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<TITLE>The Answer Guy 55: Left in the Lurch</TITLE>
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<H1><A NAME="answer">
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<font color="#B03060">The Answer Guy</font>
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<BR>
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<H4>By James T. Dennis,
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<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com">linux-questions-only@ssc.com</a><BR>
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LinuxCare,
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<A HREF="http://www.linuxcare.com/">http://www.linuxcare.com/</A>
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<H3 align="left"><img src="../../gx/dennis/qbubble.gif"
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height="50" width="60" alt="(?) " border="0"
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>Left in the Lurch</H3>
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<H4 ALIGN="center">or: Uninstalling Linux the Hard Way</H4>
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<p><strong>From Kevin Lampert on Mon, 12 Jun 2000
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</strong></p>
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<!-- ::
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Left in the Lurch
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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or: Uninstalling Linux the Hard Way
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:: -->
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<P><STRONG><CODE>
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answer guy,
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</CODE></STRONG></P>
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<P><STRONG>
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i have been going through your suggestions off the web for uninstalling
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red hat, but i have an even bigger problem, i have no resecue disk and i
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have no way of getting into red hat. The problem orginated because a
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former employee loaded red hat on a pc and no one knows anyway to gain
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access into the pc now since no one knows any of the user names or
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paswords that he set. So, my question is "how do I get rid of red hat
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with no rescue disk or no access into red hat?"
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Any suggestions you have will be greatly appreciated.
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kl
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</STRONG></P>
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<BLOCKQUOTE><IMG SRC="../../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
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HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
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>
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Well, here's a couple of ideas:
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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First you could break into the system. I've described "recovering
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lost passwords" on a few occasions and you can search the back
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issues or the FAQ for details on that. Here's the short form:
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE><ol>
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<li> Reboot the system. (Try [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Del], then try
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[Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Backspacel] followed quickly by
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[Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Del]. If those fail you, power cycle it).
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<li> As it boots after the BIOS messages and the initial keyboard
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LED flashes, toggle the [scroll lock] and/or [caps lock]
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keys. (That should bring up the LILO prompt, even if it
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wasn't showing up before --- unless it's been configured
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specially).
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<li> At the LILO: prompt hit the [Tab] key. A list of boot
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"labels" should appear. Usually one of them will be
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named "Linux" or "linux" or something like that.
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Choose any one of those and type its name (case-sensitive)
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following by the following string:
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<BLOCKQUOTE><code>
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init=/bin/sh rw
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</code></BLOCKQUOTE>
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<li> Hit [Enter]
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</ol></BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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Now, if all of that went O.K. you should see the Linux kernel
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starting up. However, instead of going though the usual init
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process and running a whole mess of rc* scripts, it should
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just start a shell.
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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If you wanted to change the password and regain control of the
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system at this point you'd type the following commands
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(ignoring any errors for the moment --- some of them are just
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to account for common configurations that might not match yours):
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE><BLOCKQUOTE><CODE>
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mount /usr
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<BR>passwd # and create a new password...
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<BR>sync
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<BR>mount -o remount,ro /
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<BR>umount /usr
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<BR>exec /sbin/init 6
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</CODE></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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... and wait for the system to shutdown and reboot (with your
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password setting safely saved).
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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However, you've said that you want to blindly remove Linux from
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this box. So, at the shell prompt you can type something like:
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE><BLOCKQUOTE><CODE>
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dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda #DANGEROUS!!!!
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</CODE></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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... which will zero out the whole primary IDE hard drive.
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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... of course that's overkill. You could just add count=1 to that
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command to limit the damage to the MBR (master boot record) which
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is sufficient that any other OS you try to install should then
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consider this drive to be empty.
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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Of course there might be some glitches to this approach. Your
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former employee might have been a security nut and might have
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protected the boot sequence with a CMOS/Setup password. He or
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she might also have put in a LILO password. He or she might not
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have been using LILO at all -- there are a few alternative boot
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loader for Linux.
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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In the worst case you could use a screw driver, open the case,
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take out the hard drive and temporarily put it into another
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system, and use that to erase the drive. If you do have to go
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to that extreme, I suggest you take the drive, or the whole
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system, down to "PC Repair-o-rama" (any place that repairs PCs
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--- like CompUSA, Fry's, etc). They should be able to do the
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job for about $70 (and it would take way more than $70 of my
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time to explain all the possible complications of removing a
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drive, and temporarily installing it in another computer;
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especially since I don't even now if that system is SCSI,
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IDE, or something old or exotic like ESDI, SMD, or ST506 ---
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RLL/MFM).
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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A whole other approach would be to download a copy of
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Tom Oehser's Root/Boot (or any of several other mini-distributions
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of Linux that fit on a single floppy or a couple of floppies).
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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You could get Tom's Root/Boot image from <A HREF="http://www.toms.net/rb"
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>http://www.toms.net/rb</A>
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... and he does have a .ZIP file with the Linux image, a
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<TT>RAWRITE.EXE</TT> utility and instructions on creating a Linux rescue
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diskette from an MS-DOS prompt.
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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If you use the root/boot diskette on this errant <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">Red Hat</A> system,
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(assuming that it doesn't CMOS/Setup passwords that prevent you
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from doing a floppy boot), then you can use that to wipe out
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the data on your hard drive using the same 'dd' command I
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described above. Notice that you should NOT use that command if
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there is ANYTHING on that hard drive that you want to save.
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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You can also use Tom's root/boot to change the passwords on your
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system --- and thereby regain control of it. To do that
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you'd insert the following commands before my "mount <TT>/usr</TT>"
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command above:
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<blockquote><pre> mount /dev/hda? /mnt
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cd /mnt
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chroot . /bin/sh
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</pre></blockquote>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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... where hda? might be hda1, hda2 or something like sda1, sda2
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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etc. (Explaining that would take a bit longer. hd* are all
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of the IDE drives, hda is the master on the primary IDE interface,
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hdb is the slave, hdc is the master on the secondary IDE, etc.;
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those might include the CD-ROM. sd* are all the SCSI hard drives
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on the system sda through sdz (if you had that many). However,
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SCSI CD-ROM are NOT included in that list, they get names like
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scd0, scd1 etc.).
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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... The command examples I'm giving here are not the BEST way
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to do this; they are simply the easiest set to explain such that
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they are most likely to work on the widest variety of systems.
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
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With about 20 million copies of Linux installed, I guess the
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this knowlege has become de riguer even for NT, Netware, and MS
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Windows help desk specialists.
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</BLOCKQUOTE>
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<!-- end 19 -->
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<P> <hr> </p>
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<H5 align="center"><a href="http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html"
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>Copyright ©</a> 2000, James T. Dennis
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<BR>Published in <I>The Linux Gazette</I> Issue 55 July 2000</H5>
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<H6 ALIGN="center">HTML transformation by
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<A HREF="mailto:star@tuxtops.com">Heather Stern</a> of
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Tuxtops, Inc.,
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<A HREF="http://www.tuxtops.com/">http://www.tuxtops.com/</A>
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</H6>
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