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<H1><IMG SRC="../gx/newlogo.jpg" ALT="Linux Gazette" border="0"></H1></A>
<H4>November 1999, Issue 47 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="../faq/index.html"><I>Linux Gazette</I> FAQ</A>
<!-- FONT COLOR=red>New!</FONT -->
<LI><A HREF="lg_mail47.html">The MailBag</A>
<ul>
<li><a HREF="lg_mail47.html#help">Help Wanted & Article Ideas</a>
<li><a HREF="lg_mail47.html#gen">General Mail</a>
</ul>
<LI><A HREF="lg_bytes47.html">News Bytes</A>
<ul>
<li><a HREF="lg_bytes47.html#distro">Distro news</a>
<li><a HREF="lg_bytes47.html#general">News in General</a>
<li><a HREF="lg_bytes47.html#software">Software Announcements</a>
</ul>
<LI><A HREF="lg_answer47.html">The Answer Guy</A>, by James T. Dennis
<LI><A HREF="lg_tips47.html">More 2 Cent Tips</A>
<LI><A HREF="adler.html">Bob Young Speaks at LXNY</A>, by Stephen Adler
<LI><A HREF="ayers.html">Explorations In Linux Sound</A>, by Larry Ayers
<LI><A HREF="blanchard.html">Linux on Token Ring</A>, by Eugene Blanchard
<LI><A HREF="bueno.html">Introduction to Socket Programming</A>, by Pedro Paulo Ferreira Bueno and Antonio Pires de Castro Junior
<LI><A HREF="deblende.html">Multiboot MS-DOS 6.22 - Windows98 - Windows NT Server 4.0 - Linux</A>, by Tom de Blende
<LI><A HREF="hayashi.html">rms @ UBC</A>, by Eric Hayashi
<LI><A HREF="heizer.html">Setting Up a Linux Server Network</A>, by Alex Heizer
<LI><A HREF="lukas.html">Securing Linux: The First Steps</A>, by Peter Lukas
<LI><A HREF="makarov.html">Programming on language Dino</A>, by Vladimir N. Makarov
<LI><A HREF="mcgowan.html">Chez Marcel</A>, by Marty McGowan
<LI><A HREF="nielsen.html">Micro Publishing</A>, by Rick Holbert and Mark Nielsen
<LI><A HREF="pedersen.html">Emacs Macros and the Power-Macros Package</A>, by Jesper Kj&aelig;r Pedersen
<LI><A HREF="pollman.html">Backup for the Home Network</A>, by JC Pollman and Bill Mote
<LI><A HREF="reid.html">Running UNIX At Home</A>, by Rob Reid
<LI><A HREF="silva.html">Developing Web Applications at Home - Part 1</A>, by Anderson Silva
<LI><A HREF="slambo.html">LSOTM (Linux Site O' The Month): LinuxNewbie.org</A>, by Slambo
<LI><A HREF="stacey.html">TCP for Transactions</A>, by Mark Stacey, John Nelson and Ivan Griffin
<LI><A HREF="ward.html">Teaching web site construction with Linux</A>, by Alan Ward
<LI><A HREF="lg_backpage47.html">The Back Page</A>
<ul>
<li><a HREF="lg_backpage47.html#authors">About This Month's Authors</a>
<li><a HREF="lg_backpage47.html#notlinux">Not Linux</a>
</UL>
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<P>
<table>
<tr><td>
<A HREF="issue47.txt.gz">TWDT 1 (gzipped text file)</A><BR>
<A HREF="issue47.html">TWDT 2 (HTML file)</A><BR>
are files containing the entire issue: one in text format, one in HTML.
They are provided
strictly as a way to save the contents as one file for later printing in
the format of your choice;
there is no guarantee of working links in the HTML version.
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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>
<P>
<H5>Copyright &copy; 1996-1999 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.</H5>
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<H4>"The Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"</H4>
<P> <hr> <P>
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<center>
<H1><A NAME="faq">
<img src="../gx/lg-penguin.gif" alt=" ">
<font color="#B03060">The <I>Linux Gazette</I> FAQ</font>
</A></H1>
Updated 22-Sep-1999
</center>
<p><hr><p>
<!-- endcut ======================================================= -->
<H3>Contents</H3>
<UL>
<LI> Questions about the <I>Linux Gazette</I>
<OL>
<LI> <A HREF="#why_faq">Why this FAQ?</A>
<LI> <A HREF="#formats_html">Where can I find the HTML version of the <I>Gazette</I>?</A>
<LI> <A HREF="#formats_yes">Which formats is the <I>Gazette</I> available in?</A>
<LI> <A HREF="#formats_no">Which formats is the <I>Gazette</I> <STRONG>not</STRONG> available in?</A>
<LI> <A HREF="#languages">Is the <I>Gazette</I> available in French? Chinese? Italian? Russian?</A>
<LI> <A HREF="#old">Why is the most recent issue several months old?</A>
<LI> <A HREF="#search">How can I find all the articles about a certain subject?</A>
<LI> <A HREF="#author">How can I become an author? How can I submit my article for publication?</A>
<LI> <A HREF="#copying">May I copy and distribute the <I>Gazette</I> or portions thereof?</A>
<LI> <A HREF="#sponsor">You have my competitor's logo on the Front Page; will you put mine up too?</A>
</OL>
<P>
<LI> Linux tech support questions
<OL>
<LI> <A HREF="#ask_tech">How can I get help on Linux?</A>
<LI> <A HREF="#wine">Can I run Windows applications under Linux?</A>
<LI> <A HREF="#mswin">Do you answer Windows questions too?</A>
<LI> <A HREF="#where_doc">How do I find the help files in my Linux system?</A>
<LI> <A HREF="#winmodem">So I'm having trouble with this internal modem...</A>
</OL>
</UL>
<P> <FONT SIZE=-1><EM>This FAQ is updated at the end of every month. Because
it is a new feature, it will be changing significantly over the next few
months.</EM></FONT>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- =============================================================== -->
<H1 ALIGN=center>Questions about the <I>Linux Gazette</I></H1>
<A NAME="why faq"></A>
<H2>1. Why this FAQ?</H2>
<P> These are the most Frequently Asked Questions in the <I>LG</I> Mailbag.
With this FAQ, I hope to save all our fingers from a little bit of typing, or
at least allow all that effort to go into something No (Wo)man Has Ever Typed
Before.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- =============================================================== -->
<A NAME="formats_html"></A>
<H2>2. Where can I find the HTML version of the <I>Gazette</I>?</H2>
<UL>
<LI> The main web site--<A HREF=http://www.linuxgazette.com>
www.linuxgazette.com</A>.<P>
<LI> <A HREF=../mirrors.html>Mirror sites in 47 countries</A>, some with
translations in other languages.<P>
<LI> Indirect mirrors, including
<A HREF=http://www.ssc.com/mirrors/LDP/mirrors.html>
Linux Documentation Project</A> mirror sites.<P>
<LI> In the <A HREF=http://www.debian.org>
Debian/GNU Linux</A> distribution, as ordinary *.deb packages.<P>
<LI> On CD as part of a
<A HREF=https://www.ssc.com:444/lj/backissue.html><I>Linux Journal</I>
archive CD-ROM</A>. There may also be other companies that include the
<I>Gazette</I> on their CDs--we don't keep a central list. (But we may in
the future.)<P>
</UL>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- =============================================================== -->
<A NAME="formats_yes"></A>
<H2>3. Which formats is the <I>Gazette</I> available in?</H2>
<UL>
<LI> <STRONG>As a single HTML file.</STRONG> Every issue includes a
TWDT (The Whole D--- Thing) file containing a copy of all the articles in one
file. This may be useful if you have a slow modem, or if you want to print it
all out at once. Look for "TWDT" near the bottom of the issue's Table of
Contents. Hyperlinks in this version are not guaranteed to work.<P>
<LI> <STRONG>As a single text file.</STRONG> This is a text-only
version of the above. Look for "TWDT" near the bottom of the issue's Table of
Contents.<P>
<LI> <STRONG>Via FTP.</STRONG> Each issue is available as a *.tar.gz
file, containing both the ordinary HTML files and the TWDT files. See
<A HREF=ftp://ftp.ssc.com/pub/lg/README>ftp://ftp.ssc.com/pub/lg/README</A>
for details. Other FTP sites are listed on our
<A HREF=../mirrors.html>mirrors</A> page.
</UL>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- =============================================================== -->
<A NAME="formats_no"></A>
<H2>4. Which formats is the <I>Gazette</I> <U>not</U> available in?</H2>
<P> Other archive formats. We need to keep disk space on the FTP site at a
minimum for the sake of the mirrors. Also, the Editor rebels at the thought
of the additional hand labor involved in maintaining more formats. Therefore,
we have chosen the formats required by the majority of <I>Gazette</I> readers.
Anybody is free to maintain the <I>Gazette</I> in another format if they wish,
and if it is available publicly, I'll consider listing it on the mirrors page.
<P> <STRONG>Zip,</STRONG> the compression format most common under Windows.
If your unzipping program doesn't understand the *.tar.gz format, get Winzip
at <A HREF=http://www.winzip.com>www.winzip.com</A>.
<P> <STRONG>Macintosh formats.</STRONG> (I haven't had a Mac since I sold
my Mac Classic because Linux wouldn't run on it. If anybody has any
suggestions for Mac users, I'll put them here.)
<P> <STRONG>Other printable formats.</STRONG>
<DL COMPACT>
<DT> <STRONG>PostScript</STRONG>
<DD> You can use Netscape's "print to file" routine will
create a PostScript file complete with images.
<DT> <STRONG>PDF</STRONG>
<DD> I know Adobe and others consider PDF a "universal"
format, but to me it's still a one-company format that requires a custom
viewer--not something I'm eager to maintain. If you can view PDF, can't
you view HTML?
<DT> <STRONG>Word</STRONG>
<DD> I'll be nice and not say anything about Word....
</DL>
<P> <STRONG>E-mail.</STRONG> The <I>Gazette</I> is too big to send via e-mail.
Issue #44 is 754 KB; the largest issue (#34) was 2.7 MB. Even the text-only
version of #44 is 146 K compressed, 413 K uncompressed. If anybody wishes
to distribute the text version via e-mail, be my guest. There is an
announcement mailing list where I announce each issue; e-mail
<A HREF=mailto:lg-announce-request@ssc.com>lg-announce-request@ssc.com</A>
with "subscribe" in the message body to subscribe. Or read the announcement
on <A HREF=news:comp.os.linux.announce>comp.os.linux.announce</A>.
<P> <STRONG>On paper.</STRONG> I know of no companies offering printed copies
of the <I>Gazette</I>.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- =============================================================== -->
<A NAME="languages"></A>
<H2>5. Is the <I>Gazette</I> available in French? Chinese? Italian? Russian?</H2>
<P> Yes, yes, yes and yes. See the <A HREF=../mirrors.html>mirrors page</A>.
Be sure to check all the countries where your language is spoken; e.g., France
and Canada for French, Russia and Ukraine for Russian.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- =============================================================== -->
<A NAME="old"></A>
<H2>6. Why is the most recent issue several months old?</H2>
<P> You're probably looking at an unmaintained mirror. Check the
<A HREF=http://www.linuxgazette.com>home site</A> to see what the current issue
is, then go to the <A HREF=http://www.linuxgazette.com/mirrors.html>mirrors
page on the home site</A> to find a more up-to-date mirror.
<P> If a mirror is seriously out of date, please let
<A HREF=mailto:gazette@ssc.com>gazette@ssc.com</A> know.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- =============================================================== -->
<A NAME="search"></A>
<H2>7. How can I find all the articles about a certain subject?</H2>
<P> Use the <I>Linux Gazette</I>
<A HREF=http://www.linuxgazette.com/search.html>search engine</A>. A link to
it is on <A HREF="../index.html#search">the Front Page</A>, in the middle of
the page. Be aware this engine has some limitations, which are listed on the
search page under the search form.
<P> Use the <A HREF="../lg_index.html">Index of Articles</A>. A link to it is
on the Front Page, at the bottom of the issues links,
called "Index of All Issues". All the Tables of Contents are concatenated
here onto one page. Use your browser's "Find in Page" dialog to find
keywords in the title or author's names.
<p> There is a seperate <a HREF="../tag/kb.html">Answer Guy Index</a>,
listing all the questions that have been answered by the Answer Guy. However,
they are not sorted by subject at this time, so you will also want to use
the "Find in Page" dialog to search this listing for keywords.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- =============================================================== -->
<A NAME="author"></A>
<H2>8. How can I become an author? How can I submit my article for publication?</H2>
<P> The <I>Linux Gazette</I> is dependent on
<EM><STRONG>R</STRONG>eaders <STRONG>L</STRONG>ike <STRONG>Y</STRONG>ou</EM>
for its articles. Although we cannot offer financial compensation (this is a
volunteer effort, after all), you will earn the gratitude of Linuxers all over
the world, and possibly an enhanced reputation for yourself and your company as
well.
<P> New authors are always welcome. E-mail a short description of your
proposed article to
<A HREF=mailto:gazette@ssc.com>gazette@ssc.com</A>, and the Editor will confirm
whether it's compatible with the <I>Gazette</I>, and whether we need articles
on that topic. Or, if you've already finished the article, just e-mail the
article or its URL.
<P> If you wish to write an ongoing series, please e-mail a note describing the
topic and scope of the series, and a list of possible topics for the first few
articles.
<P> The following types of articles are always welcome:
<UL>
<LI> technical articles of a HOWTO nature. (How to set up a program,
how to maintain it, my experience running a program even if I'm not an expert,
etc.) <FONT SIZE=+1><STRONG>For ideas about possible articles,</STRONG></FONT>
look in the Mailbag for questions that keep recurring. Explicit requests for
articles appear at the top of the "Help Wanted -- Article Ideas" section.
<LI> Articles demonstrating the use of Linux in an industry or
environment where it might not be commonly expected.
<LI> Software reviews, as long as it is a balanced review and
not simply an advertisement. Comparing the pros and cons of this program with
similar programs is a plus.
<LI> Reports from conferences, etc.
<LI> Anecdotes, lighthearted stuff, etc.
<LI> Articles requested in the "Help Wanted and Article Ideas" section
of the Mailbag.
<LI> Other areas I haven't thought of.
</UL>
<P> We have all levels of readers, from newbies to gurus, so articles aiming at
any level are fine. If you see an article that is too technical or not
detailed enough for your taste, feel free to submit another article that fills
the gaps.
<P> Articles <STRONG><EM>not</EM></STRONG> accepted include one-sided product
reviews that are basically advertisements. Mentioning your company is fine,
but please write your article from the viewpoint of a Linux user rather than as
a company spokesperson.
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
If your piece is essentially a press release or an announcement of a
new product or service, submit it as a News Bytes item rather than as
an article. Better yet, submit a URL and a 1-2 paragraph summary (free
of unnecessary marketoid verbiage, please) rather than a press release,
because you can write a better summary about your product than the
Editor can.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> Articles not specifically about Linux are generally not accepted, although
an article about free/open-source software in general may occasionally be
published on a case-by-case basis.
<P> Articles may be of whatever length necessary. Generally, our articles are
2-15 screenfulls. Please use standard, simple HTML that can be viewed on a
wide variety of browsers. Graphics are accepted, but keep them minimal for the
sake of readers who pay by the minute for on-line time. Don't bother with
fancy headers and footers; the Editor chops these off and adds the standard
<I>Gazette</I> header and footer instead. If your article has long program
listings accompanying it, please submit those as separate text files.
<STRONG> Please submit a 3-4 line description of yourself for the Author Info
section on the Back Page.</STRONG> Once you submit this, it will be reused
for all your subsequent articles unless you send in an update.
<P> Once a month, the Editor sends an announcement to all regular and recent
authors, giving the deadline for the next issue. Issues are usually published
on the last working day of the month; the deadline is seven days before this.
If you need a deadline extension into the following week, e-mail the Editor.
But don't stress out about deadlines; we're here to have fun. If your article
misses the deadline, it will be published in the following issue.
<P> Authors retain the copyright on their articles, but distribution of the
<I>Gazette</I> is essentially unrestricted: it is published on web sites and
FTP servers, included in some Linux distributions and commercial CD-ROMs, etc.
<P> Thank you for your interest. We look forward to hearing from you.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- =============================================================== -->
<A NAME="copying"></A>
<H2>9. May I copy and distribute the <I>Gazette</I> or portions thereof?</H2>
<P> Certainly. The <I>Gazette</I> is freely redistributable. You can copy
it, give it away, sell it, translate it into another language, whatever you
wish. Just keep the copyright notices attached to the articles, since each
article is copyright by its author. We request that you provide a link
back to <A HREF=http://www.linuxgazette.com>www.linuxgazette.com</A>.
<P> If your copy is publicly available, we would like to list it on our
<A HREF=../mirrors.html>mirrors page</A>, especially if it's a foreign language
translation. Use the submission form at the bottom of the page to tell us
about your site. This is also the most effective way to help <I>Gazette</I>
readers find you.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- =============================================================== -->
<A NAME="sponsor"></A>
<H2> 10. You have my competitor's logo on the Front Page; will you put mine up too?</H2>
All logos on the Front Page and on each issue's Table of Contents are from our
sponsors. Sponsors make a financial contribution to help defray the cost of
producing the <I>Gazette</I>. This is what keeps the <I>Gazette</I> free
(both in the senses of "freely redistributable" and "free of ads"
<img src="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" alt=":)">) To recognize and give thanks to our
sponsors, we display their logo.
<P> If you would like more information about sponsoring the
<I>Linux Gazette</I>, e-mail <A HREF=mailto:sponsor@ssc.com>sponsor@ssc.com</A>.
<P> <HR NOSHADE SIZE=6> <P>
<!-- =============================================================== -->
<H1 ALIGN=center>Linux tech support questions</H1>
<P> This section comprises the most frequently-asked questions in The Mailbag
and The Answer Guy columns.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- =============================================================== -->
<A NAME="ask_tech"></A>
<H2>1. How can I get help on Linux?</H2>
<P> Check the FAQ. (Oh, you already are.
<img src="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" alt=":)">)
Somewhat more seriously, there is a Linux FAQ located at
<a href="http://www.linuxdoc.org/FAQ/Linux-FAQ.html"
>http://www.linuxdoc.org/FAQ/Linux-FAQ.html</a> which you might
find to be helpful.
<p>For people who are very new to Linux, especially if they are also new
to computing in general, it may be handy to pick up one of these basic
Linux books to get started:
<ul>
<li>Bill Ball's <em>Learning Linux in 24 Hours</em>
<li>Mark Sobell's <em>A Practical Guide to the Linux System</em>
<li>Either <em>Linux Installation and Getting Started</em> or the
O'Reilly book <em>Running Linux</em>. They're extremely similar
so you should only need one of them.
</ul>
<p>Mailing lists exist for almost every application of any note, as well
as for the distributions. If you get curious about a subject, and don't mind
a bit of extra mail, sign onto applicable mailing lists as a "lurker" --
that is, just to read, not particularly to post. At some point it will make
enough sense that their FAQ will seem very readable, and then you'll be well
versed enough to ask more specific questions coherently. Don't forget to
keep the slice of mail that advises you how to leave the mailing list when
you tire of it or learn what you needed to know.
<p>You may be able to meet with a local Linux User Group, if your area has
one. There seem to be more all the time -- if you think you may not have
one nearby, check the local university or community college before giving up.
<P>And of course, there's always good general resources, such as the Linux
Gazette <img src="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" alt=":)">
<P> Questions sent to <A HREF=mailto:gazette@ssc.com>gazette@ssc.com</A> will
be published in the Mailbag in the next issue. Make sure your From: or
Reply-to: address is correct in your e-mail, so that respondents can send you
an answer directly. Otherwise you will have to wait till the following issue
to see whether somebody replied.
<P> Questions sent to <A HREF=mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com>linux-questions-only@ssc.com</A>
will be published in The Answer Guy column.
<P> If your system is hosed and your data is lost and your homework is due
tomorrow but your computer ate it, and it's the beginning of the month and the
next Mailbag won't be published for four weeks, write to the Answer Guy. He
gets a few hundred slices of mail a day, but when he answers, it's direct to
you. He also copies the Gazette so that it will be published when the month
end comes comes along.
<P> You might want to check the new
<a href="../tag/kb.html">Answer Guy Index</a> and see if your question
got asked before, or if the Answer Guy's curiosity and ramblings from a
related question covered what you need to know.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- =============================================================== -->
<A NAME="wine"></A>
<H2>2. Can I run Windows applications under Linux?</H2>
<P> An excellent summary of the current state of WINE, DOSEMU and other
Windows/DOS emulators is in issue #44, The Answer Guy,
<A HREF=../issue44/tag/1.html>"Running Win '95 Apps under Linux"</A>.
<P> There is also a program called <A HREF=http://www.vmware.com>VMWare</A>
which lets you run several "virtual computers" concurrently as applications,
each with its own Operating System. There is a
<A HREF=http://www.linuxjournal.com/lj-issues/issue63/3458.html>review</A>
in <I>Linux Journal</I> about it.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- =============================================================== -->
<A NAME="mswin"></A>
<H2>3. Do you answer Windows questions too?</H2>
<p>Answers in either the Tips or Answer Guy columns which relate to
troubleshooting hardware, might be equally valuable to Linux and Windows users.
This is however the <I><STRONG>Linux</STRONG> Gazette</I>... so all the
examples are likely to describe Linux methods and tools.
<p>The Answer Guy has ranted about this many times before. He will
gladly answer questions involving getting Linux and MS Windows systems
to interact properly; this usually covers filesystems, use of samba
(shares) and other networking, and discussion of how to use drivers.
<p>However, he hasn't used Windows in many years, and in fact avoids the
graphical user interfaces available to Linux. So he is not your best bet
for asking about something which only involves Windows. Try one of the
Windows magazines' letter-to-the-editor columns, an open forum offered at
the online sites for such magazines, or (gasp) the tech support that was
offered with your commercial product. Also, there are newsgroups for an
amazing variety of topics, including MS Windows.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- =============================================================== -->
<A NAME="where_doc"></A>
<H2>4. How do I find the help files in my Linux system?</H2>
<p>The usual command to ask for a help page on the command line is the
word <tt>man</tt> followed by the name of the command you need help
with. You can get started with <tt>man man</tt>. It might help you to
remember this, if you realize it's short for "manual."
<p>A lot of plain text documents about packages can be found in
<tt>/usr/doc/packages</tt> in modern distributions. If you installed
them, you can also usually find the FAQs and HOWTOs installed in
respective directories there.
<p>Some applications have their own built-in access to help files (even those
are usually text stored in another file, which can be reached in other
ways). For example, pressing F1 in <tt>vim</tt>, ? in <tt>lynx</tt>,
or ctrl-H followed by a key in Emacs, will get you into their help system.
These may be confusing to novices, though.
<p>Many programs provide minimal help about their command-line interface if
given the command-line option <tt>--help</tt> or <tt>-?</tt>. Even if these
don't work, most give a usage message if they don't understand their command-
line arguments. The GNU project has especially forwarded this idea. It's
a good one; every programmer creating a small utility should have it
self-documented at least this much.
<p>Graphical interfaces such as <tt>tkman</tt> and <tt>tkinfo</tt> will
help quite a bit because they know where to find these kinds of help files;
you can use their menus to help you find what you need. The better ones
may also have more complex search functions.
<p>Some of the bigger distributions link their default web pages to HTML
versions of the help files. They may also have a link to help directly from
the menus in their default X Windowing setup. Therefore, it's wise to
install the default window manager, even if you (or the friend helping you)
have a preference for another one, and to explore its menus a bit.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- =============================================================== -->
<A NAME="winmodem"></A>
<h2>5. So I'm having trouble with this internal modem...</h2>
<p>It's probably a winmodem. Winmodems suck for multiple reasons:</p>
<ol>
<li>Most of them lack drivers for Linux. Notice the term "most" and not
"all" -- see <a href="http://linmodems.org/">http://linmodems.org</a> for
more about those few that do, and some general knowledge on the subject.
<li>Since they aren't a complete modem without software, even if they
were to work under Linux, they'd eat extra CPU that could be better
spent on other things. So they'll never seem quite as fast as their
speed rating would imply.
<li>Internal modems have their own problems; they overheat more easily,
and have a greater danger of harming other parts in your system when
they fail, merely because they're attached directly to the bus. The
tiny portion of speed increase that might lend is not really worthwhile
compared to the risk of losing other parts in the system.
</ul>
<p>So, yeah, there can be good internal modems, but it's more worthwhile
to get an external one. It will often contain phone line surge suppression
and that may lead to more stable connections as well.</p>
<!--===================================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
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>
<H4>"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"</H4>
<HR>
<center>
<table width="100%" cellpadding=7><tr><td>
<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>
</td><td>
<H3>Contents:</H3>
<ul>
<li><a HREF="#help">Help Wanted -- Article Ideas</a>
<li><a HREF="#gen">General Mail</a>
</ul>
</td></tr></table>
</center>
<P><HR> <!-- ************************************************** -->
<FONT FACE=arial,helvetica SIZE=+2>
Please, readers, e-mail your questions and comments in
<FONT SIZE=+8
COLOR=brown><STRONG><BLINK>TEXT </BLINK></STRONG></FONT> format,
not HTML. And if your mailer splits long lines by putting an
"=" at the end of the line and moving the last character or two to the
next line, please try to turn that feature off. Also some mailers turn
punctuation and foreign characters into "=20" and "=E9" and the like. I
can't reformat those, since I don't know what the original character
was! -Ed.
</FONT>
<P> P.S. This the first time ever I have resorted to blinking text,
which I usually despise. I understand some mailers don't allow you to turn
off this obnoxious "multimedia" formatting. But if you can, please do so.
<a name="help"></a>
<hr><p>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<center><H3><font color="maroon">Help Wanted -- Article Ideas</font></H3></center>
<P>
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 next issue in the Tips column.
<P> <STRONG>Before asking a question, please check the
<A HREF=../faq/index.html><I>Linux Gazette</I> FAQ</A> to see if it has been
answered there.</STRONG>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Thu, 28 Oct 1999 09:21:39 -0700
<BR>From: Linux Gazette &lt;<A HREF="mailto:lg@ssc.com">lg@ssc.com&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Filename extensions for web program listings
<P> Hi, astute readers. Your <I>Linux Gazette</I> editor has a question for
you. With this issue, I've started moving program listings that are
included in articles into their own separate text files, to make it
easier for those who want to run the programs.
<P> My question is, which filename extensions are safe to use so that they'll
show up properly as text files in the browsers? I'm wavering between using a
language-specific extension (.c, .sh, .pl, .py, etc.) vs putting .txt at the
end of all of them (or .sh.txt, etc.) What about listings that don't have an
extension on the source file? They display as text on my browser, but do they
display properly on yours?
<P> Language-specific extensions would be the most ideal, because they offer
the possibility of syntax highlighting if the browser supports it. (Does
any browser support this?) However, I know I've tried to view files on other
sites that I know perfectly well are text-readable, but the browser insists
on downloading them rather than viewing them because it doesn't recognize the
type. (Of course, that's better than the corollary, where it tries to view
.tar.gz or .mp3 files as text.)
<P> Of course, the ultimate answer is to fix your mailcap entry and MIME types,
but that can be tedious. Also, the person viewing the site may not know how to
set the MIME types properly.
<P> So which is better: language-specific extensions, no extensions, or .txt?
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Thu, 23 Sep 1999 14:56:32 -0700 (PDT)
<BR>From: Angelo Costa &lt;<A HREF="mailto:angico@yahoo.com">angico@yahoo.com&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: 3-button mouse on X Window System
<P> Can anybody help me with this simple (I guess)
problem?
My three-button mouse works very fine on the console,
but it doesn't when I "startx". What's going on?
How can I solve this problem and start using the
middle
mouse button under X?
Any suggestion will be appreciated.
<P> Thanx,<BR>
Angico.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Fri, 24 Sep 1999 17:50:53 -0500
<BR>From: Bret Charlton &lt;<A HREF="mailto:bret@bluebonnet.net">bret@bluebonnet.net&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Monitor
<P> I am new to Linux and I am having problems with my monitor. Do you know
where I might be able to get some help?
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
[We'll need some more information. What exactly is the problem? What
kind of monitor and video card do you have? -Ed.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Sun, 26 Sep 1999 05:31:15 -0600 (MDT)
<BR>From: Dale M. Snider &lt;<A HREF="mailto:dsnider@nmia.com">dsnider@nmia.com&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Linux hangs when out of swap
<P> When running memory intensive problems, such as animate from ImageMagic or
General Mesh Viewer (GMV) out of Los Alamos Labs, and the swap space limit
is reached, Linux hangs. Only option is to power off the computer. This is
repeatable (sad to say it has been too often lately).
<P> This does it on the RedHat 6.0 and 5.2 releases. Is there a way to force
the application to abort and not the kernel when the swap limit is
reached?
<P> I am using the RedHat 6.0 on a PIII, 500 Mhz Intel computer
Linux 2.2.5-15 (root@porky) (gcc egcs-2.91.66)
<PRE>
Memory: Total Used Free Shared Buffers Cached
Mem: 257876 254496 3380 21292 203096 23624
Swap: 136544 0 136544
</PRE>
<P> Cheers<BR>
Dale
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
[Take a look at the ulimit command (built into bash and other shells).
It tells the kernel not to let this process use more than X amount of
resources. I use "ulimit -c 0" to prevent core files from being
created. There are several options dealing with memory, although I
haven't used them. The most promising looks like -v, which sets "the
maximum amount of virtual memory available to the shell".
<P> I have also had problems when the swap limit is reached, but not
exactly like what you describe.. Unfortunately, Linux's otherwise
excellent memory manager is not quite up to par in this situation. The
kernel is supposed to start killing processes when a critical stage is
reached to free up some memory; however, sometimes that doesn't happen
properly.
<P> I had a situation happen while I was out of town where apache and
squid zombied for no apparent reason, and there were no error messages
in the syslog. I restarted them (after clearing out the PID lock files
so they would consent to restart) and they ran OK. Then I realized
syslog wasn't running, which was the reason I had gotten no error
messages for the past day. Then I noticed there were a whole lot of
zombies, and when I tried to "kill -9" them, they remained. "Update"
(the daemon that flushes files to disk) was also a zombie. Tried to
run "shutdown", but it wouldn't do anything. Tried switching runlevels,
still didn't help. Finally I realized init wasn't running! How do you
shut down the system when you can't run "shutdown"? The old-fashioned
way: close as many files as you can, run sync, press reset, and hope for
the best. When it came up again, I had lots of fsck errors, two
lost+found files (fortunately non-critical), and all the files I had
created or modified over the past day were unchanged. Fortunately, the
changes I had made to a text file two days before, which I had worked a
whole day on, were still there. When I asked people what could have
caused this, the consensus seemed to be the system had probably run out
of memory. This is with kernel 2.2.10 on Debian. Fortunately, the
problem has not repeated; and doubly fortunate, it didn't happen during
the time I was away and had to log into the box remotely to check my
e-mail; and triply fortunate, exim (in non-daemon mode) ran fine the
whole time. -Ed.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Sun, 26 Sep 1999 13:59:49 -0400
<BR>From: Dyslexic &lt;<A HREF="mailto:dyslexic@mindspring.com">dyslexic@mindspring.com&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: agp support in linux
<P> Does linux support the AGP port? I have linux setup on a AMD K6-2 450Mhz
with 160Megs of ram 13 gig hd, HP CD-RW, zip drive, SB AWE64 on an EPOX
MVP3G motherboard I am using a creative graphics balster banshee AGP
card with 16megs of ram.
<P> I have installed linux mandrake 6.0 (from the cd included with the
Maximum linux magazine) during the installation the only error i
encontered was that the bootloader wouldn't install.
<P> right now I am booting with a floppydisk. When linux boots up the
resolution is set at about 640 x 480 and is very difficult to work with
is there anyway to increse the resalution? I have checked several FAQS
and have found nothing helpful, I don't know anyone who uses linux so
i'm pretty much flying blind here
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Mon, 27 Sep 1999 11:11:20 +0100
<BR>From: Linda Fulstow &lt;<A HREF="mailto:linda.fulstow@easynet.co.uk">linda.fulstow@easynet.co.uk&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: epsom 800 printer driver disk
<P> Linda Fulstow SCOPE 01752 788099
<P> We need to install above and need a driver installer disk, can you help.
e:mail us or please call 01752 788099, we are desperate.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Mon, 27 Sep 1999 10:58:22 -0500
<BR>From: EuphoriaDJ &lt;<A HREF="mailto:eddthompson@ssi.parlorcity.com">eddthompson@ssi.parlorcity.com&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: iMac and Linux ethernet (&amp; FreeBSD maybe)
<P> I have all the wires hung, the hub powered and the computers on.
I would like to share files between my iMac and Linux box and later on when
I get it running
my 68kFreeBSD Mac. Also I would Like to serve X windows to the Mac from Linux.
<P> Any help would be excellent.<BR>
TTFN
<P> An Elephant: A mouse built to government specifications<BR>
Never try to out-stubborn a cat<BR>
Natural laws have no pity<BR>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Tue, 28 Sep 1999 03:51:36 +0000
<BR>From: Ben &lt;<A HREF="mailto:benvh@wish.net">benvh@wish.net&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: AT-command error message
<P> Whenever I try to run "at" I get an error message, like so:
<P> root@benzz:&gt; at 10:15 command
Only UTC Timezone is supported. Last token seen: command
Garbled time
<P> This is actual output. My system _is_ on UTC timezone, the at man-page didn't
help a bit. Someone suggested that I should write a file:
<P> echo command&gt; file
at 10:15 cat &lt; file
<P> but that wouldn't help, as "at" is still in there, and it's "at" making trouble.
Does anybody know what I'm doing wrong? Or just another way to schedule tasks?
I'm getting desperate now...
<P> May the Source be with you.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Wed, 29 Sep 1999 22:24:29 -0700
<BR>From: Wayde C Gutman &lt;<A HREF="mailto:wcgutman@mwpower.net">wcgutman@mwpower.net&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: LS120
<P> This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
<P> I would like to know exactly what I need to input into the /etc/fstab
concerning having OpenLinux 2.2 to see the LS120 drive. My system has
the 1.44 floppy drive at fd0, hard drive at hda and hda1, and the cdrom
at hdc. I tried the approach Caldera suggested for the owner of
OpenLinux 1.3, it didn't work or I messed up, which is possible since I
am still a greenhorn at this.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Fri, 1 Oct 1999 16:43:35 +0800
<BR>From: u &lt;<A HREF="mailto:leeway@kali.com.cn">leeway@kali.com.cn&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: program that play Video Compact Disk (VCD) and more
<P> i have RH 5.1. Is there any program that play Video Compact Disk (VCD)?
Last month I posted the same question from leeway@tonghua.com.cn.
Unfortunately, the free eamail-box does not work now and i get no help. I
apologize and thank anyone who replied.
<P> Something very strange happens: My Win97 can't use CD-ROM after a week of
installation but Linux has no problem. Now Win97 uses MS-DOS compatible
mode to access hard disk and it's slow. Anybody has any idea on this?
<P> i use mixviews of Debian to record a wave file input from a cassette
player. I use 3k sample rate/16 bit and it plays fine. But the effect is
terrible on recorder of Win97. When i change the sample rate to 8k, it's OK
on both. Why? Is there any wave-to-mp3 util? mixer does not remember the
setting so i have to adjust it each time. How to solve it?
<P> PS: is there any icons for redhat and debian so I could use to launch Linux
from Win97? i already made the shortcuts but can't find good icons and i'm
not good artist. I will appreciate if you could email icons to me.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Sat, 02 Oct 1999 21:29:21 +0200
<BR>From: 2095910 &lt;<A HREF="mailto:albert.prats@campus.uab.es">albert.prats@campus.uab.es&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Tryin' to install a Diamond SupraExpress 56i V PRO
<P> I have a problem with my new modem.
I tried to install it under Red-Hat 5.2 but it doesn't work.
My modem is an internal Diamond Supra Express 56i V PRO and under W98 the
default configuration is irq 12 an I/O port 0x3e8.
Under W98 it works perfectly and i don't think this is a "winmodem"(isn't
it?).
Windows "says" that under DOS it must be configured with:
COM 3, irq 4 and I/O port 0x3e8 (/dev/ttyS2 isn't it?)
<P> I just want to know if this is a winModem or not and how can I install it.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Mon, 4 Oct 1999 18:08:56 -0400
<BR>From: The Wizard &lt;<A HREF="mailto:wizard@openface.ca">wizard@openface.ca&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: My Windows partition hasd full access for root only
<P> I have 2 questions:
<P> I have partitioned my HD in 4 partitions.
<OL>
<LI> 1 - Win98 (Filesystem is FAT-Win95)
<LI> Linux Swap
<LI> Linux OS
<LI> Personal Data (Filesystem is FAT-Win95)
</OL>
<P> Questions 1.<BR>
Both the FAT-Win95 Filesystem Partitoins get mounted properly in Linux but
the problem is that only root has read/write/execute permission. The other
users only have read/execute permissions.How can I have it set up so that
everyone had r/w/x permission to the mounted filesystems (and all the
subdirectories within them)
<P> Question 2.<BR>
If I access any file from the FAT-WIN95 filesystem and make a change to it
within Linux, when I boot in windows, that file is marked as "read only".
Any idea why this is happening and how I can stop this from happening?
<P> Maybe the two are related. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Wed, 06 Oct 1999 01:22:19 -0700
<BR>From: Zac Howland &lt;<A HREF="mailto:howla_j@cs.odu.edu">howla_j@cs.odu.edu&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Diamond HomeFree Phonline Home Networking
<P> I recently bought a Daimond HomeFree Phoneline Networking kit. It works
great in windows, but i use linux most of the time on my pc and was
wondering if anyone knew how to set it up for a linux machine. My pc is
the "Administrator" so I need it to work so others in my home network
can still access the net while I am working in Linux.
<P> Thanks
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Wed, 06 Oct 1999 13:05:18 +0200
<BR>From: Sandra Uredat &lt;<A HREF="mailto:a2844745@smail.Uni-Koeln.DE">a2844745@smail.Uni-Koeln.DE&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: KDE slower than windoze?
<P> Hi all,
<P> I've just installed linux on my Acer Notebook 370 and I thought
everthing works fine. But when I'm running KDE it takes e.g. about 5
minutes to open Netscape!!!
Is anybody out there who knows what's wrong with my installation???
<P> Thanx in advance<BR>
Sandra
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Sat, 9 Oct 1999 04:31:52 +0900
<BR>From: Ganesan &lt;<A HREF="mailto:cs7505@cs.inf.shizuoka.ac.jp">cs7505@cs.inf.shizuoka.ac.jp&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: CDROM MOUNT FAILURE DURING INSTALL
<P> I am trying to install REDHAT LINUX 6.0 to my Note-PC.
but I can't get it done.
<P> I always get the message mount failure.
<P> I searched FAQ,but all the question is about how to mount after installing.
<P> I am getting this message after my PC search for the PCMCIA card.
My PC managed to find my PCMCIA-SCSI Card(ADAPTEC 152X) but
after that the message says "CDROM Mount Failure-Block device required"
<P> Please tell me how to do it.
<P> Thankyou.<BR>
Ganesan
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Sun, 10 Oct 1999 09:23:42 -0400
<BR>From: Brad Renner &lt;<A HREF="mailto:banner99@iapdatacom.net">banner99@iapdatacom.net&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: LINUX for a 486
<P> I read about LINUX in a recent issue of a computer magazine. I really
don't use my PC for much of anything but work.(I use it to run a Roland
PNC 1410 vinyl cutter) I am, to say the least, Curious about LINUX. I
also have an old Toshiba satellite T1910CS. It's a 486 with 4 megs of
RAM and I believe a 200 meg hard drive. A friend of mine was going to
throw it away so I took it. I would love to experiment with LINUX if
there is a version available that will run on it. Windows 95 just
crawls on the thing, and I've recently been using DOSSHELL. The only
thing I really will be using it for is keeping track of customers,
printing invoices, and E-Mailing my wife.
<P> Thanks<BR>
Brad Renner
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
[I have a Toshiba Satellite 486-75, 16MB RAM, 500MB HD, and it has been
running Linux for four years.
<P> I would not recommend trying to install Linux on a 4MB machine if
you're not familiar with Linux. It would have to be done the
"old-fashioned way", without the automatic installation utilities the
current distributions have. You would have to use an old kernel
(perhaps from the 1.x series). For your efforts you would get a server
that could perhaps be used as a one-purpose dedicated server or as a
dialout terminal, but that's it.
<P> I used to work for an ISP where we used 386s (8MB RAM) and then 486s
(16MB RAM) as routers. The 386s worked fine with the then-current
version of Slackware (this was 1996), although we upgraded the memory to
16MB on the higher-traffic ones. The worst problem was never knowing
when the ancient hard drives would fail. The 486s (1998) were much more
reliable.
<P> Linux is very scalable and can be used on a wide variety of
machines, but of course some of its features aren't usable on lower-end
machines. You didn't say what capacity your desktop PC has. I would
consider 16MB a minimum amount of memory for a general-purpose machine
that is not running X-windows, and 32 (or more) if you want to run
Netscape or an office suite. -Ed.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Mon, 11 Oct 1999 13:26:21 +0200
<BR>From: Mr. Tibor Berkes &lt;<A HREF="mailto:berkes_t@netlock.net">berkes_t@netlock.net&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: TAAKACS+ and RADIUS
<P> I would like to know whether the TAKACS+ and RADIUS
authentication servers for Internet Service Providers can
authenticate by x509 certificate which can be found at
the customer, so at the Dial-Up Networking there isn't
Log-in and Username.
<P> I look forward to hearing from you,
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Tue, 12 Oct 1999 00:31:10 +0200
<BR>From: Th. Fischer &lt;<A HREF="mailto:frosch@cs.tu-berlin.de">frosch@cs.tu-berlin.de&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Compiling everything myself
<P> Greetings, ladies and gentleusers.
<P> I would like to compile my own Linux system. Not just the kernel.
Everything. I've got enough room and partitions on my disk(s) to do it.
Do not tell me do buy a distribution. Until now, I've tried a lot of
them - I count eleven on my shelf - I do not like one of them the way I
would like a self-created one.
<P> I just need a place to start. All of the distributions must have started
at some point or another - how did they do it? Please point to a
location where info may be obtained. The LDP seem to provide _nothing_
concerned to this task.
<P> Every hint will be highly appreciated. I would also love to contribute
documentation of the process to the Free Software community.
<P> Every reader is invited to answer via email.
<P> Thorsten Fischer
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
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Tue, 12 Oct 1999 09:50:02 -0600
<BR>From: Tom Miller &lt;<A HREF="mailto:tjmiller@DATC.TEC.UT.US">tjmiller@DATC.TEC.UT.US&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Looking for suggestions and ideas for a Linux-based class
<P> By way of introduction, I am a computer and networking instructor at Davis
Applied Technology Center (- the ATC's are Utah's equivalent of VoTech
schools.) My original industry background is in *ix-networked mainframes,
LAN/WAN architecture, and in mixed-environment networks ( mixed, as in
putting *ix and MS in the same coherent network- I even went and got an
MCSE to certify in the MS half of it)
<P> Digression aside, this is my predicament:
<P> Having recently come on board as a instructor here at DATC, I had noticed
that the UNIX curriculum was way out of date, and had but a single small
class (they were still teaching an older version of SCO-Unix as the core
OS.) I proposed to update it, and a deadline of January 2000 was set for
the basic course, March 2000 for the advanced/sysadmin level course
(though it should be done at about the same time as the basic course.)
<P> Currently, I have a basic course outlines (using Linux as the core OS),
and have found the textbooks for the courses (which I have split up into
basic *ix and advanced sysadmin-level *ix)
<P> My question to all of you in the industry is this: What parts of Linux,
and the networking of same, are most important to you? Should there be
more concentration in TCP/IP fundamentals (which I have included),
specific Linux/*ix-based programs ( KDE, Gnome, Apache), or which? What is
it that you most desire in an entry-level (or not-so-entry-level) employee
candidate?
<P> I do have a structure based on my own opinions, yes, but since our mandate
at DATC is to match industry needs, I wanted to get the widest base of
opinions possible.
<P> (An aside - I know that Red Hat is working to get a cert program together,
but until it gets in place fully (and until all the testing centers carry
it), I've got a curriculum to build.)
<P> Please feel free to send all of your ideas, suggestions, and a brief
description of why they should be implemented to me, here at tjmiller@datc.tec.ut.us . Especially encouraged are those in the industry who hire
entry-level IT professionals. I would also appreciate a brief description
of what your company does in the industry, if you would be so kind.
<P> My gratitude in advance,<BR>
TJ Miller jr
<P> <HR> <P>
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Tue, 12 Oct 1999 15:21:53 -0400 (EDT)
<BR>From: Roberto Novoa Qui&ntilde;ones &lt;<A HREF="mailto:rnovoa@ucfinfo.ucf.edu.cu">rnovoa@ucfinfo.ucf.edu.cu&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Desde Cuba
<P> Un saludo ante todo. Tuve la oportunidad de leer en Internet un
art&eacute;culo de esta revista y por eso quiero mantener correspondencia con
ustedes y si les es posible enviarme a esta direcci&oacute;n informaci&oacute;n
sobre el efecto 2000 y las consecuencias que esto traer&aacute; para la
econom&eacute;a o para cualquier rama, no espec&eacute;ficamente de la
econom&eacute;a.
<P> Soy estudiante de la Facultad de Ingenier&eacute;a Mec&aacute;nica de la
Universidad de Cienfuegos y actualmente estoy cursando el tercer a&ntilde;o de
la carrera. Su ayuda me ser&aacute; de gran satisfacci&oacute;n ya que por
otros medios no puedo obtener esta informaci&oacute;n. Gracias.
<P> Fraternalmente,<BR>
<P> Marco Novoa Qui&ntilde;ones.
<P> <HR> <P>
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Tue, 12 Oct 1999 23:50:19 -0700
<BR>From: Ken Deboy &lt;<A HREF="mailto:glockr@alternavision.com">glockr@alternavision.com&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Source for ls command?
<P> Hi,
I'm looking for source code for the ls command on my Redhat (4.2)
CDROM under the SRPMS directory, but I can't find it anywhere. I
also did a 'find / -name ls* -print' of my system, and it found the
binary
but not the source file. Can you please tell me where it is? Thanks:)
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
[It's part of a larger package. I use Debian, so I would type:
<PRE>
dpkg -S ls | grep bin/ls
</PRE>
(The grep is there because of the large numbers of hits
on the bare substring "ls".) This shows which package contains the
file. fileutils: /bin/ls See the rpm manpage; there should be an option
that does a similar thing. In any case, the package is probably called
"fileutils" on RedHat too, since both distros got it from the same
source. -Ed.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> <HR> <P>
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Thu, 14 Oct 1999 20:18:03 +1000
<BR>From: Hakon Andersson &lt;<A HREF="mailto:hakon@netspace.net.au">hakon@netspace.net.au&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: i740 AGP
<P> I wish to run my i740 AGP under Linux. I am a Linux newbie though. I was
wondering if you could tell me, or direct me onto some resources on how
to setup my i740, or which server to install during installation. I am
installing Redhat5
<P> <HR> <P>
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Thu, 14 Oct 1999 17:13:34 +0530
<BR>From: uday rajput &lt;<A HREF="mailto:udayrajput@hotmail.com">udayrajput@hotmail.com&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: final year engg project on VPN
<P> sir, I am A final Year student in India toiling with the Idea of a VPN
as A final year project. Virtual Private Network is A Virtual concept
for me till now desperate need for help as time is running out .
<P> resources at hand:
<UL>
<LI> Red HAt Linux 6
<LI> a star board lan network
<LI> a shell internet account at work place.
</UL>
<P> <HR> <P>
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14 Oct 99 18:33:36 MDT
<BR>From: Wasim Ahmed &lt;<A HREF="mailto:gracewasim@usa.net">gracewasim@usa.net&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Creative 3D Exxtreme Driver Needed for Linux
<P> I'm a Newbie in Linux, but i have a Great Background on Computer Field
Right now I'm using Win 98, NT. I have used Linux before. Right now, I have
233MMX, 40MB Ram, CD-ROM, 5.1GB HDD, 100 ZIP Drive, Creative AWE64 Sound Card
&amp; Creative 3D Exxtreme Graphics Blaster.
<P> Now I have installed Red Hat Linux 5.2. Installation was succesful. But my
X Window is not running, cause i don't have driver for 3D Exxtreme.
<P> Can u pleasee help me by providing the Driver or can u tell me where I can
find it?
<P> Please, that will be Great Help to me..
<P> <HR> <P>
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Fri, 15 Oct 1999 10:51:15 +0200
<BR>From: Stephan Schulz &lt;<A HREF="mailto:sschulz@cvbg.stl.sn.schule.de">sschulz@cvbg.stl.sn.schule.de&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Need some Help installing Vodoo3000 AGP on Linux X
<P> Is there a free X-Server for Vodoo3000 AGP cards?
If yes plaese tell me where and how to use it!
<!-- ??? -->
<P> <HR> <P>
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Fri, 15 Oct 1999 08:31:55 -0700
<BR>From: Linux Gazette &lt;<A HREF="mailto:lg@ssc.com">lg@ssc.com&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Re: sample
<P> On Fri, Oct 08, 1999 at 02:15:08PM +0800, <20><><EFBFBD><EFBFBD> wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Suppling some 8-10 sample installation plans will be of great help to the beginners of my type.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> Hi. What do you mean by sample installation plans? Do you mean a list
of packages to install? Step-by-step installation instructions? Or something
else?
<P> <HR> <P>
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Fri, 15 Oct 1999 08:50:15 -0700
<BR>From: James M. Haviland, RN &lt;<A HREF="mailto:jhavilan@oz.net">jhavilan@oz.net&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Re: Linux Gazette #46 (October 1999) is available
<P> If I download the "tar" file [of the <I>Linux Gazette</I>], but how do I
read it? I've have OpenLinux 2.3 installed at the moment. I do have 2.3, but
do seem to be able to install it. Doesn't like my CD player(?).
<P> TIA
<P> Oh, yes this Eudora Lite. I like it better than the reader that comes with
2.3. I didn't find Pine in the install. Yes, I can download the tar file, but
how to install it is another question.
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
[Download lg-base.tar.gz and the lg-issue##.tar.gz files of your choice.
Run </EM><CODE>tar xzvf lg-FILENAME.tar.gz</CODE><EM> for each file.
They will all expand into a subdirectory "lg". (Run </EM><CODE>man
tar</CODE><EM> for an explanation why.) Then in your favorite web
browser go to the URL
</EM><CODE>file:/FULL-PATH-TO/lg/index.html</CODE><EM> (using the real
full path, of course). index.html is a symbolic link to
index.html. -Ed.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> <HR> <P>
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Wed, 23 Oct 1996 11:24:47 -0400
<BR>From: Thomas Russo &lt;<A HREF="mailto:webmaster@baybiz.net">webmaster@baybiz.net&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: su not working
<P> Hello. I am writing because as of 2 weeks ago I have lost the ability to su
to root. I can still log in as root. I can also su from root to normal
users. I am running Red Hat 6.0 with the kernel 2.2.5-15 on i686. I am
currenly running a live Apache web server version 1.3.6. I have been told
that the loss of the ability to su to root could be a sign of an intruder.
I am hoping this is not true. I am further hoping that this is just some
setting that can adjusted to remedy this. I am at a complete loss as what
to do I am hoping that you can help me with this. If there is anyother
information that I have left off I apologize. Thank you in advance
<P><STRONG><EM>The Editor wrote:</EM></STRONG>
<P> I don't have answers, but some possible strategies:
<P> 1) Check /etc/passwd (and /etc/shadow if it exists) for any users besides
root with UID 0. These should probably be removed, or at least put an
'x' or '*' or something at the beginning of the password so they can't log in.
<P> 2) Change your root password (and other passwords).
<P> 3) Check for all programs called "su" on the system. Only one should
exist, /bin/su. The others could be trojan horses. Do you get the
same behavior if you type "/bin/su" to run it rather than just "su"?
<P> 4) Reinstall the package containing /bin/su. (shellutils?)
<P> 5) Read the man and/or info pages for su carefully: there may be a
configuration file somewhere that determines who can su.
<P> 6) What error message did you get? Login incorrect? Permission denied?
Forbidden to su root as this user or on this terminal?
<P> 7) Are you using shadow passwords? There could be an inconsistency in
the password configuration: are all the passwords in /etc/passwd *'d
out? Or is there a password in /etc/passwd that is different than
/etc/shadow? Shadow passwords are supposed to be an all-or-nothing
approach, but sometimes one gets inconsistencies in that some programs
(login, passwd, su, getty, adduser) use/modify the shadow file and
others don't. I would not expect this on a modern Red Hat installation,
though. If you do notice a discrepency, all login/authentication
packages should be replaced, and have a boot floppy handy in case you
lock yourself out of your system.
<P> 8) Are you using NIS? This would add another layer of complexity which
I'm not qualified to comment on.
<P><STRONG><EM>Thomas wrote back:</EM></STRONG>
<P> [parts of e-mail deleted]
<P> I can't find anything [in the su man page] except a mention of the wheel
group
<P> I get incorrect password...when it is the correct password
I have now determined that any su involving a password fails for the same
reason...incorrect password
<P> I am using shadow passwords.. I have found an inconsistency. In passwd
there is one user named ken (as it should be) however in shadow there is a
ken and a Ken(should not be a Ken). So according to you I should replace
all the packages for login, which I have not done yet, nor am a sure how to
do. Are they RPM's ( I hope)?
<P> No on the NIS
<P><STRONG><EM>The Editor responded:</EM></STRONG>
<P> If your system uses a wheel group, only people in the wheel group are
allowed to su root. Add your username to the wheel group in /etc/groups.
You'll then need to log out and back in again. Run the command "groups"
to see which groups you're in.
<P> /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow should not have any lines that aren't either
genuine users or the pseudo-users that came with the OS (audio, floppy, dip,
nogroup, users, etc) or installed by packages (majordom, news, irc, etc).
The pseudo-users normally have a password "*" to prevent anybody from
logging in as them (except "news" perhaps if you have a news administrator
that needs to be user "news" to do administrative work).
<P> There should be RPMs for all the login-related programs. Look through
the descriptions of packages on your CD and you should find them.
The shadow utilities will be in a separate package.
<P> I would fix any inconsistencies or unauthorized users in the passwd and
shadow files first, and then reinstall the packages if things still aren't
working right.
<P><STRONG><EM>Thomas wrote again:</EM></STRONG>
<P> I really appreciate all your advice. I have found the problem. Apparently
the rights to /bin/su were set to
<CODE>rwxr-xr-x</CODE> instead of <CODE>rsxr-xr-x</CODE>. I feel really stupid
for overlooking such a thing. I still don't know how it got changed. I am
guessing that it was not an intruder, I cannot see a motive to do such a
thing...but who knows. I still have that strange user that did not belong. I
just edited him out of shadow. Once again thanks.
<P><STRONG><EM>The Editor lamented:</EM></STRONG>
<P> Ach, I didn't even think about that.
<P><STRONG><EM>Thomas added:</EM></STRONG>
<P> Probably not worth printing anymore huh. Once again thanks. If you ever
have any thoughts on how that extra user got into shadow feel free to let me
know.<BR>
Thomas
<P><STRONG><EM>The Editor concluded:</EM></STRONG>
<P> Regarding the unknown user: considering it's your own name, it may be that
you typed it that way at some prompt during the initial installation.
<P> Regarding the e-mails: they're still worth printing because they may help
somebody else.
<P> <HR> <P>
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Sun, 17 Oct 1999 14:25:10 -0400
<BR>From: CYBERSTORM &lt;<A HREF="mailto:cyberstorm@prodigy.net">cyberstorm@prodigy.net&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: LINUX!!!!!!!!!!
<P> I can't figure for the life of me.........why is it so hard to get a
modem recommendation for LINUX??? This is all I'm asking for! I've
seen the text on what not to use, but no information on what to use.
hmmmm.....
<P> 1. A modem for Linux on an IBM aptiva.... once more, any
recommendations???
<P> Anybody!!
<P> <STRONG><EM>The Editor wrote:</EM></STRONG>
<P> I don't know the IBM aptiva, but assuming it's an ordinary PC...
<P> Any modem that's not a Winmodem is fine. If it says on the box that it
works with DOS and/or Macintosh as well as Windows, it should work. I use the
US Robotics Sportster, but modems have standardized enough now that they should
be pretty interchangeable. External modems are easier to configure than
internal ones, because you have the status lights to tell you what the modem is
doing, and you don't have to muck about with Plug-n-Delay or whether another
device (a serial port?) is using the IRQ. Some people also suggest external
modems are better because the heat they generate belongs outside the computer
case.
<P> If you intend to use a 56K modem, verify with your ISP which modems are
compatible with their equipment at 56K. -Ed.]
<P> <STRONG><EM>Cyberstorm responded:</EM></STRONG>
<P> Thanks for the extended information....it was all I wanted. Accept my
apologies for the message sent earlier.... it's a bit frustrating when your
on a schedule. You've been very helpful to me.
<P> <HR> <P>
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Mon, 18 Oct 1999 10:07:16 -0200
<BR>From: Erik Fleischer &lt;<A HREF="mailto:ferik@iname.com">ferik@iname.com&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Installing Red Hat 6.1
<P> Hello, there.
<P> I have successfully downloaded Red Hat 6.1 and burned a CD, but when
I try to install it -- either using AUTOBOOT from DOS or the boot
disk produced with RAWRITE and BOOT.IMG -- I always get the same
error message:
<PRE>
running install...
running /sbin/loader
exec: No such file or directory
install exited abnormally
sending kill signals
etc.
</PRE>
<P> I have checked that there are no missing files in the stuff I
downloaded, but I cannot find /sbin/loader, which is obviously a
problem.
<P> Any suggestions?<BR>
Erik
<P> <HR> <P>
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Mon, 18 Oct 1999 19:27:54 -0700 (PDT)
<BR>From: john saulen &lt;<A HREF="mailto:johnsav@yahoo.com">johnsav@yahoo.com&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: install modem and printer
<P> I've recently installed Linux 6.1.I am having a
problem installing my Zoom 56k modem as well as my
Lexmark 3200 color inkjet printer.I have been to the
Lexmark site and there are no drivers for Linux.Any
help in this matter would be appreciated.
<P> <HR> <P>
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Tue, 19 Oct 1999 10:49:41 -0700
<BR>From: Dr. Nicholas Graham &lt;<A HREF="mailto:ngraham@ucsd.edu">ngraham@ucsd.edu&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Dual PIII Xeon performance
<P> I do some intensive (multi-week runs) ocean modeling on
my Dell 610 w/ a PIII 500 Mhz Xeon. I am having a hard
time finding out whether a second PIII will improve the
speed of a single process, or only for multi-processes.
Either way would help, but it would be nice to know before
laying out the $.
<P> Thanks - Nick Graham
<P> <HR> <P>
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Tue, 19 Oct 1999 16:45:40 -0500
<BR>From: Danny R. &lt;<A HREF="mailto:danny@josifa.com">danny@josifa.com&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: How can 3 stand-alone PCs be hooked up with ADSL?
<P> I am considering to subscribing (SWBell) ADSL from South Western Bell
(without subscribing their Internet Service). My current ISP and Web
Hosting service provider is UNICOMP. I have 3 emails and 3 stand alone PCs
(no LAN connection). Each PCs need to access to the internet daily.
<UL>
<LI> How can those 3 stand alone PCs be hooked up with ADSL (from
SWBell) without LAN connection ?
<LI> What hardware/software are needed to do so?
</UL>
<P> Thank you for your attention and I am looking forward to hearing from you
soon.
<P> <HR> <P>
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Wed, 20 Oct 1999 12:27:45 +0200
<BR>From: Giovanni Rizzardi &lt;<A HREF="mailto:Rizzardi.Etnoteam@italtel.net">Rizzardi.Etnoteam@italtel.net&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Modem performance ...
<P> I am not a new comer because it is four years that I am happily
using Linux.
<P> Two months ago I bought a modem and I did not have any problem putting
it at work but for a strange difference in the performance when I
connect
using Linux or Win95 (both on the same PC but in different partitions):
the connection speed using Linux is around 30,000 while using Win95 is
aroud 50,000.
<P> Till now I have not understood why, is there anyone that
can explain me where is the bug ?
<P> My modem is a 3Com Sportser Flash V90 and Linux is RedHat 6.0
<P> Many thanks,<BR>
Giovanni.
<P> <HR> <P>
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Thu, 21 Oct 1999 02:15:30 +0200
<BR>From: Altair &lt;<A HREF="mailto:aitor.sm@teleline.es">aitor.sm@teleline.es&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Free-Mathematica??
<P> Sorry, I don't know if I'm sending this email to the adequate address.
Sorry 2: for mistakes with my English.
<P> Question:
<P> Mathematica is becoming one of the more popular programs to
deal with symbolic mathematics.
<P> Is anybody in this world trying to create a Free-Mathematica
for Linux?
<P> If the answer is yes, I wouldn't mind to help if possible, I'm a
Mathematician.
<P> <HR> <P>
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21 Oct 1999 08:20:03 -0700
<BR>From: &lt;<A HREF="mailto:akudesia@123india.com">akudesia@123india.com&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Compaq Proliant Fast wide SCSI-2
<P> Hi there
<P> Trying to install RedHat Linux 6.0 on Compaq Proliant 2000 and Installer program can not detect on board SCSI controller (Fast Wide SCSI-2). I tried all listed but none of them works.
<P> Where to find?
<P> <HR> <P>
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Thu, 21 Oct 1999 20:46:51 +0100
<BR>From: oliver cameron &lt;<A HREF="mailto:oliver@hii.co.uk">oliver@hii.co.uk&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Small Business Server
<P> Can anyone direct me to an article on setting up a linux server for
windows/NT clients similar in functionality to Microsofts expensive and
unreliable "Small Business Server"? I need a linux box with a proxy
server (Squid), Sendmail , an ISDN connection with automatic dialling
configured, a fax server, a file server with samba, automated back-ups
and printer support. Has anyone produced a readable article on the
subject as I have found the various HOWTO's depressingly complicated.
Maybe I have missed something obvious but I have not seen any articles
devoted to setting up a simple LAN server under Linux. Any help would be
greatly appreciated.
<P> Oliver (oliver@hii.co.uk)
<P> <HR> <P>
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Thu, 21 Oct 1999 15:56:49 -0400
<BR>From: Anthony Mancuso &lt;<A HREF="mailto:am5008@cnsvax.albany.edu">am5008@cnsvax.albany.edu&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: 810 chipset
<P> I was looking through the questions and responses in the gazette here,
and I came across a question about the onboard video card, Intels 810
chipset. I am also having problems with it. However, you didnt write a
response to the person. I was wondering if you had any solutions to
this problem, or any ideas. If you could help me out I would greatly
appreciate it.
<P> Tony<BR>
am5008@cnsvax.albany.edu
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
[I stay away from answering video card questions because I don't know
much about the different cards. I am very cautious with hardware, and
buy only models that I have heard other Linux users say good things
about during the previous year. Thus, I have a Diamond Stealth which
has worked wonderfully for years and a Matrox Millenium II which has
more video memory but apparently a bad RAMDAC (the picture blanks out
for a second at random moments). It was warranted for a year, but of
course the model got retired before that, so I never did bother sending
it back to the company; I just moved it into a server where it could
run in text mode. -Ed.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> <HR> <P>
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Thu, 21 Oct 1999 17:12:00 -0400
<BR>From: Max-zen &lt;<A HREF="mailto:onqams@muss.cis.mcmaster.ca">onqams@muss.cis.mcmaster.ca&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: comparision
<P> Why would I want to use Linux as opposed to Windows??? Could you give me
a comparision or give me some sites to look at??
<P> <HR> <P>
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Sat, 23 Oct 1999 12:42:40 +0800
<BR>From: Zon Hisham &lt;<A HREF="mailto:zon@mad.scientist.com">zon@mad.scientist.com&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Norton Kill my LILO
<P> My wife ran Norton antivirus and detected that the MBR was changed. She
checked the 'Repair' box.
<P> Now my LILO is gone. How do I install it back into the MBR?
<P> Currently using RedHat 6.0.
<P> rgds.
<P> <HR> <P>
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Sat, 23 Oct 1999 11:29:34 +0530
<BR>From: R . A. PATANKAR &lt;<A HREF="mailto:srp@pn3.vsnl.net.in">srp@pn3.vsnl.net.in&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: sis 6215c driver needed
<P> i have a sis 6215c graphics card. where can i download a linux driver
for the card.
<P> <HR> <P>
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Sat, 23 Oct 1999 12:26:03 +0100
<BR>From: CMFD &lt;<A HREF="mailto:rena1@jet.es">rena1@jet.es&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Diamond SpeedStar A50
<P> Hello, I would like to know if Diamond SpeedStar A50 graphic card is
used and supported to install XWindows in Red Hat Linux, because it has
given many problems.Or if there are some drivers to upgrade this card.
Thank you for your attention.
<P> <HR> <P>
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Sun, 24 Oct 1999 19:26:48 -0400
<BR>From: E-man &lt;<A HREF="mailto:falcon65@mindspring.com">falcon65@mindspring.com&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: fsck
<P> I was running RHL6.0 w/o a UPS, when all of the sudden the power went
out.
The system rebooted and started to to a forcecheck scan, this is not the
first time
this happened. There were problems and I was told to run fsck from a
boot disk.
<P> LONG STORY SHOT: there are problems with it not seeing files, or someting
like that, and now I don't have X, its gone and PROC wont load.
<P> Any clues as to what could have happened?
<P> I'm a newbie, about 2 months old.
I already miss my Linux!!!!
<P> <HR> <P>
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<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Mon, 25 Oct 1999 11:57:40 +0200
<BR>From: Juan Pazos &lt;<A HREF="mailto:jpazos@teleline.es">jpazos@teleline.es&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Connecting Linux to NT
<P> I want to connect from my Linux home box (over a analogic line and using
PPP) to my office Windows NT Server; I try to find some HOWTO about it
but I can not get it. Do you know where I can get it?
<P> <HR> <P>
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<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
25 Oct 99 08:36:39 MDT
<BR>From: Syed Adnan &lt;<A HREF="mailto:kundalani@usa.net">kundalani@usa.net&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: RIVA tnt 2
<P> I own a Riva TNT 2 Value Graphics card. I'm having a serious problem with
installing Linux 6. I've never used Linux before and have treid installing
Linux several times using differnt servers(I dont even know what those are). I
guess my normal shell screen is working properly but the Linux GUI is not
loading... do i need a specific driver for Riva tnt and if so then how do I
install it through the shell.
<P> Regards<BR>
Adnan
<P> P.S Where exactly are the answers to thees question published?
<STRONG><EM> The Editor wrote:</EM></STRONG>
<P> The question will be published in the Mailbag section of the November
issue, to be published this Friday. People will send responses to you
directly with a cc: gazette@ssc.com. Responses will be published in
the 2-Cent Tips section of the next issue.
<P> <HR> <P>
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Mon, 25 Oct 1999 19:02:08 +0200
<BR>From: Fred Van der Linden &lt;<A HREF="mailto:els11867@skynet.be">els11867@skynet.be&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: HP890C
<P> Can anyone send me a driver for HP890c printer.
<P> Many thanks for answering,<BR>
Fred Van der Linden
<P> <HR> <P>
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Mon, 25 Oct 1999 20:02:06 +0100
<BR>From: Tom Kidd &lt;<A HREF="mailto:chewbaca@tomsdig.freeserve.co.uk">chewbaca@tomsdig.freeserve.co.uk&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Dialing Up my ISP
<P> I was wandering if it is at all possible to use my current ISP account
(with Freeserve) through REDHAT Linux. If So why does it always Crash,
If not, Wat kind of Account(what ISP) do you Recomend?
Sincerly Tom
<P> <HR> <P>
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Mon, 25 Oct 1999 19:38:13 +0000
<BR>From: roselin leong &lt;<A HREF="mailto:zczcr14@ucl.ac.uk">zczcr14@ucl.ac.uk&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Research
<P> I am a university student at the University College London. I was wondering
if I could get some help here. I am currently working on a dissertation on
open source, incorporating case studies on Linux, Netscape and so on. I
will also be looking at the changes open source have affected closed source
softwares.
<P> One part of my research is where I am analysing the business model of Linux
(from Redhat) . However I fear by going to Redhat's website the information
about it's product may be biased and I may not be able to get an all
rounded opinion. Hence is there any links (apart from the technical ones)
that you could recommend?
<P> Thank You.
<P> <HR> <P>
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Wed, 27 Oct 1999 00:54:44 -0500 (CDT)
<BR>From: Eric Agnew &lt;<A HREF="mailto:agnew@spfc.org">agnew@spfc.org&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: mail bag q: 1-way cable modem woes
<P> 6 days of scouring the mini-HOWTO, the web, deja, the linux-net archives,
and trying every imaginable route(8) configuration have left me nothing
short of frustrated...
<P> I just got a new com21 from Prime Cable in Chicago, which, of course,
"doesn't fully support" anything but win95/98/nt (which, of course, it
works fine under). Of course, I'd much prefer to have it up on the linux
box, so all the machines can use it (currently 3-5 machiens share a 28.8
connection- ugh!).
<P> They give you a username/pw, a number to dial into w/ a regular modem, and
have you set up the ethernet as 10.0.0.1/255.255.255.240.
<P> I can dial in ok, ping other machines on the same subnet (which come back
over ppp0), etc. Problem is, the only thing I get on eth1 are arp who-has
packets and pings from 10.0.0.14 (which I'm guessing is their router) to
other hosts on the subnet.
<P> I'm running debian potato w/ a fresh 2.2.13 kernel & just about every
networking option compiled in. I've disabled ipchains & eth0 (internal
lan) until I can get this thing working. I've tried every set of ifconfig
& route commands I could think of, & still nothing.
<P> If anyone out there has a similar cable/ppp setup, the outputs of
'ifconfig' and 'route -n' would be of immense help (all I've been able to
find are RH sysconfig examples), as well as anything unusual (special ppp
hacks, kernel modules, etc.) that was necessary to get it to work.
<P> Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks.
<P> <HR> <P>
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Wed, 27 Oct 1999 10:19:20 -0700
<BR>From: Irfan Majeed &lt;<A HREF="mailto:irfan@indiagate.com">irfan@indiagate.com</A>&gt;
<BR>Subject: Re: Please Help
We are using POP3 on linux.
Can a particular user will bw restricted to send outgoing mail ?
For an internal mail auto respondent mail is possible ?
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
<P> What is it exactly you want to know?
<UL>
<LI> Whether a certain user can only send mail but can't receive it?
<LI> Whether the user can be forbidden from sending mail, but
can still receive it?
<LI> Is it possible to set up an automatic response message that
will go out if the user receives any mail?
</UL>
<P> Which mail transport program are you using? (Sendmail, exim, smail,
qmail, postfix, etc)
<P> People normally use pop to receive mail, but they send mail directly
to the mail transport program. So it should be possible to restrict one
without the other. I don't know how you would configure the
restriction, though. Mail transport programs have a configuration
option to prohibit relaying from certain domains, but I don't know if
that can be used to reject mail from certain local users.
<P> Autoresponders usually work via the "vacation" feature in mail
transport programs, normally using a .vacation file in the user's home
directory with the body of the message.
<P> Pop usually works on top of the normal mail-reading mechanism. That
is, the mail transport program delivers received mail to the user's
spool file, and then the pop program acts like a normal mail reader and
picks it up from there.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> <HR> <P>
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<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Wed, 27 Oct 1999 23:47:40 -0500
<BR>From: Smita Narla &lt;<A HREF="mailto:snarla@cse.unl.edu">snarla@cse.unl.edu&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Re: thank you and please send me more.
<P> I'm doing a general research on survey of testing techniques used in open
source.For that thing i need a questionnaire.i need to send these questionnaire
to 200 developers and from their feedback i 've to analyse.For example one
question might be "When do you consider testing to be complete?".My
advisor told me that developers will feel comfirtable if they are to
answer multiple choice questions so now hope i made my need clear. can you
please help me now.
i'll be glad if u could send me some questions and some mail addresses of
developers who r using linux to develop their applications.. ineed some 15
of them.
<P> awaiting ur response,
smita.
<P> <STRONG><EM>The Editor wrote:</EM></STRONG>
<P> 1) Is open source a permanent change in the software industry, or just
a passing fad?
<P> 2) What do the controversies regarding the differences between the open
source licenses (GPL, BSD, Artistic, Mozilla, etc) imply for the future
of open source? Are they hampering the movement?
<P> 3) Some people say that the proliferation of software patents is going
to destroy the open source movement. Is this true?
<P> 4) Is it possible to earn a living by writing open source software?
<P> Go to www.opensource.org, www.cosource.com and www.sourcexchange.com and
look through their web sites. That may give you some ideas.
<P> <STRONG><EM>Smita responded:</EM></STRONG>
<P> thanks alot for the help. i t gave me some ideas of where to search for
my kind of thing. but i need some information about the TESTING
METHODOLIGIES ------like how people test opensource ----what kind of
testing techniques they use---------.
<P> i'll really very glad if you can send me some more questions like this.
smita
<P> <STRONG><EM>The Editor asked:</EM></STRONG>
<P> To suggest techniques, we'd need to know what the goal is. Why would
people be testing open-source software? What would they be looking for?
Bugs? How well the program functions compared to a similar closed-
source program?
<P> Open-source programs are usually tested by their developers and some
of their users --- in other words, by the people who need the programs
to function correctly. There is frequently some kind of informal
organization of volunteers which accepts bug reports and ensures they
are followed up on.
<P> Organizations such as Linux distributions that don't write a lot of
software themselves but instead repackage other people's software, will
also do their own testing, to ensure the program conforms to the
standard the distribution has set for all their packages. For instance,
the Debian distribution follows the Linux Filesystem Standard, which
specifies that configuration and data files and belong in certain
directories. The distribution maintainers may modify the program
slightly to make it confirm to this rule, then test it to ensure it
does. The distribution receives bug reports both about its own errors
(which it fixes itself) and errors regarding the program's internals
(which it forwards to the program's own development team).
<P> Is this the kind of testing you're talking about? If so, your best
bet would be to talk with developers of open-source programs. They
can tell you how their particular programs are tested, which should
give you an idea how open-source programs in general are tested.
<P> <STRONG><EM>Smita responded:</EM></STRONG>
<P> I'm doing a general research on survey of testing techniques used in open
source.For that thing i need a questionnaire.i need to send these questionnaire
to 200 developers and then analyze their their feedback.For example one question
might be "When do you consider testing to be complete?".My advisor told me that
developers will feel comfirtable if they are to answer multiple choice questions
so now hope i made my need clear. can you please help me now.
<P> i'll be glad if u could send me some questions and some mail addresses of
developers who are using linux to develop their applications. I need some 15
of them.
<P> <HR> <P>
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<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Thu, 28 Oct 1999 16:00:33 +0530
<BR>From: Neelu Gora &lt;<A HREF="mailto:ng@aitpl.stpn.soft.net">ng@aitpl.stpn.soft.net&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: LINUX-Display Driver help
<P> Hello,
<P> I have Linux 5 (SUSE) installed on my PC at home. When I try to start
xwindows , it
gives error message for the missing XFree86 display driver.
I have been trying to find the suitable display driver on the net, but could
not find it.
<P> Display chip type is SIS 6215crev21.
Could you please tell me from where can I get it ?
<P> Thanks,
Neelu.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Thu, 28 Oct 1999 14:54:48 +0100
<BR>From: Network Desktop User &lt;<A HREF="mailto:G.F.Wood@shu.ac.uk">G.F.Wood@shu.ac.uk&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Linneighbourhood
<P> Hi,
sorry to bother you with inconsequential mail but I think you of all
people should know this !! I'm looking for some software called
Linneighbourhood. It's a network neighbourhood browser for Linux.
I have scoured the net for it but to no avail !!
Can you help??
<P> Thanks
<P> G Wood - UK
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
[I haven't heard of it. UNIX traditionally has not had "Network
Neighborhood" type of software. The user is expected to know by other
means (e.g. a list) which servers are available and what their domain
names are. There may be third-party products which do this, but I'm
not familiar with them. -Ed.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> <HR> <P>
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Thu, 28 Oct 1999 17:15:32 +0200 (CEST)
<BR>From: =?iso-8859-1?q?jonathan=20sainthuile?= &lt;<A HREF="mailto:sainthuile@yahoo.fr">sainthuile@yahoo.fr&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: informaton linux
<P> bonjour,
<P> Je me presente, Mon nom est Jonathan je suis lyceen(17
ans)et je suis fou de l'informatique.
<P> D'apres une information sur internet j'ai cru
comprendre que votre site ("linuxgazette") offrait la
possibilite, de recevoir par E-mail les nouveautees du
systeme d'exploitation LINUX.
<P> Je suis moi-m<>me futur "linuxien" et je suis
avourais-je encore neophite en ce concerne Linux.
J'aurai aime, si cela vous est possible, recevoir des
information au sujet du language, de la difference
avec Windows, des probleme a eviter...
<P> Je vous remercie d'avance pour votre reponse et vous
souhaite une bonne continuation
<P> Sainthuile Jonathan
<P> <HR> <P>
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<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Thu, 28 Oct 1999 17:15:32 +0200 (CEST)
<BR>From: thandor &lt;<A HREF="mailto:thandor@cin.net">thandor@cin.net&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Terminal Emulators
<P> I have a linux shell from my Win98 machine via a terminal login. I am
presently using telnet to do this, however this causes profound graphical
errors, no color, and other problems. I am looking for a better terminal. Any
suggestions?
<P> Thanks<BR>
Thandor
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Thu, 28 Oct 1999 17:15:32 +0200 (CEST)
<BR>From: &lt;<A HREF="mailto:Vikrantj@niit.com">Vikrantj@niit.com&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: linux clickability in windows NT Domain
<P> I have a linux red hat 5.2 running machine an windows NT 4 domain. Now the
machine is completely on the network and it is visible in the network
neighbourhood of other window 95, NT computers but when I click on the linux
machine it says "network path not found". Now if I search for the machine by
using its IP address then it click on the searched IP address the machine
icon opens up allowing me to browse the shares.
Actually after making the necessary changes to the smb.conf file when I gave
the
<PRE>
smbpasswd -j DOM -r DOMPDC
</PRE>
command (DOM stands for my domain and DOMPDC stands for my pdc netbios
name), it gave an error and did not allowed me to join the domain.
<P> What could be the reason, if anyone can help?
<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">
Fri, 24 Sep 1999 22:38:11 -0600 (MDT)
<BR>From: Phil Hughes &lt;<A HREF="mailto:phil@ssc.com">phil@ssc.com&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Microsoft demonstrates Caldera (humorous)
<P> I talked to Jay Green at the Seattle Times about the Microsoft Linux web
page. He felt, as I did, that Microsoft just doesn't know how to
"control" Linux because they can't just buy it.
<P> He pointed me to a web page on the Microsoft trial. He was at the
particular event I am including below. He said it was the best commercial
he had heard for Linux in general and specifically Caldera Linux. The guy
presenting works for Microsoft.
<P> (From <A HREF=http://microsoft.com/presspass/trial/transcripts/jan99/01-25-pm.htm>
microsoft.com/presspass/trial/transcripts/jan99/01-25-pm.htm</A>)
<P> "HELLO. MY NAME IS VINOD VALLOPPIL, AND I'M
A PROGRAM MANAGER IN THE PERSONA AND BUSINESS
SYSTEMS GROUP AT MICROSOFT. THIS IS A
DEMONSTRATION OF THE CALDERA OPENLINUX OPERATING
SYSTEM, A NON-MICROSOFT OPERATING SYSTEM FOR
PERSONAL COMPUTERS. THE DEMONSTRATION WILL SHOW
THAT CALDERA'S OPERATING SYSTEM PROVIDES
EFFECTIVE FUNCTIONALITY FOR TYPICAL END USERS.
<P> I HAVE INSTALLED A COPY OF CALDERA'S
OPERATING SYSTEM ON THIS STANDARD PERSONAL
COMPUTER AND ACCEPTED ALL DEFAULT SETTINGS A
WELL AS INSTALLED A SET OF END-USER APPLICATIONS
BUNDLED WITH CALDERA'S OPERATING SYSTEM.
<P> I'M CURRENTLY DEMONSTRATING CALDERA'S
OPERATING SYSTEMS' GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE. THE
GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE, OR GUI FOR SHORT, AS
PROVIDED BY CALDERA TO INSURE THAT THE OPERATING
SYSTEM IS EASY TO USE AND IS COMPETITIVE WITH
MICROSOFT'S WINDOWS OFFERING.
<P> A QUICK TOUR OF THE SCREEN DEMONSTRATES THAT
IN MANY RESPECTS, CALDERA'S OPERATING SYSTEM
LOOKS JUST LIKE MICROSOFT WINDOWS. CALDERA'S
OPERATING SYSTEM HAD A START MENU AT THE BOTTOM
OF THE SCREEN LISTING INSTALLED PROGRAMS AND
MAKING IT VERY EASY TO SELECT AND RUN THESE
PROGRAMS; A TASK BAR AT THE TOP OF THE SCREEN
LISTING PROGRAMS THAT ARE CURRENTLY RUNNING ON
THE COMPUTER; AND FINALLY, AN ARRAY OF ICONS ON
THE UPPER LEFT PORTION OF THE SCREEN PROVIDING
USERS A QUICK WAY TO RUN PROGRAMS OR ACCESS
INFORMATION ON THEIR HARD DISK.
<P> LIKE MICROSOFT WINDOWS, CALDERA'S OPERATING
SYSTEM PROVIDES A SERIES OF ACCESSORY
APPLICATIONS FOR CONSUMERS' DAILY ACTIVITIES SUCH
AS EDITING DOCUMENTS AND WRITING E-MAIL. FOR
EXAMPLE, I WILL EDIT A QUICK DOCUMENT, TYPIN
`THIS IS A TEST.'
<P> I WILL ALSO CREATE A QUICK SAMPLE E-MAIL
MESSAGE.
<P> CALDERA'S OPERATING SYSTEM HAS A GROWING
LIST OF THIRD-PARTY APPLICATION SUPPORT AND
CORPORATE BACKING, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
COMPANIES SUCH AS NETSCAPE, INTEL, ORACLE, SUN,
AND IBM.
<P> IN ORDER TO CREATE A MORE COMPETITIVE
OFFERING TO WINDOWS, CALDERA'S OPENLINUX
OPERATING SYSTEM, IN PARTICULAR, BUNDLES A NUMBER
OF THESE THIRD-PARTY PROGRAMS.
<P> A CRITICAL CLASS OF APPLICATIONS WHICH ARE
VERY POPULAR WITH CUSTOMERS IS THE OFFICE
PRODUCTIVITY SUITE. MICROSOFT'S OFFERING IN THIS
CATEGORY IS MICROSOFT OFFICE. OTHER COMPETITORS
TO MICROSOFT OFFICE WHO BUILD ON THE WINDOWS
PLATFORM INCLUDE COREL, IBM, AND STAR DIVISION OF
GERMANY.
<P> CALDERA'S BUNDLES STAR DIVISION'S
PRODUCTIVITY SUITE WITH THEIR OPERATING SYSTEM.
IN THIS CASE, I HAVE STAR OFFICE FOR CALDERA'S
OPERATING SYSTEM ON SCREEN. LIKE MICROSOFT'S
POPULAR OFFICE SUITE, STAR OFFICE PROVIDES AN
INTEGRATED SUITE OF APPLICATIONS INCLUDING WOR
PROCESSING LIKE MICROSOFT WORD, A SPREADSHEET
PROGRAM LIKE MICROSOFT EXCEL, AND A PRESENTATION
GRAPHICS PROGRAM LIKE MICROSOFT'S POWERPOINT.
<P> STAR OFFICES'S APPLICATIONS IN THIS CATEGORY
NOT ONLY PROVIDE FULL-FEATURED PRODUCTS, BUT
THEY'RE ALSO INTEROPERABLE WITH POPULAR WINDOWS
PRODUCTS. FOR EXAMPLE, I WILL NOW IMPORT A
RICHLY FORMATTED DOCUMENT CREATED IN MICROSOFT
WORD INTO STAR OFFICE RUNNING ON CALDERA'S
OPERATING SYSTEM. NOTICE THAT NOT ONLY THE TEXT
OF THE DOCUMENT WAS ABLE TO BE IMPORTED INTO STAR
OFFICE, BUT ALSO FEATURES SUCH AS RICHLY
FORMATTED SECTION HEADINGS--IN THIS CASE, THE
BLUE BOLD-FACED TEXT WITH THE LINE ABOVE IT--AND
EMBEDDED GRAPHICS, THE CIRCLE WITH THE WORD
"PRINTER" INSIDE OF IT.
<P> LIKE CALDERA'S GRAPHICAL INTERFACE, STAR
OFFICE ALSO BENEFITS STRONGLY FROM CUSTOMERS'
EXPERIENCE WITH MICROSOFT PRODUCTS. THE STAR
OFFICE PROGRAMS HAVE BEEN DESIGNED TO LOOK LIKE,
AND WORK LIKE, MICROSOFT OFFICE. AS JUST ONE
EXAMPLE, DOCUMENT FORMATTING FEATURES SUCH AS
BOLD-FACE TYPE, UNDERLINE TYPE, AND ITALICS ARE
QUICKLY AND EASILY AVAILABLE TO THE END USER WITH
JUST A SINGLE MOUSE CLICK ON BUTTONS THAT LOO
VERY MUCH LIKE AND ARE LOCATED ON A TOOLBAR JUST
LIKE THE BUTTONS THAT PROVIDE THESE FEATURES IN
<P> IN SUMMARY, I HAVE DEMONSTRATED THAT
CALDERA'S OPERATING SYSTEM IS: FIRST, POWERFUL
AND EASY TO USE; SECOND, THAT THERE ARE
SIGNIFICANT THIRD-PARTY SUPPORT IN BOTH SOFTWARE
AND HARDWARE COMPANIES; AND FINALLY, THAT
CALDERA'S PRODUCT BUNDLES A STRONG OFFICE
PRODUCTIVITY SUITE FROM STAR DIVISION WHICH IS
NOT ONLY INTEROPERABLE WITH MICROSOFT PRODUCTS,
BUT IS ALSO DESIGNED TO WORK AND LOOK LIKE
MICROSOFT PRODUCTS SO THAT USERS OF THESE
PRODUCTS WILL BE COMFORTABLE AND PRODUCTIVE USING
THESE PROGRAMS.
<P> THIS CONCLUDES THE DEMONSTRATION OF CALDERA
OPENLINUX OPERATING SYSTEM VERSION 1.3."
<P>--<BR>
just fyl
<P> <HR> <P>
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<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Fri, 24 Sep 1999 22:38:11 -0600 (MDT)
<BR>From: s. keeling &lt;<A HREF="mailto:keeling@spots.ab.ca">keeling@spots.ab.ca&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: http://www.linuxgazette.com/index.html
<P> Yes, I have a comment.
<P> YOU IDIOT! Sorry, don't take it personally; it's just a figure of speech.
<P> I'm at the url listed in the subject. I'm supposedly at the cover
page of the latest issue. What do I do now? Where the @#$%^&amp;* is the
"Next Page" button. How do I turn the page on your so-called Gazette?
<P> Oh, maybe you have to hit the "Back" button to get to the page where
you can select the next page ... Well that's stupid!!?!?!?
<P> Sorry, it had to be said. Rant off. Sorry if I offend. I'll go look
at content now, thanks.
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
[There is a single Front Page that is shared by all the issues.
That is why it doesn't have an issue-specific "next page"
button. It is a bit confusing, but it has been that way since
long before I started editing the Gazette, and we haven't
received any other complaints about it. -Ed.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Sun, 26 Sep 1999 12:14:59 +0000
<BR>From: Benjamin Smith &lt;<A HREF="mailto:bens@saber.net">bens@saber.net&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Letter format extension?
<P> OK, you're over-worked, underpaid, and would probably find yourself
split a thousand ways from Sunday if you actually tried to implement
1/100th of the suggestions you get.
<P> That said, I have another one for you.
<P> The letters column would be, IMHO, easier to read if there were
talk-backs after each letter, or that could be easily linked to, so that
suggestions for solving a problem can be perused before making my own.
<P> More like a newsgroup, or the talk-backs at the end of /. articles.
<P> -Ben
<PRE>
("`-''-/").___..--''"`-._ (Simba)
`@_ @ ) `-. ( ).`-.__.`)
(_Y_.)' ._ ) `._ `. ``-..-'
_..`--'_..-_/ /--'_.' ,'
((().-'' ((().' (((.-' Benjamin Smith
</PRE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
[The problem is, Slashdot is read only at one web site, whereas the
Gazette is also read from mirrors, mirrors of mirrors, CDs, etc. Thus,
the only common denominator is standard HTML. No CGI scripts, no
databases, no Javascript. The current Mailbag + 2-Cent Tips system
seems to be the best way to ensure that everybody can read all the
responses.
<P> An indexing system to link letters and responses would be nice.
Heather has already implemented an index for the most frequent Answer
Guy questions. If somebody has an idea how to do something like that
for the Mailbag letters, we can consider it. However, sorting the
letters into subjects and putting in direct links to each letter in the
back issues would be a </EM>lot<EM> of work.
<P> We are looking at ways to improve the <I>Gazette</I> and make it
easier to navigate, but only in ways that won't leave a portion of
our readership out.
<P> In the meantime, to find help with a problem, use the Answer Guy
index, the Index of All Issues (linked at the bottom of the issues list
on the Front Page), and the search engine linked in the middle of the
Front Page.
<P> P.S. Nice tiger. -Ed.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> <HR> <P>
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<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Tue, 28 Sep 1999 11:37:09 -0600
<BR>From: Dale Offret Jr. &lt;<A HREF="mailto:doffret@silverstar.com">doffret@silverstar.com&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Spanish Translations
<P> Dear sir or madam,
<P> In reading the October issue of the Gazette I got side tracked into the
mirrors site and the French translation sites. I looked for Spanish
translations and didn't find any.
<P> My question is anyone currently developing a Spanish site? If so, who? If
not, what criteria need to be met for someone to offer a translated issue?
<P> Background:
<P> I am a college graduated with an associates degree in Information Systems.
I have avidly read the Gazette for the last 2 to 3 years. I am not a native
Hispanic, but my grandfather was born in Mexico. From Dec. 1992 to Dec.
1994 I served as a church representative to Costa Rica in Central America
where I learned a great deal of Spanish. I also took 3 years in high
school.
<P> I am looking for ways to improve my Spanish and I believe this could help
me.
<P> Thank you for your time.<BR>
Sincerely,<BR>
Dale Offret Jr.
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
[There are no Spanish translations I know of.
<P> There are no criteria requirements. If you do a translation, we
will gladly put a link to it on the <A HREF=../mirrors.html>mirrors
page</A>.
<P> You may wish to work together with one or more of the Linux Users
groups in the Spanish-speaking countries. Perhaps you could arrange a
deal with them where you would translate the articles and have a native
proofread them. There is a directory of users groups at
<A HREF=http://www.linuxjournal.com/>www.linuxjournal.com/glue</A>,
"Users Groups (GLUE)". -Ed.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Mon, 4 Oct 1999 07:24:21 +0800
<BR>From: u &lt;<A HREF="mailto:leeway@kali.com.cn">leeway@kali.com.cn&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: redhat in pirated China
<P> Although legitimate software vendors sell Linux in China, the price is much
higher than that of pirated CD-ROM vendors. These vendors are major source
of software for Chinese. (Yes piracy rate is very high.) They play
cat-mouse game with the government agency. No matter it is Win98, NT, VC or
freeware, the price is the same: 10 yuan or 1.2 US$ each CD.
<P> Because of the underground nature of these vendors, they dishonestly label
the CD-ROMs. Here redhat is dominant in Linux category. In fact the makers
are so preoccupied with redhat that they describe FreeBSD as "in a redhat
series". Although the new redhat version is 6.0, they have 6.5. I don't
care because the "6.5" CD is an authentic 6.0. And I understand why they
label them that way: they have already sold "6.0", "5.5" redhat CD,
which actually are variations of 5.1 or 5.2. One "5.5" redhat CD
description proudly claims that it is "completely cracked". I do notice
that 5.2 installer select some Chinese tools by default. But I am very
unhappy because Netscape can't run. I realize much later that the file size
is incorrect although it could be installed. Recently "6.51" has come to
the shelf. It has 2 CDs. The 2nd one has StarOffice, Oracle and DB2. I
wonder when RedHat could make a official presence here. But would that
help? The official redhat CD is 50 US$. It can't beat 1.2 US$.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Wed, 06 Oct 1999 01:14:22 +0200
<BR>From: David Fauthoux &lt;<A HREF="mailto:david.fauthoux@free.fr">david.fauthoux@free.fr&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Merci
<P> A little mail to say you that your work is EXCELLENT !
My article has a very very good traduction ! (I thank Jason Kroll)
Your gazette is clear, interesting and very well managed.
<P> In french : Bravo !
<P> I hope I will be able to send you another article to join your great
work !
<P> Thanks again,<BR>
David
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
[David was the author of the <A HREF=../issue46/fauthoux.html>
Bomb &ocirc; Bomb</A> article in issue 46. -Ed.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> <HR> <P>
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<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Wed, 13 Oct 1999 17:27:57 -0400
<BR>From: Dan Dippold &lt;<A HREF="mailto:dann@mich.com">dann@mich.com&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: comments, criticisms, suggestions and ideas.
<P> Search... ?
<P> How Mr. Coldiron is going to replace his desktop OS
with Linux as he uses Visual Basic on it and Access
("he has some ideas, more on that in a later issue" he says)
is what I *would* search for.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Thu, 21 Oct 1999 21:40:57 -0700
<BR>From: Ron Tarrant &lt;<A HREF="mailto:rtarrant@northcom.net">rtarrant@northcom.net&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: A Suggestion
<P> Hi there!
I read your magazine and I think it's great. I've picked up quite a few
tips from the Answer Guy and I really like his column. But...
<P> I'd really like to see a separate index page for the Answer Guy with
links to all his stuff in all the issues organized by subject. It would
make it a lot easier to find articles on specific topics. Heck, it might
even make an interesting book when enough information has been gathered.
If you would consider this, I'd be most grateful. Thanks for a great
magazine!
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
[Heather Stern's time machine was busy this month (to borrow a phrase
from the Python newsgroup), and she has already implemented the Subject
Index you seek, See the Answer Guy column in this issue. -Ed.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Mon, 25 Oct 1999 15:44:04 +0530
<BR>From: balaviyer &lt;<A HREF="mailto:n1040233@bom7.vsnl.net.in">n1040233@bom7.vsnl.net.in&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: regarding subscription
<P> Dear sir,
<P> I want 2 subscribe this new group. How do I go about it.
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
[This is not a mailing list, so there's nothing to subscribe to. What
you see at <A HREF=http://www.linuxgazette.com>www.linuxgazette.com</A>
is what we do. -Ed.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Thu, 30 Sep 1999 12:14:59 -0400
<BR>From: Barry &lt;<A HREF="mailto:barry.thoms@ms.rc.gc.ca">barry.thoms@ms.rc.gc.ca&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Gazette
<P> I am brand new to the Linux world so this may be a stupid question.
<P> Why do all of the past issue links for the Linux Gazette goto RedHat and
not the issue?
<P> regards<BR>
Barry
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
[The links at
<A HREF=http://www.linuxgazette.com>www.linuxgazette.com</A> don't
do this. If you find a mirror site that's messed up or way out of date,
please e-mail <A HREF=mailto:gazette@ssc.com>gazette@ssc.com</A> with
the URL of the site, and I'll try to figure out what's wrong. -Ed.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Thu, 23 Sep 1999 17:03:29 +0100
<BR>From: Andrew Bryant &lt;<A HREF="mailto:andrew@brilyant.demon.co.uk">andrew@brilyant.demon.co.uk&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Gazette issue 44 AND Netscape
<P> Hi,
<P> Could you tell me a reason why Netscape 4.06 suffers indigestion when I
ask it to browse my downloaded copy of the HTML version of LG 44?
<P> The system is a 486 with 32Mb RAM, running RedHat 5.1 with a 2.0.35 kernel.
Netscape reads 34% of the file, then stops.The Netscape process (I should say
processes, because there seem to be two) still occupies memory, but no longer
consumes clock cycles according to top. Nothing on the page responds to mouse
or keyboard, and the page doesn't re-draw if you drag another window across it.
<P> There is still plenty of swap space available - is it possible that Netscape
doesn't "know" how to use it?
<P> Issues 43 &amp; 45 behave themselves. A rational explanation would be
welcome, and a cure even more so! I have studied the offerings of the
Netscape site, but nothing I read there seems quite to fit these symptoms.
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Sat, 02 Oct 1999 23:58:57 -0600
<BR>From: Doug Dahl &lt;<A HREF="mailto:dougdahl@incentre.net">dougdahl@incentre.net&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Magazine cut-off
<P> Dear sir,
I use Redhat 5.1 with Netscape 4.05 (or4.02? whatever the default
is) and I have the same problem mentioned in your recent edition of
having the full page HTML load only about half on your Linux Gazette
home page. In a test of this issue I only got about to the "Linux and
the future" article by Husain Al-Mohssen about to the middle of the
second paragraph with a file size of roughly 299535. Lately I have taken
to reading the gzipped text files especially as I can read them offline
but thought I would mention this problem since apparently someone else
has this problem.
As to the size I was routinely able to read transcripts of the
MS-DOJ depositions up to about 400KB with no problems (except those
apparently on their end and not related to size at all)
<P> Sincerely,
<P> Doug Dahl
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
[I don't know why some people's files are getting cut off halfway.
Any idea? -Ed.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> <HR> <P>
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<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Thu, 7 Oct 1999 16:55:51 -0700
<BR>From: John Cockerham &lt;<A HREF="mailto:jcocker@silverlink.net">jcocker@silverlink.net&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Linux Is Not For You
<P> Bravo to Mr. Nod for his article
<A HREF=../issue46/nod.html>Linux Is Not For You</A> in issue 46. I too
am going through the growing pains of using LINUX for the first time. My
cousin, a big time UNIX systems engineer, wants me to do a little project
for him. He has an accounting program written in DBaseIII that he wants
ported to PostgreSQL. This sounds feasible, and I should have the requisite
knowledge since I earn a living as a SQL Server and Oracle DBA and an NT
systems administrator. A database is a database and SQL is mostly SQL. How
hard could it be?
<P> I added a third computer to my home NT network and attempted to install
LINUX. The installation may have been successful, I will never know because
when faced with the dot prompt, I didn't know what to do. None of the DOS
commands or even the old RTE commands I could think of would work, so I
turned it off. My cousin took the machine to his house and got it running
on his network. He even put a little 'red hat' sticker on it. He tried to
explain why it was necessary to set up a partition for the kernel and a
partition for the swap file and a working partition and so on and then
handed me a book about the size of a Manhattan phone directory that was
supposed to explain everything. I stuck the computer on my home network and
fired it up. It promptly froze up. Since I couldn't get it to do
anything, I turned it off. "Worst thing you could do" he told me when I
called the next day when it wouldn't boot up.
<P> I installed another release of Red Hat 6 I had ordered from an online
auction. It installed immediately and to my great joy even had a
desktop-like interface complete with a start button. This looks great, but
I still can't make it do much. At least the mouse works. The next weekend
he visited my house, and got the computer to see the network. Even he was
not willing to try and get the printer to work over the network, and instead
brought a nice HP print sharing device. I asked about installing PostgreSQL
and he assured me it was easy. "Just mount the CD and install the RPMs" he
tells me. RIGHT!
<P> LINUX People, I am really trying hard, but I agree with nod. LINUX is NOT
user friendly. Now I know all of you true believers are thinking "What a
Wimp, you should have seen how hard it was back at release 2". I do know
that I could have taken a brand new computer virgin and had them somewhat
productive in an NT-SQL Server environment in the time I have spent just
trying to learn to copy a file and mount a drive. I still have not been
able to start with my conversion project since I don't have a database I can
talk to yet. I realize that if I had been brought up in a UNIX environment,
this stuff would be second nature by now, but I wasn't. I still haven't had
the nerve to shut the damn computer down again, because I hate to have my
cousin make the hour drive over to get it started again.
<P> I am going to keep working at it, but right now I think the motto "You get
what you pay for" is true.
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
[Thanks for your letter. It was exceptionally well written.
<P> Those of us who are tekkies need to keep in contact with people who
are new at Linux, in order to get it to the point of being
user-friendly. But we also tend to believe that the more you puts into
learning how your OS works (any OS), the more you will get out of it.
<P> #BEGIN "rant" {<BR>
MS and some other OS companies unfortunately does not encourage people
to do this. In fact, they actively discourage it. Both at a marketing
level ("You don't need to know anything about this computer; just plug
it in and it will work." [which is of course a big lie for any OS]; "You
don't need special training to become an NT administrator, unlike
UNIX."), and at a technical level (it's hard to tell what Windows is
doing behind the scenes when it boots, or why it crashed, and what to do
if those configuration dialogs don't have the options you need), and
also at the legal level ("Reverse-engineer this and we'll sue you.")
This may be fine for an embedded appliance, but it seriously limits
one's ability to use one's computer at its potential, or to fix it
yourself if it goes bust.
<P> My dad always used to say, "Why can't a computer be like a car? All
cars have a steering wheel that works the same, ditto for the clutch and
gearshift." The trouble is, we only ask a car to do one thing: go
somewhere. Running the myriad of applications we expect from a computer
is a whole different ballgame. Plus, the computer industry isn't nearly
mature enough to come to the level of standardization that cars have.
Macs have a different keyboard and user interface than PCs because
somebody though it would "work better". There is not enough agreement
on what the ideal user interface should be.<BR>
} END "rant".
</EM><BLOCKQUOTE>
Now I know all of you true believers are thinking "What a Wimp,
you should have seen how hard it was back at release 2".
</BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
<P> There will always be people like that.
</EM><BLOCKQUOTE>
I realize that if I had been brought up in a UNIX environment,
this stuff would be second nature by now, but I wasn't.
</BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
#BEGIN "personal opinion" {<BR>
I started using UNIX in 1990, through a shell account at an ISP I got
specifically to learn UNIX on. I'm very, very glad I did. It is the
standard, the common denominator linking all other parts of computerdom,
not in the least because it's the only OS available from more than one
company.<BR>
} END "personal opinion".
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
Wed, 27 Oct 1999 16:31:58 -0700
<BR>From: Arnaud
alnoken@mail.dotcom.fr
&lt;<A HREF="mailto:alnoken@mail.dotcom.fr">alnoken@mail.dotcom.fr&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: Linux is not for you
<P> Dear nod,
<P> Ouch ! Harsh blow ...
I have just read that article you wrote in Linux Gazette
(issue 46 - '1999/10) about Linux.
So, let me introduce myself as well.
I am technically a Linux/Unix technical-savvy ; by business need, a
buggy-Windows user. And i very much dislike what you wrote, except for
one single thing : this is just true. You really insulted the Linux
community, but just by speaking common sense.
<P> Linux developpers tend to think that a sane product is enough. But it
is like food. You can spend time preparing a good and sane traditional
european or asian (say french or japanese) meal, and take your time to
savour it. Or you just can go to those unsane, too fat, pre-digested
tasteless (say McDo or 'fish and chips') fastfood. Everybody knows
what is good for one's health. But everyone runs into the place where
you can fill up your belly instantly. Same is true for using
computer. Microsoft sells shit. But more people can use it nearly
right-out-of-the-box. Linux guys make things that work, while
Microsoft sells stuff that is somewhat usable. You are right when you
tell that Linux guys should study the other camp's strengthes and
weaknesses.
<P> Nevertheless, you are wrong when you say that Windows is
slower than Linux. This may be true in your example, but Linux does
not spend so much time managing an intuitive interface. Stability
always have a performance penalty. Having Windows much stabler would
make it much slower, because that would mean the OS spend some time
monitoring itself, preventing its own crashes by auto-repairing at
run-time, like those big companies' giant mainframe computers (or
phone ompanies switches) do (Alcatel switches' OS can spend up to 65%
of their time preventing a crash, because if this happens, that could
stop thousands of active communications, and guess why MVS is as big
as NT 4.0 with just a tiny subset of its functionnality, no graphical;
interface, ...).
<P> Yet, globally, you expressed what i have been thinking for
some years now : Unix or Linux are bound to disappear if they just
concentrate on their strengthes, and do not try at the same time to
outperform Microsoft's skills. Something that can be done. NeXTStep,
eight years ago was superior to what Windows95 was seven years later.
But NeXT was a small company in a market already overwhelmed with Bill
Gates financial power. A commercial newcomer could not breathe in such
rarefied market. Free software can. If free software does not really
try to compete, then some Japanese commercial corporation are the only
ones that can fight Microsoft. Sega, Nintendo and Sony have begun
development that will turn their play console into consoles that will
actually marginally be used to play. Thoses devices will be build
around the Net, so they will manage documents. Then, what else all
their computing power could be used for, apart for creating, editing,
those, managing your mail, calendar and contacts ? And those
corporation do know how to make consumer products. Even Windows is not
such a product, because you yourself stated that people needed your
help to sort out the mess that sometimes occur.
<P> Their was the huge stable mainframes, then lighter
minicomputers, then microcomputers. All professional-world-rooted
devices. Microsoft pushes the enveloppe against those with Windows2000
(formally NT), a product that explodes in market shares. But next is
everybody's information device. This is the consumer market. The one
that counts. Microsoft is already here with WindowsCE, but prepares
the true attack with its yet- to-come XStation (a Microsoft machine
!). The competitors are rare : three Japanese ... and no one else.
<P> Where is Linux ? Linux claims for World domination. World
domination means dominating both markets : the end-user device and the
remaining of the infrastructure. As history tells, dominating the
end-device helps dominating the rest of the infrastucture, just
because it makes so many more people mastering the technology (even if
it is comparatively less limited in terms of functionality), and then
so much more skilled technicians on the job market. Only exceptions
are surviving old dinosaurus IBM and certainly Microsoft in the
future. Unix mini-systems greatly reduced the mainframes number by
infiltering them credibly through Amdahl mainframes, and relegating
them to niche markets (namely big corporations' strategic central data
centers). Windows has come the same way from all those desktops, and
now making its way into the infrastructure markets (servers,
superservers, routers, datamarts, etc.), restricting Unix to niche
markets itself (scientific calculators, and high-end database servers)
and FreeBSD and Linux to their proof-of-concept market (mainkly
Internet servers and firewalls in corporations that are big enough to
justify the hiring of Linux-knowlegeable people). So now you see why
Microsoft has invested less money in Windows during the last three or
four years than it invested in WindowsCE, interactive TV, now in play
consoles, and more generally around consumer markets. You also see why
Sega, Nintendo and Sony are to be looked at. Their products are to
this date poor in terms of information features, but they are
extremely powerful in processing power, and designed from the very
first line to be bug-free.
<P> If Linux wants to count in the future, the Linux community must take
this into account : not look at what already exists or is advertised
by Bill Gates, but anticipate what is next.
<P> Remember the car industry. First there was those who designed
their own car from scratch, starting in France,around the end of
XVIIth century (as computer OS pioneers did). Then, end of XIXth
century, those who build their cars from standard pieces, but had to
turn dozens switches on (the fuel valve, the battery, the generator,
the contactor), and then turn vigourously the to start it (as
mainframe/Unix/Linux users do), then those who bought partially
assembled car kits, with pieces bought from several providers (as
Windows users do). Then there were the ones who bought cars you just
had to climb into and turn on the key to use them, because Ford
brought that in the first quarter of the century. The latter category
now accounts for, say, 99.9 % of car-buyers.
<P> I guess one day, you will buy your computer, turn it on, feed
it with your name, e-mail address, ISP number (or transfering them in
a one-keystroke operation from your old machine along with your diary,
address book, documents), and start using it, without having to deal
with LILO, sendmail, PPP account, and others' idiosyncrases. That day
is just around the corner. With or Without Linux.
<P> Is the community at work making Linux ready ? Or will we
satisfy ourselves with Linux remaining in its getting-surrounded
computer techies niche ?
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
This page written and maintained by the Editor of the <I>Linux Gazette</I>,
<A HREF=mailto:gazette@ssc.com>gazette@ssc.com</A><BR>
Copyright &copy; 1999, Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<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="#distro">Distro News</A>
<li><a HREF="#general">News in General</a>
<li><a HREF="#software">Software Announcements</a>
</ul>
</td></tr></table>
</center>
<P> <hr>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<EM>News submissions should be sent to <A HREF=mailto:gazett@ssc.com>
gazette@ssc.com</A> in <STRONG>TEXT</STRONG> format. Not HTML, DOC, RTF, etc.,
please. Instead of a press release, please send a two-paragraph summary of why
Linux users would be interested in your product or service, along with a link
to your web site.</EM>
<hr>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<center><IMG ALT=" " SRC="gx/cover67.jpg"></center>
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
November 1999 <I>Linux Journal</I>
</font>
</H3>
<P>
The November issue of <A HREF="http://www.linuxjournal.com/"><I>Linux
Journal</I></A> will be hitting the newsstands in mid-October.
This issue focuses on databases, and includes an interview with Linus,
the "mild-mannered programmer, defender of free source, and all-around
nice guy", as well as pictures of Linux's creator.
<P> <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/issue67/index.html">
http://www.linuxjournal.com/issue67/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/subscribe/ljsubsorder.html</A>.
<P>
<font color="green">
For Subcribers Only</font>: <I>Linux Journal</I> archives are now available
on-line at <A
HREF="http://interactive.linuxjournal.com">http://interactive.linuxjournal.com/</A>
<BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE=artial,helvetica COLOR=red>
<P> Flash!
<P> Can't find that April 1996 <I>Linux Journal</I>?
Someone borrowed the September 1998 copy?
<P> Now you can have it all! All of <I>Linux Journal</I> (issues 1-56;
1994-1998) and all of <I>Linux Gazette</I> (issues 1-45; 1995-1998) on one
archival CD.
<P> Ordering info in the next Gazette.
</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<a name="distro"></a>
<p><hr><p>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<center><H3><font color="green">Distro News</font></H3></center>
This is a new section featuring news about Linux distributions.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Red Hat announces Red Hat Linux 6.1
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> DURHAM, N.C.--October 4, 1999--<A HREF=http://www.redhat.com>Red Hat</A>,
Inc. today announced the release of a suite of Official Red Hat Linux 6.1
products. The latest release incorporates easy installation, software update
information and access, and improved system management capabilities. Users can
move quickly through installation with graphic-based directions, choosing from
GNOME, KDE, server or custom interface settings, with seamless integration of
software RAID configurations to safeguard critical data and application
availability. Additionally, the PXE 2.0 technology (part of the Wired for
Management Baseline 2.0) enables Red Hat Linux 6.1 installations to be done
across the network, with no need for local media.
<P> Red Hat Linux 6.1 also provides customers with fast access to the latest
software technology from Red Hat through the Red Hat Update Agent, an
online customer service application for retrieval and management of
software updates.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Linux-Mandrake "Cooker" (development version)
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> Linux Mandrake is proud to announce the availability of its new
development version code-named "Cooker". What sets the distribution
apart from previous versions is that Linux Mandrake has now adopted a
new open style of development that allows real-time updating of the
distribution based on the contribution of both it's dedicated staff and
the user base.
<P> Linux Mandrake Cooker is aimed at the following audiences:
<UL>
<LI> Users who want to stay on the cutting edge with a distribution
that is updated daily.
<LI> Users who want an easier way to upgrade their existing software.
<LI> Developers who want to contribute to the development and direction
of Linux Mandrake.
</UL>
<P> Cooker is now available online at:
<A HREF=http://www.linux-mandrake.com/cooker>www.linux-mandrake.com/cooker</A>
or on CD.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Storm Linux Beta Released
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> Vancouver, Canada -- October 25, 1999 -- <A HREF=http://www.stormix.com>
Stormix Technologies</A> announces the official beta version of Storm Linux.
The final release is scheduled for November 1999.
<P> "What we learned from the alpha," says Bruce Byfield, Product
Manager for Stormix Technologies, "is that users want a Linux
install that's easy but not dumbed down.
<P> "For example, in the alpha, users were forced to install the
Linux Loader and could only do so on the master boot record.
However, alpha testers told us very clearly that they wanted more
flexibility. So, in the beta, we've given it to them. At the same
time, new users can simply accept the defaults and quickly get a
workable system. We've tried to balance flexibility and ease of
use all down the line."
<P> Another major feature of the Storm Linux is the Storm Hardware
System. SHS automatically detects PCI devices, including video
and network cards, SCSI devices, and USB bridges.
<P> "The information collected during alpha testing," Lindsay says,
"has greatly extended our hardware compatibility. As a result,
we'll be putting our database on the web, so that users worldwide
can request and receive support for their cards. Our goal is to
make Storm Linux the most complete Linux hardware solution
available."
<P> Other features of the beta include GUI modules for networking,
dialup, and adding users. "These modules," Byfield explains, "are
simply the first glimpse of what Stormix is planning. The final
release will include other modules that weren't ready for the
beta."
<P> Copies of the beta are being mailed to registered testers. Copies
can also be downloaded from the Stormix web site.
<P> Founded in February 1999, Stormix Technologies is a Linux
development Canada based in Vancouver, Canada. Its flagship
product is Storm Linux, an enhancement of the Debian GNU/Linux
distribution.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Mandrake/Panoramix
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> Panoramix is a new installation procedure, allowing easy installation of
Linux-Mandrake. It has just been integrated in
<A HREF=http://www.linux-mandrake.com/cooker/>Cooker</A>, our experimental
distribution. Panoramix is entirely written in Perl which is interface
independent, offering contributors an easy and flexible way to
contribute. This beta version features the integration of Diskdrake, a
complete hard-drive partitioning tool, that offers users a simple
graphic tool for completing the painful partitioning phase while
installing Linux.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Debian computers available in UK
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> Space-Time Systems is currently offering three PC models with
Debian 2.1 (Slink) pre-installed. STS actively supports Free Software and the
development of GNU/Linux by donating 3% of the retail cost of each system sold,
split equally between the Free Software Foundation and Software in the Public
Interest, Inc.
<P> All systems are supplied with A Beginner's Guide to Using GNU/Linux
help-sheet, GNU/Linux software on CD's, plus a boot floppy.
All GNU/Linux systems are ready for use, with the X server and a
Graphical User Interface (GUI) already configured.
<A HREF=http://www.spacetimesystems.dial.pipex.com/>
www.spacetimesystems.dial.pipex.com/</A>.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Red Hat Expands Board of Directors, Strengthens Development Group
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> Durham, N.C.--October 12, 1999--Red Hat, Inc., today announced that Kevin
Harvey, General Partner of Benchmark, has joined the Red Hat Board of Directors
and Walter McCormack has joined the company as head of Corporate Development.
<P> Harvey brings more than 15 years of emerging technology company experience
and vast knowledge of the computer industry to Red Hat. McCormack brings a
strong background in investing, advisory and financing services to Red Hat.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Other distribution news
</FONT>
</H3>
<H4>Caldera</H4>
<UL>
<LI> <A HREF=http://www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles/990930-7.shtml>
Fujitsu Ltd. to offer OpenLinux in its servers</A>
</UL>
<H4>Debian</H4>
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF=http://www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles/991013-10.shtml>
<P> Commercial support from VA Linux Systems, O'Reilly Associates and SGI,
Inc...</A> Debian will be sold in major retail stores for $19.95, including a
book and a demo CD of Loki's "Myth II: Soulblighter" game. The book will also
be freely available online.
</UL>
<H4>Expert Linux</H4>
<UL>
<LI> <A HREF=http://www.superant.com>SuperAnt</A>'s Expert Linux CD has
a live Linux filesystem that can be used without hard disks. Includes kernel
2.2.12 and KDE. It can also be used as a rescue disk. Boot Linux from the CD
if your BIOS supports it, or from the MS-DOS prompt.
</UL>
<H4>Peanut Linux</H4>
<UL>
<LI> <A HREF=http://www.linuxdot.org/tlb/20.html#7>Reviewed</A> in
The Linux Bits #20.
</UL>
<H4>Red Hat</H4>
<UL>
<LI> <A HREF=http://www.redhat.com/about/1999/press_intel.html>Intel
will bundle</A> RH with Intel's server platforms the company markets through its
recently created Internet Service Provider program.
<LI> Comaq to provide call center support for enterprise users
worldwide of the Official Red Hat Linux OS.
<LI> <A HREF=http://www.magic-sw.com>Magic Software</A> Enterprise
Server 8.3 (e-commerce and business software) included in Red Hat 6.1.
<LI> <A HREF=http://www.orbitsw.com>ORBit Software</A>'s backup
solution included in Red Hat 6.1
.
</UL>
<H4>SuSE</H4>
<UL>
<LI> SuSE and Siemens AG (Munich) have completed a Linux extension
allowing the use of up to four GByte of memory on Intel-based servers. The
patch has been integrated into the Linux 2.3.15 developer's kernel.
</UL>
<H4>TurboLinux</H4>
<UL>
<LI>
<A HREF=http://www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles/991013-1.shtml>
Several key deployment and financial backing deals</A>
</UL>
<a name="general"></a>
<p><hr><p>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<center><H3><font color="green">News in General</font></H3></center>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Linus sees a future full of free operating systems
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> CNet <a href="http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-809527.html?tag=st.cn.1002newsfd.">article</a> in which Our Hero discusses what he thinks Open Source
will -- and will not -- do for the computer industry. He discusses the less-
successful-than-expected Mozilla project, and disparages Sun Microsystems' use
of the term "open".
<P> Thanks to
<A HREF=http://www.linuxdot.org/tlb/20.html>
The Linux Bits #20</A> for bringing this article to our attention.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Upcoming conferences &amp; events
</FONT>
</H3>
<PRE>
Alternative Linux 1999
November 1-3, 1999
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
<A HREF=http://www.alternativelinux.com/>www.alternativelinux.com/</A> (French)
<A HREF=http://www.alternativelinux.com/en>www.alternativelinux.com/en</A> (English)
USENIX LISA -- The Systems Administration Conference
November 7-12, 1999
Seattle, WA
<A HREF=http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa99>www.usenix.org/events/lisa99</A>
COMDEX Fall /
Linux Business Expo
November 15-19, 1999
Las Vegas, NV
<A HREF=http://www.comdex.com/comdex/owa/event_home?v_event_id=289>www.comdex.com/comdex/owa/event_home?v_event_id=289</A>
The Bazaar: "Where free and open-source software meet the real world".
Presented by EarthWeb.
December 14-16, 1999
New York, NY
<A HREF=http://www.thebazaar.org/>www.thebazaar.org</A>
SANS 1999 Workshop On Securing Linux. The SANS Institute is a
cooperative education and research organization.
December 15-16, 1999
San Francisco, CA
<A HREF=http://www.sans.org>www.sans.org</A>
</PRE>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Magic software has learned a lesson about penguins
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> <A HREF=http://www.magic-sw.com>Magic Software</A>
announced that it has made a $10,000 donation to the Wildlife Conservation
Society for the preservation of penguins. In addition, the Company stated it
will no longer use live penguins to promote its Linux products. Magic created
quite a "flap" recently when it usedtwo live penguins at the LinuxWorld Expo in
San Jose to introduce its new business-to-business e-commerce solution, Magic
eMerchant for Linux, for this rapidly growing operating system whose symbol is
a penguin.
<P> The controversy started last August when Magic brought two live trained
penguins, named Jeffrey and Lucinda, to the San Jose Convention Center to
open the trade show floor, as well as introduce each of the Companys hourly
demonstrations of its new eMerchant product. For five minutes at the start of
every hour, the birds trainers would allow people around the booth to take
pictures of one of the birds (the birds alternated times in the booth), as well
as pet the bird. This "ruffled the feathers" of some trade show attendees
who later called PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to voice
their concerns.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Netwinder news
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> OTTAWA, ONTARIO - September 13, 1999 - Rebel.com Inc. announced that it has
entered into a technology and distribution agreement with KASAN Electronics
Corp., a leading manufacturer and distributor of PC peripherals and
electronics. The agreement provides KASAN with exclusive rights to market
and distribute the NetWinder OfficeServer throughout the Pacific Rim.
<P> Due to the increased number of Internet users, the Linux thin-server market
is expected to grow rapidly in Korea. The Korean government supports the
development of Linux OS-based servers, resulting in Linux-based servers
being a very affordable alternative for both business (SOHO) and personal
usage. It is also estimated that there will be over 100,000 Web hosting
operations in Korea by year-end.
<P> "We are very pleased to be able to handle sales and marketing for the
NetWinder in regions like China and Japan," said Jay Park, director of
marketing and development for KASAN Electronics. "The thin-server market is
one of the most rapidly growing in the network market, we are confident that
by adding our expertise and services to the NetWinder we will achieve World
leader status within three years."
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Tri-Centrury Dynamic Development Objects for Java
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> Wideman, Ark. --
Tri-Century Resource Group, Inc. (TCRGI) announced the immediate availability
of Dynamic Data Objects for Java (DDO<sup>tm</sup>), a set of Java development
tools that allow adjustments to any DDO-based enterprise application with
minimum intrusion and testing. A free 30-day DDO demo is available at
<a href="http://www.cooladz.com/promo/lr?o=ssc.com&p=pr-ddo&r=http://www.tri-century.com">
www.tri-century.com</a>.
<p>Development and testing took place on
a Red Hat 5.2 system using Java 1.1. and Java 1.2 from
<A HREF=http://www.blackdown.org>www.blackdown.org</A>.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Cobalt Networks Announces RaQ 3i Server Appliance
</FONT>
</H3>
<A HREF=http://www.cobalt.com>Cobalt Networks</A>, a developer of server
appliances, has introduced its third-generation server appliance, the RaQ 3i,
today at ISPCON. The RaQ 3i expands Cobalt's RaQ product line by providing the
ideal server appliance for high-traffic Web sites, e-commerce, and application
hosting. Designed with ISPs and small to mid-sized businesses in mind, the RaQ
3i further solidifies Cobalt's reputation for providing server appliances that
offer powerful performance, great return on investment and a low total cost of
ownership.
<P> "The new Cobalt RaQ 3i delivers a compelling server appliance platform for
Intershop commerce products," said Ed Callan, Vice President of Marketing at
Intershop. "Cobalt's customers will now have access to powerful e-commerce
solutions based on Intershop's industry leading sell-side e-commerce solutions
and the cost-effective, easy-to-manage, and scalable RaQ 3i. The RaQ 3i with
Intershop Hosting and Merchant uniquely deliver e-commerce for ISPs and
businesses." Cobalt designed the RaQ 3i with an open source design and
extensible architecture making it easy to integrate, deploy, and support
Internet and network-based applications. Cobalt server appliances are
pre-configured with the <STRONG>Linux</STRONG> operating system and provide the
core web publishing, email, and file transfer services upon which ISPs and
developers can build their solutions. The Cobalt RaQ 3i significantly extends
the range of available applications for the Cobalt RaQ product line.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Cobalt Qube/RaQ get Knox Arkeia backup
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> Burlingame, Calif. - September 1, 1999 - Knox Software and Cobalt Networks
announced today the availability of Arkeia software for Cobalt RaQ
and Qube family of products. Arkeia provides a comprehensive
solution for ISPs and corporations to protect data. Its unique
transaction engine allows multiple backups and restores to be performed
simultaneously with total reliability.
<P> Arkeia provides incremental and full backups, scheduled or on demand,
and preserves directory structure, registry, symbolic links and special
attributes. Arkeia utilizes an exclusive multi-flow technology to
deliver speeds that are 200 to 300 percent faster than rival software
packages. Its Java interface enables the system administrator to manage
multiple remote backup servers through the Internet as if they were
local backups.
<P> Pricing for Arkeia 4.2 starts at under $600. A configuration
protecting 2 - type 1 computers (UNIX, NT Server), 5 - type 2 computers
(Linux, Win 95/98), and utilizing a single tape drive costs less than
$1,000. Cobalt RaQ and Qube customers can download the Arkeia software
and purchase the package online at <A HREF=http://www.arkeia.com>www.arkeia.com</A>.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Cobalt partners with Gateway
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> SAN DIEGO--Oct. 12, 1999--<A HREF=http://www.gateway.com>Gateway</A> Inc.,
and Cobalt Networks Inc., today announced an agreement under which Cobalt will
supply server appliance technologies that enable Gateway to expand its
capabilities to provide small-to-medium sized organizations with affordable and
turnkey technology solutions designed to leverage the Internet.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Cobalt Unveils Management Tool
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> Mountain View, Calif., October 18, 1999-Cobalt Networks, Inc., a developer
of server appliances, today introduced the Cobalt Management Appliance.
This system is specifically designed to allow system administrators to
monitor and perform management tasks on large installations of Cobalt RaQ
server appliances from a single management console.
<P> By simply using Cobalt's proprietary user interface, system administrators
can easily and securely apply software packages to a list of selected RaQs,
reboot multiple RaQs remotely, change settings for an entire RaQ server
farm, and activate and deactivate FTP, telnet, SNMP, and DNS.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">LinuxCare expands Japanese operation
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> Seeking to widen its presence in the already-expanding
Japanese Linux market, Linuxcare, Inc. announced
Friday that it has entered into a certification, service
and support-based strategic partnership with
Inter Space Planning Corporation (ISP)...
<P> <A HREF=http://www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles/991004-3.shtml>
www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles/991004-3.shtml</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">National Semiconductor to use Linux in set-top boxes
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> Hong Kong - September 27, 1999 -
<A HREF=http://www.national.com>National Semiconductor</A> Corporation
has appointed INFOMATEC AG / IGEL Technology Labs to develop Linux-based
firmware to port to National Semiconductor's market-leading set-top box and
thin-client platforms.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">VA files for IPO
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> VA Linux Systems has filed for
an initial public offering (IPO) with the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC).
This is the second major Linux-related public stock move, after Red Hat.
The option also mentions Andover.net's and LinuxOne's recent IPO filing.
<P> <A HREF=http://www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles/991011-4.shtml>
www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles/991011-4.shtml</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Ziatech news
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> Ziatech Corporation is combining its CompactNET(tm) multiprocessing
technology with the recently announced LinuxPCI 1000 Development System,
speeding the implementation of Linux-based, multiprocessing CompactPCI
systems. The CompactNET version of the LinuxPCI 1000 comes with MontaVista
Software's Hard Hat(tm) Linux, an embedded version of Linux. For more
information, visit:
<http://www.ziatech.com/productsnapshots/linuxpci1000.htm>
<P> <A HREF=http://www.compactnet.com/>CompactNET open source web site</A>
This web site allows users of Ziatech's CompactNET multiprocessing technology
to download the open source code drivers for the Linux operating system. The
CompactNET source code is being released as open source to foster the standard
interoperability of CompactPCI multi-computing solutions from different
vendors.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">SCO invests in LinuxMall
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> The Santa Cruz Operation has become the largest external investor in
LinuxMall.com, one of the 200 busiest sites on the Internet. LinuxMall CEO
Mark Bolzern is quick to add that the company will continue its vendor- neutral
tradition. The investment will enable LinuxMall to "take LinuxMall.com to the
next level and meet the needs of the growing Linux community."...
<P> <A HREF=http://www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles/991014-7.shtml>
www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles/991014-7.shtml</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Loki Hack Winners Announced
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> Atlanta, GA. -- October 15, 1999 Winners of the first annual Loki Hack
were announced in an afternoon press conference at the Atlanta Linux Showcase.
During the Hack, enthusiastic and talented hackers from across the country and
around the world had 48 hours in a secure setting to make alterations to the
Linux source code for Activision's popular strategy game Civilization: Call to
Power. The hackers had full reign to add features, alter logic, and implement
additional library support.
<P> "This is the closest we could get to Open Source with our commercial
products," said Scott Draeker, Loki president and founder. "The world
can't see the source, but the contestants did. And all the hacks, mods,
and changes will be posted in binary form for free download from our
website next week. This was our chance to show the gaming world what the
Open Source community can accomplish, and the results have been
incredible."
<P> At the press conference Draeker awarded first prize to Christopher Yeoh,
a developer from Denver, Colorado. Yeoh completed several modifications
to Civilization: Call to Power, including the addition of extra units
such as land carriers and stealth carriers. Yeoh also enhanced the Spy
unit by allowing it to infiltrate an enemy city. If successful, the Spy
is destroyed, but the player can view the infiltrated city's statistics
until payment is received from the enemy.
<P> First prize is a StartX MP Workstation from VA Linux Systems. Runners-up
will receive their choice of Gamer-X sound cards from Creative Labs,
Inc., 3950U2 Ultra2 Dual Channel SCSI cards from Adaptec, Inc., and
Millennium G400 video cards from Matrox Graphics, Inc. All contestants
completed at least one hack and will each receive a prize.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Linux Getting 'Pervasive'
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> Pervasive Software, Inc. has moved its
SQL 2000 server for developing e-commerce applications
into the open-source arena by making it available to
developers working with the Linux environment...
<P>
<A HREF=http://www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles/991018-4.shtml>
www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles/991018-4.shtml</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">MacMillan Publishing + SecurityPortal.com = more Linux security
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> MacMillan Publishing USA has entered into a strategic alliance
with SecurityPortal.com to bring online security technologies to
users of the Linux operating system (OS)...
<P>
<A HREF=http://www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles/991022-7.shtml>
www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles/991022-7.shtml</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Intel Advances Linux Support
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> Intel Corp. enables online professional users to bring
Gigabit Ethernet performance to their Linux-based Internet
operations, and is working with the open-source community to foster
Internet-enabling product development...
<P> <A HREF=http://www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles/991025-5.shtml>
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles/991025-5.shtml</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">VMware Prepackaged
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> WINDOWS NT USERS NOW HAVE QUICK AND EASY WAY
TO ACCESS LINUX
<P> Palo Alto, Calif. -- Windows NT users interested in using Linux now have a
quick, easy and painless way to do so. <A HREF=http://www.vmware.com>VMware
</A>, the leading provider of virtual machine applications for PCs, announced
today that it has partnered with leading Linux operating system vendors
Caldera, SuSE and TurboLinux to make available their versions of the Linux
operating system to customers of VMware.
<P> VMware is a revolutionary new application that enables personal computer
users to run one or more protected sessions concurrently using one or more
operating systems on a single machine. This gives users the flexibility to run
alternate operating systems and eliminates the fear of system or netw ork
crashes, security breaches or virus attacks while doing so.
<P> Under these initial agreements with Caldera, SuSE and TurboLinux, VMware
for Windows NT and Windows 2000 will come with pre-installed evaluation copie s
of these companies92 versions of Linux. VMware is currently in discussions
with other Linux suppliers to expand Windows NT users92 options even fur ther.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Linux Links
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> <A HREF=http://www.LinuxFool.com>www.LinuxFool.com</A> is a support and
discussion portal for Linux users. It is an official mirror of the Linux
Documentation Project.
<P> <A HREF=http://members.theglobe.com/javafun/linux.html>Linux in Algeria</A>
(French-language site)
<P> <A HREF=http://www.eexams.com/home.htm>eExams</A> offers skills
testing via the web for companies seeking to screen prospective employees. A
Linux System Administrator exam is included among its many IT and non-IT
offerings.
<P> CNet article about
<A HREF=http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-424001.html?tag=st.cn.1fd2.>
Transmeta taking aim at Intel</A>. From The Linux Bits #20.
<P> The <A HREF=http://www.iozone.org>Iozone</A> filesystem benchmark has a
new version.
<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">CUPS for Linux
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> <P>The first production release of the Common UNIX Printing
System ("CUPS") is now available for download. The license is GPL.
<P> <A HREF="http://www.cups.org">http://www.cups.org</A>
<P> <P>The Common UNIX Printing System provides a portable printing layer for
UNIX operating systems. It has been developed by Easy Software Products to
promote a standard printing solution for all UNIX vendors and users. CUPS
provides the System V and Berkeley command-line interfaces.
<P> <P>CUPS uses the Internet Printing Protocol (IETF-IPP) as the basis for
managing print jobs and queues. The Line Printer Daemon (LPD, RFC1179), Server
Message Block (SMB), and AppSocket protocols are also supported with reduced
functionality.
<P> <P>CUPS adds network printer browsing and PostScript Printer Description
("PPD")-based printing options to support real world applications under UNIX.
<P> <P>CUPS also includes a customized version of GNU GhostScript (currently
based off GNU GhostScript 4.03) and an image file RIP that can be used to
support non-PostScript printers.
<P>Sample drivers are provided for HP DeskJet and LaserJet
printers. Drivers for over 1600 printers are available in our
<A HREF="http://www.easysw.com/printpro">ESP Print Pro</A> software.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Cygnus Announcements
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> SUNNYVALE, Calif., October 12, 1999 -- Cygnus Solutions, the leader in open
source software, today announced the commercial availability of Cygwin, a
UNIX/Linux shell environment and portability layer enabling delivery of open
source projects to Windows. Cygwin provides corporate IT and software
developers a solution for integrating a heterogeneous environment of Windows
and UNIX-based systems. In addition, developers can use Cygwin to quickly
migrate applications from UNIX to Windows.
<P> SUNNYVALE, Calif., October 12, 1999 Cygnus Solutions, and Integrated
Computer Solutions (ICS) today announced a strategic agreement to integrate ICS
Builder Xcessory PRO (BX PRO) with Cygnus Code Fusion9 Integrated Development
Environment (IDE). This agreement provides Linux software developers with the
first commercial IDE with graphical user interface (GUI) builder development
capabilities.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Running Windows NT applications on Linux
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> San Jose, CA. (October 18, 1999) - In a move to dramatically accelerate the
expansion of business-critical applications available on the Linux platform,
Mainsoft Corporation, the leader in cross-platform solutions for the
enterprise, today announced it is developing a version of MainWin for the Linux
environment. MainWin is Mainsoft's Windows platform for UNIX operating
systems. MainWin allows software developers to re-host Windows NT applications
on UNIX leveraging one single source code for both Windows and UNIX systems.
<P> The same MainWin technology that has been available for UNIX platforms will
be incorporated into the Linux product; to date, more than one million MainWin
licenses have been installed worldwide. As an extension of Mainsoft's product
offering, the MainWin for Linux strategy will initially focus on the Red Hat
Linux operating system with others likely to follow.
<P> In the coming weeks, a demo will be available for download on Mainsoft's
Web site at <A HREF=http://www.mainsoft.com>www.mainsoft.com</A> and the
commercial release is scheduled for end of Q1 2000.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" " SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Netscape gets e-commerce security boost
</FONT>
</H3>
<P> Article about LinuxPPC's 128-bit encryption for Netscape 4.7 on the
Power PC, Netscape's own efforts to boost encryption security, and the Clinton
administration's proposal to partly relax US crypto-export restrictions.
<P> <A HREF=http://www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles/991021-2.shtml>
www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles/991021-2.shtml</A>
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
This page written and maintained by the Editor of the <I>Linux Gazette</I>,
<A HREF=mailto:gazette@ssc.com>gazette@ssc.com</A><BR>
Copyright &copy; 1999, Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<!-- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -->
<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 ======================================================= -->
<center><H1>Issue #47 of The Answer Guy</H1></center>
<p align="center"><em>previous titles sorted by topic!</em></p>
<p><a href="#tag/greeting"
><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" alt="(!)" border="0"
align="middle"><strong>Greetings From Jim Dennis</strong></A></p>
<H3>Contents:</H3>
<DL>
<!-- index_text begins -->
<dt><A HREF="#login"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>Logging In</a>
<dt><A HREF="#X"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
></a>X Window Networking --or--
<dd><A HREF="#X"
><strong>The X Graphical Environment</strong></a>
<dt><A HREF="#net"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>Routing, Firewalls, and other "raw" Networking</a>
<dt><A HREF="#losemodem"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>Winmodems</a>
<dt><A HREF="#serial"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>Ordinary Modems and other Useful Serial Devices</a>
<dt><A HREF="#disk"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>Hard Disk Drives, Filesystems and Partitioning</a>
<dt><A HREF="#removable"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>CD-ROM, Tapes, and more Removable Media</a>
<dt><A HREF="#boot"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>LILO, SYSLINUX, and more Boot Loaders</a>
<dt><A HREF="#mail"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>Mail Servers and Clients</a>
<dt><A HREF="#services"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>Other Servers</a>
<dt><A HREF="#script"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>Scripting and Programming (including Startup Scripts)</a>
<dt><A HREF="#sound"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>Sweet Music?</a>
<dt><A HREF="#notlinux"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>Non-Linux OS Questions</a> if they didn't fit elsewhere.
<dt><A HREF="#social"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
>Etiquette and More Social Questions</a>
<dt><A HREF="#else"
><img src="../gx/dennis/qbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(?)" border="0"
></a> If that could possibly have missed it... -or-
<dd><A HREF="#else"
><strong>Everything Else</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>
<!-- begin greeting -->
<p>It is amazing to me how busy I have been this month. I answered
almost as many messages as in that storm of them wrapping up last
year's backlog.</p>
<p>I especially want to thank everybody this month who piped in to
help the Answer Guy with IDE CDROMs under SCSI emulation being really
transparent - so transparent, that such CD's have to be referred to
as <tt>/dev/scd0</tt>.</p>
<p>I'll really give thanks when I can get back home with Heather and our
computers. I have my laptop, but it's just not the same. Happy
Thanksgiving, everyone!</p>
<p><em>[ For those of you who were answered by email during this month
- look forward to seeing your messages in print next issue.
This list by topic has been requested by several, it's something
I've been wanting to do for a while, and I really think you'll
find it useful. Also, Each question is still listed only once, so
those which might fit more than one section have been listed in the
section that best applies.
-- Heather]</em></p>
<!-- end greeting -->
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="login"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(!) " border="0"
>Logging In</H3>
<ul>
<li>#39: <A HREF="../issue39/tag/9.html"
><strong>Another "No Login" Problem: A little tip</strong></a>
<li>#39: login source code --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue39/tag/12.html"
><strong>Seeing Stars During Login</strong></a>
<li>#39: security issue, /etc/passwd --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue39/tag/21.html"
><strong>Secure Shutdown from the Console</strong></a>
<li>#38: Why can I only login as root? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue38/tag/2.html"
><strong>Another "No Login" Problem</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="../issue38/tag/4.html"
>#38</a> and <A HREF="../issue37/tag/44.html">#37</a>:
<strong>Unable to Open Console: After "Custom" Install</strong>
<li>#37: Why can I only login as root? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/46.html"
><strong>Another "No Login" Problem</strong></a>
<li>#37: [Fwd: rsh on 2.0.34] --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/8.html"
><strong>More on: 'rsh' as 'root' Denied</strong></a>
<li>#36: rsh config --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/55.html"
><strong>Getting 'rsh' to work</strong></a>
<li>#36: rsh on 2.0.34 --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/98.html"
><strong>'rsh' as 'root' Denied</strong></a>
<li>#36: Hello I need some help --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/28.html"
><strong>Eight Character login Name Limit</strong></a>
<li>#36: Root password --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/49.html"
><strong>Can't Login in as Root</strong></a>
<li>#36: password change --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/41.html"
><strong>CGI Driven Password Changes</strong></a>
<li>#36: <A HREF="../issue36/tag/97.html"
><strong>Liam Greenwood: Your XDM question</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="../issue35/tag/remoteroot.html"#35</a> and
<A HREF="../issue36/tag/24.html">#36</a>: How can I find this out? --or--
<br><strong>Remote Login as 'root'</strong></a>
<li>#35: Keyboard Problem --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue35/tag/passwd.html"
><strong>No Echo During Password Entry</strong></a>
<li>#35: <A HREF="../issue35/tag/ftproot.html"
><strong>FTP Login as 'root' --- Don't!</strong></a>
<li>#34: xdm --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue34/tag/xdm.html"
><STRONG>Remote X using xdm</STRONG></A>
<li>#29: <A HREF="../issue29/tag_shadow.html"
><STRONG><tt>adduser</tt></STRONG></A>
<li>#29: <A HREF="../issue29/tag_redhat.html"
><STRONG>Redhat telnet</STRONG></A>
<li>#29: TACACS+ client for Linux --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue29/tag_tacacs.html"
><STRONG>TACACS and RADIUS Authentication
Models for Linux and/or PAM</STRONG></A>
<li><A HREF="../issue28/lg_answer28.html#tag_xdmthread.html">#28</a> and
<a HREF="../issue26/lg_answer26.html#login">#26</a>:
<STRONG><tt>xdm</tt> Login doesn't!</STRONG>
<li>#26: <a HREF="../issue26/lg_answer26.html#telnet"
>Can't Telnet to Red Hat 5.0 Server</a>
<li>#25: <a HREF="../issue25/lg_answer25.html#root"
>Running as root on Standalone Systems -- DON'T</a>
<li>#15: <a HREF="../issue15/answer.html#root">root login Bug in Linux</a>
</ul>
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="X"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(!) " border="0"
>The X Graphical Environment</H3>
<ul>
<li>#46: Another "respawning" question --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue46/tag/5.html"
><strong>Id "x" respawning too fast: Murdered Mysteriously</strong></a>
<li>#46: How to add fonts to Linux --or--
<dd><A HREF="../issue46/tag/12.html"
><strong>Adding Fonts</strong></a>
<li>#44: video timings needed --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/30.html"
><strong>Video Timings: Configuration Curse</strong></a>
<li>#44: I am a begining Linux user, PLEASE Help! --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/36.html"
><strong>SiS 6326 and XFree86</strong></a>
<li>#39: Fvwm95-Wharf --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue39/tag/8.html"
><strong>fvwm95-Wharf: xterm comes out black?</strong></a>
<li>#38: <A HREF="../issue38/tag/26.html"
><strong>Jim Dennis: Re: Gimp on RH5.1</strong></a>
<li>#37: <A HREF="../issue37/tag/3.html"
><strong>eterm quickie + general commment (linux SUPERGRAN)</strong></a>
<li>#37: X terminals via serial links? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/11.html"
><strong>X Windows Over a Serial Line (Null Modem)</strong></a>
<li>#37: modem problems under linux --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/30.html"
><strong>X Prevents/Kills Modem Connection</strong></a>
<li>#37: Better resolution (laptop LCD) --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/34.html"
><strong>Higher Resolution X on a Laptop</strong></a>
<li>#36: Changing the color depth for your x-server? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/31.html"
><strong>Changing the X Server's Default Color Depth</strong></a>
<li>#36: Num Lock and X apps --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/32.html"
><strong>NumLock and X Problems</strong></a>
<li>#36: Tuning monitors for use with X --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/36.html"
><strong>Fraser Valley LUG's Monitor DB</strong></a>
<li>#36: Trident 9685 tv --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/44.html"
><strong>Support for Trident Video/Television Adapter</strong></a>
<li>#34: French loadkeys --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue34/tag/intlX.html"
><STRONG>More on International Keyboard
Mappings and Monochrome X</STRONG></A>
<li>#34: ... Redhat 4.2/Motif, problem discovered. --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue34/tag/numlock.html"><STRONG>Conflict: Num-Lock,
X Window Managers, and pppd</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_doslinux.html"
><STRONG>XFree86 Installation in DOSLinux</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_tuning.html"
><STRONG>Tuning X to work with your Monitor</STRONG></A>
<li>#31: <A HREF="../issue31/tag_trident.html"
><STRONG>XFree86 on Trident Providia 9685</STRONG></A>
<li>#31: <A HREF="../issue31/tag_multihead.html"
><STRONG>X Window with two monitors...</STRONG></A>
<li>#30: PC lockups --or--
<dd><A HREF="../issue30/tag_lockups.html"><STRONG>Hardware Lockups due to
Graphics Load</STRONG></A>
<li>#30: <A HREF="../issue30/tag_tvcard.html"
><STRONG>tv cards and dual monitor</STRONG></A>
<li>#28: <A HREF="../issue28/lg_answer28.html#tag_xdmbpp.html"
><STRONG><tt>xdm</tt> in 16bpp Mode</STRONG></A>
<li>#26: <a HREF="../issue26/lg_answer26.html#angel">Cthugha </a>
<li>#23: <a HREF="../issue23/lg_answer23.html#monitor"
>Running Multiple Instances of X</a>
<li>#23: <a HREF="../issue23/lg_answer23.html#kde">KDE BETA 1</a>
<li>#22: <a HREF="../issue22/lg_answer22.html#lib">X-Windows Libraries</a>
<li>#22: <a HREF="../issue22/lg_answer22.html#rhmotif">Redhat 4.2/Motif</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#xwind">X-Windows is Crashing</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#locks">XLocks Monitor</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#control">Linux Control Panel</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#video">Video Cards</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#monitor">X Locks Monitor</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#colormap">Colormap Question</a>
<li>@19: <a HREF="../issue19/lg_answer19.html#metro">MetroX Problems</a>
<li>#18: <a HREF="../issue18/lg_answer18.html#pull"
>Adding Programs to Pull Down Menus</a>
<li>#19: <a HREF="../issue19/lg_answer19.html#menus"
>Adding Programs to the Pull Down Menus</a>
<li>#17: <a HREF="../issue17/answer.html#vidX"
>Using X With 2 Monitors and 2 Video Cards</a>
<li>#17: <a HREF="../issue17/answer.html#start">StartX</a>
<li>#15: <a HREF="../issue15/answer.html#copy">Copy from Xterm to TkDesk</a>
<li>#14: <a HREF="../issue14/answer.html#window">X Window Problem</a>
</ul>
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="net"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(!) " border="0"
>Routing, Firewalls, and other "raw" Networking</H3>
<ul>
<li>#46: Two Network Cards --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue46/tag/1.html"
><strong>Routing Revisited</strong></a>
<li>#46: http://sunsite.mff.cuni.cz/lg/issue13/answer.html --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue46/tag/7.html"
><strong>From the Dim History: EQL Revisited</strong></a>
<br>Bandwidth Load Sharing w/o ISP Support
<li>#45: Internet Access Control --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue45/tag/3.html"
><strong>Limiting Internet Access through Cable Modems</strong></a>
<li>#45: Getting on the Internet --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue45/tag/12.html"
><strong>Getting Access to the Internet</strong></a>
<li>#45: Telnet trouble --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue45/tag/11.html"
><strong>More "Can't Telnet Around My LAN" Problems</strong></a>
<li>#44: IP forward --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/12.html"
><strong>TCP/IP Port Relaying</strong></a>
<li>#44: <A HREF="../issue44/tag/11.html"
><strong>IP forwarding and Linux</strong></a>
<br>Turning it off.
<li>#44: Help ! --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/31.html"
><strong>Accessing Private Net Addresses from the
Public Internet</strong></a>
<li>#42: TCP Sockets --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue42/tag/3.html"
><strong>SYN, SYN/ACK, ACK, ACK, ACK: TCP Handshaking</strong></a>
"Pleased to meet you!"
<li>#42: Advanced ipfwadm question. icmp forwarding. --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue42/tag/19.html"
><strong>ICMP Masquerading</strong></a>
<li>#42: Hubs --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue42/tag/6.html"
><strong>Ethernet Switches vs. Hubs</strong></a>
<li>#42: ping at a differnt port --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue42/tag/13.html"
><strong>Ping a Port: NOT</strong></a>
<li>#42: <A HREF="../issue42/tag/15.html"
><strong>New Kernel Loses Ether Driver;
Dial on Demand and Masquerading</strong></a>
<br>A grabbag of user questions.
<li>#42: Personal LAN setup... --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue39/tag/13.html"
><strong>Setting up a Personal/Home LAN</strong></a>
<li>#39: Multilink PPP using Linux --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue39/tag/10.html"
><strong>Modem Multi-link PPP: EQL</strong></a>
<li>#38: <A HREF="../issue38/tag/3.html"
><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
><strong>A Reader Answers: What is the TCP/IP SACK feature?</strong></a>
<li>#38: proxy & router combination --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue38/tag/17.html"
><strong>Proxying over PPP</strong></a>
<li>#38: win95-&gt;wingate ; linux-&gt;? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue38/tag/24.html"
><strong>Drop-in Replacement for "WinGate"</strong></a>
<li>#37: TCP patch for SACK? (RFC 2018) --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/49.html"
><strong>TCP/IP SACK Support: When? Now!</strong></a>
<li>#37: "Routing and Subnetting 101" Linux Gazzette 1/1/99 --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/17.html"
><strong>Re: Routing and Subnetting for Classes</strong></a>
<li>#37: ifconfig reports TX errors on v2.1.x kernels --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/21.html"
><strong>'ifconfig': TX errors</strong></a>
<li>#37: Help --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/41.html"
><strong>Netscape Communicator: "Improper DNS Type"?</strong></a>
<li>#37: <A HREF="../issue36/tag/a.html"
><strong>Routing and Subnetting 101</strong></a>
<li>#36: <A HREF="../issue36/tag/19.html"
><strong>Dynamic IP Address Publishing Hack</strong></a>
<li>#36: eql dual line ppp --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/1.html"
><strong>EQL Serial Line "Load Balancing"</strong></a>
<li>#36: A Dual Modem configuration... how do I get it to work? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/69.html"
><strong>eql Not Working</strong></a>
<li>#36: how to install two ethernet cards for proxy server
for red hat linux --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/21.html"
><strong>Linux as Router and Proxy Server: HOWTO?</strong></a>
<li>#36: isp --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/27.html"
><strong>Linux Friendly ISP's: SF Bay Area</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="../issue36/tag/33.html">#36</a> and
<A HREF="../issue34/tag/ether.html">#34</a>:
Ether troubles = NE2000 "clones" --- not "cloney" enough! --or--
><strong>Expansion on NE-2000 Cards:
Some PCI models &quot;okay&quot;</strong></a>
<li>#36: <A HREF="../issue36/tag/42.html"
><strong>ifconfig reports TX errors on v2.1.x kernels</strong></a>
<li>#36: routing without of any outer routers knowing me
as I am a router.. --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/72.html"><strong>Proxyarp</strong></a>
<li>#36: <A HREF="../issue36/tag/78.html"
><strong>Linux as a Home Internet Gateway and Server</strong></a>
<li>#35: <A HREF="../issue35/tag/relay.html"
><strong>relaying still not correct ...</strong></a>
<li>#35: Windows file systems across a linux box --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue35/tag/sysadmin.html"
><strong>Programmer Fights with Subnets</strong></a>
<li>#35: Finding IP address with a script --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue35/tag/ipscript.html"
><strong>Using A Dynamically Assigned Address
from PPP Startup Script</strong></a>
<li>#35: SV: PPP-question. --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue35/tag/mrtg.html"
><strong>Where to find Multi-Router Traffic Grabber</strong></a>
<li>#33: chroot, twist, and other rescue-boot fun --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue33/tag/virthost.html"
><STRONG>"Virtual Hosting" inetd based
services using TCP Wrappers</STRONG></A>
<li>#33: ip masquerading --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue33/tag/ipmasq.html"
><STRONG>IP and Sendmail Masquerading over a Cablemodem</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_abandon.html"
><STRONG>ISP Abandons User in Move to NT</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_proxy.html"
><STRONG>IP Masquerading/Proxy?</STRONG></A>
<li>#29: <A HREF="../issue29/tag_netcard.html"
><STRONG>Network Cards</STRONG></A>
<li>#28: How do I setup gateway server? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue28/lg_answer28.html#tag_gateway.html"
><STRONG>Linux as a General Purpose SOHO to
Internet Gateway</STRONG></A>
<li>#27: <a HREF="../issue27/lg_answer27.html#holloway">IP Masquerading/Proxy?</a>
<li>#26: <a HREF="../issue26/lg_answer26.html#ifconfig"
>'ifconfig' to Troubleshoot Dropped Ethernet Packets?</a>
<li>#23: <a HREF="../issue23/lg_answer23.html#ospf">Linux and OSPF</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#notebook"
>Configuration of Two Ethernet Cards</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#ppp">PPP Problems</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#renaming">Renaming Problems</a>
<li>#19: <a HREF="../issue19/lg_answer19.html#skip">Linux Skip</a>
<li>#18: <a HREF="../issue18/lg_answer18.html#network">Networking Problems</a>
<li>#17: <a HREF="../issue17/answer.html#response">Response from Weitse Venema</a>
<li>#16: <a HREF="../issue16/answer.html#fire">Using Linux Box as a Firewall</a>
<li>#15: <a HREF="../issue15/answer.html#ipfrag"
>IP Fragmentation Attack Description</a>
</ul>
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="losemodem"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(!) " border="0"
>Winmodems</H3>
<ul>
<li>#46: Modem blues.. --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue46/tag/8.html"
><strong>High School Modem</strong></a>
<li>#44: DosLinux --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/45.html"
><strong>What part of "Win Modem" Didn't you Understand?</strong></a>
<li>#38: Diamond Multimedia Modems --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue38/tag/10.html"
><strong>Reader Comments: Diamond WinModems:</strong></a>
<li>#38: <A HREF="../issue38/tag/14.html"
><strong>[Q]: Winmodem under Linux</strong></a>
<li>#37: serial port settings --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/1.html"
><strong>Another Damn WinModem</strong></a>
<li>#36: Offer to make available Winmodem interface spec --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/85.html"
><strong>Modem HOWTO Author Gets Offer RE: WinModems</strong></a>
<li>#36: I do know i am boring (ma windows fa veramente cagare) --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/86.html"
><strong>Condolences to Another Victim of the
"LoseModem" Conspiracy</strong></a>
<li>#29: Winmodems --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue29/tag_winmodem.html"
><STRONG>More on 'WinModems': How to "lose" Gracefully</STRONG></A>
- Just say No!
<li>#28: Linux.bat -or--
<br><A HREF="../issue28/lg_answer28.html#tag_winmodem.html"
><STRONG> LOADLIN.EXE, Plug &amp; "Pray"
and "Win(Lose)Modems" </STRONG></A>
</ul>
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="serial"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(!) " border="0"
>Ordinary Modems and other Useful Serial Devices</H3>
<ul>
<li>#44: <A HREF="../issue44/tag/18.html"
><strong>ppp & voicemail</strong></a>
<li>#45: <A HREF="../issue45/tag/1.html"
><strong>Linux to NT PPP Connection Over Null Modem</strong></a>
<li>#44: PPP disconnect --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/4.html"
><strong>PPP + minicom Disconnects</strong></a>
<br>WvDial Success
<li>#43: Modem Help --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue43/tag/9.html"
><strong>Searching for Days for a Linux Modem:
The Daze Continues</strong></a>
<li>#43: One more thing. --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue43/tag/2.html"
><strong>Null Modems: Connecting MS-DOS to Linux as a
Serial Terminal</strong></a>
<li>#39: <A HREF="../issue39/tag/3.html"
><strong>What's wrong with internal modems?</strong></a>
<li>#39: a small question --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue39/tag/2.html"
><strong>Using a 286 as a Serial Terminal</strong></a>
<li>#4: Digi C/X Host W/ C/Con 16 --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue34/tag/digi.html"><STRONG>Linux Support for the
DigiBoard C/X Intelligent Serial Ports</STRONG></A>
<li>#44: minicom --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/20.html"
><strong>Minicom Calling a Procomm Host</strong></a>
<li>#39: diald dials every hour... --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue39/tag/16.html"
><strong>Overactive diald</strong></a>
<li>#39: Modem Problem --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue39/tag/18.html"
><strong>Another Lost Soul</strong></a>
<li>#38: <A HREF="../issue38/tag/22.html"
><img src="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" height="28" width="50"
alt="(!)" border="0"
><strong>True modems</strong></a>
<li>#37: <A HREF="../issue38/tag/29.html"
><strong>Sportys</strong></a>
<li>#37: diald modem settings E71 --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/14.html"
><strong>Using "odd" modem settings</strong></a>
<li>#37: Curious modem hangup... --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/19.html"
><strong>PPP Disconnects</strong></a>
<li>#37: <A HREF="../issue37/tag/29.html"
><strong>modem disconnect problem?</strong></a>
<li>#37: <A HREF="../issue37/tag/45.html"
><strong>Securing a modem dial-out line.</strong></a>
<li>#36:<A HREF="../issue36/tag/12.html"
><strong>Modem dial out</strong></a>
<li>#34: <A HREF="../issue34/tag/serial.html"
><STRONG>RE how to find out the serial connect
speed of a modem</STRONG></A>
<li>#33: connect script failed --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue33/tag/connect.html"
><STRONG>O.K. It's not a Winmodem</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: Mulitiple processes sharing one serial port --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue32/tag_serial.html"
><STRONG>Multiplexing the Computer
-- ISDN Modem Connection</strong></a>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_phreak.html"><STRONG>phreaking</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_BBS.html"
><STRONG>Finding BBS Software for Linux</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_rs422.html"
><STRONG>High Speed Serial (RS422) under Linux</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_modem.html"
><STRONG>ANOTHER MODEM PROB</STRONG></A> Plus, More on Grammar
<li><A HREF="../issue32/tag_convert.html">#32</a> and
<A HREF="../issue30/tag_nullmodem.html">#30</a>:
Connecting Linux to Win '95 via Null Modem
--or-- <STRONG>A Convert!</STRONG>
<li>#31: <A HREF="../issue31/tag_connect.html"
><STRONG>How to check your modems connect speed?</STRONG></A>
<li>#31: <A HREF="../issue31/tag_modem.html"
><STRONG>115K Baud from a Modem: In your dreams!</STRONG></A>
<li>#30: <A HREF="../issue30/linux-questions-only@ssc.comport.html"
><STRONG>readdress COM port to 3 or 4</STRONG></A>
<li>#29: Hello --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue29/tag_dumbterm.html"
><STRONG>Connecting a Dumb Terminal to your Linux System</STRONG></A>
<li>#29: PPP connection and diald --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue29/tag_dialdppp.html"
><STRONG>Co-ordinating diald and Manual PPP</STRONG></A>
<li>#29: <A HREF="../issue29/tag_ppp233.html"
><STRONG>getting ppp-2.3.3 to work</STRONG></A>
<li>#24: <a HREF="../issue24/lg_answer24.html#diald">diald's niche</a>
<li>#22: <a HREF="../issue22/lg_answer22.html#swap">Swap partition and Modems</a>
<li>#22: <a HREF="../issue22/lg_answer22.html#fax"
>Faxing and Dialing-Out on the Same Line</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#server">Linux PPP Server</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#internet">PPP and Internet MCI</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#console"
>Attaching a Console to a PC</a>
<li>#18: <a HREF="../issue18/lg_answer18.html#serv"
>pcmcia 28.8 Modems and Linux 1.2.13 Internet Servers</a>
<li>#18: <a HREF="../issue18/lg_answer18.html#uucp">UUCP/Linux on Caldera</a>
<li>#17: <a HREF="../issue17/answer.html#modem">Navas Modem FAQ</a>
<li>#17: <a HREF="../issue17/answer.html#modem2">Setting Up a Modem</a>
<li>#17: <a HREF="../issue17/answer.html#zmode">zmodem Reply</a>
<li>#17: <a HREF="../issue17/answer.html#uucp">UUCP Questions</a>
<li>#16: <a HREF="../issue16/answer.html#zmod">zmodem</a>
<li>#16: <a HREF="../issue16/answer.html#modsp">Modem Speed</a>
<li>#14: <a HREF="../issue14/answer.html#dialup">Dial-up Problem</a>
<li>#13: <a HREF="../issue13/answer.html#dialup">Dialup Problem</a>
<li>#13: <a HREF="../issue13/answer.html#modem">Combining Modems for More Speed</a>
</ul>
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="disk"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(!) " border="0"
>Hard Disk Drives, Filesystems and Partitioning</h3>
<ul>
<li>#46: 2gig max file size? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue46/tag/6.html"
><strong> Large File Support Under Linux/x86</strong></a>
<li>#45: LINUX File System Standard. --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue45/tag/9.html"
><strong><TT>/bin</TT> vs <TT>/sbin</TT>
and the FHS Revisited</strong></a>
<li>#44: AHA 2940 SCSI timeout errors --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/21.html"
><strong>was: Plug and Pray SCAM</strong></a>
<li>#44: AHA 2940 SCSI timeout errors --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/21.html"
><strong>More on: SCSI Resets Due to Command Timeouts</strong></a>
<li>#44: AHA 2940 SCSI timeout errors --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/20.html"
><strong>SCSI Resets Due to Command Timeouts</strong></a>
<li>#44: Hdd track 0 bad. --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/43.html"
><strong>How to Use a Disk with a Bad Track 0</strong></a>
<li>#43: <A HREF="../issue43/tag/1.html"
><strong>Hey answer guy!!!</strong></a>
<li>#43: bad clusters --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue43/tag/6.html"
><strong>Try Linux ... and Grammar</strong></a>
<li>#43: Duplicating / --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue43/tag/7.html"
><strong>Out of Space....or Inodes? All Sparsity Lost?</strong></a>
<li>#43: RAID 1 solutions --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue43/tag/8.html"
><strong>Arco Duplidisk: Disk Mirroring</strong></a>
<li>#42: Unix Internal --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue42/tag/9.html"
><strong>Inodes Numbering: An Academic Question</strong></a>
<li>#42: One Bad Sector thats gettin on my nerves! --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue42/tag/10.html"
><strong>One Bad Sector</strong></a> It Doesn't Ruin the Whole Disk
<li>#42: Resizing partitions --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue42/tag/5.html"
><strong>Filesystem Management: What must be "resident"
at all times?</strong></a>
<li>#42: Question about 2 GB max? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue42/tag/18.html"
><strong>Maximum Filesize vs. Maximum Filesystem Size</strong></a>
<li>#41: <A HREF="../issue41/tag/6.html"
><strong>file timestamp off Got it !</strong></a>
<li>#39: How Can I Delete? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue39/tag/5.html"
><strong>Deleting Files and UNIX Permissions</strong></a>
<li>#38: how to fix a bad cluster on hd --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue38/tag/16.html"
><strong>More Bad Clusters</strong></a>
<li>#38: help with partitions --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue38/tag/18.html"
><strong>Installing on a Big Drive:
More on the 1023 Cylinder Limit</strong></a>
<li>#38: help with partitions --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue38/tag/21.html"
><strong>Partitioning Mini-HOWTO</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="../issue38/tag/7.html">#38</a> and
<A HREF="../issue37/tag/39.html">#37</a>:
Bad Sectors in my HDD --or--
<br><strong>Removing Bad Sectors</strong>
<li>#37: nr_files and nr_inodes --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/4.html"
><strong>Max Open Files and Inodes: Use The Entries
under <TT>/proc</TT></strong></a>
<li>#37: Partitioning my new Linux box... --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/18.html"
><strong>Disk Partitioning: Review</strong></a>
<li>#37: I want my 10 GIGS!!! --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/31.html"
><strong>Ultra-DMA and the 8.4Gb IDE Disk Limit</strong></a>
<li>#37: <A HREF="../issue37/tag/37.html"
><strong>Dos</strong></a>
<li>#37: <A HREF="../issue37/tag/38.html"
><strong>Low Level Formatting</strong></a>
<li>#37: I used gzip in bad way... help! --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/48.html"
><strong>Accidental Deletion</strong></a>
<li>#36: Linux File System recommendations --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/4.html"
><strong>Where to Put New and Supplemental Packages</strong></a>
<li>#36: where can i find information about LOFS, TFS --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/11.html"
><strong>Translucent, Overlay, Loop, and Union Filesystems</strong></a>
<li>#36: chattr =u and then what? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/37.html"
><strong>ext2fs &quot;Undeletable&quot; Attribute</strong></a>
<li>#36: <A HREF="../issue36/tag/38.html"
><strong>How to Install Linux on an RS6000?</strong></a>
<li>#36: Journal File Support and Tarantella? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/51.html"
><strong>SCOldies Bragging Rights</strong></a>
<li>#35: <A HREF="../issue35/tag/largedisk.html"
><strong>Suggestions for Linux Users with Ultra Large Disks</strong></a>
<li>#35: Linux question - "out of the Blue" --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue35/tag/links.html"
><strong>Listing "Just the Links": It's the only way, Luke</strong></a>
<li>#35: FS Security using Linux --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue35/tag/crypto.html"
><strong>Crypto Support for Linux</strong></a>
<li>#34: Booting and partitions --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue34/tag/largedisk.html"
><STRONG>Suggestions for Linux Users
with Ultra Large Disks</STRONG></A>
<li>#33: SCSI drive installation --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue33/tag/scsi.html"
><STRONG>Partition your HD before you try to use it.</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_nonlinux.html"
></A>Bad Clusters on Hard Drive --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue32/tag_nonlinux.html"
><STRONG>Another Non-Linux Question!</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_superblock.html"
><STRONG>Bad Super-block on Filesystem</STRONG></A>
<li>#31: <A HREF="../issue31/tag_badblock.html"
><STRONG>Bad Cluster</STRONG></A>
<li>#28: <A HREF="../issue28/lg_answer28.html#tag_cluster.html"
><STRONG>Bad cluster in HDD</STRONG></A>
<li>#23: <a HREF="../issue23/lg_answer23.html#pcmcia">pcmcia ide Drives</a>
<li>#22: <a HREF="../issue22/lg_answer22.html#ext2fs"
>Accessing ext2fs from Windows 95</a>
<li>#22: <a HREF="../issue22/lg_answer22.html#chattr">chattr +i</a>
<li>#22: <a HREF="../issue22/lg_answer22.html#mvusr"
>Moving /usr subdirectory to another drive..</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#disk">More on Disk Defrag</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#auto"
>Enabling Automounter on a Linux Notebook</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#mounting"
>Mounting Disks Under Red Hat 4.0</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#disc">New Hard Disc</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#support">Linux Disk Support</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#securityiss">Security Issues</a>
<li>#19: <a HREF="../issue19/lg_answer19.html#mount"
>Mounting Disks Under Red Hat 4.0</a>
<li>#19: <a HREF="../issue19/lg_answer19.html#disk">Disk Support</a>
<li>#19: <a HREF="../issue19/lg_answer19.html#files">File Permissions</a>
<li>#18: <a HREF="../issue18/lg_answer18.html#users">Users And Mounted Disks</a>
<li>#17: <a HREF="../issue17/answer.html#duplic">Duplicating a Linux Installed HD</a>
<li>#17: <a HREF="../issue17/answer.html#fs">fs's</a>
<li>#16: <a HREF="../issue16/answer.html#duplic"
>Duplicating a Linux Installed Hard Drive</a>
<li>#15: <a HREF="../issue15/answer.html#chown">chown Question</a>
<li>#15: <a HREF="../issue15/answer.html#file">File System Debugger</a>
<li>#15: <a HREF="../issue15/answer.html#mount">Mounted vfat File Systems</a>
</ul>
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="removable"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(!) " border="0"
>CD-ROM, Tapes, and more Removable Media</h3>
<ul>
<li>#44: <A HREF="../issue44/tag/19.html"
><strong>Unsupported Floppy Formats: 'dd' Maybe</strong></a>
<li>#44: cdr's --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/26.html"
><strong>CDR Media: Silver and Gold and Blue, Oh my!</strong></a>
<li>#44: ide-cd module --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/37.html"
><strong>Reading CD Discs on an IDE CDR Drive</strong></a>
<li>#44: A Fair price for CD duplication --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/47.html"
><strong>CD Duplication Services: Spam?</strong></a>
<li>#43: Floppy/mount Problems: Disk Spins,
Lights are on, No one's Home? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue43/tag/4.html"
><strong>Floppy Failure: mdir Works; mount Fails</strong></a>
<br>Found the culprit!
<li>#42: hal91 --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue42/tag/12.html"
><strong>HAL91 (Floppy Based Linux Distribution)</strong></a>
<li>#39: No rule to make target '<tt>config</tt>' --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue39/tag/6.html"
><strong>Recompiling Kernel to Support CD-ROM</strong></a>
<li>#39: <A HREF="../issue39/tag/19.html"
><strong>Plee for help</strong></a>
<li>#36: Mounting CD Drives from SoundCard --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/53.html"
><strong>Mounting multiple CD's</strong></a>
<li>#36: <A HREF="../issue36/tag/64.html"
><strong>Manipulating Clusters on a Floppy ...</strong></a>
<li>#36: Remote tape access, using local CPU --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/52.html"
><strong>Application Direct Access to Remote Tape Drive</strong></a>
<li>#36: Kai Makisara: Re: audio-DAT on SCSI streamer? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/87.html"
><strong>More on: Reading Audio Tapes using HP-DAT Drive</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="../issue36/tag/c.html">#36</a> and
<A HREF="../issue35/tag/loopfs.html">#35</a>:
Setting up Linux to serve CD images through loopback --or--
<br><strong>More than 8 loopfs Mounts?</strong>
<li>#34: Problems with backup --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue34/tag/tape.html"
><STRONG>Problems with a SCSI Tape Drive</STRONG></A>
<li>#33: fd0 --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue33/tag/floppy.html"
><STRONG>Floppy/mount Problems: Disk Spins,
Lights are on, No one's Home?</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_cdr.html"
><STRONG>[announce] Cdrdao 1.0 -
Disc-at-once writing of audio CD-Rs</STRONG></A>
<li>#31: <A HREF="../issue31/tag_cdr.html"
><STRONG>DAO software for linux?</STRONG></A>
<li>#30: DAO software for linux? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue30/tag_cdr.html"><STRONG>"DAO"
(Disk at Once) CDR?</STRONG></A> Stump Me!
<li>#31: Remote Backups (Yet Again) --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue31/tag_backup.html"
><STRONG>Remote Backups: GNU 'tar' through 'rsh'</STRONG></A>
<li>#28: Problems with SCSI-CDROM and Audio CDs --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue28/lg_answer28.html#tag_audiocd.html"
><STRONG>Sinister 'xmcd' Permanently Disables
Right Speaker Channel</STRONG></A>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#zip">Linux and Zip Drives</a>
<li>#29: <A HREF="../issue29/tag_betterbak.html"
><STRONG>Remote Tape Backups</STRONG></A>
<li>#17: <a HREF="../issue17/answer.html#flops">Using MS-DOS Floppies</a>
</ul>
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="boot"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(!) " border="0"
>LILO, SYSLINUX, and more Boot Loaders</h3>
<ul>
<li>#45: Setting up Windows and Linux --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue45/tag/8.html"
><strong>Dual Booting without Re-Partitioning</strong></a>
<li>#44: <A HREF="../issue44/tag/41.html"
><strong>Installing Win NT 4.0 Workstation and Dual booting
Win NT 4.0 Workstation and Win 95 B</strong></a>
<li>#44: get to know --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/28.html"
><strong>Downloading a copy of Linux</strong></a>
<li>#44: <A HREF="../issue44/tag/35.html"
><strong>Copying boot partitiion</strong></a>
<li>#44: LILO problem.. again --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/38.html"
><strong>Persistent LILO: Won't Start! Won't Go Away!</strong></a>
<li>#42:sites for general disk info? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue42/tag/2.html"
><strong>General HD Info and Boot Code</strong></a>
<li>#42: <A HREF="../issue42/tag/16.html"
><strong>pcmcia install on debian</strong></a>
<li>#42: <A HREF="../issue41/tag/2.html"
><strong>Best Place to "Download Linux"</strong></a>
<li>#38: <A HREF="../issue38/tag/12.html"
><strong>Question from an old friend.</strong></a>
<li>#37: Linux 5.2 Loadlin.exe, where do I get it? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue38/tag/19.html"
><strong>Finding LOADLIN.EXE ...
and Linux Loader for Win '9x</strong></a>
<li>#37: Is it possible to run Debian on 4 MB? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/33.html"
><strong>Low Memory Installation</strong></a>
<li>#36: lilo --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/79.html"
><strong>Persistent Boot Sector</strong></a>
<li>#36: Dual booting NT or Win9x with Linux (Red Hat 5.2) --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/82.html"
><strong>Dual Boot Configurations</strong></a>
<li>#36: <A HREF="../issue36/tag/57.html"
><strong>LILO Default</strong></a>
<li>#36: uninstall help --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/61.html"
><strong>Uninstalling Linux</strong></a>
<li>#35: A newbie question --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue35/tag/bootmethod.html"
><strong>How Many Ways Can I Boot Thee: Let Me Count Them</strong></a>
<li>#34: dual /boot partitions --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue34/tag/recovery.html"
><STRONG>Automated Recovery from System Failures</STRONG></A>
<li>#33: Download a Catch 22? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue33/tag/catch22.html"
><STRONG>Chicken and Egg (Catch-22) for
Linux Download/Install</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: Thank you --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue32/tag_lilo.html"
><STRONG>Articles on LILO Saves Life?</STRONG></A>
<li><A HREF="../issue32/tag_95slow.html">#32</a> and
<A HREF="../issue31/tag_95slow.html">#31</a>:
><STRONG>'Win '95 Hesitates After Box Has Run Linux?'</STRONG></A>
<li>#31: <A HREF="../issue31/tag_idescsi.html"
><STRONG>Lilo not working on SCSI when IDE drives installed</STRONG></A>
<li>#30: Lilo won't boot --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue30/tag_lilostop.html"
><STRONG>Installed on a Secondary SCSI HD:
Lilo Stops at LI</STRONG></A>
<li>#29:<A HREF="../issue29/tag_lilo.html"
><STRONG>Removing Lilo from a multi-boot machine</STRONG></A>
<li>#29: <A HREF="../issue29/tag_kernel.html"
><STRONG>Kernel crashes</STRONG></A>
<li>#25: <a HREF="../issue25/lg_answer25.html#lilo"
>Removing LILO, Reinstalling MS-DOS</a>
<li>#23: <a HREF="../issue23/lg_answer23.html#loadlin2">loadlin</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#lilo">LILO Concerns</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#command"
>Linux Command Line Arguments</a>
<li>@20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#lilo">LILO</a>
<li>@20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#lilo2">More on LILO</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#booting">Booting Linux</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#panics">Kernel Panics on root fs</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#gui">95 GUI</a>
<li>#19: <a HREF="../issue19/lg_answer19.html#install">Installing Linux</a>
<li>#19: <a HREF="../issue19/lg_answer19.html#lilo">Weird LILO Problems</a>
<li>#17: <a HREF="../issue17/answer.html#boot">Trying to Boot a Laptop</a>
</ul>
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="mail"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(!) " border="0"
>Mail Servers and Clients</h3>
<ul>
<li>#46: outgoing email using Netscape --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue46/tag/11.html"
><strong>Outgoing Mail Problems</strong></a>
<li>#45: RH6 Virtual Email - POP3 problem --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue45/tag/7.html"
><strong>Virtual E-mail Domains</strong></a>
<li>#42: procmail and saved variables. --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue42/tag/7.html"
><strong>MATCH and Replaceable Parameters in procmail</strong></a>
<li>#38: <A HREF="../issue38/tag/5.html"
><strong>&quot;Integrating&quot; Linux/sendmail
with MS Exchange</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="../issue37/tag/5.html">#37</a>,
<A HREF="../issue37/tag/7.html">twice</a>:
><strong>setting up an ISP to serve email</strong></a>
<br>Setting up ISP Mail Services
<li>#37: procmail --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/9.html"
><strong>'procmail' to Get Mail via POP-3?
No. 'fetchmail'</strong></a>
<li>#37: Communicator and PGP on Linux --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/42.html"
><strong>NS Communicator (Mail) and PGP</strong></a>
<li>#36: <A HREF="../issue36/tag/20.html"
><strong>Why 40-second delay in sending mail to
SMTP server?</strong></a>
<li>#36: <A HREF="../issue36/tag/29.html"
><strong>Locked Out of His Mailserver</strong></a>
<li>#36: <A HREF="../issue36/tag/47.html"
><strong>Mail processing</strong></a>
<li>#36: <A HREF="../issue36/tag/66.html"
><strong>Sendmail on private net with UUCP link to Internet</strong></a>
<li>#36: preference=20 --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/80.html"
><strong>Secondary MX Records: How and Why</strong></a>
<li>#35: sendmail problem --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue35/tag/pvtmail.html"
><strong>'sendmail' on a Private/Disconnected Network</strong></a>
<li>#35: e-mail quotas --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue34/tag/quota.html"
><STRONG>Quotas for Outgoing e-mail</STRONG></A>
<li>#33: <A HREF="../issue33/tag/emacs_cc.html"
><STRONG>Supressing cc: lines in Emacs' Mail replies</STRONG></A>
<li>#31: <A HREF="../issue31/tag_maildns.html"
><STRONG>'<tt>sendmail</tt>' requires DNS
... won't use <tt>/etc/hosts</tt></STRONG></A>
<li>#30: <A HREF="../issue30/tag_vacation.html"
><STRONG>auto response for email ?</STRONG></A>
<li>#29: Question on sendmail... --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue29/tag_virtdom.html"
><STRONG>'<tt>sendmail</tt>' <tt>FEATURE</tt>
creatures for virtual domain and generic re-write tables</STRONG></A>
<li>#29: Mail on a LAN Linux to NT --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue29/tag_basicmail.html"
><STRONG>Basic e-mail Setup for Linux?</STRONG></A>
<li>#29: Sendmail jam --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue29/tag_sendmail.html"
><STRONG>'<tt>sendmail</tt>' Log Jams and Capacity Problems</STRONG></A>:
running extra '<tt>sendmail -q</tt>' processes
<li>#29: Mail access --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue29/tag_msmail.html"
><STRONG>Getting at MS-Mail from within
Linux</STRONG></A>: The Myriad Ways to Co-exist with MS Windows
<li>#29: Program for Mailer Daemons --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue29/tag_procmail.html"
><STRONG>Automated Handling for MAILER-DAEMON
Messages</STRONG></A>: Read The Sources, Luke.
<li>#28: <A HREF="../issue28/lg_answer28.html#tag_paging.html"
><STRONG>Email Alpha-Paging software</STRONG></A>
<li>#28: <A HREF="../issue28/lg_answer28.html#tag_mailmasq.html"
><STRONG>'<tt>sendmail</tt>' Masquerading: What and Why</STRONG></A>
<li>#27: <a HREF="../issue27/lg_answer27.html#geene"
>Answer Guy Issue 18 -- Procmail Spam Filter</a>
<li>#27: <a HREF="../issue27/lg_answer27.html#geene2">Great Procmail Article</a>
<li>#25: <a HREF="../issue25/lg_answer25.html#netscape"
>More on Netscape Mail Crashes</a>
<li>#24: <a HREF="../issue24/lg_answer24.html#net1">Netscape Mail Crashing</a>
<li>#24: <a HREF="../issue24/lg_answer24.html#net2">Netscape /var/spool/USER </a>
<li>#23: <a HREF="../issue23/lg_answer23.html#pop">Security Problems with pop3</a>
<li>#22: <a HREF="../issue22/lg_answer22.html#sendmail">Linux sendmail problem</a>
<li>#22: <a HREF="../issue22/lg_answer22.html#email">E-mail adjustment needed</a>
<li>#22: <a HREF="../issue22/lg_answer22.html#fetch">POP3 vs. /etc/passwd</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#pop"
>Pop3d That Doesn't Use /etc/passwd</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#sendmail">Sendmail</a>
<li>#18: <a HREF="../issue18/lg_answer18.html#fetch">Fetchmail</a>
<li>#18: <a HREF="../issue18/lg_answer18.html#procmail">Procmail</a>
<li>#18: <a HREF="../issue18/lg_answer18.html#proc">Procmail Idea and Question</a>
<li>#17: <a HREF="../issue17/answer.html#imap">IMAP and Linux</a>
<li>#17: <a HREF="../issue17/answer.html#imap2">IMAP Again</a>
<li>#15: <a HREF="../issue15/answer.html#fetch">fetchmail and POP3 Correction</a>
<li>#15: <a HREF="../issue15/answer.html#mail">Mail Server Problem</a>
<li>#15: <a HREF="../issue15/answer.html#send">Mail and Sendmail</a>
<li>#15: <a HREF="../issue15/answer.html#pop">POP3 E-Mail</a>
<li>#15: <a HREF="../issue15/answer.html#again">Sendmail-8.8.4 and Linux</a>
<li>#14: <a HREF="../issue14/answer.html#block">Netscape Mail Block</a>
<li>#14: <a HREF="../issue14/answer.html#mail"
>Dealing with e-mail on a pop3 server</a>
</ul>
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="services"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(!) " border="0"
>Other Servers</h3>
<ul>
<li>#46: TCPMUX on Linux --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue46/tag/3.html"
><strong>TCPMux Revisited:
You'll need a Daemon for it, or a Better inetd</strong></a>
<li>#46: The Mac, Linux, perl, Apache & server --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue46/tag/4.html"
><strong>A Staging Server</strong></a>
<li>#45: unix question --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue45/tag/4.html"
><strong>Quotas on a Sublet Web Server?</strong></a>
<li>#45: Mars NWE --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue45/tag/5.html"
><strong>MarS NWE: HOWTO and Docs in English?</strong></a>
<!-- li>#45: How to Print 2 pages on 1 sheet --or--
<br><A HREF="tag/10.html"
><strong>Saving Trees: Laying up Multiple Pages
per Printer Sheet</strong></a -->
<li>#44: <A HREF="../issue44/tag/9.html"
><strong>ftpacess and the Incoming Conundrum</strong></a>
<li>#44: Proxy server --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/48.html"
><strong>Proxy Program?</strong></a>
<li>#42: Setting up a Loopback Mount --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue42/tag/1.html"
><strong>Loopback (localhost) NFS Mounting for FTP</strong></a>
<li>#42: work-around for gdi printer? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue42/tag/17.html"
><strong>WinPrinter Work-around</strong></a>
<li>#38: xntpd --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue38/tag/28.html"
><strong>How 'ntpdate' finds IP addresses?</strong></a>
<li>#39: hmm. --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue38/tag/1.html"
><strong>FTP Only Access: Trickier than it Seems</strong></a>
<li>#38: linux --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue38/tag/9.html"
><strong>Mysterious Message: Subject: Linux</strong></a>
<li>#38: Great Job !!! --or--
<ibr><A HREF="../issue38/tag/31.html"
><strong>Linux as a Loghost (Syslog Server)</strong></a>
<li>#38: <A HREF="../issue38/tag/32.html"
><strong>Telnetd and pausing</strong></a>
<li>#37: Simplified Security? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/2.html"
><strong>Simple Security Tips</strong></a>
<li>#37: <A HREF="../issue37/tag/6.html"
><strong>Getting my new linux box to run the ftp server</strong></a>
<li>#37: System clock is too fast... --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/22.html"
><strong>Ahh ... The Toils of Time</strong></a>
<li>#36: FTP Site... --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/6.html"
><strong>'ls' Doesn't work for FTP Site</strong></a>
<li>#36: PAM & chroot (fwd) --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/15.html"
><strong>'chroot()' Jails or Cardboard Boxes</strong></a>
<li>#36: MySql --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/34.html"
><strong>Finding info on MySqL?</strong></a>
<li>#36: Real PS Printing --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/39.html"
><strong>Advanced Printer Support:
800x600 dpi + 11x17" Paper</strong></a>
<li>#36: Re: leafnode-1.7 -- news server for small sites --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/54.html"
><strong>More on Multi-Feed Netnews (leafnode)</strong></a>
<li>#36: <A HREF="../issue36/tag/65.html"
><strong>Setting up ircd</strong></a>
<li>#36: HELP: fetchmail dies after RH 5.2 upgrade --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/76.html"
><strong>Upgrade Kills Name Server</strong></a>
<li>#36: LPD forks and hangs/Linux --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/81.html"
><strong>'lpd' Bug: "restricted service" option;
Hangs Printer Daemon</strong></a>
<li>#34: apache server --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue34/tag/apache.html"
><STRONG>Executing "Normal HTML" Files
with Apache</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_apache.html"
><STRONG>MS FrontPage for Linux/Apache</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: PPP --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue32/tag_disable.html"
><STRONG>The &quot;Difficulty&quot; is in
<em>Disabling</em> the Services</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: Online Status Detector --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue32/tag_ping.html"
><STRONG>Failover and High Availability for Web Servers</STRONG></A>:
Conditional Execution Based on Host Availability
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_cluster.html"
><STRONG>Web Server Clustering Project</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: wu-ftpd guest account on a Linux Box --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue32/tag_ftpd.html"
><STRONG>WU-FTP guestgroup problems</STRONG></A>
<li><A HREF="../issue31/tag_solprint.html">#31</a> and
<br><A HREF="../issue30/tag_solprint.html">#30</a>:
Printing Solaris -&gt; Linux --or--
><STRONG>Remote lpd Solaris to Linux</STRONG></A>
<li>#30: <A HREF="../issue30/tag_ppadrivers.html"
><STRONG>winprinters &amp; MTAs</STRONG></A>: Pointers and Corrections
<li>#27: <a HREF="../issue27/lg_answer27.html#sindona"
>Linux Cluster Configuration</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#ftpd">More on ftpd</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#apache">Apache 1.2.1</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#dns">DNS Problem</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#cookies">Cookies</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#print">Printing Problems</a>
<li>#17: <a HREF="../issue17/answer.html#host">Virtual Hosting</a>
<li>#17: <a HREF="../issue17/answer.html#ftpd">Installing wu-ftpd on a Linux Box</a>
<li>#17: <a HREF="../issue17/answer.html#inetd">inetd Questions</a>
<li>#15: <a HREF="../issue15/answer.html#wuftpd">wu-ftpd Problems</a>
<li>#13: <a HREF="../issue13/answer.html#server">WWW Server</a>
</ul>
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="script"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(!) " border="0"
>Scripting and Programming (including Startup Scripts)</h3>
<ul>
<li>#46: redirection of stdin-stdout --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue46/tag/10.html"
><strong>Programming Question about Regaining stdin/stdout</strong></a>
<li>#45: java curses library and jxterm? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue45/tag/6.html"
><strong>Old Question Revisited: Java Curses Support</strong></a>
<li>#44: Desqview/Linux --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/24.html"
><strong>Assembly Language Programming for an old
DESQview User</strong></a>
<li>#44: <A HREF="../issue44/tag/32.html"
><strong>Linux gazette article, July 1999</strong></a>
<li>#44: linux memory --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/34.html"
><strong>Free Memory vs. Buffers</strong></a>
<li>#44: finding Changelogs --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/40.html"
><strong>Kernel Patches and Change Logs</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="../issue43/tag/3.html">#43</a> and
<A HREF="../issue42/tag/20.html">#42</a>: RedHat 5.2 Kernel 2.0.36 --or--
<br><strong>Upgrade Breaks Several Programs,
<TT>/proc</TT> Problems, BogoMIPS Discrepancies</strong>
<br>A visit to "Library Hell"
<li>#42: cvs tree for pam --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue42/tag/4.html"
><strong>PAM chroot</strong></a>
Wherein Jim rants about PAM
<li>#42: Server shutdown/restart: 2-key keyboard --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue42/tag/11.html"
><strong>Server Shutdown Button</strong></a>
<li>#42: Here's a shell scripting question for you. --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue41/tag/1.html"
><strong>How to Make a Shell Script "Unbreakable"</strong></a>
<li>#42: "core" files appearing here and there --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue41/tag/4.html"
><strong>Dealing with "core" files</strong></a>
<li>#42: Xterm and "Log to file" --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue41/tag/5.html"
><strong>Flexible Logging of Terminal Output to Files:
Use 'screen'</strong></a>
<li>#39: <A HREF="../issue39/tag/4.html"
><strong>Error starting recompiling process?</strong></a>
<li>#38: Win 95 computer/NT server environment --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue38/tag/6.html"
><strong>Shell Scripting: Getting Host and User Names</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="../issue37/tag/16.html">#37, Steven Hancock</a> and
<A HREF="../issue36/tag/22.html">#36</a>:
ey answer guy! answer this! --or--
<br><strong>Automated PostScript (ps)
to GIF Conversion</strong>
<li>#36: who to report gcc bug to? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/2.html"
><strong>Where to Report Bugs and Send Patches</strong></a>
<li>#36: question for answerguy --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/10.html"
><strong>Letting Those Transfers Run Unattended</strong></a>
<li>#36: Compiling kernel --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/62.html"
><strong>Making a Kernel Requires 'make'</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="../issue36/tag/96.html">#36</a> and
<A HREF="../issue34/tag/current.html">#34</a>:
Updates: Risks and rewards --or--
><strong>Automated Updates</strong></a>
Keeping my RH5.0 system up to date
<li>#35: X and virtual terms --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue35/tag/magickeys.html"
><strong>Some Magic Keys for the Linux Console</strong></a>
<li>#35: <A HREF="../issue35/tag/egg.html"
><strong>modutils question</strong></a>
<li>#35: <A HREF="../issue35/tag/libc.html"
><strong>libc5 and libc6</strong></a>
<li>#34: <A HREF="../issue34/tag/script.html"
><STRONG>Re Script</STRONG></A>
<li>#34: Here's a doozy --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue34/tag/session.html"
><STRONG>Telnet/xterm: Log to file</STRONG></A>
<li>#34: Is there a testsuite for glibc v2.0.x? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue34/tag/testsuite.html"
><STRONG>Test Suites for GNU and other
Open Source (TM) Software</STRONG></A>
<li>#33: [linuxprog] more shuffling experiments --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue33/tag/shuffle.html"
><STRONG>Shuffling Lines in a File</STRONG></A>
<li>#33: <A HREF="../issue33/tag/hostavail.html"
><STRONG>Conditional Execution Based on Host Availability</STRONG></A>
<li>#33: <A HREF="../issue33/tag/thanks2.html"
><STRONG>Thanks</STRONG></A> for the pointer to uuencode sources.
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_detach.html"
><STRONG>Detaching and Re-attaching to Interactive Background
Processes</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_libc5.html"
></A>The last Linux C library version 5, 5.4.46, is released. --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue32/tag_libc5.html"><STRONG>The End of libc5:
A Mini-Interview with H.J Lu</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: Linux System Administration. --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue32/tag_startup.html"
><STRONG>Where to put '<tt>insmod</tt>' and
'<tt>modprobe</tt>' Commands for Start-up</STRONG></A>
<li>#32:Help with C/C++ Environment Program --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue32/tag_progenv.html"
><STRONG>Integrated Programming Environments for Linux</STRONG></A>
<li>#31: <A HREF="../issue31/tag_kernel.html"
><STRONG>Kernel Overview needed....</STRONG></A>
<li>#31: Question on Memory Leak --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue31/tag_memleak.html"
><STRONG>Memory Leaks and the OS that Allows Them</STRONG></A>
<li>#30: Linux and SCO Keymap --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue30/tag_SCOkeys.html"
><STRONG>SCO Compatible Console Keymaps?</STRONG></A>
<li>#30: linux kernel security --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue30/tag_chroot.html"><STRONG>Breakin' Out of the
<TT>chroot()</TT> Jail</STRONG></A> adding "disabilities" to Linux
<li>#30: gzip from C program --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue30/tag_gzipC.html"><STRONG>Compression Libraries to
Link into a C Program</STRONG></A>
<li>#30: Memory deallocation problems --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue30/tag_memleak.html"
><STRONG>Linux Memory Usage vs. Leakage</STRONG></A>
<li>#29: <A HREF="../issue29/tag_versions.html"
><STRONG>Version-a-go-go and the Tragedy of
being "Left Behind"</STRONG></A>
<li>#28: <A HREF="../issue28/lg_answer28.html#tag_x2java.html"
><STRONG>Tools for converting X output to java </STRONG></A>
<li>#27: <a HREF="../issue27/lg_answer27.html#mccluan"
>Regarding Compile Errors with Tripwire 1.2</a>
<li>#27: <a HREF="../issue27/lg_answer27.html#karsh"
>Applix Spreadsheet ELF Macro Language</a>
<li>#26: <a HREF="../issue26/lg_answer26.html#luke">Use the Source, Luke!</a>
<li>#24: <a HREF="../issue24/lg_answer24.html#redh1">Upgrade to Red Hat 5.0?</a>
<li>#23: <a HREF="../issue23/lg_answer23.html#ref"
>An Interesting De-Referencing Problem</a>
<li>#22: <a HREF="../issue22/lg_answer22.html#make">Problem with make</a>
<li>#22: <a HREF="../issue22/lg_answer22.html#vbasic">Visual Basic for Linux</a>
<li>#22: <a HREF="../issue22/lg_answer22.html#cppx"
>C++ Integrated Programming Enviroment for X...</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#thingies"
>All Those Little % Thingies</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#slackware"
>gcc and Slackware Question</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#security"
>Using JDK 1.1 for Solaris x86 on Linux</a>
<li>#19: <a HREF="../issue19/lg_answer19.html#file">Running FileRunner</a>
<li>#19: <a HREF="../issue19/lg_answer19.html#bash">Bash String Manipulations</a>
<li>#18: <a HREF="../issue18/lg_answer18.html#tcl">Tcl/tlk Dependencies</a>
<li>#18: <a HREF="../issue18/lg_answer18.html#map">[q] Map Left Arrow to Backspace</a>
<li>#17: <a HREF="../issue17/answer.html#file">Automatic File Transfer</a>
<li>#17: <a HREF="../issue17/answer.html#userid">User Identification</a>
<li>#16: <a HREF="../issue16/answer.html#map">Problems with Keyboard Mapping</a>
<li>#15: <a HREF="../issue15/answer.html#auto"
>Automated File Transfer over Firewall</a>
<li>#13: <a HREF="../issue13/answer.html#file">File Referencing</a>
</ul>
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="sound"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(!) " border="0"
>Sweet Music?</h3>
<ul>
<li>#38: <A HREF="../issue38/tag/30.html"
><strong>souncards</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="../issue38/tag/11.html">#38</a>,
<A HREF="../issue35/tag/yamaha.html">#35, Alan Cox</a>,
<A HREF="../issue34/tag/sound.html">#34, HELP!!</a>:
About a OPL-3 ( Yamaha driver for sound) (sorry for bad english...)
--or--
><strong>OPL-3 Sound Drivers</strong></a>
<li>#31: redhat linux 5.0 and reveal sc400 rev a sound card --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue31/tag_sound.html"
><STRONG>Reveal SC400 Sound Card:
OSS/Linux and OSS/Free Supported?</STRONG></A>
<li>#18: <a HREF="../issue18/lg_answer18.html#config"
>Configuration Problems of a Soundcard</a>
</ul>
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="notlinux"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(!) " border="0"
>Non-Linux OS Questions</h3>
<ul>
<li>#46: <A HREF="../issue46/tag/2.html"
><strong>dao</strong></a>
<br>("helpless" in TAG #44))
<li>#44: Linux Partition conflicting with Win98 --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/7.html"
><strong>Makes Windows Explorer Choke</strong></a>
<br>More complex than that, really.
<li>#44: Linux and Windows 95 --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/1.html"
><strong>Running Win '95 Apps under Linux</strong></a>
<li>#44: DESQView 386 --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/25.html"
><strong>DESQview/386 Die Hards into the Next Millennia</strong></a>
<li>#44: Dao --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/33.html"
><strong>Helpless</strong></a>
<li>#44: pc-mos --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/42.html"
><strong>5 1/4" Floppies: Truly Dead</strong></a>
<li>#42: HELP!!!!!!!!!! --or-
<br><A HREF="../issue42/tag/22.html"
><strong>Data "Losted" (sic)</strong></a>
<li>#42: "Network Neighborhood" --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue42/tag/23.html"
><strong>Network Neighborhood: Heterogenous File Sharing</strong></a>
<li>#42: <A HREF="../issue42/tag/24.html"
><strong>AOL</strong></a>
<li>#38: <A HREF="../issue38/tag/8.html"
></a>Please upgrade your Internet Explorer --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue38/tag/8.html"
><strong>The Presumption!</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="../issue36/tag/3.html">#36</a>,
<A HREF="../issue36/tag/18.html">twice</a>:
RedHat Linux (5.1) and Brand X --or--
><strong>How to "get into" an Linux system
from a Microsoft client</strong></a>
<li>#36: Question (what else?) --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/77.html"
><strong>MS Applications Support For Linux</strong></a>
<li>#36: read please very important --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/35.html"
><strong>Spying: (AOL Instant Messenger or ICQ): No Joy!</strong></a>
<li>#36: Printing question --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/48.html"
><strong>Extra Formfeed from Windows '95</strong></a>
<li>#36: Mount linux drives from win9x/nt?
password encryption seems to be a problem... --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/46.html"
><strong>Sharing/Exporting Linux Directories to
Windows '9x/NT</strong></a>
<li>#36: Linux in general --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/67.html"
><strong>Complaint Department:</strong></a>
<li>#36: <A HREF="../issue36/tag/b.html"
><strong>No STREAMS Error while Installing Netware
for Linux</strong></a>
<li>#36: update on your answer - netware clients --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/56.html"
><strong>Linux as a Netware Client</strong></a>
<li>#35: office server --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue35/tag/office.html"
><strong>Linux as a File/Print Server for Window and DOS boxes:
Of course!</strong></a>
<li>#35: Question about networking with NetWare --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue35/tag/netware.html"
><strong>Needs to Login to Netware</strong></a>
<li>#34: Shell File!!!!! --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue34/tag/w95ie.html"
><STRONG>All that Vaunted Support for those
Windows Users</STRONG></A>
<li><A HREF="../issue34/tag/goodtimes.html">#34</a>,
<A HREF="../issue29/tag_macrovir.html">#29</a> (a little note),
and <A HREF="../issue28/lg_answer28.html#tag_hoax.html">#28</a>
#34: "Good Times"-email is it a virus? --or--
<br><STRONG>The Infection and the Cure</STRONG></A>
<br>&quot;Good Times&quot; are Spread to the "Great Unwashed"
<li>#34: nt 4.0 ras dialin problem --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue34/tag/w95ras.html"
><STRONG>Another Non-Linux Question</STRONG></A>
<li>#34: <A HREF="../issue34/tag/w95virus.html"
><STRONG>Macro Virus?</STRONG></A>
<li>#33: <A HREF="../issue33/tag/samba_pdc.html"
><STRONG>Linux/Samba as a Primary Domain Controller</STRONG></A>
<li>#33: Desqview --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue33/tag/desqview.html"
><STRONG>Buying DESQview and/or DESQview/X</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: resume on AS/400 --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue32/tag_resume.html"><STRONG>Resume Spam</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_softwindows.html"
><STRONG>Linux Port of SoftWindows</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_emulate.html"
><STRONG>Virtual System Emulator for Linux
and Why NOT to Use Them</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: Netware NDS Client --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue32/tag_NDS.html"
><STRONG>NDS (Netware Directory Services) for Linux:
Clients and Servers</STRONG></A>
<li>#31: Linux NDS --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue31/tag_NDS.html"
><STRONG>Linux as a Netware Directory Srvices
Printer Client?</STRONG></A>
<li>#30: NT Domain and Linux --or--
<dd><A HREF="../issue30/tag_NTauth.html"
><STRONG>Linux as a "Domain Controller" for
a WinNT Domain? Not Yet!</STRONG></A>
Linux use of an NT PDC/BDC for authentication?
<li>#30: help on unix --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue30/tag_emulate.html"
><STRONG>Running Unix/Linux Under Win '9x</STRONG></A>
<li>#28: <A HREF="../issue28/lg_answer28.html#tag_netbios.html"
><STRONG>Complex network and NetBIOS</STRONG></A>
<li>#24: <a HREF="../issue24/lg_answer24.html#redh2"
>Red Hat Linux and WABI and other things</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#nt"
>Follow-Up to NT and Linux Article</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#active">Active X for Linux/Unix</a>
<li>#19: <a HREF="../issue19/lg_answer19.html#active">ActiveX for Linux</a>
<li>#18: <a HREF="../issue18/lg_answer18.html#active">ActiveX For Linux</a>
<li>#18: <a HREF="../issue18/lg_answer18.html#nt">Linux and NT</a>
<li>#17: <a HREF="../issue17/answer.html#unix">Linux/Unix Emulator</a>
</ul>
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="social"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(!) " border="0"
>Etiquette and More Social Questions</h3>
<ul>
<li>#46: your web --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue46/tag/9.html"
><strong>Who is Jim Dennis?</strong></a>
<li>#45: <A HREF="../issue45/tag/13.html"
><strong>Cash In On ... Spam!</strong></a>
<li>#44: can't help it --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/17.html"
><strong>Spellcheck Award!</strong></a>
<li>#44: This month's "paltry" offerings --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/14.html"
><strong>Typos</strong></a>
<li>#44: <A HREF="../issue44/tag/44.html"
><strong>Benchmarks</strong></a>
<li>#43: need your help --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue43/tag/5.html"
><strong>Incompetance in Parenting</strong></a>
<li>#42: <A HREF="../issue42/tag/8.html"
><strong>RMA for Video Card</strong></a>
<li>#42: Hey answer guy!!! --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue42/tag/14.html"
><strong>Linux as a Job!</strong></a>
Hobbies become fun and profit
<li>#42: Pls spare a minute: --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue42/tag/21.html"
><strong>Spare a Minute to Provide "Some Info"</strong></a>
<li>#37: Further answers to questions? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/15.html"
><strong>Sometimes Short of the Question</strong></a>
<li>#37: you are the man --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/23.html"
><strong>The Complaint Department: Typos and
Grammatical Errors</strong></a>
<li>#36: Your book --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/5.html"
><strong>Book: Linux Systems Administration</strong></a>
<li>#36: very general process question --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/7.html"
><strong>An Anthropologist Asks About the Linux "Process"</strong></a>
<li>#36: Thank You --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/25.html"
><strong>Kudos</strong></a>
<li>#36: <A HREF="../issue36/tag/40.html"
><strong>TAG suggestions</strong></a>
<li>#36: Just a sugestion... --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/91.html"
><strong>Best of Answer Guy: A Volunteer?</strong></a>
<li>#33: Important typo in Anti-Windows emulator rant --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue33/tag/typo.html"
><STRONG>Will the "Real" freshmeat Please Get Bookmarked?</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_flaws.html"
><STRONG>The Five Flaws of <em>the</em> Unix System</STRONG></A>
<li>#31: Stupid question --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue31/tag_guy.html"
><STRONG>AnswerGUY? Who is Heather?</STRONG></A>
<li>#30: <A HREF="../issue30/tag_newlook.html"
><STRONG>LOVE THE NEW LOOK!!!!</STRONG></A>
<li>#29: The Answer Guy --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue29/tag_newlook.html"
><STRONG>Regarding the Column's New Look</STRONG></A>
<li>#28: Lets vote for Linus --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue28/lg_answer28.html#tag_century.html"
><STRONG>Some Thoughts on "The Man of the Century"</STRONG></A>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#thanks">A Letter of Thanks</a>
</ul>
<!-- .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~. -->
<A NAME="else"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A>
<H3 align="left"><img src="./../gx/dennis/bbubble.gif"
height="50" width="60" alt="(!) " border="0"
>Everything Else</h3>
<ul>
<li>#44: quick swap Q --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/29.html"
><strong>And from Radioland....</strong></a>
<li>#44: Question --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/39.html"
><strong>The Lost Art of Helper Apps</strong></a>
<li>#44: 128M Ram question --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue44/tag/46.html"
><strong>Seeing only 13M of RAM</strong></a>
<li>#42: How to Build Own Linux Distribution ? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue41/tag/3.html"
><strong>Building a Personal Distribution: Take II</strong></a>
<li>#39: New Linux Distribution --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue39/tag/11.html"
><strong>How to Create a New Linux Distribution: Why?</strong></a>
<li>#39: Good morning!!! --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue39/tag/15.html"
><strong>Essay Quiz</strong></a>
<li>#39: <A HREF="../issue39/tag/22.html"
><strong>Linux and Y2K</strong></a>
<li>#39: Your approach to Y2K problem --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue39/tag/23.html"
><strong>Y2K Cause Arithmetic Failures?</strong></a>
<li>#37: <A HREF="../issue37/tag/47.html"
><strong>RAM</strong></a>
<li>#37: <A HREF="../issue37/tag/32.html"
><strong>LTT submission</strong></a>
<li>#37: Uh, where'd my "man" go? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/43.html"
><strong>'fsck' Breaks 'man' Pages?</strong></a>
<li>#36: The Linux Swap File --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/16.html"
><strong>Swap file on a RAM Disk</strong></a>
<li>#36: Locating AV Research --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/9.html"
><strong>Looking for a Hardware Vendor:
In all the Wrong Places</strong></a>
<li>#36: <A HREF="../issue36/tag/23.html"
><strong>troubleshooting</strong></a>
<li>#36: Question --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/26.html"
><strong>Linux Support for Intel Pentium II Xeon CPU's
and Chipsets</strong></a>
<li>#36: Looking for info on BIOS setup --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/45.html"
><strong>Plug and Pray Problems</strong></a>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_clock.html"
><STRONG>The BIOS Clock, Y2K, Linux and Everything</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_distrib.html"
><STRONG>More on Distribution Preferences</STRONG></A>
<li>#31: <A HREF="../issue31/tag_distrib.html"
><STRONG>Yggdrasil: A Breath of Life for the
Root of the Linux Distributions?</STRONG></A>
...and what about OpenLinux Base?
<li>#38: Is it possible to run Debian on 4 MB? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue38/tag/23.html"
><strong>Low Memory Installation</strong></a>
<li>#37: Linux Diagnostic Tool --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/10.html"
><strong>Hardware Info Under Linux: MSD.EXE Clone?</strong></a>
<li>#37: copy of Microsoft Office --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue37/tag/12.html"
><strong>Free Copy of MS Office for Linux?
It isn't April Yet!</strong></a>
<li>#36: Alternate root-password recovery option --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/50.html"
><strong>Alternative Method for Recovering from
Root Password Loss</strong></a>
<li>#36: memory usage --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/63.html"
><strong>Using only 64Mb out of 128Mb Available</strong></a>
<li>#36: Can you give me a Suggestion?/ --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/84.html"
><strong>Microtek Scanner Support: Alejandro's Tale</strong></a>
(Alejandro was the querent on this topic in
<A HREF="../issue35/tag/slimscan.html">#35</a>.)
<li>#36: more on keybindings --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/94.html"
><strong>termcap/terminfo Oddities to Remotely Run SCO App</strong></a>
<li>#36: Arabic? --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue36/tag/95.html"
><strong>Arabic BiDi Support for Linux</strong></a>
<li>#35: <A HREF="../issue35/tag/project.html"
><strong>The state of UNIX in 1998</strong></a>
<li>#35: RedHat 5.1 and rpms --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue35/tag/rpm.html"
><strong>RPM Dependencies: HOW?</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="../issue35/tag/dell.html">#35</a> and
<A HREF="../issue29/tag_dell.html">#29</a>:
><strong>Linux on Dell Systems</strong></a>
<li>#34: <A HREF="../issue34/tag/maybe.html"
><STRONG>Query</STRONG></A>
<li>#33: <A HREF="../issue33/tag/autocad.html"
><STRONG>AutoCAD for Linux? Not Yet. Sorry.</STRONG></A>
<li>#33: tty help --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue33/tag/tty.html"
><STRONG>Psuedo tty Becomes Unusable</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: Driving Terminals w/Java --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue32/tag_javaterm.html"
><STRONG>Java Telnet/Terminal</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_database.html"
><STRONG>FoxPlus for Linux ?</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_DVI.html"
><STRONG>How to read DVI files?</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_permission.html"
><STRONG>Permission to Set up a Linux Server</STRONG></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_notfound.html"
><STRONG><tt>/usr/bin/open</tt> command not found</strong></A>
<li>#32: <A HREF="../issue32/tag_accounts.html"
><STRONG>SysAdmin: User Administration: Disabling Accounts</STRONG></A>
<li>#31: Assigning UID/GID --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue31/tag_uidgid.html"
><STRONG>UID/GID Synchronization and Management</STRONG></A>
<li>#31: <A HREF="../issue31/tag_rpm.html"
><STRONG>What is an RPM?</STRONG></A>
<li>#30: Dosemu and virtual terminals? --or--
<dd><A HREF="../issue30/tag_dosemu-db.html"
><STRONG>Clipper/xBase Capacity Problems
--- DOSemu as a Solution?</STRONG></A> "I don't think so."
<li>#30: <A HREF="../issue30/tag_3270.html"
><STRONG>tn3270 security</STRONG></A>
<li>#30: FoxPlus for Linux? --or--
<dd><A HREF="../issue30/tag_database.html"
><STRONG>Dreaming about xBase tools for Linux</STRONG></A>
<li>#30: please, advice about Linux and C500 --or--
<dd><A HREF="../issue30/tag_c500.html"
><STRONG>Linux PPC on the Umax C500 SuperMac:
Not A Good Idea</STRONG></A>
<li>#30: Help Wanted --or--
<br><A HREF="../issue30/tag_vc1shell.html"
><STRONG>User Shell on Virtual Console 1</STRONG></A>
<li>#29: <A HREF="../issue29/tag_whylinux.html"
><STRONG>Why Linux?</STRONG></A>
<li>#24: <a HREF="../issue24/lg_answer24.html#slack">Slackware Help</a>
<li>#24: <a HREF="../issue24/lg_answer24.html#virtual"
>Getting Rid of Virtual Screens</a>
<li>#24: <a HREF="../issue24/lg_answer24.html#pdt">Linux as a PDT</a>
<li>#23: <a HREF="../issue23/lg_answer23.html#madness">VC Madness</a>
<li>#23: <a HREF="../issue23/lg_answer23.html#crypt">Cryptographic System</a>
<li>#23: <a HREF="../issue23/lg_answer23.html#remind">Reminder!</a>
<li>#23: <a HREF="../issue23/lg_answer23.html#program">Compression Program</a>
<li>#23: <a HREF="../issue23/lg_answer23.html#wipe">WipeOut</a>
<li>#22: <a HREF="../issue22/lg_answer22.html#286">Linux and the 286</a>
<li>#22: <a HREF="../issue22/lg_answer22.html#realbios">REALBIOS?</a>
<li>#22: <a HREF="../issue22/lg_answer22.html#pc">PC Emulation</a>
<li>#22: <a HREF="../issue22/lg_answer22.html#hardware"
>Linux 4.2 software and Hardware compatablity problems</a>
<li>#22: <a HREF="../issue22/lg_answer22.html#lynx">LYNX-DEV new to LYNX</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#crash">More Random Crashes</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#lynx">Lunx and Frames</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#emulator">Linux/Unix Emulator</a>
<li>#21: <a HREF="../issue21/lg_answer21.html#crypt">Crypt</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#protocol">Z Protocol</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#redhat">Red Hat CD Problem</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#crashes">Random Crashes</a>
<li>#20: <a HREF="../issue20/lg_answer20.html#card">STO/1/O2 SCSI Card</a>
<li>#19: <a HREF="../issue19/lg_answer19.html#legib">Legibility</a>
<li>#19: <a HREF="../issue19/lg_answer19.html#blink">Blinking Underline Cursor</a>
<li><a HREF="../issue19/lg_answer19.html#xlt">#19</a> and
<a HREF="../issue18/lg_answer18.html#adding">#18</a>:
Adding Linux To a DEC XLT-366
<li>#18: <a HREF="../issue18/lg_answer18.html#var">/var/log/messages</a>
<li>#18: <a HREF="../issue18/lg_answer18.html#show">OS Showdown</a>
<li>#18: <a HREF="../issue18/lg_answer18.html#pack">What Packages Do I Need?</a>
<li>#16: <a HREF="../issue16/answer.html#address">SATAN URL Correction</a>
<li>#16: <a HREF="../issue16/answer.html#edi">EDI on Linux</a>
<li>#16: <a HREF="../issue16/answer.html#run">Running the Internet with Linux</a>
<li>#16: <a HREF="../issue16/answer.html#spawn">Respawning Too Fast</a>
<li>#15: <a HREF="../issue15/answer.html#pseudo">Pseudo Terminal Device Questions</a>
<li>#14: <a HREF="../issue14/answer.html#secure">Security Problem</a>
<li>#14: <a HREF="../issue14/answer.html#more">More on Security Problem</a>
</ul>
<P> <HR> <P>
<H4>"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- QUICK TIPS SECTION ================================================== -->
<center>
<H1><A NAME="tips"><IMG ALIGN=MIDDLE ALT="" SRC="../gx/twocent.gif">
More 2&#162; Tips!</A></H1> <BR>
Send Linux Tips and Tricks to <A HREF="mailto:gazette@ssc.com">
gazette@ssc.com
</A></center>
<p><hr><p>
<H3><font color="#CC0000">New Tips:</font></H3>
<!-- BEGIN xref tips -->
<ul>
<li><a HREF="#1">Home Network Domain Name
<li><a HREF="#2">Spell check script
<li><a HREF="#3">Linux on playstation 2
<li><a HREF="#4">Is that open port a backdoor?
<li><a HREF="#5">Inspecting packets denied by your firewall
<li><a HREF="#6">A random background selector
</a>
</ul>
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<H3><font color="#CC0000">Answers to Mail Bag Questions:</font></H3>
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<ul>
<li><a HREF="#7">Telnet trouble
<li><a HREF="#8">Why should I care?
<li><a HREF="#9">Compiling network driver
<li><a HREF="#10">How to prevent remote logins as root
<li><a HREF="#11">Shell programming
<li><a HREF="#12">Internet connection proble
<li><a HREF="#13">Run-time error on cplusplus programme
<li><a HREF="#14">Making Linux talk to an NT network
<li><a HREF="#15">Preventing unwanted telnet access
<li><a HREF="#16">Maximal mount reached; check forced
<li><a HREF="#17">Riva TNT 2
<li><a HREF="#18">Netscape and Java
<li><a HREF="#19">Installing Linux on large drives
<li><a HREF="#22">Reading Linux partitions from NT/95
<li><a HREF="#23">COBOL compiler
<li><a HREF="#24">Mounting a zip disk
<li><a HREF="#25">CDROM is not a block device
<li><a HREF="#26">Compiling IRC
<li><a HREF="#27">Chat server
<li><a HREF="#28">Imagemap
<li><a HREF="#29">Printing lines of black
<li><a HREF="#30">FAQ and printing...
</a>
</ul>
<!-- END xref tips.answers -->
<!-- BEGIN tips -->
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="1"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Home Network Domain Name
</FONT> </H3>
Sat, 2 Oct 1999 01:00:45 -0400
<BR>From: Barry &lt;<A HREF="mailto:BarryJJ@IBM.Net">BarryJJ@IBM.Net&gt;</A>
<P> Discussions of private networks typically point the user at the IP address
ranges - such as 192.168... - reserved for private networks.
<P> But they often also show those networks named something like "...MyHome.Net"
Murphy says that any name you pick will eventually be a real domain to which
you want access.
<P> For a private network, you do *not* have to use a ".net", ".com", ".org"
ending. I've been happily using an adaption of my street address - i.e.,
something like ".MainSt123" - for some time, yielding nodes such as
Hub.MainSt123 = 192.168.0.1 for a (Linux) gateway, and things like
FamilyRoom.MainSt123 for other machines scattered around the house.
<P> I run things such as DNS (early Bind, now Bind8), Apache, Squid, Samba, etc. on
the hub machine and have had no configuration problems from *not* using a
standard, 3-character ending.
<P> And I sleep easy knowing that I'm *not* using something that may also be a
*real* domain name ... at least not in the foreseeable future :-)
<P> Barry Johnson - BarryJJ@IBM.Net
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="2"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Spell check script
</FONT> </H3>
Wed, 20 Oct 1999 21:38:20 -0700
<BR>From: David Anderson &lt;<A HREF="mailto:davkat1@home.com">davkat1@home.com&gt;</A>
<P> Here's a little Spell ckeck script, I call it "wspell"
you can call "wspell" alone, and anwser the questions or place up to two
portions of the word into the command line as in
<PRE>
wspell re quir
reacquired
require
required
requirement
requirements
requires
requiring
</PRE>
<P> the requirement of this script is, get the first few letters correct
<P> <A HREF=misc/tips/wspell>wspell</A> (shell script)
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="3"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Linux on playstation 2
</FONT> </H3>
Thu, 21 Oct 1999 17:38:57 +0930
<BR>From: 50012176 &lt;<A HREF="mailto:50012176@snetad.cpg.com.au">50012176@snetad.cpg.com.au&gt;</A>
<P> hello,<BR>
I just wanted to say, did you know that Playstation 2 is using a
Linux interface, while the Dreamcast is using Windows.
<P> later<BR>
(((LeX)))
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="4"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Is that open port a backdoor?
</FONT> </H3>
Sat, 23 Oct 1999 01:38:10 +0200
<BR>From: Pat Bateman &lt;<A HREF="mailto:pat99@linustart.com">pat99@linustart.com&gt;</A>
<P> That's what I though the first time I used the program wget. If you
don't know why some port is listening and you are a little bit paranoid
and think that's a backdoor, try first this command:
<PRE>
fuser -vn <udp or tcp> <listening port>
</PRE>
This will display the program that opened that
port, it's PID and the user who executed it. If you are sure that's a
backdoor and want to close it, type this:
<PRE>
fuser -kn <tcp or udp> <listening port>
</PRE>
This will close this port till the next reboot (unless
the backdoor program is runned by cron). Check your system to eliminate
the backdoor.
Here's my 2cents_tip
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="5"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Inspecting packets denied by your firewall
</FONT> </H3>
Wed, 29 Sep 1999 11:04:48 -0500
<BR>From: marc &lt;<A HREF="mailto:lowkey@innocent.com">lowkey@innocent.com&gt;</A>
<P> I have a firewall, and the logs show when a packet is deined. Denied
packets from the internet can be a warning sign. But i became tired of
searching through the logs for this info, and the ips were not
resolved. So i wrote some scripts that look through a log file, pull
out the DENY lines, resolve the ip addresses and remove any duplicates.
<P> These scripts are perhaps the height of kludgeyness, but they work. I
know i like to learn from examples, so maybe this can help others.
<P> the script to run is
<A HREF=misc/tips/show_denied_packets.sh.txt>show_denied_packets.sh</A>
<P> This script filters out any lines dealing with my local LAN, because I
am only looking for packets from the internet. You may want to set
LOCAL_LAN to the ip address of your local lan, if you have one.
<P> It then calls <A HREF=misc/tips/strip_log.pl.txt>strip_log.pl</A>
<P> This perl script takes the info from the log and prints out just the ip
addresses and ports involved. This info is then piped into the
logresolve program.
<P> logresolve is a c program that came with my apache, although not
compiled. i found it in /var/lib/httpd/support/ . To compile it i ran
<PRE>
gcc -o logresolve logresolve.c
</PRE>
and then moved the logresolve binary into my bin directory. Its path
needs to be set in the show_denied_packets.sh script.
<P> Finally, I was getting many duplicate entries, so i pipe the info to the
unix sort command to sort it all, and the unix uniq command to take out
all the duplicate entries.
<P> And viola! you now have a list of all the computers that tried to send
you packets that bounced off your firewall. To keep an eye on this, i
put an entry in my crontab to have this info mailed to me once a week.
The line looks like this:
<PRE>
# once a week check for denied packets
0 2 * * mon /home/marc/bin/show_denied_packets.sh
</PRE>
<P> Using different scripts together is a strength of unix. Still, this is
a bit kludgy, and if there is any interest, i could whip all this up
into one program.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="6"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">A random background selector
</FONT> </H3>
Tue, 14 Sep 1999 16:58:55 -0400 (AST)
<BR>From: Ben Okopnik &lt;<A HREF="mailto:ben-fuzzybear@geocities.com">ben-fuzzybear@geocities.com&gt;</A>
<P> Hi -
<P> First thing, I'd like to thank you for putting out the LG; it's
been a mentor/SuperFAQ/"AHA!" generator ever since I first
installed Linux, over a year ago. <grin> "What a long, strange
trip it's been". Thanks to LG (as well as a myriad other Linux
sources), I'm now very comfortable (not yet a guru, though) with
it, and learning more every day.
<P> Second - a contribution, if you will. Here's one of the shell scripts
that I've written, <A HREF=misc/tips/bkgr.sh.txt>bkgr</A>; it's been a
really nifty gadget for me, selecting random backgrounds for
my X-Windows. I hope other folx here will find it of as much
use.
<P> Drum roll, please... :)
<P> There is lots of configurable stuff in there - graphics prog,
window manager, etc. - but the comments should make it sorta
simple to adapt. *Hint*: the backgrounds for E-term (this is
where about half of my pics came from) are rather bright and
wonderful...
<P> Keep up the good work!
<!-- END tips -->
<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>
<!-- BEGIN tips.answers -->
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="7"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">Telnet trouble
</FONT> </H3>
Sat, 25 Sep 1999 01:28:37 -0700
<BR>From: Jim Dennis &lt;<A HREF="mailto:jimd@starshine.org">jimd@starshine.org&gt;</A>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> Dear Jim
<P> Your email did help me to solve the problem with the telnet in
linux. It works fine now. Thanks a million.....
<P> I have a small doubt. Let me explain...... My network has a NT
server, LINUX server and 20 windows 95 clients. I followed your
instructions and added the address of all the clients into the
/etc/hosts file on the LINUX machine and voila the telnet worked
immediately.
<P> But the NT server was the one who was running a DHCP server and
dynamically allocating the addresses to the clients. The clients
were configured to use DHCP and were not statically given and ip
addresses. I managed to see the current DHCP allocation for each
client and add those address into the /etc/hosts file on the LINUX
server but my doubt is what happens when the DHCP address for the
client changes? Then again we'll have to change the address in
the /etc/hosts file right? This seems silly. Is there anyway to
make the LINUX hosts file to automatically pick up the DHCP
address from the NT server?
<P> Also another important thing is I am still unable to ping from the
NT server to the LINUX server using the name. It works only with
the IP address. Is there any way to make the NT DHCP to recognize
the LINUX server?
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> Well, either you shouldn't use dynamic addressing
(DHCP) or you should use dynamic DNS. You could
also disable TCP Wrappers (edit your /etc/inetd.conf
to change lines like:
<PRE>
telnet stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd in.telnetd
</PRE>
... to look more like:
<PRE>
telnet stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/in.telnetd in.telnetd
</PRE>
<P> (and comment out all of the services you don't
need while you're at it).
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> Thanks Jim for all your help....you've become my LINUX
guru.............
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> Perhaps you should consider getting a support
contract (or joining a local users group). I may
not always respond as quickly nor as thoroughly
as you'd like.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="8"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">Why should I care?
</FONT> </H3>
Sat, 25 Sep 1999 07:34:24 -0400
<BR>From: Rick Smith &lt;<A HREF="mailto:rsmith13@tampabay.rr.com">rsmith13@tampabay.rr.com&gt;</A>
<P> "R.Smith" wrote:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Sir,
Since my previous letter about Dalnet providers trying to connect to my
Linux box via telnet port 23, I have found out that they are also trying
port 1080. I have instigated a policy of dropping all incoming
connections via a command run by host.deny:
<PRE>
/sbin/ipfwadm -I -i deny -S %a
</PRE>
I hate to do this to my niece, but I don't know of any alternative until
these dalnet jerks stop this intrusive practice.
Anyway, my niece has moved to other irc providers that don't
do this kind of thing.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> Why should I care if Dalnet is trying to connect to ports 23 and 1080?
I don't run any services on port 1080 and port 23 is closed via
hosts.deny. I care because WITH JUST ONE dalnet user, I sometimes have
dozens of syslog messages per day. I have to go through them and decide
if there is a problem. I have to run whois, nslookup, traceroute, etc.
on them to see if they are bogus. And many of the dalnet domain and
IP's ARE bogus.
<P> I could ignore connect attempts to port 23 and miss that one attempt
that really was important. I could ignore port 1080... I could turn off
my firewall and let everyone in...
<P> Imagine what a workload I would have if I was an sysadm with 20-30
people on dalnet.
<P> It is simpler to just drop all connect attempts and let my niece use
other irc services that aren't abusive.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="9"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">Compiling network driver
</FONT> </H3>
Sun, 26 Sep 1999 14:01:58 +0200 (CEST)
<BR>From: Roland &lt;<A HREF="mailto:rsmith@xs4all.nl">rsmith@xs4all.nl&gt;</A>
<P> Hi Jeff,
<P> after you compile the network card driver, you should place it an a
directory where insmod searches for it. I think /lib/modules/x.y.z/net
would be appropriate, where x.y.z is your current kernel version, e.g.
2.2.10 or 2.0.38.
<P> Altarnatively you can set the MODPATH environment variable to point to
the directory where your module is located. See "man insmod".
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="10"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">How to prevent remote logins as root
</FONT> </H3>
Sun, 26 Sep 1999 14:17:48 +0200 (CEST)
<BR>From: Roland &lt;<A HREF="mailto:rsmith@xs4all.nl">rsmith@xs4all.nl&gt;</A>
<P> Erik,
<P> I read your question in issue 46 of the Linux Gazette.
<P> To deny remote logins as root, add the following to the
/etc/login.acess file:
<PRE>
-:root:ALL EXCEPT LOCAL
</PRE>
<P> This means you can only login as root from a local console.
<P> But if I where you I would disable telnet entirely and use ssh (secure
shell). You can disable telnet by adding a "#" in front of the "telnet"
line in /etc/inetd.conf.
<P> If you are not running a server, I would disable inetd entirely. To do
this, comment out the lines that start inetd in the start-up scripts.
For Debian this is /etc/init.d/netbase, for Slackware the /etc/rc?.d
scripts ("?" is your runlevel, look at /etc/inittab for the default
runlevel). I don't know about Red Hat, but you can do a
"grep inetd /etc/init.d/*" to find it there.
<P><STRONG><EM>Ian Carr-de Avelon &lt;<A HREF="mailto:ian@emit.pl">ian@emit.pl&gt;</A> says:</EM></STRONG>
<P> From: Erik Fleischer &lt;<A HREF=mailto:ferik@iname.com>ferik@iname.com</A>&gt;
<BLOCKQUOTE>
For security reasons, I would like to make it impossible for anyone
logging in remotely (via telnet etc.) to log in as root, but so far
haven't been able to figure out how to do that. Any suggestions?
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> This is an easy one, at least under Slackware; other distributions may
differ. The file /etc/securetty has the terminals root can use. It looks
something like:
<PRE>
tty1
tty2
tty3
tty4
tty5
tty6
ttyS0
ttyS1
ttyp0
ttyp1
</PRE>
<P> The tty(number) entries are what you use normally with the PC video card and
keyboard. ttyS(number) entries are serial lines, so for example if you connect
to your Linux box via a modem. ttyp(number) entries are "pseudo terminals" which
you get if you come in via telnet. Delete all the ttyp entries and you can't
telnet in as root.
<P> Yours<BR>
Ian
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
[Jeremy Johnstone &lt;
<A HREF="mailto:wizdem25@hotmail.com">wizdem25@hotmail.com&gt;</A> and
Stephen Crane &lt;<A HREF="mailto:scrane@flexicom.com">scrane@flexicom.com&gt;</A>
also sent in the same suggestion. -Ed.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><STRONG><EM>
Jonathan Marsden &lt;<A HREF="mailto:Jonathan@XC.Org">Jonathan@XC.Org&gt;</A>
adds:</EM></STRONG>
<P> You don't say what sort of login you have in mind: telnet? FTP? SSH?
rlogin? I'll try to deal with all of those!
<P> (1) Set the file /etc/securetty to contain only the local console
device(s). This is actually what is done in most or all well known
Linux installations by default. It will prevent root login on telnet
connections (or dialin lines, or any tty except the ones listed!).
<P> (2) Make sure root is included in the file /etc/ftpusers. Again this
is done by default on most or all curent Linux distributions. This
file lists all users who will be denied FTP login (one user per line),
even if they use the "correct" password for that user.
<P> (3) In /etc/ssh/sshd_config (may be /etc/sshd_config on some
distributions), set PermitRootLogin no. This prevents users logging
in as root using SSH.
<P> (4) Disable rlogin by commenting it out of /etc/inetd.conf, where it
is referred to as the 'login' service -- in other words, put a # sign
before the line that starts with the word login, and then do
kill -HUP `cat /var/run/inetd.pid` to tell inetd of the change.
<P> You will also need to keep current with security updates for your
distribution, avoid running unnecessary services, and generally be
aware of network security issues, if your computer is connected to the
Internet; reading the Linux Security HOWTO and the more comprehensive
"Linux administrator's Security Guide" at
<P> <A HREF=http://www.securityportal.com/lasg/www.securityportal.com/lasg/></A>
<P> is also worthwhile to learn more about keeping your Linux systems
secure.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="21"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">Re: reply to Linux on a laptop
</FONT> </H3>
Sat, 2 Oct 1999 16:42:12 -0600 (MDT)
<BR>From: Michal Jaegermann &lt;<A HREF="mailto:michal@ellpspace.math.ualberta.ca">michal@ellpspace.math.ualberta.ca&gt;</A>
<P> Russ Johnson <rjohnson@tripwiresecurity.com> wrote replying to a plea
for help from a new Linux user with ATI rage LT PRO in a new laptop:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
You bet there's a solution. It's not perfect (yet) but it works well
until XFree86 gets a new server out there. The solution is to use the
Frame Buffer server. Details are here: www.0wned.org/~cain/ragefury.htm
Other than that, the only solution available is to purchase a commercial
X server.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> The answer is correct in this that this is a solution but this is not
the only one nor the best. A few months ago I found myself in a similar
situation installing Linux for somebody with a Gericom (a German
company) laptop. Looking around on Internet I found fairly quickly
(don't ask me how as I do not remeber that now, but it was fairly easy :-)
the following web page:<BR>
<A HREF=http://www.fachschaften.uni-bielefeld.de/physik/leute/marc/X/>
www.fachschaften.uni-bielefeld.de/physik/leute/marc/X/</A>
<P> Among other things one can find there binaries of an X server supporting
LT PRO which works very well. The card is similar to other ATI Rage
cards but different enough to require a special treatment.
<P> You may also want to consult
<A HREF=http://ruff.cs.jmu.edu/~beetle/ragefury.htm>
ruff.cs.jmu.edu/~beetle/ragefury.htm</A>.
<P> I do not know if LT PRO support found its way in the recent XFree86
releases; pretty likely.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="11"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">Shell programming
</FONT> </H3>
Sun, 26 Sep 1999 14:23:41 +0200 (CEST)
<BR>From: Roland &lt;<A HREF="mailto:rsmith@xs4all.nl">rsmith@xs4all.nl&gt;</A>
<P> For starters, the bash(1) manual (type "man bash" at the command
prompt) gives a detailed if somewhat cryptic listing of all the shell
language features.
<P> I'd recommend reading a lot of other peoples' shell scripts. For
instance, look at the system startup scripts in /etc/init.d, or (if
/etc/init.d doesn't exist) in /etc/rc2.d.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="12"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">Internet connection problem
</FONT> </H3>
Sun, 26 Sep 1999 14:35:48 +0200 (CEST)
<BR>From: Roland &lt;<A HREF="mailto:rsmith@xs4all.nl">rsmith@xs4all.nl&gt;</A>
<P> Rakesh,
<P> First you need to know what authentification method your ISP uses. This
can be PAP or CHAP or just a plain-text password.
<P> Then you need to tell kppp to use that authentification method. I'm not
familiar with kppp, so look at the documentation. :-)
<P> If kppp doesn't have options to configure PAP or CHAP, you'll have to
create a file called /etc/ppp/pap-secrets or /etc/ppp/chap-secrets
yourself.
<P> These files should contain a line in the following format
<PRE>
# client server secret IP addresses
rsmith * foobar
</PRE>
<P> First comes your login name, then a *, then your password. Lines
beginning with "#" are comments.
<P> For more information read the pppd man-page (type "man pppd" at the
prompt).
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="13"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">Run-time error on cplusplus programme
</FONT> </H3>
Sun, 26 Sep 1999 14:45:31 +0200 (CEST)
<BR>From: Roland &lt;<A HREF="mailto:rsmith@xs4all.nl">rsmith@xs4all.nl&gt;</A>
<P> I think you should ask this question on the cygwin mailing list:
cygwin@sourceware.cygnus.com
<P> There is als an archive of the mailing lists at
http://www.delorie.com/archives
<P> For more information, check the homepage: http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="14"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">Making Linux talk to an NT network
</FONT> </H3>
Sun, 26 Sep 1999 15:08:26 +0200 (CEST)
<BR>From: Roland &lt;<A HREF="mailto:rsmith@xs4all.nl">rsmith@xs4all.nl&gt;</A>
<P> It looks to me that you want to use Linux as a client, not as a server,
right?
<P> In that case you should use the smbfs utilities. You'll find them at
http://samba.SerNet.DE/linux-lan/
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="15"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">Preventing unwanted telnet access
</FONT> </H3>
Sun, 26 Sep 1999 09:41:10 -0400 (EDT)
<BR>From: Robert Tennent &lt;<A HREF="mailto:rdt@cs.queensu.ca">rdt@cs.queensu.ca&gt;</A>
<P> Rick Smith asked for a way to prevent unwanted telnet access.
I recommend a package called portsentry which automatically detects
port scans and multiple failed telnet attempts. It denies access
and doesn't return any IP packets to that host. It's free for
non-commercial use. Available from
<P> http://www.psionic.com/abacus/portsentry/
<P> Bob T.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="16"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">Maximal mount reached; check forced
</FONT> </H3>
Mon, 27 Sep 1999 00:35:03 -0400
<BR>From: Ted &lt;<A HREF="mailto:tytso@mit.edu">tytso@mit.edu&gt;</A>
<P> From: Jim Dennis <jimd@starshine.org>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
We call that "losing the lottery." It always seems to
happen when you're in a hurry to get the system back up and
running.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> Yup. Note that even once we have journalling support in ext2, you will
want to occasionally force an fsck over the filesystem just to make sure
there haven't been any errors caused by memory errors, disk errors,
cosmic rays, etc.
<P> If you need your laptop to reboot quickly just before a demo (and your
laptop doesn't have a hiberate feature or some such), something you can
do is to sync your disks, make sure your system is quiscient (i.e.,
nothing is running), and then force a power cycle and let your system
reboot. Your system will then fsck all of your disks, and you can then
shutdown your system, confident that the dreaded "maximal mount count"
message won't appear during that critical demo.
<BLOCKQUOTE>
If you want to live dangerously you can change the
the maximal mount count value on a filesystem
using the 'tune2fs' command's -c option. You can also
manually set the mount value using the -C (upper case)
option. You can see the current values using a command
like:
<PRE>
tune2fs -l /dev/hda1
</PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> If you know that your system is fairly reliable --- you've been running
it for a while and you're not seeing wierd failures due to cheasy cheap
memory or overly long IDE or SCSI cables, etc. it's actually not so
dangerous to set a longer maximal count time.
<P> One approach if your system is constantly getting shutdown and restarted
is to set the filesystem so it uses the time the filesystem was last
checked as a criteria instead of a maximal count. For example:
<PRE>
tune2fs -c 100 -i 3m /dev/hda1
</PRE>
<P> This will cause the filesystem to be checked after 100 mounts, or 3
months, whichever comes first.
<P> (It should be safe to change some values when you have a
filesystem mounted read-only; though it might be worth asking
an expert, so I've copied Ted T'so and Remy Card on this
message).
<P> Yes, it's safe these values if the filesystem is mounted read-only. If
you're ***sure*** that the filesystem is quiscent, and nothing is
changing on the filesystem, you can even get away with changing it while
the filesystem is mounted read-write. It's not something I'd really
recommend, but if you know what you're doing, you can get away from it.
It really depends on how much you working without a safety net.
<BLOCKQUOTE>
As far as I know there is no way in which this
volume label is currently used. It seems to be a
wholly optional feature; I guess we can use these
to keep track of our removable media or something.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> You can use the volume label in your /etc/fstab if you like: For
example:
<PRE>
LABEL=temp /tmp ext2 defaults 1 2
</PRE>
<P> or
<PRE>
UUID=3a30d6b4-08a5-11d3-91c3-e1fc5550af17 /usr ext2 defaults 1 2
</PRE>
<P> The advantage of doing this is that the filesystems are specified in a
device independent way. So for example, if your SCSI chain gets
reordered, the filesystems will get mounted corrected even though the
device names may have changed.
<P> - Ted
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="17"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">Riva TNT 2
</FONT> </H3>
Mon, 27 Sep 1999 18:01:07 +0200
<BR>From: Peter "Blacky" Van Rompaey &lt;<A HREF="mailto:peter.van.rompaey@xylos.com">peter.van.rompaey@xylos.com&gt;</A>
<P> NVidia has released its own drivers for Riva TNT / TNT 2 under XFree86
<P> Check them out at:
<P> <A HREF=http://www.nvidia.com/Products.nsf/htmlmedia/software_drivers.html>
www.nvidia.com/Products.nsf/htmlmedia/software_drivers.html</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="18"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">Netscape and Java
</FONT> </H3>
Fri, 24 Sep 1999 19:59:51 -0500
<BR>From: Aaron Douglass Miller &lt;<A HREF="mailto:amiller3@nd.edu">amiller3@nd.edu&gt;</A>
<P> This fix for Netscape distributed with RH6 appears at http://www.linux-now.com
<P> I do not take credit for this, it is not my work...
<PRE>
Edit the file: /etc/X11/fs/config
change this:
catalogue = /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled,
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled,
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled,
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc,
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1,
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo
to this:
catalogue = /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled,
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled,
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled,
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc,
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1,
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo,
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi
And then restart the font server with this command:
/etc/rc.d/init.d/xfs restart
</PRE>
<HR NOSHADE WIDTH=50%>
<P> Tue, 28 Sep 1999 21:18:37 -0500
<BR>From: Larry Settle &lt;<A HREF="mailto:lsettle@mail.com">lsettle@mail.com&gt;</A>
<P> This is a reply to: mjaganna@us.oracle.com
<P> He wrote on Mon, 20 Sept, 1999:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I am running Netscape Comm 4.51 on Red Hat Linux 6.0.
It crashes invariably if I load a site with any Java applet etc.
Is there something I am missing or is this a known bug?
<P> Mahesh
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> I had the same problem on Red Hat 6.0.
I fixed Netscape Comm 4.6, but 4.5.1 was broken in the same way.
<P> Use this URL to Netscape's knowledge base:
<A HREF=http://help.netscape.com/kb/consumer/990807-8.html>
help.netscape.com/kb/consumer/990807-8.html</A>
<P> In case you can't reach it:<BR>
execute: chkfontpath --list<BR>
If "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi" is not listed<BR>
execute: chkfontpath --add /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi
<P> Note that "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled" will be listed.
You still need the one without the ":unscaled" suffix.
<P> Larry Settle
<HR NOSHADE WIDTH=50%>
<P> Mon, 11 Oct 1999 23:34:43 -1000
<BR>From: Kevin Brammer &lt;<A HREF="mailto:kncbram@hawaii.rr.com">kncbram@hawaii.rr.com&gt;</A>
<P> Yes, it's a known bug with Redhat 6.0. The fix is simple, type this (as
root) in a console window:
<PRE>
chkfontpath --add /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi
</PRE>
<P> For more bugs/fixes/issues with Redhat 6.0, check out:
<A HREF=http://www.redhat.com/cgi-bin/support?faq>www.redhat.com/cgi-bin/support?faq</A>
<P><HR NOSHADE WIDTH=50%>
<P> Wed, 27 Oct 1999 07:50:36 +1300 (NZDT)
<BR>From: Tobor &lt;<A HREF="mailto:sc.wong@ieee.org">sc.wong@ieee.org&gt;</A>
<P> It's a well known bug and Netscape is one of the worst piece of
software on Linux IMHO. Do a search on
<A HREF="http://www.searchlinux.com">www.searchlinux.com</A> or dejanews
and you'll see how many hate postings there're on Linux newsgroups.
<P> Anyway, there's one way to stop Netscape crashing as often. Do you
download netscape from their ftp server or from your distro? If you
download from netscape, don't use the link from their http pages. They
only have a links to binaries that's linked to libc5 which crashes very
often on my redhat 6.1 box. On their ftp server, there's another
set of binaries linked to glibc2.0 which is much more stable. Try them
out and see which ones are better.
<P> PS. I always turn java off.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="19"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">Installing Linux on large drives
</FONT> </H3>
Wed, 29 Sep 1999 19:02:52 -0400
<BR>From: Noah White &lt;<A HREF="mailto:noah@silverbacktech.com">noah@silverbacktech.com&gt;</A>
<P> To avoid possible BIOS limitations just make a /boot partition which
ends before cylinder 1023.
<P> -Noah
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="22"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">Reading Linux partitions from NT/95
</FONT> </H3>
Tue, 05 Oct 1999 08:49:49 +0200
<BR>From: Gwenael Lambrouin &lt;<A HREF="mailto:glambrouin@csi.com">glambrouin@csi.com&gt;</A>
<A HREF=http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2fs.htm>
uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2fs.htm</A>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="23"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">COBOL compiler
</FONT> </H3>
Wed, 06 Oct 1999 12:36:17 -0400
<BR>From: Matthew Dean &lt;<A HREF="mailto:dean@deskware.com">dean@deskware.com&gt;</A>
<P> Regarding the posting "Re: Help wanted for a (Cheap) COBOL compiler for
Linux", we offer a product called CobolScript for US$49.95.
CobolScript=99 is a COBOL-like interpreted language with specialized
syntax for file processing, CGI programming, and
internetworking. CobolScript also has a wide range of advanced math and
business functions available to facilitate quick and easy calculating.
<P> See <A HREF=http://www.cobolscript.com>www.cobolscript.com</A>
for more information.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="24"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">Mounting a zip disk
</FONT> </H3>
Mon, 11 Oct 1999 13:38:46 +1000 (EST)
<BR>From: Richard Wraith &lt;<A HREF="mailto:rgw@trinity.unimelb.edu.au">rgw@trinity.unimelb.edu.au&gt;</A>
<P> Whoops, a small error in the address. This will work!
<P> This is an email I sent to our local linux users group after a somewhat
tricky setup of a zip drive. You might want to add some of the info here
to the atapi zip drive entry in 2cent tips and tricks.
<P> I have an ATAPI zip on the second IDE interface as the slave device - ie
/dev/hdd.
<P> Oh, and thanks for the tips and tricks article - it was a great help for
most of the job.
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE>
Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999 13:25:21 +1000 (EST)
From: Richard Wraith
To: Linux Users of Victoria &lt;<A HREF=mailto:luv@luv.asn.au>luv@luv.asn.au</A>&gt;
Subject: Re: Mounting a zip disk
</PRE>
<P> Thanks to all those who replied, particulary Derek Clarkson and
George Georgakis - the answer was in the fine detail.
<P> The important points to note that aren't so clear from the HOW-TO:
<P> 1) Compile in IDE Floppy support in the kernel - there is no need
for scsi emulation unless you want auto-eject support. Also remember to
compile in support for the filesystems you wish to have on your zip
disks.
<P> 2) Zip drives actually appear to have two mount points depending on
the history of the zip disk. If the disk has previously been password
protected by Iomega's zip tools it needs to be mounted at /dev/hdd1 (or
what ever the /dev/hd location for your system). Whereas if the drive
was never password protected it gets mounted at /dev/hdd4. This is
where I think I got caught.
<P> 3) vfat is the filesystem type, but msdos and auto will work fine as
long as you get the mount point right.
<P> 4) ext2 (ie Linux) formatted disks mount at /dev/hdd ie without the
extra number - whether the disk has been password protected before or
not.
<P> 5) Formatting a disk from vfat to ext2 and back to vfat does not
clear the previous password protection stuff - interesting huh!
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="25"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">CDROM is not a block device
</FONT> </H3>
Wed, 13 Oct 1999 16:34:27 +1000
<BR>From: Edwin Rikken &lt;<A HREF="mailto:Edwin.Rikken@si.han.nl">Edwin.Rikken@si.han.nl&gt;</A>
<P> Hi Dave,
<P> You seem to have installed Linux with your Cd-Rom in working condition
so it must be ok.
Your cdrom has worked in Winxyz, I presume. My advise is first to check
cabeling and jumper setting.
Let's assume you have one hard disk and one cdrom. /dev/hda will be the
device for communicating with your harddisk ( I am leaving out the
numbers to describe which partition, but you get my drift). Now the
question is where did you put your cdrom?
<P> 1 In case of: slave on primary IDE controler: it should be /dev/hdb, if
so did you jumper the cdrom accordingly?.
2 In case of master on secondary IDE : it should be /dev/hdc ( you think
it is ) you should check the jumpersetting. In the sloppy DOS/Win world
it will work fine with good or bad jumpersettings. Not so in Linux. You
must be sure that you jumpered it master. If you did there remains one
thing to do ( it worked fine for me) at boot time, type at the LILO
boot: hdc=cdrom The kernel will display at boottime: hdc=cdrom? which
means it will accept your instruction but does not grok the message.
Your cdrom should work after that. This is a so called boot parameter
and can be inserted in de LILO configuration file.
3. In case of slave on 2nd IDE, check jumpersettings. Cdrom should work
in /dev/hdd and you should at boottime instruct the kernel that
hdd=cdrom.
<P> The reason, I think, is that it is logical ( in the Vulcan sense:-) ) to
put the cdrom in the next empty spot: /dev/hdb ( slave on first IDE). It
will probe at boottime the slave on primary IDE and if it detects zilch
it 'knows' there will be no other devices. So no cdrom on master on IDE2
will be detected. There for if you instruct the kernel with: hdc=cdrom
it will respond with, ok I will accept what you said but I think that's
stupid because it's not loggical...:-).
<P> Good luck...
<P> PS. if this does not work you should check your fstab file in /etc
(?)...
<P> groetjes pari@si.han.nl ( Paul).
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="26"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">Compiling IRC
</FONT> </H3>
Mon, 18 Oct 1999 23:07:57 +0200
<BR>From: Scott Swafford &lt;<A HREF="mailto:320053139930-0001@t-online.de">320053139930-0001@t-online.de&gt;</A>
<P> Manuel &amp; everybody,
<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I noticed your article in the Gazette about problems
compiling IRC, and while I haven't done it in Linux, I compiled IRC and
run it on my site (<A HREF="http://www.pfpconsortium.org">http://www.pfpconsortium.org</A>). I did it under Solaris
2.7 (Sparc HW), so I'm not sure how 'portable' will be my help, but I'm
willing to try.
<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Could you please send me information on what error
messages you were getting when trying to compile, your compiler (gcc, cc,
etc) and platform ? I noticed a few tweaks during the configuration process,
and a few library files needed during the compile, but other than that
it was straight forward (the hard part was getting the executable to run
with the right arguments, and setting up the ircd.conf file correctly,
if I remember correctly).
<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Anyway, send your details and I'll try to take a
look.
<br>Cheers,
<br>Scott Swafford
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="27"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">Chat server
</FONT> </H3>
Sun, 24 Oct 1999 15:11:45 -0400
<BR>From: Chris Campbell &lt;<A HREF="mailto:campbelc@infi.net">campbelc@infi.net&gt;</A>
<P> There are several well-used channels.
On the Undernet IRC Network, you can get on via us.undernet.org or
eu.undernet.org
On the EfNet Network, try irc.emory.edu
On DalNet try irc.dal.net
Then, when connected, go to the #Linux channel.
Chris
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="28"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">Imagemap
</FONT> </H3>
Wed, 27 Oct 1999 11:07:38 -0600 (MDT)
<BR>From: Michael J. Hammel &lt;<A HREF="mailto:mjhammel@graphics-muse.org">mjhammel@graphics-muse.org&gt;</A>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
In the need to define hotspots on some images in HTML documents, I found
a total lack of programs for Linux that enable you to accomplish this
task. Does somebody know what I'm searching for?
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> There are a couple of choices. First, there is the ImageMap plug-in for
the Gimp. It wil allow you to define hot spot regions and outputs the HTML
tags for the image map. <LA HREF=http://registry.gimp.org>registry.gimp.org</A>
<P> Another option is MapEdit, from Thomas Boutell. It does pretty much the
same thing the first option does, but with a different interface.
<A HREF=http://www.boutell.com/mapedit/>/www.boutell.com/mapedit/</A>
<P> Hope that helps.
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="29"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">Printing lines of black
</FONT> </H3>
Wed, 27 Oct 1999 11:07:38 -0600 (MDT)
<BR>From: Michael &lt;<A HREF="mailto:michael@cimmj.freeserve.co.uk">michael@cimmj.freeserve.co.uk&gt;</A>
<P> I have a 690c and encountered the same problem (printing from KDevelop
using enscript), that following the text a solid black line was printed.
After much trial and error I found using the cdj550 driver solved the
problem
and still allowed me to print in colour.
<P> In /usr/local/bin/psjetfilter:<BR>
<CODE>/usr/bin/gs -q -dSAFER -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=cdj550 -sOutputFile=- -</CODE>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--================================================================-->
<a name="30"></a>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
ANSWER: <FONT COLOR="navy">FAQ and printing...
</FONT> </H3>
Thu, 30 Sep 1999 16:19:30 +1000
<BR>From: Mark Kuchel &lt;<A HREF="mailto:m.kuchel@ugrad.unimelb.edu.au">m.kuchel@ugrad.unimelb.edu.au&gt;</A>
<BR>Subject: FAQ and printing...
<P> In the FAQ you say that PDF is only visible by a custom viewer.
Actually gv and xpdf both can display PDF files. Also, if you do the
Netscape "Print to file....", and get a postscript file, using ps2pdf in
the ghost(script/view?) package then you can get PDF files.
<!-- END tips.answers -->
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
This page written and maintained by the Editor of the <I>Linux Gazette</I>,
<A HREF=mailto:gazette@ssc.com>gazette@ssc.com</A><BR>
Copyright &copy; 1999, Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Bob Young Speaks at LXNY</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:adler@ssadler.phy.bnl.gov">Stephen Adler</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- END header -->
<center>
<table>
<tr>
<td>
<img src=gx/adler/lxny27.jpg>
<td>
<font size=+1>
<br>
<center>
<font size=+1>
<em>Look Ma! That Bengal Tiger is Charging Right at Us with its
Claws Ready to Strike!</em><br>
</font>
</center>
</font>
</table>
</center>
<HR>
<P>
<table align=right hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
New York City under what remains of hurricane Dennis
<P><EM>[Click on the thumbnail images for full-sized pictures.]</EM>
</font>
</caption>
<tr><td WIDTH=149>
<a href="gx/adler/lxny24.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/lxny24Small.jpg WIDTH=149 HEIGHT=200>
</a>
</table>
The multicast packets were going out the tunnel but not in. Hmmm....
I'll kill mrouted, and change the TTL threshold on the tunnel to 1 in
/etc/mrouted.conf. Restart mrouted, kill it with a USR1, and check the
routing tables it just dumped to /var/tmp. Hmmm.... Again, packets go
out, but not in. Ok, lets ftp the very latest version of mrouted
(beta version number increments by one), recompile, kill the running
version of mrouted and startup the new one. Ah, now I have mrinfo with
this package to help debug the multicast tunnel I've setup. New version
of mrouted but same problem; packets go out, but they don't come
in. I've managed to fully configure a one-way multicast tunnel.
<p>
<table align=left hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
A nice example of the breadth of architectural styles found in the NYC
sky scape.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/lxny20.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/lxny20Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
It was September 7th, 1999, and I was counting down the days to a
crazy event which will occur in less than one month. <a
href="http://openscience.bnl.gov">Open Source/Open Science
1999</a>. My life has been turned totally upside down trying to get
this conference together, and setting up this multicast tunnel into
the Internet is a vital step. The conference will be broadcast onto
the Internet come hell or high water! But, another very important
event was happening that day. Bob Young was taking time away from his
schedule to go back to an old haunt of his, LXNY, and spend about 4
hours answering questions and later going to dinner with his old user
group. So I spent the day fighting the multicast tunnel dragon, a
fiery beast which spewed out multicast packets with deadly force. I
defended and attacked with my source code armor and sword, deflecting
those deadly packet attacks with emacs, GNU make, gcc and lots of
greps and mores. The meeting started at 6:30pm and this time I was
damned if I wasn't going to catch the 4:05pm train into the
city. 3:30pm rolled around and the multicast dragon hurled one last
fierce round of flaming packets at me. Emacs, man, grep, make and gcc
couldn't deflect them and baaam! I got a direct hit. Ouch. With that,
I laid down my sword, grabbed my notebook and car keys, and ran to
catch that 4:05 to Penn Station. I'll take up the battle with the
multicast dragon tomorrow. For now, I had a very important users'
meeting to attend. (Important on a historical level...)
<br clear=right>
<br clear=left>
<p>
<table align=right hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
Down below on the street, a newspaper-magazine vendor tends to his
inventory.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/lxny25.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/lxny25Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
I got to the Ronkonkoma station at 4pm on the nose, with good time to
walk (not run, as usually) to the train. As I got close to the tracks,
I could hear a muffled announcement which sounded like they had just
canceled the train into the city. I got closer and my intuition was
right. No LIRR to NYC because of a gas leak somewhere between here and
Penn. Back to the car, and on down the LIE where I took a rather
circuitous route to avoid possible parking lot traffic conditions
ahead. All in all, the trip into the city was uneventful. The hour and
a half drive gave me a chance to reflect on the state of the Open
Source movement that day.
<br clear=right>
<p>
<table align=left hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
Two standard issue NYC hotdog and hot prezzel stands.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/lxny23.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/lxny23Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
The big event in the Open Source world was, of course, Red Hat's IPO,
which took place about a month ago. This capitalist rite of passage
catapulted some senior members of Red Hat into billionaire status. At
least on paper, or more virtually, on the text composed by my web
browser. Red Hat's market cap was sitting at over 5 Billion that
day. One share of Open Source/Freedom software (i.e. NASDAQ:RHAT)
started trading that day at about $85 and by the time I headed into
the city it was up to over $90. All the closed source marketing hype
and FUD coming out of other software OS companies cannot refute the
hard cold facts of market forces. The old phrase "free software, you
get what you pay for..." rung especially hollow that afternoon. I was
totally dumbfounded by the new heights shares in NASDAQ:RHAT was
reaching. I remember reading one of those e-trade news blips that
NASDAQ:RHAT shares had reached "nose bleed territory." This was when a
share in RHAT fetched a cool $50 the closing day of the IPO. Now that
it was trading at over $90 a share, how would those financial reporters
describe this territory? "Brain edema territory"? Or maybe "total
outer space vacuum territory." Forget the nose bleeds - your whole
body explodes from the inside out!
<br clear=left>
<p>
<center>
<table>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
I did say that NY was under the clouds of Hurricane Dennis, but I
thought I would liven up the view a bit with this nice shot of a Midtown
Manhattan skyline taken the following weekend after Bob's talk. The
shot was taken from Central Park looking south.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href=gx/adler/Manhattan01.jpg>
<img src=gx/adler/Manhattan01Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
</center>
<p>
<table align=right hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
I'm sure millions were spent on this piece of art, yet it seems to get
in the way of pedestrian traffic.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/lxny22.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/lxny22Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
Take a step back and think of this IPO phenomena. A company with
something on the order of 10^2 employees packages and distributes free
software, offers services on getting it up and running on your PC,
offers only about 10% of its shares to the public and is now worth
over 5 billion dollars! Red Hat's driving force, like many other
companies', are its employees. Therefore one can put a market value on
each one of those employees at about 10 million dollars a head! Think
about this: the free markets of western civilization value an Open
Source employee at 10,000,000. That's a lot of zeros.
<p>
The unbelievability of the numbers behind Red Hat's IPO dominated my
thoughts as I swerved over to the Southern State, down the Southern
State, then onto the Cross Island, back onto the LIE and finally
handing over my $3.50 to the toll booth guy to pay for my passage
under the East River at Midtown.
<br align=right>
<p>
<table align=left hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
IBM's red sculpture which sits at the base of the IBM building on 57th
street.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/lxny01.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/lxny01Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
I was driving around Midtown at 5:30pm, this being record time for
me. So I decided to find a parking lot close to the IBM building where
the LXNY meeting was to take place. The first parking lot I found was
going to charge me $35 bucks to park. I backed right out of that
parking lot. I drove around some more and found another parking lot
which had a special: $25 for 3 hours. "How much for 4 hours?", "forty
dolares" replies the attendant is broken English. "40 bucks?!" I
backed right out of that parking lot as well! After spending 45
minutes driving around in circles through Midtown Manhattan, I
finally gave in. The third parking lot was a mere 32 bucks, (or $40
after tax I found out when I went back to pick up my car. Sigh...)
<p>
The rain from hurricane Dennis was now coming down over Manhattan rather
hard. I got only slightly wet this time, as I dashed over to the IBM
building. Knowing that the remains of Dennis were on their way to NYC, I
was wise to bring my umbrella along.
<br align=left>
<p>
<table align=right hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
New Yorker's anxiously awaiting Bob's arrival with baited breath? I
think not. Most of them have no idea who Bob is and are just taking
cover from the rain in front of the main entrance to the IBM building
on 57th street.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/lxny26.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/lxny26Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
There was a small crowd of people waiting at the main entrance to the
IBM building for the rain to stop. At first I thought they were all
there, waiting with baited breath to glimpse Bob Young for the first
time. I imagined this grand long black limousine pulling up to the
building, the driver quickly running over to the passenger door to
open it for Bob. I never saw such a limo drive up and I strongly
suspect that Bob arrived in a yellow NYC taxi cab. As a matter of
fact, I think only about 3 or 4 people, of the 20 or so standing out
front, were waiting to get into the IBM building to attend the
LXNY. The rest were taking cover from the rain under the entrance way
into the IBM building. I had a chance to meet one of them, who
introduced himself as a journalist. After some small talk we both
headed in, got our stick-on badges, and headed up to the 6th floor.
<br clear=right>
<p>
<center>
<table>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
LXNY folk gather at the beginning of the meeting, waiting for Bob to
show.
</caption></font>
<tr><td>
<a href=gx/adler/lxny04.jpg>
<img src=gx/adler/lxny04Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
</center>
<p>
The meeting room was a large one. There was ample room to fit at least
100 people. When the journalist and I arrived, there were about 20
people there. I got to work handing out fliers to my Open Source/Open
Science conference and also took some pictures.
<p>
<table align=right hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
Brian (I think) and Jim of VA Linux posing for me as Jim zips up his
VAIO in one of those glad zip lock bags. Good way to water proof your
VAIO.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/lxny16.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/lxny16Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
I saw some familiar faces from VA Linux show. There was one guy with a
very nice VAIO note book running Quake. Jim Gleason of VA Linux was
promoting his Linux demo day event. A day where a bunch of guys get
together and play Quake all day on a bunch of VA Linux PC's attached
to an OC-48 fire hose into the Internet. (What ever happened to sex,
drugs and rock 'n roll?)
<p>
I noticed the door to the meeting room close and went over to try
get it to stay open, figuring people showing up may miss the meeting
if the door is closed. As I was futsying around with the door, I
turned to find Bob Young looking to get into the room. "Hi Bob" I
said, "Welcome to New York." He cracked a smile, returned the greeting
and went in to mingle with the rest of the gathering crowd. I followed
him in.
<br clear=right>
<p>
<table align=left hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
Brian and Ari of VA Linux. If you look closely, you'll notice that
they are both soaked from the rain outside.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/lxny03.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/lxny03Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
By this time, there were closer to 40 people in attendance. Mike
Smith, one of the co-organizers of LXNY, was there, writing
information down on a large paper pad which sat on an easel about the
various Open Source/Free Software related events going on about town.
He was also waiting for his counter part, Jay Sulzberger, the other
LXNY co-ordinator, to show up and start the meeting. Jay never showed.
So Mike called on everyone to listen to a bunch of announcements he
had, as the meeting formally got started.
<br clear=left>
<p>
<table align=right hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
The Amiga Users Group (AUG) president, I assume, announcing the
existence of the AUG.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/lxny08.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/lxny08Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
Mike started with "LUNY is meeting ... ", "The NYLUG is doing ...",
"WWWAC is having a ....", "NYSIA panel discussion will be on ...", and
on and on. Finally one guy sitting on the far left of the seating
area, exclaimed, "What are all these user groups for?" in a rather
grumbled note. "Why do you have so many? Shouldn't one be
enough!". Jim Gleason took that question. He explained that when he
was in San Francisco, there were so many user groups that one could
find a meeting of some sort any day of the week. When he showed up to
NY, the number of groups was small in comparison so that he figured he
would start the New York LUG. With that, this man at the end of
seating area said, "Well, we want to announce the Amiga Users Group!
(AUG?)" And with that announcement, Manhattan just got one more user
group narrowing the "user group count gap" between the east and the
west coast.
<br clear=right>
<p>
<table align=left hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
Mike Smith addressing the assemble group before Bob speaks.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/lxny10.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/lxny10Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
With the announcements finished, Bob got ready to address this
particular user group. He haggled with the seated crowed about how he
was going to structure his talk. He settled on giving some old LXNY
stories and then take questions from the audience.
<p>
Bob started by talking about the amount of travel he was doing lately
in promoting Red Hat to private industry in the pre-IPO days. Those
days were long and the travel extensive. The same presentations were
made over and over to the point that he had a hard getting his mouth
just to form the words during these presentations. Through this
ordeal, he learned the truth of the equation "opportunity - sleep =
trouble." He was also amused to realize that the corollary also held
true, "trouble + sleep = opportunity." A neat equation of state in the
world of sales. During his travel many mistakes were made and this was
done under high pressure situations and little sleep when he and other
Red Hat management types were pitching Red Hat to heavy weight
investors. He recalled one time when they were scheduled to be in New
York on such a day, and someone had scheduled a meeting with just one
investor in Dallas the day before. He and his colleagues who were
touring the country, did not want to go to Dallas, give their
presentation in front of just one investor, and then have to fly that
night to NY getting there at 2am, and then try to be fresh for a
really big, high pressure pitch to a bunch of NY Wall Street types the
next day. So they decided to play a trick on this poor Dallas
investor. During their presentation, they were going to redo all their
mistakes they made during all their other presentations to date. Bob
continues, "I got up and gave my introduction, going through all the
mistakes I could remember while I gave my talk, I then handed the
floor over to Matthew Szulik, (the current president of the company.)
Matthew started. 'We at Red Hat are committed to bringing and
supporting the best software Open Source has to offer to the Amiga
platform!'" Well, maybe you had to be there to get the irony of the
story.
<br clear=left>
<p>
<table align=right hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
Bob's waiting for Mike to finish up his announcements before taking
the floor.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/lxny09.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/lxny09Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
Bob went on to talk about the origins of LXNY and his work in the Free
Software world. Bob claimed that he was a sales guy through and
through. "After the revolution" he said, "I'll be out there selling
fuller brushes". (What ever they are...) Bob was very clear to cast
himself as the "entrepreneur." He went into sales right out of college
and has stuck with it since. He started in the computer industry in
the leasing market. He would rent computers to companies who didn't
want to pay loads of money to add computing power to their IT
systems. The computer leasing industry was about $100 million strong
back then and he ended up moving to New York City. He said he ended up
in middle management for this leasing company and to him it was clear
that the writing was on the wall. During his stint in NYC, he started
a computer news letter. He was also active in one of the Unix user
groups. Unigroup, I believe it was called. He heard complaints that
the Unix user groups where shrinking in membership. "We announce the
meetings, but fewer and fewer people show up", Bob recounted one user
member's complaint. The solution for Bob was simple. You had to attract
attention to these meetings. The newsletter he was working on needed a
unique angle in order to attract the attention of the local computing
community. Bob was up against some well oiled machines like Ziff
Davies and IDG (Infoworld). These were well established media groups
in the computer industry with huge budgets, staffs of reporters
etc. Bob needed to find a niche which these other magazines didn't
cover. This niche was Free Software.
<br clear=right>
<p>
<center>
<table>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
Bob Young and Mike Smith standing in front of the assembled group
sometime during the Q and A part of Bob's talk. I can tell because Bob
has taken off his jacket and tie at this point.
</caption></font>
<tr><td>
<a href=gx/adler/lxny15.jpg>
<img src=gx/adler/lxny15Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
</center>
<p>
Talking to the computer users at the time, it became clear to him that
Free Software had something important to offer. He recalled how
people would wax poetic about the wonders of Free Software. It was
much more stable and reliable than its commercial counterparts. Thus
Bob featured Free Software articles in his newsletter. He didn't tell
the audience if his newsletter was a success or not, but Bob had found
his niche.
<p>
<table align=left hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
Another shot of Bob and Mike, but this time before the talk
starts. Notice Bob hasn't taken off his jacket and tie yet.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/lxny06.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/lxny06Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
So Bob started down the Free Software path. This was sometime around
1992 or 1993. Being the entrepreneur he claimed to be, he started to
research the Free Software market. He would talk to people about this
concept of trying to make money from "free" software and the
consistent answer was that no, you could not. Bob found this
strange. Everyone he talked to about it raved about how good it was,
and yet you could not make money from it? This struck an odd chord in
his marketing and sales intuition. The whole idea of a free market
economy is that you look for a need, and you work at fullfiling it. He
was doing this to some extent by publishing a newsletter on free
software. The next obvious step was to somehow make this free software
available to those who wanted or needed it.
<br clear=left>
<p>
<table align=right hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
Bob taking questions and giving answers.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/lxny14.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/lxny14Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
His research on free software and the ability to turn a profit from it
led to a meeting with Richard Stallman. At that time, he joked that
this free software stuff was somehow a Trojan Horse from Redmond,
Washington. Once he met with Richard Stallman, he realized that the
two formed the two extremes of a bipolar system in the software
world. Bill Gates at one end in the closed source software world, and
Richard Stallman, at the opposite end in the open/free software world.
<p>
At that time, Linux was making its way into the free software world,
and Bob saw an opportunity to exercise his entrepreneurial skills. In grand
entrepreneurial style, he hooked up with Mark Ewing, and started up Red Hat,
which he ran out of his wife's sewing room. Some time later, he and Marc
moved to North Carolina where Red Hat is now stationed.
<br clear=right>
<p>
<table align=left hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
Bob looking over his shoulder at someone, just after he got to the
LXNY meeting.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/lxny05.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/lxny05Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
Bob was clear about one point in his venture into the free software
world. He and Marc (and the rest of the free software industry) were
up against Microsoft. And the only way one can take on a giant like MS
is by not playing by its rules. Any company who tried to compete with
MS using the closed source model was doomed to fail. And many
did. Once MS decides it will take over some kind of application, be it
a web browser, multi media player, compiler, or whatever, it will
either buy the competition, or release its own version and thus kill
the competition. How can you compete with the guy who owns the
operating system you're writing software for? This left only a rather
bleak choice for your software company to either being bought or
broken by the OS giant.
<br clear=left>
<p>
<table align=right hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
Yet another shot of Bob and Mike. Stop me if I'm getting too repetitive...
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/lxny12.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/lxny12Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
Bob then made some comments related to this train of thought regarding
Richard Stallman. People who compare Richard and Bob would conclude
that it's these two who are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Bob
wants to sell free software, or more accurately sell services in the
free software market, while Richard's goal is to keep software
free. (Remember, "free" as in "freedom", not free as in a "free
lunch.") But the end result, either Bob trying to turn a profit by
packaging a free OS and selling services for it, or Richard, keeping
the code free, was the absolute necessity of keeping the source code
free and open. Bob made it very clear. As soon as one starts to dress
up a Linux distribution with closed source "enhancements", like a
partitioner and boot loader applications, a window manager/desktop, or
even the installation tools, your are starting to play right into the
strengths of Microsoft and the closed source software school. And when
you do, you lose! Therefore it is an absolute necessity to keep every
bit of code you package and write free and open.
<p>
Bob went on to describe how the railway monopolies of the beginning of
the 20th century were broken. They were not broken by other companies
building better trains or tracks, they were broken when the interstate
highway system was built and truckers could deliver goods from door to
door, rather than from region to region. In a similar fashion, the
software industry will have to use Free Software to break the monopoly
held by Microsoft which it enjoys now.
<br clear=right>
<p>
<table align=left hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
Jay Sulzberger bring a gift of pastry snacks to the guest speaker.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/lxny13.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/lxny13Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
At some point during Bob's discussion on his analysis of Free
Software, Jay Sulzberger came in. Jay, in typical Jay style, made a
rather entertaining entry into the meeting. Jay was wearing a jacket
and tie, but the tie's really not tied right, (on purpose,) along with
some rather ragged shorts. He had with him some baked goods consisting
of a cake, some eclairs and Mediterranean sweets. He exclaimed "You
must always bring gifts to the rich!". Unfortunately I can't remember
all that Jay said at that moment. Be it that it was boisterous, in
good humor, and we all had a good laugh along with Bob.
<p>
Bob had some more points about Free Software which need mentioning. He
talked about how the market for overnight package delivery
changed. When Federal Express entered the market, their goal was to
reduce the cost of delivering a package overnight from $200 down to
$10. "What happens when you do so?" You change the way people use
overnight delivery by expanding its use tremendously. And we see this
today, with everyone and his uncle sending or receiving packages
overnight. Now with e-commerce, the overnight delivery volume is just
going to get bigger. Bob segued into this thought, what will happen in
the OS market if you change cost of an operating system to $0? "You
will change the way people use it," implying a great expansion in the
use of Free OS.
<br clear=left>
<p>
<table align=right hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
I thought I would break up the monotony of all these pictures of Bob
with this picture of a section of a Maya stone relief. The picture was
taken the following weekend while I roamed the Metropolitan Museum. It's
also a nice contrast to all this talk about high tech and Free Software.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/Prim04.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/Prim04Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
The final major point of Bob's introductory talk was his thoughts on
where the Free OS market was going. Being a businessman, he had to
keep in mind the bigger picture of whatever business he's in. For
example, when he was in the computer rental market, he knew when his
company went from a startup to a major player. This market grosses
about $100,000,000 a year. If your company grosses $10,000,000 then
you can consider yourself a mature company. There is a term for this
(which I can't remember now) which means that you have gone from a
startup to a major player in the market, thus your quarterly revenue
increases will start to taper off. That is, you grow by a factor of 2
a year and once you become a "mature" player in the market, you will
only grow by a few percent a year since you have in effect saturated
the market. Bob has been trying to apply this analysis to Red Hat in
the Free Software market. How big does Red Hat have to get in terms of
gross income before it can consider itself a "mature" company in the
field? The answer to this date is that he has no idea. No one
knows. From my own personal perspective, one can look at Microsoft's
market capitalization. Right now it stands at about $500,000,000,000:
that's five hundred billion dollars. And Red Hat stands at a puny $5
billion, 1% on the scale of Microsoft. This means Red Hat has another
two orders of magnitude to grow before it can be considered a
"mature" player in this new market of Free Software. But then, if Red
Hat and other new members of the Free Software market are going to
change the way people use software, as in the example of how Federal
Express changed the way people use overnight delivery, then you have
to factor in several orders of magnitude in the expansion of Free
software on top of Microsoft's market cap. So if you consider
Microsoft a "mature" company at $500 Billion, and you consider say 1
order of magnitude increase in the use of Free Software because of its
$0 cost to install and distribute, then Red Hat may look at becoming a
"mature" company when it hits a market cap of $5 trillion? (Yow, these
numbers are so large it's scary.) But then, we are talking about
software which is in every PC (not just Intel,) in every network
appliance (refrigerators, toasters, fuller brushes...) in every
country around the world, tied together by the Internet, so $5
trillion just may be the right scale. Paraphrasing Linus Torvalds,
"This is total world domination."
<br clear=right>
<p>
<center>
<table>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
Back to Bob. Here his is photographed while being only slightly mobbed
by LXNY'ers trying to meet the man for the first time.
</caption></font>
<tr><td>
<a href=gx/adler/lxny28.jpg>
<img src=gx/adler/lxny28Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
</center>
<p>
At some point the meeting turned form Bob talking about his
experiences and analyses of the Free Software market to a question and
answer period. There were lots of questions which varied from asking
about his new book, "Under the Radar," to what he thought about making
money off others people's software. (He took his coat and tie off to
answer that question which he started by saying, "We are standing on the
shoulders of giants..."). One thing that I noticed during the question
and answer session was the urgency of those who wanted to ask their
questions. As time went on, more and more people were raising their
hands trying to get a question in. There was an active dialog going on
between Bob and the LXNY users group. The question I wanted to get in,
but couldn't, was what would be Bob's advice to someone who wanted to
enter this new Free Software market. I'll pop the question to him the
next time I see him. He did tell me that he was going to attend my
Open Source/Open Science extravaganza at BNL, so maybe I'll corner him
then...
<p>
<table align=right hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
LXNY'ers gather at Kaplan's deli after Bob's talk.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/lxny18.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/lxny18Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
The night was getting on and I could tell Bob was getting tired from
all the questions. The LXNY meeting is a rather long one. It goes from
6:30pm to 9:00pm with dinner at Kaplan's Deli afterwards. It was about
8 or 8:15 and Bob wanted to know how much longer he should take
questions. (I think he was hinting that maybe it shouldn't be too much
longer) "Another 1/2 hour would be great!" Mike, the co-organizer of
LXNY tells Bob. So Bob continued the question and answer period for at
least that long.
<p>
The final question finally rolled around. Something about really bad
support from Dell, which went on for about 5 minutes. Bob's reply was
the right one, "Send me an e-mail of your complaint and I'll forward it
on to the right person." With that everyone got up and the "after the
talk buzz" started. Bob was surrounded for the next 20 minutes by
people trying to meet him and get another question in. I walked around
taking photos. After a while, Jay in a very loud voice told every one
to get out since the building management closes the room at 9pm.
<br clear=right>
<p>
<table align=left hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
Mike, Bob and Jay, sharing a NY Deli moment.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/lxny19.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/lxny19Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
The next hour was spent at Kaplan's Deli. Bob came right along with
the group and sat between Mike and Jay eating some deli delight. I was
rather surprised that he would take the time to go with the LXNY bunch
over to the deli for dinner. He must have many demands on his time
nowadays. It was way too late for me, but I wanted to get some photos
of the group in Kaplan's. I had my extra lean corned beef, about 3
glasses of water, said my goodbyes to Jay, and took off for home.
<p>
If you have read my other articles, you know my routine by now. I hit
the LIE east, and start counting exits until I reach exit 68. This
time was no different. And again, as I drove down the LIE, (I can
almost drive this freeway blindfolded) my mind wandered off into Free
Software land.
<br clear=left>
<p>
The event that I just attended I considered to be at the historical
level. And unfortunately, comparisons between Bob Young and Bill Gates
kept popping into my head. When Microsoft went public, did Bill gather
with his old Altair users group to talk about the wonders of DOS?
When was the last time Bill showed up to a users group meeting to
basically shoot the sh*t with his friends? When will Bob be able to do
what he did tonight again? As time goes on, and the free software
market expands, Bob's time is going to be more and more in demand and
events like this one will just not occur. It's a sad thought but a
realistic one, I'm afraid.
<p>
<table align=left hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
Back to primitive imagery. Why not! I bet there is a law of human
social interaction and economic forces which states that these forces
are invariant in time. If not, I'll be glad to publish an article on
such a law. This picture is of a gold mask found excavated in Central
America.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/Prim02.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/Prim02Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
Bob, along with Marc Ewring, have started down a quite adventuresome
path. Bob clearly has proven that he understands the world of
Free/Open Source Software. He and Marc have taken Red Hat to where
other Linux distribution and support companies are headed. Build an
"ecosystem" of Free Software and an industry will grow from it. The
contribution which Red Hat has made to GNOME is what I assume is just
the first step. Red Hat has founded RHAD which will be put to use in
developing further Open Source projects which my guess is to expand on
the "lets make a fertile ecosystem" model, so that others can start
writing application software to run on it and Red Hat will make money
supporting systems which use it.
<br clear=left>
<p>
<table align=right hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
This gold mask is of Peruvian origin.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/Prim10.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/Prim10Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
One needs to keep in mind that the "Open Source/Free
Software," ecosystem has one ace up its sleeve; this ace being the
Internet. I keep harping about this fact, so please forgive my
repetitiveness. This Free Software/Open Source phenomena was born out
of the global connectivity of the Internet. The Open Source nature of
Free Software is a byproduct of the way software developers work
together though the Internet. Another way of writing this is to say
that because of the inherent nature of how developers collaborate from
far distances, over the Internet, with a goal of sculpting a software
package like Apache, GNOME, the Linux kernel etc, one needs to resort
to the "Open Source/Free Software" model in order to make this
collaborative system work. It's its own culture and a pure one at
that, meaning that all of the software which is found in the Open
Source/Free Software domain, was written in this Internet
collaborative model right from the get-go.
<p>
<table align=left hspace=5 vspace=5>
<caption align=bottom><font size=-1>
Ugly fellow from the south pacific.
</font></caption>
<tr><td>
<a href="gx/adler/Prim09.jpg">
<img src=gx/adler/Prim09Small.jpg>
</a>
</table>
So how does this fact affect the closed source software industry? When
software is written in the closed source domain, it will be
<b>very</b> difficult to transfer it to the Open Source domain which
is favored by the Internet. The simple fact that there is monetary
interested invested in a closed source software project will keep it
from being opened. So this sets a very polarized stage in the software
industry. A company which starts out by paying to develop software in
the close source business model, which it sells and is its main source
of revenue, will have a very large mental barrier to overcome in order
to adopt an Open Source business model. One could call them
pre-Internet companies. These companies now have a dilemma brought
about by the Internet. The very nature of collaborative work on the
Internet has given birth to this Open Source development model. The
Internet and its connectivity will dominate our future at all levels
of our social fabric. From the way we do business to the way we meet
our future mates. Because of this Internet connectivity culture which
is forming around us, these closed source companies will either be
forced into the Open Source model or go bankrupt staying in their
close source domain. One can view this as a Darwinian economic jungle
where the principle of "the survival of the fittest," (or free'est?)
applies. This chain of thought then leads to the other side of the
spectrum. The only way for a company to survive in the Internet
domain, is to start out embracing the Open Source model right from the
beginning. The Red Hat's, Caldera's, Turbo Linux'es, Linux Care's, and
other post-Internet companies are the ones who don't have to face the
hurdle of taking a large invested close source software product and
turning it over to the Open Source domain. They all started out on the
Open Source side of the Internet software development model and they
will grow right along with the Internet. Because of the power of the
Internet, or better said, the intellectual power that the connectivity
of the Internet will harness from a global population, and the fact
that it favors (even gave birth to) the Free Software model, then you
should ask your self this question. One what side of the Open
Source/Free Software - Close Source fence would you like to be on? Let
me give you a hint, NASDAQ:RHAT has now reached $135 a share (just shy
of a 1000% gain since its IPO,) and has been consistently selling for
over $100 a share since then. Ugly as it may be, those Free
Market/Darwinian forces are telling us something....
<br clear=right>
<br clear=left>
<blockquote>
<center>
<table>
<tr valign=top><td>
<a href=gx/adler/Rosetta.jpg>
<img src=gx/adler/RosettaSmall.jpg>
<td>
<font size=-1>
I leave you with a shot of the Rosetta Stone. An inscription is
repeated 3 times in 2 different languages, Egyptian and Greek. The
inscriptions are hieroglyphs, demotic (another form of Egyptian writing)
and Greek. From what was etched in this stone, 19th century scholars were
able to begin deciphering the Egyptian hieroglyphs. One could argue
that the necessity of open standards pre-exist our Internet times by
several millennia.
</font>
</a>
</table>
</center>
</blockquote>
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright &copy; 1999, Stephen Adler<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Soundings: Explorations In Linux Sound</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:layers@marktwain.net">Larry Ayers</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- END header -->
<CENTER>
Contents:<BR>
<a href="#ayers1">Linux Sound Drivers</a> &nbsp;|&nbsp;
<a href="#ayers2">A Basic Sound Toolkit</a><BR>
<a href="#ayers3">Sound Utilities For Musicians</a> &nbsp;|&nbsp;
<a href="#ayers4">Sound Visualization With Extace</a>
</CENTER>
<A NAME=ayers1></A>
<H1 ALIGN=center>Linux Sound Drivers</H1>
<p>Lately I've been investigating some of the numerous sound processing and
display tools available for Linux. This is an extremely active area
of Linux software development and covering it fully would be a book-length
project; in this series of articles I'll limit myself to software packages
which I've found to be particularly useful and impressive.
<p>Soundcard support for Linux is in something of a fragmented state these
days. The drivers supplied with the Linux kernel source (the OSS drivers) are
functional and work well with many sound cards; they are being maintained, but
the original developers have gone on to form a company,
<a href="http://www.4front-tech.com">4Front Technologies</a>, which supplies
enhanced drivers (including drivers for cards which Linux doesn't support) to
Linux users willing to pay for them. 4Front's drivers can be easier to set up
than the native Linux drivers, and 4Front's developers attempt to keep abreast
of new cards as they appear.
<p>Devotees of open-source software prefer open-source drivers; frustrated by
the lack of progress in free Linux sound-card support, the ALSA
(<b>A</b>dvanced <b>L</b>inux <b>S</b>ound <b>A</b>rchitecture) project
appeared on the scene. Rather than attempting to extend the current free
Linux drivers, ALSA programmers started from scratch. Other developers began
to contribute and the result has been a new modular driver system which has
been useful for end-users for the past year or so. Several sound-card
manufacturers have provided specifications to the ALSA programmers, enabling
them to provide driver modules for previously unsupported cards.
<p>You aren't restricted to ALSA-aware software if you use the ALSA drivers;
OSS-emulation modules are provided so that older and strictly-OSS applications
can be run.
<p>A third sound development effort began as an offshoot of the Enlightenment
window manager project. The Enlightenment Sound Daemon is intended to allow
multiple digitized streams of audio to be played back by a single device.
This is the daemon which provides the &quot;system sounds&quot; for
Enlightenment. ESD can also play, record, and monitor sounds on remote
machines. This project doesn't provide drivers for specific cards; its
purpose is to act as an intermediary between the sound hardware and
applications. ESD cooperates well with all three of the above driver
families.
<p>This multiplicity of sound software might at first glance seem to be a
confusing morass, but luckily most recent client software has been designed to
make use of any or all of the various interfaces, either via compilation
switches or command-line options.
<hr NOSHADE> <!-- ******************************************************* -->
<A NAME=ayers2></A>
<H1 ALIGN=center>A Basic Sound Toolkit</H1>
<h3>Introduction</h3>
<p>There are several command-line software packages which are both useful in
their own right as well as providing services to GUI sound software. In some cases a
GUI utility is an easier to use front-end for one or more of these console
tools, often a welcome convenience when a tool has dozens of possible command
options. Rather than supplying URLs for these packages, I refer you to Dave
Phillips' comprehensive and up-to-date
<a href="http://www.bright.net/~dlphilp/linuxsound">Sound and MIDI Software For Linux</a>
web-site, which offers links to a profusion of sound software for Linux, as well as
commentary.
<h3>SoX</h3>
<p>SoX has been around for several years now; originally created by Lance
Norskog, it is now actively maintained by Chris Bagwell. SoX is both a
file-converter and an effects utility. It can convert just about any
sound-file format to any other, as well as optionally processing the sound in
many different ways. Effects include various filters as well as several
&quot;guitar effects&quot; such as phaser, chorus, flanging, echos, and
reverb. SoX also serves as a sound-file player. As Chris Bagwell writes in
the distribution README file, <blockquote>SoX is really only usable day-to-day
if you hide the wacky options with one-line shell scripts.
</blockquote> One such shell script, called <b>play</b>, is part of the SoX
package; it supplies the options to the <i>sox</i> binary which enable it to
be a sound-file playing utility. You may have already used it without knowing
it was there, as many file managers call <i>sox</i> whenever a sound-file is
double-clicked with a mouse.
<h3>mpg123</h3>
<p>Though there are many flashy X Windows mp3 players out there, the humble
command-line decoder/player mpg123 is still one of the fastest and most
memory-efficient. Several of the GUI players call mpg123 to do the actual
grunt work, while XMMS (formerly known as x11amp) now
incorporates some of the mpg123 code internally rather than calling it as an
external process. Like SoX, mpg123 has many command-line options. With these
you can play an MP3 file in a great variety of ways, such as in mono, or at
varying speeds. Mpg123 can also retrieve and play files directly from a web-site.
<h3>Gramofile</h3>
<p>Though Gramofile does have an ncurses-based text interface, it's pretty
spare, so I'll include it here. Gramofile was originally developed at the
Delft University of Technology by Anne Bezemer and Ton Le as a means of
capturing audio tracks from vinyl LPs and writing them to WAV files.
Subsequently track-splitting and noise reduction were added, though both of
these require some tinkering with settings to get good results. Gramofile is
particularly useful to people (myself included) who have collections of old
LPs and would like to burn tracks to CDs. This can be time-consuming;
after the audio stream has been written it takes another block
of time to split off individual tracks and run them through the
pop-and-click-removal process. Through experimentation I discovered that
Gramofile doesn't know or care if another Gramofile session is running on
another console or xterm. While one copy of the program is busily sipping at
the audio stream and depositing WAV files in its wake, another process can be
splitting and filtering the files from the last run.
<p>I've had good results from simply patching my stereo amplifier's alternate
speaker leads to the sound-card input jack. It takes some fiddling to get the
amplifier's volume adjusted just right so that clipping and distortion don't
occur. I generally keep a software mixer handy while setting up a session.
While recording, Gramofile displays a simple level-meter which indicates
whether the signal is too strong.
<p>Gramofile isn't limited to vinyl LPs; I've also transferred tracks from
cassette tapes with good results.
<h3>cdrecord</h3>
<p>During the past year or so CD-RW drive prices have plummeted. It's now
possible to find even SCSI drives which cost less than two hundred dollars,
and IDE drives at not much over one hundred. A couple of months ago my old
12x CDROM drive died and I saw this as a perfect excuse to replace it with a
CD read-write drive. My search for Linux software to enable me to use the
drive didn't take long -- the consensus on the net seems to be that Joerg
Schilling's <b>cdrecord</b> package is robust and well-supported. Though
numerous front-end packages have been written as wrappers for cdrecord, so far
I've been using it directly. Eventually I'll probably switch over to using
XCDroast or one of the others, but as a beginner I find cdrecord's verbose
status messages (which are displayed on the terminal as the program burns a
CDROM) reassuring. These messages are enabled with the <kbd>-v</kbd> option
switch.
<p>Schilling's program is exceedingly versatile. Multi-session CDs (especially
useful for data backup discs) are easily enabled, as well as blanking
rewritable discs. Just about all recent drives are supported by the program.
<hr NOSHADE> <!-- ******************************************************* -->
<A NAME=ayers3></A>
<H1 ALIGN=center>Sound Utilities For Musicians</H1>
<h3>Introduction</h3>
<p>As a semi-proficient amateur guitar and fiddle player, I often find myself
wondering just how particular licks and passages of recorded music are played.
The players I listen to often play so quickly that distinguishing individual
notes and their sequences can be nearly impossible for the unaided ear.
Musicians have approached this problem in several ways. Back when vinyl LPs
and multi-speed turntables were the norm, some would play 33-1/3 RPM discs at
half speed. More recently specialized cassette tape machines have become
available which are able to slow down the music without altering the pitch;
this would be a boon to the aspiring musician if the machines weren't so
expensive. It seemed to me that this was something my Linux machine ought to
be able to do, so I began searching for software.
<h3>Creating and Working With WAVE Files</h3>
<p>Whether the audio source is CDROM, tape, or LP, the first step is to create
a file on disk which can be manipulated with software. Though historically on
unix-ish systems the Sun <i>*.au</i> was the native sound-file format, these
days it's more common for Linux software to be designed to work with the
Microsoft WAV format. The two formats are nearly identical; both are mainly
made up of PCM audio data with the WAVE files carrying
extra header information. WAV files are huge, occupying about twelve
megabytes per minute of playing time. There are several utilities which can
write WAV files from either an audio stream or directly from an audio CD.
<b>cdda2wav</b>, a console program which is bundled with Joerg Schilling's
excellent <b>cdrecord</b> package, works well with most CDROM drives. Not
only can it rip tracks or entire discs and convert them to WAV files, it can
also play the files through a soundcard at any speed without writing the file
to disk. Supplied along with cdda2wav is a script (originally by Raul Sobon
and modified by Joerg Schilling) called <b>pitchplay</b> which simply calls
cdda2wav with options which cause it to not write out a file and play a CD
track at a specified percentage of normal pitch. As an example,
<code>pitchplay 6 50</code> will play track six of a CD one octave lower than
normal.
<p>Another track-ripping package, cdparanoia, is intended for use with CDROM
drives which read tracks erratically. Cdparanoia doesn't have as many options
as cdda2wav, but with certain drives its error-correction is needed to produce
WAV files which accurately reproduce the contents of an audio track.
<p>These command-line utilities don't have to be used in their bare form, as
numerous GUI front-ends have been developed. One of the best I've encountered
is Mike Oliphant's Grip program, an exceedingly stable and handy GTK-based
front-end for not only the track-rippers but also mp3-encoders. Grip is not
tied to any particular rippers and encoders. Any can be used; one of Grip's
configuration screens allows the user to specify client programs as well as
preferred command switches. Grip doubles as a CDDB-aware CD player, which
makes it particularly well-suited for the musician. In the screenshot below
notice the &quot;Rip partial track&quot; check-box. This allows you to rip
just one segment of a track, perhaps a particular solo for study.
<p><img alt="Grip config screen" src="gx/ayers/grip.gif">
<BR CLEAR=all>
<p>What to do with these bulky WAV files now? Andy Lo A Foe has written a
sound-file player called Alsaplayer which has several unique features. This
player is designed to work with the ALSA drivers, the native Linux OSS
drivers, and ESD. It can play WAV, MP3 and MikMod-supported module files as
well as CD audio ripped digitally direct from disc. A variety of
visualization scopes are implemented as plug-ins, including several FFT
variants and a reworked version of Paul Harrison's Synaesthesia program. I
was particularly impressed by the variable speed and direction controls, which
work amazingly well. In the screenshot below you will see a slider control;
it's the central one with the two triangular arrow buttons to the left of it:
<p><img alt="Alsaplayer" src="gx/ayers/alsaplayer.gif">
<BR CLEAR=all>
<p>As a sound file plays this slider lets you dynamically alter the speed and
even cause the sound to instantly begin playing backwards (handy for finding
those hidden secret messages!). I kept expecting the program to crash as I
abused this control but it seems steady as a rock. This speed control works
equally well with MP3 files. Now if I could just figure out a way to control it
with my feet so I wouldn't have to put the instrument down!
<p>Not every WAV editor can deal with very large files. One program which
can, and which can also play them at reduced speed without altering the pitch,
is Bill Schottstaedt's <b>snd</b> program. Snd is a self-effacing
program which doesn't look like much the first time it is run. Sort of like
booting Linux for the first time and seeing a bash command prompt on a
black screen. Snd, though, has layer upon layer of complexity which becomes
apparent after reading the thorough and well-written HTML manual. Luckily the
program's basic editing functions aren't too difficult to learn. Many of the
keyboard commands are patterned after those of Emacs and are also available
from the menu-bar. The feature which will be of the most interest to
musicians is the ability to &quot;expand&quot; a sound-file. This is accessible
when <b>Show Controls</b> is selected from the <b>View</b> menu. In the
screenshot below the controls consist of the series of horizontal sliding
control-bars beneath the main window:
<p><img alt="Snd Window With Controls" src="gx/ayers/snd.gif">
<p>As with Alsaplayer, the speed of playback can be controlled with the second
bar, while the two small arrows to the right of the speed bar control the
direction of play. But to a musician the third bar (Expand) is the most
useful. From the manual:
<blockquote>'Expand' refers to a kind of granular synthesis used to change the
tempo of events in the sound without changing pitch. Successive short slices
of the file are overlapped with the difference in size between the input and
output hops (between successive slices) giving the change in tempo.
</blockquote>
<p>This expansion works surprisingly well, though such processing does tend to
highlight any noise or flaws in the original recording. For a musician just
wanting to hear which notes inhabit a complex musical passage this is a
wonderful feature. The mp3 player mpg123 can play mp3 files in a similar way.
Using (as an example) the command <kbd>mpg123 -h 2 [filename]</kbd> will play
each frame of the mp3 file twice, resulting in half-speed-same-pitch output.
The output tends to be more distorted than that of snd expanding a WAV file,
but this likely is a limitation of the lossy mp3 format.
<p>Snd is chock-full of capabilities which I haven't had time to explore yet.
It's scriptable using the Guile scheme dialect. The recording window,
featuring a set of simulated VU meters, can be used to record audio from
multiple soundcards, microphones or any other source with the output written
to a sound file. I find some new feature or capability each time I run the
program. All this with a good manual!
<hr NOSHADE> <!-- ******************************************************* -->
<A NAME=ayers4></A>
<H1 ALIGN=center>Sound Visualization With eXtace</H1>
<h3>Introduction</h3>
<p>I couldn't wrap up this article without at least a mention of an impressive
piece of &quot;eye-candy&quot;, a program for sound visualization called
eXtace. This is an addictive piece of software which was originally written
by Carsten Haitzler (of Enlightenment window-manager fame) and Michael
Fulbright, from Redhat. Its new maintainer, Dave J. Andruczyk, has recently
given the program a new lease on life and it's well worth trying out.
<h3>Installation and Usage</h3>
</center>
<p>eXtace relies upon ESD (the Enlightened Sound Demon) for its sound input
and won't work without it. ESD is a small download and it's probably packaged
on your distribution CD if you aren't running it already. ESD can be started
with the command&nbsp; <kbd>esd -port 5001 &</kbd>&nbsp;; once it's running
eXtace can be started up. Another requirement is the FFTW libraries (Fastest
Fourier Transform In The West). Though this issue will probably be resolved
by the time you read this, version 1.2.9 didn't seem to be able to find the
libfftw libraries during configuration and thus the display of the 3D
landscape and spike modes is minimal. Version 1.2.8 works well for me, and I
recommend it. The source for all versions can be obtained from <a
href="http://techdev.buffalostate.edu/~dave/extace/archives">this site.</a>
<p>Here is a screenshot of eXtace displaying a moment's worth of Thelonious
Monk's Sweet and Lovely, in 3D landscape mode:
<p><img align="center" src="gx/ayers/extace3.gif" alt="Extace Control">
<p><img alt="eXtace main window" src="gx/ayers/extace1.gif">
<p>As with many such audio visualization tools, quieter music with few
instruments seems to provide a more comprehensible display. A piece such as
the slow introduction to Jimi Hendrix's blues <b>Red House</b> (from the Live
At Winterland CD) is a good one to try.
<p>eXtace has several controls enabling you to tailor the display to your
machine's capabilities and your own taste. Here is the Options window:
<p><img alt="eXtace Options Window" src="gx/ayers/extace2.gif">
<p>The lag factor setting needs to be adjusted for each combination of
sound-card and ESD version; it only needs to be tinkered with once, as these
settings are saved between sessions.
<p>You will notice a small black window hovering above eXtace's
main window. This one is great fun; by manipulating the white line by changing
its direction and length with the mouse... just try it. It's sort of like
riding a roller coaster.
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright &copy; 1999, Larry Ayers<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Linux on Token Ring</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:blanchas@cadvision.com">Eugene Blanchard</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- END header -->
<P> I decided to implement Token Ring on one of my Linux servers because I
had some time on my hands, a few MSAUs and a box of 3Com 3C619B Token Ring
network cards. Not to mention a burning desire to run a Token Ring network
for the past few years.
<p>This article will deal with:<P>
<li>
installing and configuring a 3C619B Token Ring network card in Linux</li>
<li>
simple routing from Token Ring LAN to an Ethernet LAN through a Linux server.</li>
</blockquote>
<hr WIDTH="100%">
<h2>
Installing the NIC</h2>
The first step was installing the NIC. This required opening the computer
and finding a spare 16 bit ISA slot. No problem. In it went and I was one step
closer to completion.
<p>The next step required testing the card. Unfortunately, most diagnostic
programs that come with PC hardware run in DOS, so as a rule, I always
allocate one 20 MB partition to DOS for storing them. Reboot to DOS and
run the 3C619B configuration program called 3tokdiag.exe.
<p>At this point the card&nbsp; should be connected to a MSAU (multistation
access unit - sometimes referred to as a MAU) for proper testing. The MSAU
can have either the original IBM hermaphroditic connectors, RJ45 or RJ11
connectors (click here for a good review of&nbsp; <a href="http://www.cadvision.com/blanchas/linux">Token
Ring</a>).&nbsp; I used an IBM 8228 with hermaphroditic connectors. I connected
my RJ45 cable to it using a Token Ring balun (small impedance matching
transformer) which matches the 150 ohm impedance of STP to the 100 ohm
impedance of UTP.
<p>I ran the diagnostic tests and bang, the MMIO test failed with an error
about a memory conflict. So much for right out of the box luck. This meant
that I would have to set the card's IRQs, base address and memory address
(which I should normally have to do anyway).&nbsp; A quick check of the
Token Ring HOWTO and voil&agrave;, it says that the cards with the Tropic chipset
(IC has Tropic written right on it) uses the ibmtr driver. The card's chipset
was indeed the Tropic and away I went. Now for the configuration parameters....
here was were the problems started.
<p>The 3C619B card could be run in either 3Com mode or 100% IBM compatibility
mode. To make a long story short, use the 100% IBM compatibility mode.
Even though the settings are not clear, in my case the choices were for
"primary or secondary" card which actually means which base address to
use. The configuration parameters that Linux is looking for are:<P>
<PRE> Config mode: IBM
I/O Base Address: Primary (means using 0xA20)
Int Req: 2 (9) (16 bit cards use IRQ 9)
Ring Speed: 16 Mbps
Bios/MMIO Base Add: D4000h
shared RAM Address range: D0000h
Mem mode: 16 bit
I/O mode: 16 bit
IRQ Driver type: Edge triggered
Auto Switch: Enabled
</PRE><P>
I am not sure what the MMIO address does but I know that with these values,
the card passed all diagnostic tests fine. The big problem I had was in
confusion between MMIO and Memory address. I had set MMIO address to 0xD0000
and this failed miserably.
<p>The first few tests check the internals of the NIC and the last test
checks the lobe connection (between NIC and MSAU). The last test takes
quite a long time to perform so be patient.
<p><i>NOTE: Now as far as I can tell, the ibmtr.c source code only allows the above settings (someone correct me if I'm wrong!). Unfortunately, the comment header of ibmtr.c doesn't indicate any configuration settings (oversight?). From what I can tell from ibmtr.c and testing that was performed over a period of 3 weeks (yes that is right - I was on the verge of giving
up), these are the <b>only</b> values that will work.</i>
<p>
<hr WIDTH="100%">
<h2>
The Kernel and Token Ring</h2>
<p>The Linux kernel must be recompiled for Token Ring support. You
can compile it in directly or as a module both methods work admirably.
To compile the kernel, you change directories to /usr/src/linux and run
either:
<ul>
<li>
"make config" - for command line text based line by line prompt</li>
<li>
"make menuconfig" - for a command line configuration menu</li>
<li>
"make xconfig" - for an X windows configuration menu</li>
</ul>
I suggest that you use either menuconfig or xconfig. The "make config"
method can be extremely unforgiving if you should make a mistake - you
have to start all over again.
<p>The assumption at this point is that you have a working <i>recompiled</i>
kernel and are only adding support for a Token Ring card. This means that
the only change should be to add Token Ring support to the kernel. Go to
Network Device Support section and select Token Ring Driver Support as
either as compiled as part of the kernel (Y) or as a&nbsp; module (M).
I selected compiled as part of the kernel. Next select "IBM Tropic chipset
based adapter support" (again Y or M - your choice). Save and exit and
you're now ready to recompile the kernel.
<p>
<PRE> make clean ; make dep ; make zImage
make modules
make modules_install
</PRE><P>
I copied the zImage file to the root directory (I'm using slackware
- you may need to copy it to /boot directory for other distributions):
<p>
<PRE>cp /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/zImage /token-ring</PRE><P>
Now the new kernel was in place, it's time to add a new lilo entry.
<p>
<hr WIDTH="100%">
<h2>
LILO and T.R. Kernel</h2>
<p>Since I wasn't sure how Linux would work with the new Token Ring
card, I wanted to be able to boot to the old working kernel (non Token
Ring). I added another entry into /etc/lilo.conf that would address the
new kernel. At the lilo boot prompt I would have a new choice of which
kernel to boot to. I modified /etc/lilo.conf with a simple text editor
for the new kernel:
<p>
<PRE> # LILO configuration file
#
# Start LILO global section
# location of boot device
boot = /dev/hda
# how long (1/10 of seconds) will the LILO prompt appear before booting to the first listed kernel
delay = 50
vga = normal
# End LILO global section
# Linux bootable partition configuration begins
# Original kernel config starts here
image = /vmlinuz # name and path to kernel to boot to
root = /dev/hda2 # which partition does it reside on
label = linux # the name that the LILO prompt will display
read-only # let fsck check the drive before doing anything with it - mandatory
# End of original kernel
# Token Ring kernel starts here
image = /token-ring
root = /dev/hda2 # which partition does it reside on
label = token-ring # the name that the LILO prompt will display
read-only # let fsck check the drive before doing anything with it - mandatory
# End of Token Ring kernel
# DOS partition starts here
other = /dev/hda1 # which partition does it reside on
label = dos # the name that the LILO prompt will display
table = /dev/hda
# End of DOS partition
</PRE><P>
My DOS partition is on /dev/hda1 and Linux on /dev/hda2 with a swap
partition on /dev/hda3 which is not mentionned in the lilo.conf file.
<p>After saving and exiting the /etc/lilo.conf. You must run lilo to enter
the setttings. All that is required is to type "lilo" at the command prompt
with root privilege. If everything was entered properly, you should see:
<p>
<PRE> ashley:~# lilo
Added linux *
Added token-ring
Added dos
ashley:~#
</PRE><P>This indicates that everything went okay (ashley is the name of my server). The asterick indicates that linux is the default boot selection (first entry in lilo.conf).
<p>
<hr WIDTH="100%">
<h2>
Token Ring Kernel and Boot Messages</h2>
<p>Since I compiled Token Ring support directly into the kernel, I
didn't have to modify (usually just uncomment) or add support for the ibmtr
driver in the /etc/conf.modules file. When I rebooted the machine, I closely
watched for the following messages to scroll across the screen:<P>
<PRE>
<snip>
tr0: ISA 16/4 Adapter| 16/4 Adapter /A (long) found
tr0: using IRQ 9, PIO Addr a20, 16 k Shared RAM
tr0: Hardware address: 00:20:AF:0E:C7:2E
tr0: Maximum MTU 16 Mbps: 4056, 4 Mbps: 4568
<snip>
tr0: Initial interrupt: 16 Mbps, Shared Ram base 000d0000
<snip>
tr0: New Ring Status: 20
tr0: New Ring Status: 20
tr0: New Ring Status: 20
tr0: New Ring Status: 20
<snip>
</PRE><P>
And its up.. It's quite stable and if you have a passive msau, you shoud be able to hear the relay click in for the ring insertion phase .<P>
If you see either of these <B>error messages</B>:<P>
<PRE> arrgh! Transmitter busy
Unknown command 08h in arb
</PRE><P>
Then you have the wrong Shared Ram Address range configured on your card. Set it to 0xD0000h.<P>
<hr WIDTH="100%">
<h2>
Configuring the Interface</h2>
<p>Now that there was support for the Token Ring card in the kernel,
the interface had to be configured. This means that the IP address, mask,
broadcast address and default route must be set. In Slackware, the /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1
file is modified to add the following parameters. If you are just testing,
you can type in the following parameters at the command prompt:
<p>
<PRE> /sbin/ifconfig tr0 192.168.2.1 broadcast 192.168.2.255 netmask 255.255.255.0
</PRE><P>where:
<p>
<PRE> tr0 is the first Token Ring adapter found
192.168.2.1 is the IP address of the interface
192.168.2.255 is the broadcast address of the interface
255.255.255.0 is the subnet mask
</PRE><P>
At this point, you should type "ifconfig" by itself on the command line
interface and you should see something like this:
<p>
<PRE>eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:A0:24:CC:12:6F
inet addr:192.168.1.3 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:
RX packets:53775 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:
TX packets:7489 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
Interrupt:10 Base address:0xe800
tr0 Link encap:Token Ring HWaddr 00:20:AF:0E:C7:2E
inet addr:192.168.2.1 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:4500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
Interrupt:9 Base address:0xa20
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:3924 Metric:1
RX packets:235 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:235 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
</PRE><P>
Notice that both the ethernet, loopback and token ring interfaces are
listed. It is very important to make sure that the Ethernet and Token Ring
adpaters are on <B>separate IP networks</B>. In this example, eth0 is on subnet
192.168.1.0 and tr0 is on subnet 192.168.2.0.
<p>
At this point you should be able to ping your linux box from the token ring network.
Symptoms of a wrong NIC configuration is if you can ping localhost and the linux network card address (like 192.168.2.1) from within the Linux server fine but when you ping anything outside of the linux server (such as other LAN hosts) you get the error messages listed above.<P>
<hr WIDTH="100%">
<h2>
Routing from Token Ring to Ethernet</h2>
There are two methods that can be used to connect Ethernet networks to Token Ring networks. The first method uses the Data Link layer of the OSI model and is called a translation bridge. There are several major differences between the two MAC frames, one of the most significant is the tranmission of most significant bits (MSB) of a byte. Token Ring transmits the least significant bit (LSB) first while ethernet transmits it in reverse order with the MSB first (or vice versa depending on if you are a Token Ring guy or Ethernet guy). Unfortunately, Linux doesn't support translation bridging for a very good reason (see next paragraph).<P>
The second method uses the Network layer (IP layer) and is called routing. Both Ethernet and Token Ring protocol stacks already deliver their data to the Network layer in the proper order and in a common format - IP datagram. This means that all that needs to be done to connect the two LAN arbitration methods is to add a route to our routing table (too easy!).<P>
Since our ethernet routing is already working including default gateway. I only had to add the following line to /etc/inet1. To test type at the command line:<P>
<PRE> /sbin/route add - net 192.168.2.0 netmask 255.255.255.0
</PRE><p>
Any packet not addressed to the Token Ring network 192.168.2.0 is forwarded to the Ethernet network. I used a similar route on the Ethernet side and everything not addressed to the Ethernet network 192.168.1.0 was sent to the Token Ring network. <P>
To verify that everything still works from the Linux box: <P>
<UL>
<LI> ping an Ethernet host
<LI> ping a Token Ring host
</UL><P>
To verify that routing is working, try to ping <I>across</I> the Linux server from an Ethernet host to a Token Ring host and vice versa.<P>
<I>NOTE: This is a very simple routing example. Only two LANs are being used: 192.168.1.0 and 192.168.2.0. Your situation will most likely be more complicated. Please see the man pages on routed for further information.
</I><P>
<hr WIDTH="100%">
<h2>
Token Ring Problems</h2>
While Linux ran beautifully with Token Ring, I can't say the same about Win95. The biggest problem that I ran into was the fact that Win95 performs a software reboot whenever its configuration is changed or when most new software is installed. While this isn't a problem with Ethernet, it is a problem with Token Ring. Token Ring has many maintenance and administration duties implemented in the network card itself. The network card requires a hard boot to reset not a soft boot. <P>
The results were that the Win95 clients would lose their network connections (specifically the network stack to the NIC) and hang during soft boots - very frustrating. Add any new software especially if it is a network install and bam, down goes Win95 - hung again. I would have to shut off the PC and reboot. I never realized how often you have to reboot Win95 until I implemented Token Ring on it. I would not want to administrate a Token Ring network on Win95 for a living.<P>
This is not a Token Ring fault but a Win95 fault as far as I can tell. I was using Win95a so perhaps later versions have addressed this problem and corrected it. Linux did not have any problems of this nature.<P>
</body>
</html>
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright &copy; 1999, Eugene Blanchard<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Introduction to Socket Programming</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:pedro.bueno@persogo.com.br">Pedro Paulo Ferreira
Bueno</a> and <A HREF="mailto:apcastro@dcc.unicamp.br">Antonio Pires de Castro
Junior</A></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- END header -->
<H3>Introduction</H3>
<P> Most operating systems provide precompiled programs that communicate across
a network. Common examples into the TCP/IP world are web clients(browsers) and
web servers, and the FTP and TELNET clients and servers. Sometimes when we are
using this utilities of the internet we don't think about all the process
involved. To better understand this aspects we, in our research group(GTI,
Grupo de Tecnologia em Inform<72>tica) at Goias Catholic University (Universidade
Cat<EFBFBD>lica de Goi<6F>s), decide to build, write our own network programs,
mini-chat, using the basic structure about sockets, an application program
interface or API, that mechanism that make all this communication possible over
the Net.
<P> We examine the functions for communication through sockets. A socket is an
endpoint used by a process for bi-directional communication with a socket
associated with another process. Sockets, introduced in Berkeley Unix, are a
basic mechanism for IPC on a computer system, or on different computer systems
connected by local or wide area networks(resource 2). To understand some
structs into this subject is necessary a deeper knowledge about the operating
system and his networking protocols. This subject can be used as either
beginners programmers or as a reference for experienced programmers.
<H3>The Socket Function</H3>
<P> Most network applications can be divided into two pieces: a client and a
server.
<!-- We can draw the communication link between the two as shown in Figure
1.1 (resource 6) -->
<P> Creating a socket
<PRE>
#include &lt;sys/types.h&gt;
#include &lt;sys/socket.h&gt;
</PRE>
<P> When you create a socket there are three main parameters that you have to
specify:
<UL>
<LI> the domain
<LI> the type
<LI> the protocol
</UL>
<PRE>
int socket(int domain, int type, int protocol);
</PRE>
<P> The Domain parameter specifies a communications domain within which
communication will take place, in our example the domain parameter was AF_INET,
that specify the ARPA Internet Protocols The Type parameter specifies the
semantics of communication, in our mini chat we used the Stream socket
type(SOCK_STREAM), because it offers a bi-directional, reliable, two-way
connection based byte stream(resource 2). Finally the protocol type, since we
used a Stream Socket type we must use a protocol that provide a
connection-oriented protocol, like IP, so we decide to use IP in our protocol
Type, and we saw in /etc/protocols the number of ip, 0. So our function now is:
<PRE>
s = socket(AF_INET , SOCK_STREAM , 0)
</PRE>
where 's' is the file descriptor returned by the socket function.
<P> Since our mini chat is divided in two parts we will divided the explanation
in the server, the client and the both, showing the basic differences between
them, as we will see next.
<H3>The Mini-chat Server structure</H3>
<H3>Binding a socket to a port and waiting for the connections</H3>
<P> Like all services in a Network TCP/IP based, the sockets are always
associated with a port, like Telnet is associated to Port 23, FTP to 21... In
our Server we have to do the same thing, bind some port to be prepared to
listening for connections ( that is the basic difference between Client and
Server), Listing 2. Bind is used to specify for a socket the protocol port
number where it will be waiting for messages.
<P> So there is a question, which port could we bind to our new service? Since
the system pre-defined a lot of ports between 1 and 7000 ( /etc/services ) we
choose the port number 15000.
<P> The function of bind is:
<PRE>
int bind(int s, struct sockaddr *addr, int addrlen)
</PRE>
<P> The struct necessary to make socket works is the struct sockaddr_in address;
and then we have the follow lines to say to system the information about the
socket.
<DL>
<DT>The type of socket
<DD><CODE>address.sin_family = AF_INET /* use a internet domain */</CODE>
<DT>The IP used
<DD><CODE>address.sin_addr.s_addr = INADDR_ANY /*use a specific IP of host*/</CODE>
<DT>The port used
<DD><CODE>address.sin_port = htons(15000); /* use a specific port number */</CODE>
</DL>
<P> And finally bind our port to the socket
<PRE>
bind(create_socket , (struct sockaddr *)&address,sizeof(address));
</PRE>
<P> Now another important phase, prepare a socket to accept messages from
clients, the listen function is used on the server in the case of connection
oriented communication and also the maximum number of pending
connections(resource 3).
<PRE>
listen (create_socket, MAXNUMBER)
</PRE>
<P> where MAXNUMER in our case is 3. And to finish we have to tell the server to
accept a connection, using the accept() function. Accept is used with
connection based sockets such as streams.
<PRE>
accept(create_socket,(struct sockaddr *)&address,&addrlen);
</PRE>
<P> As we can see in Listing 2 The parameters are the socket descriptor of the
master socket (create_socket), followed by a sockeaddr_in structure and the
size of the structure.(resource 3)
<H3>The Mini-chat Client structure</H3>
<P> Maybe the biggest difference is that client needs a Connect() function. The
connect operation is used on the client side to identify and, possibly, start
the connection to the server. The connect syntax is
<PRE>
connect(create_socket,(struct sockaddr *)&address,sizeof(address)) ;
</PRE>
<H3>The common structure</H3>
<P> A common structure between Client and the Server is the use of the struct
hostent as seeing in Listing 1 and 2. The use of the Send and Recv functions
are another common codes.
<P> The Send() function is used to send the buffer to the server
<PRE>
send(new_socket,buffer,bufsize,0);
</PRE>
<P> and the Recv() function is used to receive the buffer from the server, look
that it is used both in server and client.
<PRE>
recv(new_socket,buffer,bufsize,0);
</PRE>
<H3>Conclusion</H3>
<P> Since the software of the TCP/IP protocol is inside the operating system,
the exactly interface between an application and the TCP/IP protocols depends
of the details of the operating system(resource 4).In our case we examine the
UNIX BSD socket interface because Linux follow this. The Mini-chat developed
here is nothing more than a explain model of a client/server application using
sockets in Linux and should be used like a introduction of how easy is to
develop applications using sockets. After understand this you can easily start
to think about IPC (interprocess Communication), fork, threads(resource 5) and
much more. The basic steps to make it work is:
<OL>
<LI> Run the server
<LI> Run the client with the address of the server
</OL>
Amazing, dont you think?
<P> This example was the start of our server program in our last project, a
network management program. Here are the source listings:
<UL>
<LI> <A HREF=misc/bueno/client.c>client.c</A>
<LI> <A HREF=misc/bueno/server.c>server.c</A>
</UL>
<H3>Resources</H3>
<OL>
<LI> Operating Systems , Harvey M. Deitel , 1990
<LI> Socket Linux Man Page
<LI> Network Functions in C - Tutorial
<LI> Internetworking with TCP/IP Vol1 - Doulgas Commer
<LI> Unix Network Programming , Vol2 , Richard Stevens
<LI> Unix Network Programming, Vol1, Richard Stevens
</OL>
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright &copy; 1999, Pedro Paulo Ferreira Bueno and Antonio Pires de Castro Junior<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Multiboot MS-DOS 6.22 - Windows98 - Windows NT Server 4.0 - Linux</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:bever@phreaker.net">Tom de Blende</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- END header -->
The original version of this HOWTO is maintained at
<A HREF="http://bewoner.dma.be/BeversHP/multiboot.html">
http://bewoner.dma.be/BeversHP/multiboot.html</A>.
<BR>
Most up-to-date version of this HOWTO can be found there. Questions and remarks can be sent to <A HREF="mailto:bever@phreaker.net">me</A>. I'll try to find an answer to them, mail you the answer and place them under my <A HREF="http://bewoner.dma.be/BeversHP/faq.html"><font size="5">FAQ-section</font></A>. You might find me on IRCNET on channels #belgium and #flanders.
<P>
<P> I'm going to explain to all it may concern how I created a multiboot-environment on my PC. It did cost me a lot of effort and time-consuming (re)installations of Windows98 and Windows NT. Especially the latter takes a serious amount of time to be installed. The purpose of this HOWTO is trying to save you this hassle. The only thing I can say is that it worked on my configuration, and that it will probably work on yours too. But as always: you can never be sure.
There are already some HOWTO's available on this subject, but most of them are a bit outdated, since they don't cover the problems you might experience using the FAT32 filesystem. And since this is the filesystem Windows98 uses by default, I guess the time is right for this HOWTO.<P>
The aim was being able to boot directly into MS-DOS 6.22, Windows98, Windows NT Server 4.0 (I've used Windows NT Server 4.0, but you can also use NT Workstation and all versions of NT from 3.51 on) and finally Linux Redhat 6.0 (but other Linux distributions shouldn't cause any problems; I also tried it with SuSE 6.0). If you do not want all these operating systems, that shouldn't be a problem. Since we are using the NT boot loader to load every operating system, the only restriction is that you want to install Windows NT. If you don't want NT but only Linux and MS_DOS or/and Windows9x installed, that is possible too. You can boot Windows9x, MS-DOS and Linux without any problems from Lilo (there are other HOWTO's which handle multibooting from Lilo, see below for details). Problems arise when you want to add NT (since Linux and especially NT are very fond of the Master Boot Record). And integrating these two (or more) on one system is the main objective of this HOWTO.
<P> In advance, you should always outline a solid partition scheme! This may differ a lot from mine. I used two hard disks, but it is possible to add everyting on one disk or divide it onto three disks or even more. Just read this HOWTO very carefully, and you'll find every information you need. If this ain't the case, just send me an email.<P>
Just to make sure, I will give you a description of my PC-configuration:<BR>
<UL type="square">
<LI>Aopen AX6BC mainboard
<LI>PII 350mhz CPU
<LI>Maxtor 6.4 gig hard disk (primary master)
<LI>Quantum Fireball 3.2 gig hard disk (secondary master)
<LI>Philips 40x cdrom (secondary slave)
<LI>Creative Banshee graphic card 16 mb
<LI>Some add-ons which shouldn't make a difference<63>
</UL>
<P>
For those of you who want to run DOS, Windows98 and NT 4.0, all on a FAT16 filesystem: that's a piece of cake. The purpose of this HOWTO is to explain how to run all these operating systems on one system, each using its own filesystem. This means FAT16 for DOS 6.22, FAT32 for Windows98, NTFS for Windows NT and EXT2 for Linux. Another aim was to create such a multiboot environment without using (expensive) bootmanagers. We will be using the NT OS Loader, which comes along with NT 4.0. It's free (provided you have the NT Server installation disk of course) and able to do the job.<P>
I used two disks, adding DOS Windows98 and Windows NT to the first and Linux to the second. I also created a 1 gig FAT16 partition on the second disk which can be shared between different operating systems. If you are only using one disk, you can also use this HOWTO, you just have to make some minor modifications. This should be easier for you really. The end result on my PC looks like this:<P>
<FONT size=4>
<U>Disk one</U><P>
</FONT>
<I>Primary <20> active- partition:</I> MS DOS 6.22 ~ FAT16 ~ 400 mb <BR>
<I>First logical drive:</I> NT Server 4.0 ~ NTFS ~ 1.7 gig<BR>
<I>Second logical drive:</I> Windows98 ~ FAT32 ~ 4.1 gig<BR>
<P>
<FONT size=4>
<U>Disk two</U><P>
</FONT>
<I>Primary partition:</I> Backup- and sharespace ~ FAT16 ~ 1 gig <BR>
<I>Rest of this disk: </I>Linux ~ EXT2 ~ 2 gig (more details on Linux partition scheme later on)<P>
You can see the end result of my partition scheme (using the NT Disk Administrator to make it all look nice) <A HREF="gx/deblende/partition.jpg">here</A>. The Unknown partitions are EXT2 Linux partitions. NT cannot identify them.<br>
First of all it's important to know that not every operating system can read every filesystem. Windows NT cannot read FAT32 and Windows98 cannot read NTFS. There are in fact some free- drivers available which make it possible for NT to read FAT32 and for Windows98 to read NTFS. But that's the only thing they can do: read. In some cases it is possible to have read and write capacities, but that will cost you some registration-money and it's still not possible to boot them from another filesystem.<BR>
Linux is evolving in such a way that it will be able to access NTFS in the near future, but at this moment things are a little unstable. FAT32 shouldn't be a problem. It is rather ironic that Linux can read FAT32 (created by Microsoft) but Microsoft products like NT can't<> The only filesystem that all those operating systems can read/write to is FAT16.<P>
You might ask yourself why -since Windows98 has it's own version of DOS: 7.0- I installed DOS 6.22 on the primary active partition. The answer can be found in the previous paragraph. Let's assume you want to install both Windows98 and Windows NT onto one disk, divided in two partitions: An operating system is always booted from the active partition (c:). So both your Windows98 and your Windows NT startup files will end up on the same disk (c:). If you install Windows98 on the first partition, NT won't be able to read its own startup files because it can't handle FAT32. If you install Windows NT on the first partition, Windows98 will fail booting because it can't read its startupfiles on the NTFS partition. This all doesn't apply to you if you use FAT16 for all operating systems. But like a said: that's child's play.<BR>
So this is why your primary -active- partition needs to be FAT16. The easiest way is to make that partition large enough so NT and Windows98 can store their temporary installation files on that disk. If this is too complicated for you, it comes down to this: <FONT size=4><B>"your primary -active- partition on your first hard disk MUST be FAT16!"</B></FONT>. Because of this I decided to add DOS 6.22 on the primary partition and make my system DOS-bootable. It's not absolutely necessary to install DOS, but I'd advise you to do it.<P>
That was my first rule. While we're at it, here is my second rule: <FONT size=4><B>"never create partitions using Fdisk or NT Disk Manager to create a partition/logical drive for another operating system"</B></FONT>. What do I mean? If you want to create you DOS partition: use the fdisk you find on the DOS installation disks. If you want to create your NT partition: do this during NT install. Create your Windows98 partition using the fdisk that's on the Windows98 bootup disk. Our Linux-partitions will be created using the fdisk-procedure in YaST. I've tried a lot of combinations, and none of them worked fine: operating systems that are refusing to start, partitions that cannot be converted anymore, etc<74><P>
So how did I do it? I installed the operating systems in the following order: DOS, Windows98, NT 4.0, Linux. I'm not saying this is the only way to go. I'm just saying that this works.<P>
There are some things you need in order to succeed:<BR>
<UL type="disk">
<LI>Installation disks of all your operating systems (goes without saying)
<LI>Bootdisks of all your operation systems (3 DOS-installdisks, 1 Windows98 bootdisk, 3 NT bootdisks <20>if you haven't got them, I'll explain later HOWTO create them- and 1 Linux bootdisk)
<LI>A lot of patience and determination :-)
</UL><P>
Below you'll find a step by step manual to install all operating systems:<P>
<OL type="1">
<LI>Make sure your first hard disk is properly installed and that it is completely unpartitioned. You can check this by running fdisk (option 4 in the fdisk-menu). If you cannot access c:, chances are your hard disk is unpartitioned, but it might very well be unformatted as well so always check it with fdisk. If there are any partitions, delete them (your primary partition as well). It is not necessary to have your second hard disk inserted yet. It should <20>however- be inserted by the time you are going to install Windows98!!! The reason for this is quite simple: if the second drive isn't inserted, Windows98 will be installed on the d: drive. Now when you insert your second hard disk, this will become automaticaly the e: drive. Fysical drives have priority to logical drives and extended partitions. If all the Windows98 files are suddenly situated under another drive-letter, Windows98 will refuse to boot. There is just one way to prevent this from happening (besides adding the second hard disk before installing Windows98): creating no primary partition on the second disk, only extended/logical partitions. The choice is up to you.<P>
<LI>Insert your bootable install disk of DOS 6.22. If the blue screen appears, don't choose to install DOS yet. Just exit installation by pressing F3 twice. First of all we are going to clean out our Master Boot Record. You can do this by typing:
<PRE>a:\&gt; fdisk /mbr
</pre>
at the DOS command prompt.
We are about to create our DOS-partition:
<pre>
a:\&gt; fdisk
</PRE>
<LI>Now you can create your primary DOS-partition. I made it 400 meg. Since this partition is created with the fdisk of DOS 6.22, this partition automatically is a FAT16 partition. Don't forget to make this partition active! Just leave the other free space on the disk unpartitioned!!!<P>
<LI>Reboot your pc for changes to take effect. Again boot from the DOS install disk. Now you can choose to install DOS. The install wizzard will ask you whether it should format the freshly created drive. Do this and just install DOS onto your c-drive. If you're not sure HOWTO install DOS, I suggest you stop reading now and find yourself another hobby.<P>
<LI>Time has come to install Windows98. Insert your Windows98 bootdisk. Boot from the disk like you always do. It's not necessary to boot with cdrom-support just yet. Run the fdisk utility:
<PRE>a:\&gt; fdisk
</PRE>
Fdisk will tell you that it has found a large disk, and ask you whether it should use support for large disks or not. I wanted a partition of 4.1 gig for Windows98, so I said yes. You should always choose yes if you want a partition that's bigger than 2.1 gig. Now create an extended partition which covers the rest of your hard disk. Create your logical drive for Windows98 within the extended partition. Leave the rest of the disk unpartitioned!!! Turn your pc off.<P>
<LI>AT THIS TIME YOUR SECOND HARD disk MUST BE CONNECTED TO YOUR SYSTEM. This doesn't apply to you if you only use one hard disk or if your second hard disk hasn't got a primary partition. I've created a 1 gig FAT16 primary partition on that disk. I use it to store all my files that I need in different operating system, and strongly advise you to create a FAT16 drive as well but that's up to you and has no influence on the rest of this HOWTO (you can also use your c: drive for this). I, for example, store my Netscape mail profile and My Documents on that disk (they can be shared between NT and Windows98).<BR>
Reboot your pc. Don't forget to add cdrom-support when you reboot. I guess it's quite obvious that you'll have to format your freshly created FAT32-partition, but just to be on the safe side: now you must format your new partition. That partition will now have driveletter e: assigned! <PRE>a:\&gt; format e:
</PRE>
<LI>Everything is ready now to install Windows98. Just switch to your cdrom drive letter (it should be g: since Windows98-boot disk created a RAM-drive on f:) and type setup. I experienced some problems here regarding the default scandisk during setup. Windows found an error (which wasn't an error really) on my second hard disk. Although setup told me that I could select the option "continue" later on, if I knew for sure that everything on that disk was allright, I never had the chance to do this. Setup wasn't prepared to continue due to errors (and I know for sure that it wasn't an error but just a partition a diskmanager had created) on the second disk. But this disk had to be inserted in order to install Windows on e:. I've searched and searched in the *.txt files on the Windows98 disk, and this is how you can avoid the standard scandisk and fly straight into the setup itself:
<PRE>g:\> setup /is
</PRE>
Now you can continue installation. Don't forget to change the destination drive for your Windows98 system files! Just perform a normal Windows98 install. When this is finished, check if you're able to boot in DOS 6.22. You can do this by pressing F8 at the beginning of the Windows98 boot-process. When you've got you're mini-dualboot DOS-Windows98, it's time for the big brother: NT. <P>
<LI>Now there are two possibilities. If you already have your three NT install disks, than you can jump to 10. If you don't have these disks, you should create them by changing to the \i386 folder on your cdrom and typing
<PRE>f:\i386> winnt /ox
</PRE>
at the command prompt, where f: is the cdromdrive letter. You can do this by booting into dos (your DOS cdrom-drivers have got to be installed to do this) or you can open a dosbox in Windows98. Make sure your three disks are empty, high density and formatted.<P>
<LI>Now you are ready to install Windows NT. The good news is that the disks you've just created, won't be used. The reason why I've let you make those disks is that they come in very handy when you are experiencing problems or to repair an NT installation. When you do a normal NT install (without switches), NT will ask you to make those disks, and also boot from it to continue the install. Creating those three disks and later on loading the install program from those same disks takes a lot of time.<P>
<LI>When you already have your disks (either you've just created them or you had them all along), you can save a lot of time by typing:
<PRE>f:\i386\winnt /b
</PRE>
at the command prompt (best thing to do is to boot straight into DOS, although I think it's possible in Windows98 too in case you haven't got the appropriate cdromdrivers), where f is the cdromdriveletter. NT will now start the setup, skipping the disk-thing.<P>
<LI>I'm not going to run through the whole install procedure here. Just a few things you must pay attention to. In the textbased setup stage you will be asked where you want the NT-files to be stored. You'll be able to choose between installing NT on your c: drive or creating a new partition in the unpartitioned space. It goes without saying that you should create a new partition. You do this by selecting the unpartitioned space and pressing "c". Now you can enter the required size of your NT-drive (I made mine 1.7 gig). Also don't forget to convert your NT-drive to NTFS and format it. Continue the installprocedure. Reboot your pc when finished.<P>
<LI>If all went well, there should be an entry in the NT OS Loader for MS-DOS and for Windows NT (normal mode and safe/vga mode). Try booting in DOS and NT to see if everything still works OK. If you select the "MS-DOS" option in the loader, Windows98 will be started. When you don't want to boot into Windows98 but straight into DOS, the old rule applies: press F8 as fast as you can after selecting "MS-DOS" and pressing the enter-key. There is a way to add both DOS and Windows98 in your bootmenu.<P>
<LI>That's it! You've got your dualboot (it's even a small multiboot) into DOS, Windows98 and Windows NT. If all went well, every operating system should use its own filesystem. You can check this. You can see now that in Windows98 there is no additional drive where you can see the Windows NT files. When you boot into Windows NT you will see the Windows98 drive, but you won't be able to access it. If you can access this drive, or you can access the Windows NT drive in Windows98, then you've got a problem. Filesystems are not correct.<P>
<LI>You might find it rather annoying that you cannot access those drives. The good news is that you can use two little programs in order to make those drives accessible (read-only!). To be able to read your Windows98 drive in WindowsNT you should download the program <A HREF="http://www.sysinternals.com/fat32.htm" target="_window">FAT 32</A>. If you want read/write access you should register the program (and pay). If you want access to your WindowsNT drive in Windows98, you should download the program <A HREF="http://www.sysinternals.com/ntfs20.htm" target="_window">NTFSDOS</A>. This program is also offering you read-only capacities only. There is no read/write version available though. Downloading these programs is just a hint, you don't have to do this now, but it can be useful. It won't affect your multiboot in any other way, and they are not necessary for continuing this HOWTO.<P>
<LI>Time has come to add your final operating system to your pc. I've installed Linux Redhat 6.0. First of all you should check whether your multiboot environment is functioning without Linux. If this is the case, boot your pc using the Linux boot disk. I'm not going to give you an exhaustive manual on HOWTO install Linux. I couldn't be doing a better job than the manual which comes along with this software. <P>
<LI>It is very important to have a solid partition scheme. I had about 2 gig available for Linux on my second disk. <P>
This is how my partition scheme looks like:<P>
<B>This is what we already had:<BR></B>
<I>hda1 (primary partition on first disk):</I> MS-DOS 6.22 (400 mb)<BR>
<I>hda2:</I> extended partition (5.8 gig)<BR>
<I>hda5 (first logical drive within hda2):</I> Windows98 (4.1 gig)<BR>
<I>hda6 (second logical drive within hda2):</I> Windows NT (1.7 gig)<BR>
<I>hdc1 (primary partition on second disk):</I> FAT16 drive I mentioned earlier for sharing between operating systems<brQ>
<P>
<B>This is what I've created in Linux:<BR></B>
<I>hdc2 (primary partition on second disk):</I> /boot (10 mb)<BR>
<I>hdc3:</I> extended partition (2000mb)<BR>
<I>hdc5 (first logical drive within hdc3):</I> / (300 mb) <BR>
<I>hdc6 (second logical drive within hdc3):</I> swap (128 mb)<BR>
<I>hdc7 (third logical drive within hdc3):</I> /home (100 mb)<BR>
<I>hdc8 (fourth logical drive within hdc3):</I> /usr (rest, about 1.5 gig)<P>
You can create this partition scheme during Linux install. Don't forget to format these partitions and to mount your other -non Linux- drives as well. It's also highly recommended to make a bootdisk for your fresh Linux installation.<P>
<LI>The tricky part is configuring Lilo. You must keep Lilo OUT OF THE MBR! The mbr is reserved for NT. If you'd install Lilo in your mbr, NT won't boot anymore. I've placed the Lilo configurationfiles in the /boot partition (hdc2 or /boot). You should point Lilo to the root partition (/ or hdc5) instead of the mbr when you are prompted to specify where the bootsector must be created. I first specified the bootpartition here (/boot or hdc2). That looked quite obvious to me. The result was that Linux was unable to boot. So you MUST specify your root here. YaST will also ask you whether it should activate this partition. DON'T let YaST activate this partition. Your c: drive must remain your active partition, otherwise NT won't boot anymore.<P>
<LI>If Linux is properly installed, time has come to add all the operating systems to the NT bootmenu. I've used the excellent (freeware!!!) program <A HREF="http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm" target="_window">BootPart</A> for this. When you run bootpart from a dosbox in NT, you'll get an overview of all your partitions again. This is quite a list by now.
To add both Windows98 and DOS to the menu (without using the boring F8 key) just type these commands from your command prompt in a DOS-box in NT:
<PRE>c:\bootpart> BOOTPART DOS622 C:\BOOTSECT.622 "MS-Dos 6.22"
c:\bootpart> BOOTPART WIN95 C:\BOOTSECT.W95 "Windows 98"
c:\bootpart> BOOTPART REWRITEROOT:C:
</PRE>
As simple as that. Maybe you could try rebooting your system, and see whether this is working or not.
Our multiboot system is nearly finished by now. A Linux entry in the NT bootmenu will complete things. Type
<PRE>c:\bootpart> bootpart
</PRE>
at the command prompt in your DOS-box in NT. This will result in a list of all your partitions. There you should search for the number of your Linux root partition. When you know this one, you just type
<PRE>c:\bootpart> BOOTPART $linuxpartition$ BOOTSECT.LIN Linux Redhat 6.0
</PRE>
in your bootpart directory. You should fill in the corresponding partition number where I typed $linuxpartition$. This should be the partition where you created the bootsector (your root or / partition!). If all goes well, an entry will be made in your boot.ini and thus in the bootmenu from NT. <P>
<LI>That's it! Everything should be fine by now. If you need some more info on BootPart, you can read the readme.txt file that's included in the zipfile. If you don't want to use this (really easy to use, free and excellent) software, you can do all this manually. I'm not going to explain to you how (it's really not worth the hassle). You should visit <A HREF="http://www.windows-nt.com/multiboot/directboot.html" target="_window">http://www.windows-nt.com/multiboot/directboot.html</A> for more info on this matter.<P>
</OL>
Hopefully my efforts here were not in vain. I tried to give you as much details as possible, without going to much into detail. If something (for some reason or another) isn't working on your system, or I made a mistake, please let me know and help me keeping this info as good as possible. You can always mail me at <A HREF="mailto:bever@phreaker.net">bever@phreaker.net</A>.<P>
<A HREF="http://www.windows-nt.com/multiboot/directboot.html" target="Window">http://www.windows-nt.com/multiboot/directboot.html</A><BR>
<A HREF="http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Linux+NT-Loader.html" target="_window">http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Linux+NT-Loader.html</A><BR>
<A HREF="http://venus.kulnet.kuleuven.ac.be/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Multiboot-with-LILO.html" target="_window">http://venus.kulnet.kuleuven.ac.be/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Multiboot-with-LILO.html</A><BR>
<A HREF="http://world.std.com/~mruelle/multiboot.html" target="_window">http://world.std.com/~mruelle/multiboot.html</A><BR>
<A HREF="http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Linux+Win95.html" target="_window">http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Linux+Win95.html</A><BR>
<A HREF="ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/unmaintained/mini/Linux+DOS+Win95" target="_window">ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/unmaintained/mini/Linux+DOS+Win95</A><BR>
<A HREF="http://www.bcpl.lib.md.us/~dbryan/directboot.html" target="_window">http://www.bcpl.lib.md.us/~dbryan/directboot.html</A><BR>
<A HREF="http://hpmag.cern.ch/computing/dict/b/boot/index.html" target="_window">http://hpmag.cern.ch/computing/dict/b/boot/index.html</A><P>
If you know other interesting pages regarding this subject, or you have any comments, please feel free to contact me. <P>
<P>
<B>Last update: September 25, 1999</B><P>
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright &copy; 1999, Tom de Blende<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">rms @ UBC</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:ehayashi@beluga.phys.uvic.ca">Eric Hayashi</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- END header -->
<p>
<dl>
<h3>Table of Contents</h3>
<dl>
<dt><a href="#introduction">Introduction</a></dt>
<dt><A href="#thursday">Thursday morning</a></dt>
<dt><a href="#stallman">Stallman</a></dt>
<dt><a href="#oreilly">O'Reilly</a></dt>
<dt><a href="#conclusion">Conclusion</a></dt>
</dl>
</dl>
<BR CLEAR=all>
<hr>
<p>
<img src="gx/hayashi/poster_sml.png" ALIGN=right VALIGN=top BORDER=1>
<a name="introduction"><h3>Introduction</h3></a>
Inspired by the informative and entertaining write-ups of <a
href="http://ssadler.phy.bnl.gov/~adler/adler">Stephen Adler</a>, most
relevantly "<a
href="http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue37/adler.html">An Ode to
Richard Stallman</a>" (<I>LG</I> #37) I
recently took it upon myself to document Stallman's foray into the
Great White North. First a brief introduction. I'm relatively new to
Linux - primarily a Windows and Unix user until about a year ago
thanks to the Linux box that I started using as a graduate student in
astronomy at the <a
href="http://astrowww.phys.uvic.ca/nindex1.html">University of
Victoria</a>. Since then I've been using Linux every day (and loving it!), while
developing a budding interest in the history of Linux and the free
software movement.
<p>
About a month ago, while checking out the <a
href="http://www.vlug.org">VLUG</a> links page I happen to stumble
across the <a href="http://www.linux.bc.ca/">linux.bc.ca</a> website.
Just in time as it turns out, since Richard Stallman is scheduled to
talk on "Freedomware: The GNU/Linux System and the Free Software
Movement" in Vancouver at the <a href="http://www.ubc.ca">University
of British Columbia</a> on Thursday, September 23. As an added bonus, Tim
O'Reilly is speaking on Friday, so if I stay I'm thinking I'll get the
full spectrum of opinions on free software and documentation. Flash
forward to...
<BR CLEAR=all>
<hr>
<a name="thursday"><h3>...Thursday morning</h3></a>
In typical Hayashi fashion, I've managed to make things interesting
from the get-go by sleeping in by an hour. Unfortunately, the life of
an astronomy grad student has done nothing to improve my
predisposition towards getting up on time. Oh well, it's not the end
of the world: I'll just have to take the 12:00 noon ferry to the
mainland instead of the 11:00 as I'd planned. This still gives me
about two hours to get from the ferry terminal to UBC. Plenty of
time, but I decide to play it safe and take the coach that runs
directly from downtown Victoria, via the ferry, to downtown
Vancouver. Twice as expensive as public transit, but faster and half
as stressful since you don't have to worry about bus schedules,
transfers, correct change, etc. My anxiety level drops by half once
I'm in the lineup to board the coach with ticket in hand.
<p>
I start thinking ahead to Stallman's lecture this afternoon. I'm
pretty excited about going to see the man behind GNU, not to mention Emacs,
the greatest editor of all-time, ever. Maybe I'll even get to
meet the man afterwards... Ulp! From what I've read rms can be a
somewhat intimidating fellow. I can just imagine myself saying
something foolish to draw his ire. "GNU/Linux," I start repeating to
myself. "Not just `Linux,' `GNU/Linux'"!
<p>
<img src="gx/hayashi/pic-queen_of_saanich_sml.jpg" align="left" hspace=10 vspace=2> Pretty
soon the bus is parked onboard the ferry and we're shuffled up to the passenger
decks. Normally I'm not a big fan of the ferry ride between Vancouver and
Victoria. Usually I'm traveling alone and just want to read or sleep but can
never find a quiet place to do either. There's always someone nearby talking
just loud enough to be a <img src="gx/hayashi/gulf1_sml.jpg" align="right" hspace=10
vspace=10> distraction. This time around it isn't that bad, though. I think the
key is to spend as much time as possible outside on deck. The morning clouds
are starting to burn off and the Gulf Islands can look quite spectacular under
a little sunshine. I sit down on a bench, eat a couple sandwiches and snap some
pics. Life is good.
<p>
<img src="gx/hayashi/clouds1_sml.jpg" align="left"
hspace=10 vspace=5> The ferry hits land at about 1:40 and the
coach drops me off at Cambie and Broadway at 2:30 with plenty of time
to spare. I hop on the 99 B-line express that goes west to the
university. So there I am standing near the back, minding my own
business when I overhear the words "Red Hat" and "Debian" in a
conversation behind me. There's an empty seat next to one of the guys
talking so I grab it and ask if they're going to the Stallman
lecture. Turns out they are - they're comp sci students from nearby
<a href="http://www.sfu.ca">Simon Fraser University</a> (SFU). One
guy's got a 3 1/2'' floppy in his hand - hoping for an autograph
perhaps? He says it's a Linux boot disk with nethack on it. They seem
like pretty cool hacker-types and we end up chatting for the rest of
the bus ride.
<p>
We get off at UBC and after wandering around campus for a while we
finally arrive at Woodward IRC lecture hall 2. It's still fairly early
yet - there's only a handful of people scattered about the lecture
hall. We grab some centre seats about a dozen rows back. One of the
guys, Ryan, whips out a laptop, fires up Debian, and starts an
X-window session with fvwm as the window manager. (Later we watch in
horror as a guy near the front starts up Windows on his own laptop
("wanker"!)). They start playing some game with flying triangles
("bratwurst"?) and a command-line syntax that looks Lisp-like. After a
little hacking one of the guys gets a triangle to rotate. Cool!
<p>
Finally we catch our first glimpse of Stallman. He looks a lot less
imposing than I'd imagined him. (In my mind I'd pictured an immense
being with limbs like redwoods and a voice like thunder.) Despite his
reputation, I find later that he's surprisingly easy to talk to and
generally quite gracious, especially to people asking very basic
questions about GNU. He's constantly fiddling with his hair when he's
answering a question (looks like he's checking for loose ends) but as
long as you have something interesting to say, you have his full
attention.
<p>
<hr>
<p>
<center>
<img src="gx/hayashi/stall1_sml.jpg">
</center>
<p>
<a name="stallman"><h3>Stallman</h3></a>
The lecture gets underway, and I start scribbling. (Unlike Stephen
Adler, I'm forced to take notes the old fashioned way, with pen and
paper. On the bright side, I don't have to worry about spilling coffee
on my non-existent laptop.) Dr. Rabab Ward, director of the <a
href="http://www.cicsr.ubc.ca">Center for Integrated Computer Systems
Research</a> (co-sponsors of the event along with <a
href="http://www.vanlug.bc.ca/index.html">VanLUG</a>) introduces
comp sci prof Ed Casas who starts telling us about rms until Stallman
complains "You're giving my whole speech!" Thus, the introduction gets
cut short and at last rms steps up to the podium.
<p>
The first half of his talk is a retelling of the <a
href="http://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.html">history of the GNU
Project</a> that appears on the GNU website, so I won't bother with a
detailed recap. (A complete transcript of my notes appears <a
href="misc/hayashi/stallman.txt">here</a>.) Even though it was a familiar tale (for
me anyway) it was cool to hear it from the man himself. Along the way
he extolled the virtues of living cheaply and not being "a slave of a
desperate need for money" with expensive habits like "stamps, art, and
children!" I guess we won't be seeing any little Stallmans running
around anytime soon... He went on to say that as president of the <a
href="http://www.gnu.org/fsf/fsf.html">Free Software Foundation</a>
(FSF), he decided not to take a cut of the money
raised by FSF, since paying himself would be "like throwing money
away, because we can get Stallman to work for nothing." So if we like
the software he has helped to develop, we could either donate money to
FSF or to Stallman himself. Hmm...
<p>
In explaining the <a
href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html">four freedoms</a>
which define free software, he compared new measures being adopted
by the US government to deter prohibited copying to those employed by
the Russian establishment, and went on to conclude that "nothing but
a police state can possibly stamp out freedom 2 [the freedom to
redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour]." After describing
freedom 3, the freedom to publish an improved version of a program, he
mentioned that the <a href="http://www.opensource.org">Open Source
Initiative</a> (OSI) promotes free software by concentrating solely on
the benefits of freedom 3. Stallman believes that in doing
this OSI is leaving out the most important things GNU has to say, and
that, while GNU and OSI are allies with respect to software
development, they remain "rivals in the domain of philosophical
debate." He also talked about how software can be free for some users
and not others, using the licensing of the X Window System as an
example (see "<a
href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/x.html">The X Windows trap</a>").
<p>
He devoted the last part of his talk to issues which must be addressed
in order to ensure the continued existence of a free OS five years
down the road. First up: the problem of hardware products whose
specifications are kept secret by their manufacturers and that can only
be operated via proprietary software. The solution to this problem is
twofold: 1) discourage people from purchasing hardware that is not
supported by free software, and 2) reverse engineer the non-free
drivers and write free ones. Secondly, he talked about the pitfall
represented by using non-free libraries as a basis for free software
development. The obvious example of this is the <a
href="http://www.troll.no/products/qt.html">Qt GUI toolkit</a> used by
<a href="http://www.kde.org">KDE</a>. GNU is
attacking this problem by developing the <a
href="http://www.gnome.org">GNOME</a> desktop environment, as well as
the FreeQT toolkit <a
href="http://www.gnu.org/software/harmony/harmony.html">Harmony</a>.
Again, Stallman stressed that it is easy to stay out of this trap if
you recognize it as an issue. Finally, he made brief mention of the
dangers posed by patents, and the patenting of software features and
algorithms (e.g. the <a
href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gif.html">GIF patent</a> held by
UNISYS).
<p>
Stallman concluded the lecture by arguing that the Linux community and
the Open Source movement endanger the future of free software by
failing to recognize the value of the freedom it affords. He cited
ads for proprietary software in Linux magazines as an example
of encouraging users to give up the freedom they've won by using a free
OS. In promoting the name `GNU-slash-Linux' over simply `Linux', his aim
is to not only give credit to the authors of the GNU software which
makes Linux possible, but also to raise awareness of the
philosophy of the GNU Project, perhaps causing users to think about the
value of freedom and maybe even inspiring them to defend the free software
community when it is endangered.
<p>
With that, Stallman opened the floor to questions, the first one being
whether he considers any circumstance legitimate justification to
write or sell proprietary software. Stallman answered with a succinct
"no," but pointed out that 90% of the software industry is about
developing custom software ("people don't load sloughware into a
microwave"). A guy sitting in front of me asked how programmers
would get paid if all software were free. Stallman said that getting
paid should be considered secondary to the more important issue of
"will people have freedom?" Once that is taken care of, programmers
can find new ways to earn a living, e.g. get paid to write free
software by companies like Red Hat, or sell
copies/support/documentation for free software like GNU.
<p>
Someone posed the fundamental question, "Is it ethical to redistribute
something that you're not allowed to redistribute?" Stallman replied
simply that the lesser of the two evils is to share with your
friend. The audience responded with a thunderous ovation. He went on
to say that there is a "war against journals" currently being waged in
academia. To fight scientific journals that claim sole rights to the
articles they publish, Stallman urged us to include the statement
"Permission is granted for verbatim copying of this work" on any
articles we submit for publication.
<p>
At this point Stallman took an extended break to sell GNU manuals,
give away stickers, and talk one-on-one with audience members. Of the
audience of about 200 people, dozens purchased Emacs and Make manuals
which rms patiently signed with his customary "Happy Hacking." (He was
noticeably quick to point out the "cheapskates" who asked for
signatures on the free FSF brochures that were also being
distributed.) This was followed by a final Q & A for the thirty or
forty hardcore hackers who had stuck around.
<p>
Someone made a comment about linking closed source objects into
Linux. Stallman said that Linus made a big mistake when he allowed
this to happen. There was a brief discussion of the "Look and Feel"
lawsuit which apparently resulted in a tie vote in the US Supreme
Court. Since then, industry seems to have lost interest in pursuing
it. Stallman, of course, was opposed to the idea of copyrighting an
interface. Someone asked the obligatory question about the state of
the GNU Hurd. He claimed that there is a working version, but that they
haven't yet taken full advantage of the architecture, and that no one
is currently working on it full-time. (Seems like the perfect
opportunity for a comp sci PhD thesis.) Near the end, a
sincere-sounding chap thanked rms for Emacs, and said that, in the
80's, he used to spend a lot of time staring at an Emacs
window. Stallman countered, "Does that mean you don't anymore? Emacs
misses you. Emacs needs you!" Hee-hee! Great stuff!
<p>
It's after 6:30 by this time and I'm getting hungry, not to mention I
was supposed to meet the friends I'm staying with at 6:00 (sorry
Trish!). Still, I'm hoping to work up the nerve to talk to Stallman and
maybe get a picture with him. Just when I'm thinking of taking off,
the questions die out and Stallman wraps up the Q & A. Some more
people are getting him to sign manuals, so I wait for an opening and
ask him if I could make a personal donation to him and not the FSF in
appreciation for creating GNU Emacs. He agrees (!) so I whip out $20
and get Ryan to take a couple pictures of this historic
transaction. Woo-hoo! My trip is now officially a success! I quickly
say goodbye to the guys from SFU and dash off to meet my friends at the
bookstore.
<p>
<center>
<img src="gx/hayashi/shake1_sml.jpg">
</center>
<p>
<hr>
<a name="oreilly"><h3>O'Reilly</h3></a>
Thanks to the overcrowded Vancouver transit system, I arrive about 15
minutes into Tim O'Reilly's Friday morning talk on "Linux and Open
Source Business Models." As it turns out, I don't think I missed
much. O'Reilly's talk seems to be somewhat disorganized - a series of
loosely-connected thoughts and stories about the
software industry (<a href="misc/hayashi/oreilly.txt">here</a> are my
notes). His main point seems to be that the open source and the web are
revolutionizing the software business (newsflash!) but when someone asks him
about open sourcing his company's publications, he claims that his hands are
tied by authors' royalty demands. He goes on to say that he wants to maximize
the amount of useful information his books provide. Seems to me the best way to
do that is to allow free access to their contents...
<img src="gx/hayashi/oreilly1_sml.jpg" align="left" hspace=10 vspace=10>
<p>
His words about not thinking in the `old frame' and adapting to the
'new paradigm' ring hollow considering that O'Reilly &amp; Associates
continues to follow a traditional print publication business
model. Why not try something truly innovative like selling online
access to his books at a reduced price? He ends his talk by imploring
the audience to use the new era of Internet and open source to "find a
way for people to want to give you money." Not exactly "Ask not what
your country can do for you..." as far as inspirational messages
go... Afterwards a VanLUG guy mentions that it's O'Reilly day at the
University Bookstore (20% off all O'Reilly books), and O'Reilly plugs
a new book of UserFriendly cartoons that's coming out soon.
<p>
Unlike the Stallman lecture, there seems to be much less of a hacker
presence, somewhat understandably since this was a talk about business
models. After the moral conviction of Stallman's words yesterday, the
things O'Reilly had to say about the new frontier in the software
industry paled in comparison. Freedom is something you can laugh, cry,
or shake your fist in the air about. And the heart and soul of GNU is
a belief in helping others. In comparison, the business of making
money is a cold, logical affair that's not very conducive to exciting
peoples' passions. After the talk hardly anyone in the audience of
about 70 or 80 rushes the stage to talk to O'Reilly like they did
yesterday with rms.
<p>
<hr>
<a name="conclusion"><h3>Conclusion</h3>
<p>
When it's all over I shuffle off to the bookstore to check out the
O'Reilly's. But before I get there I've already made up my mind not to
buy anything. <em>Stallman got to me</em>. I can't buy another "animal
book" in good conscience, at least not until I give it some serious
thought. It's just as well - <u>Dynamic HTML: the Definitive
Reference</u> is selling for $57. Even with the 20% discount, that's
more than I'm willing to pay for information that I can probably find
for free on the web. Granted it might not come in the form of a nicely
bound softcover that I can peruse whilst sitting on the john... I
guess that's what Stallman meant yesterday when he was talking about
sacrificing convenience for freedom. With that thought in mind I hop
on a bus and start the long journey home...
<p>
<b>finis</b>
<p>
<H4>Special Thanks to</H4>
<ul>
<li>Trish and Jay for putting me up for the night</li>
<li>Stephen Adler for inspiring me to write this article</li>
<li>And last but not least, Richard Stallman, whose existence and
life's work made this experience possible
</ul>
<P><EM>
<H4>Editor's note</H4>
If you didn't follow the links to Hayashi's notes
above, they are definitely worth a read. Here are the links again:
<UL>
<LI> <A HREF=misc/hayashi/stallman.txt>Richard Stallman's talk</A>
<LI> <A HREF=misc/hayashi/oreilly.txt>Tim O'Reilley's talk</A>
</UL>
</EM>
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyleft &copy; 1999, Eric Hayashi<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Setting Up a Linux Server Network</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:alex@nostromo.cc">Alex Heizer</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- END header -->
<p>
<i>
<STRONG>Abstract:</STRONG> A small business acquires a stable network by
installing Linux on their servers.
</i>
<p>
The computer systems of a small business often leave something
to be desired, especially in New Jersey. Sometimes a collection of
off-the-shelf PCs running generic office applications gets the job done, but
they're not the most efficient way of doing it.
<p>
One of the main obstacles to upgrading any business' computers is
when the employees become dependent on one system, program or way of doing
things. The thought of making any change, however minor, often strikes holy
terror into the heart of any boss or company owner. Cindy Wallace,
owner of Binding Specialties in Camden, New Jersey, is no exception. After
discussing our options, Cindy and I decided the best route to take
for getting the company's computers networked was a Linux-based file
server. This would allow transparent access to important files from
every workstation in the office, with user-level security for important
confidential data. The biggest change in this type of setup would be each
user having to log on to their computer instead of just accepting the
default generic desktop. Using Linux would also save quite a bit of money,
because even a five-user license for Intel-architecture server software from
that other software company can cost up to $1000, without a mail or
web server. Although we have only a few people using the computers, this
would be limiting from day one and would waste more money as the company
expanded. Another important consideration was ease of administration,
since I spend much of my time in the shop working on production.
<p>
Hardware consists of five x86-based PCs, the least powerful of which is
a Pentium-133 with 8MB of RAM. We decided to keep the faster machines
for workstations, since a P133 with 8MB RAM was sufficient for a
Linux server in a network of this size. The other machines are a 450MHz
Celeron-based HP Pavilion, a 366MHz Celeron Dell Inspiron notebook and a few
Pentium II-based custom-built boxes. All four of these machines came
pre-installed with GUI-based operating systems from a software vendor near
Seattle, Washington. We figured integrating these computers would be easy using
Samba.
<p>
We quickly purchased the additional hardware we needed, including NICs,
cables, LAN hub, UPS and a new 13GB hard drive for the server, since
the existing hard drive had less than 600MB capacity. This would ensure
adequate storage space for all company files. The next step
was installing Linux and configuring everything. For this, I chose the
new Caldera OpenLinux distribution. I originally planned to use
Slackware 3.5, since I was most familiar with it, and wanted to get
up and running as quickly as possible. However, having recently found the setup
of Caldera on a personal machine to be quite easy and still in possession of the CD-ROM, I decided to opt for the up-to-date
kernel and programs that come with OpenLinux. Cindy was happy she
didn't have to shell out any money for the OS.
<p>
The installation was tricky because the graphical installation
program requires 32MB of system RAM, but it went fine with a temporary
RAM transplant. Unlike our workstation operating systems, each of which took several
tries to recognize the NICs, Linux correctly identified all installed
hardware the first time through. The only problem occurred when rebooting
the system, because OpenLinux is set to start KDE on bootup--it took
forever on 8MB of RAM.
<p>
Once the server was up and running, it was a simple matter of going around to
each of the workstations and setting them up for networking. After checking
the numerous boxes in all the endless tabs and filling in all
fields, each workstation was configured. Setting up the server with
OpenLinux required filling in an IP address, gateway address and domain
name during the installation, then uncommenting lines in smb.conf,
the Samba configuration file. This was easy, which surprised me, considering Linux
is well-known for being hard to install and set up.
One problem I had with the workstations was
the OS released in 1998 requires encrypted passwords,
while the 1995 version uses plaintext passwords. When Samba was first
configured, the 1995 computers interfaced perfectly with the
'98s had trouble logging in to the server until I uncommented a few more
lines in smb.conf. Of course, there was no mention of this difference in
any of the workstation's documentation, on-line help or troubleshooting
guides. We feel that using a more homogeneous collection of operating
systems would have simplified things a bit more, but that would have to
wait for more commercial applications to be released for Linux.
<p>
The next step was setting up user accounts on each computer for
everyone in the office, putting all the shared data onto the server, and
linking appropriate shortcuts to that data on each workstation. Database
files for financial and contact managing applications, as well as spreadsheets,
letters, artwork and essential job information are all stored on the
server for each workstation to access. This frees up valuable disk
space on the workstations that can now be used for installation of
important games. Backups of all critical data are easily done with
a single Colorado Trakker tape drive. This leaves the IOmega Zip drive
free for storage of MP3 clips and graphics downloaded from the Internet
when no one is looking.
<p>
Some people feel Linux is not yet ready for the desktop. My
office is probably typical in that the people who use
the computers on a daily basis do so because they have a job to do, and
pencil and paper is more of a hassle and clutters up their desk. The
applications they need and know are available for other operating systems, and
it would take more time and effort than it is worth for them to convert to
Linux-compatible programs. However, using off-the-shelf computers as personal
workstations, no matter how confusing, confounding or questionable in the
reliability department, with a Linux-based back end makes a reliable,
cost-effective, familiar, easy-to-use network. Cindy is very impressed
with the power and features of Linux, and we await the day when some of
the vendor-specific software she currently uses will support this stable
desktop.
<p>
In the future, Binding Specialites is planning to get on the Web
with their own domain and go live with an Apache web server. Also on the
horizon for us is
having dial-in, TELNET, FTP and POP service run from the server.
Cindy is excited about not having to buy
an extra server program.
<p>
Binding Specialties' new network is a great example of a small
business setup that benefits not only from Linux' power, flexibility
and reliability, but also from its economical bottom line. With the ease
of installation and setup of the newer distributions, there aren't any
excuses for small businesses not to have a reliable network if they need
one, even if their current corral is limited to standard GUI-windowed
x86 PCs.
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright &copy; 1999, Alex Heizer<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Securing Linux: The First Steps</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:peter@math.umn.edu">Peter Lukas</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- END header -->
<p>
Not too long ago, I sat patiently while the latest kernel version trickled
down my slow, analog dial-up connection. Throughout the entire process, I
longed for the day when high-speed Internet access would be available in
the home. The arrival of xDSL and cable modems to the doorstep has made
this dream a reality, but not without its price.
<p>
As I write this, somewhere in the world, someone is setting up a Linux
distribution on their home computer for the first time. The new Linux
administrator takes the system for a spin by firing up accounts for family
and friends. Just a few short hours after the initial installation, this
new Linux system is an Internet presence thanks to its high-speed DSL
connection.
<p>
<H3>It Is Also a Sitting Duck</H3>
<p>
Nearly all Linux distributions available today are insecure right out of
the box. Many of these security holes can be easily plugged, but tradition
and habit have left them wide open. A typical Linux installation boots for
the first time offering a variety of exploitable services like SHELL, IMAP
and POP3. These services are often used as points of entry for rogue
netizens who then use the machine for their needs, not yours. This
isn't just limited to Linux--even the most sophisticated
commercial UNIX flavors ship with these services and more running right
out of the box.
<p>
Without assessing blame or pointing fingers, it is more important that
these new machines become locked down (<I>hardened</I>, to pin a technical
term to it). Believe it or not, it doesn't take an expert in system
security to harden a Linux machine. In fact, you can protect yourself from
90 percent of intrusions in less than five minutes.
<p>
<H3>Getting Started</H3>
<p>
To begin the process of hardening your machine, ask yourself what role
your machine will play and how comfortable you are with connecting it to
the Internet. Carefully decide which services you want to make available
to the rest of the world. If you are unsure, it's best not to run any.
Most importantly, create a security policy for yourself. Decide what is
and what is not acceptable use of your system.
<p>
For purposes of this article, the example machine is a workstation that
will be used for typical Internet access such as mail and news reading,
web browsing, etc.
<p>
<H3>Securing Network Services</H3>
<p>
First, gain superuser (root) access to the system and take an inventory of
its current network state by using the <B>netstat</B> command (part of net-tools
and standard on most Linux systems). An example of its ouput is shown
here:
<pre>
root@percy / ]# netstat -a
Active Internet connections (servers and established)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State
tcp 0 0 *:imap2 *:* LISTEN
tcp 0 0 *:pop-3 *:* LISTEN
tcp 0 0 *:linuxconf *:* LISTEN
tcp 0 0 *:auth *:* LISTEN
tcp 0 0 *:finger *:* LISTEN
tcp 0 0 *:login *:* LISTEN
tcp 0 0 *:shell *:* LISTEN
tcp 0 0 *:telnet *:* LISTEN
tcp 0 0 *:ftp *:* LISTEN
tcp 0 0 *:6000 *:* LISTEN
udp 0 0 *:ntalk *:*
udp 0 0 *:talk *:*
udp 0 0 *:xdmcp *:*
raw 0 0 *:icmp *:* 7
raw 0 0 *:tcp *:* 7
</pre>
As you can see from that output, a fresh installation left a number
of services open to anyone within earshot. Most of these services are
known troublemakers and can be disabled in the configuration file,
/etc/inetd.conf.
<p>
Open the file with your favorite text editor and begin to comment out any
services you do not want. To do this, simply add a ``#'' to the beginning of
the line containing the service. In this example, the entire file would be
commented out. Of course, should you decide at some point that you would
like to offer some of these services, you are free to do so.
<p>
Now, restart <B>inetd</B> to reflect the changes. This can be done in a number of
ways and can differ from system to system. A simple
<p>
<pre>
killall -HUP inetd
</pre>
should do the trick. Check the open sockets again with netstat and note
the changes.
<p>
Next, take a look at what processes are running. In most cases, you'll see
things like <B>sendmail</B>, <B>lpd</B> and <B>snmpd</B> waiting for connections.
Because this machine will not be responsible for any of these services,
they will all be turned off.
<p>
In most cases, these services are launched from the system initialization
scripts. These can vary somewhat from distribution to distribution, but
they are most commonly found in /etc/init.d or /etc/rc.d. Consult the
documentation for your distribution if you are unsure. The goal is to
prevent the scripts from starting these services at boot time.
<p>
If your Linux distribution uses a packaging system, take the time
to remove the services you do not want or need. On this example machine,
those would be sendmail, any of the ``r'' services (<B>rwho</B>, <B>rwall</B>, etc), <B>lpd</B>, <B>ucd-snmp</B> and Apache. This is a much easier approach and will ensure the
services aren't activated accidentally.
<p>
<H3>Securing X</H3>
<p>
Most recent distributions enable machines to boot for the first time into
an X Window System login manager like <B>xdm</B>. Unfortunately, that too is subject to
exploits. By default, the machine will allow any host to request a login
window. Since this machine has only one user that logs into the console
directly, that feature will need to be disabled as well.
<p>
The configuration file for this varies depending on which version of the
login manager you are using. This machine is running xdm, so the
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/Xaccess file will need to be edited. Again, add a
``#''
to prevent the services from starting. My Xaccess file looks like this:
<p>
<pre>
#* #any host can get a login window
#* #any indirect host can get a chooser
</pre>
The changes will take effect when xdm restarts.
<p>
<H3>Software Updates</H3>
<p>
Now that some of the basic hardening has been done, it is necessary to
check with the vendor for updates and enhancements to the distribution.
Poor maintenance or none at all is another large contributor to system
compromises.
<p>
One of the blessings of open-source software is that it is constantly
under development. Security vulnerabilities are often discovered by a
number of people, and a fix is available within days, if not hours of its
discovery. As a result, most vendors actively maintain their Linux
distribution. Quite often, they post updates, bug fixes and security
advisories on their web site. Make a daily or weekly visit to your vendor's
site and apply any patches or updates they post.
<p>
<H3>The Next Step</H3>
<p>
By this point, the machine is far more secure than when it was first
installed. It isn't invulnerable to attack, but at least it is no longer
extending an invitation to attackers. The approach outlined here is
similar to that of locking your home or car. The average thief will jiggle
the handle, realize that it's locked and move on to one that isn't.
<p>
Should you decide these steps do not provide enough security, or you
wish to provide some network services across the Internet, take the time
to research some advanced security techniques before you do so.
<p>
Unfortunately, vendors of most Linux distributions assume their customers
already know about these services and want to use them. This isn't always
the case for newcomers. Of course, there is still a large amount of ground
to cover before total Linux system security can be achieved, but these
steps provide a basic foundation and awareness of system security.
<p>
To date, the majority of system and network compromises are relatively
minor. As Linux increases in popularity and high-speed Internet access
becomes more available, attacks on unprepared Linux systems will only
become more severe and abundant.
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright &copy; 1999, Peter Lukas<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Programming in Dino</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:vmakarov@fnmail.com">Vladimir N. Makarov</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- END header -->
<BR><I>Dino</I> is a high-level, dynamic scripting language that
has been designed for simplicity, uniformity, and expressiveness.
Dino is similar to such well known scripting languages as <I>Perl</I>,
<I>TCL</I>, and <I>Python</I>.
As most programmers know the C language, Dino resembles C where possible.
<p>Dino is an extensible, object oriented language that has garbage collection.
It supports parallelism description, exception handling, and dynamic loading
of libraries written on other languages.
Although Dino is a multiplatform language, its main platform is Linux.
<P>This document is a concise introduction to the new Dino scripting language,
but is not a programmer's manual.
<H2>
<HR WIDTH="100%"></H2>
<H2>
1. Some History</H2>
Originally, Dino was designed and implemented by the Russian graphics
company <A HREF="http://www.animatek.com">ANIMATEK</A> to describe the
movement of dinosaurs in an animation project. (This is origin of
the language's name.) At that time it worked in only 64Kb memory. It has
been considerably redesigned and reimplemented with the aid of the <A
HREF="http://www.linuxstart.com/~vladimir_makarov/download.html">COCOM
toolset</A>.
<H2>2. Let's Begin</H2>
The best way to get the feel of a programming language is to see a program
written in it. Because I have worked in the compiler field for the last 18 years,
I'll write a small assembler in Dino.
<P>
Most of us do not
remember how programmers wrote programs for old computers that had
only a few kilobytes of memory. Long ago I read about an Algol 60 compiler
that worked on a computer that had only 420 20-bits words.
In an old book "Compiler Construction for Digital
Computers", Gries describes an Algol compiler working on 1024 42-bits
words. How did they achieve this? One of the ways is to use an interpreter
for a specialized language; a program in a specialized language is
usually smaller. Let's implement an assembler for syntactic parsers.
The assembler output will be a syntactic parser
interpreter in C. The assembler instructions have the following format:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><TT>[label:] [code [operand]]</TT></PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
Here, the constructions in brackets are optional.
For convenience we will allow comments that start with <B>;</B> and
finish at the end of the line.
<P>
The assembler will have the following instructions:
<BR>
<CENTER><TABLE WIDTH="80%" NOSAVE >
<TR ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE>
<TD NOSAVE><TT><FONT SIZE=+1>goto <i>label</i></FONT></TT></TD>
<TD NOSAVE>Transfer control to the instruction marked <i>label</i>.</TD>
</TR>
<TR ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE>
<TD><TT><FONT SIZE=+1>gosub <i>label</i></FONT></TT></TD>
<TD NOSAVE>Transfer control to the instruction marked <i>label</i> and save
the next instruction address.</TD>
</TR>
<TR ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE>
<TD NOSAVE><TT><FONT SIZE=+1>return</FONT></TT></TD>
<TD NOSAVE>Transfer control to the instruction following the
latest executed <TT>gosub</TT> instruction.</TD>
</TR>
<TR ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE>
<TD><TT><FONT SIZE=+1>skipif symbol</FONT></TT></TD>
<TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE>If the current token is <TT>symbol</TT>,
the following instruction is skipped. Otherwise, transfer control
to the following instruction.</TD>
</TR>
<TR ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE>
<TD ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE><TT><FONT SIZE=+1>match symbol</FONT></TT></TD>
<TD NOSAVE>The current token should be <TT>symbol</TT>, otherwise a
syntax error is set. After matching, the next token is read and
become the current token.</TD> </TR>
<TR ALIGN=LEFT VALIGN=TOP NOSAVE>
<TD><TT><FONT SIZE=+1>next</FONT></TT></TD>
<TD NOSAVE>The next token is read and become the current token.</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE></CENTER>
<P>
The following assembler fragment recognizes Pascal designators.
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><TT>;
; Designator = Ident { "." Ident | "[" { expr / ","} "]" | "@" }
;
start:
Designator:
match Ident
point: skipif Point
goto lbrack
next ; skip .
match Ident
goto point
lbrack: skipif LBracket
goto at
next ; skip [
next: gosub expr
skipif Comma
goto rbrack
next ; skip ,
goto next
rbrack: match RBracket
goto point
at: skipif At
return
next ; skip @
goto point</TT></PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<H3>2.1. Overall structure of the assembler.</H3>
As a rule, assemblers work in two passes. Therefore, we need to have some
internal representation (IR) to store the program between the passes.
We will create the following Dino files:
<UL>
<LI>
The code that describes the IR and the auxiliary functions will be in the file <A
HREF="misc/makarov/ir.d">ir.d</A>.
</LI><LI>
The code for reading the
assembler program and for generating the IR will be in the file <A
HREF="misc/makarov/input.d">input.d</A>.
</LI><LI>
The code for checking the IR will be in the file
<A HREF="misc/makarov/check.d">check.d</A>.
</LI><LI>The code for generating the interpreter
in C will be in the file <A HREF="misc/makarov/gen.d">gen.d</A>
</LI><LI>
The top level code will be in the file <A HREF="misc/makarov/sas.d">sas.d</A>.
</LI>
</UL>
<P>These files are described in detail below.</P>
<H3>2.2. File <A HREF="misc/makarov/ir.d">ir.d</A></H3>
This file contains the description of the IR in Dino and also some auxiliary
functions. Dino has dynamic variables. In other words, a Dino
variable may contain a value of any Dino type. The major Dino types are:
<UL>
<LI>
<i>characters</i>
</LI><LI>
<i>integers</i> (32-bit)
</LI><LI>
<i>floating point
numbers</i> (IEEE double floating point numbers)
</LI><LI>
<i>heterogeneous vectors</i> (that is, vectors that may contain elements of different
types. A typical example of vector is a string, a vector whose
values can only be characters)
</LI><LI>
<i>associative tables</i>
</LI><LI>
<i>objects</i>
</LI></UL>
The values of the last three types are <i>shared</i>.
That means that if a variable value is assigned to another variable, any
changes to the shared value through the first variable are
reflected in the value of the second variable. In general, working
with shared values is analogous to working with pointers in C, but with fewer risks.
<P>Line 1 describes an abstract node of an IR. A node of such class has the
variable <TT>lno</TT> (which is the source line of the corresponding assembler
instruction). The variable is also a class parameter. That means
that you should define its value when creating a class instance or
object (see line 7). Inside class <TT>irn</TT>, classes describing
each assembler instruction are defined. Each Dino object (and not
only objects) stores information about its <i>context</i>. So if you
create an object of class <TT>next</TT> (see line 40 in file <A
HREF="misc/makarov/input.d">input.d</A>) by calling a class that is accessed through an
object of class <TT>irn</TT>, and then you take value of the variable
<tt>lno</tt> through the object of the class <tt>next</tt>, you actually
take the value of the variable of the object of the class <TT>irn</TT>. This is a
more simple and more general mechanism of implementing a single
inheritance.
<P>An object of the class <TT>ir</TT> (lines 9-13) contains information about
the entire program:
<UL>
<li><TT>ns</TT>, which is initialized by an empty vector, will
contain a vector of IR nodes that correspond to all instructions in the source
program.</li>
<li><TT>l2i</TT>, which is initialized by an empty associative table,
will contain a table for transforming label names into an index of the
node in <TT>ns</TT>. This node will represent assembler instruction marked
by the label.</li>
<li><TT>i2l</TT>, which is initialized by an empty associative
table, will contain a table for transforming the index of the node in <tt>ns</tt>
into a vector of label names. A node with such an index in <tt>ns</tt> will
represent assembler instruction marked by the labels in the vector.</li>
<li><TT>ss</TT>, which is initialized by an empty associative table, will
contain a table of all symbols in the assembler instructions
<TT>match</TT> and <TT>skipif</TT>.</li>
<li><TT>mind</TT> and <TT>maxd</TT> will contain the minimum and maximum
displacements of labels in the source program.</li>
</UL>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><TT> 1. class irn (lno) {
2. class goto (lab) {} class skipif (sym) {}
3. class match (sym) {} class gosub (lab) {}
4. class next () {} class ret () {}
5. }
6.
7. var an = irn (0);
8.
9. class ir () {
10. // all ir nodes, label->node index, node index -> vector of labels.
11. var ns = [], l2i = {}, i2l = {};
12. var ss = {}, mind, maxd;
13. }
14.
15. func err (...) {
16. var i;
17. fput (stderr, argv[0], ": ");
18. for (i = 0; i ? #args; i++)
19. if (args[i] != nil)
20. fput (stderr, args[i]);
21. fputln (stderr);
22. exit (1);
23. }
24.
25. func tab2vect (tab) {
26. var i, vect = [#tab:""];
27. for (i in tab)
28. vect [tab {i}] = i;
29. return vect;
30. }</TT></PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
Lines 15-23 contain a function to output errors. The function accepts a
variable number of parameters whose values will be elements of
the vector in the implicitly defined variable <TT>args</TT>. Any function or
class can be called with any number of actual parameters. If the
number of formal parameters is more than the number of actual
parameters, the rest of formal parameters will have the default value
<TT>nil</TT>. If the number of actual parameters is more than the
number of formal parameters, the rest of the actual parameters will be
ignored unless the last formal parameter is "<TT>...</TT>".
<P>
The other elements are:
<UL>
<LI>The <tt>err</tt> function, which outputs all parameters into the standard error stream.
</LI><LI>
The <TT>fput</TT> function, which outputs strings, characters, integers, or floating
point numbers
</LI><LI>
The <TT>fputln</TT> function, which is the same as <TT>fput</TT>, but
additionally outputs a new line)
</LI><LI>
The <TT>exit</TT> function, which finishes the Dino program with given
code.
</LI><LI>
The variables <TT>argv</TT>, which are all command line arguments of the Dino
program. So <TT>argv[0]</TT> will be an assembler program file name.
</LI><LI>
<TT>stderr</TT> (standard error stream), which is predefined in Dino.
</LI>
</UL>
<P>There are many other predefined functions, classes, and variables in Dino. On
line 18 you can see the operator <TT>#</TT>, which returns the number of
elements in a vector or an associative table.
<P>Lines 25-30 contain a function that transforms a table into a vector.
The table's keys are a sequence of integers that start with 0.
The result is a vector whose elements are the table
elements placed in the vector according their keys.
First we create a vector of the table size and initialize it with empty strings (line 26).
Then we fill each element of the vector, iterating by the keys of the table
(lines 27-28).
<H3>2.3. File <A HREF="misc/makarov/input.d">input.d</A></H3>
This file contains the function <TT>get_ir</TT>, which reads the file given as
its parameter, performs some checks on the file, and generates the IR of the
source program.
<P>The first line contains an <i>include-clause</i> that specifies a source file
without the suffix <B>.d</B> (all Dino source files should have this
suffix). The file is given as a string in the clause; this means that
the entire file is inserted in place of the clause. As result, we could
check the file by calling the Dino interpreter with <TT>input.d</TT> on
a command line. There are several rules that define which directories
are searched for the included file. One such directory is the
directory of the file that contains the include-clause. Thus, we can place all
the assembler files in that one directory and forget about the other rules.
<P>The
file is inserted only once in a given <i>block</i> (this is the construction that
starts with <TT>{</TT> and finishes with <TT>}</TT>). This is
important for our program because each file will contain an inclusion of
the file <TT>ir.d</TT>, and eventually all the files will be included into the
main program file. Unconditional inclusion in this case would result
in many error messages about repeated definitions. By the way, there is
also special form of the include-clause that permits unconditional file
inclusion.
<P>On lines 6-13 we define some variables. We use regular expressions
to assign them strings that describe the correct assembler lines.
The regular expressions are extended regular expressions that are described in POSIX
10003.2. To concatenate the strings (vectors), we use the operator <TT>@</TT>.
<P>Lines 16 to 52, 53 form a <i>try-block</i> that is used to process
<i>exceptional</i> situations in the Dino program. The Dino interpreter can
generate a lot of predefined exceptions. A Dino programmer can also
describe and generate other exceptions. The exceptions are objects of the
predefined class <TT>except</TT>, or they are objects of a class defined inside
the class <TT>except</TT>. Dino has special constructions (extension
blocks) to add something into a class, and functions when the class or the
function is already defined. In our example, the exception we catch is "reaching the
end of a file", which is generated by the predefined function <TT>fgetln</TT>
(reading a new line from a file). If we do not catch the exception, the
program finishes with a diagnostic about reaching the end of the file. In the clause
<tt>catch</tt>, we write a class of exceptions that we want to catch.
The value of the predefined variable <TT>invcalls</TT> is the class
<TT>invcall</TT>, in which class <TT>eof</TT> is defined. In turn, the
class <TT>invcall</TT> is defined inside the class <TT>except</TT>. If
the exception is of a class given in the <i>catch-clause</i> or of a class
defined somewhere inside a class given in the catch-clause, a block
corresponding to the catch-clause is executed. The variable <TT>e</TT> is
implicitly defined in the block that contains the exception. The exception
is propagated further, unless the catch-clause corresponding to the
exception is found.
<P>The predefined function <TT>fgetln</TT> returns the next line from the
file. After this, the line is matched with the pattern on line 20.
The predefined function <TT>match</TT> returns the value <TT>nil</TT> if the
input line does not correspond to the pattern, otherwise it returns a
vector of integer pairs. The first pair is the first and the last
character indexes in the line. The first pair defines the substring that
corresponds to the whole pattern. The following pairs of indexes
correspond to constructions in parentheses in the pattern. They
define substrings that are matched to the constructions in the
parentheses. If a construction is not matched (for example, because an
alternative is rejected), the indexes have the value -1.
<P>The statement on line 23 extracts a label. The predefined function <TT>subv</TT>
is used to extract the sub-vectors (sub-strings).
<P>On lines 24 and 25, we use an empty vector to initialize a table element
that corresponds to the current assembler instruction. On lines 26-31, we
process a label, if it is defined on the line. On lines 27-28, we check
that the label is not defined repeatedly. On line 29, we define how to
map the label name into number of the assembler instruction to
which the label is bound. We make that mapping with the aid of associative
table <TT>pr.l2i</TT>. On line 30, we add the label name to the
vector that is the element of associative table <TT>pr.i2l</TT> that has a key
equal to the number of the assembler instruction. Predefined function
<TT>ins</TT> (insertion of element into vector) is used with index -1, which
means addition of the element at the vector end. Dino has
extensible vectors. There are also predefined functions to delete
elements in vectors (and associative tables).
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><TT> 1. include "ir";
2.
3. func get_ir (f) {
4. var ln, lno = 0, code, lab, op, v;
5. // Patterns
6. var p_sp = "[ \t]*";
7. var p_code = p_sp @ "(goto|skipif|gosub|match|return|next)";
8. var p_id = "[a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9]*";
9. var p_lab = p_sp @ "((" @ p_id @ "):)?";
10. var p_str = "\"[^\"]*\"";
11. var p_op = p_sp @ "(" @ p_id @ "|" @ p_str @ ")?";
12. var p_comment = p_sp @ "(;.*)?";
13. var pattern = "^" @ p_lab @ "(" @ p_code @ p_op @ ")?" @ p_comment @ "$";
14.
15. var pr = ir ();
16. try {
17. for (;;) {
18. ln = fgetln (f);
19. lno++;
20. v = match (pattern, ln);
21. if (v == nil)
22. err ("syntax error on line ", lno);
23. lab = (v[4] >= 0 ? subv (ln, v[4], v[5] - v[4]) : nil);
24. if (!(#pr.ns in pr.i2l))
25. pr.i2l {#pr.ns} = [];
26. if (lab != nil) {
27. if (lab in pr.l2i)
28. err ("redefinition lab ", lab, " on line ", lno);
29. pr.l2i {lab} = #pr.ns;
30. ins (pr.i2l {#pr.ns}, lab, -1);
31. }
32. code = (v[8] >= 0 ? subv (ln, v[8], v[9] - v[8]) : nil);
33. if (code == nil)
34. continue; // skip comment or absent code
35. op = (v[10] >= 0 ? subv (ln, v[10], v[11] - v[10]) : nil);
36. var node = irn (lno);
37. if (code == "goto" || code == "gosub") {
38. if (op == nil || match (p_id, op) == nil)
39. err ("invalid or absent lab `", op, "' on line ", lno);
40. node = (code == "goto" ? node.goto (op) : node.gosub (op));
41. } else if (code == "skipif" || code == "match") {
42. if (op == nil || match (p_id, op) == nil)
43. err ("invalid or absent name `", op, "' on line ", lno);
44. node = (code == "skipif" ? node.skipif (op) : node.match (op));
45. } else if (code == "return" || code == "next") {
46. if (op != nil)
47. err (" non empty operand `", op, "' on line ", lno);
48. node = (code == "next" ? node.next (op) : node.ret ());
49. }
50. ins (pr.ns, node, -1);
51. }
52. } catch (invcalls.eof) {
53. }
54. return pr;
55. }</TT></PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
On lines 36-49 we check the current assembler instruction and create
the corresponding IR node (an object of a class inside the class <TT>ir</TT>
-- see file <TT>ir.d</TT>). And finally, we insert the node at the end
of the vector <TT>pr.ns</TT> (line 50).
<H3>2.4. File <A HREF="misc/makarov/check.d">check.d</A></H3>
After processing all assembler instructions in the file <TT>input.d</TT>,
we can check that all labels are defined (lines 7-9) and we can evaluate the
maximum and minimum displacements of <TT>goto</TT> and <TT>gosub</TT>
instructions from the corresponding label definition (lines 10-13).
The function <TT>check</TT> makes this work. It also forms an associative
table <TT>pr.ss</TT> of all symbols given in the instructions
<TT>match</TT> and <TT>skipif</TT>, and enumerates the symbols (lines
16-17). Here the function <TT>inside</TT> (lines 6 and 14) is used to
define that an object is of a given class, or of a class defined
somewhere in a given class.
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><TT> 1. include "ir";
2.
3. func check (pr) {
4. var i;
5. for (i = 0; i ? #pr.ns; i++) {
6. if (inside (pr.ns[i], an.goto) || inside (pr.ns[i], an.gosub)) {
7. if (!(pr.ns[i].lab in pr.l2i))
8. err ("undefined label `", pr.ns[i].lab, "' on line ",
9. pr.ns[i].lno);
10. if (pr.maxd == nil || pr.maxd ? pr.l2i {pr.ns[i].lab} - i)
11. pr.maxd = pr.l2i {pr.ns[i].lab} - i;
12. if (pr.mind == nil || pr.mind > pr.l2i {pr.ns[i].lab} - i)
13. pr.mind = pr.l2i {pr.ns[i].lab} - i;
14. } else if (inside (pr.ns[i], an.match)
15. || inside (pr.ns[i], an.skipif)) {
16. if (!(pr.ns[i].sym in pr.ss))
17. pr.ss {pr.ns[i].sym} = #pr.ss;
18. }
19. }
20. }</TT></PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<H3>2.5. File <A HREF="misc/makarov/gen.d">gen.d</A></H3>
The biggest assembler source file is the interpreter generator. We
generates two files: a <B><TT>.h</TT></B> file (the interface of the interpreter)
and a <B><TT>.c</TT></B> file (the interpreter itself). We create the files
on line 4. The parameter <TT>bname</TT> of the function <TT>gen</TT> is a
base name of the generated files. The interface file contains
definitions of codes of tokens in <TT>match</TT> and <TT>skipif</TT>
instructions as C macros (lines 6-9) and definition of function
<TT>yyparse</TT> (line 35). Function <TT>yyparse</TT> is a main
interpreter function. It returns 0 if the source program is correct,
and nonzero otherwise.
<P>The generated interpreter requires the external functions <TT>yylex</TT>
and <TT>yyerror</TT> (line 34). The function <TT>yylex</TT> is used by
the interpreter to read and to get the code of the current token.
Function <TT>yyerror</TT> should output error diagnostics. (The
interface is a simplified version of the Yacc Unix Utility interface.)
<P>The compiled assembler program is presented by a C array of chars or
short integers with the name <tt>program</tt>. Each element of the array
is an encoded instruction of the source program. On lines 11-15, we
evaluate the start code for each kind of assembler instruction and define the
type of array elements. On lines 16-33, we output the array
<tt>program</tt>. On lines 37-61, we output the function <TT>yyparse</TT>.
Finally, on lines 62-63 we close the two output files with the aid of the
predefined function <TT>close</TT>.
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><TT> 1. include "ir";
2.
3. func gen (pr, bname) {
4. var h = open (bname @ ".h", "w"), c = open (bname @ ".c", "w");
5. var i, vect;
6. vect = tab2vect (pr.ss);
7. for (i = 0; i ? #vect; i++)
8. fputln (h, "#define ", vect[i], "\t", i + 1);
9. fputln (h);
10. fputln (c, "#include \"", bname, ".h\"\n\n");
11. var match_start = 3, skipif_start = match_start + #pr.ss,
12. goto_start = skipif_start + #pr.ss,
13. gosub_start = goto_start + (pr.maxd - pr.mind) + 1,
14. max_code = gosub_start + (pr.maxd - pr.mind);
15. var t = (max_code ? 256 ? "unsigned char" : "unsigned short");
16. fputln (c, "\nstatic ", t, " program [] = {");
17. for (i = 0; i ? #pr.ns; i++) {
18. if (inside (pr.ns[i], an.goto))
19. fput (c, " ", goto_start + pr.l2i{pr.ns[i].lab} - i - pr.mind, ",");
20. else if (inside (pr.ns[i], an.match))
21. fput (c, " ", match_start + pr.ss{pr.ns[i].sym}, ",");
22. else if (inside (pr.ns[i], an.next))
23. fput (c, " 1,");
24. else if (inside (pr.ns[i], an.ret))
25. fput (c, " 2,");
26. else if (inside (pr.ns[i], an.skipif))
27. fput (c, " ", skipif_start + pr.ss{pr.ns[i].sym}, ",");
28. else if (inside (pr.ns[i], an.gosub))
29. fput (c, " ", gosub_start + pr.l2i{pr.ns[i].lab} - i - pr.mind, ",");
30. if ((i + 1) % 20 == 0)
31. fputln (c);
32. }
33. fputln (c, " 0, 0\n};\n\n");
34. fputln (h, "extern int yylex ();\nextern int yyerror ();\n");
35. fputln (h, "\nextern int yyparse ();\n");
36. fputln (h, "#ifndef YYSTACK_SIZE\n#define YYSTACK_SIZE 50\n#endif");
37. fputln (c, "\nint yyparse () {\n int yychar=yylex (), pc=0, code;\n ",
38. t, " call_stack [YYSTACK_SIZE];\n ", t, " *free=call_stack;");
39. fputln (c, "\n *free++=sizeof (program) / sizeof (program [0]) - 1;");
40. fputln (c, " while ((code=program [pc]) != 0 ?? yychar > 0) {");
41. fputln (c, " pc++;\n if (code == 1)\n yychar=yylex ();");
42. fputln (c, " else if (code == 2) /*return*/\n pc=*--free;");
43. fputln (c, " else if ((code -= 2) ? ", #pr.ss, ") {/*match*/");
44. fputln (c, " if (yychar == code)\n pc++;\n else {");
45. fputln (c, " yyerror (\"Syntax error\");");
46. fputln (c, " return 1;\n }");
47. fputln (c, " } else if ((code -= ", #pr.ss, ") ? ", #pr.ss, ") {");
48. fputln (c, " if (yychar == code)\n pc++; /*skipif*/");
49. fputln (c, " } else if ((code -= ", #pr.ss, ") ?= ", pr.maxd-pr.mind,
50. ") /*goto*/\n pc += code + ", pr.mind, ";");
51. fputln (c, " else if ((code -= ", pr.maxd - pr.mind + 1, ") ?= ",
52. pr.maxd - pr.mind, ") { /*gosub*/");
53. fputln (c, " if (free >= call_stack + YYSTACK_SIZE) {");
54. fputln (c, " yyerror (\"Call stack overflow\");");
55. fputln (c, " return 1;\n }\n pc += code + ", pr.mind,
56. ";\n *free++=pc;\n } else {");
57. fputln (c, " yyerror(\"Internal error\");\n return 1;\n }");
58. fputln (c, " }\n if (code != 0 || yychar > 0) {");
59. fputln (c, " if (code != 0)\n yyerror (\"Unexpected EOF\");");
60. fputln (c, " else\n yyerror(\"Garbage after end of program\");");
61. fputln (c, " return 1;\n }\n return 0;\n}");
62. close (h);
63. close (c);
64. }</TT></PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<H3>2.6. File <A HREF="misc/makarov/sas.d">sas.d</A></H3>
This is the main assembler file. Lines 1-4 are include-clauses for the
inclusion of the previous files. Line 6-7 checks that the argument is
given on the command line. On line 9 we open the file given on the
command line, and call the function for reading and generating the IR of
the program. If the file does not exist or cannot be opened for
reading, an exception is generated. The exception results in the output
of standard diagnostics and finishes the program. We could catch the
exception and do something else, but the standard diagnostics will be
sufficient here. On line 10, we check the IR. And finally on line 11,
we generate the interpreter of the program. To get the base name of
the assembler file, we use the predefined function <TT>sub</TT>, deleting
all directories and suffixes from the file name and returning the
result.
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><TT> 1. include "ir";
2. include "input";
3. include "check";
4. include "gen";
5.
6. if (#argv != 1)
7. err ("Usage: sas file");
8.
9. var pr = get_ir (open (argv[0], "r"));
10. check (pr);
11. gen (pr, sub ("^(.*/)?([^.]*)(\\..*)?$", argv[0], "\\2"));</TT></PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<H3>2.7. Results</H3>
So we've written the assembler (this is 200 lines in Dino). As a
test, we will use <A
HREF="http://www.edm2.com/0608/oberon2.html">Oberon-2</A> language
grammar. You can look at Oberon-2 parser in the file <A
HREF="misc/makarov/oberon2.sas">oberon2.sas</A>. After
<UL>
<UL><TT>dino sas.d oberon2.sas</TT></UL>
</UL>
we will get two files <A HREF="misc/makarov/oberon2.h">oberon2.h</A> and <A
HREF="misc/makarov/oberon2.c">oberon2.c</A>. Let's look at the size of generated
IAX-32 code:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><TT> gcc -c -Os oberon2.c; size oberon2.o
text data bss dec hex filename
382 934 0 1316 524 oberon2.o</TT></PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
For comparison, we would have about 15Kb for a YACC generated parser.
Not bad. But we could make the parser even less than 1Kb by using
short and long <TT>goto</TT> and <TT>gosub</TT> instructions.
Actually, what we generate is not a parser, it is only a recognizer.
But the assembler language could be easily extended to write parsers.
Just add the instructions:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<PRE><TT> call C-function-name</TT></PRE>
</BLOCKQUOTE>
to call semantic functions for the generation of parsed code. In
any case, most of a compiler's code would be in C. To further decrease the
compiler size (not only its parser), an interpreter of C that is
specialized to the compiler could be written.
<P>Of course, it is not easy work to write a parser on the assembler.
So we could generate assembler code from a high-level syntax description,
for example, from a Backus-Naur form. Another area for improvement is the implementation
of error recovery, but this was not our purpose. Our goal
was just to demonstrate the Dino language.
<H2>3. Some last comments</H2>
What Dino's features were missed in this introduction? Many details, of
course, but we also have not described the following major parts of Dino
language:
<UL>
<LI>Extensions</LI>
<LI>Threads</LI>
<LI>Public and private variables</LI>
<LI>Mutable and immutable values</LI>
<LI>Functions, classes, threads, and types as values</LI>
<LI>Interface with C language and writing external dynamic libraries</LI>
</UL>
The Dino interpreter is distributed under GNU Public license. You can
find it on
<P> <A HREF="http://www.linuxstart.com/~vladimir_makarov/dinoload.html">http://www.linuxstart.com/~vladimir_makarov/dinoload.html</A>
<BR> <A HREF="http://www.freespeech.org/vmakarov/dinoload.html">http://www.freespeech.org/vmakarov/dinoload.html</A>
<BR>
<P> Special thanks to Michael Behm (a member of the Cygnus documentation group)
for his help in editing this article.
</BODY>
</HTML>
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright &copy; 1999, Vladimir N. Makarov<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Chez Marcel</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:mcfly@workmail.com">Marty McGowan</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- END header -->
<P> Marcel Gagn&eacute;'s article (<I>Linux Journal</I> #65, September 1999) on
French cooking inspired me to share some recipes of my own. The cooking
metaphor is not new to computing, as Donald Knuth, in his forward to
"Fundamental Algorithms" confesses he almost used "Recipes for the Computer" as
its title. Without stirring the metaphor too vigorously, Gagn&eacute;'s
article gives me the opportunity to share two items of interest and give them
the needed cooking flavor.
<P>
For some time, I've been concerned about what I regard are overuse or
misuse of two programming constructs:
<ul>
<li>temporary variables and files, and
<li>nested logic and decisions.
</ul>
To continue the cooking analogy, these two may be thought of
respectively as inconsistent or lumpy sauce, and uneven temperature.
Realizing that we chefs like to work on one another's recipes, lets
see what happens when we apply them to Marcel Gagn&eacute;'s recipe, "Check
User Mail".
<P>
Before I'd read Marcel's article, my style of programming used the tool
metaphor. While not much of a chef, I now prefer the cooking
metaphor, as it connotes more of a learning, and sharing model, which
is what we do in programming.
<P>
Marcel's recipe is an excellent starting point for my school of
cooking, as his recipe is complete, all by itself, and offers the
opportunity to visit each of the points once. First, here is a copy
of his recipe, without the comment header.
<pre>
for user_name in 'cat /usr/local/etc/mail_notify'
do
no_messages='frm $user_name |
grep -v "Mail System Internal Data" |
wc -l'
if [ "$no_messages" -gt "0" ]
then
echo "You have $no_messages e-mail message(s) waiting." > /tmp/$user_name.msg
echo " " >> /tmp/$user_name.msg
echo "Please start your e-mail client to collect mail." >> /tmp/$user_name.msg
/usr/bin/smbclient -M $user_name < /tmp/$user_name.msg
fi
done
</pre>
This script isn't hard to maintain or understand, but I think the
chefs in the audience will profit from the seasonings I offer here.
<P>
A by-product of my cooking school is lots of short functions. There
are those who are skeptical about adopting this approach. Let's
suspend belief for just a moment as we go through the method. I'll
introduce my seasonings one at a time, and then put Marcel Gagn&eacute;'s
recipe back together at the end. Then you may judge the sauce.
<P>
One of the languages in my schooling was Pascal, which if you recall
puts the main procedure last. So, I've learned to read scripts backwards,
as that's usually where the action is anyway. In Marcel Gagn&eacute;'s script,
we come to the point in the last line, where he sends the message
to each client. (I don't know Samba, but I assume this will make
a suitable function):
<PRE>
function to_samba { /usr/bin/smbclient -M $1; }
</PRE>
This presumes samba reads from its standard input without another flag
or argument. It's used: "to_samba {user_name}", reading the standard
input, writing to the samba client.
<P>
And, what are we going to send the user, but a message indicating they
have new mail. That function looks like this:
<PRE>
function you_have_mail {
echo "You have $1 e-mail message(s) waiting."
echo " "
echo "Please start your e-mail client to collect mail."
}
</PRE>
and it is used: you_have_mail {num_messages}. writing the
message on the standard output.
<P>
At this point, you've noticed a couple of things. The file names and
the redirection of output and input are missing. We'll use them if we
need them. But let me give you a little hint: we won't. Unix(Linux)
was designed with the principle that recipes are best made from simple
ingredients. Temporary files are OK, but Linux has other means to
reduce your reliance on them. Introducing temporary files does a few
things:
<ul>
<li>leaves you with extra cleaning to do after the meal is served,
<li>forces you to make sure someone else isn't using the bowl when
you need it for your recipe.
</ul>
Therefore, we seek to save ourselves these tasks. We'll see how this
happens in a bit.
<P>
A key piece of the recipe is deciding whether or not our user needs to
be alerted to incoming mail. Let's take care of that now:
<PRE>
function num_msg { frm $1 | but_not "Mail System Internal Data" | linecount; }
</PRE>
This is almost identical with Marcel's code fragment. We'll deal with
the differences later. The curious among you have already guessed.
This function is used: num_msg {user_name}, returning a count of the
number of lines.
<P>
What does the final recipe look like. All of Marcel Gagn&eacute;'s recipe is
wrapped up in this one line of shell program:
<PRE>
foreach user_notify 'cat /usr/etc/local/mail_notify'
</PRE>
And that's exactly how it's used. This single line is the entire
program, supported of course, by the functions, or recipe fragments we
have been building. We peeked ahead, breaking with Pascal tradition,
because, after looking at some low-level ingredients, I thought it
important to see where we are going at this point. You can see the
value of a single-line program. It now can be moved around in your
operations plan at will. You may serve your users with the frequency
and taste they demand. Note, at this point, you won't have much code
to change if you wanted to serve your A-M diners at 10 minute
intervals beginning at 5 after the hour and your N-Z diners on the
10-minute marks.
<P>
So what does "user_notify" look like? I toiled with this one. Let me
share the trials. First I did this:
<PRE>
function user_notify { do_notify $(num_msg $1) $1; }
</PRE>
thinking that if I first calculated the number of messages for the
user, and supplied that number and the user name to the function, then
that function (do_notify) could perform the decision and send the
message. Before going further, we have to digress. In the Korn
shell, which I use exclusively, the result of the operation in the
expression: $( ... ) is returned to the command line. So, in our
case, the result of "num_mag {user_name}" is a number 0 through some
positive number, indicating the number of mail messages the user has
waiting.
<P>
This version of user_notify would expect a "do_notify" to look like
this:
<PRE>
function do_notify { if [ "$1" -gt "0" ]; then notify_user $2 $1; fi; }
</PRE>
This is OK, but it means yet another "notify" function, and even for
this one-line fanatic, that's a bit much. So, what to do? Observe,
the only useful piece of information in this function is another
function name "notify_user". This is where culinary art, inspiration,
and experience come in. Let's try a function which looks like this:
<PRE>
function foo { { if [ "$X" -gt "0" ]; then eval $*; fi }
</PRE>
This is different than the "do_notify" we currently have. First of
all, $X, is not an actual shell variable, but here the X stands for
"lets see what is the best argument number to use for the numeric
test". And the "eval $*" performs an evaluation of all its
arguments. And here's the spice that gives this whole recipe it's
flavor! The first argument may be another command or function name!
A remarkable, and little used property of the shell is to pass command
names as arguments.
<P>
So, let's give "foo" a name. What does it do? If one of its
arguments is non-zero, then it performs a function (it's first
argument) on all the other arguments. Let's solve for X. It could be
any of the positional parameters, but to be completely general, it
probably should be the next one, as it's the only other one this
function ever has to know about. So, let's call this thing:
<PRE>
if_non_zero {function} {number} ....
</PRE>
Using another convenient shorthand, it all becomes:
<PRE>
function if_non_zero { [ $2 -gt 0 ] && eval $*; }
</PRE>
and we'll see how it's used later. With this function, user_notify now
looks like:
<PRE>
function user_notify { if_non_zero do_notify $(num_msg $1) $1; }
</PRE>
and is used: user_notify {user_name}. Note the dual use of the first
argument, which is the user's name. In one case, it is a further
argument to the num_msg function which return the number for that
user, in the other case, it merely stands for itself, but now as the
2nd argument to "do_notify". So, what does "do_notify" look like.
We've already written the sub pieces, so, it's simply:
<PRE>
function do_notify { you_have_mail $1 | to_samba $2; }
</PRE>
At this point, we have (almost) all the recipe ingredients. The
careful reader has noted the omission of "but_not", "linecount", and
"foreach". Permit me another gastronomic aside. Ruth Reichel,
recently food editor of the New York Times, is now the editor for
Gourmet magazine. One of the things she promises to do is correct the
complicated recipes so frequently seen in their pages. For example,
"use 1/4 cup lemon juice" will replace the paragraph of instructions
on how to extract that juice from a lemon.
<P>
In that spirit, I'll let you readers write your own "but_not" and
"linecount". Let me show you the "foreach" you can use:
<PRE>
function foreach { cmd=$1; shift; for arg in $*; do eval $cmd $arg; done; }
</PRE>
A slightly more elegant version avoids the temporary file name:
<PRE>
function foreach { for a $(shifted $*); do eval $1 $a; done; }
</PRE>
which requires "shifted":
<PRE>
function shifted { shift; echo $*; }
</PRE>
The former "foreach", to be completely secure, needs a "typeset"
qualifier in front of the "cmd" variable. It's another reason to
avoid the use of variable names. This comes under the general rule
that not every programming feature needs to be used.
<P>
We need one final "Chapters of the Cookbook" instruction before
putting this recipe back together. Let's imagine by now, that we are
practicing student chefs and we have a little repertoire of our own.
So what's an easy way to re-use those cooking tricks of the past. In
the programming sense, we put them in a function library and invoke
the library in our scripts. In this case, let's assume we have
"foreach", "but_not", and "linecount" in the cookbook. Put that file
"cookbook" either in the current directory, but more usefully,
somewhere along your PATH variable. Using Marcel Gagn&eacute;'s example, we
might expect to put it in, say, /usr/local/recipe/cookbook, so you
might do this in your environment:
<PRE>
PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/recipe
</PRE>
and then, in your shell files, or recipes, you would have a line like this:
<PRE>
. cookbook # "dot - cookbook"
</PRE>
where the "dot" reads, or "sources" the contents of the cookbook file into
the current shell. So, let's put it together:
<PRE>
# -- Mail Notification, Marty McGowan, mcfly@workmail.com, 9/9/99
#
. cookbook
# -------------------------------------------- General Purpose --
function if_non_zero { [ $2 -gt 0 ] && eval $*; }
function to_samba { /usr/bin/smbclient -M $1; }
# --------------------------------------- Application Specific --
function num_msg { frm $1 | but_not "Mail System Internal Data" | linecount; }
function you_have_mail {
echo "You have $1 e-mail message(s) waiting."
echo " "
echo "Please start your e-mail client to collect mail."
}
function do_notify { you_have_mail $1 | to_samba $2; }
function user_notify { if_non_zero do_notify $(num_msg $1) $1; }
#
# ------------------------------------------ Mail Notification --
#
foreach user_notify 'cat /usr/etc/local/mail_notify'
</PRE>
On closing, there are a few things that suggest themselves here.
"if_non_zero" probably belongs in the cookbook. It may already be in
mine. And also "to_samba". Where does that go? I keep one master
cookbook, for little recipes that may be used in any type of cooking.
Also, I keep specialty cookbooks for each style that needs its own
repertoire. So, I may have a Samba cookbook as well. After I've done
some cooking, and in a new recipe, I might find the need for some
fragment I've used before. Hopefully, it's in the cookbook. If it's
not there, I ask myself, "is this little bit ready for wider use?".
If so, I put it in the cookbook, or, after a while other little
fragments might find their way into the specialty books. So, in the
not too distant future, I might have a file, called "samba_recipe",
which starts out like:
<PRE>
# --------------- Samba Recipes, uses the Cookbook, Adds SAMBA --
. cookbook
# -------------------------------------------- General Purpose --
function to_samba { /usr/bin/smbclient -M $1; }
</PRE>
This leads to a recipe with three fewer lines and the cookbook
has been replace with 'samba_recipes" at the start.
<P>
Let me say just two things about style: my functions either fit
on one line or not. If they do, each phrase needs to be separated
by a semi-colon (;), if not, a newline is sufficient. My multi-line
function closes with a curly brace on it's own line. Also, my
comments are "right-justified", with two trailing dashes. Find your
style, and stick to it.
<P>
In conclusion, note how we've eliminated temporary files and variables.
Nor are there nested decisions or program flow. How was this
achieved? Each of these are now "atomic" actions. The one decision
in this recipe, "does Marcel have any mail now?" has been encapsulated
in the "if_non_zero" function, which is supplied the result of the
"num_msg" query. Also, the looping construct has been folded into the
"foreach" function. This one function has simplified my recipes
greatly. (I've also found it necessary to write a "foreach" function
which passes a single argument to each function executed.)
<P>
The temporary files disappeared into the pipe, which was Unix's (Linux's)
single greatest invention. The idea that one program might read its
input from the output from another was not widely understood when Unix
was invented. And the temporary names disappeared into the shell
variable arguments. The shell function, which is very well defined in
the Korn shell, adds greatly to this simplification.
<P>
To debug in this style, I've found it practical to add two things
to a function to tell me what's going on in the oven. For example:
<PRE>
function do_notify { comment do_notify $*
you_have_mail $1 | tee do_notify.$$ | to_samba $2
}
</PRE>
where "comment" looks like:
<PRE>
function comment { echo $* 1>&2; }
</PRE>
Hopefully, the chefs in the audience will find use for these
approaches to their recipes. I'll admit this style is not the easiest
to adapt, but soon it will yield recipes of more even consistency,
both in taste and temperature. And a programming style that will expand
each chef's culinary art.
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright &copy; 1999, Marty McGowan<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Micro Publishing</font></H1>
<H4>By by Rick Holbert and <a href="mailto:mark@tcu-inc.com">Mark Nielsen</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- END header -->
<p><br>
<ol>
<li>
<a href="#INTRODUCTION">Introduction</a></li>
<li>
<a href="#OVERVIEW">Overview</a></li>
<li>
<a href="#COPYRIGHT">Copyright</a></li>
<li>
<a href="#SOFTWARE">Software</a></li>
<li>
<a href="#HARDWARE">Hardware</a></li>
<li>
<a href="#FABRICATION">Fabrication</a></li>
<li>
<a href="#CONCLUSION">Conclusion and References</a></li>
</ol>
<hr WIDTH="100%">
<p><a NAME="INTRODUCTION"></a><b><font size=-1>INTRODUCTION</font></b>
<br><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>"Micro Publishing" or
publishing "Books on Demand" has been, up until now, only a dream. Most
of the pieces were already in place, (Desktop Publishing Software, Laser
Printers, Imposition Software, etc.). The last key ingredient was an inexpensive
way to bind and cover the books into professional looking "Perfect Bound"
books.</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>The future just arrived.</font></font>
<p><a NAME="OVERVIEW"></a><b><font size=-1>OVERVIEW</font></b>
<br><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>The process I'm about
to describe will allow you to use FREE Linux software tools, a laser printer,
contact cement, and an easy to build
<a href="http:gx/nielsen/bookvise.jpg">book
binding
vise</a> to produce professional looking "Perfect Bound" paperback books
for the cost of the materials.</font></font>
<p><a NAME="COPYRIGHT"></a><b><font size=-1>COPYRIGHT</font></b>
<br><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>Please observe all copyright
and licensing restrictions. There are plenty of "Open" books in the Linux
Documentation Project, and "Public Domain" books at Project Gutenburg.</font></font>
<p><a NAME="SOFTWARE"></a><b><font size=-1>SOFTWARE</font></b>
<br><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>The primary tool used
to build books with Linux is mpage. I use mpage to set up the pages for
printing (four virtual pages per physical sheet). This process is called
"imposition."</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>Mpage uses the postscript
page description language for both input and output. All the other tools
are used to translate other formats into postscript, or to translate postscript
into other formats.</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>Additional tools include:</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>TeX and LaTeX</font></font>
<br><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>dvips</font></font>
<br><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>PDFTeX and PDFLaTeX</font></font>
<br><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>GhostScript</font></font>
<br><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>Acrobat Reader</font></font>
<p><a NAME="HARDWARE"></a><b><font size=-1>HARDWARE</font></b>
<br><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>Besides a computer capable
of running Linux, you will need a laser printer (single sided, non-duplexing
printers work ok), and a book binding vise.</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>The book binding vise
consists of a thick board measuring 10 inches by 13 inches (I made two
vises from a piece of 10 by 30 inch particle board shelf), and three pieces
of one inch square metallic tubing (like the kind used to make TV antenna
booms). The three pieces of tubing measure 8 inches, 11 inches, and 13
inches. Holes are drilled through the board and tubing to accommodate 1/4
inch carriage bolts. For binding 5 1/2 by 8 1/2 inch books the 8 inch and
11 inch tubes are first arranged to form a T. The 8 inch tube runs vertically
along the left, 10 inch side of the board. The 11 inch tube runs horizontally
along the middle, 13 inch section of the board. The 11 inch tube may be
optionally repositioned at the bottom, 13 inch side of the board for binding
8 1/2 by 11 inch books. The 13 inch tube runs horizontally along the top,
13 inch side of the board, and is attached with 3 inch carriage bolts and
wing nuts so it can be adjusted up and down.</font></font>
<p><a NAME="FABRICATION"></a><b><font size=-1>FABRICATION</font></b>
<br><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>Now it's time to literally
put all the pieces together. Our first step is to translate our source
document into postscript.</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>If your source is a TeX,
texinfo or LaTeX document you may use tex/latex or texi2dvi and dvips to
convert it into postscript. However, be warned. The default fonts used
with dvips are type 3, bit mapped founts. These look fine once printed,
but they are ugly when viewed with GhostScript or Acrobat Reader, and produce
large files.</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>An example of the commands
are as follows:</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>&nbsp;tex filename.tex</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>&nbsp;tex filename.tex</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>&nbsp;makeindex filename.??</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>&nbsp;dvips filename.dvi
-o filename.ps</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>&nbsp;or in the case
of texinfo files (like the GNU docs)</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>&nbsp;texi2dvi filename.texi</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>&nbsp;dvips filename.dvi
-o filename.ps</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>A better solution is
to use PDFTeX or PDFLaTeX to convert your TeX/LaTeX source document into
a PDF, and then to export it to postscript.</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>The command is pdftex
filename.tex or pdflatex filename.tex</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>For texinfo files you
should run texi2dvi or tex, tex, makeindex first to create any indices
or cross references first. You may also try using GhostScript to convert
PDFs into postscript using</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>pdf2ps filename.pdf filename.ps</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>If your source is a PDF
you can use GhostScript's pdf2ps command as described in the previous step,
or use Acrobat Reader to print to a postscript file.</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>If the PDF file is encrypted,
you may need to download a GhostScript security patch from Australia. A
GhostScript error message will give you the details.</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>Now we're ready to use
mpage to set up our 5 1/2 by 8 1/2 inch book. The pages are arranged into
"signatures" in the order 4, 1, 2, 3. That way they read in the correct
order when the page is folded in half.</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>mpage produces two files.
One for the front page pairs (i.e., 4 - 1, 8 - 5, etc.), and one for the
back page pairs (i.e., 2 - 3, 6 - 7, etc.).</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>The mpage commands are:</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>mpage -O -b Letter -o
filename.ps > filename_front.ps</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>mpage -E -b Letter -o
filename.ps > filename_back.ps</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>You may optionally translate
your two files into PDF using</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>ps2pdf filename_front.ps
filename_front.pdf</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>ps2pdf filename_back.ps
filename_back.pdf</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>I find it easier to print
from Acrobat Reader, and it makes distribution to other Operating Systems
a lot easier.</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>Now print the front pages.
I like to break the job down into ten page chunks. That way, if the printer
jams, or the human messes up, I've only lost a maximum of ten pages. Take
the pages out, and put them back into your laser printer so that the corresponding
back pages will print on the back of the pages you just printed. You will
probably have to print them in reverse order, (i.e., 10 through 1, 20 through
11, etc.). You may have to experiment a bit to get your pages into the
right orientation.</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>Once you've printed both
sides, fold them in half (a folding machine comes in real handy here),
and stack them in the book binding vise. Place your legal size card stock
cover under the folded pages, and align as needed. Clamp down the long
tube. Score the cover twice, using a dull utility knife, or an old ball-point
pen where it will fold along the spine of the book. Apply contact cement
along the paper folds, and the corresponding area of the cover (between
the score marks).</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>Let it dry for 10 to
15 minutes, and roll the cover over the folded pages. Run your fingers
along the spine of the book to ensure a strong bond. You may also use a
rounded object like the side of a pen for this task.</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>Loosen the clamp, carefully
take the book out, fold the rest of the cover over, and place it back into
the clamp (with any excess cover allowed to overlap the bottom aligning
tube). Go over the spine a few more times with your finger or the side
of a pen.</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>Remove the book from
the vice, place it horizontally on a flat surface with a weight on top
of it to keep the pages flat, and let it sit over night.</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>You may now trim the
cover, add title stickers, or laminate as desired. Congratulations! You've
just made a book</font></font>
<p><a NAME="CONCLUSION"></a><b><font size=-1>CONCLUSION</font></b>
<br><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>I hope you've enjoyed
this short discussion of "Micro Publishing."&nbsp; It may take a little
practice, but after three or four times, your books should look fine.&nbsp;
Remember to follow all safety precautions when building the vise, and to
use the contact cement in a well ventilated area.</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>Some references are as
follows:</font></font>
<p>
<font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1>
<a
href="gx/nielsen/bookvise.pdf">
bookvise.pdf</a>
- book binding vise plans</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New,Courier"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.mesa.nl">www.mesa.nl</a>
- mpage author's home page</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.tinaja.com/">www.tinaja.com</a>
- Several articles about "Books on Demand", postscript, acrobat, etc.</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.gigabooks.net/">www.gigabooks.net
</a>-
Sells ready made book binding vices along with a book describing the process.</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New"><font size=-1><a href="http://www.cappella.demon.co.uk/">www.cappella.demon.co.uk</a>
- Discusses postscript markup language and additional binding processes.</font></font>
<p><font face="Courier New"><font size=-1><a href="mailto:zing@genericbooks.com">e-mail
me</a> - With your constructive comments, questions, or whatever.</font></font>
<br>
<hr WIDTH="100%">
<br><i>Rick works as a computer guy at
<a href="http://www.teamamerica.com">TeamAmerica</a> and Mark works as a
computer guy at
<a href="http://www.tcu-inc.com">The Computer Underground</a>. For some
reason, these two dudes
have started a company called <a
href="http://genericbooks.com">ZING</a>
(ZING Is Not GNU, well what is GNU?
GNU is Not Unix) to promote and distribute free and open software and literature.
Mark doesn't know why he attached his name to this article since Rick did
95% of the work, but it looks good for his resume.</i>
</body>
</html>
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright &copy; 1999, by Rick Holbert and Mark Nielsen<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Emacs Macros and the Power-Macros Package</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:blackie@ifad.dk">Jesper Kj&aelig;r Pedersen</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- END header -->
<h2>Abstract</h2>
People sometimes tend to forget that computers are a tool that can make
their life much easier. One of the things computers are especially good at,
and which is easy for you to teach, is monotonic repetitive work. It gets
even better: This kind of work also seems to be the work humans are worst at
doing that is, monotonic repetitive work tends to be very error-prone.<p>
Emacs can eliminate the repetitive work with a very useful concept
called macros. Macros are basically keystrokes that Emacs types for
you.<p>
This article will teach you about Emacs macros and show you a number of
useful examples. Furthermore, it will teach you about an Emacs
package I written called power-macros, which makes it very easy to bind macros to
keys and to save them to a file for use in later Emacs sessions.<p>
<h2>Defining an Emacs macro.</h2>
Defining an Emacs macro is done by pressing <tt>C-x (</tt> (That is press
Ctrl, hold it down and press x, and then release Ctrl and x and press the
opening bracket). The subsequent keystrokes will be part of your
macro that is whenever you ask Emacs to execute your macro, these
keystrokes will <i>be typed for you</i>. When you are done defining the
macro, press <tt>C-x )</tt><p>
When a macro has been defined you may ask Emacs to imitate your
keystrokes as often as you want simply by pressing <tt>C-x e</tt>.<p>
<h3>Two-cent tip</h3>
If you need to repeat macros several times, then it might be quite annoying
that you need to press two keys to execute the macro defined. (That is, if
you need to execute the macro three times, then you must press C-x e, C-x e,
C-x e). A solution to this may be to bind <i>execute last defined keyboard
macro</i> to a single key press. This way, you may for example bind it to
shift-F1, by inserting the following code into your <tt>.emacs</tt>
file:
<pre>
(global-set-key [(shift f1)] 'call-last-kbd-macro)
</pre>
<h2>Example: Making the current word bold</h2>
That's it now you have learned the basics about Emacs macros, but
I'm pretty sure that you haven't had the feeling yet that this would change
your world much, right? To be honest, I've used Emacs for more than seven
years, but until less than a year ago, I didn't see the light either...
Therefore, here comes a small example to vet your appetite. More will
follow later in the article.<p>
Imagine that you often want to make the current word in boldface (in
HTML documents), you could simply do that by inserting <tt>&lt;b&gt;</tt>
and <tt>&lt;/b&gt;</tt> around the word. That's no big job, but if you are
copy-editing a book, where you need to make words in boldface hundreds
of times each hour, then a macro, that can do this may really spare you a
lot of time.<p>
The macro is easily recorded: Go to the beginning of the word, insert
<tt>&lt;b&gt;</tt>, go to the end of the word, insert <tt>&lt;/b&gt;</tt>,
and there you are!<p>
Ohhh, not so fast! There is one very important point to notice about this
you are not allowed to go to the beginning respectively the end of the word
by pressing the arrow key a number of times! Why not? Well if you do, then
the macro will fail to find the border of the word if your word is of a
different length than the word used when defining the macro. You must
therefore instead use the commands <tt>forward-word</tt> and
<tt>backward-word</tt>. These commands are bound to control and the arrow
keys. Thus to go to the beginning of a word, simply press control and the
left arrow key.<p>
Basically there exist two kinds of macros: those that are used now and again,
and those that are used a number of times in a row and then never used
again. The above is an example of a macro of the first kind. The
description of the second kind is out of the scope for this article, but an
example could be a macro, that added <tt>/* REMOVE:</tt> to the beginning
of a line, and <tt>*/</tt> to the end of a line. You may use such a macro a
number of times in a row, to comment out a whole function in C for later removal.<p>
<h2>Making macros more general</h2>
In some C++ programs you will often find constructs which resemble the
following:
<pre>
for (bool cont=iterator.First(value); cont; cont=iterator.Next(value)) {
...
}
</pre>
The only difference from occasion to occasion is the names <i>cont</i>,
<i>iterator</i>, <i>value</i>, and of course the content in between the
curly brackets.<p>
If you insert the code above often, then you may wish to build a macro,
which will help you with this. Your first attempt may be to define a macro,
which simply inserts:
<pre>
for (bool =.First(); ; =.Next()) {
}
</pre>
That is, a macro that simply leaves out all the parts that may change from
time to time. This is, however, not as useful as it could be, simply
because you would need to type <i>cont</i> three times, and <i>iterator</i>
and <i>value</i> each two times. What you really would need was for Emacs
to ask you about the names to use instead of <i>cont</i>,<i>iterator</i>,
and <i>value</i>.<p>
Guess what? you can do that with macros! The trick is called <tt>recursive
editing</tt>. With recursive editing you tell Emacs to stop at a specific
place in the macro, you do some editing, and when you are done
you tell Emacs to continue with the macro. <p>
When you record the macro, you may tell Emacs to enter recursive editing by
pressing <tt>C-u C-x q</tt>. Then whenever you execute the macro
Emacs will stop macro execution at that point and let you do some editing,
and the macro will first continue when you press C-M-c (That is
control-meta-c, if there is no meta key on your keyboard it is most likely
the alt key instead.).<p>
While you record the macro, Emacs will also enter recursive editing at that
point. That is, the editing you do from the point you press <tt>C-u C-x
q</tt> and till you press <tt>C-M-c</tt> will <b>not</b> be part of the macro.<p>
Ok, we are almost ready to develop a very neat and useful macro, but first
lets exercise what we've learned above with a simple example. Type the following:
<pre>
C-x ( Type a word ==&gt; C-u C-x q
</pre>
Now type <i>Hello World</i>, and when done, continue typing the following:
<pre>
C-M-c &lt;== C-x )
</pre>
The above inserted the following text into your buffer: <tt>Type a word
==&gt;Hello World&lt;==</tt>. Furthermore it also defined a macro, which
inserts this text except for the words <tt>Hello World</tt>. Whenever you
execute the just defined macro Emacs will pause after having inserted
<tt>Type a word ==&gt;</tt>, and when you press <tt>C-M-c</tt>, it will
continue with the macro, which means that it will insert the text <tt>&lt;==</tt>.<p>
Can you see where we are heading? Now we have the tools to ask the user for
the three names needed, so all we need now is a way to fetch the
information he typed and insert it at the appropriate places.<p>
Fetching the information could be done in several ways. The simplest way
(that is the one, which requires the smallest knowledge about Emacs) would
simply be to switch to a temporary buffer, let the user type in the
information there, and whenever one of the words are needed, simply go to
this buffer, and fetch it there.<p>
A much smarter way is to use <i>registers</i>. A register is a
container where you may save the text of the current region for later
use. To insert text into a register, mark a region, and press
<tt>C-x r s</tt> and a letter (the letter indicates which of the registers
to save the information to) Later you may insert the content of the
register into the buffer by pressing <tt>C-x r i</tt> and pressing
the letter you typed above.<p>
Now that's it. Below you can see all the keystrokes needed to record this
macro. Text in between quotes should be typed literally, and text in italic
are comments, which you should not type.<p>
It may seem like much to type to obtain this, but on the other hand,
when you are done, you will have a very user friendly interface to
inserting the given for-loops.
<blockquote>
"Bool: " C-space <i>This will set the mark - that is one end of the region</i><br>
C-u C-x q <i>Type the name of the first bool here</i><br>
C-x C-x <i>This will make the region active</i><br>
C-x r s a <i>Copy the just typed word to the register named a</i><br>
C-a C-k <i>Delete the line, as the just inserted text should not be part of the buffer</i><br>
"Iterator: " <i>Now continue as above, and save to register b</i><br>
"Value: " <i>Once again continue and this time save to register c</i><br>
"for (bool " <i>Now we've started to actually type the for-loop</i><br>
C-x r i a <i>Insert the name of the boolean</i><br>
"= " C-x r i b <i>Insert the name of the iterator</i><br>
C-e ".First(" C-x r i c <i>The name of the value</i><br>
C-e "); " C-x r i a C-e "; " C-x r i a C-e " = " C-x r i b C-e ".Next(" C-x
r i c C-e ")) {" Return "}"
</blockquote>
<h1>Power Macros</h1>
Power Macros is an Emacs package, which I developed out of frustration of
not being able to define a macro, bind it to a key, and have it bound there
for future Emacs sessions. (Or rather, not being able to do so very easy).<p>
To use this Emacs package, download the file from its <a
href="http://www.imada.sdu.dk/~blackie/emacs/">home page</a>. Copy the lisp
file to somewhere in your load path, and insert the following into your
<tt>.emacs</tt>file:
<pre>
(require 'power-macros)
(power-macros-mode)
(pm-load)
</pre>
If you do not know what a load path is, or do not have one, then create a
directory called <tt>Emacs</tt>in your home directory, copy the file to
this directory, and insert the following line into your <tt>.emacs</tt>
file before the lines above:
<pre>
(setq load-path (cons "~/Emacs" load-path))
</pre>
When that is done, you may simply press <tt>C-c n</tt>, when you have
defined a macro, and Emacs will ask you the following questions in the
mini-buffer:
<dl>
<dt>Which key to bind the macro to.
<dd>First Emacs must know which key the macro should be bound to. When you
are done answering these questions, then the macro will be available simply
by pressing this key, and you may that way have several macros defined at
the same time.<p>
<dt>How should the macro be accessible.
<dd>With power macros you may make the macro accessible in one of two ways:
1) Global - that is it is accessible in every buffer. 2) As a major mode
specific macro - that is the macro is only accessible in buffers with a
given major mode.<p>
As an example of a mode specific macro, think about the
<i>for-loop</i>-macro from the example above. This macro is only useful
when writing C++ programs. Furthermore you may need a similar macro for
programming Java (which of course use Java syntax rather than C++
syntax). With power-macros you may bind both the macro for C++-mode and the
macro for Java-mode to the same key (say <tt>C-M-f</tt>), and then the
correct one will be used in the given mode.<p>
<dt>Which file should it be saved to.
<dd>By default Emacs saves the macros defined with power-macro to the file
named <tt>~/.power-macros</tt>. If that is Ok for the macro you are
defining, then simply press enter at this question. If you do not want to
save the given macro to a file for future Emacs sessions, then remove the
suggested text (so that you answer the question with an empty
string). Finally you may of course name another file. In the <a
href="#local_file">section below</a>, there is a description of when this
can be of special interest.<p>
<dt>What is its description.
<dd>Finally you have to write a description for the macro just
defined. This will make it much easier for you to identify it later, when
you have forgot which key you have bound it to, or when you are searching
for a key to bind a new macro to.
</dl>
As part of binding the macro to a key, Emacs will also check if the given
binding will override an existing binding. If this is the case it will warn
you about this, and ask you for confirmation to continue the definition.
<h2><a name="local_file">Local Macros</a></h2>
For some time ago I was going to give a speech on Emacs. I have done that a
number of times before, so I haven't done any special preparation for this
specific speech. When I was driving to the speech (by train) I decided
shortly to go through my presentation anyway. I was terrified to see that the
presentation program suddenly didn't work on my machine.<p>
So there I was, less than an hour to my speech and my presentation program
didn't work! What should I do?! The answer was kind of obvious, why not
make the presentation using Emacs?! Fortunately the input to the other
presentation program was ASCII, and the only construct I used in the
presentation was enumerated lists, so it was very easy to rewrite the
presentation so it looked good in an Emacs buffer (with a slightly enlarged
font). Now there was only one problem: How could I easily go
forward/backward one presentation page?<p>
Can you guess what the answer was? Yes you are right, the answer was to
create two macros. One going forward one page, and another going backward
one page.<p>
Going forward one page was done the following way:
<ol>
<li>Search for a line starting with a number of equal signs. This was
namely the second line of each presentation page (Just below the title of
the page).
<li>Press <tt>C-1 C-l</tt> (that is control-one control-el) This would
locate this line as the second line of the screen. And consequently the title
of the page would thus be the first one.
<li>Go to the beginning of the next line. This was necessary so the
subsequent search would not find the current page.
</ol>
The two macros, just defined, is only useful for the given file (and later
to all the files, which contains a presentation made for viewing with
Emacs). Therefore it would be a bit annoying to have these macros defined
and bound to keys all the times, especially given that there might be
several month before my next Emacs presentation.<p>
The two macros should therefore be saved to a separate file, and
whenever needed I could simply load them. Loading a power macro is done by
using the function <tt>pm-load</tt>. Thus I could load the macros by
pressing <tt>M-x</tt> typing pm-load, pressing enter, and typing the name
of the file to load.
Loading the macros for the presentation could be done even more automatic,
by inserting the following lines as the very last lines of the file:
<pre>
Local Variables:
eval: (pm-load "presentation.macro")
End:
</pre>
In the above it is assumed that the name of the file containing the macros
is called <tt>presentation.macro</tt>.<p>
Now Emacs automatically loads the presentation macros whenever the file is opened.
<h2>Managing Power Macros</h2>
When you have defined a number of macros, you might want to do various
managing functions on your macros. This is done by pressing <tt>C-c
m</tt>. This will bring up a buffer as the one you can see below:<p>
<img src="gx/pedersen/manage.jpg" BORDER=1>
<BR CLEAR=all>
What you see in this buffer is your power macros, each separated with a
line of dashes. Many of the keys have special meaning in this buffer (Just
like the keys have special meaning in the buffer managing buffer or in the
dired buffer).<p>
By pressing the enter key on top of one of the fields lets you edit the
given field. Editing a field does in fact mean either to change its
content, or to copy the macro to a new one with the given field changed. You specify
whichever of these meanings you intend, when you have pressed enter on the
field.<p>
Deletion of macros is done in two steps, first you mark the macros which
you want to delete, and next you tell Emacs to actual delete them. If you
know either the buffer managing buffer or dired-mode, then you will be
familiar with this two step process.
<h1>The End</h1>
If your appetite has been vet to learn more about Emacs, then I can inform
you that I'm the author of a book
on Emacs called "Sams Teach Yourself Emacs in 24 Hours". (ISBN:
0-672-31594-7). To learn more about this book, please visit it's home page
on the URL <a
href="http://www.imada.sdu.dk/~blackie/emacs/">http://www.imada.sdu.dk/~blackie/emacs/</a>.
This is also the page you should visit if you want to download the
power-macro package.<p>
<address><a href="http://www.imada.sdu.dk/~blackie/">Jesper Kj&aelig;r
Pedersen</a> &lt;<a href="mailto:blackie@ifad.dk">blackie@ifad.dk</a>&gt;</address>
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright &copy; 1999, Jesper Kj&aelig;r Pedersen<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Backup for the Home Network</font></H1>
By <a href="mailto:jpollman@bigfoot.com">JC Pollman</a> and <a href="mailto:bill.mote@bigfoot.com">Bill
Mote</a></h4></center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- END header -->
<p>Everyone has a backup plan. Unfortunately, most of us use the "No Backup"
plan.
<p><b>Disclaimer: </b>This article provides information we have gleamed
from reading the books, the HOWTOs, man pages, usenet news groups, and
countless hours banging on the keyboard. It is not meant to be an all inclusive
exhaustive study on the topic, but rather, a stepping stone from the novice
to the intermediate user.&nbsp; All the examples are taken directly from
our home networks so we know they work.
<p><b>How to use this guide:</b>
<ul>
<li>
Words encapsulated by square brackets like [Enter] indicate the depression
of a key on the keyboard or a mouse button [Mouse1]</li>
<li>
Words encapsulated by squiggly brackets like {your name here} indicate
data that will/should be substituted with "real" data</li>
<li>
Text depicted in italics are commands you, the user, should type at a prompt</li>
</ul>
<b>Prerequisites:</b> If you have Linux installed, you will have everything
you need.
<p><b>Backup Plan</b>: For the home network, you have to have some sort
of backup plan.&nbsp; Although hard drives will crash, the real value in
the backups is restoring accidentally deleted, or changed, files. Sooner
or later you will delete, or change, something important, and without a
backup, you could render your computer unbootable.&nbsp; I am embarrassed
to admit this, but I actually deleted /root on one occasion. Note: backups
should be considered compromised if you have been cracked.&nbsp; Backup
plans need to be simple to implement or they will not get done - especially
at home. A&nbsp; backup plan for home should cover two areas: how much
are you going to backup, and how are you going to do it with the least
amount of effort.
<p>How much to backup: I try to minimize the amount I backup because storage
space costs money.&nbsp; I only backup directories, not the entire file
system. Most of /usr and /opt are on the install cdrom, so if the hard
drive crashes, I will install them by default with a new install.&nbsp;
/etc and /home are the most important as they contain the configuration
and custom settings files.&nbsp; Your backup plan should include full backups
of the selected directories every so often, and then backup just the changes
(incremental backups) daily.
<p>How to backup: tape drives are usually too expensive for the home network,
and floppies are impractical. (Note: I gave up on floppies when the disk
count went over 132!)&nbsp; We believe the best compromise is using a spare
hard drive.&nbsp; Notice we said hard drive and not partition! Every time
I have had problems with hard drives, the entire drive died or became corrupted,
not just a partition. Hard drives are so cheap that using one solely for
backups is the most cost efficient method. It is not the most secure way
to save your files as a cracker can get to them, but there are limits to
how far we are willing to go to make home backups.
<p><b>Backup Programs:</b> There are three common programs used for backups
that come with almost all un*x distributions: tar, cpio, and dump.&nbsp;
Each has its strengths and weaknesses.
<p><b>TAR</b>: Tar is the most commonly used backup program for small networks.
It has been around quite a while and will likely remain for quite some
time.&nbsp; Most people do not know, however, that although tar was designed
to put files on tapes, it was not designed for backups. Instead, its purpose
is to put the files on the tape so they can be installed on other computers.
As such, its incremental backup function is weak.
<p><b>CPIO</b>:&nbsp; cpio is similar to tar in that it does not have an
incremental backup function. In fact, it does not even have a "file list"
function: you have to feed it the name of the files you want to archive
by piping them from the find program.&nbsp; cpio has two advantages over
tar: it creates a smaller uncompressed archive, and it does not die if
part of the archive is corrupted.
<p><b>DUMP</b>: dump is completely different from tar or cpio.&nbsp; It
backups up the entire file system - not the files. dump does not care what
file system is on the hard drive, or even if there are files in the file
system. It dumps one file system at a time, quickly and efficiently, and
it supports 9 levels of incremental backups. Unfortunately, it does not
do individual directories, and so, it eats up a great deal more storage
space than tar or cpio.
<p><b>Our Backup Solution</b>: <a href="misc/pollman/run-backup">Click here</a> to see
our backup script - named run-backup. Save it your hard drive and then
make it executable by typing:
<blockquote><i>chmod 777 run-backup [Enter]</i></blockquote>
<b>What part of the script you need to modify:</b> This script is designed
to run on any computer by changing only the four variables: COMPUTER, DIRECTORIES,
BACKUPDIR, and TIMEDIR.&nbsp; Currently we are running it on 2 linux boxes
and 2 solaris boxes. The BACKUPDIR is nfs mounted on our machines, but
it could be another hard drive on the computer. We suggest that you set
this script up and run it for a month before making major changes.
<p><b>What the script does</b>: when the script is run, it first looks
to see if today is the first day of the month. If it is, it makes a full
backup of the files listed in the variable DIRECTORIES, names the tar ball
after the computer and date, e.g. myserver-01Nov.tgz and puts it in the
BACKUPDIR directory. Since this is a unique file name, it will stay in
the BACKUPDIR until you delete it.&nbsp; Next, if today is not the first
of the month, but it is Sunday, the script will make a full backup of the
DIRECTORIES, and overwrite the Sunday file in BACKUPDIR.&nbsp; In other
words, there is only one Sunday file in the backupdir and it is overwritten
every Sunday. That way we do not waste much space on the hard drive but
still have a full backup that is at most one week old. The script also
puts Sunday's date in the TIMEDIR directory. If today is not the first
or a Sunday, the script will make an incremental backup of all the files
that have changed since Sunday's full backup. As such, each day's backup
after Sunday should get larger than the last.&nbsp; This is the trade-off:
you could do an incremental backup of just the files that changed in the
last 24 hours and keep each day's backup quite small, but if your hard
drive goes south on Friday, you will have to restore Sunday's, Monday's,
Tuesday's, Wednesday's and Thursday's backups.&nbsp; By doing an incremental
backup from Sunday each day, the backups are larger, but you only have
to restore Sunday's and Thursday's backup. Here is an abbreviated look at
the backup directory:
<blockquote><tt>root&nbsp;&nbsp; 828717 Oct&nbsp; 1 16:19 myserver-01Oct.tgz</tt>
<br><tt>root&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 14834 Oct 22 01:45 myserver-Fri.tgz</tt>
<br><tt>root&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 5568 Oct 18 01:45 myserver-Mon.tgz</tt>
<br><tt>root&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 14999 Oct 23 01:44 myserver-Sat.tgz</tt>
<br><tt>root&nbsp; 1552152 Oct 24 01:45 myserver-Sun.tgz</tt>
<br><tt>root&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 5569 Oct 21 01:45 myserver-Thu.tgz</tt>
<br><tt>root&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 5570 Oct 19 01:45 myserver-Tue.tgz</tt>
<br><tt>root&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 5569 Oct 20 01:45 myserver-Wed.tgz</tt></blockquote>
<p><br><b>How to run the script</b>: We run this script as a cron job at
one o'clock in the morning every day. If you need help with cron,<a href="misc/pollman/cron.html">
click here</a>. Note: the incremental backups need the time of the Sunday
backup. If you start in the middle of the week, you need to create the
time file in the TIMEDIR. Using the script above as an example, the file's
name is: myserver-full-date, and its consists of a single line:
<p><i>26-Sep</i>
<p><b>Restoring:</b> Restoring is relatively easy, with only one thing
to remember: tar does not include the leading / on files. So,if you wanted
to restore /etc/passwd, you would first have to cd to /, and then type:
<blockquote><i>tar -zxvf {wherever_file_is}/myserver-Sun.tgz&nbsp; etc/passwd</i></blockquote>
<SPACER TYPE=vertical SIZE=10>
Next month we will be discussing dhcp.
</body>
<!--endcut ============================================================-->
</html>
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright &copy; 1999, JC Pollman and Bill Mote<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Running UNIX At Home</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:reid@astro.utoronto.ca">Rob Reid</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- END header -->
<P> I started using UNIX years ago at school, so when Linux came along I eagerly
installed it on my home computer so that I could have the same wonderful
operating system in both places. Linux has worked amazingly well for me, but
after a while I noticed that it wasn't completely adapted for home use.
"locate"'s database wasn't getting updated, the log files kept growing and
growing, and the startups and shutdowns were taking a fair chunk out of my day.
This was because UNIX computers traditionally stay on all the time, while home
computers tend to be frequently turned off.
<P> None of my cron jobs, like updating locate's database and trimming the log
files, were being done since the computer was hardly ever on in the wee hours
of the morning, the time chosen by the distributions (Slackware, then Red Hat
3.0.3, then 5.1) for housecleaning. Very early in the morning is perfect for
computers that stay on all the time, since that's when there are the fewest
users to be upset by the somewhat disruptive janitorial jobs, but I was
unwilling to leave my computer on all them time just to make cron happy. I
ruled out changing the job running time to something during the day, since I
tend to run my home computer at unpredictable times for a few hours. The only
way I could be sure the jobs would be done would be to run them hourly instead
of daily or weekly. That would soon get annoying. My solution, the following
script, was to combine an hourly cron with batch, and to check whether the job
had already been done satisfactorily recently. The hourly cron is frequent
enough that it will probably get a chance while I have the computer on, but
batch minimizes my annoyance by only running the jobs when the computer isn't
too busy, like when I've gone for a snack. The timestamp check cancels the job
if it's already been done in the last week/month/etc.
<P> <A HREF=misc/reid/groundskeeper>groundskeeper</A> (Bash script)
<P> As you probably know, speeding up the startups and shutdowns is a matter of
not starting daemons you'll never need. I've taken it a bit further by often
not starting services that I often *do* need. Craziness? No. We all use SysV
runlevels, now, right? (When I started using Linux, with Slackware, this
wasn't the case, but I hope that even the most ardent BSDers have seen the
desirability of runlevels.) I was using runlevel 3 as my normal operating
mode, had a never used runlevel 4, and noticed that about half the time in
booting 3 was spent on network things. About half the time when I turn on my
computer, I'm not going to use my modem at all, so I set up runlevel 4 as "3
without network stuff". Now when I want to use my modem I boot normally, but
if I know I won't be using it I type "linux 4" at the LILO prompt and save a
lot of time. No reconfiguration of LILO was necessary. I haven't needed to
yet, but I could use my modem in 4 by becoming root and running the network
starter scripts by hand, and stopping them when I'm done. One of these days I
should write a script to automate that, but I'm lazy. Red Hat provides a
runlevel editor in their control-panel, but it is also easy to do from the
command line by playing around in the /etc/rc.d/* directories.
<P> If you're not sure which services you can safely eliminate, here's a
listing of my /etc/rc.d/rc[34].d directories as a sample. Your requirements
will probably be different, however.
<PRE>
rc3.d: rc4.d:
K08autofs K08autofs
K09keytable K09keytable
K10named
K15gpm K15gpm
K15sound K15sound
K30sendmail
K45sshd
K50inet
K55routed
K59crond K59crond
K60atd K60atd
K60lpd K60lpd
K65portmap K65portmap
K80random K80random
K97network
K99syslog K99syslog
S01kerneld S01kerneld
S10network
S20random S20random
S30syslog S30syslog
S40atd S40atd
S40crond S40crond
S40portmap S40portmap
S50inet
S55named
S55sshd
S60lpd S60lpd
S72autofs S72autofs
S75keytable S75keytable
S80sendmail
S85gpm S85gpm
S85sound S85sound
S99local S99local
</PRE>
<P> Another, very optional, thing you can do is run 'tune2fs' on your ext2
filesystems to increase the number of mounts before they get fscked. Read the
man page first, and I have no idea what the ideal number is.
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright &copy; 1999, Rob Reid<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Developing Web Applications at Home - Part 1</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:afsilva@liberty.edu">Anderson Silva</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- END header -->
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> One of my favorite things
about linux is that it allows me to have a full-featured server at
home for a very small price. I have a 3 computer network at home, and
my router is a simple Intel Pentium 133 w/ 32 MB RAM and 1.7 Gb HD.</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> That machine which run on
Red Hat 6.0 is my router, dns server, firewall/proxy server, samba
server, and my web server, and it runs great. I must tell you that
the only reason that I shut that server off is when there are
thunderstorm warning in my city, but other than that the machine runs
flawless.</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> And the reason for this
article is to allow you to run your own web applications of your
computer, even if your machine is a small Pentium 133 like mine. I
normally, write articles that are aimed for the newbies simply
because I think they need much more support than the &quot;older&quot;
guys do, and this article is no different.</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> I would like to introduce
to you a scripting language called PHP. And for you that prefer
another language such as PERL, ASP or Cold Fusion, all I can say is
&quot;don't get mad at me just because I did not choose your
favorite language&quot;.</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> PHP is a server dependent
scripting language that can be embedded on HTML, and according to its
documentation it was created &quot;sometime in the fall of 1994&quot;.
If you decide to play around with PHP you will notice that its syntax
is very similar to C, so if you have any programming experience with
C, C++ or even Java, programing on PHP should be a breeze.
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> The greatest thing about
PHP is that it allows you to make web sites that will interface with
several types of databases. A few examples are:</P>
<UL>
<UL>
<UL>
<UL>
<LI><P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">Oracle</P>
<LI><P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">Sybase</P>
<LI><P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">mSQL</P>
<LI><P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">MySQL</P>
<LI><P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">ODBC</P>
<LI><P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">dBase</P>
<LI><P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">and many others...</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"></P>
</UL>
</UL>
</UL>
</UL>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"> This article will show you
how to install PHP version 3 (PHP3) on a RedHat System that is using
MySQL as its database. <B>Note:</B><SPAN STYLE="font-weight: medium">
RedHat's full install will install PHP3 all ready to work with
PostgreSQL database.</SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><BR>
</P>
<OL TYPE=I>
<LI><P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=4><SPAN STYLE="font-weight: medium">Installing
MySQL:</SPAN></FONT></P>
<OL>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"></P>
</OL>
</OL>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"> You
can download MySQL from:</P>
<OL TYPE=I>
<OL>
<OL>
<OL>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><A HREF="http://www.mysql.com/download_3.22.html"><SPAN STYLE="font-weight: medium">http://www.mysql.com/download_3.22.html</SPAN></A></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"></P>
</OL>
</OL>
</OL>
</OL>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><SPAN STYLE="font-weight: medium"> If
you are running Red Hat, I would recommend to you to download the
RPMs for the database. Download:</SPAN></P>
<OL>
<LI><P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium">
The Server - MySQL-3.22.27-1.i386.rpm</P>
<LI><P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium">
The Client - MySQL-client-3.22.27-1.i386.rpm</P>
<LI><P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium">
The Development Libraries - MySQL-devel-3.22.27-1.i386.rpm</P>
</OL>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"> <B>Note:</B>
MySQL 3.22.27 is the most recent-stable version as of the day this
article was written.</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"> Once
you have downloaded all three files, run the following command as
root:</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"> <B>rpm
-ihv MySQL-*</B></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><B> </B><SPAN STYLE="font-weight: medium">This
should install all of the MySQL packages you have downloaded.</SPAN></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<OL TYPE=I START=2>
<LI><P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=4>Learning
MySQL:</FONT></P>
</OL>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=4> <FONT SIZE=3>Learning
the basics of MySQL should not be a challenge because of two main
reasons:</FONT></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<OL>
<LI><P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium">
<FONT SIZE=3>Online Documentation is very well organized, and
helpful.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>It can
be found at: <A HREF="http://www.mysql.com/doc.html">http://www.mysql.com/doc.html</A></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"></P>
<LI><P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium">
<FONT SIZE=3>Graphical User Interfaces that are available on
the web to make MySQL administration much easier. </FONT>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>You
can find a whole list of GUI Clients for MySQL at:
<A HREF="http://www.mysql.com/Contrib/">http://www.mysql.com/Contrib/</A></FONT></P>
</OL>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<OL TYPE=I START=3>
<LI><P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=4>Installing
PHP3:</FONT></P>
</OL>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=4> <FONT SIZE=3>As
I said in the beginning of this article RedHat already comes with the
RPM for the installation of PHP3, but by default it is setup to
support PostgreSQL. And to make this RPM work with MySQL is not hard
at all, thanks to great F.A.Q. whic can be found at the PHP official
web site (http://www.php.net). </FONT></FONT>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3> To
solve this problem I quote the F.A.Q. section from the PHP web site.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium">
</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> 3.3 I installed PHP using RPMS, but it doesn't compile with the
database support I need! What's going on here?</P>
<P> Due to the way PHP
is currently built, it is not easy to build a complete flexible PHP
RPM. This issue will be addressed in PHP4. For PHP, we currently
suggest you use the mechanism described in the INSTALL.REDHAT file in
the PHP distribution. If you insist on using an RPM version of PHP,
read on...
<P> Currently the RPM packagers are setting up the RPMS to install
without database support to simplify installations AND because RPMS use
/usr/ instead of the standard /usr/local/ directory for files. You need
to tell the RPM spec file which databases to support and the location
of the top-level of your database server.</P>
<P>This example will explain the process of adding support for the
popular MySQL database server, using the mod installation for
Apache.</P>
<P>Of course all of this information can be adjusted for any database
server that PHP supports. I will assume you installed MySQL and
Apache completely with RPMS for this example as well. </P>
<P>First remove mod_php3
<P> rpm -e mod_php3
<P> Then get the source rpm and INSTALL it, NOT --rebuild
<P> rpm -Uvh mod_php3-3.0.5-2.src.rpm
<P> Then edit the /usr/src/redhat/SPECS/mod_php3.spec file
<P> In the %build section add the database support you want, and the
path.
<P> For MySQL you would add --with-mysql=/usr \
<P> The %build section will look something like this:
<P> ./configure --prefix=/usr \
<P> --with-apxs=/usr/sbin/apxs \
<P> --with-config-file-path=/usr/lib \
<P> --enable-debug=no \
<P> --enable-safe-mode \
<P> --with-exec-dir=/usr/bin \
<P> --with-mysql=/usr \
<P> --with-system-regex
<P> Once this modification is made then build the binary rpm as
follows:
<P> rpm -bb /usr/src/redhat/SPECS/mod_php3.spec
<P> Then install the rpm
<P> rpm -ivh /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/mod_php3-3.0.5-2.i386.rpm
<P> Make sure you restart Apache, and you now have PHP with MySQL
support using RPM's. Note that it is probably much easier to just
build from the distribution tarball of PHP and follow the instructions
in INSTALL.REDHAT found in that distribution.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3> Another
problem is that some distributions (including RedHat) that also come
with PHP3 installed, don't have PHP3 activated on Apache's
configuration file. To solve this problem again we count on the PHP3
F.A.Q. session.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT FACE="helvetica, sans-serif"><FONT SIZE=2><B> </B></FONT></FONT></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I installed PHP using RPMS, but Apache isn't processing the PHP
pages! What's going on here? Assuming you installed Apache PHP
completely with RPMS, you need to uncomment or add some or all
of the following lines in your http.conf file:
<PRE>
# Extra Modules
AddModule mod_php.c
AddModule mod_php3.c
AddModule mod_perl.c
# Extra Modules
LoadModule php_module modules/mod_php.so
LoadModule php3_module modules/libphp3.so
LoadModule perl_module modules/libperl.so
</PRE>
<P> And add:<BR>
<TT>AddType application/x-httpd-php3 .php3</TT><BR>
To the global properties, or to the properties of the VirtualDomain
you want to have PHP support added to.
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> If you have successfully installed MySQL, re-installed PHP3, and
activated PHP3 in you Apache configuration you should be all set to
start using PHP3.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3> <B>Note:
Once you are done changing the Apache configuration make sure you
restart it.</B></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><FONT SIZE=3><B> Quick Test:</B></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3> This
is a quick test for you to try, and see if php3 is running correctly
in your system:</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3> Go
to your web root directly (RH systems at: /home/httpd/html), and
create the following file and name it <B>phptest.php3</B>.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3> &lt;?</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3> echo
&quot;&lt;HTML&gt;\n&quot;;</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3> echo
&quot;&lt;HEAD&gt;&lt;TITLE&gt;Hello World!&lt;/TITLE&gt;&lt;/HEAD&gt;\n&quot;;</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>
echo &quot;Testing PHP3 with Hello World!\n&quot;;</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>
?&gt;</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3> And
the open you web browser, and you should get just the formatted web
site. If you do get that, you should be all set to start using PHP3.
If you have not been able to get the right results, I would suggest
you to check out PHP's web site at: <A HREF="http://www.php.net/">http://www.php.net</A></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3> Next
month, I will send in a couple of more complex examples with some
data entry on a MySQL database.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3> </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>The
texts that are found inside a table were extracted from the PHP3 Web
Site.</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<DL>
<DD>
<TABLE WIDTH=413 BORDER=1 BORDERCOLOR="#000000" CELLPADDING=4 CELLSPACING=0>
<COL WIDTH=403>
<THEAD>
<TR>
<TD WIDTH=403 VALIGN=TOP>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>PERMISSION
NOTICE:
</FONT>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>Javascript/PHP
code used with permission of the PHP </FONT>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>Development
Team.
</FONT>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>Copyright
1998. All rights reserved.
</FONT>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>
</FONT>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>For
more information on the PHP Development Team and
</FONT>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>the PHP
project, please see &lt;http://www.php.net&gt;. </FONT>
</P>
</TD>
</TR>
</THEAD>
</TABLE>
</DL>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3>
</FONT>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3> </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><FONT SIZE=3> </FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"><BR>
</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in; font-weight: medium"> </P>
<OL TYPE=I>
<OL>
<OL>
<OL>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"></P>
</OL>
</OL>
</OL>
</OL>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in"><BR>
</P>
</BODY>
</HTML
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright &copy; 1999, Anderson Silva<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">LSOTM (Linux Site O' The Month): LinuxNewbie.org</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:slambo@linuxstart.com">Slambo</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- END header -->
<H3>What's This?</H3>
This article is the first in an ongoing series of site reviews for the Linux
community. Each month, I will highlight a Linux-related site and tell you all
about it. The intent of these articles is to let you know about sites that you
might not have been to before, but they will all have to do with some aspect of
Linux. Now, on with the story...
<H3><A HREF=http://www.linuxnewbie.org>LinuxNewbie.org</A> (LNO)</H3>
Let's face it, learning a new
technology (be it 3 or 30 years old) can be intimidating to a newbie. The
average Joe who is new to Linux may not know anything beyond where the on/off
switch is. Luckily, for those just starting down the One Linux Way, there are
places to learn.
From LNO's about page:
<BLOCKQUOTE>
"Linuxnewbie.org is a place where anyone can write their tips and tricks and
submit them for publication. They are subject to review or possibly testing,
frankly we don't know how this is going to work out, but we think if it does
work out, the site will do everyone a great service."
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P> This site has a lot to offer for the newbie (well, from the page name, you
might have guessed this), including "Newbieized Help Files", Forums, Articles,
Book Reviews and Book Recommendations, along with news about Linux and the Open
Source community.
<P> This site's specialty is the NHFs. Basically, they are HOWTO files for
newbies. Before you get all up in arms about it, they didn't "dumb down" the
HOWTO files. Rather, they wrote new articles that describe how to do specific
functions like setup an ISA PnP modem or truetype font support in X Windows.
Most NHFs include a brief introduction and a list of commands that will be
needed to perform a certain action (much like the list of tools needed for a
woodworking project at the beginning of its instructions) followed by specific
steps, and almost always walking through the steps with an example.
<P> The NHFs are split, first into Intel vs. Mac architecture (there aren't any
entries for Alpha or other processors yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to see
them someday), then into more specific categories like: Network, Modems, X
Windows, Security and Sound. Like the bit from the about page says, the NHFs
do get reviewed, but not by some elite cadre of gurus tucked away in a basement
with only an open account at the local pizza parlor. The NHFs are reviewed by
everyone. Anyone is welcome to send a comment on any NHF, and, if the comment
contains additional technical information, it will get added to the NHF page.
Furthermore, everyone is encouraged to write NHFs for inclusion in the site
content.
<P> Since the site is still young, there aren't as diverse a range of NHFs as
one might wish for (whatever project I'm working on is the one that doesn't
have any information anywhere). However, the site's forums, using the popular
Ultimate Bulletin Board software, fill the gap covering topics like: scripts,
games, programming and technical support.
<P> On the Bookshelf are recommended volumes for any Linux hacker. Naturally,
there are some works from O'Reilly, but others, where appropriate, are also
included. Additional information on these works is linked from the Bookshelf,
and some are covered in more detail in the book reviews of the Articles
section.
<P> The only thing that is really missing from this site is a search engine.
There is a large amount of information on this site, but most of it ends up in
the forums, due to the nature of contributions. However, this is the kind of
site that you will want to explore on your own, just reading and following
along the links.
<P> So take the time to visit and explore this site. The wealth of information
available will make it worthwhile to read.
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright &copy; 1999, Slambo<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">T/TCP: TCP for Transactions</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:Mark.Stacey@icl.ie">Mark Stacey</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- END header -->
T/TCP is an experimental extension for the TCP protocol. It was designed to
address the need for a transaction-based transport protocol in the TCP/IP
stack. TCP and UDP are the current choices available for transaction-based
applications. Both of these protocols have their advantages and disadvantages.
TCP is reliable but inefficient for transactions whereas UDP is unreliable but
highly efficient. T/TCP sits between these two protocols making it an
alternative for certain applications.
<p>
Currently, a number of flavours of UNIX support T/TCP. SunOS 4.1.3 (a
Berkeley-derived kernel) was the very first implementation of T/TCP and
made available in September 1994. The next implementation was for FreeBSD
2.0 and released in March 1995. For my final year project, I implemented
T/TCP for Linux for the University of Limerick in April 1998. The source
code is available at <A HREF=" http://www.csn.ul.ie/~heathclf/fyp/"> http://www.csn.ul.ie/~heathclf/fyp/</A>.
<p>
In this article, I discuss the operation, advantages and flaws of
T/TCP. This will allow application developers to decide when T/TCP is
appropriate for networking applications. I present my results of a comparative
analysis between T/TCP and TCP based on the number of packets per session for
each transaction, as well as my conclusions on a case study into the possible
impact of T/TCP on the World Wide Web.
<H3>1 Introduction</H3>
The TCP/IP reference model is a specification for a networking
stack on a computer. It exists to provide a common ground for network
developers. This allows easier interconnection of the different vendor
supplied networks, reducing the cost of installing completely new networks
in order for one to work with another.
<p>
The most popular implementation of the transport layer in the
reference model is the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). This is a
connection-oriented protocol. Another popular implementation is the User
Datagram Protocol (UDP), which is a connectionless protocol.
<p>
Both of these protocols have advantages and disadvantages. The two main
aspects of the protocols make them useful in different areas. UDP is a
connectionless protocol. UDP always assumes that the destination host
received the data correctly. The application layer above it looks after
error detection and recovery. Even though UDP is unreliable, it is quite
fast and useful for applications, such as DNS (Domain Name System)
where speed is preferred over reliability. TCP, on the other hand, is a
reliable, connection-oriented protocol. It looks after error detection and
recovery. Data is retransmitted automatically if a problem is detected. As
a result of being more reliable, TCP is a slower protocol than UDP.
<p>
In recent years, with the explosion of the Internet, a need for a new
specification arose. The current transport protocols were either too
verbose or not reliable enough. A protocol was needed that was faster than
TCP but more reliable than UDP. These protocols lie at either end of the
scale in taking into account speed and reliability. TCP has reliability
at the cost of speed, whereas UDP has speed at the cost of reliability. A
standard was needed, that would allow the reliable transmission of data
at a faster rate than the current TCP standard. This new protocol could
reduce bandwidth and increase the transmission speed of data.
<p>
TCP for Transactions (T/TCP) is envisioned as the successor to both
TCP and UDP in certain applications. T/TCP is a transaction-oriented
protocol based on a minimum transfer of segments, so it does
not have the speed problems associated with TCP. By building on TCP,
it does not have the unreliability problems associated with UDP. With
this in mind, RFC1379 was published in November 1992. It discussed
the concepts involved in extending the TCP protocol to allow for a
transaction-oriented service, as opposed to a connection-oriented service
for TCP and a connectionless service for UDP. Some of the main points
that the RFC discussed were the bypassing of the 3-way handshake and the
shortening of the TIME-WAIT state from 240 seconds to 12 seconds. T/TCP
cuts out much of the unnecessary handshaking and error detection of the
current TCP protocol and as a result increases the speed of connection
and reduces the necessary bandwidth. Eighteen months later, RFC1644 was
published, with the specification for Transaction TCP.
<H3>2 Transaction Transmission Control Protocol</H3>
T/TCP can be considered a superset of the TCP protocol. The reason
for this is that T/TCP is designed to work with current TCP machines
seamlessly. If a TCP host tries to connect to a T/TCP host, the T/TCP
host will respond with the original TCP 3-way handshake. What follows
is a brief description of T/TCP and how it differs to the current TCP
standard in operation.
<H3>2.1 What is a Transaction?</H3>
The term transaction refers to the request sent by a client to a server
along with the server's reply. RFC955 lists some of the common characteristics of transaction processing
applications:
<p>
<ul>
<li> Unsymmetrical model: the two end points take different roles, this is
a typical client-server role where the client requests the data and the
server responds.
<li> Short duration: normally a transaction runs for a short time span.
<li> Few data packets: each transaction is a request for a small piece of
information rather than a large transfer of information both ways.
</ul>
<H3>2.2 Background to T/TCP</H3>
<p>
The growth of the Internet has put a strain on the bandwidth and speed
of networks. With more users than ever, the need for a more
efficient form of data transfer is needed.
<p>
The absolute minimum number of packets required for a transaction
is two: one request followed by one response. UDP is the one protocol in
the TCP/IP protocol stack that allows this, the problem here being the
unreliability of the transmission.
<p>
T/TCP solves these problems to a large degree. It has the
reliability of TCP and comes very close to realizing the two-packet
exchange (three in fact). T/TCP uses the TCP state model for its timing
and retransmission of data, but introduces a new concept to allow the
reduction in packets.
<p>
Even though three packets are sent using T/TCP, the data is carried
on the first two; thus, the applications can see the data with
the same speed as UDP. The third packet is the acknowledgment to the
server by the client that it has received the data, which incorporates the TCP
reliability.
<H3>2.3 Basic Operation</H3>
<p>
<center>
<img alt="figure" src="gx/stacey/3075f1.gif">
<h4>Figure 1. Time Line of T/TCP/Client-Server Transaction</h4></center>
<p>
Consider a DNS system, one where a client sends a request to a
server and expects a small amount of data in return. A diagram of the
transaction can be seen in Figure 1. This diagram is very similar
to a UDP request. In comparison to the TCP 3-way handshake in Figure
2 it can be seen that an equal number of packets are
required for this transaction and the 3-way handshake. Whereas with TCP
three packet transmissions are associated with the establishment
of a connection alone (with nine altogether), a total of three
packet transmissions are associated with the whole process--a savings of
66% in packets transferred compared to TCP. Obviously, in cases where a
large amount of data is being transferred, more packets will be
transmitted, resulting in a decrease in the percentage saving. Timing
experiments have shown a slightly longer time is required for
T/TCP than for UDP, but this is a result of the speed of the computer
and not the network. As computers get more powerful, the performance of
T/TCP will approach that of UDP.
<p>
<center>
<img alt="figure" src="gx/stacey/3075f2.gif">
<h4>Figure 2. TCP 3-way handshake</h4></center>
<p>
<H3>2.4 TCP Accelerated Open</H3>
<p>
The TCP Accelerated Open (TAO) is a mechanism introduced by T/TCP
designed to cut down the number of packets needed to establish
connection with a host.
<p>
T/TCP introduces a number of new options. These
options allow the establishment of a connection with a host using the
TAO. T/TCP uses a 32-bit incarnation number, called a connection count
(CC). This option is carried in the options part of a T/TCP segment,
Figure 3. A distinct CC value is assigned to each direction of an
open connection. Incremental CC values are assigned to each connection
that a host establishes, either actively or passively.
<p>
<center>
<img alt="figure" src="gx/stacey/3075f3.gif">
<h4>Figure 3. TCP Header</h4></center>
<p>
The 3-way handshake is bypassed using the CC value. Each server host
caches in memory (or in a file) the last valid CC value it received from
each different client host. This CC value is sent with the initial SYN
segment to the server. If the initial CC value for a particular client
host is larger than the corresponding cached value, the property of the
CC options (the increasing numbers) ensures the SYN segment is new
and can be accepted immediately.
<p>
The TAO test fails if the CC option that arrives in the SYN segment is
smaller than the last CC value received and cached by the host or if
a CCnew option is sent. The server then initiates a 3-way handshake in
the normal TCP/IP fashion. Thus, the TAO test is an
enhancement to TCP, with the normal 3-way handshake to fall back on for
reliability and backward compatibility.
<p>
<H3>2.5 Truncation of TIME-WAIT</H3>
<p>
The TIME-WAIT state is a state entered by all TCP connections
when the connection has been closed. The length of time for this state
is 240 seconds to allow any duplicate segments still in
the network from the previous connection to expire. The introduction
of the CC option in T/TCP allows for the truncation of the TIME-WAIT
state. The CC option provides protection against old duplicates being
delivered to the wrong incarnation of a given connection.
<p>
Time constraints are placed on this truncation, however. Because the CC value from
the host is monotonically increasing, the
numbers may wrap around from the client host. A CC value that is the
same as some duplicate segments from the previous incarnation can be
encountered. As a rule, the truncation can only be performed whenever
the duration of the connection is less than the maximum segment lifetime
(MSL). The recommended value for the MSL is 120 seconds. As with the
original TCP, the host that sends the first FIN is required to remain in
the TIME-WAIT state for twice the MSL once the connection is completely
closed at both ends. This implies that the TIME-WAIT state with the
original TCP is 240 seconds, even though some implementations of TCP
have the TIME-WAIT set to 60 seconds. Stevens shows how the TIME-WAIT
state for T/TCP may be shortened to 12 seconds.
<p>
CC options do have problems when used on networks with high-speed
connections. This is rarely a problem on older networks, but with
FDDI and gigabit Ethernets becoming more frequent, the wrapping of
the CC value will become more frequent. In this situation,
the CC value may wrap around fast enough for problems
to occur. Whereas CC options are not sufficient in certain conditions,
the PAWS (protection against wrapped sequences) option adds another
layer of security against this problem.
<p>
<H3>2.6 Examples</H3>
<p>
T/TCP can be beneficial to some of the applications which currently
use TCP or UDP. At the moment, many applications are
transaction-based rather than connection-based, but still must rely
on TCP along with the overhead. UDP is the other alternative, but not
having time-outs and retransmissions built into the protocol means the
application programmers must supply the time outs and reliability
checking. Since T/TCP is transaction-based, there is no
set-up and shutdown time, so the data can be passed to the process
with minimal delay.
<p>
<H3>2.6.1 HTTP and RPC</H3>
<p>
Hypertext Transfer Protocol is the protocol used by the World Wide
Web to access web pages. The number of round trips used by this protocol
is more than necessary. T/TCP can be used to reduce the number of
packets required.
<p>
HTTP is the classic transaction style application. The client sends
a short request to the server requesting a document or an image and
then closes connection. The server then sends on the information to the
client. T/TCP can be used to improve this process and reduce the number
of packets on the network.
<p>
With TCP, the transaction is accomplished by connecting to the server
(3-way handshake), requesting the file (<tt>GET <I>file</I></tt>), then closing the
connection (sending a FIN segment). T/TCP operates by connecting
to the server, requesting the document and closing the connection all
in one segment (TAO). It is obvious that bandwidth has been saved.
<p>
Remote Procedure Calls also adhere to the transaction style paradigm. A
client sends a request to a server for the server to run a function. The
results of the function are then returned in the reply to the
client. Only a tiny amount of data is transferred with RPCs.
<p>
<H3>2.6.2 DNS</H3>
<p>
The Domain Name System is used to resolve host names into the IP addresses
that are used to locate the host.
To resolve a domain name, the client sends a request with the IP address
or a host name to the server. The server responds with the host name or
IP address where appropriate. This protocol uses UDP as its underlying
process.
<p>
As a result of using UDP, the process is fast but not
reliable. Furthermore, if the response by the server exceeds 512 bytes
of data, it sends the data back to the client with the first 512 bytes
and a truncated flag. The client has to resubmit the request using TCP,
since there is no guarantee that the receiving
host will be able to reassemble an IP datagram exceeding 576 bytes. For
safety, many protocols limit the user data to 512 bytes.
<p>
T/TCP is the perfect candidate for the DNS protocol, because of its
speed and reliability.
<p>
<H3>2.7 Summary</H3>
<p>
T/TCP provides a simple mechanism that allows the number of segments
involved in a data transmission to be reduced--the TAO. This test allows
a client to open a connection, send data and close a connection all in
one segment. With TCP, opening a connection, transmission of data
and the closing of the connection are all completely separate processes.
<p>
The highest savings result with small data transfers. This leads to the
conclusion that T/TCP favors situations with small amounts of data to
be transferred. HTTP, RPCs and DNS are protocols that require
the exchange of small amounts of data.
<p>
<H3>3. Testing and Analysis</H3>
<p>
In order to investigate the benefits or drawbacks of this
implementation of T/TCP, it is important to both test its operation and
compare it to the original TCP/IP operation. I performed
these tests using the Linux 2.0.32 kernel with T/TCP modifications and
FreeBSD version 2.2.5 that already implements T/TCP.
<p>
<H3>3.1 Operation Examples</H3>
<p>
This section demonstrates the operation of the protocol under various
conditions.
<p>
<H3>3.1.1 Client Reboot</H3>
<p>
In this scenario, I rebooted the client and the TAO cache has been
reinitialized.
<p>
When the client attempts a connection with a server, it finds that the
latest CC value received from the server is undefined. Hence it sends
a CCnew option to indicate that a 3-way handshake is needed.
<p>
The sequence of segments below conforms to the protocol implementation.
<p>
<pre>
elendil.ul.ie.2177 &gt; devilwood.ece.ul.ie.8888: SFP 3066875000:3066875019(19) win 15928 &lt;mss 1460,nop,nop,ccnew 10&gt; (DF)
devilwood.ece.ul.ie.8888 &gt; elendil.ul.ie.2177: S 139872882:139872882(0) ack 3066875001 win 17424 &lt;mss 1460,nop,nop,cc 3, nop,nop,ccecho 10&gt; (DF)
elendil.ul.ie.2177 &gt; devilwood.ece.ul.ie.8888: F 20:20(0) ack 1 win 15928 &lt;nop,nop,cc 10&gt; (DF)
devilwood.ece.ul.ie.8888 &gt; elendil.ul.ie.2177: . ack 21 win 17405 &lt;nop,nop,cc 3&gt; (DF)
devilwood.ece.ul.ie.8888 &gt; elendil.ul.ie.2177: FP 1:31(30) ack 21 win 17424 &lt;nop,nop,cc 3&gt; (DF)
elendil.ul.ie.2177 &gt; devilwood.ece.ul.ie.8888: . ack 32 win 15928 &lt;nop,nop,cc 10&gt; (DF) 3.1.2 Normal T/TCP Transaction
</pre>
Once the client has completed its first transaction with the server,
the CC value in the TAO cache will contain a number. This allows the
client to send a normal CC option, indicating to the server that it may
bypass the 3-way handshake if possible.
<p>
The client and the server hold state information about the other host,
so the TAO test succeeds and the minimal 3-segment exchange is possible.
<p>
<pre>
elendil.ul.ie.2178 &gt; devilwood.ece.ul.ie.8888: SFP 2021229800:2021229819(19) win 15928 &lt;mss 1460,nop,nop,cc 11&gt; (DF)
devilwood.ece.ul.ie.8888 &gt; elendil.ul.ie.2178: SFP 164103774:164103804(30) ack 2021229821 win 17424 &lt;mss 1460,nop,nop,cc 4, nop,nop,ccecho 11&gt;
(DF)
elendil.ul.ie.2178 &gt; devilwood.ece.ul.ie.8888: . ack 32 win 15928 &lt;nop,nop,cc 11&gt; (DF)
</pre>
<H3>3.1.3 Server Reboot</H3>
<p>
If the server is rebooted after the previous two tests, all the state
information about the host will be lost.
<p>
When the client request arrives with a normal CC option, the server
forces a 3-way handshake since the CC value received from the client
is undefined. The SYNACK segment forces the 3-way handshake when
only the client SYN and not the data are acknowledged.
<p>
<pre>
elendil.ul.ie.2141 &gt; devilwood.ece.ul.ie.8888: SFP 2623134527:2623134546(19) win 15928 &lt;mss 1460,nop,nop,cc 9&gt; (DF)
arp who-has elendil.ul.ie tell devilwood.ece.ul.ie
arp reply elendil.ul.ie is-at 0:20:af:e1:41:4e
devilwood.ece.ul.ie.8888 &gt; elendil.ul.ie.2141: S 25337815:25337815(0) ack 2623134528 win 17424 &lt;mss 1460,nop,nop,cc 2, nop,nop,ccecho 9&gt; (DF)
elendil.ul.ie.2141 &gt; devilwood.ece.ul.ie.8888: F 20:20(0) ack 1 win 15928 &lt;nop,nop,cc 9&gt; (DF)
devilwood.ece.ul.ie.8888 &gt; elendil.ul.ie.2141: . ack 21 win 17405 &lt;nop,nop,cc 2&gt; (DF)
devilwood.ece.ul.ie.8888 &gt; elendil.ul.ie.2141: FP 1:31(30) ack 21 win 17424 &lt;nop,nop,cc 2&gt; (DF)
elendil.ul.ie.2141 &gt; devilwood.ece.ul.ie.8888: . ack 32 win 15928 &lt;nop,nop,cc 9&gt; (DF)
</pre>
<H3>3.1.4 Request or Reply Exceeds MSS</H3>
<p>
If the initial request exceeds the maximum segment size allowed,
the request will have to be fragmented.
<p>
When the server receives the initial SYN with just the data and no FIN,
depending on the time outs, it either responds with a SYNACK immediately
or waits for the FIN bit to arrive before responding with the SYNACK
that acknowledges all of the data. The server then proceeds to send the
multi-packet response if required.
<p>
<pre>
localhost.2123 &gt; localhost.8888: S 2184275328:2184278860(3532) win 14128 &lt;mss 3544,nop,nop,cc 5&gt; (DF)
localhost.2123 &gt; localhost.8888: FP 2184278861:2184279329(468) win 14128 &lt;nop,nop,cc 5&gt: (DF)
localhost.8888 &gt; localhost.2123: S 1279030185:1279030185(0) ack 2184278861 win 14096 &lt;mss 3544,nop,nop,cc 6,nop,nop,ccecho 5&gt;
localhost.2123 &gt; localhost.8888: F 469:469(0) ack 1 win 14128 &lt;nop,nop,cc 5&gt; (DF)
localhost.8888 &gt; localhost.2123: . ack 470 win 13627 &lt;nop,nop,cc 6&gt; (DF)
localhost.8888 &gt; localhost.2123: FP 1:31(30) ack 470 win 13627 &lt;nop,nop,cc 6&gt; (DF)
localhost.2123 &gt; localhost.8888: . ack 32 win 14128 &lt;nop,nop,cc 5&gt; (DF)
</pre>
<H3>3.1.5 Backward Compatibility</H3>
<p>
Because T/TCP is a superset of TCP, it must be able to communicate
seamlessly with other hosts not running T/TCP.
<p>
There are a couple of different scenarios in this situation. Some
implementations hold the data in the SYN until the 3-way handshake
has passed. In this situation the client only needs to resend the FIN
segment to let the server know that all the data has been sent. The
server then responds with normal TCP semantics.
<p>
In other implementations, the SYN segment is dumped once it has been
processed, including the data sent in the initial SYN. The server sends
a SYNACK acknowledging only the SYN sent. The client times out after a
period and resends the data and FIN. The server then proceeds as normal.
<p>
When testing the implementation for backward compatibility, I found an
unusual feature (bug?) of Linux. When a SYN is sent with the FIN bit set,
the Linux host responds with the SYNACK segment but also with the FIN
bit turned on. This causes the client to mistakenly believe the
server has sent the reply back to the client.
<p>
This problem was traced to the way Linux constructs its SYNACK segment. It
copies the header of the original SYN (and so all the flags), then sets
all the flags except the FIN flag. This results in the Linux host sending
a FIN without knowing it. I pointed this out to the developers of the
Linux kernel. Their reasoning was that T/TCP leaves hosts open to a SYN
flood attack and as such should not be allowed into main stream protocols.
As it turned out, it was only a small check that was needed to solve
this problem.
<p>
<pre>
elendil.ul.ie.2127 &gt; skynet.csn.ul.ie.http: SFP 520369398:520369417(19) win 15928 &lt;mss 1460,nop,nop,ccnew 7&gt; (DF)
skynet.csn.ul.ie.http &gt; elendil.ul.ie.2127: SF 2735307581:2735307581(0) ack 520369399 win 32736 &lt;mss 1460&gt;
elendil.ul.ie.2127 &gt; skynet.csn.ul.ie.http: F 20:20(0) ack 1 win 15928 (DF)<\n>
skynet.csn.ul.ie.http &gt; elendil.ul.ie.2127: . ack 1 win 32736 (DF)
elendil.ul.ie.2127 &gt; skynet.csn.ul.ie.http: FP 520369399:520369418(19) win 15928 &lt;mss 1460,nop,nop,ccnew 7&gt; (DF)<\n>
skynet.csn.ul.ie.http &gt; elendil.ul.ie.2127: . ack 21 win 32716 (DF)
skynet.csn.ul.ie.http &gt; elendil.ul.ie.2127: P 1:242(241) ack 21 win 32736 (DF)
skynet.csn.ul.ie.http &gt; elendil.ul.ie.2127: F 242:242(0) ack 21 win 32736
elendil.ul.ie.2127 &gt; skynet.csn.ul.ie.http: . ack 243 win 15928 (DF)
</pre>
<H3>3.2 Performance Analysis</H3>
<p>
To investigate the performance of T/TCP in comparison to the original
TCP/IP, I compiled a number of executables that returned different sized
data to the client. The two hosts involved were elendil.ul.ie (running
Linux) and devilwood.ece.ul.ie (running FreeBSD 2.2.5). The tests were
performed for 10 different response sizes to vary the number of segments
required to return the full response. Each request was sent 50 times and
the results averaged. The maximum segment size in each case is 1460 bytes.
<p>
The metric measured used for performance evaluation was the average
number of segments per transaction. I used <B>Tcpdump</B> to examine the packets
exchanged. Note that Tcpdump is not entirely accurate.
During fast packet exchanges, it tends to drop some packets to keep
up. This accounts for some discrepancies in the results.
<p>
<H3>3.2.1 Number of Packets per Transaction</H3>
<p>
<center>
<img alt="figure" src="gx/stacey/3075f4.gif">
<h4>Figure 4. Number of Segments versus Size of Data Transfer</h4></center>
<p>
Figure 4 shows the testing results for the number of segments
for T/TCP versus number of segments for normal TCP/IP. It is immediately
obvious that there is a saving of an average five packets. These five
packets are accounted for in the 3-way handshake and the packets
sent to close a connection. Lost packets and retransmissions cause
discrepancies in the path of the graph.
<p>
When using a
TCP client and a T/TCP server, there is still a saving of one segment. A
normal TCP transaction requires nine segments, but because the server was
using T/TCP, the FIN segment was piggybacked on the final data segment,
reducing the number of segments by one. Thus,
a reduction in segments results even if just one side is T/TCP aware.
<p>
<center>
<img alt="figure" src="gx/stacey/3075f5.gif">
<h4>Figure 5. Percentage Savings per Size of Data Transfer</h4></center>
<p>
Figure 5 shows the percentage savings for the different packet
sizes. The number of packets saved remains fairly constant, but because
the number of packets being exchanged increases,
the overall savings decreases. This indicates T/TCP is
more beneficial to small data exchanges. These test results were
obtained from two hosts on the same intranet. For comparison purposes,
the tests were repeated for a host on the Internet; www.elite.net was
chosen as the host. Requests were sent to the web server for similar
sized data. Figure 6 shows these results. This graph is not as smooth as
the graph seen in Figure 4 due to a higher percentage of packets being
lost and retransmitted.
<p>
<center>
<img alt="figure" src="gx/stacey/3075f6.gif">
<h4>Figure 6. Number of Segments versus Size of Data Transfer for Internet Host</h4></center>
<p>
<H3>3.3 Memory Issues</H3>
<p>
The main memory drain in the implementation is in the routing table. In
Linux, for every computer that the host comes into contact with, an
entry for the foreign host is made in the routing table. This applies
to a direct connection or along a multi-hop route. This routing table
is accessed through the <B>rtable</B> structure. The implementation of T/TCP
adds in two new fields to this structure, <B>CCrecv</B> and <B>CCsent</B>.
<p>
The entire size of this structure is 56 bytes. This isn't a major
memory hog on a small stand-alone host. On a busy server though, where
the host communicates with perhaps thousands of other hosts an hour, it can
be a major strain on memory. Linux has a mechanism where a route that is
no longer in use can be removed from memory. A check is run periodically
to clean out unused routes and those that have been idle for a time.
<p>
The problem here is the routing table holds the TAO cache. Thus, any time
a route containing the last CC value from a host is deleted, the
local host has to re-initiate the 3-way handshake with a CCnew segment.
<p>
A separate cache can be created to hold
the TAO values, but the route table is the handiest solution.
Also, a check can be added when cleaning out the routing entries
for a CC value other than zero (undefined). In
this case, the route could either be left for a longer time span
or permanently.
<p>
The benefits of leaving the routing entries up permanently are clear. The
most likely use of this option would be a situation where a host only talks
to a certain set of foreign hosts and denies access to unknown hosts. In
this case, it is advantageous to keep a permanent record in memory so
that the 3-way handshake can be bypassed more often.
<p>
<H3>3.4 Protocol Analysis</H3>
<p>
The original protocol specification (RFC1644) labeled T/TCP as an
experimental protocol. Since the RFC was published no
updates have been made to the protocol to fix some of the problems.
The benefits are obvious compared to the original TCP
protocol, but is it a case of the disadvantages out-weighing the advantages?
<p>
One of the more serious problems with T/TCP is that it opens
the host to certain denial-of-service attacks. SYN flooding (see
<A HREF="http://www.sun.ch/SunService/technology/bulletin/bulletin963.html">http://www.sun.ch/SunService/technology/bulletin/bulletin963.html</A> for
more information) is the term given to a form of denial of service
attack where the attacker continually sends SYN packets to a host. The
host creates a sock structure for each of the SYNs, thus reducing
the number of sock structures that can be made available to legitimate
users. This can eventually result in the host crashing if enough memory
is used up. SYN cookies were implemented in the Linux kernel to combat
this attack. It involves sending a cookie to the sender to verify
the connection is valid. SYN cookies cause problems with T/TCP as
no TCP options are sent in the cookie and any data arriving in the
initial SYN can't be used immediately. The CC option in T/TCP does
provide some protection on its own, but it is not secure enough.
<p>
Another serious problem was discovered during research was that
attackers can by-pass <B>rlogin</B> authentication. An attacker creates
a packet with a false IP address in it, one that is known to the
destination host. When the packet is sent, the CC options allow
the packet to be accepted immediately, and the data passed on. The
destination host then sends a SYNACK to the original IP address. When
this SYNACK arrives, the original host sends a reset, as it is not in
a SYN-SENT state. This happens too late, as the command will already
have been executed on the destination host. Any protocol that uses
an IP address as authentication is open to this sort of attack. (See
<A HREF="http://geek-girl.com/bugtraq/1998_2/0020.html">http://geek-girl.com/bugtraq/1998_2/0020.html</A>.) There are methods of
avoiding this security hole.
<p>
Kerberos is a third-party authentication
protocol but requires the presence of a certification authority and
an increase in the number of packets transferred. The IP layer has
security and authentication built into it. With the new IP version being
standardized, IPv6, the authentication of IP packets will be possible
without third-party intervention. This is accomplished through the use
of an authentication header that provides integrity and authentication
without confidentiality.
<p>
RFC1644 also has a duplicate transaction problem. This can be serious
for non-idempotent applications (repeat transactions are
very undesirable). Requesting time from a timeserver can be considered
idempotent because there is no adverse effect results on either the client or the
server if the transaction is repeated. In the case of a banking system
however, if an account transaction were repeated accidentally, the owner
would either gain or lose twice as much as anticipated. This error can
occur in T/TCP if a request is sent to a server and the server processes
the transaction, but before it sends back an acknowledgment the process
crashes. The client side times out and retransmits the request, if the
server process recovers in time, it can repeat the same transaction. This
problem occurs because the data in a SYN can be immediately passed
onto the process, rather then in TCP where the 3-way handshake has to
be completed before data can be used. The use of two-phase commits and
transaction logging can keep this problem from occurring.
<p>
<H3>3.5 Summary</H3>
<p>
This chapter illustrates the required functionality of T/TCP for
Linux. It also displays the advantages in speed and efficiency T/TCP
has over normal TCP.
<p>
T/TCP admittedly has some serious problems, but these problems are not
relevant to all situations. Where hosts have some form of protection
(other than pure T/TCP semantics) and basic security precautions are taken,
T/TCP can be used without any worries.
<p>
<H3>4. Case Study: T/TCP Performance over Suggested HTTP Improvements</H3>
<p>
With the World Wide Web being the prime example of a client-server transaction
processing nowadays, this section will focus on the benefits of T/TCP
to the performance of the Web.
<p>
Currently, the HTTP protocol sits in the application layer of the
TCP/IP reference model. It uses the TCP protocol to carry out all its
operations, UDP being too unreliable. There is a lot of latency involved
in the transfer of information, the 3-way handshake and the explicit
shutdown exchanges being the examples. Using the criteria specified in
section 2.1 it is apparent that the World Wide Web's operation is
one of transactions.
<p>
<H3>4.1 Web Document Characteristics</H3>
<p>
In a survey of 2.6 million web documents searched by the Inktomi web
crawler search engine (see: <A HREF="http://inktomi.berkeley.edu">
http://inktomi.berkeley.edu)</A> it was found
that the mean document size on the world wide web was 4.4KB, the median
size was 2.0KB and the maximum size that was encountered was 1.6MB.
<p>
Referring to figure 3.2 it can be seen that the lower the segment size,
the better the performance of T/TCP over normal TCP/IP. With a mean
document size of 4.4KB, this results in an average saving of just over
55% in the number of packets. When taking the median size into account,
there is a saving of approximately 60%.
<p>
Time-wise there will be an improvement in speed, depending of course on
the reliability of the network.
<p>
<H3>4.2 Suggested Performance Improvements for HTTP</H3>
<p>
There have been a number of suggestions put forward to improve the
operation of HTTP and reduce the time and bandwidth required downloading
information. Most of these suggestions have as their basis compression
and/or delta encoding.
<p>
<H3>4.2.1 Compression</H3>
<p>
At the moment, all web pages are transferred in plaintext form, requiring
little work from either the server side or the client side to display
the pages.
<p>
In order to introduce compression into the HTTP protocol, a number of
issues would have to be resolved.
<p>
First and foremost would be the issue of backward compatibility, with the
web having reached so far across the world, switching to compression would
take a long time. Browsers need to be programmed to handle compressed
web pages and web servers also need to be configured to compress the
information requested before sending it onto the user. It would be a
straightforward task for the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) to
introduce a compression standard. It would then be up to the vendors
and application writers to modify the browsers and servers for the
new standard.
<p>
Another issue would be the load placed on the server when it is requested
to compress the information. Many busy servers would not have the power
to handle the extra workload. This holds to a lesser extent on the client
side, with a minimal overhead involved in decompressing a few pages at
a time.
<p>
In their paper <20>Network Performance Effects of HTTP/1.1, CSSI and
PNG<EFBFBD>, the authors investigated the effect of introducing compression
to the HTTP protocol. They found that the compression resulted in a 64%
saving in the speed of downloading with a 68% decrease in the number of
packets required. Over normal TCP/IP, this brings the packet exchanges
and size of data down to the level where T/TCP becomes beneficial. Thus
a strategy involving both compression and T/TCP can result in enormous
savings in time and bandwidth.
<p>
<H3>4.2.2 Delta Encoding</H3>
<p>
In this situation, a delta refers to the difference between two
files. On UNIX systems, the <CODE>diff</CODE> command can be used to generate
the delta between two files. Using the changed file, and the delta,
the original file can be regenerated again, and vice-versa.
<p>
For delta encoding on the web, the client initially requests a document
and the complete document is downloaded. This will result in about a
55% benefit if using T/TCP and taking into account the mean size of
a document. Once the client has the page, it can be cached and stored
indeterminately. When the client requests the document the next time,
the browser will already have the original document cached. Using delta
encoding, the browser would present the web server with the last date
the cached document was modified. The server determines if the document
has been updated since the cached copy was stored, and if so, a delta of
the server side document is created. The delta, rather than the original
document are transferred.
<p>
Of course, there are quite a few difficulties that need to be considered.
<p>
<ol>
<li> The client needs to retain a cached copy of the document. This is not
so much a hassle with more modern browsers, as this is already done. In
fact the HTTP protocol defines a command that can be used to request the
last modified date from a document on a server. This is then compared to
the cached document and a decision made whether to download the new file,
or display the original.
<li> From the server side, multiple versions of the document have to be
cached to allow the server to create deltas. A decision has to be made
of how many changed versions are allowed. Should the older versions be
kept in the user side, or should a separate database of old versions be
kept? A more detailed study of the impact of caching documents can be
found in Braun &amp; Claffy's book (see Resources).
<li> In the case where there have been a number of updates to the server
side document since the client side was cached, it should be decided how
many updates are allowed before the new document is sent, as opposed to
sending a delta. The more changes applied to a document, the larger a
delta is, hence, a loss in the savings by using delta encoding.
<li> Again there is the question of the load placed on the server
by generating a delta for each document requested, similar to the
compression method.
</ol>
Mogul, et al. (see Resources) investigated the effect that delta encoding has on
the web. In their testing, they not only used delta encoding; they
also compressed the delta generated to further reduce the amount of
information transferred. They discovered that using the <20>vdelta<74> delta
generator and compression they could achieve up to 83% savings in the
transmission of data.
<p>
If this method was used with T/TCP, there could be as much as a further
66% saving in packets transferred. This is a total of 94% reduction in
packet transfer.
<p>
It should be noted however that this is a best case scenario. In this
situation, the document will already have been cached on both the server
and the client side, and the client and server will previously have
completed the 3-way handshake in order to facilitate the TAO tests.
<p>
<H3>4.2.3 Persistent HTTP</H3>
<p>
RFC2068 describes a modification to HTTP that maintains a continuous
connection to an HTTP server for multiple requests, P-HTTP. This
removes the inefficiency of continually reconnecting to a web server
to download multiple images from the same page. The constant connection
and reconnection results in a lot of unnecessary overhead.
<p>
Some advantages over the original HTTP protocol are:
<p>
<ol>
<li> Opening and closing fewer TCP connections save CPU time and memory.
<li> Multiple HTTP requests and responses can be sent without waiting for
a response that would otherwise be necessary when opening and closing
multiple connections.
<li> Network congestion is reduced since there are fewer packets.
</ol>
This technique is one step away from T/TCP. Instead of using transactions,
it uses persistent connections much like the TELNET protocol. In this
situation T/TCP would not be of much benefit, the connection will remain
open for a length of time, with multiple requests being exchanged. This
violates the transaction characteristics discussed in section 2.1.
<p>
<H3>4.3 Summary</H3>
<p>
Using the results obtained in section 3 and the characteristics of
documents available on the World Wide Web, a study is presented on how
T/TCP can benefit, or otherwise, some of the suggestions for improving
the HTTP protocol.
<p>
The main case for the introduction of compression and delta encoding is
the reduction in the size of the data that needs to be transferred. The
results obtained from the performance analysis of T/TCP suggest that
a greater benefit be obtained on small data transfers. The compression
and delta encoding ideas result in data small enough that can be sent
in one packet. Under these conditions, T/TCP operates best.
<p>
P-HTTP puts forward the idea that a connection should be semi-permanent,
unlike the current open-close operation HTTP currently employs. In this
scenario, T/TCP will not work at all because of its transaction-oriented
style.
<p>
<H3>5. Socket Programming Under T/TCP</H3>
<p>
Programming for T/TCP is slightly different using socket programming.
<p>
As an example, the chain of system calls to implement a TCP client would
be as follows:
<p>
<ul>
<li> socket(): create a socket
<li> connect(): connect to the remote host
<li> write(): write data to the remote host
<li> shutdown(): close one side of the connection
</ul>
Whereas with T/TCP the chain of commands would be:
<p>
<ul>
<li> socket(): create a socket
<li> sendto(): connect, send data, and close connection
</ul>
The <B>sendto</B> function has to be able to use a new flag
<tt>MSG_EOF</tt>,
to indicate to the kernel that it has no more data to send on this
connection. This is the transaction-processing coming into effect.
<p>
Programming under T/TCP is much like programming under UDP.
<p>
<H3>6. Conclusion</H3>
<p>
T/TCP was originally designed to address the need for a more efficient
protocol for transaction style applications. The original protocols
defined in the TCP/IP reference model were either too verbose or not
reliable enough.
<p>
T/TCP works by building on the TCP protocol and introducing a number of
new options that allow the 3-way handshake to be bypassed in certain
situations. When this occurs, the transaction can almost realize the
minimum number of segments that are required for a data transfer. T/TCP
can reduce the average number of segments involved in a transaction from 9
(TCP) to 3 using the TAO test. This has potential benefits to overloaded
networks where there is a need to introduce a more efficient protocol.
<p>
Analysis of T/TCP shows that it benefits small transaction-oriented
transfers more than large-scale information transfer. Aspects of
transactions can be seen in such cases as the World Wide Web, Remote
Procedure Calls and DNS. These applications can benefit from the use of
T/TCP in efficiency and speed. T/TCP reduces on average both the numbers
of segments involved in a transaction and the time taken.
<p>
As T/TCP is still an experimental protocol, there are problems
that need to be addressed. Security problems encountered include
the vulnerability to SYN flood attacks and rlogin authentication
bypassing. Operational problems include the possibility of duplicate
transactions occurring. Problems that occur less frequently would be the
wrapping of the CC values on high-speed connections and thus opening up
a destination host to accepting segments on the wrong connection.
<p>
Many people recognize the need for a protocol that favors transaction
style processing and are willing to accept T/TCP as the answer. The
security considerations lead to the conclusion that T/TCP would be
more useful in a controlled environment, one where there is little
danger from a would-be attacker who can exploit the weaknesses of the
standard. Examples of enclosed environments would be company Intranets
and networks protected by firewalls. With a lot of companies seeing
the web as the future of doing business, internal and external, a
system employing T/TCP and some of the improvements to HTTP, such as
compression and delta encoding, would result in a dramatic improvement
in speed within a company Intranet.
<p>
Where programmers are willing to accept T/TCP as a solution to
their applications, there are only minor modifications needed for
the application to become T/TCP aware. For client side programming,
it involves the elimination of the connect() and shutdown() function
calls, which can be replaced by adding the MSG_EOF flag to the sendto()
command. Server side modifications involve simply adding the MSG_EOF
flag to the send() function.
<p>
In conclusion, researches into T/TCP suggest that it is a protocol that
is nearly, but not quite, ready to take over transaction processing for
general usage. For T/TCP alone, more work needs to be done to develop it
further and solve the security and operational problems. Security problems
can be solved using other authentication protocols such as Kerberos and
the authentication facilities of IPv6. Operational problems can be dealt
with using greater transaction reliability built into the applications
that will use T/TCP, such as two phase commits and transaction logs.
<p>
Future work in this area could involve the promotion of T/TCP as an
alternative to the TCP and UDP protocols for certain applications. T/TCP
has been slow to take off. FreeBSD is the most widespread implementation
of T/TCP for PC computers. Now that Linux is T/TCP aware, it can push
the use of the protocol more. Applications can be easily modified to
use T/TCP when available, any applications that involve an open-close
connection can use T/TCP efficiently, and the more prominent examples
would be web browsers, web servers and DNS client-server applications. To
a smaller extent, applications such as time, finger and whois daemons can
benefit from T/TCP as well. There are many networking utilities available
that can take advantage of the efficiency of the protocol, all that is
needed is the incentive to do it. Perhaps a more immediate task though,
is to port the T/TCP code to the new Linux kernel series, 2.1.x.
<p>
<h3>Resources</h3>
<p>
Braun H W, Claffy K C, "Web Traffic Characterization: An Assessment of the
Impact of Caching Documents from NCSA's Web Server", Proceedings
of the Second World Wide Web Conference '94: Mosaic and the Web,
October 1994
<p>
Mogul J C, Douglis F, Feldmann A, Krishnamurthy B, "Potential Benefits of
Delta Encoding and Data Compression for HTTP", ACM SIGCOMM, September 1997
<p>
Prud'Hommeaux E, Lie H W, Lilley C, "Network Performance Effects
of HTTP/1.1, CSSI and PNG", ACM SIGCOMM, September 1997
<p>
Stevens W R, <I>TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 3, TCP for Transactions, HTTP,
NNTP, and the UNIX Domain Protocols</I>, Addison-Wesley, 1996
<p>
</body>
</html>
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright &copy; 1999, Mark Stacey<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--===================================================================-->
<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Teaching web site construction with Linux</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:award@mypic.ad">Alan Ward</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!-- END header -->
<p><b>Abstract</b></p>
<p>This article is mainly for teachers who wish to do some web site construction, though it may be of some interest to others. It is based on my personal experience these last four years. Each year I end up doing things in a different way, and this is intended as a summary of actual practice.</p>
<hr>
<p><b>Introduction</b></p>
<p>The main questions nowadays when teaching web construction are: </p>
<p><ul>
<li>(1) which environment do I use?</li>
<li>(2) which HTML editors are best?</li>
</ul></p>
<p>As for the environment, I mean on which server (as for software) shall our site be placed? The main choice is between a Microsoft server running under Windows NT (professional) or Windows 9X (local intranet), or on the other hand a Unix server. In this latter case, Apache seems to hold a large part of the market, though it is by no means a monopoly :-). </p>
<p>This is an important question as each server has its own capabilities and quirks.</p>
<p>The HTML editor question depends to a certain extent on our response to the first question. If we are developing for a Microsoft server, it makes sense to write our pages with MS Frontpage (complete or Express). The same goes for a Netscape server and Netscape Communicator. With a Unix/Linux, the debate can be more extensive.</p>
<p>You will notice that I have no particular tendency towards or away from Microsoft products. I am sure that Internet is large enough to find people working on any combination of hardware and software -- just as well! I personally develop with a Linux+Apache server and a Windows+iExplorer+Netscape+HotJava client.</p>
<p>Naturally, our answers to these questions depend both on personal choice and on the end result we want to produce. To analyse these, several factors can be taken into account, that I will formulate as questions.</p>
<hr>
<p><b>The server environment</b></p>
<p>The first factor is: "Do we want to produce something (i.e. a real web site) as a conclusion to our project?" The answer to this is almost always yes. Then, we must see where we will have it. Shall the web site be on a local network (intranet), or must it go global (internet)? Shall it start life locally (eg. for development and testing) -- and hope to go global later on (when complete)? If this is so, special care must be taken to use the same kind of server on both. </p>
<p>An example: say you develop locally with a MS Personal Web Server, and when finished send your site to your favourite ISP -- who runs Unix+Apache. On PWS, it is easy to write "\" for "/" to separate subdirectories, and PWS works fine. Apache does not, holding to the Unix convention (makes sense, right?). A stupid mistake, but it happened to me.</p>
<p>So this is where Linux steps in. The Apache server works in exactly the same fashion on your local 486 Linux box and on your ISP's Sun/Solaris. So you have a fair certainty that if it works for you, it will also work on the Web. This point is particularly important when teaching kids: if what they do doesn't work because they messed up, that's OK. If it doesn't work because of a "technical problem", uh-oh. :-(</p>
<p>All the more reason to know your ISP. Mine is one student's parent -- so anything I do in class goes back home for checking! Keeps me on my feet.</p>
<p>Another point that can be made -- and that I had pointed out to me by students -- is the use of an FTP client. Web maintenance is something I like to speak about in my classes. However most maintenance is done nowadays through the use of FTP to upload pages to the server. As you may know, Microsoft Frontpage uses the local network to upload pages directly on a local server, while a Linux+Apache server almost always has a FTP server running, just like a "big" Unix box. </p>
<p>So one can practice locally the moves to upload pages to the server, before going online. You can also address matters such as home directories on the server, versus ".public" directories.</p>
<p>My experience so far is that my classes on Unix/Linux help students understand better the intricacies of web servers, while my classes on web maintenance help them find real-life, direct applications for their Unix knowledge. I guess it is important to give a complete and coherent picture.</p>
<hr>
<p><b>The HTML editor</b></p>
<p>So we have our local server chosen, and going for developing. Now, the question is: "Which editor do I use?"</p>
<p>I like to start out with a plain-text editor, so they can get the feel of pure HTML coding, before going on to something more sofisticated. If they can write HTML, they will soon learn to use an advanced editor such as Frontpage, and -- perhaps more importantly -- be able to correct the editor's output. The reverse is not always true.</p>
<p>Under Windows, I use NotePad. Mainly to escape from issues related to different file formats that can be a pain with Write, Works or Word. Under Linux, I use whichever is convenient (gedit, kedit, vi ...). I am writing this article with my favourite: Emacs with HTML mode enabled.</p>
<p align=center><img src="gx/ward/img1.jpg"></p>
<p>When going on to a more advanced editor, Netscape Composer is a choice I will work with this course. This is because it is available on many platforms: my students have at home Intel boxes under Windows and Linux (my fault!), and also Macintoshes. I have been unable to find as many versions of other editors such as MS Frontpage Express or Hotmetal. The complete MS Frontpage I leave alone, as it doesn't seem to interface well with Unix servers.</p>
<p>Even further on, it is worth to examinate the possibilities of MS Word or Publisher. OK, I know they both produce really ghastly HTML code! But they do produce this code -- from existing documents -- with relative ease. I gave a course on Frontpage this summer, and ended up realizing that most students (they were in fact fellow teachers undergoing "formation") would use Word to produce their pages. The fact was they all wanted to publish texts -- they had written in Word -- on the Web. Now, when I get my hands on StarOffice, I may have to revise this judgement.</p>
<hr>
<p><b>Debugging</b></p>
<p>A further factor is: "Who's going to read me, and with which browser?" As you may know, HTML browsers may produce a quite different output from a same page. And to paraphrase Moore's Law: if there exists a weird browser, someone out there is sure to use it. </p>
<p>The only way to ensure that what we've produced is more or less universally accepted is to debug: ie. try out our site locally on different browsers. Ideally, it would be nice to:</p>
<p><ul>
<li>try it on different hardware platforms, at least on the more usual ones (Intel+Windows, Intel+Linux, Macintosh)</li>
<li>try it out on different browsers (iExplorer3.0 to 5.0, Netscape, HotJava, Arena, Lynx (?) ). Most of these are found on most O.S.</li>
<li>try it out with different screen resolutions (640x480, 800x600, 1024x768). A large screen is nice, but not everybody has one!</li>
</ul></p>
<p align=center><img src="gx/ward/img2.jpg"></p>
<p>This can also be a practical way of comparing OS in the classroom, so that students can see the diversity of OS and browsers available. Not a bad way of introducing Linux to students who are yet in the Windows stage.</p>
<p>You can also see what works with each. Some problems can come from:
<p><ul>
<li>"advanced" HTML features (DHTML, VRML)</li>
<li>frames</li>
<li>Java. Problems arise in some cases with Netscape 4.6 (buggy) and ... the HotJava browser!</li>
</ul></p>
<p>One last point that deserves attention and debugging is (for us Latin charset users) accentuation. For example, I test my pages with both a Spanish and a French Windows (accents have different ASCII codes with these charsets).</p>
<hr>
<p><b>Conclusion and previsions</b></p>
<p>Although the final impression, after these four years, is to a certain extent one of confusion, at least I know why this is so. On Internet, many different hardware and software (<b>and</b> meatware) setups coexist. In fact, it is one of the only ways many people do get in touch with this diversity. </p>
<p>So, from a teacher's point of view, either one can close one's eyes and bury one's head in the sand (see no evil, hear no evil), or one can face this diversity -- and pass it on to the students (say no evil!). Is it good to address such diversity directly, with the consequent danger of muddling things up? I can only answer speaking from my personal situation: I feel my kids (17-18 year-olds) have enough experience as users of Internet so that this diversity has been creeping gradually up into their conscience. So if I straighten out the questions that do arise, that can't be too bad.</p>
<p>A similar field I would like to work in this course is web programming, both server-side (CGI) and client-side (Java). Here, the Apache server once more gives me what I need to develop CGI with both C and Perl, unlike Microsoft. A point to consider is that my ISP allows me to include Perl scripts in my page, but not programs in C (that he would have to recompile).</p>
<p>On the other hand, the Java Development Kit (JDK) is available for downloading from Sun (java.sun.com) both for Linux and for Windows. Another thing I also liked a lot is their habit of giving many examples. Is there a better way of learning to program?</p>
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
[Editor's note: The author's previous article in </EM>LG<EM> #45, </EM>
<A HREF=../issue45/ward/ward.html>
Sharing a Linux server under X in the classroom</A><EM>, is now
available in Hungarian as</EM>
<A HREF=http://www.sulinet.hu/inform/szakkor/wardhu.htm>
Linux szerver megoszt&aacute;sa a tanteremben X-Window
seg&iacute;ts&eacute;g&eacute;vel</A>.<EM> -Ed.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
<!-- BEGIN copyright ==================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright &copy; 1999, Alan Ward<BR>
Published in Issue 47 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, November 1999</H5>
<!-- END copyright ===================================================-->
<P> <hr> <P>
<H1><font color="maroon">The Back Page</font></H1>
<ul>
<li><a HREF="#authors">About This Month's Authors</a>
<li><a HREF="#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">Steven Adler</H4>
While not building <a href="http://www.phenix.bnl.gov">detectors</a>
in search of the quark gluon plasma, Steve Adler spends his time either
4 wheeling around the lab grounds or writing articles about the people
behind the open source movement.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Larry Ayers</H4>
Larry Ayers lives with his family on a small farm in Northeast
Missouri; he is a woodworker, fiddler and general
jack-of-all-trades. He can be reached at
layers@vax2.rainis.net.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Eugene Blanchard</H4>
Eugene is an Instructor at the Southern Alberta Institute of
Technology in Calgary, Alberta, Canada where he teaches electronics,
digital, microprocessors, data communications, and operating
systems/networking in the Novell, Windows and Unix worlds. When he is not
spending quality time with his wonderful wife and 18 month old daughter
watching Barney videos, he can be found in front of his Linux box. His
hobbies are hiking, backpacking, bicycling and chess.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Pedro Paulo Ferreira Bueno and Antonio Pires de Castro Junior</H4>
Pedro is a Science Computer Student from Catholic University
of Goi&aacute;s (UCG- Brazil) and the manager of LinuxGO, the Goi&aacute;s
Linux User Group and the network card moderator at Linux Knowledge Base. He is
a maniac linux user since he started with Linux in Kernel 2.0.7. When he is
not in front of his linux machine he is probability playing soccer. He can be
reached at
<A HREF=mailto:pedro.bueno@persogo.com.br>pedro.bueno@persogo.com.br</A>.
<P> Antonio is a masters degree student at UNICAMP. He is co-founder of LinuxGO
and his favorite research topic is Network Communication. He can be reached
at: <A HREF=mailto:apcastro@dcc.unicamp.br>apcastro@dcc.unicamp.br</A>
<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">Alex Heizer</H4>
<A HREF=mailto:alex@nostromo.cc>Alex</A> is a computer enthusiast living in
New Jersey. He began on UNIX mainframes at his father's company as a child in
the '70s and has worked on most varieties of desktop computers. Although most
of his experience in the past 10 years has been on Microsoft (yecch!), his
first ISP in 1994 ran Linux, and he has used and advocated Linux exclusively
for more than a year.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Peter Lukas</H4>
Peter currently works as a Security Engineer for a large Midwestern
Internet Service Provider. When he's not fighting crime on-line, he enjoys
writing and improving his golf game. He can be reached by sending mail to
<A HREF=mailto:peter@math.umn.edu>peter@math.umn.edu</A>.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Vladimir Makarov</H4>
Vladimir has been a member of GCC team of
<A HREF="http://www.cygnus.com">Cygnus</A> since March 1998.
He has worked in the compiler field since 1980. He has been a Linux user since
1993.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Bill Mote</H4>
Bill is the Technical Support Services manager for a multi-billion dollar
publishing company and is responsible for providing 1st and 2nd level
support services to their 500+ roadwarrior sales force as well as their
3,500 workstation and laptop users. He was introduced to Linux by a good
friend in 1996 and thought Slackware was the end-all-be-all of the OS world
... until he found Mandrake in early 1999. Since then he's used his
documentation skills to help those new to Linux find their way.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Mark Nielsen</H4>
Mark founded The Computer Underground, Inc. in June of 1998. Since then,
he has been working on Linux solutions for his customers ranging from custom
computer hardware sales to programming and networking. Mark specializes in Perl,
SQL, and HTML programming along with Beowulf clusters. Mark believes in the
concept of contributing back to the Linux community which helped to start his
company. Mark and his employees are always looking for exciting projects to do.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Jesper Pedersen</a></H4>
Jesper lives in Odense, Denmark. He is the author of the book "Sams Teach
Yourself Emacs in 24 Hours", the program "The Dotfile Generator", the Emacs
package "Power Macros", and is the chairman of the Linux User Group on Funen in
Denmark. In his spare time, he enjoys drinking wine and listening to music
(esp. Depeche Mode) with his girlfriend Anne Helene, and walking in the nature.
For more information on Jesper, the Emacs book, The Dotfile Generator or
Power Macros, please visit <A HREF=http://www.imada.sdu.dk/~blackie/>
www.imada.sdu.dk/~blackie/</A>.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">JC Pollman</H4>
I have been playing with linux since kernel 1.0.59. I spend way too much
time at the keyboard and even let my day job - the military - interfere once in
a while. My biggest concern about linux is the lack of documentation for the
intermediate user. There is already too much beginner's stuff, and the
professional material is often beyond the new enthusiast.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Bob Reid</H4>
Rob is doing his Ph.D. in Astronomy at the University of Toronto, where he
was a system administrator on the side for a while along with running his own
Linux boxes at home and school since 1995.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Anderson Silva</H4>
<A HREF="http://www.4christ.org/anderson.html">Anderson</A>
is a Senior at Liberty University majoring in Computer Science.
Originally from Brazil, now he works at the University's
<A HREF="http://www.liberty.edu/itrc">Information Technology
Center</A>. He is also a member of the <A HREF="http://www.lylug.org/">
Lynchburg Linux User Group</A> in Lynchburg, Virginia.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Slambo</H4>
I've been playing with PCs since the early 80s, and got a hold of Linux about 2
years ago. For the last 7 years I have provided end-user computer support, and
written documentation mainly for other support reps. In the last year I have
begun writing for publication, including articles in <I>Linux Gazette</I> and
contributing some chapters for "Special Edition Using KDE" (Que Publishing, due
out November 99). I am a member of the
<A HREF=http://madlug.jvlnet.com>Madison Linux User Group</A> and the
<A HREF=http://www.oswg.org>Open Source Writers Group</A>. When I'm not
working or playing on my computer, I am building and operating model railroads
and attending meets of the <A HREF=http://www.scwd-nmra.org>South Central
Wisconsin Division NMRA</A> and the
<A HREF=http://www.msn.fullfeed.com/~slambo/capcity.htm>Capitol City
"N"Gineers</A>.
I can be reached via email at <A HREF=mailto:slambo@linuxstart.com>
slambo@linuxstart.com</A>.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Mark Stacey</H4>
Mark Stacey &lt;<A HREF=mailto:Mark.Stacey@icl.ie>Mark.Stacey@icl.ie</A>&gt;
graduated from the University of Limerick, Ireland, in 1998 with a first class
honors degree in Computer Engineering. His interests include Java programming
and Web development. He currently works for ICL in the Information Technology
Center based in Dublin, Ireland.
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Alan Ward</H4>
"Alan teaches CS in Andorra at highschool and university levels. He's
back to Unix this year after an 8-year forced interlude since he
graduated -- it makes networking so much easier. His hobbies include
science photography (both digital and traditional), trekking, rock and
processor collecting.
<a name="notlinux"></a>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->
<center><H3><font color="maroon">Not Linux</font></H3></center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--======================================================================-->
<IMG ALT="[ Penguin reading the Linux Gazette ]"
SRC=../gx/lg-penguin.gif ALIGN=right>
<P>
<P> This month's <I>Gazette</I> is again chock-full of articles --- 19 of them,
not counting the regular columns. Way to go, authors!
New features this month include the subject index for the Answer Guy, and a
new series. Slambo has begun a series of web site reviews called "LSOTM (Linux
Site O' The Month)".
<P> Professor A Cartelli wrote in about his Italian translation of the
<I>Gazette</I>, so I took the opportunity to ask how long it takes to do the
translation and how many people are involved. He said, "Too much time, not
enough people. We are usually one month late after your magazine. It usually
takes 6-10 people."
<P> The <I>Gazette</I> received 389 letters this month. Of these, 104 were
spam. The <STRONG><I>Linux Gazette</I> Spam Count </STRONG> for November is
therefore 26%, down 2% from last month.
<P> Here are excerpts from the more hilarious ads:
<UL>
<LI> "The information in this message is private and confidential and
is intended for the addressed recipient only.... Dear fellow investor,"
Yeah, right. "Private &amp; confidential".<P>
<LI> Another "accidentally redirected" e-mail: "Hi George it's Steve.
I don't know why are you changing your e-mail adress so often ,but I hardly
keep track of your adress. I finished my site . You said you want to earn
some money easy way,and you can download that funny gift photo I toled you
about ."<P>
<LI> "I net over $400 my FIRST DAY selling the most sought
after product in the world. As a bonus for joining, I will give you info on a $275 free
electricity self contained unit that doesn't even need batteries.
It will run everything in your house when the power goes out.
You will never have an electric bill again... to get
fresh water right out of the ocean (with no operating costs to
make it); heat paint to keep snow and ice off the driveway;
cooling without using a refrigerant; a mug that converts junk
food into food that is good for you; a pocket device found
to protect people from all major: diseases, toxins, chemicals
and pesticides; and even more.." Sounds like ubik, the reality-enhancing
spray/ointment/salve in Philip K Dick's novel <I>Ubik</I>.<P>
<LI> "Look, we don't want to waste your time...or ours You must be
determined to earn a bare minimum of $10,000 in the next 30 - 45 days and to
develop a net worth of over 1 Million Dollars Cash in the next 24-36 months...
Don't bother to call unless you are serious."<P>
<LI> "TRIPPLE THE SPEED ON YOUR PC !" The web site allows you to order
by credit card (of course). Price is US$299.00, but if you order before it's
released November 15, it's a special $19.99. There's just one thing missing from the ad and the web site:
<EM>what <STRONG>is</STRONG> this product?</EM> Software? Hardware? Is it
Linux-compatible? Whatever it is, it comes with a 100% guarantee and the
promise, "The program will not change anything on your PC apar from increasing
the speed on your PC by 300%." And cows can fly, I bet.<P>
</UL>
<P> This edition of the <I>Linux Gazette</I> was brought to you by the Dropkick
Murphys, Anti-Flag, H20, and Punk-O-Rama 4, which were playing in my walkman
continuously as I formatted the columns and the Table of Contents.
<p><hr><p>
<center>
<I>Linux Gazette</I> Issue 47, September 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>
</center>
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