TT>/sbin/halt</TT> - I just don't want to (re)introduce any
hazard.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Would you please have a look a it? The text is attached.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
thanks, werner
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
nb: My tip is intended to go to the 2-cent-tip column. I'll be
glad to include your comments.
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
(Attachment includes a kernel patch to change the
LED status on kernel halt, and some suggestions on
create a user account with <TT>/sbin/halt</TT> as a shell, etc
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
This is all in the context of a print server in his
closet that he wishes to run without the monitor attached
most of the time. He also wants it to be shutdown down
on a nightly basis due to the noise factor).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Werner,
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I didn't attempt to do a thorough code audit of the
attached file. However, I do have some ideas on how
I'd attempt this.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
First, I'd avoid a kernel patch. I might write a small
small utility shell script that would cycle among the
LEDs that might look something like:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<blockquote><pre>#!/bin/sh
trap "/usr/bin/setleds -L" 0 1 2 3 5 6
while /bin/true; do
setleds -L +num; setleds -L -num
setleds -L +caps; setleds -L -caps
setleds -L +scroll; setleds -L -scroll
sleep 1
done
setleds -L
</pre></blockquote>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
... this just turns each keyboard LED on then off, in turn,
waits one second and repeats the process. The -L causes the
command to affect only the LED lit status and not the actual
keyboard lock status. In other words this blinks the lights
without actually setting the keyboard CapsLock, NumLock or
ScrollLock settings. The extra '<tt>setleds -L</tt>' and the trap
attempt to resync the the LEDs to our actual keyboard lock
status as we exit the loop and on any common form of
interrupt signal. (The part outside the loop is
non-sensical for this loop, with <TT>/bin/true</TT> as our condition
--- but would make sense if we added some 'break' test
inside the loop or changed the loop condition).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
With that script set up I might invoke it via init
(<TT>/etc/inittab</TT>) or from a startup script.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
That gives me a constant indicator that the computer is
still processing user space stuff. It should also tell me
when the halt is completed (since the '<tt>cycleleds</tt>' script
will be killed only a few seconds before the rest of the
system has been fully halted.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Instead of the special user in the <TT>/etc/passwd</TT> file (which
might be remotely accessible) I'd just modify the line in
<TT>/etc/inittab</TT> that refers to the <TT>/sbin/shutdown</TT> command. I'd
change that line from something like:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><BlockQuote><Code>
ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -r -t 4 now
</Code></BlockQuote></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
... to:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><BlockQuote><code>
ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -h now
</code></BlockQuote></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
... and I'd then just use [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Del] (the
traditional PC "three finger salute" or "vulcan PC pinch")
to do my shutdown.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<p><em>[ I did this for my laptop, since I'm far more likely to do that
in order to pack it away, than to need to to restart it.
-- Heather ]</em></p>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
The advantage to this method is that it doesn't involve any
login and that it absolutely requires physical access to the
system to invoke (unless your attacker can employ
telekinesis, of course).
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
A more elaborate method would be to write a small C program
that issues the appropriate <tt>ioctl()</tt>'s to cycle the LEDs at
your desired frequencies, and to have it monitor the
keyboard for your custom key event. Have that started from
<tt>/etc/inittab</tt>.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
You could find out how to control the LEDs by reading the
sources to the '<tt>setleds</tt>' program (which is in the kbd or
consoletools packages), and you read up on the shutdown()
system call from its man page, or read the example in the
sources to the '<tt>shutdown</tt>' command.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
There is a small package that's included with
<A HREF="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</A> 2.x
that blinks your LEDs based on network traffic. There's
also a utility called "<tt>loaddog</tt>" which is a system load
watchdog. These are the sorts of things you might use on
your system to monitor your system's activity without
turning on the monitor and without connecting to it through
your LAN from the other systems on your net.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Of course, if I had this system in my closet and I wanted to
shut if off, I'd just have a script on my desktop system
that would perform the desired operation over ssh. It's
assume that the system was pretty well done with its
shutdown by the time I got to it from my desk.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
With newer APM motherboards you can configure you systems to
power off on shutdown. I think this is possible even with
desktop systems that implement APM features.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with your
approach. However, it seems like more work and more
risk than my method.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
As for the noise. I can understand your concern.
I have a number of relatively noisy computers around the
house and am considering trading them out for quieter
systems. It's ironic that these systems (like my trusty
old 386s --- my router and my main mail, news and internal
web server) are still electronically perfectly suitable
for my workload and that the only reason I'm considering
replacing them is to reduce the power consumption, heat
generation, and noise emanations.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Luckily I have just enough load on my finances to resist
the urge to buy couple of rackmounted Corel Netwinders
and/or Cobalt Raq's. Those are both very quiet systems
with much less fan noise than my current systems. I
already have most of my current systems in a closet, with
cables leading out to a switchbox, and thence to my
keyboard and monitor.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
One of my best customers has his cables poked through a wall
between his den and the garage. That room is really quiet.
unfortunately my house isn't laid out in a way that makes
that feasible. The garage is by the kitchen and the den
and bedrooms are all adjacent to one another.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
As I get richer (or less thrifty) I'll probably get a
couple of Igel (<A HREF="http://www.igelusa.com"
>http://www.igelusa.com</A>) X terminals
or desktop Netwinders (<A HREF="http://www.hcc.ca"
>http://www.hcc.ca</A>) to use at
my desk and in the living room.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- sig -->
<!-- end 21 -->
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="tag/22"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<!-- begin 22 -->
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>Linux and Y2K</H3>
<p><strong>From Jack on Mon, 29 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<!-- ::
Linux and Y2K
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P><STRONG>
Hi -
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I am trying to sell Linux to management and their concern is Y2K - what
can I say and where can I go to find out more about Linux readiness for
Y2K ?
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Thanks for your help
Jacques Surveyer
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
First note that the core Linux and other Unix utilities
and kernels all use a representation of time that does't
overflow (on 32-bit systems) for about another 40 years.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
In other words Unix and Linux on 32-bit system shouldn't
have any Y2K issues.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Also note that some user space applications <EM>might</EM> have
their own problems --- depends entirely on the programmers
but that the wide availability of source code for the
major of Linux (and other UNIX) applications and utilities
as already resulted in widespread auditing.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Since Linux is not centrally managed or controlled you
can't point to a single entity that has done a comprehensive
Y2K audit of "Linux" and/or the GNU system. So, you'll
have to check your key applications yourself.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
The best link I know of relating to this question is:
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><BlockQuote>
<dl><dt>Linux and Year 2000
<dd><A HREF="http://www.linux.org.uk/mbug.html"
>http://www.linux.org.uk/mbug.html</A>
</dl></BlockQuote></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
... which discuss the issue and gives links to Linux vendor
statements.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- sig -->
<!-- end 22 -->
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="tag/23"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<!-- begin 23 -->
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
>Y2K Cause Arithmetic Failures?</H3>
<p><strong>From Clayton Knight on Mon, 29 Mar 1999
</strong></p>
<!-- ::
Y2K Cause Arithmetic Failures?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P><STRONG>
James,
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I have noticed that your approach to solving the Y2K problem is to just
not let the year advance past 1998.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Your past columns list has Answer Guy #25 as February 1998, shouldn't
that be 1999??
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
-Clayton
</STRONG></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="./../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
>
I have nothing to do with the numbering or dating of
my column. I answer these questions via e-mail and
copy my wife and my editor. My wife collects them near
the end of the month and runs them through a custom
e-mail to HTML filter that she's cooked up in PERL.
Then then packs that up and FTPs it to a site where
the Linux Gazette editorial staff can grab it and
link it into their issue.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
However, I think your arithmetic may be in error.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I'm working on LG issues #39. This is for April of 1999.
39 - 14 = 25 which would be February of 1998. Since
LG comes out monthly and February of 1998 was, indeed about
14 months ago I think everything is kosher.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
The confusion might be caused by the simple fact that
ALL of the back issues of LG are still available on the
web. Many of them are available from many mirrors and they
are translated by volunteers world-wide into various
languages.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
However, I've just posted link that is more relevant to
Y2K and Linux. Take a look at that in this month's LG.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- sig -->
<!-- end 23 -->
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<!--startcut ======================================================= -->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 align="center"><a href="http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html"
>Copyright &copy;</a> 1999, James T. Dennis
<BR>Published in <I>The Linux Gazette</I> Issue 39 April 1999</H5>
<!-- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -->
<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><font color="#CC0000">New Tips:</font></H3>
<ul>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#deck">
Netscape for Linux trick
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#pujet">
ATAPI Zip drives under Linux
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#romaniak">
Booting off SCSI
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#willis">
what is my dialup (ppp) IP number?
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#sousa">
Common POP3 Error
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#broezell">
Spell checking a single word...1
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#kahn1">
Spell checking a single word...2
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#jaegermann">
Spell checking a single word...3
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#kahn2">
Spell checking a single word...4
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#plezbert">
Spell checking a single word...5
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#dok">
Spell checking a single word...6
</a>
</ul>
<H3><font color="#CC0000">Answers to Mail Bag Questions:</font></H3>
<ul>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#avelon">
Linux Download
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#haidar">
Re: We do not relay...1
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#page">
Re: We do not relay...2
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#regan1">
Re: We do not relay...3
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#gushee">
RE: Multiple booting (LG #38)
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#regan2">
Re: Linux & Win95/98/NT clients
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#regan3">
Word to Postscript...1
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#renaghan1">
Word to Postscript...2
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#javeed">
Word to Postscript...3
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#renaghan2">
RE: Korn Shell FAQ...1
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#roev">
RE: Korn Shell FAQ...2
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#correa">
Re: Help wanted -- article ideas
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#mckown">
FW: Linux Gazette #37 question
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#benettor">
Re: Making a Red Hat 5.2 CD
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#kosse">
2 cent correction
</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_tips39.html#pires">
Etherexpress NIC
</a>
</ul>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="deck"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<font color="navy">
Netscape for Linux trick
</font> </H3>
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 01:25:12 +0000<BR>
From: andy deck, <A HREF="mailto:andy.deck@nyu.edu">
andy.deck@nyu.edu</A>
<P>
<A HREF="./tip_deck.txt">This script</A> will
strip away some of the annoying
unconfigurable parts of Netscape
and replace them with links and
button titles that you choose.
<P>
This script can be used to modify Netscape 4.51 binaries that run under Linux (ELF).
<P>
It will modify the following hard-coded
values, which are not modifiable with
the preferences:
<ol>
<li>removes "Netscape:" from the title bar
<li>Changes base url for several links that
normally are directed to home.netscape.com
You will be prompted for a substitute URL.
Note that you will be prompted for a URL
that ends with a foldername, not a file.
This is because the foldername prepends
several files. You should be able to make
files in the folder you suggest as an alternative.
<li>Changes the label on the "My Netscape" button in
the navigation toolbar. And changes the link.
<li>Changes the link for the Search button on the
navigation toolbar.
<li>Changes the link behind the N button on the navigation
toolbar. Currently I've hard-coded this to "newssites.html"
But you can edit that value in the script.
</ol>
When modifying values you need to be aware that the
binary produced by this process (usually it will be called
"netscape.new") MUST be the same number of bytes long as
the original.
<P>
This script comes with no guarantees. It's working for me,
and I've made it as friendly as seems necessary. Good luck.
<P>
--<BR>
Andy
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="pujet"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<font color="navy">
ATAPI Zip drives under Linux
</font> </H3>
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 14:31:51 -0800 (PST)<BR>
From: Nicolas Pujet, <A HREF="mailto:npujet@yahoo.com">
npujet@yahoo.com</A>
<P>
I just read a good article on using internal ATAPI Zip drives under
Linux
at <A
HREF="../issue28/lg_tips28.html#atapi">../issue28/lg_tips28.html#atapi</A>
However I would like to suggest a simplified procedure for beginning
Linux users.
This procedure does not deal with SCSI at all.
<P>
|-----------------------------------------------|<BR>
| A simple setup procedure for ATAPI Zip drives |<BR>
|-----------------------------------------------|<BR>
<B>Step 1: figure out the device name</B> <BR>
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^<BR>
Run dmesg and look for a block of lines looking like this:
<PRE>
hda: ST34342A, 4103MB w/0kB Cache, CHS=523/255/63
hdc: Pioneer CD-ROM ATAPI Model DR-A24X 0105, ATAPI CDROM drive
hdd: IOMEGA ZIP 100 ATAPI, ATAPI FLOPPY drive
</PRE>
Here the Zip drive has become hdd. Since DOS formatted Zip disks use
partition 4,
the device name will be /dev/hdd4
<P>
<B>Step 2: set up mounting</B> <BR>
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^<BR>
Login as root, make a directory /zip and allow users to mount DOS
formatted Zip disks
by adding the following line to the /etc/fstab file:
<PRE>
/dev/hdd4 /zip vfat noauto,user 0 0
</PRE>
Reboot to make these changes effective.
<P>
<B>You are now ready to use Zip disks !</B> <BR>
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^<BR>
Any user can now put a Zip disk in the drive and mount it by typing:
<PRE>
mount /zip
</PRE>
which makes the contents of the disk available in the directory /zip .
<P>
When the user is done with the Zip disk, he should unmount it:
<PRE>
umount /zip
</PRE>
Now the "eject" button on the drive can be used to eject the disk.
<P>
<B>Notes:</B>
-----<BR>
<ul>
<li>if you try to unmount the Zip disk while being in the directory /zip,
the following error message appears:
<PRE>
umount: /dev/hdd4: device is busy
</PRE>
So just move to an other directory (in every xterm window !) and try
again.
<li>some people have the Zip drive on hdb instead of hdd, so they should
use /dev/hdb4 instead of /dev/hdd4
<li>In the fstab file you can change vfat to msdos if you don't like
long file names
<li>The ATAPI drive setup is quite fast: I tried to copy a 53 MB file
from a Zip drive
to a hard drive. It took just under 90 seconds, i.e. the transfer
rate was 588 kB/second
(compare with 92 kB/second with a parallel port Zip drive, as
reported in the mini-howto).
</ul>
<P>
Cheers,
<P>
--<BR>
Nicolas Pujet
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="romaniak"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<font color="navy">
Booting off SCSI
</font> </H3>
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 18:10:21 -0500 (EST)<BR>
From: Greg Romaniak <A HREF="mailto:greg@snoopy.gwr.com">
greg@snoopy.gwr.com</A>
<P>
Regarding the recent $.02 tips on booting off a SCSI drive with IDE drives
also installed -- I used a quick-and-dirty solution that worked for me --
but no guarantees. Simply don't define the IDE drives in the CMOS. This
way, the system doesn't "see" them on boot and the SCSI BIOS take over as
if there were no IDE drives. Once Linux starts booting off the SCSI
drive, the IDE drivers in the kernel will do their own probe for IDE
devices and find the IDE drives.
<P>
--<BR>
Greg
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="willis"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<font color="navy">
what is my dialup (ppp) IP number?
</font> </H3>
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 21:12:44 +0000<BR>
From: Matt Willis, <A HREF="mailto:matt@optimus.cee.cornell.edu">
matt@optimus.cee.cornell.edu</A>
<P>
Okay. This drove me nuts for a while. Here's a succinct perl script
to give you the current ppp IP address. This can come in handy for
assigning DISPLAY variables for remote X events, etc. It saves the
current IP in ~/.myip
<PRE>
#!/usr/bin/perl
open(IFCONFIG,"/sbin/ifconfig|") || die "Can't open /sbin/ifconfig!\n";
while (&lt;IFCONFIG&gt;) { last if (/^ppp0/); }
$_ =&lt;IFCONFIG&gt;;
($inet,$ptp,$mask) = /.*:([\d\.]*) *.*:([\d\.]*) *.*:([\d\.]*)/;
close(IFCONFIG);
open(MYIP,">$ENV{HOME}/.myip");
print MYIP "$inet \n";
close(MYIP);
</PRE>
nb - I did this using kernel 2.2.3 and the success of the script may
depend on what the ipconfig output looks like. For me, it looks like
this:
<PRE>
ppp0 Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol
inet addr:139.186.224.88 P-t-P:139.186.0.50 Mask:255.255.255.255
</PRE>
If yours is different, you may require tweaking. If there is no ppp0
then .myip gets written over with a blank.
<P>
-- <BR>
Matthew Willis
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="sousa"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<font color="navy">
Common POP3 Error
</font> </H3>
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 21:57:17 +0000<BR>
From: Carlos Sousa, <A HREF="mailto:majestik@mail.telepac.pt">
majestik@mail.telepac.pt</A>
<P>
There is a common error that occurs when downloading mail for a local
machine through POP3.
<BR>Sometimes when downloading mail we receive the following error message
from the POP3 server:
<P>being read already: /usr/spool/mail/XXXXXXX
<P>where XXXXXXX is the login for the account.
<P>This occurs because the client is interrupted while performing any task
on the pop3 server or failed to send the quit command to the pop3 server,
causing the lock file from that pop3 account to stay there, causing the
occurence of the error message in future attempts to retrieve mail.
<P>The problem can be solved deleting the following file in the pop3 server:
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; /usr/tmp/.pop/XXXXXXXX
<BR>&nbsp;
<P>You may think that this article is pure loss of disk space, but believe,
3 network admins at my university were unable to solve the problem.
<P>
--<BR>
Carlos
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="broezell"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<font color="navy">
Spell checking a single word...1
</font> </H3>
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 1999 22:37:27 -0600<BR>
From: "Ken V. Broezell", <A HREF="mailto:broezell@cig.mot.com">
broezell@cig.mot.com</A>
<P>
Hi Ben. I just read your 2 cent tip in the March Linux Gazette. Did you
realize that ispell
can already be used to check a single word as follws:
<PRE>
echo ticckle | ispell -a
@(#) International Ispell Version 3.1.20 10/10/95
& ticckle 1 0: tickle
</PRE>
In the above example ticckle was found to be misspelled and tickle was
suggested
as the correct spelling.
<P>
I execute this not as an alias but as a 1 line shell script:
<PRE>
cat /usr/local/bin/ws
echo $1 | ispell -a
</PRE>
--<BR>
Ken
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="kahn1"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<font color="navy">
Re: Spell checking a single word...2
</font> </H3>
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 22:08:57 -0500 (EST)<BR>
From: "Ben 'The Con Man' Kahn", <A HREF="mailto:xkahn@cybersites.com">
xkahn@cybersites.com</A>
<P>
To: "Ken V. Broezell":<BR>
Yep! I knew that. Actually, my tip was in reply to someone who
posted just that piece of information. I don't like that output. Under
my solution, nothing extra is shown if the word is spelled correctly. If
the word is spelled wrong, you get a curses based interface which lets you
select the correct word or try to spell it right. I find it removes most
of the guess work.
<P>
--<BR>
Benjamin Kahn
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="jaegermann"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<font color="navy">
Re: Spell checking a single word...3
</font> </H3>
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 20:19:27 -0700 (MST)<BR>
From: Michal Jaegermann, <A
HREF="mailto:michal@ellpspace.math.ualberta.ca">
michal@ellpspace.math.ualberta.ca</A>
<P>
In "2c Tips" Benjamin Kahn presents an eye popping tcsh macro and writes:
"I have no idea how to do this in bash". The answer is "simpler and
more general". Try this (may go into your .bashrc):
<PRE>
spell () { echo $@ | ispell -a | sed -n -e '/^\&/p' -e '/^\#/p';}
</PRE>
and type <tt>spell tihs is a tset</tt>. You will see on your screen:
<PRE>
& tihs 6 0: this, ties, Tims, tins, tips, tits
& tset 2 10: set, test
</PRE>
Numbers like "2 10" mean that there are two replacement propositions and
that a "bad" word starts after ten characters of your input. '#' character
above is reserved for words ispell knows nothing about whatsoever.
Translating that to tcsh is left as an exercise for a reader. :-)
<P>
Michal
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="kahn2"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<font color="navy">
Re: Spell checking a single word...4
</font> </H3>
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 1999 22:42:11 -0500 (EST)<BR>
From: "Ben 'The Con Man' Kahn", <A HREF="mailto:xkahn@cybersites.com">
xkahn@cybersites.com</A>
<P>
Michal:<BR>
That's correct -- this script will work to spell check a word,
phrase, paragraph, etc. However, under my solution, nothing extra is
shown if the word is spelled correctly. If the word is spelled wrong, you
get a curses based interface which lets you select the correct word or try
to spell it right. I find it removes most of the guess work.
<P>
--<BR>
Benjamin Kahn
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="plezbert"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<font color="navy">
Spell checking a single word...5
</font> </H3>
Date: Fri, 12 Mar 1999 16:41:04 -0600 (CST)<BR>
From: "Michael P. Plezbert", <A HREF="mailto:plezbert@cs.wustl.edu">
plezbert@cs.wustl.edu</A>
<P>
There's a much easier way to do this, using the -a option to ispell:
<PRE>
echo 'wordyouwanttocheck' | ispell -a
</PRE>
--<BR>
Michael
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="dok"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
Spell checking a single word...6
</font> </H3>
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 1999 15:03:47 +0100<BR>
From: Dennis van Dok, <A HREF="mailto:dvandok@wins.uva.nl">
dvandok@wins.uva.nl</A>
<P>
Gazette march 1999 contained a tip for checking a single
word with ispell from the command line. This is a shorter solution:
<PRE>
echo frobnicate | ispell -a
</PRE>
regards,
<P>
--<BR>
Dennis van Dok
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<H4><font color="maroon">
Tips in the following section are answers to questions printed in the Mail
Bag column of previous issues.
</font></H4>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="avelon"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <font color="navy">
Linux Download
</font> </H3>
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 09:09:40 +0100<BR>
From: Ian Carr-de Avelon, <A HREF="mailto:ian@emit.pl">
ian@emit.pl</A> <BR>
Status: RO
<P>
N.B. English at end
<P>
Beste Jaap,<BR>
Ik neem aan dat jij een typierende nederlander bent en geen probleem
met een aantword in het engels hebt. Ben ik hier verkeerde, neem even contact
voor een vertaaling.
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
From: "Jaap Wolters", woltersj@hotmail.com:<BR>
Ik heb geprobeert jullie programma "LINUX" te downloaden, maar ik
krijg geen toegang. hoe zou het toch kunnen? Op de t.v werd verteld
dat het programma beter is dan Windows 98, Minder fouten en minder
vastlopers. Is het programma windows compatible zodat ik mijn oude
windows spellen kan doorspelen. Ik heb ZEER veel belang bij dit
programma, maar aangezien me het niet lukt om het te downloaden zou ik
graag uw advies willen.
</font></blockquote>
QUESTION<BR>
========<BR>
I can't access Linux for download. Will it run my old Windows games?
What do you suggest I do as I can't download.
<P>
ANSWER<BR>
======<BR>
If you can't easily down load Linux, your best is to get Linux on a
CD-ROM. The CD is likely to come free with a book on Linux, maybe there
is one in your local library, or a Linux magazine. To run programs
writen for Microsoft Windows under Linux's "X" windows, you will
need the emulator WINE. As WINE is an emulator, it tends to run
programs a little slower than '98 and can't handle tricks which
some programers include in their programs. I run MS Word with WINE
with no problems, but arcade games need speed and use tricks, so
you may have to get some nice new Linux games to go with your system.
<P>
--<BR>
Ian
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="haidar"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <font color="navy">
We do not relay...1
</font> </H3>
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 18:18:34 -0500<BR>
From: Ayman Haidar, <A HREF="mailto:haidar@usol.com">
haidar@usol.com </A> <BR>
<P>
I hope you solved your problem by now, but in case if you haven't..
I just had the same problem, and after a long search all over the internet I finlly gave up and dumped sendmail for qmail, it's extremely easy to install and run.
Maybe you should give it a try.
<P>
--<BR>
Ayman Haidar
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="page"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <font color="navy">
Re: We do not relay...2
</font> </H3>
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1999 18:55:13 +0000<BR>
From: Jeremy Page, <A HREF="mailto:jpage@cwcom.net">
jpage@cwcom.net</A>
<P>
I don't know whether this may help you, but I also had the same problem
recently. For me the problem occurred when my mail client (in this case
Pine) had the setting SMTP server = localhost. When I changed it to the
actual hostname the error stopped. Just don't ask me why - someone else
will probably tell you that.
<P>
-- <BR>
Jeremy Page
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="regan1"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <font color="navy">
Re: We do not relay...3
</font> </H3>
Date: Sun, 07 Mar 1999 15:45:46 +0000<BR>
From: "Jimmy O'Regan", <A HREF="mailto:Jim.Regan@lit.ie">
Jim.Regan@lit.ie</A> <BR>
<P>
Regarding "We do not relay":
<P>
In /etc/mail you should find files called ip_allow and name_allow To
allow your machine to be used to send mail, simply place either IP
addresses (ip_allow) or domain names (name_allow) into these files.
<P>
For all machine in a domain, just type in the domain, eg:
lit.ie
for a subnet, use blanks in the place of wildcards, eg.
172.16
172.17.100
<P>
--<BR>
Jim
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="gushee"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <font color="navy">
RE: Multiple booting (LG #38)
</font> </H3>
Date: Mon, 08 Mar 1999 20:33:46 +0900<BR>
From: Matt Gushee, <A HREF="mailto:matt@it.osha.sut.ac.jp">
matt@it.osha.sut.ac.jp</A> <BR>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
Richard Veldwijk writes:<BR>
As I've got kids and kids tend to play games, I have to have
Micro$oft products on my machine. As I use OS/2 and Linux
myself, here's a nice tip: Install OS/2's boot manager. If
you have OS/2 installation floppies, you can run an OS/2
FDISK and install the boot manager, even without installing
OS/2 itself.
</font></blockquote>
As a former OS/2 user, I can confirm that OS/2 is Good Stuff (TM) ...
and the above method may be the easiest way to set up dual booting (and
I think you have to use it if you boot OS/2) On the other hand, LILO can
do pretty much the same things, and doesn't have this drawback:
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
Only the last booted C-partition is visible. If you need to
access the other, you'll have to hide one and unhide the other.
</font></blockquote>
Versions of LILO >= 20 allow you to have partitions automatically
"hidden" or "unhidden" at boot time -- but unlike OS/2's boot manager,
the "hiding" doesn't affect access from Linux. You do it with an entry
something like this in /etc/lilo.conf
<PRE>
win95 = /dev/hda1
..........
change
partition = /dev/hda2
deactivate
partition = /dev/hda1
activate
</PRE>
*Something* like that. I've done it, but it was a couple of years ago,
so I may have forgotten some details. For more info, check the LILO
User's Guide (not the man page -- it's a big document probably in
PostScript).
<P>
Happy booting!
<P>
--<BR>
Matt Gushee
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="regan2"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <font color="navy">
Re: Linux & Win95/98/NT clients
</font> </H3>
Date: Sun, 07 Mar 1999 16:20:14 +0000<BR>
From: "Jimmy O'Regan", <A HREF="mailto:Jim.Regan@lit.ie">
Jim.Regan@lit.ie</A> <BR>
<P>
There are two things you can do to use Linux as an image server.
<P>
Attach the hard drive you want to use as an image to your linux box, and
use something like this: (reverse procedure for making a boot flopy)
dd if=/dev/hdb1 of=/path/to/disk.image bs=1024 conv=sync; sync
You'll have to find out the right byte size (bs) though, the 1024 is
just a guess:)
This will create an image of the disk on the machine in /path/to/ called
disk.image
Linux can read and write FAT16 and FAT32 partitions, but it can't write
NTFS (yet). You'll need a commercial DOS tool like Ghost
(http://www.ghost.com) for NTFS.
<P>
To recreate the image, boot with a linux boot floppy (with dd), and run
mkdosfs on the hard drive (I'm not sure if that's necessary, but I doubt
it can hurt) then the same dd command with the if and of parameters
swapped.
<P>
The other option, which will be required for NTFS, is to set up Samba on
the Linux box, and use a bootable DOS floppy and ghost.to read and write
the images. Ghost comes with documentation, and is easy to use.
<P>
--<BR>
Jim
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="regan3"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <font color="navy">
Word to Postscript...1
</font> </H3>
Date: Sun, 07 Mar 1999 15:56:31 +0000<BR>
From: "Jimmy O'Regan", <A HREF="mailto:Jim.Regan@lit.ie">
Jim.Regan@lit.ie</A> <BR>
<P>
I'm pretty sure you mean that you want to convert the word documents to
postscript on your Linux box, but I don't think there's a way of doing
it yet. The closest there is to it is MS Word View
(http://www.csn.ul.ie/~caolan/docs/MSWordView.html) which converts Word
8 to HTML.
<P>
This is how you do it on the windows machine:
In Control panel, select Printers, Add Printer, Click Next, select a
postscript compatible printer from the list (try Oki OL-850/PS), select
File: as the port to attach it to, name it, and select 'no' for "Make
default printer". You should be prompted for a file name when you print.
It works for me.
<P>
--<BR>
Jim
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="renaghan1"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <font color="navy">
Word to Postscript...2
</font> </H3>
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 13:33:31 -0500 (EST)
From: Padraic Renaghan, <A HREF="mailto:padraic@renaghan.com">
padraic@renaghan.com</A>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
JX: From time to time, people e-mail me documents in Microsoft Word
format.
Do you know where I can find an utility to
convert the MS Words documents into Postscript format so that I can
view/print them in Linux?
</font> </blockquote>
I don't know of anything to convert MS Word to Postscript, but I do know
of a utility to convert MS Word 8 (Office 97) to HTML which can then be
read by a web browser and printed.
<P>
http://www.csn.ul.ie/~caolan/docs/MSWordView.html
<P>
-- <BR>
Padraic Renaghan
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="javeed"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <font color="navy">
Word to Postscript...3
</font> </H3>
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 1999 09:53:35 +0500 (PKT)<BR>
From: Shahbaz Javeed, <A HREF="mailto:sjaveed@bigfoot.com">
sjaveed@bigfoot.com</A>
<P>
Greetings. I have found the program mswordview to be almost
indispensable. It doesnt convert Word97 documents to PS, but it converts
them to HTML, which comes a close second. An alternative would be to use
StarOffice 5.0 (you can get a personal edition for free at
http://www.stardivision.com) which can read and write to all Office97 file
formats.
<P>
Hope this helps.
<P>
--<BR>
SJ
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="renaghan2"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <font color="navy">
RE: Korn Shell FAQ...1
</font> </H3>
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 1999 13:30:09 -0500 (EST)<BR>
From: Padraic Renaghan, <A HREF="mailto:padraic@renaghan.com">
padraic@renaghan.com</A> <BR>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
JT: I'm looking for a good Korn Shell FAQ, because I dislike reading the
Manpages. Does anyone know a good Internet
Address of a FAQ?
</font> </blockquote>
I have found the SHELLdorado site to be very helpful.
I has good shell tips and a great list of other shell resources.
http://www.oase-shareware.org/shell/
<P>
As for learning the korn shell (I am not sure that is what you are
doing, but regardless), I purchased the following book which is
EXCELLENT! I highly recommend it.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0134514947/
<P>
-- <BR>
Padraic Renaghan
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="roev"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <font color="navy">
Korn Shell FAQ...2
</font> </H3>
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 16:04:30 +0100 (CET)<BR>
From: Arne Knut Roev, <A HREF="mailto:akroev@online.no">
akroev@online.no</A>
<P>
You wrote:<BR>
<blockquote> <font color="navy">
I'm looking for a good Korn Shell FAQ, because I dislike reading the
Manpages. Does anyone know a good Internet Address of a FAQ?
</font> </blockquote>
<P>
Now, I am going to tell you a secret:
<P>
FAQ-files _supplement_ the documentation, they do _not_ _replace_ it.
So, you should get into the habit of using man/info pages, since they are
the places where you can find the formal documentation you sometimes need.
<P>
However, FAQ-files and HOWTOs _do_ have their uses, so they are by no means
useless.
<P>
And in any case, when you are looking for this kind of stuff (relating to
Linux documentation), you look for the "Linux Documentation Project" (short:
LDP). The www-adress I have for this, is:
"http://www.linuxresources.com/LDP"
(I am putting it this way, because I am not sure whether this is the address
of the main site, or of a mirror.)
<P>
NB: I am cc'ing this letter to the www-based Linux Gazette, in case they
want to publish this info. (After all, I _am_ replying to a letter published
there.)
<P>
Arne
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="correa"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <font color="navy">
Re: Help wanted -- article ideas
</font> </H3>
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 1999 10:53:36 -0300<BR>
From: Andre Correa, <A HREF="mailto:andcor@tesla.com.br">
andcor@tesla.com.br</A>
<P>
Re: Kristoffer Andersson <BR>
I had problens that I think are same as yours. Here in our office I have am
internal network with 192.168.x.x IP addresses masqueraded to the net
throught a Linux box with 2.1.x kernel and everything goes fine but I
needed to let outside users see our Intranet. I searched and found a
program called rinetd that makes redirection of requests so any request
coming to our masq box in port 80, for example, is redirected to
192.168.3.21 in port 80 and then everyone in the Internet can see our pages
using our masq box IP address. It works fine for a while now.
<P>
from the man rinetd we have:
<PRE>
RINETD(8) UNIX System Manager's Manual RINETD(8)
NAME
rinetd - internet ``redirection server''
SYNOPSIS
/usr/sbin/rinetd
VERSION
Version 0.52, 9/7/1998.
DESCRIPTION
rinetd redirects TCP connections from one IP address and port to another.
rinetd is a single-process server which handles any number of connections
to the address/port pairs specified in the file /etc/rinetd.conf. Since
rinetd runs as a single process using nonblocking I/O, it is able to
redirect a large number of connections without a severe impact on the ma-
chine. This makes it practical to run TCP services on machines inside an
IP masquerading firewall. rinetd does not redirect FTP, because FTP re-
quires more than one socket.
</PRE>
You can find at sunsite.unc.edu
<P>
good luck
<P>
--<BR>
Andre Correa, Sao Paulo/Brazil
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="mckown"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <font color="navy">
FW: Linux Gazette #37 question
</font> </H3>
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 11:29:05 -0600<BR>
From: "McKown, John", <A HREF="mailto:JMckown@Insurdata.com">
JMckown@Insurdata.com</A>
<P>
xia@xlnt.com:
You asked if there is some way to view MS Word files under Linux. Have you
tried mswordview? You can download it from
http://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/www/converters or
ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/www/converters/mswordview-0.5.1.tar.gz<BR>
I'm sending this from work, so I'm forced to use MS Outlook to send
it. I hope you can read it OK. I have not tried using this, so I don't
know how good it is. the .lsm file says that it works with MS Word 97.
<P>
--<BR>
John McKown
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="bennetor"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <font color="navy">
Re: Making a Red Hat 5.2 CD
</font> </H3>
Date: Sat, 13 Mar 1999 20:03:50 -0200 (GMT+2)<BR>
From: BenettOr, <A HREF="mailto:benettor@nightmare.gr">
benettor@nightmare.gr</A>
<P>
Yeah, this is a common problem when users trying to install RedHat by
donwloading the disksets from the net.
<P>
In order to install RedHat 5.0+, downloaded from a site or ftp you have to
burn (copy) it on a cd in the following directory:
<P>
\RedHat\
<P>
"R" and "H" in uppercase mode. This means that you have to cd-copy it on
Microsoft Extension mode (lower and upper case support) and not in
ISO9660. Down that directory copy the disksets directories: A, A1..
etc. etc.
<P>
Then start the installation running the batch file included on the
distribution.
<P>
--<BR>
BenettOr
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="kosse"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <font color="navy">
2 cent correction
</font> </H3>
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 11:47:43 -0800<BR>
From: Ben Kosse, <A HREF="mailto:BKosse@thecreek.com">
BKosse@thecreek.com</A> <BR>
<P>
The Ensoniq AudioPCI actually has the necessary circuitry to do hardware
MIDI, it simply lacks the onboard RAM, using instead your system RAM to hold
the samples.
<P>
--<BR>
Ben Kosse
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="pires"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <font color="navy">
Etherexpress NIC
</font> </H3>
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 1999 09:44:27 -0300<BR>
From: "Sergio Pires", <A HREF="mailto:sergio.drtmg@mtb.gov.br">
sergio.drtmg@mtb.gov.br</A>
<P>
Mr Lim:<BR>
I read your mail in <I>LG</I> and the only thing I saw is you are using irq 7
normally assigned to the parallel port. Try to choose another irq # (5, for
example) and it will work.
<P>
--<BR>
Sergio Pires
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<center>Published in <I>Linux Gazette</I> Issue 39, April 1999</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"
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<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; 1999 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. </H5>
<P>
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Boot Disk Failure and Recovery</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:chguy@chguy.net">Bill Bennet</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
So you think it can't happen to you? Well, this is the scene:
<ol>
<li> First, get bored while waiting around for something.
<li> Even worse, read a Y2K warning that says you can change your system
time manually to avoid trouble.
<li> Next, decide to go into the system setup and look at your CMOS settings
to see what you can see.
<li> Then make a terrible decision; like "Hey, the system time is off by a
few minutes. I will correct the time."
<li> Then do a dumb thing, like change the system time in the CMOS settings.
<li> Reboot and get this message:"BOOT DISK FAILURE. Please insert a system
disk and reboot."
</ol>
<P>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;What did I do? I
recovered the system with linux, thats what I did. The system here is set up
to dual boot with Windows95 and three different Linux distributions via
<a href="#lilo">LILO</a>,
the Linux boot loader.
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Since the Master Boot
Record on sector 0 is booting DOS and Linux, I thought it was <a href="#scared">
prudent </a>to use
the DOS version of fdisk to try to recover the partition table. Ha! "What a
lack of features you have, Grandma."said little Red LinuxHat.
<h2><font color=blue>Sys a:</font></h2>
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The job I tried to do
was to boot with my Windows95 rescue disk, which you make before this ever
happens. You do have one, don't you? For a simple boot diskette, pop a floppy
in the "A:" drive and type "sys a:".
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Once the diskette
boots, you try to cd to "C:" drive. Ha! It is not there. It is gone. The first
thing to try is fdisk (DOS), to see what it can do. The upshot is that it don't
do much. All that fdisk (DOS) said to me was that the hard disk was empty,
with no partitions. Yikes, what a mess. The other hard disk, which has two DOS
partitions, was fine. BUT, the Master Boot Record was gone. I used the command
fdisk /MBR and nothing happened, nothing changed. According to
<a href="#fdisk">fdisk</a> (DOS), there was no partition table, no partition
and you are out of luck. I suppose this lack of features is designed to have
me running to a data recovery specialist to get "saved" for a fair exchange
of dollars.
<h2><font color=blue>Enter Linux</font></h2>
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Now that you have
proved that the other system is lacking some power, it is time to boot linux.
I grabbed a boot disk, which you make before this ever happens. You do have
one, don't you? In RedHat you simply put a blank diskette in the floppy drive
and type mkbootdisk. Man oh man, I love linux! No clickety-clicks, no waiting,
just service and super powers. I guess it helps when your software is written
by the best and brightest minds in a free thought environment.
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The RedHat boot image
for installation is also a rescue diskette. Tell it you are doing the "expert"
mode (I am not but you may be one) and press "Enter". Tell it if you have a
colour terminal and configure the keyboard. Now put in the supp.img diskette
and press "Enter". You get a "# _" prompt. Type this:<pre>
mknod /dev/hda b 3 0</pre>
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Now you have a new
device called /dev/hda. It is your original old hard disk drive.
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
The next thing is to mount your old root partition and run lilo. So cd to /
and make a new directory to mount the thing: mkdir any_name_will_do.
Type this:<pre>
mount /dev/hd_your_root_partition_here /any_name_will_do</pre>
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
Then cd to /any_name_will_do/sbin and run lilo. Type this:<pre>
./lilo -C /any_name_will_do/etc/lilo.conf</pre>
<h2><font color=blue>Super Powers</font></h2>
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The fdisk
(GNU/Linux) is able to make your partitions and set the file type for them.
Also, it can verify the partition table. So, in my time of need this is what
I did. I typed "v" for verify.
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The program reported
to me that the partition table had been altered! No kidding. Then I typed "w"
to write the table to the disk and quit fdisk.
<h2><font color=blue>Reboot and hope</font></h2>
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The system rebooted
perfectly as usual. Linux wins again.
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
<h2><font color=blue><a name=lilo>Leeloo</a>'s name was a peek at the future</font></h2>
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Yeah, I watched the
Fifth Element several times. The LILO boot loader can easily re-write the
Master Boot Record just by running it once on its /etc/lilo.conf file. Type
/sbin/lilo and the job is done. You may now boot from the hard disk drive.
<h2><font color=blue>There can be only <a name="fdisk">One</a></font></h2>
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
The DOS fdisk can alter your view of the world. When
you have only one hard disk drive it will let you make one and only one
primary partition. If you have a second HDD it will let you make the four
primary partitions allowed by the PC's designers or three primary and one
extended.
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
When you have only one primary partition then you can't be trying to boot
more than one type of Operating System. Normally, that is. Linux can boot from
a logical drive on an extended partition with loadlin.exe.
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
I guess it must be too hard to compete on the merits of the product, so the
DOS Borg must use this type of anti-competitive approach in order to maintain
market share. Just imagine one primary partition covering 100% of the disk.
"Yeah, that will keep them from even <i>trying </i>to get a real OS".
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Frighten them with dire
warnings, too. Tell them their system has performed illegal operations and
general protection faults.
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In my mind, Microsoft
is the illegal operation and the DOJ is guilty of general protection faults
from not protecting the public in general.
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
<hr>
<h2><a name=scared><font color=blue>Scared of the Beast</font></a></h2>
<p>With good reason, too. DOS always writes over the Master Boot Record when you
install it. The beast has the arrogance to exclude all other possible operating
systems when it is time to install. This is not an oversight, it is not a test.
You are caught square in the middle of the cut-throat world of big business.
Get used to it gentle linuxian, your system has been discovered by the rest of
the world. They say "Defend your turf or die". I say "remember the Apple" and
let us not have it happen again that an excellent system gets shoved aside and
marginalized as a specialty item. Linux can do EVERYTHING. Lets bring it on!
<hr><h2><a name=xfree><font color=blue>Reference reading:</font></a></h2>
<P>Clock mini-HOWTO -- required reading for real-time Linuxians
<P>Large Disk mini-HOWTO -- excellent Master Boot Record discussion
<P>Linux+DOS+Win95 mini-HOWTO -- here's a good /etc/lilo.conf example
<P>Partition mini-HOWTO -- required reading for all linuxians
<hr><br><P>
<center><font color=blue><strong>made with mcedit on an i486 with GNU/Linux 2.0.35</strong></font><P><font color=blue><strong>The adamant position of the author is in no way meant as an affront to sincere readers.</strong></font></center>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1999, Bill Bennet <BR>
Published in Issue 39 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, March 1999</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>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<h1><font color="maroon">Comparison of Server-Based Operating Systems</font></h1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:sean@funwithdirt.com">Sean Bullington</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
The world of computers has shifted in recent years.
8088s have given way to 64-bit out-of-order executing
multiprocessor systems, monochrome green displays have improved to 32-bit
true color, and even mainframes have almost disappeared in favor of
workstation clusters and client-server based systems. In the modern day
business world, the market for server-based operating systems is extremely
competitive and very lucrative for the businesses involved. Companies
such as Sun Microsystems and Microsoft battle constantly to gain ground
in the race to provide a better operating
system to sell to their customers. Microsoft's Windows NT and
Sun's SunOS/Solaris operating systems are extremely full-featured,
usually well supported and fairly efficient in terms of their usage
and implementation. However, one of the biggest challenges facing these
commercial operating systems today is not whether Microsoft will edge
out Sun or vice-versa, but whether non-commercial operating systems, such as
Linux or the BSD distributions, will prove strong enough to edge out the
bigger corporations. Both Linux and the BSD variants run on many different
architectures, have growing application and technical support options,
are increasingly efficient, and best of all, are freely available.
<p>
One of the main concerns when considering a server for running your
business is whether or not the operating system has vendor support
for the applications you need and use. Both Sun and Microsoft excel in
having major vendors supporting their platforms due to their longevity in
the server market and their mass amounts of market share. Linux and BSD
however, are slowly and steadily gaining ground against the giants. As the
free UNIX systems become more well-known and widespread, vendors such as
Netscape, Hewlett Packard and others are investing time
and money in providing applications and hardware adapted for these
systems.
<p>
The portability among these varying systems is improving as well
and is a major consideration in their race against each
other. For example, if you run Solaris on a SPARC, you can buy a product
called SoftWindows (http//www.insignia.com/SoftWindows/) which allows a SunOS
user to emulate Microsoft's Windows 95 in a window on the desktop,
running virtually all the Windows applications. The rest of the
UNIX world also has emulators such as DOSEMU for DOS applications,
and WABI or WINE for Windows-based emulations. NT falls short in this
respect, lacking well-developed emulators, and it does
not easily support the same shell-scripting languages (other than Perl)
that can be quickly shared across most UNIX platforms. While this may
not seem to hinder NT currently, as Linux and BSD grow up in
the corporate market it will become a larger factor. Companies looking
to switch from SunOS might find it easier to go with a free operating
system which is compatible with their current one, saving the cost of
upgrading virtually 100% of their hardware and software.
<p>
Software support for your operating system is unquestionably a
useful benefit, but what happens if the software for your system is
incredibly complex and requires various configuration changes to your
operating system? Simply having the product available for a system is
not enough; the issue of technical support is extremely important in
today's market. Commercial operating systems are
well-supported--they
have no choice. If a company wants to market an OS today, it
must provide timely end-user support to the customer
with a problem. Both Microsoft and Sun have corporate support options which
involve people working diligently on your problem until it has either
been fixed or a workaround has been established. Of course, there are
exceptions to this rule and not every problem found is immediately fixed,
especially in Microsoft's case. The point is that support is guaranteed
(usually) to be there when you have questions. This has been one of the
major drawbacks in the free-OS world.
<p>
The main method of support for both Linux and BSD is not one on which
most corporations would be willing to rely on. Support
for Linux and BSD is usually done through either newsgroups or various
sources of information on the World Wide Web. No one is required to
answer a question posted to a newsgroup, and indeed while most people who
organize the individual distributions of each OS will provide support,
there is no requirement that they do so. If the system goes down,
often it is strictly up to the end-user to dig around and find
what information he can to solve the problem. For instance, if a Linux
user were to call up Patrick Volkerding (the man behind the Slackware
Linux distribution) and tell him he better solve their problems or they
will speak to his manager, the user will most likely hear a &lt;click>
on the other end of the phone line as he hangs up. An interesting note,
however, is that many of the people responsible for the distributions
will be more than happy to answer questions. Theo de Raadt, the man
behind the OpenBSD distribution, welcomes questions, and often
answers (and sometimes argues) questions posted to newsgroups. Good
luck in getting Bill Gates to involve himself in a 50-message thread over
the ease of installing security patches to Windows NT. The bottom line,
however, is that technical support is one of the biggest considerations
large companies have when choosing an OS, and while the free-OS
world may be catching up, it still has a long way to go.
<p>
A third major comparison between server-based operating systems would
be how efficient and customizable the system is to an end-user's
needs. Differences in this comparison range from extremely high-level
(various fonts and colors or virtual desktops) to very low-level (kernel
customization, configuration and efficiency). Commercial operating systems
tend to be much easier to install, walking you through what needs to be
installed and how it will be done. Again, this is a requirement when
you are charging money for your software. Making an
easier to use product has great appeal and is one of the largest marketing
strategies in use today in the computer industry. Both Microsoft and
Sun have attempted to make their installations visually pleasant and
almost ``hold-your-hand'' simple. The commercial systems
also release patches and minor updates to keep their systems usable,
for example of NT's service packs or Solaris'
update clusters. By charging for their software, the vendors usually feel
some degree of responsibility for fixing and updating their products to
keep them usable. Sometimes this is free, and other times the
software company will change the version or name of its OS and charge
customers to upgrade.
<p>
The world of the free operating systems works somewhat differently. Many
times the installation is so confusing and non-intuitive that 95%
of the people who use computers today would not be able or willing to
muddle through it. The systems are getting to be more user-friendly,
and distributions such as Slackware and Red Hat offer a semi-graphical
install which is more intuitive than Open BSD, which goes so far as
to require the user to know how many cylinders his hard drive has on
it. While this might not be that difficult for a user who is familiar
with all the components of his system, a small business owner in need
of a simple server might be scared away. The usability issue goes back
to the fact that because the developers of these distributions receive
no monetary gain for each installation, they can make it as easy or as
difficult as they desire, which is completely understandable. The same
reasoning applies to patches and updates. Ironically, patches and updates
are generally faster to appear when problems arise in these free operating
systems because of the nature of support for Linux and BSD. Because the
source code to these operating systems is free, many users take it upon
themselves to code bug-fixes and produce patches. Updates to low-level
software such as the Linux kernel come out frequently, offering better
support and many bug fixes over previous versions. This results in faster
problem solving and even in the availability of patches which are so
obscure that larger vendors such as Microsoft or Sun would not devote the
time and resources to providing. Sun has even started to recognize the
benefits of enthusiasts and hobbyists using their operating system and
has started offering Solaris for free (the user pays just the media and
shipping/handling fees--see http://www.sun.com/solaris/freesolaris.html).
<p>
Operating systems control how we work, what we work on, and how
our businesses are run. As business competition heats up, financial
considerations in upgrading and replacing computer equipment can become
vital to a company's continued success. Commercial operating systems
are tested products which come from a company that will
provide support for their product. Most commercial operating systems
also provide better software support, as software vendors are willing to
develop their products for an environment they know will be well-used
and thus profitable. Non-Commercial operating systems offer a number
of positive reasons to choose them over a commercial OS, but they still
have a couple of key drawbacks. Scarce software support and non-reliable
technical support often provide managers with enough reason to choose
a commercial operating system over a free one. While many companies
are using free operating systems and are very successful at it, most
are not willing to stake their business on whether or not their system
administrator can figure out why their server is down by looking through
a comp.os newsgroup. Just don't be surprised if you come to work one
day to find that your company has decided to go with FreeBSD and
<b>qmail</b>
to run their new mail system rather than upgrading to Windows
NT and shelling out the cash for Exchange Server.
<p>
<h3>Resources</h3>
<p>
Linux.
<p>
Slackware - www.slackware.org (commercial or free download)<br>
Red hat - www.redhat.com (commercial or free download)<br>
Suse - www.suse.com (commercial)<br>
Debian - www.debian.org (free)<br>
Caldera OpenLinux - www.calderasystems.com (commercial)<br>
Other Misc. Linux Distributions -
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/distributions<br>
<br>
BSD.<br>
Open BSD - www.openbsd.org (free)<br>
FreeBSD - www.freebsd.org (free)<br>
NetBSD - www.netbsd.org (free)<br>
BSDi - www.bsdi.com (commercial)<br>
<br>
Sun Microsystems.<br>
Solaris/SunOS - www.sun.com/solaris (commercial, free for non-commercial
use)<br>
<br>
Microsoft.<br>
Windows NT - www.microsoft.com/ntserver (commercial)<br>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1999, Sean Bullington <BR>
Published in Issue 39 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, April 1999</H5></center>
<!--===================================================================-->
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<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Compiler Construction Tools</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:rsevenic@penguin.sirti.org">Richard A. Sevenich</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<h1>
<b><font face="Times New Roman,Times">Part I:&nbsp; - JFlex and CUP</font></b></h1>
<font face="Times New Roman,Times">by Richard A. Sevenich, Department of
Computer Science, Eastern Washington University</font>
<br><font face="Times New Roman,Times">March 25, 1999</font><font face="Times New Roman,Times"></font>
<p><font face="Times New Roman,Times">Traditionally, in the UNIX world,
there are two complementary compiler construction tools which are available:</font>
<ul>
<li>
<font face="Times New Roman,Times">one to build lexical analyzers (often
called 'lexers' or 'scanners') e.g. <i>lex, JLex, JFlex</i></font></li>
<li>
<font face="Times New Roman,Times">one to build syntactic analyzers (often
called 'parsers') e.g. <i>byacc, bison, CUP</i></font></li>
</ul>
<font face="Times New Roman,Times">These tools are freely available in
the GNU/Linux world, usually free, in some cases licensed under the GPL.
It should be pointed out that lexical and syntactic analysis are two of
the primary jobs to be performed by a language translator. A lexer and
parser built with the above tools do not automatically accomplish a third
crucial task, target code generation. However, these tools provide the
programmer with convenient 'hooks' for incorporating target code generation.</font><font face="Times New Roman,Times"></font>
<p><font face="Times New Roman,Times">Later in this series of articles
I hope to introduce two of these tools, JFlex and CUP, in a tutorial setting.
I will enlist the help of several students in my compiler design course
as coauthors. Ultimately, I hope to persuade those unfamiliar with these
tools that they are very practical. I've chosen JFlex and CUP because they
produce java code and it is high time for me to learn some java. This unfamiliarity
with java will also provide me with a scapegoat when I do something stupid
- I can blame it on that unfamiliarity.</font><font face="Times New Roman,Times"></font>
<p><font face="Times New Roman,Times">This first article will provide background
for the series. The next article, which should follow fairly soon, will
show how/where to get these tools, give a very specific installation scenario,
and produce a simple application as a development example. A third article
will give a practical real world example (to be described below). If the
third article becomes unwieldy, it may be broken&nbsp; into parts.</font>
<h3>
<font face="Times New Roman,Times">The Lexical Analyzer (a.k.a. 'lexer'
or 'scanner')</font></h3>
Language translation converts source code from some language into target
code in some other language. The 'traditional' compiler may convert source
code into assembly language or even machine code - although the later articles
in this series will focus on other targets than these. The first task of
language translation is akin to examining an English essay to make sure
that the words are spelled correctly. The lexer performs this job on our
source code by recognizing a series of contiguous symbols as valid or not
e.g. the lexer might
<ul>
<li>
recognise 'while' as a keyword</li>
<li>
recognize '47452' as a decimal integer literal</li>
<li>
complain that 'fr%$glp' is not recognized</li>
</ul>
The lexer is analogous to a spelling checker for a source program.
<p>A utility such as JFlex builds a lexer from a specification file the
programmer writes to define the 'words' (lexical tokens) in the desired
language. Let's say the programmer defines a new langauge called <i>pronto</i>
and writes a file 'pronto.flex' which defines valid lexical tokens for
<i>pronto</i>. Then the command line operation 'JFlex pronto.flex' will
produce a java version of a lexical analyzer, say, "Lexer.java'.
<p>In its most primitive deployment, the lexer merely indicates that the
source file consists of all valid lexical tokens or not - a boolean yes
or no. The family of lexers under discussion are built to do more and,
in particular, can cooperate with the parser (to be discussed under the
next heading). In the typical application the lexer is, in fact, called
by the parser and the lexer can do these jobs:
<ul>
<li>
recognize a lexical token and return to the parser an identification code
indicating the token type</li>
<li>
pass to the parser related information e.g. the actual string recognized,
or the value of an integer literal</li>
<li>
perform other programmer coded actions upon recognition of a token</li>
</ul>
The first of the three items above allows the lexer to support the parser's
central task, syntactic analysis. The other two items are especially useful
in helping the parser in ultimately generating target code.
<h3>
The Syntactic Analyzer (a.k.a. the 'parser')</h3>
Continuing the analogy that began the previous section, just as the lexer
checks words for spelling, the parser examines the source to assure that
the 'words' are arranged in valid grammatical constructs. For example,
for some programmer's new language the lexer might pass these six valid
tokens to the parser:
<br>{&nbsp; if&nbsp; + while ] } - the lexer only worries about token validity,
not the arrangement.
<br>However, the parser sees the arrangement '{ if + while ] }' as invalid.
Just as the lexer is a source code spelling checker, the parser is a grammar
checker.
<p>[ Note: The compilerati will realize that the lexer is actually checking
the source code validity against a very simple 'regular grammar' specification
and that the parser is checking the source code against a less simple 'context
free grammar' specification - as defined in the Chomsky hierarchy. Typical
compiler design books discuss the theory at length.]
<p>A utility such as CUP builds a parser from a specification file the
programmer writes to define the syntactic structure in the desired language.
For the fictitious new language called <i>pronto, </i>the programmer might
write the specification file as 'pronto.cup'.&nbsp; Then the command line
operation 'java java_cup.Main &lt; pronto.cup' will produce several files
one of which is a java version of the desired syntactic analyzer, "parser.java'.
<p>In its most primitive deployment, the parser indicates that the source
file is either grammatically correct or not - again, a boolean yes or no.
The family of parsers under discussion can do an additional task - whenever
a valid grammatical construct is found, perform any code that the programmer
cares to encode. This 'hook' is typically used to support target code generation
in two execution styles:
<br>generated code written to a file to be executed later
<br>generated code to be executed while the parser operates
<h3>
Application Specific Languages</h3>
The compiler construction tools under discussion can be used to develop
a full-blown language translator e.g. for C, Pascal, FORTRAN, Perl, etc.
These would comprise major development projects. Here I'd like to discuss
translators for 'Application Specific Languages', typically a more modest
project, yet quite useful. I'll define an 'Application Specific Language'
(ASL) operationally, by means of two examples.
<p><b>Example 1 - A generalized industrial control language</b>
<p>Let's say Fred works for a company that produces industrial controllers,
which are driven by a computer. When Fred is hired, the company has already
developed and deployed a powerful, general pupose control language based
on generalized, parallel state machines. However, customers must become
programmers to use the controller; customers formally trained as chemical
engineers, mechanical engineers, technicians etc. with little desire or
time to learn a new general purpose programming language. The product is
very general pupose, useful in many niche industries - automotive, petroleum,
logging mills, satellite control, etc.
<p>Fred has been hired to put a front end on the language for every one
of the exploitable niche markets. In each case, the front end is to be
tailored to the terminology used by the niche market customer and to be
easy to use. The front end might be of the 'fill in the blanks' variety,
a GUI, whatever. The front ends are really new languages all with the same
target language (the general purpose control langauge). Each front end
exemplifies an ASL.&nbsp; By using the compiler construction tools (e.g.
JFlex and CUP), Fred capitalizes on several benefits including:
<ul>
<li>
the capability of checking the customer's source code for lexical and syntactic
errors and returning meaningful error messages</li>
<li>
the development of each ASL will have certain similarities</li>
<li>
the specification files for the lexer and parser are highly maintainable</li>
</ul>
<b>Example 2 -&nbsp; A generalized Fuzzy Logic based decision package</b>
<p>Fuzzy Logic has proved useful, not only in its traditional role in industrial
control, but also in a decision making role. It can be used to play the
stock market (and lose money more elegantly?), to choose from among a corporation's
research or marketing strategies, to aid in avalanche prediction, etc.
<p>Let's suppose that Fred's significant other, Sally, has programmed a
general pupose Fuzzy Logic decision maker. To apply it to different problems
it is initialized from appropriately different initialization data files.
Sally markets this product to various niches, but finds former customers
a constant burden on her time. The problem is really inherent in the way
Fuzzy Logic works. The customer is the expert in his/her particular problem
space.&nbsp; A Fuzzy Logic model is initialized by incorporating the expertise
of the user. The user gains more expertise as the model is used and will
constantly want to tweak the model. The crux of Sally's problem is that
the initialization file must be prepared with great programming care. The
customers are not programmers and easily make mistakes (most likely syntactic)
in preparing such a data file. They always run into problems, call on Sally
for help, and expect her to do it at a fairly low margin. She must respond
to maintain her reputation and, hence, her financila success.
<p>Her solution is to make an 'idiot-proof' front end that will automate
writing the initialization data file. The front end is tailored to the
niche customer's terminology and problem space. The front end is an ASL
with the initialization data file as the target language. The translator
can be written with the help of the compiler construction tools, just as
done by Fred for the industrial control scenario. The translator guarantees
that the lexical and syntactic content of the data file is correct.
<p>If the front end is cleverly defined the customer will find it useful.
Note that the customer is an expert on the problem semantics, where programmer
Sally would be weakest. The customer will solve the semantic problems,
and the ASL translator will avoid the lexical and syntactic problems related
to the initialization data file.
<p><b>Upshot</b>
<p>The two preceding examples have an obvious common thread. It should
be emphasized that in designing the front end ASL's, Fred and Sally must
interact strongly with the niche customers. After all, the ASL is to be
useful to a programming novice who, at the same time, has expertise in
the problem space. If this interaction fails, the ASL will not be well
received and may fail in its intended market.
<p>The Fuzzy Logic example is, in fact, the course project for this quarter's
compiler design class - assuming Sally doesn't beat us to it.
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1999, Richard A. Sevenich<BR>
Published in Issue 39 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, April 1999</H5></center>
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<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">EMACSulation</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:emarsden@mail.dotcom.fr">Eric Marsden</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<blockquote><small>
This column is devoted to making the best use of Emacs, text editor
extraordinaire. Each issue I plan to present an Emacs extension
which can improve your productivity, make the sun shine more brightly
and the grass greener.
</small></blockquote>
<h1>Templating</h1>
<p> Documents often conform to a boilerplate: a regular structure which is
boring to type in for each document. Most wordprocessors recognise this
and allow you to create templates for business letters, technical
reports, memos etc. Emacs can do one better than these static
&quot;skeletons&quot;, since its templating mechanism allows you to
insert dynamically generated text, according to the file's name, your
login, the date, or the results of a shell command.
<p> The Emacs auto-insertion mechanism allows you to set up boilerplates
which will be instanciated upon file creation, based on the new file's
name or mode. For example, when you create a file called
<tt>lsys.h</tt>, it will ask you <em>Perform C / C++ header
auto-insertion?</em>, and if you say yes might insert something like
</p>
<table border="0" bgcolor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
<tr><td>
<pre class="programlisting">
<font color="#ff0000">
/**********************************************************************
* lsys.h
*
* Eric Marsden &lt;emarsden@mail.dotcom.fr&gt;
* Time-stamp: &lt;&gt;
**********************************************************************/</font>
#<font color="#5f9ea0">ifndef</font> <font color="#b8860b">_LSYS_H_</font>
#<font color="#5f9ea0">define</font> <font color="#b8860b">_LSYS_H_</font>
#<font color="#5f9ea0">endif</font> <font color="#ff0000">/* _LSYS_H_ */</font>
</pre>
</td></tr></table>
<p> Note that <tt>#ifdefs</tt> have been generated to protect against
multiple inclusions of the header. You might want to add additional
elements such as your company's copyright blabber, skeletal revision
history comments, or an RCS version $Id. The auto-inserted content
depends on the major mode: upon creation of a file called
<tt>lsys.sgml</tt> the auto-inserted text might be </p>
<table border="0" bgColor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
<tr><td>
<pre class="programlisting">
&lt;<font color="#4682b4">!DOCTYPE</font> ARTICLE PUBLIC <font color="#a0522d">&quot;-//Davenport//DTD DocBook V3.0//EN&quot;</font> [
]&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">article</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">artheader</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">date</font>&gt;1999-03-01&lt;<font color="#0000cd">/date</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">title</font>&gt; &lt;<font color="#0000cd">/title</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">subtitle</font>&gt; &lt;<font color="#0000cd">/subtitle</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">author</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">firstname</font>&gt;Eric&lt;<font color="#0000cd">/firstname</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">surname</font>&gt;Marsden&lt;<font color="#0000cd">/surname</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">affiliation</font>&gt;&lt;<font color="#0000cd">orgname</font>&gt;CULTe&lt;<font color="#0000cd">/orgname</font>&gt;&lt;<font color="#0000cd">/affiliation</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">/author</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">authorinitials</font>&gt;ecm&lt;<font color="#0000cd">/authorinitials</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">abstract</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">para</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">/para</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">/abstract</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">/artheader</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">sect1</font>&gt;&lt;<font color="#0000cd">title</font>&gt; &lt;<font color="#0000cd">/title</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">para</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">/para</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">/sect1</font>&gt;
&lt;<font color="#0000cd">/article</font>&gt;
</pre>
</td></tr></table>
<p> [These font-enhanced program listings were generated by Hrvoje Niksic's
excellent <a
href="http://jagor.srce.hr/~hniksic/htmlize.el">htmlize</a> package,
which generates HTML renderings of font-locked buffers.] Auto-insertion
can be activated by saying </p>
<table border="0" bgColor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
<tr><td>
<pre>
(add-hook 'find-file-hooks 'auto-insert)
(setq auto-insert-directory (expand-file-name <font color="#a0522d">&quot;~/.autoinsert/&quot;</font>))
</pre>
</td></tr></table>
<p> The <strong>autoinsert package</strong> (written by Charlie Martin) is
distributed with default templates for several modes. There are two
ways of customizing the auto-inserted contents: the simplest (which
doesn't require any knowledge of elisp) involves placing files in
the directory <tt>~/.autoinsert/</tt> and registering them with
autoinsert: </p>
<table border="0" bgColor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
<tr><td>
<pre>
(define-auto-insert &quot;\\.html\\'&quot; "autoinsert.html")
</pre>
</td></tr></table>
<p> The <tt>&quot;\\.html\\'&quot;</tt> is a regular expression which
matches filenames ending in <tt>.html</tt> (note the use of
<tt>\\'</tt> to match the end of a string, rather than <tt>$</tt> for
the end of a line, since filenames are allowed to contain newline
characters). This should lead to the contents of the file
<tt>~/.autoinsert/autoinsert.html</tt> being inserted automatically
when you create a file whose name ends in <tt>.html</tt>. This method
only allows insertion of static content. Insertion of dynamically
generated content is also possible if you know some Emacs Lisp; here is
some code which creates skeleton C or C++ headers, as in the first
example in this article: </p>
<table border="0" bgColor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
<tr><td>
<pre class="programlisting">
<font color="#ff0000">;; autoinsert.el</font>
(define-auto-insert
(cons <font color="#a0522d">&quot;\\.\\([Hh]\\)\\'&quot;</font> <font color="#a0522d">&quot;My C / C++ header&quot;</font>)
'(nil
<font color="#a0522d">&quot;/*&quot;</font> (make-string 69 ?*) <font color="#a0522d">&quot;\n&quot;</font>
<font color="#a0522d">&quot; * &quot;</font> (file-name-nondirectory buffer-file-name) <font color="#a0522d">&quot;\n&quot;</font>
<font color="#a0522d">&quot; *\n&quot;</font>
<font color="#a0522d">&quot; * &quot;</font> (user-full-name) <font color="#a0522d">&quot; &lt;&quot;</font> user-mail-address <font color="#a0522d">&quot;&gt;\n&quot;</font>
<font color="#a0522d">&quot; * Time-stamp: &lt;&gt;\n&quot;</font>
<font color="#a0522d">&quot; *&quot;</font> (make-string 69 ?*) <font color="#a0522d">&quot;*/\n&quot;</font>
(<font color="#4682b4">let*</font> ((noext (substring buffer-file-name 0 (match-beginning 0)))
(nopath (file-name-nondirectory noext))
(ident (concat <font color="#a0522d">&quot;_&quot;</font> (upcase nopath) <font color="#a0522d">&quot;_H_&quot;</font>)))
(concat <font color="#a0522d">&quot;#ifndef &quot;</font> ident <font color="#a0522d">&quot;\n&quot;</font>
<font color="#a0522d">&quot;#define &quot;</font> ident <font color="#a0522d">&quot;\n\n\n&quot;</font>
<font color="#a0522d">&quot;\n\n#endif /* &quot;</font> ident <font color="#a0522d">&quot; */\n&quot;</font>))))
</pre>
</td></tr></table>
<p> How does the autoinsertion work? Each time you open a file in Emacs, it
runs a special hook called <tt>find-file-hooks</tt>. This is where
things such as enabling syntactic highlighting or checking whether a
file is under a version control system (RCS or CVS) occur. The
<tt>add-hook</tt> line above latches the autoinsertion onto this hook.
<h2>Dmacro</h2>
<p> The <strong>Dynamic Macro</strong> package by Wayne Mesard allows you
to insert structured text at any time, not only at document creation
time. dmacro provides facilities such as prompting the user for input,
inserting the contents of a file or the output from a shell command,
and positioning the cursor or the mark after the insertion. One
particularly nice feature is the ability to indent autoinserted
contents according to the current mode. It could be used as a way of
enforcing (well, encouraging developers to adhere to) coding standards,
and can reduce development time by preventing typos in repetitive text.
dmacro is not distributed with Emacs; you will have to <a
href="ftp://ftp.sgi.com/other/dmacro/dmacro.tar.gz">download</a> and
install it (which is just a matter of saying <emph>make</emph>). It can
be activated by saying in your <tt>~/.emacs</tt> (where the
<tt>.dm</tt> file contains your personal macros; see below for some
examples): </p>
<table border="0" bgColor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
<tr><td>
<pre class="programlisting">
(require 'dmacro) <font color="#ff0000">; dynamic macros</font>
(dmacro-load <font color="#a0522d">&quot;~/elisp/ecm.dm&quot;</font>)
</pre>
</td></tr></table>
<p> The dmacro package is very well documented, so I will only provide a
few motivating examples. Here is one which will insert the skeleton of
a <tt>for</tt> block in C-mode (macros can either be global, or
specific to a certain major mode): </p>
<table border="0" bgColor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
<tr><td>
<pre class="programlisting">
# file ~/elisp/ecm.dm
# ================================== Stuff for C-derived modes =======
# MODE: c-mode c++-mode java-mode
ifor indent interactive for statement (prompts for variable name)
for (~(prompt var "Variable: ") = 0; ~prompt &lt; ~@; ~prompt++)
{
~mark
}
#
</pre>
</td></tr></table>
<p> You activate the macro by typing <tt>C-c d ifor</tt> (with tab
completion on the macro's name). It should prompt you for the name of
the variable:
<p> <img src="./gx/marsden/dmacro1.gif">
<p> and the result should look like <a href="./gx/marsden/dmacro2.gif">this</a>. The
next example demonstrates how to insert a timestamp of the form
<tt>-ecm1999-02-29</tt> in the current buffer (pet peeve: given the
value of a uniform, standardized external representation for dates, I
make a point of systematically using the <a
href="http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html">ISO 8601</a>
format). You invoke this macro by typing <tt>C-c d dstamp</tt>. The
corresponding code (which also demonstrates the use of an alias to
factorize out commonly used definitions) is: </p>
<table border="0" bgColor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
<tr><td>
<pre class="programlisting">
# ALIAS: iso-date (eval (format-time-string "%Y-%m-%d"))
# ================================= Stuff for all modes ============
# MODE: nil
dstamp expand user id and date
-~user-id~(iso-date)
#
</pre>
</td></tr></table>
<h2>Related packages</h2>
<p> There are several other packages which provide similar functionality to
dmacro. <tt>tempo.el</tt> (included with both GNU Emacs and XEmacs) was
originally written as an adjunct to html-helper-mode, providing
facilities for inserting balanced bits of HTML markup, but can be used
for other purposes. It is also possible to extend the standard abbrev
mechanism to insert dynamically generated text by hacking the
abbrev-mode-hook, as explained in the <a
href="http://www.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=340841733">following
message</a> posted anonymously to <a
href="news:gnu.emacs.help">gnu.emacs.help</a>. Finally, there is <a
href="http://www.fmi.uni-passau.de/~wedler/template/">template.el</a>
by <a href="mailto:wedler!@!fmi.uni-passau.de">Christoph Wedler</a>
which seems very comprehensive.
<h2>Feedback</h2>
<p> The January 1999 EMACSulation on abbreviation mechanisms had a
bootstrap problem: I indicated how to create abbreviations and how to
have them read in automatically when Emacs starts up, but the
instructions that I gave weren't sufficient to get Emacs to save
abbrevs automatically when quitting. Thanks to Nat Makarevitch and Dave
Bennet for pointing this out. Here is a revised version of the code
that I proposed (the last line is what was missing): </p>
<table border="0" bgColor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
<tr><td>
<pre class="programlisting">
<font color="red">
;; if there is an abbrev file, read it in</font>
(if (file-exists-p abbrev-file-name)
(read-abbrev-file))
(setq-default save-abbrevs t)
</pre>
</td></tr></table>
<p> A few European readers also asked about abbreviations containing 8bit,
non-ASCII characters. In its default state Emacs won't take them into
account, since it assumes that characters with the 8th bit set are non
word-constituent. To modify this (to take into account accented
characters in the iso-8859-1 character map, for example) you need to do
something like </p>
<table border="0" bgColor="#E0E0E0" width="100%">
<tr><td>
<pre class="programlisting">
(set-language-environment 'Latin-1) <font color="red">; GNU Emacs 20.x</font>
(require 'iso-syntax) <font color="red">; GNU Emacs 19.x</font>
</pre>
</td></tr></table>
<p> (there are major differences between the way that GNU Emacs 19.x and
20.x handle different character encodings; recent versions can handle
multibyte characters, required for representing asian languages. Rather
than using <a href="http://www.unicode.org/">Unicode</a>, Emacs uses
adjustable width characters. For XEmacs this <a
href="http://www.etl.go.jp/~mule/MulePage.html">MULE</a> (MULtilingual
enhancements for Emacs) support is a compile-time option in recent
versions.)
<h2>Next time ...</h2>
<p> Next month we'll look at spell checking with Emacs. Thanks to <a
href="mailto:arnu!@!laas.fr">Jean-Christophe Arnu</a> for commenting on
a draft of this article. Don't hesitate to contact me with comments,
corrections or suggestions (what's <em>your</em> favorite
couldn't-do-without Emacs extension package?). <code>C-u 1000 M-x
hail-emacs</code> !
<p> <strong>PS</strong>: Emacs isn't in any way limited to Linux, since
implementations exist for many other operating systems (and some
systems which only halfway operate). However, as one of the leading
bits of free software, one of the most powerful, complex and
customizable, I feel it has its place in the <i>Linux Gazette</i>.
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <HR> <P>
<A HREF="../issue25/marsden.html">EMACSulation #1: Handling Compressed Files, February 1998</A><BR>
<A HREF="../issue26/marsden.html">EMACSulation #2: Internet Ready, March 1998</A><BR>
<A HREF="../issue27/marsden.html">EMACSulation #3: Ediff, April 1998</A><BR>
<A HREF="../issue29/marsden.html">EMACSulation #4: Emacs as a Server, June 1998</A><BR>
<A HREF="../issue31/marsden.html">EMACSulation #5: Customizing Emacs, August 1998</A><BR>
<A HREF="../issue36/marsden.html">EMACSulation #6: Saving Time, January 1999</A>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1999, Eric Marsden <BR>
Published in Issue 39 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, April 1999</H5></center>
<!--===================================================================-->
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<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Expanding Your Home Network</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:jpollman@imcnet.net">JC Pollman</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
You have struggled and gotten your home network working. I assume you have
some sort of dial on demand, printer serving, and probably file sharing
using samba. After a couple of weeks of relaxing and self-congratulating,
you ask yourself: now what?
<p>&nbsp; What follows are bits and pieces of useful improvements I have
come across while running my own home network. All of them provide me with
added features and greatly extended my knowledge of Linux. Although I use
the Redhat distribution, they should work on all distributions.&nbsp; What
I present here are quick set-ups, to truely understand what you are doing
you have to read the How-Tos and files that come with the programs.
<p><b>Am I Connected?</b> You know by now that, just because the modem
dialed, you are not guaranteed of getting connected. And it would also
be nice to know when the modem goes off line - especially if&nbsp; you
are using an internal modem and your server is without a monitor like mine.
Linux obviously knows when these things happen as it executes commands
when the on-line-status changes. You can take advantage of this by putting
your own commands in the scripts it runs. When the modem connects AND you
are logged into your ISP, Linux runs the /etc/ppp/ip-up script, and when
the modem goes off line, it runs the /etc/ppp/ip-down script. All you have
to do is to add a line at the end of these scripts to tell you what happened.
I use sound files to announce the connect status. One of the last lines
of my ip-up is:
<p>cat /etc/ppp/doom.au >/dev/audio &amp;
<p>This "plays" the doom.au file and lets me know that I am fully connected
to the internet. Add a similar line to your ip-down file to tell you when
the modem goes off line.
<p><b>TIME. </b>You can also use the ip-up file to keep your server's time
accurate. There are several time programs you can use, but I find netdate
the easiest. I just add these lines after my sound line:
<p>/usr/sbin/netdate isp-computer
<div STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">clock -w
<p>where isp-computer is the name of a computer at my ISP, and clock -w
writes the time to the cmos.
<p><b>Cleaning Up after pulling the plug</b>. My wife is famous for finding
something on the net and then wanting to make an immediate phone call.
This usually means she pull the modem's phone wire out of the jack and
then makes her call. This is nothing tragic, but I ended up with lots of
ip-down scripts that never finish executing. Typing ps ax on Saturday usually
gave me a half dozen processes to kill. I got tired of this and wrote a
script to clean them up automatically:
<p>#!/bin/sh kill `ps ax|grep down|cut -c 1-5`
<p>&nbsp; I set this up as a cron job, so it runs every night.
<p><b>One Home for All.</b> You probably have Linux running on more than
one of your client programs. Keeping your personal setup in sync between
computers becomes a pain after a while. Additionally, it would be nice
when you run your email program to have all your folders available, and
have your bookmarks available when you startup Netscape. The solution is
to have use the /home directory on the server as the /home directory on
all the computers. To do this, make sure all the kernels have nfs compiled
into them, export the /home directory on the server, and then mount the
server's /home directory on the clients. The server uses the file: /etc/exports
to decide what, and how, to allow other computers to use. The appropriate
line from my exports file is:
<p>/home&nbsp; *.kulai.org(rw)
<p>where my network is kulai.org.&nbsp; Then you can mount the server's
/home directory by putting a line in your fstab that looks like this:
<p>192.168.124.10:/home /home&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; nfs noauto,rw,rsize=8192,wsize=8192
0 0
<p>Note: my home server's ip address is: 192.168.124.10 Yours will be different.
Then mounting the /home directory with a line in your rc.local like this:
<p>mount&nbsp; /home
<p>This is a fairly simple process, but there are some gotchas you need
to be aware of. NFS does not have a solid reputation for reliability and
security. Some versions of the kernel do not work well with NFS, so check
the news groups and dejanews if everything looks good but you can not mount
/home. Also, the users on the different computers must all have the same
UID and, I think GID, on each computer. For example, if Fred is UID 500
on the server, he must be UID 500 on all the other computers - as stated
in the /etc/passwd file. There are ways around this, but life is much easier
if the UIDs match. Additionally, mounting the entire /home directory is
probably not the best solution when what you really want is just /home/user.
You can get around this in xdm by using the Xstartup and Xreset files to
mount and unmount the user's home directory when they login and logout.
This method has problems with KDE as KDE does not shut down fast enough
and so Xreset will not unmount the directory.
<p>A more elegant solution is to use automount. It will automatically mount
/home/user directories, and can also automount&nbsp; your floppies and
cdroms. First, recompile your kernel with automount turned on. Then install
the autofs program.&nbsp; Then create the file: /etc/auto.master. It needs
only one line:
<p>/home&nbsp;&nbsp; /etc/auto.home --timeout 120
<p>which says: use /home as the mount point, and the file:/etc/auto.home
to define the subdirectories.&nbsp; The timeout option is for automatic
unmounting after 120 seconds of inactivity. If you want to use this to
automount floppies, cdroms, etc, you will need another line - read the
Howto and Install files.
<p>Then create the /etc/auto.home&nbsp; file.&nbsp; A line from mine reads:
<p>nick&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; -rw,soft,intr,rsize=8192,wsize=8192&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
192.168.124.10:/home/nick
<p>The first entry: nick , is the subdirectory under /home that autofs
will use to mount the nfs directory:&nbsp; 192.168.124.10:/home/nick.&nbsp;
Note, the server must now export each user's home directory individually,
e.g. the exports file now reads:
<p>/home/nick&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; *.kulai.org(rw)
<p>Another advantage of this setup for the adventurous: I run several un*xes
at home.&nbsp; If I run the same version of the programs in them that I
run in Linux, by mounting my home directory I keep the same initialization
files, e.g. I use icewm for my window manager in Linux and FreeBSD, because
I mount the same /home directory for both OSes, my menus stay the same.
<p><b>Common Passwords.</b> As computers, and especially hard drives, come
and go, I find that keeping the passwords in sync is also an annoying task.
Linux provides a simple solution: NIS. Basically, the server does the login,
so, no matter which computer you are using, the login verification is run
against a single file on your server. This will only keep the un*x passwords
the same: I manually made the MS Windows passwords the same, so when my
spouse, or kids, get on the computer, they type the same user name and
password no matter whether they are running Windows or Linux.&nbsp; You
will have to read the NIS Howto as it is beyond the scope of this article
to explain how to set it up.
<p><b>HTTP Proxy</b>. If your family members go to many of the same web
pages you can speed up the "download" time by caching the pages on your
server. That way, if your spouse goes to www.Yahoo.com in the afternoon,
and your kids go to it when they get home from school, they get the copy
off of the server which is much faster than actually connecting to the
site. This pays big benefits when several of you are on the internet at
the same time.&nbsp; You can setup Apache to do this if you have Apache
running already, or check http://freshmeat.net for a http proxy program.
<p><b>USENET News</b>.&nbsp; I assume that anyone reading this article
is also a big user of the usenet news groups.&nbsp; Setting up a full fledged
news server for home is just too much work, but a program named leafnode
may be just the solultion.&nbsp; After setting it up and allowing it to
get the list of news groups from your current server, point your news reader
(Linux, Windows, or in any other operating system) to your server.&nbsp;
Subscribe to the groups you want and then rerun leafnode. It will only
get the articles from the groups people on your network subscribed to.&nbsp;
I set it to run, via cron, at 4 in the morning so at 5, when I arrive with
my cup of coffee, all the articles for all my groups are ready and waiting
for me on my server. Sweet!</div>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1999, JC Pollman <BR>
Published in Issue 39 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, March 1999</H5></center>
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<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Free Philosophy: Part II</font></H1>
<H2>Cooperation vs. Competition</H2>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:jwp@awod.com">J. W. Pennington</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P><CENTER>
"That most of us consistently fail to consider the alternatives to competition
is a testament to the effectiveness of our socialization."
<BR>-Alfie Kohn
</CENTER><P><HR><P>
This is the second article in a series exploring the philosophy of
<A HREF="http://www.gnu.org/">free software</A>. The first, entitled
<A HREF="../issue37/pennington.html"> The Beauty
of Doubt</A> and published in the February 99 issue, covered the concept of
doubt, and discussed the improbability that good software can be developed if
one does not have the ability to doubt that one's code, work, theory, or
whatever may be flawed. The arrogance that a final product is unimprovable is
something rarely if ever seen in the free software community (FSC). This
allows for the continued improvement that we all see, and for the quick
reaction to problems.
<P>
In this article, I discuss competition with the intention of making
a case for the FSC's necessity for cooperation in order to exist/succeed.
Again, I tell the reader that I am primarily an anthropologist, and as such
have little experience writing a technical article. This is written quite
theoretically and argumentatively (if I may make that word), and I have
written at great length on the competition/cooperation argument itself,
preserving its association with the FSC until the end. I have done this not
to bore or to preach to the reader (well, maybe a little) but to introduce as
much of the full argument as possible in as little space as possible.
<P>
Note: I will warn the reader that this article is a
bit reactionary and outspoken. I do not write like this to strike fear or any
other emotion into the hearts of the reader. I only do it to underline the
somewhat insidious problem. I apologize in advance for yelling. With that
said, and before I begin this month's discussion, I'd like to clear
up some issues. I received a great deal of email regarding the last article.
Most of it was positive, and I thank all of those who sent it. Some was quite
critical, and I <I> really </I> thank the critics. I do want this to be an
open discussion, and it would be quite blind of me to argue for humility while
refusing to accept that my ideas are flawed. For this reason, I would like to
address the two major points discussed in the many email critiques. In the
interest of space, however, I have placed this in <A
HREF="./pennington2.html">another
location</A>. Hopefully this will make it easier for those who are not
concerned about these criticisims, but not too difficult for those who are.
<B>People new to the Free Software Community or to Linux are urged
to<A HREF="./pennington2.html"> read it</A>
however, as there are some important points made.</B> Suffice it to say here
that I am not the official spokesperson for the Free Software Movement, nor are
my opinions official in any way. For the official opinions and philosophy of
the GNU foundation, visit their website at <A
HREF="http://www.gnu.org/">www.gnu.org</A>.
<P>
<B>What are Competition and Cooperation?</B>
<P>
In order to adequately condemn competition (which is honestly my intention)
and demonstrate the advantage of cooperation, I must first take the time to
define and explain the two opposing ideas. <B>Competition</B>, technically
stated, is striving to outdo another. Put another way, it is the attempt to
accomplish something at the expense of others, or in such a way as to make it
impossible for another to accomplish the same thing. The bluntest,
and most unattractive manner in which to say this is that my success
<I>requires</I> your failure. This is what Alfie Kohn calls <I>Mutually
Exclusive Goal Attainment</I>, MEGA[1]. Put this way, competition doesn't sound
as healthy as it's cracked up to be. It is trying to do something specifically
so that others cannot. It being better (often at any cost) than everyone else.
It is proving to oneself, if not to anyone else, that the world is beneath
them- if only in one particular circumstance. It is constant, it is
pervasive, and it is the American way.
<P>
Okay, I'll rephrase that: It's the Western way. One would be hard pressed
to find a culture who does it more than we do. We've found ways to compete
that are completely mind boggling, including such dubious honors as "He who
can cram most processed meat into his mouth in the least amount of time,"
or, the good old hot dog eating contest. We compete for everything: Most
sales in a given month, hottest chicken wings (I'm from Buffalo, no
wisecracks), fastest car, even biggest breasts and shortest shorts. Contests
for beauty, size, speed, notoriety <I>ad nauseum</I> exist in modern culture,
and this is no less true in the software world.
<P>
Most companies, including our "beloved" software companies, spend
literally billions of combined dollars trying to, in effect, put other
companies out of business. By selling their software at "competitive prices"
and trying to prove the unworthiness of their rival's work, companies compete
for "product placement," "competitive positioning," "prime marketshare," or
any number of obscure euphemisms, all of which mean selling "our" product and
causing "theirs" not to be sold. There exists a large undercurrent of greed,
espionage, dishonesty, and hostility in this endeavor, and many will
understand that I do not write that in paranoia. Companies are often forced to
bundle certain software/hardware or risk losing business, paying outrageous
prices (read: fines), or any number of other negative outcomes. Naming no
names, there are magazines and computer journals which are paid, literally, to
not advertise the products of various companies, to not offer the option or
information necessary to consider an opposing product. It is not only the
rival company which loses in this competition. In this, we all lose.
<P>
Diametrically opposed to this is <B>Cooperation</B>, which is, again literally
stated, the endeavor to work together for a common goal or purpose. Much
more broadly put, it is the act of aiding another in the pursuit of a goal in
such a way as to promote the attainment of a goal which you are pursuing. In
other words, I may not be trying to achieve the same thing that you are, but my
helping you may further my cause as well. The most positive factor in
cooperative endeavors is their ability to ensure mutually dependent success.
If my helping you furthers my own goal, then I become fully committed to your
success, and you to mine. If you fail, then I fail. The benefits of
cooperation, when stated without the trappings of culture, are abundantly
clear; however, they are often ignored or forgotten when competition places
its very effective blinders on us.
<P>
<B>Why is Competition So Bad?</B>
<P>
When all but the most cynical of us think of competition, many ideas swim
forward in our minds. The accomplishment of the pioneers of America, baseball
and the Yankees (or whomever you may root for), the victory of World War II,
the possibilities are countless. What all of these thoughts share is that
they applaud the winners, who rarely make up more than 50% of the total. The
situation which is always created is one in which there is an inevitability
of failure. <I>There will be a loser.</I> Why do we accept this? Because the
positive spin on the many benefits and few negative aspects of competition
that we have all grown up seeing, and which all but 2% of you reading this
firmly believe, are akin to brainwashing.
<P>
Now don't crucify me, or at least wait until I'm finished. When I use the
term brainwashing, I'm not saying "all of you are mindless idiots, the
pawns of the media." I am only saying that our belief in competition
perpetuates itself in the media, and we see it literally hundreds if not
thousands of times a day, so much that we come to think of it as the "natural
order" of things. We have been socialized to accept it. In our minds,
competition has become the healthiest way to better any situation, be it the
consumer's choice, the product's effectiveness, or the game itself. It is
normal, it is healthy, and it is "human nature." I can assure you, as an
anthropologist and as an anticompetitive person, that competition is
<I>not</I> a natural human tendency, it is <I>not</I> human nature. (In
fact, I have yet to see anything that has been labeled human nature actually
be so, mainly because human nature is most often used as a justification for
something that is otherwise negative, how many times is the donation to a
charity shrugged off as "human nature?")
<P>
I should here note that there are two main forms of competition which can be
discussed. The first I'll call <B>Situational Competition</B>.
This is competition based on an external, unavoidable situation, such as
competition for food where there is little. Basically, this is a struggle for
survival, and I would argue that in this sense competition emphatically
<I>is</I> human nature. We are all animals (theological arguments aside) and
we will therefore do what we must to survive. Strangely enough, it is often
these situations which cause humans to cooperate completely. Weird species, us.
<P>
The second form I call <B>Conceptual Competition</B>. This is competition
based on an internal, conceptual situation. Here, we find the competition to
which I am opposed, that being the desire to be the only holder of a status or
conceptual prize, be it money, power, fame, etc. Ironically, it is this form
of competition which is often cited as human nature, a supposition for which
there is little, if any, support in the social or natural scientific
literature [2]. If there is to be a single dominant principal of human nature
in this argument, it would most certainly be cooperation; however, to argue
that <I>anything</I> is just human nature is to forget that every individual
will act differently, however slightly, in every situation. There is no single
"human nature" because the topic is so vast, and so dynamic.
<P>
<B>How the Free Software Community (co)Operates</B>
<P>
I would argue, as I believe most social scientists would, that the natural
tendency of human beings is in fact cooperation. This tendency manifests
itself nicely in the practices and beliefs of the Free Software Community.
Unfortunately, I am unable to state honestly that either free software
advocates in general, or Linux users in particuliar, are individually
non-competitive. I have seen far too many instances of "number dropping [a]"
and other things to say this with much conviction. The truth is that there are
very few people as [crazy, pointless, stupid] anticompetitive as I am,
making it a rule to help an opposer beat me at a game in order to better
their game. The very great majority of people are individually very
competitive. And the acts of the FSC itself are, in a sense, competitive. They
are competitive in that they try to offer a substutite for a proprietary
product, admittedly, a weak argument, but that pleases me. The <I>goal</I> of
the FSC, however, is free access to information for everyone. The desired
outcome of the endeavor is not to convince people that a given free product is
in any way "better" than a proprietary product (though very often it is), it
is only to offer the product freely and openly to all.
<P>
Also, competition is (at least as far as I can tell) anathema to the
innerworkings and the dynamics of the FSC. Competition as a principle cannot
survive in this community. This is because the entire community fails in its
desired goal if those within the community fail. The general rule in the
free software community (and in the broader hacker community [b] as well) is
cooperation, or my answer to Alfie Kohn's idea of MEGA, that is
<I>Mutually Achievable Goal Attainment</I>, MAGA.
<P>
The rules as I have come to learn them are as follows:
<OL>
<LI>Learn everything you can about [fill in blank with programming,
electronics, computers, or whatever else you fancy]
<LI>Never exclude another
from learning about [see above] <LI>Offer freely what you learn/do, so that
others might use/learn from it <UL>
<LI><FONT="-1"><B>Note:</B> Charging enough money to put food on your table is
acceptable. The corollary to this rule is "help your fellow hacker by giving
him enough money to put food on his table." The philosophy being that if he
dies of starvation there's one less good brain on the task :-)</FONT>
</UL>
<LI>Never destroy/break the work of another person. That's a cracker's job,
and we often don't like them.
</OL>
<P>
Of course, this list is neither exhaustive nor exclusive, but it shows the
inherent cooperation involved. The idea of the Free Software Movement is to
allow free information access to all, this precludes the idea of competition. If, for instance, I make information free to all, then I include potential rivals,
and rivals cannot be rivals if there is nothing to fight about. This, of
course, ignores the constant fear in the FSC that a proprietary company will
take work done by honest FSC members and make it proprietary. There <I>are</I>
rivals here. The hope is that adequate protection can be found so that what
<I>is</I> free, <I>stays</I> free.
<P>
<B>Concluding Thoughts,<BR>
or,<BR>
The Last of the Diatribe</B>
<P>
There is competition everywhere, and companies promote this. How many times
have we heard that something will "increase competition" in [insert business].
It's a fallacy. One company owning everything is indeed bad. In that case we
rest at the mercy of an "overlord," but many companies competing is not
necessarily a better situation. The argument for competition is that a company
will always produce better and more cost effective goods, in order to entice
the buyers more than another company. Anyone who believes that this is what
happens is- and I am <I>really</I> risking crucifixion here- fooling
themselves. The real outcome is that companies bury patents so that you keep
buying their goods (Westinghouse and the lifelong lightbulb), downplay or
negatively affect the development of various beneficial techniques (American
automobile companies, and petroleum companies would not want you to know
about the 100+ miles to the gallon a ceramic engine and patent-buried cooling
system can get you, and a notably efficient electric car is available in only
two U.S. states, and then only because its availability is legislated), and
use every method possible to remove all rival companies from their path to
total information control (the real goal of MicroSoft and other large
companies?).
<P>
Competition is, without fail, a negative proposition to the consumer and to
the development of any technique/product. We hear constantly that competing
companies produce better products because of competition, and that they do it
"all for the benefit of the consumer." Imagine what could be produced if they
were all honestly working together. Maybe one day the Free Software Movement
will show us.
<P>
<HR>
<B>Notes</B>
<P>
a: A variation of name dropping which involves the participant giving the
number of the first Linux kernel he (I have yet to see a female name) used.
This is always lower than someone else's number. What's the point fellas?
<BR>
b: Please do not confuse this with "cracker!" A hacker is, simply put, someone
who revels in understanding. For a more definitive description of the
difference between the two, see The Hacker Anti-Defamation
League's <A HREF="http://members.xoom.com/jcenters/HADL.html">website.</A>
<P>
<B>References</B>
<P>
1: Kohn, Alfie. 1992. No Contest: The Case Against Competition. New York:
Houghton Mifflin. p 4.
<BR>
2: See note 2, chapter 2 in Kohn.
<!--===================================================================--> <P>
<hr> <P> <center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1999, J. W. Pennington <BR> Published
in Issue 39 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, April 1999</H5></center>
<!--===================================================================-->
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<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Linux Day at H-P Labs</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:">Paul R. Woods</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
As you might have noticed recently, several large companies have begun
to take an interest in Linux. The Hewlett-Packard Company is one of
these, the first official involvement being their announcement of Linux
support for a line of PC Servers, announced in late January. Shortly
thereafter, though not as a direct consequence, a group within H-P
sponsored what they called "Linux Day at H-P Labs" which was held on
February 9th of this year.
<P>
Interested people gathered from all over the corporation to the H-P
Labs buildings in Palo Alto to hear from Bob Young, of Red Hat, and
from Linus Torvalds himself. Jean Bozman from IDC also spoke,
detailing the tremendous growth that Linux is experiencing.
<P>
The large conference room that was built for groups of 160 people
failed to hold a standing-room-only crowd that spilled out into the
hallway, so an overflow room had to be used, besides. Additionally,
teleconferencing was used to bring the program to people who couldn't
travel to the conference in person.
<P>
I was very interested in what Linus and Bob said and thought that I
would pass along what I heard. Their comments were informative and
filled in the history of how Linux came to be in its current position.
<P>
<H4><font color="maroon">Linus Torvalds</font></H4>
<P>
When Linus got the idea in 1991 to write what has become Linux, he had
six month's experience with Unix. He liked it much more than other
OSs, but there was a slight problem. Actually several hundred to over
a thousand problems, those being the dollars it would cost to buy a
commercial Unix he could use at home. At that time, all Unicies were
priced for large institutions, not for individuals--especially not poor
students. As a portion of the hardware cost, buying Unix for a PC
doubled, at least, the cost of the platform. Linus began working on
his OS to provide himself and others with a low-cost (free) Unix-like
OS for personal use. After the initial release, interest snowballed
and the number of contributors increased. As Linus put it, a lot of
people put in a lot of work and he gets all the credit.
<P>
The people who contribute to Linux are motivated by personal
satisfaction, not money. Many people do their best work for personal
satisfaction. In a commercial setting, where the programmer is being
paid to develop, his manager might not allow him to refine, count
cycles, etc., like he can do on his own time. In many cases, it would
not be viewed as cost effective to allow engineers that sort of time.
Whether it's for personal satisfaction, a desire to impress others, or
competition among kernel developers, a lot of craftsmanship goes into
much of the code.
<P>
Linux benefits from a development staff so large that no company could
afford it. And much of the work is so meticulous that, in a commercial
setting, the cost would be too high to recapture the programmers'
salaries. The absence of monetary concerns has created a product that
is better than any company could afford to produce. The result of
Linux being free is that it has good technology due to collaboration,
and it is good for individuals to use and learn on.
<P>
Despite his desire for free software, he does not believe Open Source
Software (OSS) should be the only way to license software. In his
opinion, OSS is good for "black and white" technical issues or
infrastructure.
<P>
It took two-and-a-half years between versions 2.0.0 and 2.2.0 of the
kernel, but still there are criticisms that Linux releases too often,
because of the 36 sub-releases of 2.0. Linus said that since the
kernel developers mostly compile the kernel, other things that break
get found by non-kernel developers. Releasing often allows these things
to be found early. Within the first two weeks of the 2.2 release,
there are already two patches. He went on to say that if what you have
is working for you and there is no obvious reason to upgrade kernels,
then don't.
<P>
Linus' wish list for future kernels:
<P>
1. parallel processing improvements (this seems to be a favorite
topic for him. One of the major improvements from 2.0 to 2.2 is in the
SMP capabilities),
<P>
2. a journaled file system [not because he thinks it is good, but
there have been many requests], and
<P>
3. improvements for clustering (again parallelism).
<P>
In response to a question about porting Linux to PA-RISC, he said that
a partial port has been done and appears to work, but there is not a
lot of demand from end users. (It was unclear to me whether he was
referring to the MkLinux port reported in Linux Journal #44 (see
http://www.ssc.com/lj/issue44/2355.html), or some other work.)
<P>
When asked about types of programs for which kernel optimizations are
considered, he mentioned that web applications (which spend 90% of
their time in kernel-land), benefit far more than compilers, for
example, which spend very little time in the kernel.
<P>
When asked what H-P could do to help Linux: "H-P can release specs."
and "...stay away from legal problems with employees releasing under
the GPL [on their own]."
<P>
Quotes from this talk:
<P>
"Operating systems shouldn't be as exciting as they [currently] are."
<P>
"2.2 doesn't do everything. It does everything you'd want to do."
<P>
"Set up a skunk works to develop a journaling file system within H-P. I
dare you."
<P>
Talking about the increasing complexity of kernel code management:
"[the] system is so complete that it is harder to add new features."
<P>
And, about how some companies deal with the GPL: "...more lawyers than
engineers...a dark and awful place."
<P>
<H4><font color="maroon">Bob Young, Red Hat</font></H4>
<P>
To make sure we remembered who he was, Bob Young set his red hat on the
lectern at the beginning of his talk. He was also wearing red socks.
Red must have become his favorite color. He had no slides saying that
he saved such multimedia presentations for non-technicals<6C>-like venture
capitalists. Red Hat currently consists of about 100 engineers and
marketing people in the hills of North Carolina where, according to
Bob, salaries are low.
<P>
Bob made an analogy where he compared a "car" to a brand of car, and
Linux to a brand of Linux, Red Hat. He considers Linux to consist of
the kernel (the engine) and all the other programs, shells, and
utilities that make it useful. He said that, although you could build
your own car, we "usually" rely on a car maker to put all the parts
together for us. So, in this way, we "usually" rely on Red Hat,
Caldera, Debian, SUSe, etc. to assemble a useful distribution of Linux.
<P>
Bob's background was in leasing computers to large companies. In those
days, once a company bought into a computer vendor's product, they were
pretty much stuck with them, because one vendor's machines didn't work
with any other's. He noticed that these companies didn't like that
their second computers would cost much more than their first ones.
This amounted to a loss of control in that the companies, once they had
decided on a particular vendor's systems, were more or less stuck with
them, unless they wanted to spend a lot of money and effort switching
over completely to another vendor. The PC answered this loss of
control by allowing companies to pick and choose PC components that all
interoperated, mostly. Linux does for computer software what PCs did
for hardware. Linux was intended to be Unix-like, differentiated by
its licensing scheme. It has given control to the user that is not
available from commercial OS vendors, including non-Unix flavors.
<P>
Red Hat started with FreeBSD (other free OS) while Caldera was pushing
Linux. Bob wondered why Linux was getting to be so popular. When he
found out why, he was waiting for some alternative hardware company
like Next or Be to pick up on Linux. They didn't, so he did.
<P>
Bob said that Linux benefitted from Linus' relative isolation in
Finland. If there had been a group of locals form as the main
contributors, then any distant help over the internet would be more
likely to be shut out, because the remote person wouldn't be there to
discuss and defend ideas. With everyone having to work over the
internet because of the distance, all ideas had equal chance. Having
developed a way to work over the internet also encouraged a broader
cooperative base.
<P>
He also explained that there are two types of programmers: those that
write company-internal applications, and those that write commercial
software; the latter are more likely to be Linux contributors, because
of their mindset toward the end product, i.e., users versus sellers.
He used an example to explain why cooperatively developed software is
more likely to be better software than commercial software. Imagine a
radio astronomer has an idea for software to help point his radio dish.
He could develop it in isolation, then try to market it to the "three
other" radio astronomers that might be interested in it. He would also
be the only one to support it and fix any bugs found in it by the
customer-users. The other way he could do it is to involve the others
from the start in the development of the software. Bob's argument is
that the software that would result from this collaborative effort
would be better than what the commercial model would produce. Also,
any bugs could be fixed by more people, and thus would be fixed faster.
Bob calls this arrangement a "meritocracy". Linux benefits from being
a meritocracy because the contributors do their work for the benefit of
the code they themselves want to use. They also get credit among the
development community.
<P>
Periodically, the Unix community undergoes unification, but between
these times you see mostly division due to proprietary development from
each of the vendors. When asked about the other Linux distributors,
and the danger of the same divisions happening among them, Bob pointed
out the expense of code forking. If one of the vendors forks the code,
they then become the only ones who can maintain the code, which he
believes would be very expensive. He estimates that code maintenance
represents about 90% of the cost for a traditional commercial software
vendor. Red Hat wants their developments to be adopted by Linus. In
this way, Bob views all of the Linux distributors as partners.
<P>
Red Hat doesn't want to be in the shrink-wrap distribution business.
They would rather make their money from support. Bob pointed out,
though, that the harder they try to get out of that business, the more
shrink-wrap they sell. Now they are quite a large software
manufacturer.
<P>
Quotes from the talk:
<P>
"DOS is not an operating system; it is a bad collection of device
drivers."
<P>
Question from the audience: "Is the browser part of the operating
system?"--big laughs
<P>
<H4><font color="maroon">The Rest of the Day . . .</font></H4>
<P>
In the afternoon session, a dozen presenters from within H-P spoke
about Linux in their current projects or products. This is all pretty
new stuff so I am not allowed to write about it in detail. However, I
can give some general information about the areas in which Linux is
finding place. This covers the spectrum from internal use only, to
embedded Linux in full commercial products.
<P>
In the area of EDA (Electronic Design Automation) software H-P obtains
some tools from EDA vendors, while other tools are written internally.
One participant spoke about several internal EDA tools that had been
ported to Linux.
<P>
Another story of porting internally written software to Linux was from
a division that produces a commercial IC tester. Wanting to take
advantage of the Intel platform, they had to decide between Linux and
NT and found that the Linux port was much simpler and less expensive.
Also, by purchasing a handful of proprietary libraries, they were able
to make the user interface on the new platform appear the same as on
the old.
<P>
Another couple of speakers shared their groups' use of embedded Linux
in the rapid prototyping of products; one in the area of networked
peripheral control, and the other in the area of telecommunications
measurement.
<P>
There were also some strictly software products that have been or will
soon be ported to Linux for general availability, including OpenMail,
H-P Web JetAdmin, and Firehunter ISP management software (see
http://www.hp.com for more information).
<P>
Finally, there is a group at H-P Labs porting Linux to IA-64. They
demonstrated an emulator that can run the 64-bit code on a P133. A
talk and paper will be given at Linux Expo in May.
<P>
One of the most important things I learned by attending Linux Day is
that there is a lot of interest in Linux within H-P.
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1999, Paul R. Woods <BR>
Published in Issue 39 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, April 1999</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>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><FONT SIZE=4><B>Linux
Primer Series Part 8</B></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><FONT SIZE=4><B>Advanced
Network Services version 03.30.1999</B></FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>Copyright
&copy;1998, 1999 Ron Jenkins. All rights reserved.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>I
welcome your suggestions, corrections, criticisms, and comments. I
may be reached at the following address - <A HREF="mailto:rjenkins62@netscape.net">rjenkins62@netscape.net</A>
.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>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.</FONT></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">You may have noticed that my e mail
address has changed again. My ISP has decided to move to metered
access, just as my last one did. This seems to be a growing trend,
at least here in the Midwest.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">To eliminate the need for constantly
changing this stuff, I have acquired an account @ Netscape, which
will remain constant, regardless of ISP changes.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">As soon as I can afford it, or can
find a place to house my webpages, I will post it here.
Unfortunately, I will be unable to have the updates and enhancements
to my column on-line until then.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Before I get a flood of &quot;Get a
Geocities page&quot; messages, let me just say that I have
requirements that Geocities is unwilling to supply.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">The qni.com address will still be
functional for a couple of months, to make the transition as smooth
as possible.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><B>Operating Systems
Covered/Supported: </B>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><B>Slackware version 3.6 </B>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><B>RedHat version 5.1 </B>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><B>Windows NT Server version 4.0 </B>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><B>Windows NT Workstation version
4.0 </B>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><B>I only test my columns on the
operating systems specified. I don't have access to a MAC, I don't
use Windows 95, and have no plans to use Windows 98.</B></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><B>If someone would care to provide
equivalent instructions for any of the above operating systems, I
will be happy to include them in my documents. </B>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><B>Advanced Network Services:</B></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">This month, we will be examining
some advanced services that you may or may not want to use on your
home network.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">In particular, we will be looking at
some options for streamlining the connection scripts, executing
demand dialing, and time synchronization issues.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">In this month's column, we will be
looking at the following areas of interest:</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Customization options for the
connect scripts</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Time Synchronization</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Demand Dialing</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">As always, I will include ant
distribution specific information as necessary. Unless indicated
otherwise, the information will apply equally to both distributions.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><B>Customization options for the
connect scripts:</B></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">I can't stress enough the importance
of assuring that your PPP software is version 2.3 or above. It is
the added functionality that this software contains that make the
following things possible.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">With version 2.3 or greater, here
are some of the things we can do right from the script, rather than
having to run ancillary programs to accomplish similar functions.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Auto-reconnect - This option is
enabled using the keyword &quot;persist&quot; in the connect script.
This eliminates the need for the pppupd software we have been using.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Demand Dialing - This option is
enabled using the keyword &quot;demand&quot; in the connect script.
This eliminates the need for a third party program, such as diald.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Therefore, a new revised script
taking advantage of these options would look something like this:</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Begin connect script example -</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">#!/bin/sh</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">pppd connect \</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">'chat -v -f /path/to/chat/script'
/dev/cua1 115200 -detach crtscts modem \</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">-proxyarp defaultroute demand
persist &amp;</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">End connect script example -</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Note that no changes are required to
your chat script, as this just handles the initial terminal login,
then hands off to the PPP daemon.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Also, if your ISP's interpretation
of the phrase &quot;Unlimited Usage&quot; is like mine, you will be
limited to 10 to 12 hours per day. I would strongly suggest that if
this is the case, then consider moving to another ISP.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">If you choose to stay, the demand
dialing function will be required, unless you want to connect
manually each time, or if you have a regular period of time during
which you use the Internet, you may want to write a cron job to take
care of connecting and disconnecting.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">For instance, say you connect from
8:00 a.m. To 8:00 p.m. every day, and wish to automate the procedure.
You would simply open your crontab file with the command &quot;crontab
-e&quot; and enter the following two lines:</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">0 8 * *
* /path/to/your/connect/script</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">0 20 * *
* /path/to/your/ppp-off/script</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">or staying with our examples we have
been using:</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">0 8 * * * /sbin/unicom</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">0 20 * * * /usr/sbin/ppp-off</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><B>Time Synchronization:</B></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Although we don't often think about
it, time is very important to the proper operation of computers and
programs.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Y2K issues aside, many services on
your network or individual systems depend on an accurate measurement
of time.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">UNIX and Linux in particular are
very picky about time discrepancies, and tend to do nasty things to
your processes and data if two machines disagree about the time.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Briefly, there are two methods of
acquiring an accurate measurement of time:</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">From an internal device (such as
your CMOS clock,) or from an external source, such as a time server
or frequency standard.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">This will be old hat to those of you
who come from an amateur radio background, but the government has
just such a source available, and several different options for
availing yourself of its use.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Your internal CMOS clock is
unreliable, and dependent upon a constant power source. So in this
area we will concentrate on synchronizing our machines, and our
network to an external source.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">The &quot;absolute standard&quot;
for time is an atomic clock housed at the National Institutes of
Standards and Technology (NIST) in Fort Collins, Colorado.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">There are many ways to use this
standard to synchronize your network, ranging from Radio Frequency
receivers to modem dial up connections, to Global Positioning
Satellites (GPS.)</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Here we will concentrate on using
the Internet to accomplish this synchronization.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">The de facto standard for this
purpose is something called the Network Time Protocol, or NTP. Some
systems, particularly RedHat based systems, often come with ntp or
xntp pre-installed. Check the documentation and man pages for more
information.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">If you are using a Slackware based
machine, you will have a utility called netdate that will serve the
same function. You can initiate netdate manually, trough a script,
or from a cron job. Check the man page for more details.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Either system will require you to
specify one or more time servers from which accurate data can be
obtained.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Time Servers are machines that
collect and dispense accurate time data. They are organized in to
&quot;stratums&quot; with the lower numbers being the more accurate.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Stratum one servers are usually
servers that have some sort of direct logical connection to the
atomic clock, either by radio satellite or modem, and an accurate
external device to make this connection.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Stratum two servers acquire data
from the stratum one machines, and pass it along to other stratum two
machines, or peers, and down to stratum three machines, and so on.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">For most home applications, and
business applications that do not require a &quot;real time clock,&quot;
stratum two servers are more than adequate for your needs.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">For a list of time servers, as well
as the ntp software, see the resources section.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><B>Demand Dialing:</B></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">If you have followed the above
instructions, then this should be a moot point. If you cannot or
will not upgrade your PPP software to 2.3 or above, you will need to
use diald or something similar to initiate the demand dialing
function.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">Configuration of diald or one of the
other programs is beyond the scope of this document. Check your
preferred program documentation and man pages for more information.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">If enough people express interest, I
will devote a column specifically to this subject in the future.</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><B>Next month, we will conquer Print
Services. See 'ya then!</B></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><B>References:</B></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">PPP HOW-TO</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">pppd man pages</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">netdate man pages</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><B>Resources:</B></P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm">http://www.nist.gov/</P>
<P STYLE="margin-bottom: 0.00cm"><BR>
</P>
<P> <HR> <P>
<center><H4>Previous ``Linux Installation Primer'' Columns</H4></center>
<p>
<A HREF="../issue32/jenkins1.html">Linux Installation Primer #1, September
1998</A><BR>
<A HREF="../issue33/jenkins2.html">Linux Installation Primer #2, October
1998</A><BR>
<A HREF="../issue34/jenkins3.html">Linux Installation Primer #3, November
1998</A><BR>
<A HREF="../issue35/jenkins4.html">Linux Installation Primer #4, December
1998</A><BR>
<A HREF="../issue36/jenkins5.html">Linux Installation Primer #5, January
1999</A><BR>
<A HREF="../issue37/jenkins6.html">Linux Installation Primer #6, February
1999</A><BR>
<A HREF="../issue38/jenkins7.html">Linux Installation Primer #7, March
1999</A><BR>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1999, Ron Jenkins <BR>
Published in Issue 39 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, April 1999</H5></center>
<!--===================================================================-->
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<!--===================================================================-->
<font color="navy">A <I>Linux Journal</I> Preview</font>:
This article will appear in the May 1999 issue of <I>Linux
Journal</I>.
<P> <HR> <P>
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">LinuxWorld Conference & Expo</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com"></a>Marjorie Richardson</H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<A HREF="./photos.html">Photo Album</A>
<P>
Back home from LinuxWorld, the first Linux conference held on the West
Coast, I am finding it difficult to concentrate and get back in the normal
groove. I spent a remarkable two days, March 2 and 3, in the San Jose
Convention Center and everyone who didn't go has been dropping by to find out
about it. This was a major conference with more than just the usual
suspects in attendance, and everyone had a big announcement.
<p>
Over 6,000 people
turned out to join in the excitement. Described by one attendee as
``heady stuff'', I can't think of a better way to describe it.
The attendance by the big-name vendors is a sure sign that Linux has made the
big leagues. When introducing Dr. Michael Cowpland's keynote speech,
Jon ``maddog'' Hall described this conference as Linux's ``coming out'' or ``sweet
16''
party, with the business community embracing the Linux community and Linux
embracing business--``Welcome to the world of Linux!'' he said.
<p>
Dr. Cowpland gave an articulate speech, focusing on the ways Corel is
using Linux now and in the future. While I was a bit surprised to learn the first
keynote was a company presentation,
it certainly gave a clear picture of how big business perceives Linux as an
excellent opportunity for promoting growth and profit. Dr. Cowpland said again
that Corel would be porting all their products to Linux and continuing to
support the WINE project. His presentation of the Quattro Pro spreadsheet
program running on WINE was quite impressive--fast and quite attractive.
He announced WordPerfect Office 2000, stressing their goal of ``value, performance
and compatibility'', and a Corel distribution which will
combine the best features from each of the current distributions and be ready
for release in the fall. He predicted that by the end of the year, we will be
able to buy high-performance computers, such as Gateway, for $600 to $800,
preloaded with Linux. Sounds good to me.
<p>
Linus gave a well-received keynote address and participated on a panel discussion
of ``The Continuing Revolution'',
moderated by Eric Raymond. He also showed up at the Compaq booth with Jon Hall
for fans to visit, take photos and get autographs.
<p>
I attended only one other talk (too much booth duty) and that one was by
Larry Wall (See in this issue). Larry has a casual
speaking style that fits well into this environment. Two quotes I enjoyed
were:
<p>
<blockquote>
Perl does one thing right--it integrates all its features into one
language.
<p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Journalists who give Perl bad press should experience more angst in
their writing.
<p>
</blockquote>
Speaker Dan Quinlan will also be appearing in our pages
soon. Dan is writing a feature article for our June Standards issue.
<p>
I spent a good bit of time talking to various vendors. Here's a bit of what I
found out:
<p>
<ul>
<li> Tripwire Security Systems, Inc.: Tripwire is a file integrity
security system (see ``Tripping up Intruders with Tripwire'' by Kevin Fenzi,
August 1997) that became commercial in January of this year. All 2.<i>x</i>
releases are still freely available and include the basic support of 48-hour
e-mail response. They provide extended support (4-hour response) for a fee.
Biggest additions are Algomol encryption for the database, damage
inventories and e-mail warnings when damaged files are found. I brought back a
Tripwire CD for our system administrator to play with, so expect a review in
a future issue.
<li> GraphOn: This company is promoting their Go-Global thin PC X
server software designed for high-speed access to UNIX/X-based applications
on the server from any desktop. A web site has been established at
http://playpen.graphon.com/, where Windows users can enjoy the experience of
running Linux. Corel, a partner of GraphOn, has embedded the thin-client
software in WordPerfect 8, making it web-enabled.
<li> ICP Vortex: This German-based company has the number one RAID
controller in Europe and they have a fully bootable implementation for Linux.
Drivers for their controller can be found in all major distributions.
Beginning this month, they are shipping a 64-bit PCI-fibre channel RAID
controller, which can also be run in 32-bit slots. ICP is committed to
continuing support of the Linux operating system. One of their big users in
the U.S. is Linux Hardware Solutions, and they have promised us a review of this
excellent RAID device.
<li> Precision Insight: With funding from Red Hat and XGI, this
company is creating an OpenGL 3-D infrastructure within XFree86 servers that
will enable developers to access device drivers which permit access to OpenGL
clients.
<li> Cygnus Solutions: Cygnus Solutions has had an open source
business model since 1989, providing support for open source software. It is
now a member of the Fortune 500. At this show,
they talked to me about the cross-compilers included in their GNUPro Toolkit
for Linux. The Toolkit includes all the popular GNU tools, along with added
features and custom enhancements such as a graphical user interface to the
tools.
<li> IBM demonstrated several of their products that now run on
Linux, including the WebSphere product line, the Andrew File System and the DB2
database system. Also on display was the first commercial, Java-based emulator
for Linux called IBM Host On-Demand. This product provides secure access to
data and applications via a web browser. When I asked how it happened that
IBM was entering the Linux market, the answer was ``user demand''. How about
that--asking for what you want truly works!
<li> Informix: Janet Smith of Informix graciously came by the
<i>Linux Journal</i> booth to visit me while I was on booth duty. Informix has
a very large presence among value added resellers (VARs) and recently
formed an alliance with
Hewlett-Packard to deliver Linux-based Internet solutions through their
Covision program. Informix also announced an alliance with Jones Business
Systems, by which Informix Linux products will be distributed through JBS'
reseller channels. HP was also at the conference to show off OpenMail, but I
didn't get the chance to talk to them.
<li> Stalker Software: Ali Liptrot of Stalker Software also came
by to say ``hi''. When I went by their booth, it was
flooded with traffic to see the demonstrations of their CommuniGate Pro
messaging system.
<li> Appgen Business Software, Inc.: Jim Kelly stopped by to tell
me about their financial software. I had thought financial software
was one place Linux was weak--looks like I was wrong.
</ul>
All the major distributions were there giving away t-shirts and other
goodies, and in general amazing everyone with their new releases. I saw a
beta demonstration of Caldera's next release of OpenLinux which has the
easiest install I've ever seen. They've provided a GUI using QT from Troll
Tech, and it just zips through, probing for mouse and other information,
completing the install without the user having to do a thing. It even provides
a window so you can play Tetris while waiting for the install to complete.
Not having a ``smart'' install is one item many people have said was a major
drawback for Linux--well, now Linux has it. One more reason for not using
Linux has just been blown away.
<p>
While doing booth duty on Wednesday, I got to meet many of our readers and
authors as well as introduce new people to <i>Linux Journal</i>. I had a lot of
fun. We shared our booth space with our publisher SSC, there to promote their
latest book, <i>The Artists' Guide to the GIMP</i> by Michael J. Hammel. Michael was
there and many fans showed up to meet him and have their books signed.
<p>
All in all, it was a great show and IDG is planning a repeat performance in
August. So if you missed it, come and drop by the <i>LJ</i> booth then for a
visit. Heady stuff, indeed!
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1999, Marjorie Richardson <BR>
Published in Issue 39 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, April 1999</H5></center>
<!--===================================================================-->
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<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
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<!--===================================================================-->
<center><font color="maroon"><h1>Books On The Screen</h1>
</font></center>
<center><font color="maroon"><h3>Reading Electronic Texts With XEmacs</h3>
</font></center>
<center>
<h4>by <a href="mailto: layers@marktwain.net">Larry Ayers</a></h4>
</center>
<hr>
<center><font color="maroon"><h3>Introduction</font></h3></center>
<p>During a snowy and windy period this past winter I badly needed something new
to read. None of the plentiful books in the house looked appealing and the
prospect of driving to town for a visit to the library seemed like an awful
lot of trouble, given the poor road conditions caused by drifting snow.
<p>I was vaguely familiar with Project Gutenberg, a cooperative project
intending to make public-domain literary texts freely available in digital
form, but had never obtained any of these electronic books. A quick search
on the net led me to one of the
<a href="http://www.gutenberg.net">Gutenberg web-sites</a>, where I
was surprised to see the extensive listings of novels and other literary
works, all either manually retyped or scanned from print editions by numerous
volunteers. As the wind whistled around the house I tried reading one of
these book-files, interested in determining whether eyestrain would be a
problem.
<center><font color="maroon"><h3>First Impressions</h3></font></center>
<p>The files are available compressed with a zip archiver; when unarchived on
a Linux system those DOS filesystem ^M carriage return symbols terminate each
line. The Info Zip <i>unzip</i> utility will automatically strip them from
the file if the <b>-a</b> switch is given to the command, as in this example:
&nbsp; <b>unzip -a [filename]</b>. This isn't too useful if Emacs' native
jka-compress archive file handler is used (which calls zip and unzip
internally), allowing the file to be automatically uncompressed and
decompressed when it is respectively opened and closed. In this case the
easiest way I've seen for converting DOS-format line-endings to unix-format is
a handy pair of Lisp function which Earl Stutes wrote about in LG #10; I'll
repeat them here:<br>
<pre><kbd>
(defun dos-unix ()
(interactive)
(goto-char (point-min))
(while (search-forward "\r" nil t) (replace-match "")))
(defun unix-dos ()
(interactive)
(goto-char (point-min))
(while (search-forward "\n" nil t) (replace-match "\r\n")))
</kbd>
</pre>
<p>With these two functions inserted in your <b>.emacs</b> file, converting a
file is simply a matter of typing <kbd>M-x dos-unix</kbd>. It could be bound
to a keystroke if you find that you use it often.
<p>Well, now the file is more readable but there are other issues which make
reading an entire book awkward. It's a pain to find your place in the file
between reading sessions; it would also be convenient to be able to load the
file without needing to type in the complete path. Two XEmacs modes can be a
great help.
<center><font color="maroon"><h3>Helpful Modes</h3></font></center>
<p>The obvious method of saving your place is an analog to a bookmark in a
hard-copy book, the Emacs bookmark facility. Bookmarking doesn't
automatically update, a deficiency which Karl Hegbloom's Where-Was-I database
corrects. This mode is toggled on for individual files, since with many files
your &quot;place&quot; isn't important. The mode is toggled by typing <kbd>
M-x tog[TAB] wh[TAB]</kbd>. The tab key is used to automatically complete the
expression; it's quicker to type than the full form, <kbd>M-x toggle
where-was-i.</kbd> Once the mode is activated closing or killing a file saves
the point position in a binary database in your root directory. Open the file
later and there is the cursor, just where you left off reading. This is
especially handy with book-length files, many of which are over a megabyte in
size. Hegbloom's package is included in recent versions of XEmacs; in the
current betas which use the new package system it is part of the edit-utils
package.
<p>The other XEmacs mode which I recommend for general use as well as for
reading books is Juergen Nickelsen's recent-files.el, also included with
XEmacs and in the edit-utils package. This ingenious mode is activated by
inserting these lines in your .emacs file:<br>
<pre><kbd>
(load "recent-files")
(recent-files-initialize)
</kbd></pre>
<p>This mode maintains a new menu in the menu-bar with two submenus. The
first submenu is a list of the past several files you have loaded into XEmacs; these
entries gradually get superseded by newer ones. The other one can contain
entries which are permanent. The permanent files are those which you often
edit, perhaps certain configuration files or a journal. There are also
options on the menu to make a temporary listing permanent or vice-versa.
<p>With both of these excellent modes in action XEmacs' transition to a
comfortable displayer of books is nearly complete. One last possibility is to
use a TrueType proportional font along with a server such as xfstt; I find
these fonts to be easier on the eyes for passive reading.
<p>Another helpful mode is one of the several available dictionary modes which I
discussed in LG #34. I've noticed that I'm more likely to look up an
unfamiliar word in an on-line than in a paper dictionary. One keystroke to
look up a word is certainly convenient.
<center><font color="maroon"><h3>Conclusion</h3></font></center>
<p>Until the quality of computer displays improves significantly, reading text
on paper will still be preferable for protracted reading sessions. Still,
I've enjoyed reading several of the Gutenberg texts, many of which it had
never occurred to me to seek out in a library. The ability to cut and paste
from a book can be useful --plus you can correct typos!
<hr>
<!-- hhmts start -->
Last modified: Sun Mar 28 18:18:26 CST 1999
<!-- hhmts end -->
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1999, Larry Ayers <BR>
Published in Issue 39 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, April 1999</H5></center>
<!--===================================================================-->
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<center><font color="maroon"><h1>A Remembrance of Text Past</h1>
</font></center>
<center><font color="maroon">
<h3>The Remembrance Agent As An Aid To Writers</h3>
</font>
</center>
<center>
<h4><a href="mailto: layers@marktwain.net">by Larry Ayers</a></h4>
</center>
<hr>
<center><font color="maroon"><h3>Introduction</font></h3></center>
<p>In 1930 a writer named C.E. Montague offered this speculative view of
one aspect of the writer's craft:
<blockquote>
So, to a writer happily engaged on his work and excited by it, there may come
a curious extension of his ordinary faculties; he will find portions of
knowledge floating back into his brain, available for use, which he had
supposed to be thrown away long ago on the rubbish-heap outside the back door
of his mind; relevant passages will quote themselves to his mind from books he
scarcely remembers to have ever read; and he suddenly sees germane connections
where in his ordinary state of mind he would see nothing. The field of
consciousness has expanded again. People of strong social instinct often
derive the same experience from animated conversation; the exercise of their
own vivacity stirs latent powers of apprehension in them; the area upon which
they are able to draw for those piquant incongruities, which are the chief
material of wit, is for the moment widened; the field of comic consciousness
is enlarged.
</blockquote>
<p>Excerpted from
<cite> A Writer's Notes On His Trade, by C.E. Montague</cite>
<p>In Mr. Montague's day a writer had to rely on good memory and serendipity,
then hope for the best. The advent of the personal computer has provided
writers with new methods of recalling previously read texts which pertain to a
work-in-progress. After all, the pleasant state of being &quot;happily
engaged ... and excited&quot; is unpredictable and difficult to summon at
will.
One function of a computer is to act as an extension of human memory. The
serendipity of chance thoughts and ideas is missing, but searching and indexing
along with regular expressions can add a new dimension to the retrieval of
information.
<p>Scott Rosenberg, in a recent issue of the on-line magazine Salon, wrote
about a variety of PIM software which he and his readers have used to organize
personal notes and random saved text. (The article is available
<a href="http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/rose/1999/03/23straight.html">here.</a>)
Rosenberg writes that several popular pieces of organizing software have
been orphaned by their parent companies (always a risk when using proprietary
programs), leaving users in the unfortunate position of depending on
unmaintained and static software. At the end of the article, after discussing
the pros and cons of various organizing methods, he mentions that several
free-software users had e-mailed him descriptions of how Emacs can be used to
simplify access to collections of textual information, which brings me to the
subject of this article, a system written by Bradley Rhodes and several
undergraduate students at MIT.
<hr>
<center><font color="maroon"><h3>The Remembrance Agent</h3>
</font></center>
<p>Imagine typing an essay or letter with an attentive and devoted servant
peering over your shoulder. Imagine as well that convenient to this servant's
reach is a well-ordered filing cabinet containing reams of documents which
concern your various interests. This servant's sole duty is to notice the
subject matter of the sentence you are typing, then to rapidly find all
documents which contain any mention of that subject and array them upon a
table convenient to your occasional glance.
<p>Aside from the distraction caused by this bustling servant hovering about,
the above fantasy is unlikely; no-one is as patient and nimble-fingered as
this servant would need to be. The Remembrance Agent is a software system
which in effect acts as this superhuman servant. It is composed of the
following components:
<ul>
<li>A compiled C program, <i>ra-index</i>, which constructs an indexed
binary database of the text files in a directory
<li>Another executable, <i>ra-retrieve</i>, which will find documents
matching keywords in the text being currently typed
<li>An Emacs-Lisp file, <i>remem.el</i>, which provides an Emacs or XEmacs
interface to the first two utilities
<li>Another Lisp file, <i>remem-custom.el</i>, which allows a user to easily
customize the directories to be searched, the default screen colors, and
the time intervals between searchs.
</ul>
<p>The ra-index program is the core of the system. It is run with this
syntax:<br>
<pre><kbd>
ra-index [-v] &lt;base-dir&gt; &lt;source1&gt; [&lt;source2&gt;] ...
[-e &lt;excludee1&gt; [&lt;excludee2&gt;] ...]
</kbd></pre>
<p>The &quot;basedir&quot; in the command is by default a subdirectory
of<kbd>~/RA-indexes</kbd>, while &quot;source1&quot;, etc. can be either
individual files or entire directories. The files can be saved e-mail messages
or news-group postings, HTML files, or any other ASCII text files. The
optional &quot;excludees&quot; are subdirectories which ra-index will ignore.
<p>The &nbsp;<kbd>-v</kbd>&nbsp; switch at the beginning of the command turns
on verbose mode, letting you see just what the program is doing. The result
is a binary database of keywords along with some index files. As an example I
ran the command on a directory containing all of the back-issues of the
Gazette. Afterwards a listing of the contents of
<kbd>~/RA-indexes/linux_gazette</kbd> looked like this:<br>
<pre><kbd>
-rw-r--r-- 1 liatris liatris 41796 Mar 27 13:12 doclens
-rw-r--r-- 1 liatris liatris 34894 Mar 27 13:12 doclocs
-rw-r--r-- 1 liatris liatris 23220 Mar 27 13:12 doclocs_offs
-rw-r--r-- 1 liatris liatris 60270 Mar 27 13:12 titles
-rw-r--r-- 1 liatris liatris 4644 Mar 27 13:12 titles_offs
-rw-r--r-- 1 liatris liatris 2794112 Mar 27 13:12 wordvecs
-rw-r--r-- 1 liatris liatris 571152 Mar 27 13:12 wvoffs
</kbd></pre>
<p>As a rough idea of the relation of database to source, the directory listed
above occupies three and one-half mb., while the LG back-issue directory is
nearly forty mb.; in this case at least the database is nearly nine percent as
large as the source.
<p>Ra-index deals intelligently with several common file formats. Headers of
e-mail and usenet messages are ignored as well as the tags in HTML files.
<p>The corresponding retrieval program, ra-retrieve, is normally run by the
Emacs front-end to Remembrance Agent. Typing <b>C-c r r</b> in an Emacs
session activates RA; a new Agent window appears and the database is searched
for matches to a configurable number of words surrounding the point position
in the file being edited.
<p>Here is a screenshot which shows the Agent in action; this HTML file is
being edited in XEmacs, with the RA window showing files in a directory
containing past issues of LG:<br>
<p><img alt="Agent and XEmacs" src="./gx/ayers/remembrance.gif">
<p>Each file shown contains one or more keywords which match a word within
three hundred characters of the cursor position in the file being edited. The
number in the leftmost field can be selected with the mouse and that file will
be loaded in the main editing window; the decimal fractions in the next field
are the file's &quot;score&quot;, with 1.00 the high end of the range.
Clicking the right mouse button on a file's line in the RA window will enable
the user to see (in a small pop-up box) what keywords relate the file to the
file in the main window. Every few seconds the listings in the RA window are
updated to correspond to what is currently being written. Depending on typing
speed this update interval can be a configurable number of seconds.
<hr>
<center><font color="maroon"><h3>Installing RA</h3></font></center>
<p>After the two executables have been compiled and moved to
<kbd>/usr/local/bin</kbd> or another binary directory, installation consists
of copying the two Lisp files to a location Emacs knows about, such as a
site-lisp directory. Then the <kbd>remem-custom.el</kbd> file needs to be
edited. In this file are options which set the location of the two
executables, databases to be searched, and font-lock highlighting colors.
The last step is insertion of these lines in your .emacs file:<br>
<kbd><pre>
(load "remem.el")
(load "remem-custom.el")
</pre></kbd>
<p>Before starting Emacs (after RA is installed) thought needs to be given to
choosing files and directories to be indexed. Too many files will result in
bulky databases and slower searches. I tried indexing some old mailbox files
and discovered that I save too many messages.
It all depends on the type of writing and subject matter planned. Run
ra-index on some varied material, creating several subdirectories in
<kbd>~/RA-indexes</kbd>, and try them separately, editing the remem-custom.el
in order to let the Emacs interface know which database to use.
<hr>
<center><font color="maroon"><h3>Conclusion</h3></font></center>
<p>It takes some practice to be able to use RA effectively. At first the
periodically-refreshed Agent window is distracting; I'd find myself wondering
just what connection a retrieved filename had to what I was writing and lose
my train of thought while investigating. One technique is to toggle RA off
when actively writing (the <b>C-c rr</b> command both starts and stops RA),
then toggle it back on while reviewing newly-typed material. Choosing
appropriate files to index makes a big difference in RA's usefulness and this
takes experimentation as well.
<p>I noticed some problems (mainly with the mouse) when running RA under
XEmacs. The current version (2.01) is the first to support XEmacs at all, so
possibly future releases will fix the aberrant behavior. Under GNU Emacs the
package is well-behaved. The documentation at this point is minimal but
adequate; enough is supplied to install and configure the package but little
explanation of internals and advanced usage, though the source is
well-commented.
<p>Aside from these minor complaints, the Remembrance Agent is that <i>rara
avis</i> in the software world, a software package which truly breaks new
ground. The concept is innovative enough to explain why using RA is rather
disconcerting at first and requires some user adaptation. Normal user-level software
responds to a command, then quiescently waits for the next one. RA resembles
a daemon process which goes about its work in the background, but daemons
don't display the fruits of this activity in an editor window!
<p>If you would like to give the Remembrance Agent a try, the current version
is available from the
<a href="http://www.media.mit.edu/~rhodes/RA/">RA home web-site.</a>
<hr>
<!-- hhmts start -->
Last modified: Sun Mar 28 10:26:43 CST 1999
<!-- hhmts end -->
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1999, Larry Ayers <BR>
Published in Issue 39 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, April 1999</H5></center>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
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<P> <hr> <P>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
<BR>
<HR>
<BR>&nbsp;
<CENTER>
<H1>
<FONT COLOR="#800000">The Standard C Library for Linux</FONT></H1></CENTER>
<CENTER>
<H3>
<FONT COLOR="#000080">Part Five: &lt;stdlib.h> Miscellaneous Functions</FONT></H3></CENTER>
<CENTER>
<H4>
By <A HREF="mailto:jrogers@u.washington.edu">James M. Rogers</A></H4></CENTER>
<HR>
<P>The last article was on &lt;ctype.h> character handling.&nbsp; This
article is on &lt;stdlib.h> which contains many small sections: integer
math, sorting and searching, random numbers, string to number conversions,
multibyte character conversions, memory allocation and environmental functions.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Because this library contains so many small&nbsp; yet very important sections
I want to discuss each of these groups in its own section.&nbsp; An example
will be given in each section below because these functions are too diverse
to have a single example for all of them.
<P>I am assuming a knowledge of c programming on the part of the reader.&nbsp;
There is no guarantee of accuracy in any of this information nor suitability
for any purpose.
<P>As always, if you see an error in my documentation please tell me and
I will correct myself in a later document.&nbsp; See corrections at end
of the document to review corrections to the previous articles.
<P><B><FONT SIZE=+1>Integer Math</FONT></B>
<UL><TT>#include &lt;stdlib.h></TT>
<P><TT>int&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; abs(int x);</TT>
<BR><TT>div_t&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; div(int numerator, int denominator);</TT>
<BR><TT>long int labs(long int x);</TT>
<BR><TT>ldiv_t&nbsp;&nbsp; ldiv(long int numerator, long int denominator);</TT></UL>
<TT>int x</TT>
<BR><TT>int numerator</TT>
<BR><TT>int denominator</TT>
<BR><TT>The long int versions are the same as the three int arguments.</TT>
<P><TT>abs</TT> returns the absolute value of the argument.
<BR><TT>div</TT> returns a data structure that contains both the quotient
and remainder.
<BR><TT>labs</TT> is the long version of the abs function.
<BR><TT>ldiv</TT> is the long version of the div function.
<P>Integer math is math using whole numbers.&nbsp; No fractions.&nbsp;
This is math from the fourth grade.&nbsp; If you remember the numerator
is divided by the denominator and the answer is the quotient with the left
over stuff being the remainder then you have got it.&nbsp; The div_t and
ldiv_t are structures that hold the quotient and the remainder.&nbsp; These
structures look like this:
<P><TT>struct div_t {</TT>
<BR><TT>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; int quot;</TT>
<BR><TT>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; int rem;</TT>
<BR><TT>}</TT><TT></TT>
<P><TT>struct ldiv_t {</TT>
<BR><TT>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; long int quot;</TT>
<BR><TT>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; long int rem;</TT>
<BR><TT>}</TT>
<P>These types are already defined for you in the &lt;stdlib.h> library.&nbsp;
The <A HREF="rogers_example05a.c">example file</A> shows a few ways to
use these four functions.
<P><B><FONT SIZE=+1>String to Number Conversions</FONT></B>
<UL><TT>#include &lt;stdlib.h></TT>
<P><TT>double&nbsp;&nbsp; atof(const char *string);</TT>
<BR><TT>int&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; atoi(const char *string);</TT>
<BR><TT>long int atol(const char *string);</TT>
<BR><TT>double&nbsp;&nbsp; strtod(const char *string, char **endptr);</TT>
<BR><TT>long int strtol(const char *string, char **endptr, int base);</TT>
<BR><TT>unsigned long int strtoul(const char *string, char **endptr, int
base);</TT></UL>
<TT>const char *string</TT>
<BR><TT>char **endptr</TT>
<BR><TT>int base</TT>
<P><TT>atof</TT> is acsii to float conversion.
<BR><TT>atoi</TT> is ascii to integer conversion.
<BR><TT>atol</TT> is acsii to long conversion.
<BR><TT>strtod</TT> is string to double conversion.
<BR><TT>strtol </TT>is string to long and the string can contain numbers
in bases other than base 10.
<BR><TT>strtoul</TT> is the same as strtol, except that it returns an unsigned
long.
<P>If you are reading in a number from user input then you will need to
use these routines to convert from the digits '1' '2' '3' to the number
123.&nbsp; The easiest way to convert the other way, from a number to a
string,&nbsp; is to use the sprintf() function.
<P>The <A HREF="rogers_example05b.c">example program</A> is just a sample
of use of each of the above commands.
<P><B><FONT SIZE=+1>Searching and Sorting</FONT></B>
<UL><TT>#include &lt;stdlib.h></TT>
<P><TT>void qsort(void *base, size_t num_of_objs, size_t size_of_obj, int
(*compar)(const void *, const void *));</TT>
<BR><TT>void bsearch(const void *key, void *base, size_t num_of_objs, size_t
size_of_obj, int (*compar)(const void *, const void *));</TT></UL>
<TT>void *base</TT>
<BR><TT>size_t num_of_objs</TT>
<BR><TT>size_t size_of_obj</TT>
<BR><TT>const void *</TT>
<BR><TT>const void *key</TT>
<P><TT>qsort</TT> will sort the array of strings using a comparison function
that you write yourself.
<BR><TT>bsearch </TT>will search the sorted array using a comparison function
that you write yourself.
<P>You do not need to write your own sorting routines yourself.&nbsp; Through
the use of these functions you can sort and search through memory arrays.
<P>It is important to realize that you must sort an array before you can
search it because of the search method used.
<P>In order to generate the information to have something to sort I combined
<A HREF="rogers_example05c.c">this
example</A> with the random number generation.&nbsp; I initialize a string
array with a series of random numbers and then sort it.&nbsp; I then look
to see if the string 1000 is in the table.&nbsp; I finally print out the
sorted array.
<P><B><FONT SIZE=+1>Memory Allocation</FONT></B>
<UL><TT>#include &lt;stdlib.h></TT>
<P><TT>void *calloc(size_t num_of_objs, size_t size_of_objs);</TT>
<BR><TT>void free(void *pointer_to_obj);</TT>
<BR><TT>void *malloc(size_t size_of_object);</TT>
<BR><TT>void *realloc(void *pointer_to_obj, size_t size_of_obj);</TT></UL>
<TT>size_t num_of_objs</TT>
<BR><TT>size_t size_of_objs</TT>
<BR><TT>void *pointer_to_obj</TT>
<P><TT>free </TT>will free the specified memory that was previously allocated.&nbsp;
You will core dump if you try to free memory twice.
<BR><TT>malloc</TT> will allocate the specified number of bytes and return
a pointer to the memory.
<BR><TT>calloc </TT>will allocate the array and return a pointer to the
array.
<BR><TT>realloc</TT> allows you to change the size of a memory area "on-the-fly".&nbsp;
You can shrink and grow the memory as you need, be aware that trying to
access memory beyond what you have allocated will cause a core dump.
<P>Runtime memory allocation allows you to write a program that only uses
the memory that is needed for that program run.&nbsp; No need to change
a value and recompile if you ask for the memory at runtime.&nbsp; Also
no need to setup arrays to the maximum possible size when the average run
is a fraction the size of the maximum.
<P>The danger of using memory this way is that in complex programs it is
easy to forget to free memory when you are done with it.&nbsp; These "memory
leaks" will eventually cause your program to use all available memory on
a system and cause a dump.&nbsp; It is also important to not assume that
a memory allocation will always work.&nbsp;&nbsp; Attempting to use a pointer
to a memory location that your program doesn't own will cause a core dump.&nbsp;
A more serious problem is when a pointer is overwriting your own programs
memory.&nbsp; This will cause your program to work very erratically and
will be hard to pinpoint the exact problem.
<P>I had to write two different examples to demonstrate all the diversity
of these functions.&nbsp; In order to actually demonstrate their use I
had to actually program something halfway useful.
<P>The <A HREF="rogers_example05d.c">first example</A> is a stack program
that allocates and deallocates the memory as you push and pop values from
the stack.
<P>The <A HREF="rogers_example05e.c">second example</A> reads any file
into the computers memory, reallocating the memory as it goes.&nbsp; I
left debug statements in the&nbsp; second program so that you can see that
the memory is only reallocated when the program needs more memory.
<P><B><FONT SIZE=+1>Environmental</FONT></B>
<UL><TT>#include &lt;stdlib.h></TT>
<P><TT>void abort ( void );</TT>
<BR><TT>int atexit ( void ( *func )( void ) );</TT>
<BR><TT>void exit ( int status);</TT>
<BR><TT>char *getenv( const char *string);</TT>
<BR><TT>int setenv ( const char *name, const char *value, int overwrite
);</TT>
<BR><TT>int unsetenv ( const char *name, const char *value, int overwrite
);</TT>
<BR><TT>int system ( const char *string );</TT></UL>
<TT>void</TT>
<BR><TT>void (*func)(void)</TT>
<BR><TT>int status</TT>
<BR><TT>const char *string</TT>
<BR><TT>const char *name</TT>
<BR><TT>const char *value</TT>
<BR><TT>int overwrite</TT>
<P><TT>abort </TT>causes the signal SIGABORT to be sent to your program.&nbsp;
Unless your program handles the signal it will exit with an abort error.
<BR><TT>atexit </TT>will allow you to run a set of function calls upon
exit from your program.&nbsp; You can stack them up quite a bit, I seem
to remember that you can have up to 32 of these.
<BR><TT>exit</TT> will exit your program with the specified integer return
value.
<BR><TT>getenv</TT> will return the value of the environmental variable
specified or a NULL if the environmental variable is not set.
<BR>setenv will set the specified variable to the specified value, will
return a -1 on an error.
<BR>unsetenv will unset the specified variable
<BR>system will execute the specified command string and return the exit
value of the command.
<P>These functions allow you to connect back to the unix environment that
you ran your program from and set exit values, read the values of environmental
variables and run commands from within a c program.
<P>The <A HREF="rogers_example05f.c">example program</A> demonstrates how
to read an environmental variable and the two different methods of setting
an environmental variable.&nbsp; Run this program without TESTING being
set and then run `export TESTING=anything` and run the program again.&nbsp;&nbsp;
You will notice the difference between the two runs.&nbsp; Also notice
the order of the atexit() function calls and the order that they are actually
called when the program does exit.&nbsp; Copy one of the abort() calls
out before the exit and reexecute the program, when the abort is called
the atexit() functions are not called.
<P><B><FONT SIZE=+1>Random Numbers</FONT></B>
<UL><TT>#include &lt;stdlib.h></TT>
<P><TT>int rand(void);</TT>
<BR><TT>void srand(unsigned int seed);</TT></UL>
<TT>void</TT>
<BR><TT>unsigned int seed</TT>
<P><TT>rand</TT> will return a random value between 0 and RAND_MAX.
<BR><TT>seed </TT>starts a new sequence of psuedo-random numbers.
<P>The rand function will set the seed to 1 the first time that you call
rand in your program unless you set it to something else.&nbsp; The sequence
of numbers that you get from rand will be in the same order if you set
seed to the same value each time.&nbsp; To get closer to truly random numbers
you should set the seed to something that won't repeat.&nbsp; time() is
what I use in the example.
<P><A HREF="rogers_example05c.c">The example</A> for this section has been
combined with the sorting and searching.
<P><B><FONT SIZE=+1>Multibyte Conversions</FONT></B>
<UL><TT>#include &lt;stdlib.h></TT>
<BR><TT>int mblen(const char *s, size_t n);</TT>
<BR><TT>int mbtowc(wchar_t *pwc, const char *s, size_t n);</TT>
<BR><TT>int wctomb(char *s, wchar_t wchar);</TT>
<BR><TT>size_t mbstowcs(wchar_t *pwcs, const char *s, size_t n);</TT>
<BR><TT>size_t mbstowcs(char *s, wchar_t *pwcs, size_t n);</TT></UL>
This is that new fangled multilanguage character mapping stuff.&nbsp; I
don't think that I am qualified to write about it yet.&nbsp; I will revisit
it once I have covered everything else.&nbsp; Or maybe someone else could
tell us how to use these in everyday programming.
<P>
<HR>
<H4>
Bibliography:</H4>
<I>The ANSI C Programming Language, Second Edition</I>, Brian W. Kernighan,
Dennis M. Ritchie, Printice Hall Software Series, 1988
<P><I>The Standard C Library</I>, P. J. Plauger, Printice Hall P T R, 1992
<P><I>The Standard C Library, Parts 1, 2, and 3</I>, Chuck Allison, <I>C/C++
Users Journal</I>, January, February, March 1995
<P>STDLIB(3), BSD MANPAGE, <I>Linux Programmer's Manual</I>, 29 November
1993
<P> <HR><P>
&nbsp;<BR>
<CENTER>
<H4>
Previous "The Standard C Library for Linux" Articles</H4></CENTER>
<A HREF="http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue24/rogers.html"><I>The Standard
C Library for Linux, stdio.h</I>, James M. Rogers, January 1998</A>
<BR><A HREF="http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue31/rogers1.html"><I>The Standard
C Library for Linux, stdio.h</I>, James M. Rogers, July 1998</A>
<BR><A HREF="http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue32/rogers.html"><I>The Standard
C Library for Linux, stdio.h</I>, James M. Rogers, August 1998</A>
<BR><A HREF="http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue38/rogers.html"><I>The Standard
C Library for Linux, ctype.h</I>, James M. Rogers, March 1999</A>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1999, James M. Robers<BR>
Published in Issue 39 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, April 1999</H5></center>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
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<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
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<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Web Page Design under Linux</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:matelgar@NMSU.Edu">Matus Telgarsky </a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
The "web" started out as a small project in which data was to be easily
accessed by different people. In modern times, the web has filled the
role of a worldwide storehouse of data and communication. Most companies
have a location with which they may now be accessed on the internet. Everybody
and anybody has a web page nowadays. A good web page can
captivate the readers and relay information easily. Remember; there
are 2,000,000 other web pages discussing a topic identical to yours; but you
want to attract people with a well laid out web page. If done right, you
can even get people who do not know you interested about you. This article
will outline how to create an attractive webpage under the best of OSes, Linux.
<P>
<H4>Introduction to Web Page Design</H4>
<P>
Building an informational and interesting web page can actually be difficult.
First off, a web page must be aesthetically pleasing. It sounds kind
of funny, but that is the plain truth. People will enjoy what they are
reading if what they read is well laid out. Also, a web page cannot suck
up too much bandwidth. You want to appeal to many people; not just those who
have an OC3 to their house. Sometimes it may be nice to offer a higher and
a lower bandwidth version of your page. If someone looking for information
comes to your page and has to wait a long time for it to come in, they will
leave. Also, eyecandy can be bad. Two thousand little
things moving on a screen and sharp bright colors will distract and more
importantly annoy the reader. I know that if <I>I</I> go to a page which
annoys me or is too slow, I will go to the next that I found! Lastly, be
expedient and terse. Modern HTML provides many splendid ways to provide data
in a small clean manner. For example, tables look really nice in newer
versions (see www.gnome.org for a nice example). Unordered and ordered lists
are an easy and effective way to lay out info. Well those are the simple
basics; now let's get to
work.
<P>
<H4>Editing the HTML</H4>
<P>
A true web page is made by hand. If you wrote a cgi script which cranks out
html, it was all done by hand (and if a computer did it automatically, it was
most likely incredibly inefficient). The html should be indented and
spaced for clarity. Important however is to have a program with which to
edit HTML, and linux offers many.
<P>
A editor for html is vim. The newer versions automatically detect what
type of file you are editing and will load in key words accordingly. Vim will
automatically color code certain words, and with different colors, alert you
to some mistakes, etc. Vim can be attained from www.vim.org, and some neat
mods for it can be received from ftp.mandrake.net. Another editor is
Xemacs. Xjed also does the job. Both can color code and do all the other
nice tricks, all in an intuitive and attractive X interface.
<P>
HTML editors may seem a superficial thing, however they really help in
reading code, understanding errors and building web pages quickly, efficiently,
and cleanly.
<P>
<H4>Graphics</H4>
<P>
A web page needs graphics. I don't mean gaudy backgrounds and huge logos;
I mean images which mesh with the text and other aspects of the web page
seamlessly. Once again, linux offers many ways to create,
edit, and view graphics.
<P>
Simple graphical elements may made with xpaint and played around with and
viewed with xv. For the real stuff however, one needs the GIMP (if you don't
have it, run to www.gimp.org by all costs!). For those who are unfamiliar
with the GIMP, it is the free photoshop for Linux. Most photoshop users will
agree that this free software app is easily better than photoshop. And it
runs on Linux. In any case, with the GIMP, logos, transparent images,
animated gifs, and a million other things can be made. With the GIMP, a
background that looked too caustic can be modified to be perfect. An image
that just doesn't seem to fit can have the edges faded into transparency
and other neat tricks. The GIMP is the comprehensive tool with which to
create attractive web page graphics. For some creative
ideas of what you can do with
the GIMP, refer to www.gimp.org, contest.gimp.org, and to some older linux
journal articles.
<P>
Graphics must be made to mesh seemlessly with the text and other information
in a web page. With the GIMP and other tools, professional quality graphics
can be made quickly and easily. Remember; people will stay at that
pretty homepage, and if you create nice graphics that go well with the rest
of the page, than you have a winner.
<P>
<H4>Miscellania</H4>
<P>
Other areas of multimedia are also common on the web. Animations can be
made with the GIMP, and viewed with xanim. The use of midi seems to be
dying down and so really doesn't seem important. It bugs a lot of people,
anyway.
<P>
A note on backgrounds. Don't make backgrounds that hurt peoples eyes, are
2 meg jpegs, or just mess things up in general. Sometimes good backgrounds
can be a very simple pattern (slashdot.org, just plain white). Backgrounds
should be interesting, but should not render the text unreadable. Newer
versions of HTML can make tables look very pretty; one approach taken is to
have the text in a table on a background (www.gnome.org). Remember; if
people can't read the page, they'll leave! One of the reasons why
slashdot.org is so popular is because it is very beautifully and easily
laid out (kudos go to Rob). A rule of thumb is to have a background which
is just one color or an image without much color variation. One idea would
be to emboss what you wanted to use as a background and then play with the
color balance to give it the color you want. But this isn't absolute; don't
get me wrong, you can break this rule, it is just that this is a rather safe
approach if nothing else seems to work. Backgrounds
are actually an extremely tough issue
in web page design.
<P>
As far as browsers go, there are many possibilities. Netscape/Mozilla is
pretty much the staple now, especially since it is free and source code is
distributed (cheers). KDE also has a pretty nice one. Many are being
developed for GTK/GNOME, and can be looked up at www.gnome.org. Even though
they are "in development," don't be scared to use them; they will definitely
make up their shortcomings by being twenty times faster than netscape.
<P>
Experiment! It's amazing how many ways there are to create informational
and well outlined web pages! A few examples of good web pages are
www.gnome.org, www.gimp.org, slashdot.org. Notice
that in all of these there are no readability problems, no nuisances on the
screen, terseness, etc. If you notice an HTML trick you like, check out
the source code and note down the page (bookmark it).
<P>
<H4>The End.</H4>
<P>
So now you are ready to make neat wepages fast, right? Right. Always keep the
basic rules in your head. Remember that you want people coming to your
page. Necessary grpahics and text editors are easily and freely available
for linux, and browsers to view your products with shouldn't be a problem.
Above all else, have fun, make a web page you like, and ... use Linux =).
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1999, Matus Telgarsky <BR>
Published in Issue 39 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, April 1999</H5></center>
<!--===================================================================-->
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<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Xenmenu: An ASCII Menu Generator</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:xenon@xenos.net">Karyl F. Stein</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
Even though the world is moving toward slick graphical user interfaces and
World Wide Web (WWW) technology, there is still a need to cater to those who
use ASCII-based terminals. For example, many Internet Service Providers offer
shell accounts, and even more public-access systems see a lot of use of their
text-based interfaces. The systems that offer ASCII front-ends often have
programs to automate common tasks that a user would want to accomplish, but
the user still has to learn how to run those programs from a shell prompt.
Some organizations have developed complex menu systems that shield the user
from the intricacies of the underlying system. However, those programs--
usually written in some shell scripting language--are often slow, offer
minimal security, consume an inordinate amount of resources, and may be
confusing to maintain.
<P>
Having experience as an administrator for a few public-access systems, I have
been faced with the challenge of not only designing browser independent WWW
interfaces, but also easy-to-use text-based interfaces. After creating
mixtures of clunky shell scripts and inflexible C programs to address the
latter, I decided that it would make things easier for me and other
administrators to have a fast, easy-to-manage, and highly configurable method
for generating text menus. The solution that I came up with, and which I will
be discussing in this article, is Xenmenu, (pronounced zen-menu).
<P>
During the initial design of Xenmenu, a few major goals were addressed. First
and foremost, a solution that strives to make things easy should not be overly
complex to use or administrate. At the same time, this solution should be
flexible enough to allow administrators to tailor the system to meet their
exacting specifications. These requirements may include a security policy for
a site, so Xenmenu needs to incorporate features that allow it to be used as
a secure shell. Finally, Xenmenu should be as small and fast as possible.
<P>
The four main components of Xenmenu are the core program, the configuration
files, the menu description files, and the support files. The job of the core
program is to first configure itself, then go into a loop of reading the menu
description files, formating and displaying them to the user, and reading the
user's input. Each of these stages will now be described in detail.
<P>
There are three configuration files which may or may not exist. The first two
of these files are analogous to the system-wide and user-specific shell
configuration files such as /etc/csh.login and ~/.login. The final
configuration file, which also may or may not exist, is the secure
configuration file; any previous action taken by the first two configuration
files may be overridden by the secure configuration file. This allows
administrators to give users access to change their environment without
compromising security. Of course, the installer may also opt to disallow the
user from creating a personalized configuration file at all if security is a
major concern.
<P>
The configuration files only allow two directives: the setting of
environment variables and the execution of programs. For this reason the
configuration language is simple. The format of the configuration files are:
<PRE>
ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE VALUE
run PROGRAM [ARGUMENT [ARGUMENT ...]]
</PRE>
The first line is an example of setting an environment variable. An example
of this in use would be: PAGER /usr/bin/more. This would set the environment
variable PAGER equal to /usr/bin/more. The second line is an example of
executing an external program from within the configuration file. An example
of this would be: run /bin/cat /etc/motd.
<P>
Once the configuration files are acted upon, a menu file is read and displayed
to the user. These menu files are the most important part of Xenmenu from an
administrator's standpoint since they define how the menu will look and react
to the user. Since most of an administrator's time will be spent writing the
menu files, they are designed to be easy to create. At the same time,
flexibility is a major concern.
<P>
Menu files are plain text files that may be modified and reinstalled even
while people are actively using Xenmenu. Each line of a menu file is a
command, comment, or a blank line. Commands may have zero or more arguments
separated by one or more spaces depending on the command. Comments are
inserted by placing a # as the first non-space character on a line and
continue until a new line is reached. Blank lines are ignored.
<P>
There are three main parts to a menu file: global options, formatting and
display options, and choice declarations. Global options should appear
before any choice declarations are made and affect the overall look and feel
of the menu. Currently, there are only two global options: checkcase and
nocheckcase. If checkcase is defined, then choice declarations will be
case sensitive. This means that if the user enters a "Q", it will be
acted upon differently than if they entered a "q". The default behavior is
nocheckcase which means that a user may enter either a "Q" or a "q" and the
same action will be taken.
<P>
The bulk of the commands available for use in menu files are the formatting
and display options. These options define how a menu will be drawn on a
user's screen and may be given at any point within a menu file.
The available commands and the arguments they accept, (if any), are given
below. Arguments given in &lt;&gt; marks are required, while those in [] marks are
optional. Some references are made to the file config.h. This file is part
of the Xenmenu distribution and may be edited before compilation when
installing Xenmenu.
<ul>
<li><font color="maroon">center &lt;string&gt;</font>: Centers the given string on the screen. The string
will be wrapped as needed to fit on the user's
screen.
<li><font color="maroon">columns [number]</font>: Set the number of columns in which to print options
to [number]. If [number] is not defined, then 1
column is used. This is analogous to the HTML
&lt;table&gt; declaration.
<li><font color="maroon">header [header]</font>: Defines the menu header to be [header]. If header
is blank, then MENUHEAD as defined in config.h is
used.
<li><font color="maroon">name [name]</font>: Defines the menu name to be [name]. If [name] is
blank, then [name] is cleared.
<li><font color="maroon">notype</font>: Suppresses the printing of the option type, (i.e.
menu, file, or exit) after the option name.
<li><font color="maroon">opttail [string]</font>: Defines [string] as the string to be printed after
an option value, (it is what separates the option
value and the option name).
<li><font color="maroon">print [-n] [string]</font>: Prints [string] to the screen. If no string is
defined, a blank line will be printed. If [string]
contains something between '' marks, it is taken as a
command to be run. To print a ' character, enter it
as ''. Environment variables may be printed by
preceding them with a $ mark. To print a $
character, enter it as $$. If the -n argument is
given, than a newline is not appended to the end of
[string]. Usually, all leading spaces and tabs are
removed from [string] before it is printed to the
screen. In order to print leading spaces, begin the
string with a double quote. Any double quotes within
the string are treated as literals and printed to the
screen. A double quote found at the end of a string,
if the string begins with a double quote, is not
printed, however. A double quote may also be used if
you want to print a -n at the beginning of the string.
Finally, the string to print will be wrapped as
needed in order to fit nicely on the user's screen.
<li><font color="maroon">printfile &lt;file&gt;</font>: Prints the &lt;file&gt; to the screen. If SECURE,
(defined in config.h), is &gt; 4, then the path to
&lt;file&gt; is taken from SECUREDIR, otherwise &lt;file&gt;
should contain a path.
<li><font color="maroon">printheader</font>: Prints the menu header. The [header] will be
printed on the left side of the screen and the
[name] on the right side. A default header value,
defined in config.h is used if header is not
defined. No name is printed if not defined.
<li><font color="maroon">printline [string]</font>: Prints a line across the screen. If [string] is
not defined, a line of dashes will be printed,
otherwise a line composed of [string] will be
printed.
<li><font color="maroon">prompt [string]</font>: Sets the menu prompt to [string]. If [string] is
not defined, then DEFAULTPROMPT defined in config.h
is used. NOTE: Everything after the keyword prompt
and a space is taken as the prompt, (including
spaces).
<li><font color="maroon">run &lt;file&gt;</font>: Runs the defined file. If SECURE, (defined in
config.h), is a 1, 3, 5, or 7, then the path to
&lt;file&gt; is taken from SECURERUN, otherwise &lt;file&gt;
should contain a path.
<li><font color="maroon">type</font>: Prints the option type, (i.e. menu, file, etc.) after
the option name. This is the default.
</ul>
Choice declarations define how the menu should react to user input. A choice
may either run an external program, display a file, load and display another
menu, or exit the menu system. Each choice may contain a value, a name, a
comment, or a combination of the three. Choices are defined in the following
way:
<PRE>
option {
&lt;definitions&gt;
}
</PRE>
The &lt;definitions&gt; part may contain one or more of the commands listed below.
The argument convention is the same as above with required arguments contained
in &lt;&gt; marks, and optional ones enclosed in [] marks. Again, references to
the file config.h are given.
<ul>
<li><font color="maroon">exit</font>: This means that the menu will exit if this option
is chosen.
<li><font color="maroon">file &lt;file&gt;</font>: This is the filename that will be read if the menu
option is chosen. If SECURE, (defined in config.h),
is &gt; 4, then the path to &lt;file&gt; will be taken from
SECUREDIR, otherwise &lt;file&gt; should contain a path.
<li><font color="maroon">menu &lt;file&gta;</font>: This means that the menu &lt;file&gt; will be loaded if
this option is picked. If SECURE, (defined in
config.h), is a 2, 3, 6, or 7, then the path to
&lt;file&gt; is taken from MENUHOME, otherwise &lt;file&gt;
should contain a path.
<li><font color="maroon">run &lt;file&gt;</font>: This means that the program &lt;file&gt; will be run if
this option is picked. If SECURE, (defined in
config.h), is a 1, 3, 5, or 7, then the path to
&lt;file&gt; is taken from SECURERUN, otherwise &lt;file&gt;
should contain a path.
<li><font color="maroon">comment &lt;comment&gt;</font>: This is an optional field which holds a description
of the menu item.
<li><font color="maroon">name &lt;name&gt;</font>: This is the name of the option.
<li><font color="maroon">noprint</font>: This will cause the option not to be printed to
the screen.
<li><font color="maroon">value &lt;value&gt;</font>: This is an optional field that holds the menu
NOTE: Values will be automatically assigned by the
menu if none is given.
</ul>
<P>
As mentioned above, Xenmenu may also be used as a secure shell. When
compiling Xenmenu, the administrator may select various security options.
Zero--the default--or more of these options may be given at compile time. The
options allow for:
<ol>
<li>The ability to only run programs in a given path,
<li>The ability to only view files under a certain directory,
<li>The ability to only view menus under a certain directory, and
<li>The ability to turn off parsing a user's personal configuration file.
</ol>
It is important to realize that Xenmenu can not make any guarantees as to the
security of any external program that it calls; if you allow the user to run
the mythical program foo from Xenmenu, and foo contains a security hole, than
the user may be able to exploit that hole to violate your security policy.
However, by using Xenmenu as a user's shell in conjunction with the above
security options, an administrator can limit what a user may do on the
system.
<P>
Finally, there are a couple small features that Xenmenu offers which are not
listed above. First of all, if the user enters something which is not an
option for the menu they are viewing, what they input is sent to a shell for
parsing. This allows the user to enter valid shell commands even if they are
not a menu option. This does not allow them to violate any security settings,
however. Secondly, the user may resize their screen and the next menu loaded
will adjust itself to fit within the new screen size.
<P>
I hope that this article gives you a good understanding of Xenmenu and what it
can do. I also hope that Xenmenu provides a solution to your need for an
ASCII menu generator, (if you have such a need). Currently, Xenmenu is still
under development, however it is actively being heavily used on more than one
system. The source code for Xenmenu is released under the Gnu Public License
and may be found at http://www.xenos.net/~xenon/software/xenmenu. The author
welcomes any suggestions, comments, or complaints you may have via E-Mail to
xenon@xenos.net.
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright &copy; 1999, Karyl F. Stein <BR>
Published in Issue 39 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, April 1999</H5></center>
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<H1><font color="maroon">The Back Page</font></H1>
<ul>
<li><a HREF="./lg_backpage39.html#authors">About This Month's Authors</a>
<li><a HREF="./lg_backpage39.html#notlinux">Not Linux</a>
</ul>
<a name="authors"></a>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--======================================================================-->
<center><H3><font color="maroon">About This Month's Authors</font></H3></center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--======================================================================-->
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Larry Ayers</H4>
Larry lives on a small farm
in northern Missouri, where he is currently engaged in building a
timber-frame house for his family. He operates a portable band-saw mill,
does general woodworking, plays the fiddle and searches for rare
prairie plants, as well as growing shiitake mushrooms. He is also
struggling with configuring a Usenet news server for his local ISP.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Bill Bennet</H4>
Bill,
the ComputerHelperGuy, lives in Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada; the "Catfish
Capitol of North America" if not the world. He is on the Internet at
www.chguy.net. He tells us "I have been a PC user since 1983 when I got my start as a
Radio Shack manager. After five years in the trenches, I went into
business for myself. Now happily divorced from reality, I live next to my
Linux box and sell and support GPL distributions of all major Linux
flavours. I was a beta tester for the PC version of Playmaker Football and
I play `pentium-required' games on the i486. I want to help Linux become a
great success in the gaming world, since that will be how Linux will take
over the desktop from DOS." It is hard to believe that his five years of
university was only good for fostering creative writing skills.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Jim Dennis</H4>
Jim is the proprietor of <A href="http://www.starshine.org">
Starshine Technical Services</A> and is now working for <A
HREF="http://www.linuxcare.com/">LinuxCare</A>.
His professional experience includes work in the technical
support, quality assurance, and information services (MIS)
departments of software companies like
Quarterdeck, Symantec/Peter Norton Group and
McAfee Associates -- as well as
positions (field service rep) with smaller VAR's.
He's been using Linux since version 0.99p10 and is an active
participant on an ever-changing list of mailing lists and
newsgroups. He's just started collaborating on the 2nd Edition
for a book on Unix systems administration.
Jim is an avid science fiction fan -- and was
married at the World Science Fiction Convention in Anaheim.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Michael J. Hammel</H4>
A Computer Science graduate of Texas Tech University, Michael J. Hammel,
mjhammel@graphics-muse.org, is an software developer specializing in X/Motif
living in Dallas, Texas (but calls Boulder, CO home for some reason).
His background includes everything from data
communications to GUI development to Interactive Cable systems, all based in
Unix. He has worked for companies such as Nortel, Dell Computer, and
Xi Graphics.
Michael writes the monthly Graphics Muse column in the Linux Gazette,
maintains the Graphics Muse Web site and theLinux Graphics mini-Howto, helps
administer the Internet Ray Tracing Competition (http://irtc.org) and
recently completed work on his new book "The Artist's Guide to the Gimp",
published by SSC, Inc. His outside interests include running, basketball,
Thai food, gardening, and dogs.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Ron Jenkins</H4>
Ron has over 20 years experience
in RF design, satellite systems, and UNIX/NT administration. He currently
resides in Central Missouri where he is pursuing his writing, helping folks
solve problems and find solutions, teaching, and generally having a dandy
time while looking for some telecommuting work. Ron is married and has
two stepchildren. Ron has begun to worry about referring to himself in
the third person.
<p>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Eric Marsden</H4>
<a href="http://www.chez.com/emarsden/">Eric</a> is studying computer
science in Toulouse, France, and is a member of the local <A
HREF="http://savage.iut-blagnac.fr/">Linux Users
Group</A>. He enjoys programming, cycling and Led Zeppelin. He admits to
once having owned a Macintosh, but denies any connection with the the
<a href="http://locke.ccil.org/~esr/ecsl/">Eric Conspiracy Secret
Labs</a>.
<p>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">J.W. Pennington</H4>
After 8 years, J.W. Pennington escaped from the U.S. Military and is currently in hiding. He is posing as an older student who is completing his degrees in Anthropology and Geology at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. He began playing with computers at the age of 12, and still has the TI 99/4A on which he taught himself BASIC. A collector of old computers, his lifelong dream is to build a house in the shape and color of a Vic-20, with a huge keyboard as the front porch, and a game port as the garage. Sometimes he hears voices.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">James Rogers</H4>
James and Shala Rogers live on the Olympic Peninsula in the middle of
nowhere. James is a systems programmer for the University of Washington
Medical Centers, Harborview Medical Centers and the University of
Washington Physicians Network. He is a Health Level 7 Interface
programmer who is currently writing a GNU licensed HL7 interface. These
interfaces allow approximately 40 medical computer systems to
communicate with each other across the entire Seattle Metropolitan area.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Richard Sevenich</H4>
Richard is a Professor of computer science at Eastern
Washington University in Cheney, WA. He is also a part-time ski
patroller at Schweitzer Mountain near Sandpoint, Idaho. His computer
science interests include Fuzzy Logic, Application-Specific Languages
and Parallel, Distributed, Real-time Industrial Control. He is an
enthusiastic user of Debian/GNU Linux.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Karyl F. Stein</H4>
Karyl is an undergraduate student at Purdue University. He has been
involved with running various public-access systems for a number of years
including "America's First Public Access UNIX System" M-Net, (found at
m-net.arbornet.org), and his own personal system, Freeport, (which may be found
at freeport.xenos.net).
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Matus Telgarsky</H4>
Matus has been avid an avid Linux user for many years now.
Web page design has been dear to hime due to many jobs he receives being
webmaster and making web pages, and since he will not touch anything but
Linux, that is where he makes his web pages.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Paul Woods</H4>
Paul is an electrical engineer who, together with wife Suzanne,
has four young children, a mortgage, and little free time. So he is glad
to be able to play with Linux at his job with Hewlett-Packard Company,
where he has worked since 1994. Paul graduated with a M.Sc.E.E. from
Brigham Young University.
<a name="notlinux"></a>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<center><H3><font color="maroon">Not Linux</font></H3></center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--======================================================================-->
<P>
Thanks to all our authors, not just the ones above, but also those who wrote
giving us their tips and tricks and making suggestions. Thanks also to our
new mirror sites.
<P>
Have fun!
<P> <hr> <P>
<A HREF="http://www.ssc.com/ssc/Employees/Margie/margie.html">
Marjorie L. Richardson</A> <br>
Editor, <A HREF="http://www.linuxgazette.com/"><i>Linux Gazette</i></A>, <A
HREF="mailto:gazette@ssc.com">gazette@ssc.com</a>
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<center>
<I>Linux Gazette</I> Issue 39, April 1999,
<A HREF="http://www.linuxgazette.com/">http://www.linuxgazette.com</A><BR>
This page written and maintained by the Editor of <I>Linux Gazette</I>,
<A HREF="mailto:gazette@ssc.com"> gazette@ssc.com</A>
<H5>Copyright &copy; 1999 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.<br>
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