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Date: Tue, 06 Jan 1998 17:09:31 +1000
From: Peter Scott webguru@planet-sex.com
Subject: Help - Adding third hard drive
I've been using Slackware Linux 2.0.29 for quite some time. I've managed with 2 drives with partitions for Win95 and Linux, but now I need to add another drive. It is recognised in the BIOS and can be found in Windoze, but I get no joy from Linux. I expected to be able to mount the drive straight away. Do I need to do some insnod or mke2fs or something.
The Mailbag!
# mount /dev/hdc1 /mnt
mount: the kernel does not recognize /dev/hdc1 as a block device
(may# fdisk /dev/hdc
# fdisk /dev/hdc
Unable to open /dev/hdc
I've got a fealing that I need to reconfigure Lilo or something? I know
that I've forgotten something obvious, but I've wasted hours without any
joy.
thanx,
pete
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 1998 19:55:08 +0000
From: George Russell george.russell@clara.net
Subject: Installing StarOffice 3.1 on Redhat 4.2
I'm having difficulties installing StarOffice onto my system. I've
installed the rpms for static binaries, common files, english demos and
english docs. I've run the setup script and done a user install, after
updating libc and ld.so, and would like to now run the package. It says
to install two daemons, svdaemon and svportmap . These both need
something called rpc and the portmap daemon, which I can find no
reference to on my system. How can I install these so that StarOffice
will run. All help gratefully recieved.
--
George Richard Russell
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 05:55:26 -0600
From: ReXsOn RuLeZ abernal@theonramp.net
Subject: Question....
Hello there... sorry to bother with probably one of the stupidist questions in the world, but I want to install Linux on my computer; the problem is that I share a computer with my family and of course they don't have a clue of what I do so they don't care, they just want to be able to use office to do their work. I've looked around various Linux sites trying to find an answer but I've been unsuccesful. My question is this: As I told you I have a windows95 box and all the documents that
Are outthere focus on installing linux in a DOS environment which in my case and a lot of people it's history. I have a 3 gig hardrive that I think is partitioned already in 2 because I have a c: and d: I'm not sure if they're separate hardrives or one is partitioned. What I would like to know is what should I do here. I'm not sure if my second drive which is 1 gig is already formated for windows which I think it is because it has a recyble bin. I don't know what to do because I'm afraid that if I delete or erase the partition the whole thing will become one hardrive and I will have to erase everything to partition that one hardrive. I was kind of hoping there was a way or partitionin my second hardrive (d:) and leave a part for windows and another for Linux.
As I told you earlier I'm sorry to make this kind of questions but if I damage something of this computer my dad would prive me of even looking at it, and I don't want that to happen. I would really aprecciate your help since I'm really eagered to use Linux.
Thanx in advance for your help.
Rexson
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 20:39:14 -0400
From: Frank Nazario webmaster@prplaza.net
Subject: HI...
I've just finished browsing your Gazzettte and it is very cool...as a web administrator at http://www.prplaza.net I was fedup with the performance and slowness of an NT enviroment and decided kind of reluctant to migrate to Linux (right now i'm a green thumb at it)... But and a big BUT after seen a single processor pentium pro 200 server running linux redhat 5.0 and Apache Webserver blow the doors of a dual pentium pro 200 running on NT and IIS3.0...i was sold in the spot....never to touch Microsoft NT again ... and feeling good about it.
My problem is this one ... I've gone bananas in trying to find a document that explains how to install, in a step by step fashion, the Apache SSL "extensions" to one of my Apache WWW Webservers (the performance increase is awesome) can you or anyone that reads this help...
thanks beforehand for you response....
Frank Nazario San Juan, Puerto Rico
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 11:36:50 -0500
From: Michael Vore mvore@digex.net
Subject: Problems with CD-ROM
Admittedly I'm not sure where the problem lies, When using NT-4/Netscape
Communicator-4
to view the cdrom all links look like "file:///El/lj/
At the moment I don't have X running on my Linux machine - it's a new
install of
RedHat and during the upgrade I forgot to same the XConfig files.
mike
Is there any way to make a screenshot of a graphical program that runs on
the console (_not_ in X)?
I am using X to connect to my ISP via the netcfg command. I have it
starting
up at boot time. This works great, but I was wondering where the chat
script
and pppd command are hiding for the ppp interface that you can create via
netcfg.
I was also wondering if there was a way to prevent my ISP from dropping me
after a given time of activity. I am using a cron job to ping to my isp,
but
that does not seem to prevent this from happening. Should I try pinging to
a
server other than my ISP?
Thanks, Jonathan Smith.
I'm a new Linux user (kernel 2.0.29). My sound card
is a MED3931, with a chip OPTi 82c931.
As it is a PnP card, I use the isapnptools-1.9
package, loading the sound support as a module.
I've tried configure it as a MAD16 or MSS
(Microsoft Sound System) but it hasn't worked
in any way.
I don't know if the problem is with the IRQ/DMA/IO
settings (I use the same ones as with Windows 95)
that I set in the /etc/isapnp.conf file, or it is
that the sound driver (OSS/Free) just doesn't
support this card.
Can you help? Thank you.
I have an inter pentium, and I would like to install LINUX in my
computer.
But, I don't know from were can i download the installation files (for
free), I heard that LINUX is a free softwere, but i don't find a site
that i can download for free LINUX.
Please help me to find such a site (and also some install instractions).
Thank you,
I am having problem connecting to the POP3 Server in Linux.
This problem only arise when a new email arrives or there are mails in
my mailbox
If I delete all my mails I can connect to the POP3 Server.
Error message I get is:
ERR - being read already /usr/spool/mail/
I have removed the account and recreated it again. Still problem occurs.
And I know I am the only one logged on.
The only way I can read my mails is manually telneting to the Linux and
use either pine or mail from the unix command
Any Suggestions ?
PETER LEE
I really want to print some using postscript form but I can't ...
So, I have read a lot of docs and unfortunately when I try to print some I
just got the postscript language.
I tried configure the 'printcap' and so on but.
My printer is a CANON 4200 Bj and I am running Slackware 96 Linux
Version.
Oh: I just gave a look at the RedHat 5.0 comments and seems it
make easier. I am thinking about purchase it.
Thanks a lot. I would appreciate a reply.
Regards,
Rafael.
Hi. I'm new to Linux, and my problem is installing my monitor, an IBM 8514,
for use with X-Window. I use an S3 Virge 86C325 accelerator card.
After installing Red Hat 4.2, the monitor works fine for command line, but
when I try using it for X-Window, the screen shrivels up to something less
than a 3x5 recipe card! I've tried reconfiguring different combinations of
color depths and screen resolutions, and have come up with everything from a
blank screen to 'your worst nightmare'.
I'm stumped. I've tried the different FAQ sites, but can't find one that
can give me a hint of how to configure this monitor for use with X-Window.
I'd appreciate any help anyone can give me. I had to resort to installing
Win95 and IE (which work for this monitor/card) just to send this out.
Thanks in advance for any help I can get.
Zak
I am not a very literate person on the internet, so many of the
vernaculars used are over my head. However, am having a problem of
people "killing" me when they wish to , on Java Chat room. I would like
to be able to eliminate my Remote number coming up with my user name .
Is there a simple way of doing this? I do not desire these people to
locate my server & other information. Thanks for your response, if you
can give me help. If not, then thank you anyhow.
Sincerely yours,
Anne L
I have just purchased a MicroVAX 3400 and 3300. I would like to put Linux on
these two systems. Can you provide any help in this aspect.
Dennis
I've been hunting around for linux software for toddlers. My
eldest (3) has had fun with xpaint, and he likes to "type",
but there's a lot more going on at his level on my DOS partition. (:-(
So far, my searches in the linux world have turned up...nothing.
Does anyone know of anything out there?
Cheers,
Glen Fowler's article comparing NT and linux
processes is
too long for the gazette (IMHO) and
didn't print out good from netscape...
HTML is not the best media for everything, maybe the gazette
should have an abstract and a URL for a postscript or tex master.
marty
In the January issue, you ask for readers to write an article on
how to connect a LAN via just 1 IP address...
That is rather unnecesarry - there is a mini-HOWTO
on it, called "IP Masquerade mini-HOWTO".
Available from your favorite LDP mirror.
Trond Eivind Glomsrød
Hello I am a newbie to Linux and I am very excited that I stumbled
across the Linux Gazette.. I have been wanting to put up a home LAN with
2 pc's for some time ... and the article on SAMBA has put me on the
right track. I am a computer science student here in Wisconsin and I
love using linux. I will keep reading .. I just hope that you keep
printing.. Thanks again and I hope I can contribute in the future to
this great Mag.
Chris Rennert
I'm sending this maybe as news, perhaps Linux stability and advocacy.
I heard that the record for keeping up a Linux server up continuously without
reboot is six months. Here's the output from executing 'w' on our Linux 1.2.8
system.
Let us know
I'm not intending to kick of a debate of the merits of PAM, but I have a
couple of comments and a question.
The question is, has anybody, commercial or freeware, started coding an
MVS-like security system for Linux? Specifically, I'm interested in the
fine granularity of access controls, the ability to deal with more than
just file accesses, user configurable ACLs, and most importantly,
security at the kernel level. One thing I find most distasteful about
PAM is the fact that applications have to be PAM aware to make use of
PAM's abilities. MVS security, on the other hand, is soft-linked into
the IO layer of the kernel, and /all/ applications use that security
model without knowing anything about it.
Anyone who has any comments on this, information, or leads, please email
me.
Thanks!
--- SER
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 23:07:20 +0100
I just read the "2 cent tips" again and I thought you might enjoy this tip:
Several people enjoy the editor "pico" but do not feel comfortable with an
editor like "vim" for several reasons - one of these being that it is so
easy to do reformat the current paragraph with ^J (control-j) within pico
while it is so "difficult" within Vim. Well, all it takes is two mappings
for Vim:
More tips can be obtained from these Pages:
Sven
Date: Wed, 07 Jan 1998 01:27:09 +0000
Here is a small shell script I wrote to blink the scroll lock on my
keyboard when new mail arrived.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Katz-Hyman
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 09:48:10 -0600 (CST)
Hope this helps a little.
Michael J. Hammel
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 1998 14:56:05 -0500
When you do a cat/grep/etc. of binary files on a tty, the terminal may
become unusable because of some control character.
Guido Socher (eedgus@aken104.eed.ericsson.se) suggests a
sed -e 's/[^ -~][^ -~]*/ /g'
to filter unprintable characters. You can simply use a
cat -v
and all the control characters are escaped to be printable. It's very
useful when you are "cating" files and don't know if they contains control
characters.
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 11:53:51 +0000 (GMT)
C.
Date: Thu, 08 Jan 1998 16:58:44 +0000
In reply to Gabriele Giansante (gvgsoft@madnet.it), whose return
mail address does not seem to work.
--------------------------------------------------------------
The #!/usr/local/bin/perl line is what is used to indicate
that this is a perl script, but netscape is not clever enough to
know this, it has to be told.
Go to Options / General Preferences / Helpers and edit (if it
exists) or create (if it doesn't) the following configuration
Carl
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 19:16:31 +0000
Both Redhat and Slackware (not sure about Debian) install the package
updatedb. This package has two programs:
The solution is not very simple: updating the database hits the disk hard
and takes some time; it is hardly a task to be performed every hour.
My solution is to run a script every hour that updates the database only if
it is more than 24 hours old. I (ab)used find to do the task.
Here is the script "run-updatedb":
Best regards,
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 18:16:48 -0800 (PST)
If you think Win95/NT filenames are better than Linux ones, think again.
In bash, (this may work in csh, but I never use it) use quotes to enclose
the filename in the parameters of a program:
echo "test" > "spaced name"
and do an ls, and you see a space in the middle of the filename!
This can be used for confusing people, by going:
echo "Hi" > "test "
(notice the space at the end of "test ").
Then, someone tries to open the file "test" as it looks from ls, but all it
does is open a new file.
PS: The ext2 filesystem allows names of up to 255 chars long, just like
Loseows 95.
Go Linux!
Date: Fri, 16 Jan 1998 12:37:22 +0000 (GMT)
Quite often I receive a mail with an attachment in that weird Microsoft
format which is not quite MIME. It's easy for a Unix client to decode such
attachments -- save the message as a file, and run uudecode or the
excellent freeware uudeview on it.
However, sending a mail message to such a Microsoft mail user is a little
different -- you cannot send them a standard MIME message (unless they are
using Exchange I believe). I have found the following script useful in
such situations.
Say, for example, I wanted to send a file foo.gif to user mike. I would
run my script as follows:
Then I would read the mail message into the body of the message I wanted
to send. This script could easily be improved to include automatic
mailing, and editing of the mail message proper.
By the way, I have no idea what the 2628 above refers to. It is
a number generated somehow by Microsoft mail clients, but they don't seem
to need it, so the 2628 is a value I received once in a mail message.
Regards,
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 11:02:43 -0800
I am not sure if you have already received a reply regarding your
question on routing a LAN to the 'net, so I thought I'd go ahead and
give it a shot. The CC to Linux Gazette is just in case no one else
has sent in a more elaborate reply. ;) Also, this is something that was
mentioned back in Linux Journal number 43 ( November 1997 ), so most of
this stems from that particular article, "IP Masquerading Code
Follow-UP". To avoid re-hashing someone else's wonderful article, I'll
just skim over what I use here at my own home.
======================================================================
Getting Linux to route information between a LAN and the 'net will
require you to re-compile the kernel with IP Masquerading support. Of
course, one could also use firewalls and disable the routing, but I
don't have experience with that just yet. If your kernel version is <
2.0.30, you'll need to enable the "Code Maturity Level" option at
re-compilation -- this gives you access to the other Network Options in
the kernel, such as IP Masquerading support.
After installing the new kernel, obtain and install the ipfwadm
program; this usually comes installed on a base Debian 1.3.1 system, and
is easily obtainable for Red Hat. Executing ipfwadm from my end
includes the following commands:
-F -- Notify ipfwadm that
you're modifying the IP forwarding rules.
I've
experienced certain web pages that will not open with this option
set; it's probably some Microsoftian plot, you know. ;)
-l -- List all IP #
forwarding rules;
Of course, you'll need to have assigned your computers with IP
addresses within the 192.168.0.* range to use the exact commands above.
On my own setup, the primary computer gets 192.168.0.1, and the others
fall in succession. Be sure to have all the computers that are being
masqueraded set their gateway address to the primary, e.g.
secondary.my.com (192.168.0.2) uses primary.my.com (192.168.0.1) as
its gateway to the 'net.
For a far more in-depth article regarding this type of set-up, I do
suggest reading Chris Kostick's article "IP Masquerading Code Follow-up"
in the November 1997 issue of Linux Journal. Not only does it cover the
basics, but the author also explains a few more subtle aspects to
ipfwadm. Besides, without the help of this article, I wouldn't even
know the small amount about ipfwadm that I do. :)
======================================================================
I hope this helped at least a little,
-- James
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 13:25:57 -0500 (EST)
> I plan on getting a cable modem soon, so the bandwidth would be pretty
This caught my attention, especially since I'm the Unix admin for
Baynetworks Broadband Technology Division (formerly LANcity) and we
pretty much invented this technology, along with being the leader in
the Cable modem industry :) Now that I've got the plug in for company
I'll get down to your problem :)
I first must admit that 1.) I don't own a cable modem (I can't get
cable, long story :( and 2.) I don't do any routing of this nature.
But I have read a lot about it, and I do work with cable modems, so I
think I can help a little :)
The first thing to understand is that with Linux, you don't want to be
routing, and definitely do not want to run routed to do what you want
to accomplish. Rather, you want to be doing IP forwarding/IP
masquerading which you would enable in the kernel by
re-configuring/re-compiling a new kernel. You'll definitely want to
scour the HOWTOs, I believe there is one on this subject. In
addition, you may want to check out the Linux Network and/or Systems
Administrator's guides, as they too, probably have some good
infomation in them. Other good references may be:
Some words of caution. DO NOT HAVE YOUR LAN CONNECTED AT THE TIME OF
THE CABLE MODEM INSTALLATION!!!! MediaOne, Cablevision, Time Warner,
and most of the other cable companies (we deal with them all here)
will refuse to connect a LAN to their broadband network. Simply
remove your hub or coax cable from view, and let them do what they
need to do, then connect everything else up after they leave. =20
You will need 2 Ethernet NICs in the system which will be connected to
the broadband, one for the cable modem and one for the internal LAN..
Most cable companies will gladly provide and install one for you
(MediaOne charges $120 for a 3C509 + labor). I recommend telling them
you have a NIC, and going out and buying one and installing it yourself.
The cable modem, in reality, is NOT a modem. It's an Ethernet Bridge.
When the modem^H^H^H^H^Hbridge boots/powers up it does a bootp request
to a server at the cable companies central office to obtain an IP
address. The NIC is also assigned an IP address, which (at least with
MediaOne) is registered to the MAC address on the NIC (MediaOne
doesn't want you to move the modem to another computer after they
leave. They apparently check the modems from time to time to see what
MAC they're connected to). Therefore, you want your proxy
server/firewall configured so that it prevents all incoming
connections from the cable modem and allows only outgoing connections.
You want the IP forwarding/masquerading set up to allow other systems
on your private lan to use the proxy server as a proxy server (I'm not
sure if using the term gateway here is correct).
Some other interesting tidbits of information about cable modems and
cable companies:
Seeya,
Paul
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 16:00:46 +0100
I've read the article about the about's of Netscape...
Here's some more (some of them may not work or simply do nothing)
about:montulli
PEACE!
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 06:46:22 -0500
I do a lot of my web development work at home on my Linux box. Netscape
for Linux does not automatically check for an existing Netscape session.
As a result, if you try to run two different Netscape sessions, you will
get an error message box with something like the following:
If you are like me, and like to have links to URL's using Netscape on
your menus, FVWM GoodStuff or desktop icons, this can be a real
nuisance, having to completely start a new Netscape session each time.
Or you can have them link with this:
netscape -remote 'openURL(your.url)
But then none of your links will work if Netscape is not currently
running. This shell script will look for the lock file that Netscape
creates when it is started. If it does not find the lock file, it will
start a fresh Netscape session. If it does find it, it will send a
netscape -remote command to your current session with the URL you
provide in the argument. If you do not provide a URL, netscape will
simply give you a popup message indicating that you did not specify a
URL. If you do not want Netscape to start up a new window for the URL,
just get rid of the
"new-window"
in the argument in the shell script.
1. Do a ps to see if there are any zombie processes left
over from your last netscape session.
I am sure there is a way to automate this through a shell script as
well, but I have not yet any time nor motivation to write it.
Some other shortcomings include trying to start Netscape composer with
the -remote argument for a currently running netscape session. But then
this is probably why you should never name a shell script after the
actual binary it attempts to start.
All in all, if you envy the functionality of Netscape on Windows 95,
automatically checking for an existing netscape session to send the
browser surfing, and starting a new session if it does not find it,
well, here is a simple solution for Linux users, using the power of the
shell.
Tim Hawes
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 20:09:18 +0100 (MET)
>Anyone that can help me. I'd love to hear it. I try running
It sounds like you're using LPRng. This is a new version of lpr that's
more suitable for networks. It is included in the newer Slackware releases
and maybe others.
My solution was to grab the bsdlpr.tgz package from ftp.cdrom.com and use
that (This is meant for Slackware). Otherwise you can search the Net for
"bsdlpr".
-- Roland
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 1998 20:13:09 +0100 (MET)
>I used to have a 386 25 MHz computer. Not long time ago I bought a
If you connect both machines with a parallel cable, and configure PLIP
into the kernel on both machines, you can have your own little network. A
386 should at least work nice as a terminal, even if it might not run X
:-)
-- Roland
The March issue of Linux
Journal will be hitting the newsstands
this week. The focus of this issue is Graphical User Interfaces with
articles on XView, GTK+, X-Designer and CDE. Check out the
Table of Contents.
Netscape Communications Corporation today announced bold plans
to make the source code for the next generation of its highly popular
Netscape Communicator client software available for free licensing on
the Internet. The company plans to post the source code beginning
with the first Netscape Communicator 5.0 developer release, expected
by the end of the first quarter of 1998.
Netscape is releasing its currently available Netscape Navigator and
Communicator Standard Edition 4.0 software products immediately
free for all users.
In addition, the company separately announced the launch of an
aggressive new software distribution program called "Unlimited
Distribution" to broadly distribute its market-leading Internet client
software for free. Unlimited Distribution enables Original Equipment
Manufacturers (OEMs), Internet Service Providers (ISPs),
telecommunications companies, Web content providers, publishers
and software developers to download and redistribute Netscape
Communicator and Netscape Navigator easily with "no strings
attached."
To read and post reactions about this latest announcement, Linux
Journal has added a discussion group to our pages.
Eric Raymond's article
"The Cathedral and the Bazaar"
evidently made the rounds at Netscape and helped convince them that giving
away Navigator source code was a good idea. If you've never read it, now is
a good time.
Check out the article by Barton Crockett on msnbc: A Titanic Challenge to
Microsoft
The February issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal has an interview with Larry Wall,
the creator of Perl.
For more information:
Check out http://genocide.adept.co.za/lcp/
to have your questions answered.
We're planning another t-shirt, with ordering opening on the 1st of
February,
1998. All the info is on the page.
For more information:
Along with the highly anticipated release of Stampede Linux 0.55 (heber),
the developers felt it time to have an official logo. The developers
also felt that they should look elsewhere for development of said logo.
This contest is a result of the looking elsewhere bit. (Yes, prizes are
part of this contest =]).
For more Information:
December 6-11, 1998
The LISA '98 program is put together by a volunteer committee of
experienced systems administrators. The Program Committee welcomes
your submission. The Call for Participation is now available at
http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa98/
Sponsored by USENIX, The Advanced Computing Systems Association
Co-Sponsored by SAGE, the System Administrators Guild
Perhaps you'd like to work on another exciting project? There is
a Windows application, called JWP -- a Japanese Word Processor. This
package was written by Stephen Chung, and as a GNU product it is freely
distributable. I've used it extensively over the past few years, and
it is a *great* package.
Unfortunately, JWP is only available for Windows right now, which is
locking out a lot of people under other platforms who might benefit from
it. As Stephen is quite busy with full-time work and maintaining the
Windows versions (he's developing version 2.00 now), Steve Frampton has
decided to go ahead with a port to X-Windows.
The JWP-Port Project home page contains more information on the JWP
package as well as the JWP-Port project itself. If you are interested,
please visit the page at
http://qlink.queensu.ca/~3srf/jwp-port/.
For more information:
FreeDesigner is intended to be a fully extendable
Computer Aided Design and Drafting (CAD) application for Linux and other
Unix type operating systems. Initially K Desktop
Environment and GNOME/GTK frontends will be investigated, although it will
be written as "toolkit inspecific" as is possible, by
utilizing a GUI abstraction layer in FreeDesigner Core.
For more information:
Interested in Artificial Intelligence, Eveolutionary Computing,
Connectionism, Artificial Life, and/or Software Agents? Want to find
out what software is available for Linux in these areas? Or are you
just curious?
If so, check out my Linux AI/Alife mini-HOWTO at:
http://www.ai.uga.edu/~jae/ai.html
For more information:
Digital Domain used Red Hat Linux not only for special effects in the movie
Titanic but also in commercials that debuted during this Superbowl.
Here's Red Hat's press release.
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 eVote image
For more information:
FunktrackerGOLD 1.1 has been released. FunktrackerGOLD is a module editor for
Linux that allows you to compose digital music (similar to Fasttracker,
Impulsetracker etc for those who are familar with them).
For more information:
Quikscript is a PostScript text formatting and typesetting program.
It enables documents to be prepared on any type of hardware, using
visible layout marks to control the appearance of the output, and
produce output on a PostScript printer by despatching Qs and the
document file to the device. No processing is performed by the
host hardware; all processing is done within the printer.
The advantage that Quikscript provides, other than portability,
is precision of control over output. Because it is written in
PostScript, it is interpreted at run-time within the printer.
It is possible to create documents that modify the Quikscript
program during execution. It is very easy to include other
PostScript programs or fragments with Quikscript. It is possible
to use special PostScript fonts, such as hand-generated ones.
Graphics generated from a variety of sources can be easily included,
as can text output from computer programs. It is possible to embed
Quikscript within a document, such as an advertisement or a telephone
bill.
The Quikscript distribution is available by anonymous ftp from
"ftp.adfa.oz.au" in the directory "pub/postscript". It may also be
accessed through the World Wide Web at URL
http://www.cs.adfa.oz.au/~gfreeman/
For more information:
Version 1.4 of the YP (NIS version 2) tools for Linux has been released.
This package contains ypcat, ypmatch, ypset, ypwhich and yppasswd.
You need this package for GNU C Library 2.x and Linux libc 5.4.21,
but you should use libc 5.4.36 or later due some NIS bugs in libc.
It replaces the old yp-clients 2.2 on this systems.
You could get the latest version from:
http://www-vt.uni-paderborn.de/~kukuk/linux/nis.html
Version 1.2.7 of an YP (NIS version 2) Server for Linux has been released.
It also runs under SunOS 4.1.x, Solaris 2.4 - 2.6, AIX, HP-UX, IRIX,
Ultrix and OSF1 (alpha).
The programs are needed to turn your workstation in a NIS server.
It contains ypserv, ypxfr, rpc.ypxfrd, rpc.yppasswdd, yppush, ypinit,
revnetgroup, makedbm and /var/yp/Makefile.
This is NOT an NIS+ (NIS version 3) Server !
ypserv 1.2.7 is available under the GNU General Public License.
You could get the latest version from:
http://www-vt.uni-paderborn.de/~kukuk/linux/nis.html
For more information:
The latest and best release of Motif (version 2.1) is now available for
the best operating system!
Linked against both glibc (yes, it DOES work with RedHat 5) and libc (ie
it works with Debian, Caldera, RedHat 4.0).
For more information:
NetTracker is one of the most powerful, yet easy to use Internet and
Intranet usage tracking programs on the market today. NetTracker allows
marketing professionals, webmasters and ISPs to get the essential
information they need to make informed decisions regarding their web
sites.
A demonstration of NetTracker can be seen at [http://www.sane.com/demo/],
and a free 30 day evaluation copy can be downloaded from
[http://www.sane.com/eval/].
For more information:
SCEPTRE-90
a program for the analysis and simulation of
electrical nonlinear networks and dynamic systems
is now available for Linux users (free of charge).
The ftp site, where the program can be found is:
novilux.fh-friedberg.de/pub/sceptre_linux.
Detailed documentation in english and german as well as many samples
are included in the archive file.
For more information:
BANAL is a bookkeeping system that allows you to track invoices,
clients, projects, TODOs, bank accounts and expenses. BANAL is a
client/server application so you can keep one set of books on your
system while allowing everyone access.
For this release, BANAL can store your information, list (and allow
searching of) information and generate invoices, income and expense
statements. You can also make and use recurring and memorized
transactions to ease the burden of creating them manually. Check
the TODO file, that is included with the distribution, for an idea
of what is coming in the next release.
If you want to obtain BANAL and try it out, ftp to:
ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/financial/accounting.
For more information:
Aegis is a transaction-based software configuration management system.
It provides a framework within which a team of developers may work
on many changes to a program independently, and Aegis coordinates
integrating these changes back into the master source of the program,
with as little disruption as possible.
http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~millerp/aegis.html
For more information:
The Olivetti and Oracle Research Laboratory has made available the second
public release of omniORB (version 2.4.0). We also refer to this version
as omniORB2.
omniORB2 is copyright Olivetti & Oracle Research Laboratory. It is free
software. The programs in omniORB2 are distributed under the GNU General
Public Licence as published by the Free Software Foundation. The libraries
in omniORB2 are distributed under the GNU Library General Public
Licence.
Source code and binary distributions are available from our Web pages:
http://www.orl.co.uk/omniORB/omniORB.html
For more information:
Linux STREAMS (LiS) version 1.12 is now available. This version
supports kernels 2.0.24 through 2.0.33. By mutual consent of the
authors, the licensing terms have been changed to the GNU Public Library
License. This allows linking of proprietary STREAMS drivers with the LiS
code.
This version contains an install script which automates the
installation.
It can be downloaded from ftp.gcom.com from the directory
/pub/linux/src/streams-1-15-98.
For more information:
If you are interested in speech enhancement, signal processing
in general, or applications of Kalman filtering, read on. Mr. Kybic has just
finished his diploma work, entitled "Kalman Filtering and Speech
Enhancement" which includes, among other things, an implementation of
a Kalman smoothing based speech enhancement algorithm, working on
speech signal corrupted by slowly changing coloured additive noise.
Tested on Linux and HP-UX. Parallel version using PVM.
It is not perfect but might be inspiring anyway. Free for
non-commercial use.
http://cmp.felk.cvut.cz/~kybic/dipl
For more information:
From: Stephen Britton, sbritton@westnet.com
My parents just told me that I have to
give our extra machine (a 486 running Red Hat 4.1)
to my younger brother, who only knows Windows.
I have formated the drive with MS-DOS, but I
can't seem to figure out how to remove LILO. I
recall reading somewhere that it can be done by
c:\fdisk /mbr But that doesn't seem to be working.
Please help, he is returning to College next week!!
If that that doesn't work -- boot from a Linux
floppy -- zero out the whole partition table
and MBR (dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda -- for
a primary IDE, or of=/dev/sda for the primary
SCSI and count=1 (or 2 or so)).
Then you can boot from a DOS installation floppy
and it will insist that you run fdisk and will
treat the drive as though it was brand new and
previously unformatted/partitioned.
(Technically you only have to zero out or
put anyting other that 0x55AA as the last two
bytes of the MBR -- that's the signature that
tells FDISK that this drive has been previously
partitioned. However, it's just easier to zero
out the whole mess.)
Naturally this will make all of the data on the
drive inaccessible -- but I suspect you already
knew that was going to happen anyway.
Alternatively -- if fdisk /mbr doesn't work --
you should find out *why*. If this is an early
version of DOS -- you should probably try to
get a copy of 5.0 or later (or consider Caldera's
OpenDOS). I suppose you could also consider
installing Win '95, considering the likelihood
that your brother will need access to TCP/IP
utilities like web browsers and some e-mail
package.
On the one hand I hate to push some further down
the throat of the snake -- on the other hand we
should always do our best to act in the best
interests of our customers -- even when they're
our pesky brothers.
It may be that Windows is the best environment
for him. It may also be that there are over-riding
constraints that force him to choose a Windows
compatible platform.
I think that many organizations are now "chained" to the
Microsoft aggenda by their current investment in their
existing data files (all their spreadsheets, documents,
and many of their small, departmental mailing lists, and
databases are locked into various versions of the proprietary
.DOC, .XLS, and other data formats).
Microsoft clearly intends to maintain this state. I
guess that is has been the core of their strategy for the
last five years (since about the release of Win 3.0 or 3.1).
(It is also not unique to them -- most major commercial
hardware and software vendors have tried to "lock" their
customer into upgrade paths. Companies like DEC, IBM,
and HP have each had their VMS, MVS, MPE OS' with this
aggenda. Consequently their efforts at Unix have often
been "skunkworks" -- and have been highly politicized for
over a quarter of a century).
I ask people to consider this tidbit in their long range
planning. Truly optimizing for the present requires
looking to the future as well.
-- Jim
From: griffin@ameritech.net
What advantages are there, if any, to running your single-user
system as a normal user and not root?
If you simply don't care about your data and you like the idea
of rebuilding your system configuration from scratch then throw
all caution to the wind and go for it.
However, for the vast majority of us, it's the most minimal bow
to prudence to log in as an unprivileged user for the vast
majority of work you do at your system.
The advantages are:
By maintaining the discipline of only doing administrative tasks
from a 'root' login -- and all of your other work from one or
more 'user' accounts you are forced to pause and consider the
implications of what you're doing.
It's also nice that you can partition your work into distinct
domains -- you can always play games from your 'player' account
-- and none of those games can damage you're thesis project, or
financial records, or whatever.
Personally I think this could use some improvement. I'd like to
see a system whereby by each user is implicitly the manager of a
group of "roles." For single-user home systems this would be
basically the same as using your root account to create new
psuedo users for yourself. On multi-user systems it would
delegate the task of creating new roles and rolegroups to the
user --- so that each user's "base account" in effect becomes an
administrator of this own roles.
The problem I see with that is that there's no support in Unix
for it. I think it would take alot of work to build a set of
tools to support it (and many of these tools would have to be
SUID 'root' in traditional Unix systems -- or would require some
totally different lower level support such as a variant of a
"capabilities" system. In any event these tools would be very
security sensitive -- and early versions would probably be the
cause of numerous exploits.
However, none of that matters to the home user with root access
to his own box.
-- Jim
From: Chris, colohan@cs.cmu.edu
In http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue24/lg_answer24.html, you suggest
removing the ~/.netscape tree to stop Netscape Mail from crashing.
I have had the same problem several times, and it does not appear to be
anything in that directory -- it is the mail files themselves. It
appears as though Netscape will occasionally put a wee bit of corruption
in your ~/nsmail/[Inbox, Trash, etc.] files, which prevents it from
reading them. And it crashes when it encounters any corruption in these
files. It also seems to crash if your trash gets too large. (Anything
over 1MB seems hopeless).
So one solution is to back up your mail elsewhere, and erase your mail
directory. Then Netscape will create new, valid, empty mail folders,
and stop crashing for a while. Another solution is to open the files
yourself (they are just text files), and erase any messages that look
suspect.
I believe I also mentioned that my e-mail is far too important
to me to entrust to Netscape (or any "new" product). For
years I used 'elm' and before that it was 'mush' (mail user's
shell). The switch from 'elm' to MH (using emacs' mh-e and Gnus
interfaces) was nerve-wracking. (I deal with over a hundred
messages a day -- and it's at the core of my business that I
"keep up" on administration and security issues for my customers).
My biggest customer (another consultant in a different specialty)
has also made this switch, after over a decade of using emacs'
RMAIL. As you can imagine there have to be some pretty extensive
advantages to a package to warrant changing from one client to
another. (Merely having a "prettier" interface and a few bells
and whistles isn't nearly enough).
Consequently I will probably stay in a poor position to answer
questions about NS's mail and news readers.
As for the fact that NS crashes when encountering corruptions
in folders and messages -- that's just poor quality control and
poor coding. As usual the issues of "time-to-market" and
"pretty interface" dominate the development of commercial products.
The nature of the computer software industry practically guarantees
that the most widely used commercial products will have bugs of
this sort. This is the result of a set of corporate priorities
that don't match typical customer priorities -- and is a byproduct
of the selection process by most software is purchased.
I could go on about this for many pages. Since I worked in the
software industry for a long time -- I had a lot of time to
observe the process first hand. (Since I was doing tech support
I also had an abundance of free neural cycles to think about the
issues, as well). Here's a few observations that will help explain
my conclusion:
Sadly it takes *really* bad software to fail as a result of its
bugs. dBase IV comes to mind. It doesn't take much for really
high quality software to fail as a result of poor marketing
(or the superior marketing and industry dominance of competitors).
DESQview comes to mind.
By contrast almost all free software is chosen by end-users
based on recommendations from other end-users. It is produced
by people whose only rewards are: access to their own tool
to solve their own problems, the satisfaction of having lots
of users, and some chance for fame and sincere admiration.
They gain nothing by claiming more than they deliver (except
more e-mail with more support questions).
Luckily we, Linux and free software users, are blessed with
alternatives. These systemic problems are what I think we are
really "free" of.
-- Jim
Several months ago, with some trepidation and the assistance of a friend who is
somewhat more knowledgeable than myself about computer hardware, I took the
plunge and installed Linux on my Pentium PC.
Soon after, I downloaded a pile of assorted How-To's, FAQS and Tutorials from
the Internet to start doing something useful with Linux. The downloaded
documentation was handy but I frequently had trouble finding answers to
important
questions. After a month I purchased 2 books - Running Linux by Welsh &
Kaufman and
A Practical Guide to Linux by Mark Sobell. Welsh & Kaufman's Book is a well
known,
highly regarded, authoritative book on Linux. It is fundamentally about how
to set
up the major Systems and Hardware and how they interact.
Sobell's book, by way of contrast, approaches Linux from a software perspective.
There is little, if any, overlap between the two books, even when they are
talking
about the same thing. The two books effectively work opposite sides of the Linux
street. There is also a contrast in the styles of the two books. Welsh and
Kaufman
are somewhat "chatty" while Sobell basically tells it like it is with little
or no
opinion thrown in.
Although there is a chapter on System Administration, Sobell's book
concentrates on
showing how to use the Linux variants of the standard Unix software
packages. There
are chapters on X-Windows, vi, emacs, Linux Internet and Networking
Software, bash
(2 chapters on this important subject), the TC Shell, the Z Shell and
Programming
Tools.
Learning the bash Shell by Cameron Newham and Bill Rosenblatt (published by
O'Reilly)
covers the use of bash in more detail than Sobell's book, but I suspect it
is a little
advanced for the beginner. Sobell's chapters on bash were the most
informative and useful
information that I have come across so far. Being something of a
scripting/batch
file afficianado the two chapters on bash provided just the information I
needed
to produce a host of useful custom scripts.
The Command Summary takes up about a third of the book and maintains the high
standards of the rest of the text. Sobell uses internal page references quite
freely. This often results in a lot of page turning. I assume this was done
to avoid
repetition of material, and given the vast amount of material that could be
included
in a book on Linux/Unix software this is a reasonable compromise as it
leaves more
room for additional material.
This is not a book for solving Linux hardware or installation problems. If
you are
looking for that sort of information then get Welsh and Kaufman's book, or
download
the relevant "How-Tos" (or both). This is the book to use if you want to do
learn how
to do useful things with the software. The book manages to cover almost all
the major
software topics, and it covers them well.
I do have some quibbles with the book. The Table of Contents uses a
typeface that
is much too large, As a result it runs from page xvii to page xlvii. (That's
31 pages
for the Roman numerally challenged) Hopefully, the next edition will address
this
issue.
One notable Linux/Unix Utility not mentioned at all is Perl. A short 5-6 page
reference to it in the Linux Utility Program Section or an Appendix would
have been
nice. Summarising Perl in 5-6 pages is possibly a tall order, but I would have
liked some mention or reference to it.
Although the book gives a good rundown on accessing Linux Documentation and
Software
from the Internet, a Bibliography of Linux/Unix books would have been good.
"Running
Linux" does have a Bibliography, so if you have that book as well then I
guess you
have the information anyway (although it's a little out of date).
The book is an adaptation of Sobell's other Practical Guides to the Unix
System and
this shows, and it's not necessarily a bad thing either. However, given the
nature of
the Linux community, I doubt whether photographs of a mouse and keyboard are
necessary.
On the positive side, the book is professionally organized, indexed and
referenced. It
is substantially larger than the other Practical Guides to Unix by the same
author as
well.
In the light of the high quality of the book overall, all of the above
criticisms are
minor and easily overlooked. The book is far and away the best I have seen
on the
market for quickly and effectively using Linux software. If you have a copy
of A
Practical Guide to Linux and Running Linux along with a few appropriate
"How-Tos",
you should be able to get solutions to most of your Linux questions as well as
productively use your system.
Sooner or later every UNIX user has a use for a shell script. You may
just want to do a repetitive task easier, or you may want to add a bit
more kick to an existing program. An easy way to accomplish this is to
use a shell script. One of the first shell scripts I wanted was something
that would change a directory full of files which were all in capital letters
to lowercase. I did it with this script:
LCem.sh
Line one tells the computer which shell to use, in this case it is "sh"
the bourne shell ( or this may be a link to the bash shell ). The combination
of the two symbols #! are special to the shell and indicates what shell
will run this script. It IS NOT IGNORED like other comment lines. Line
3 sets a variable called DIR to equal the first argument of the input.
(Arguments start at $0, which is the name of the shell script or in this
case LCem.sh ).
In line 5 we enter a control loop. In this case it is a for loop. Translated
into english this line means for every entry "a" that I get back from the
command `ls $DIR` I want to do something. The shell will replace the variable
name $DIR to whatever was typed on the command line for you. Line 6 starts
the loop.
Now in line seven we make use of the UNIX utilities available , `echo`
and `tr`. So what we are doing is echoing whatever the current value
of $a is and piping it into tr which is short for translate. In this case
we are translating uppercase to lowercase, and setting a new variable called
fname to the result.
In line eight we move the file $DIR/$a, whatever it may be to $DIR/$fname.
Line nine tells the shell to go back and do all the other $a variables
until it is done. And finally line 10 we exit the script with an error
code of zero. Line eleven is a comment.
This script wouldn't have been needed to change one or two file
names, but because I needed to change a couple of hundred it saved me lots
of typing. To get this to run on your machine you would have to chmod
the file to be executable. Like this `chmod +x LCem.sh` . Or you
could evoke the shell command directly and give it the name of your script
like this `sh LCem.sh`. Using the comment and exclamation mark combination
would tell the kernel what shell to evoke and is the normal way to do things.
But remember if you use the #! then the file itself needs to have execution
permissions.
It is only eleven lines but it shows us a lot about shell scripting.
We have learned how to get the computer to run the script using the #!
combination. This combination of a comment mark and a bang operator, or
as some people call it an exclamation mark, is used to start a shell script
without having to evoke the shell first. We learned that a # is how
we can write a comment into our script and have them ignored when the script
is processed. We learned how to pass arguments to the script to get input
from the user, and we know how to set a variable. We have glanced
at one of the many control structures we can use to control the functionality
of a script.
Don't worry if you didn't really get all of that. We shall now move
on to explaining some of the most common decision making / control structures.
The first one we want to look at is the `if` statement. In every programming
language we want to be able to change the flow of the program based on
various conditions. For example if a file is in this directory do one thing.
If it isn't do something else. The syntax for the if command is:
if expression then
So if the expression is true the statements inside the if block are
executed. Lets look at a simple example of the if statement.
WhoMe.sh
1 #!/bin/sh
Using the if statement we can now correct some of the errors which would
occur in the lowercasing script. In LCem.sh the script will hang if the
user doesn't input a directory as an argument. To check for an empty string,
we would use the following syntax:
if [ ! $1 ]
This means if not $1. The two new things here are the use of the bang
operator, or exclamation mark as the symbol for NOT. So lets add
this new knowledge to our program.
1 if [ ! $1 ]
Now if the user types in the command but not the directory then the
script will exit with a message about the proper way to use it, and an
error code of one.
But what if we really did want to change the name of a single
file? We have already got this command wouldn't it be nice if it could
cope. If we want to do that then we need to be able to test if the argument
is a file or directory. Here is a list of the file test operators.
1 #!/bin/sh
We inserted lines nine through seventeen to do our file/directory checks.
If it is a directory we set DIR to equal "/$1" if not we set it blank.
Notice we now put the directory slash in with the DIR variable and we've
modified line 22 so that there is no slash between $DIR and $a. This way
the paths are correct.
We still have a few problems with our script. One of them is that if
the file which is getting moved already exists then the scripts outputs
an error. What we want to do is check the file name before we attempt to
move it. Another thing is what if someone puts in more than two arguments?
We'll modify our script to accept more than one path or filename.
The first problem is easily corrected by using a simple string test
and an if statement like we have use earlier. The second problem is slightly
more difficult in that we need to know how many arguments the user has
input. To discover this we'll use a special shell variable which is already
supplied for us. It is the $# variable, this holds the number of arguments
present on the command line. Now what we want to do is loop through the
arguments until we reach the end. This time we'll use the While loop to
do our work. Finally we shall need to know how to compare integer values,
this is because we want to check the number of time we have gone through
the loop to the number of arguments. There are special test options
for evaluating integers, they are as follows
Using this new knowledge we'll modify our program.
1 #!/bin/sh
What we've done here is to insert a while loop on line 9 which checks
to see if the arguments listing is equal to zero. This may seem like we
just created an infinite loop but the command on line 30 the shift saves
us. You see the shift command basically discards the command nearest the
command name. (LCem.sh) and replaces it with the one to the right. This
loop will succeed in discarding all the arguments eventually and then will
equal zero and exit our loop.
And finally note the if statement on line 24, this checks to see if the
file name is already lowercase and if so ignores it.
I hope you have enjoyed this brief introduction to Bourne / Bash programming.
I would encourage you to try some of these examples for yourself. In fact
if you want you could make this script much better by using a switch like
-l to lowercase and -u to uppercase and modifying the script to handle
it.
I take full responsibility for any errors or mistakes in the above documentation.
Please send any comments or questions to rick@ricken.demon.co.uk
REFERENCES:
The UNIX programming environment
Inside UNIX
Here's this month's account of the triumphs, trials and
tribulations that I caused myself or encountered since the last
time, and a couple tips that may come in handy and increase your
understanding of linux.
If you adopt the strategy of selective backups, you can easily
fit them on a floppy or three, rather than using a whole tape or
zipdisk to backup what you have already on your installation
media. I think that especially if you installed from a CD, the
plain vanilla install like you did the first time, can put you
back on your feet when combined with a backup of only those files
you wrote or modified, and and any special software that wasn't
included in the distribution.
To find out what files and libraries are required to run an app,
you can use
Another command that you can use to find out more about files is,
strangely enough, file. File can be used as
which will give information about other files, as well as
executables.
Yet one more helpful command is which, used like
where executable is the command used to start the application
as in
to find out where the executable is located, pretty handy if you
are modifying your path statement.
I stress this because I know from experience that failing to backup your data
is an extremely stupid and easy thing to do, but since I apart from the cardiac
care unit and the nuclear reactor I don't have anything mission critical on my
box right now, I'm still too lazy to back it up. Please excercise
a little cautious computing if anyone's data needs to be secure
the "&" causes the program to execute in the background, which
keeps it from monopolizing X. Note that some apps, such as
ImageMagick don't seem to want to share, and those will have to be
exec'ed without the "&". Also non-X apps can usually be run by
invoking an xterm or rxvt, in which case the titlebar can be
changed to reflect the program name, as in
which starts a color_xterm running top. Top, in case you aren't
familiar, basically lists the amount of resources each process is
using. For more info type
or better yet just type
Some examples:
This one will add the contents of one file to another file, as
in chapters 1 and 2 could be added together for reasons of
continuity to make a fluid read that would otherwise be broken
up by having to cat the successive chapters
is another example of redirecting the output of a command or
file to somewhere other than standard output which is another
way of saying your monitor.
Another feature is command line batching of commands. If you
type several commands separated by semicolons, each command will
execute when the previous one exits. A good example, is:
which will perform each of the steps necessary to compile a
kernel. As soon as the first command exits or is closed, the
next one starts Any group of commands that you would like to run in
succession can be done in this manner.
Another device you can use to your advantage with a little
imagination is the pipe, signified by the "|" symbol. Pipe is a
pretty good description of what it does, which is to "pipe" the
output of one command into another command for further
processing. One example that springs to mind is
which come to think of it, is another example of redirection as
well. The above command takes the results of the cat command
pipes it to a filter "pr", and redirects the output to /dev/lp0
to print a file in a reasonably attractive manner. For some of
the options available to "pr", try
This filter is particularly useful if you find lpr to be beyond
your present capability, as I have :(. You should be aware
however, that this will only work as root, or with a lot of
permission hacking, which is probably best left undone, as it can
cause security problems if /dev/lp0 is made available to regular
users.
if modified to reflect the serial port used, in this case com
port 1 in DOS lingo. This line can also be used with a 8086 or
above to emulate a serial terminal, if used with the proper cable.
The proper cable, usually called a null modem, is often sold as
a serial printer cable.
A serial terminal is a very good option when used with a Linux box
as it allows more than one user on the system at a reasonable cost
compared to buying another computer. The local university surplus
disposal has them for about $25US, and you may find them for free.
8086, 8088, and 286 boxes, which will also serve the purpose can
be gotten just as cheaply, depending on what hardware is attached.
The other thing you need is a comm program, Minicom and Kermit
are two that spring to mind or perhaps Seyon if you're in X. I've
never used any of these programs to connect directly to another computer as a terminal
without a modem, so I don't know much about connecting with
minicom in this manner, but Kermit seems to be pretty simple in
this capacity
Another use is to kill frozen X applications. I had a Netscape bus
error problem before I got Andreas Theofilu's nets ,
and a terminal can be used to kill out of
control processes quite easily, by logging in and using kill or
similar(remember die?)command to wax it and you can regain
your X session. Nearly any non-graphical task you can do on the
console can be done on a serial terminal. One exception, virtual
terminals can be worked around to a degree by usingsplitvt
which cuts your screen into two parts and by using
See you next month!
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away...
Someone once told me that phrase was the perfect way to begin a story with a
happy ending. If so, then I am inclined to employ it here.
It has been over 20 years since my first programming experience. An
ASR-33 Teletype with a paper tape punch attached to an acoustic coupler (do
they even tell today's Computer Science students about the joys of a 110 baud
acoustic coupler?) would whir, clunk, chunk, and ding as it magically made my
dry, clinical code come to life and perform wonderful tasks! Amazing! And, I
was told, the wondrous machine miles away on the other end of the telephone
could not only breath life into my coded creations, but it could simultaneously
do likewise for dozens of other aspiring Dr. Frankensteins who, like me, wanted
to see dry, dead algorithms transformed into living, breathing computer
creations.
That's how it all started. In retrospect, it involved a dreary little teletype
in a bleak little room connected to a slow little coupler (for you recent CS
grads, that's a modem that connected to a phone using an acoustic cradle rather
than today's direct modular phone wire) connected over a telephone line to
a computer that probably didn't have the computational power of a modern
pr
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 09:52:28 -0500 (EST)
From: Michael Stutz stutz@dsl.org
Subject: Help Wanted: SVGALIB Screenshots?
Date: 21 Jan 98 11:28:04 -0500
From: Jonathan Smith SMITHJL@detroitedison.com
Subject: netcfg
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 02:38:11 -0800 (PST)
From: Jaume Vicent jvicent@yahoo.com
Subject: Sound Card MED3931
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998 22:51:09 +0200
From: Asaf Wiener wasaf@writeme.com
Subject: from were can i download (for free) LINUX?
Asaf wiener
Look on the Linux Resources page to find pointers to everything you
need,
http://www.linuxresources.com/ --Editor
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 14:59:00 +1100
From: Peter Lee peterl@localgov.wacher.com.au
Subject: POP3d Problem
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 13:02:25 -0003
From: RAFAGUI@if.ufrgs.br
Subject: Printing postcript ...
Date: Sat, 24 Jan 1998 08:09:51 -0500 (EST)
From: Casimer P. Zakrzewski zak@acadia.net
Subject: IBM 8514 monitor
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 11:06:17 -0800
From: Apple Annie annel@cdsnet.net
Subject: Re: Remote address on Chat sites
Date: 27 Jan 98 13:18:56
From: dennis.j.smith dennis.j.smith@ArthurAndersen.com
Subject: Linux and VAX 3400 and 3300
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 98 15:54:55 MST
From: Antony Ware aware@acs.ucalgary.ca
Subject: Linux and Children
General Mail
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 1998 12:14:09 PST
From: Marty Leisner leisner@sdsp.mc.xerox.com
Subject: I don't like long articles
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 1998 11:07:06 +0100
From: Trond Eivind Glomsrød teg@pvv.ntnu.no
Subject: Linux and routing
Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 22:26:57 -0600
From: chris rennert lavithan@execpc.com
Subject: Rookie
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 01:32:06 -0700
From: Sean Horan sean@olam.ed.asu.edu
Subject: Server uptime
1:48am up 274 days, 17:05, 1 user, load average: 1.09, 1.02, 1.00
User tty from login@ idle JCPU PCPU what
sean ttyp1 sss2-01.inre.as 1:46am w
274 days, 24 hours a day. Never restarted. How common is this?
--Sean
Date: Sun, 25 Jan 1998 15:04:35 -0800
From: Sean Russell ser@javalab.uoregon.edu
Subject: Linux security
![[ TABLE OF
CONTENTS ]](../gx/indexnew.gif)
![[ FRONT
PAGE ]](../gx/homenew.gif)
This page written and maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette,
gazette@ssc.com
Copyright © 1998 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
More 2¢ Tips!
Send Linux Tips and Tricks to
gazette@ssc.com
Contents:
Linux - 2 Cents about vim for pico users
From: Sven Guckes guckes@math.fu-berlin.de
nmap <C-J> vipgq
nmap <C-J> gq
Put these mappings into your setup file (on Unix and esp Linux this is ~/.vimrc)
and you can use ^J to reformat the current paragraph or the currently
highlighted text (use 'V' and some movement commands to do that, for example).
http://www.vim.org/ Vim Home Page
http://www.vim.org/faq/ Vim FAQ
http://www.vim.org/answ.html Vim Answers Page
(for everything not yet in the VIM FAQ)
http://www.vim.org/rc Sven's Huge Setup File with comments
And for those people who use "some vi" but never got the hang of it -
here is a page about "why" you would want to use a vi clone such as Vim:
http://www.vim.org/why.html
Enjoy!
My 1/50th of a Dollar
From: Michael Katz-Hyman mkatshym@erols.com
#!/bin/bash
#
# Keyboard blinky thingy when you have new mail, sleeps 5 minutes if you
don't
#
# Michael Katz-Hyman (mkatshym@erols.com) running Linux 2.0.33 Red Hat
4.0
Mail_File = "/var/spool/mail/mkatshym"
# The static file is used to make the script a daemon (I just test to
see if /bin/bash is present :- )
Static_File="/bin/bash"
LED_SET_COMMAND_ON = "/usr/bin/setleds +scroll"
LED_SET_COMMAND_OFF = "/usr/bin/setleds -scroll"
Sleep_Command = "/bin/sleep 2m"
# O.k. lets get started
while [ -e $Static_File ]; do
while [ -s $Mail_File ]; do
$LED_SET_COMMAND_ON
$LED_SET_COMMAND_OFF
done
if [ ! -sMail_FIle ]; then
/bin/sleep 5m
fi
done
------------------------------------------------------------------
sound problems
From: Mike Hammel mhammel@stassw10
> Have installed RedHat 5.0 and configured the sound card using sndconfig.
> All went well and I heard the demo sound bite of Linus. However, I
> have never heard another sound since. When browsing web sites with sound,
> no audio is played. Anyone have any ideas?
First, cat an audio file to the audio device: cat file > /dev/audio. If
you get sound out then the device is fine. The problem is probably that
you haven't configured your browser to play the audio. With Netscape you
would use the Preferences->Navigator->Applications option. You'll need to
configure the various audio types to be played using whatever tool you
choose (I don't play much audio, so don't have anything configured in
my browser to do so). The cat command will work with .au files, and maybe
.wav (I think), but possibly not with others. You might want to look at
the Linux Application and Utilities Page or the Linux Midi and Sound Page for
hints on getting applications for playing sound files. Both of these have
links on the Software Resources page at the Linux Journal:
http://www.linuxresources.com/apps.html.
Filtering output of binary files
From: Sylvain Falardeau sfalardeau@clic.net
Easter Eggs in Netscape
From: Caolan McNamara caolan@skynet.csn.ul.ie
* From: Ivan Griffin ivan.griffin@ul.ie
*
* These special URLs do interesting things in Netscape Navigator and Communicator.
*
* about:cache gives details on your cache
* about:global gives details about global history
* about:memory-cache
* about:image-cache
* about:document
* about:hype
* about:plugins
* about:editfilenew
*
* view-source:URL opens source window of the URL
*
* Ctrl-Alt-F take you to an interesting site :-)
At least some of the netscape developers have an about for themselves,
e.g about:kahern.
RE: Perl and HTML
From: Carl Mark Windsor mbdtscw@cerberus.mcc.ac.uk
Gabriele,
Description: Perl Script
Type: application/perl
Suffix: pl
Tick the Application box and put the path
Application: /usr/sbin/perl <-----(or the path to your perl)
Sorry if you have heard this all before!
Update locate
From: Joaquim Baptista px@helios.si.fct.unl.pt
- "updatedb" scans the filesystem and generates a database of existing files.
This is run every night as root.
- "locate" is run by users to quickly locate files on the filesystem,
using the database generated by updatedb.
My problem is that "updatedb" runs at 4:40 in the morning, and my machine
is rarely running at 4:40. Thus the database is never updated and "locate"
never finds any recent file.
#!/bin/sh
/usr/bin/find /var/spool/locate/locatedb -mtime +1 -exec \
/usr/bin/updatedb \
--prunepaths='/tmp /usr/tmp /var/tmp /mnt /cdrom /floppy /var/spool' \;
I also had to change the crontab for root: I commented the old line that
runs updatedb at 4:40, and added a line that runs my script every hour:
0 * * * * /usr/local/sbin/run-updatedb 1> /dev/null 2> /dev/null
One final note: I believe that both Redhat and Debian have
"super-crontabs." That means that you must fish around in /etc
(/etc/cron?) for extra crontab files (long live Slackware!).
Joaquim Baptista, alias pxQuim
Doing spaces in file names
From: Mark Lundeberg ae885@pgfn.bc.ca
Mailing binary files to Microsoft clients
From: Ivan Griffin ivan.griffin@ul.ie
Mailing binary files to Microsoft clients...
msmail_encode foo.gif > mail_message
#!/bin/sh
echo "[[ $1 : 2628 in $1 ]]"
echo ""
echo " Microsoft document attached. "
echo ""
echo " Regards, "
echo " Ivan."
echo ""
echo "The following binary file has been uuencoded to ensure successful"
echo "transmission. Use UUDECODE to extract."
echo
cat $1 | uuencode $1
Ivan.
Linux and Routing
From: James C. Carr jccarr@nwlink.com
Linux and Routing with ipfwadm
======================================================================
/sbin/ipfwadm -F -p deny
This portion breaks down as follows:
-p -- Tell ipfwadm that
you want to deny the forwarding of incoming packets.
/sbin/ipfwadm -F -a m -S 192.168.0.0/24 -D 0.0.0.0/0
-F is the same as above.
-a -- Append the following rule to the
list, in this case, we're (m) masquerading the following rule.
-S
-- We're going to masquerade the computers in the 192.168.0.*
address range. Since this is a "local" set of IP numbers, it'll
work with all computers on the LAN with these IP addresses.
-D --
The forwarding destination will be 0.0.0.0, the equivalent of the
gateway address on a PPP defaultroute.
/sbin/ipfwadm -F -l -n
Let's make sure this thing is up and running.
-n -- convert the information to numeric format.
Linux and Routing 2
From: Paul Lussier, plussier@LanCity.COM
> high, so that is why I have decided to try to make this connection
> provide for my whole house via a LAN connection in my home. What I
> have read is that you could use the private IPs, meaning the 10.x.x.x
> or so, 192.168.x.x and some others for the IP of the LAN and have
> these connect to some box (the LINUX box?) that would provide its
> connection to the internet to the inside LAN connected to the box. Is
> the problem that you would have to route the assigned address to the
> private IPs for the LAN use. I have also read that this would slow
> down the connection a bit or something, but that is a price I am
> willing to pay. So, the summary of the question is how would I be able
> to connect many computers to the internet via just 1 assigned IP
> address? I would like to be able to do it using my LINUX box connected
> to the internet via cable modem, and to my LAN via an Ethernet
> link. Any help is much appreciated, thanks.
The Firewalling and Proxy Server HOWTO is probably the best bet, now
that I look, since what you really want to do is set up firewall to
prevent people from coming in, and a proxy server to allow your
internal lan to get out.
I hope this helps a little bit. Feel free to e-mail me if you have
any questions.
Netscape's Abouts
From: "Stefan K." kampi@physik3.gwdg.de
about:nihongo
about:francais
about:plugins
about:document
about:license
about:cache
about:global
about:image-cache
about:memory-cache
about:security
about:hype
about:blank
about:mozilla
about:security?subject-logo=
about:security?
about:security?banner-mixed
about:security?banner-insecure
about:security?banner-secure
about:security?banner-payment
mocha:
javascript:
livescript:
view-source:
about:FeCoNtExT=123
kampi
Netscape on the Desktop
From: Tim Hawes tim@donet.com
Netscape has detected a /home/thawes/.netscape/lock
file.
This may indecate that another user is running
Netscape using your /home/thawes/.netscape files.
It appears to be running on host localhost under process-ID 316.
You may continue to use Netscape, but you will
be unable to use the disk cache, global history,
or your personal ceritificates.
Blah, blah, blah.
#!/bin/sh
if [ -L $HOME/.netscape/lock ]
then exec /usr/local/netscape/netscape -remote
'openURL('$*',new-window)';
else exec /usr/local/netscape/netscape $*;
fi
exit 0
There are limitations with this script. First of all, if Netscape did
not exit cleanly after the last session, then the lock file will still
be present in your ~/.netscape directory. The script will then try to
execute a netscape -remote command and will error out with the console
message that Netscape is not running on :0.0. If you are not redirecting
your console messages anywhere, then you will not see anything except
Netscape not-starting.
2. Kill all zombie processes
3. $ rm ~/.netscape/lock
4. retry
Re: Printing Problems
From: Roland Smith, rsmith06@ibm.net
>lpr, but everytime I get no name for local machine.
>How do I set this and/or what is the problem.
>Manish Oberoi
Re: Using a 386 Computer
From: Roland Smith, rsmith06@ibm.net
>Pentium 200 MHz computer. Since then I have not played with 386.
>Is there any easy and economical way to connect the 386 to the
>Pentinum computer where I will install the Release 5.0. If so,
>what I can do with it or at lease what I can learn from it.
This page maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette,
gazette@ssc.com
Copyright © 1998 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
Contents:
News in General
March Linux Journal
January 22, 1998
Netscape Announces Plans To Make Source Code Free
Linux in the News
The SEUL (Simple End-User Linux) Project is an organization dedicated to
developing a free
Linux distribution that presents a viable alternative to commercial
PC operating systems. Currently based on Red Hat Linux, the SEUL
distribution will cover many different aspects of Linux.
The SEUL Project
Roger Dingledine, seul@seul.org
http://www.seul.org/
The Linux Clothing Project
Albert Strasheim, UUNET Internet Africa,
fullung@ilink.nis.za
Stampede Linux Logo Contest!
Matt Wood, Stampede Linux Head Developer, skibum@beer.stampede.org
http://www.stampede.org/
12th SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATION CONFERENCE (LISA '98)
Boston, Massachusetts
Japanese Word Processor
Steve Frampton, 3srf@qlink.queensu.ca
A 3D CAD Application for Linux Project
Fleming, Petersen & Associates,
http://www.fpa-engineers.com/OD/
Artificial Intelligence
John A. Eikenberry, jae@bob.coe.uga.edu
Digital Domain and Red Hat Linux
Software Announcements
eVote 2.2
eVote is a freely available add-on to email list-servers that gives
the members of the list the ability to poll each other. After
installation of the software, the administrator is not involved. All
participants have the power to open polls, vote, change their votes and
view each other's votes if the particular poll was so configured.
The underlying specialized data-server, The Clerk, is also freely
available for Linux systems only. eVote 2.2 is available in both English
and French.
Marilyn Davis, mdavis@deliberate.com,
http://www.Deliberate.com/
FunktrackerGOLD 1.1
Jason Nunn, jsno@dayworld.net.au
http://www.downunder.net.au/~jsno/proj/unix_projects/
Quikscript
Graham Freeman, g-freeman@adfa.oz.au
YP-Tools & YP-Server
Thorsten Kukuk, kukuk@vt.uni-paderborn.de
Motif 2.1 for Linux
LSL, http://www.lsl.com/,
motif@lsl.com
NC Laboratories, http://www.nc-labs.com,
sales@nc-labs.com
NetTracker
Sane Solutions, info@sane.com
SCEPTRE-90
Prof. Dr. Wolf-Rainer Novender, novender@novilux.fh-friedberg.de
BANAL 0.04 (free bookkeeping software)
Matthew Rice, Matthew.Rice@ftlsol.com
Aegis 3.1 - Software Configuration Management System
Peter Miller, millerp@canb.auug.org.au
Free CORBA 2 ORB - omniORB 2.4.0
Dr. Sai-Lai Lo, S.Lo@orl.co.uk
http://www.orl.co.uk/omniORB/omniORB_240/
New Linux STREAMS Release
Mikel L. Matthews, mikel@gcom.com
Speech Enhancement by Kalman Filtering Package
Jan Kybic, xkybic@sun.felk.cvut.cz
This page written and maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette,
gazette@ssc.com
Copyright © 1998 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
The Answer Guy
By James T. Dennis,
answerguy@ssc.com
Starshine Technical Services,
http://www.starshine.org/ Contents:
Removing LILO, Reinstalling MS-DOS
That should do it. However -- which version
of MS-DOS are we talking about. This option
was introduced in MS-DOS 5.0. Although it
wasn't documented at the time it is widely
used to recover from a variety of boot
viruses.
P.S. I tried talking him into taking Linux, but he's
locked into the Windows mindset.
Trying to convince someone of something is
usually a losing proposition. Try to understand
his real requirements -- and offer the best
advice you can.
Running as root on Standalone Systems -- DON'T
If you're absolutely perfect, you never make a typing mistake or
issue a wrong command, or a right command from a wrong directory
with the wrong arguments, *and* you only run perfect software,
with no bugs in it at all, *and* you are totally disconnected
from the world (you don't get any e-mail, never use netnews, or
IRC etc) -- then you *might* be sort of safe running as root on
your system.
The disadvantages mostly relate to convenience. A typical
microcomputer user from a DOS, Windows, OS/2, MacOS, AmigaDOS,
CP/M or similar background is used to being able to edit any
file and change any setting directly and quickly.
More on Netscape Mail Crashes
These sound like excellent troubleshooting suggestions,
recovery procedures and workarounds.
When you go through all of this -- even if you don't agree
with half of the observations -- it's easy to see why so
many people live in quiet desperation, hating their most
important software.
Copyright © 1998, James T. Dennis
Published in Issue 25 of the Linux Gazette February 1998
"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
Review of "A Practical Guide to Linux" by Mark Sobell
By Bernard Doyle
Copyright © 1998, Bernard Doyle
Published in Issue 25 of Linux Gazette, February 1998
"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
Bourne/Bash:
Shell Programming Introduction
By Rick Dearman
commands
fi
2
3 # set the variable ME to the first argument after
the command.
4 ME=$1
5
6 # grep through the passwd file discarding the output
and see if $ME is in the file
7 if grep $ME /etc/passwd > /dev/null
8 then
9 # if $ME is in the file out put the following line
10 echo "You are a user"
11 fi
Notice the extensive use of comments on lines 3, 6, and 9. You
should try to comment you scripts as much as possible because someone else
may need to look at it later. In six months you may not remember what you
were doing, so you might need the comments as well.
#!/bin/sh
2 then
3 echo "Usage: `basename $0` directory_name"
4 exit 1
5 fi
6
7 DIR=$1
8
9 for a in `ls $DIR`
10 do
11 fname=`echo
$a | tr A-Z a-z`
12 mv $DIR/$a $DIR/$fname
13 done;
There are more operators but these are the most commonly used ones.
Now we can test to see if the user of our script has input a directory
or a file. so lets modify the program a bit more.
Parameter
Test
-b file
True is file is a block device
-c file
True if file is a character special file
-d file
True if the file is a directory
-f file
True if file is a ordinary file
-r file
True if file is readable by process
-w file
True if file is writeable by process
-x file
True if file is executable
2
3 if [ ! $1 ]
4 then
5 echo "Usage: `basename $0` directory_name"
6 exit 1
7 fi
8
9 if [ -d $1 ]
10 then
11 DIR="/$1"
12 fi
13
14 if [ -f $1 ]
15 then
16 DIR=""
17 fi
18
19 for a in `ls $DIR`
20 do
21 fname=`echo $a | tr A-Z
a-z`
22 mv $DIR$a $DIR$fname
23 done;
Test
Action
int1 -eq int2
True if integer one is equal to integer two
int1 -ge int2
True if integer one is greater than or equal to integer two
int1 -gt int2
True if integer one is greater than integer two
int1 -le int2
True if integer one is less than or equal to integer two
int1 -lt int2
True if interger one is less then interger two.
int1 -ne int2
True if integer one is not equal to integer two
2
3 if [ ! $1 ]
4 then
5 echo "Usage: `basename
$0` directory_name"
6 exit 1
7 fi
8
9 while [ $# -ne 0 ]
10 do
11
if [ -d $1 ]
12
then
13
DIR="/$1"
14
fi
15
16
if [ -f $1 ]
17
then
18
DIR=""
19
fi
20
21
for a in `ls $DIR`
22
do
23
fname=`echo $a | tr A-Z a-z`
24
if [ $fname != $a ]
25
then
26
mv $DIR$a $DIR$fname
27
fi
28
done;
29
30
shift
31 done
by Brian W. Kernighan & Rob Pike
Published by Prentice Hall
Published by New Riders
Copyright © 1998, Rick Dearman
Published in Issue 25 of Linux Gazette, February 1998
"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
Clueless at the Prompt
By Mike List,
troll@net-link.net
Welcome to installment 5 of Clueless at the Prompt:
*Changing Disks:
If you make partitions the same size as your
previous disk's, you can simply hook up your new disk as
slave(See the documentation that comes with your new drive, or
sometimes there's a diagram on the top of the disk that shows
jumper settings to configure the disk as master, slave, or only
disk.), and use the "dd" command. You'll have to mount the old
disk first, use fdisk to set the partitions to the desired size,
then mount each partition separately, if you mount your
partitions one at a time, you'll avoid having the whole old disk
contents try to settle on your new disk.
*Backups:
If you have any serious need of any of
the information on your old disk, I can't stress the value of
periodic backups enough. Even if you just backup the
configuration files you worked so hard to tweak to your liking,
and maybe your checking account balance, anything that you don't
have to remember or reinvent is a Good Thing(tm).
ldd filename
file filename
which executable
which makewhatis
*Oh did I mention backups?
*A little bit about FVWM configuration files(fvwm-1.x):
with a
little text editting, you can configure your Xdesktop to your
liking. FVWM-2.x uses m4 macros, which I haven't even tried to
acquaint myself with yet. FVWM is configurable in either
system.fvwmrc or a .fvwmrc in your home directory, so you can set
a consistent set of applications system-wide or change the
defaults to your idea of a convenient desktop. Most of the
possible modifications are explained in comments preceding the
line to be editted or uncommented, and if you have X applications
that aren't included in the default popups, all you have to do is
follow the examples of those already there, usually something like
Exec "PROGNAME" exec progname -options &
Exec "Top" exec color_xterm -font 7x14 -T Top -n Top -e top &
man top
top
*Some stuff you may not hear anywhere else (so basic they forgot
to tell you):
Redirecting output: you obviously can print a file
to your monitor screen, and with a little luck even to a piece of
paper via your printer, but did you know you can print a file to
another VT or serial terminal or even to another file? By using
the ">" or "<" symbols, you can do command line tricks that will
impress your friends, cure male pattern baldness and hangovers,
and make you irresistable to the opposite sex. Your mileage, as
they say, may vary, unfortunately.
cat filenamehere>>anotherfile
cat hellaracket.au >/dev/audio or /dev/dsp
make config; make dev; make clean; make zImage
cat filename | pr -l56>/dev/lp0
man pr
*That terminal finally works!! What worked:
If you have been
reading this column for a while, you might recall I mentioned a
vt 220 that I couldn't get working. I got impatient and got rid
of it. but sometime later I ran into a wyse 150 and decided to
try it again. This time I hit paydirt, thanks to a member of the
Kalamazoo Linux Users Group, Scott Yellig. The magic bullet was the
letter -L which was unreported in the serial HOWTO, but Scott is
pree sharp at that stuff.When used in the /etc/inittab (Slackware)
this line,
s2:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -L 9600 ttyS1 vt100
CTRL-W
you can switch between the upper and lower displays, and work
alternately between the two, with the added advantage of seeing
both screens at once. You can even be root on one while using a
different account on the other screen, easily cut and paste from
one editting session to another, check top or ps
or many administrative tasks that require monitoring. It ain't
X but it's pretty good for a text only environment.
Copyright © 1998, Mike List
Published in Issue 25 of Linux Gazette, February 1998
"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
Confessions of a Former VMS Junkie
One Techie's Journey to Linux
By Russell C. Pavlicek
