Published by:

Sponsored by:

Our sponsors make financial contributions toward the costs of publishing Linux Gazette. If you would like to become a sponsor of LG, e-mail us at sponsor@ssc.com.

Linux Gazette is a non-commercial, freely available publication and will remain that way. Show your support by using the products of our sponsors and publisher.

Table of Contents
November 1998 Issue #34

The Front Page The MailBag Help Wanted General Mail More 2 Cent Tips News Bytes News in General Software Announcements The Answer Guy, by James T. Dennis Building an Automatic FTP Retriever, by Manuel Arturo Izquierdo Building an IDE CD-ROM Server, by Ron Jachim and Howard Cokl Creating a Linux Certification Program--The Next Step, by Dan York Debugging CGI Programs over TCP, by Kevin O'Malley Fall Internet World '98, by Stephen Adler First Canadian National Linux InstallFest, by Dean Staff Graphics Muse, by Michael J. Hammel How to Print to a Printer on a Netware Server, by Izak Burger Introduction to STL, Standard Template Library, by Scott Field Linux Basics, by Paul Anderson Linux Installation Primer, Part 3, by Ron Jenkins Loadlin.exe Installer, by Bill Bennet New Release Reviews, by Larry Ayers Dict Continued How Not to Re-Invent the Wheel Updates and Corrections Securing Your Linux Box, by Peter Vertes Sendmail Made Easy, by Eberhard W. Lisse TkApache, by Michael Holve The Back Page About This Month's Authors Not Linux
	The Answer Guy

TWDT 1 (text)
TWDT 2 (HTML)
are files containing the entire issue: one in text format, one in HTML. They are provided strictly as a way to save the contents as one file for later printing in the format of your choice; there is no guarantee of working links in the HTML version.

Got any great ideas for improvements? Send your comments, criticisms, suggestions and ideas.

This page written and maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette, gazette@ssc.com

"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"

Date: Sun, 04 Oct 1998 16:04:47 -0500
From: "Casey Bralla", Vorlon@pdn.net
Subject: Single IP Address & Many Servers. Possible?

This is for the "article wanted" section of the Linux Gazette. Thanks!

I have a single IP address for accessing the Internet. I have an Intranet with several old 486-class computers which all access the Internet via IP Masquerading. The single machine which is actually connected to the Internet (and does the masquerading) is not powerful enough to run a news server, mail server, HTTP server, etc. I would like to split these functions up among the cheap low-cost computers I have lying around. How can I force HTTP web pages to be serviced by the HTTP server even though it is not directly connected to the Internet with an IP address?

Example Diagram below:

 
207.123.456.789  (Single IP address to the Internet)
	|
	|
	486 DX/2-66   (IP Masquerading)
		|
		|
		486 DX-33  Mail Server    192.168.1.1
		|
		|
		K-5 133  HTTP Server   192.168.1.2
		|
		|
		486 DX-33 Leafnode News Server 192.168.1.3
		|
		|
		(Other local machines)

Casey Bralla

Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 15:40:06 -0500
From: "John Watts", watts@top.net
Subject: Missing network card

I've installed (from diskette) Debian 2.0 (hamm) on a system at work. The idea was to set it up as a file/print server for my department. Unfortunately, Linux doesn't believe me when I tell it that there is a network card. Its the EtherExpress 16. I've tried reinstalling and autoprobing, no luck. I've tried different Linux distributions, no luck. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!

John Watts

Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 21:36:12 PDT
From: "Jonathan Bryant", jonathanbryant@hotmail.com
Subject: Linux Extra?

I've been trying to encourage my Dad to try Linux. He has showed interest, but was curious if there was a Linux counterpart to Extra! on Windoze. He does a lot of work on the mainframe and needs something that can provide a "3270 terminal interface" for a "TSO session". I wondered if there are any old school programmers out there who can recommend a piece of software which would suit his needs.

Thanks
Jonathan Bryant

Date: Fri, 09 Oct 1998 08:45:50 -0400
From: "Brian M. Trapp", bmtrapp@acsu.buffalo.edu
Subject: NumLock - On at startup?

Hi! I've been reading the Linux Gazette for almost a year now. NICE WORK!!! You're a great resource.

Here's my quick and probably easy question.. On reboot (yes, I do that occasionally, just to use Win95 and Quicken) Linux (Red Hat 5.1) defaults to starting up with Num Lock off. How can I get it to switch it on for me automatically? (This is a matter of pride - I made the mistake of telling my girlfriend how great and powerful the OS is, and then she has to discover the num lock quirk for me...)

Thanks!
Brian Trapp

Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1998 09:47:05 +0800
From: "ctc", zhanghongyi@163.net
Subject: Where to find S3 ViRGE GX2 card driver for Linux

I use S3 ViRGE GX2 video card in my computer, but I cannot run startx. Do you know where I can find drivers for this kind of card? Any information is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Zhang-Hongyi

Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1998 16:38:00 -0700
From: Ed Ewing, edewing@isomedia.com
Subject: article idea

An article regarding cable modems and security, multiple interfaces etc.

Thanks
Ed

Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1998 10:47:09 +0200
From: "P.Plantinga", plant@cybercomm.nl
Subject: drivers savage Linux

Are there drivers for my savage for Red Hat 5.1 xwindows? If there are any, please let me know where to get them.

Thanks
P.Plantinga

Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 04:23:56 -0400
From: Eduardo Herrmann Freitas, efreitas@winnie.fit.edu
Subject: Ensoniq Audio PCI Sound Card

I would like to know if it is possible to install an Ensoniq Audio PCI Sound Card on Linux...

----
Eduardo

Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 14:01:07 -0400
From: "Mann, Jennifer", Jennifer.Mann@GSC.GTE.Com
Subject: looking for information

Hi. I am looking for information about how Linux handles transactions and database support. Has the Linux Gazette published any articles pertaining to this topic? If so, I would like to know if and where I can find those articles on the web.

Thank you,
Jennifer Mann

Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1998 09:01:46 -0500
From: "Mark Shipp(Soefker)", mshipp@netten.net
Subject: Confused with ProComm scripting

I got to your web site through a search on Yahoo. I must say that your help is a very valuable resource.

The reason that I'm doing this search is because I'm looking for someone with experience with the Aspect scripting. Could you or someone that you know steer me in the right path?

What I'm trying to do is create a counter that transmits its value in order to open to different nodes on a network. Below it the part of the program that is giving me the problem. It works except for the fact that I have to use the "TERMMSG" command instead of a "TRANSMIT". This won't work because the "open 0,(value)" statement has to be transmitted across the LAN.

Thanks for your help and time,
Mark

 
proc main
integer unit
   while unit !=3D 3      ; This means "while unit does *not* equal 3".
      unit++            ; Increment the value of counter (add 1 to it)
   termmsg "open 0,%d" unit
   transmit "^M"
                        ;This is where I would add in my other 
programming

pause (2)               
endwhile                ; When unit equals 3 proceed, else count unit 
and restart
                        ; This is where I would close the network
endproc

Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 15:29:49 +0000
From: "J luis Soler Cabezas", jsoca@etsii.upv.es
Subject: I need info

Hello, I have a TX pro II motherboard with an VGA onboard video chip. The problem is that Linux X86config X-Window subsystem doesn't recognize this video, the fact is that Linux can't access to Emulated video RAM.

I'm waiting for your news, and please, excuse my English.

----
Luis

Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 08:31:49 -0700
From: Ken Deboy, glockr@locked_and_loaded.reno.nv.us
Subject: Win95 peer-to-peer vs. Linux server running Samba

I'm wondering if anyone can tell me the advantages of a Linux machine running as a print server for a network of Win95 machines vs. just hang- ing the printer off one of the Win95 machines and setting them up in a peer-to-peer arrangement. You don't have to convince me, because I _do_ run Samba as my print server, but what can I tell my friends to convince them, especially if they aren't having too many problems with their Windoze machines? Thanks for any comments, but no flames...

Ken Deboy

Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 18:03:57 -0400
From: "Gregory Engel", rengel1@nycap.rr.com
Subject: How to add disk space to RH 5.1?

I am a new Linux user having installed Red Hat 5.1 last month. (So far so good) After installing several goodies and libraries like qt I find myself running out of disk space on my / directory. I have a Syquest EZ-flyer removeable disk drive that I didn't use at all during the install.

My question is can I move some of the directories that defaulted to the root directory like /tmp/ and /var/ to this drive without a full re-installation, and if so, how. Also I really couldn't figure out how to get the thing working during install. It is a SCSI drive that connects to the parallel port. Red Hat lists it as a supported drive but was of little help when I asked them for specific instructions.

If there is some other strategy I might use to gain disk space without a re-installation I would like to hear it. I'm still amazed I got the thing going in the first place. The partitioning makes me nervous.

Thanks,
Greg Engel

Date: Tue, 20 Oct 1998 19:50:58 -0700
From: Michael McDaniel, mmcdaniel@acm.org
Subject: imapd

I have found a lot of information about using clients with IMAP servers. I have found basically _nothing_ about how to actually make the imapd server on Linux do anything.

I can point NetScape Messenger at the localhost IMAP server and it (NS) dutifully says "no messages on server". Ok, I know that; how do I get messages on it?

My Suggestion:

Provide an article about imapd - how to set up hosts.allow for security, how to configure sendmail.cf to use it (I'm pretty sure this has to be done), how to set up user mailboxes, etc.

I would love to see an article like this. By the way, how can I be automatically notified when a new issue comes out? I thought I was receiving that information but maybe not - I haven't seen any info about the new articles as they come out lately.

Michael McDaniel

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 02:27:44 -0500
From: "Oblivion", garymc@mail.portup.com
Subject: Help, with Debian 2.0 install from CD-ROM not part of HDD card

I am having problems with Debian 2.0 to install the the important, extra, and/ or packages, which include the kernel source and patches. I have got a operating system, but it does not recognize the CD-ROM drive, thus I can not add or upgrade any program packages to the system. I have tried to move the CD-ROM drive to run off the HDD control but the system will not even do look at the BIOS to startup. I am including at the base of this message the system specs. of this machine.

 
	CPU:			Cyrix 5x86 100MHz
	Hard Drives:		BigFoot 1.2 Gb
				WD 4.0 Gb
	Floppy Drives:		3.5"
	Bus Type:		PCI
	Extra Drives:		TEAC  CD-55 tray ROM 4x
	Mouse and style:	Bus on COM1
	modem:			on COM2
	Memory:		24 Megs
	Root Directory:		hdc7
	O/S on system:		Windows 95
	Kernal Version:		2.0.34
	Sound Card:		Drives CDROM - Sound Blaster Pro 16 compatible

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 17:53:29 +0100
From: Thierry Durandy, thierry.durandy@art.alcatel.fr
Subject: Tie with the penguin logo

Do you know if I can find a tie with the Linux penguin logo on it? I could be interested in buying one to wear it and to show my opinion with keeping the suit.

Thierry

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998 17:00:16 EST
From: Ross, IceRaven1@aol.com
Subject: Cirrus Logic is the pits

Help me, I have a huge computer science project to hand in on Monday 11:00 GMT and my university won't let us use the UNIX boxes on the weekends. I have Linux but alas I have a Cirrus Logic 5446 PCI with 2MB and Xwindows can't hack it--it corrupts the screen. My mate bought a new card to fix this problem. There must be a cheaper sollution, patch, new server, whatever.

Also any quick help on how to set up a PPP conncection would be apreaciated,

Cheers to anyone who can help.

A newly converted Linux user,
Ross

Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 22:39:09 +0200
From: A.R. (Tom) Peters, tom@tompth.xs4all.nl
Subject: Linux certification

I read your article in Linux Gazette 33 on a Linux Certification program with interest. However, I would like to point out (and I will not be the only one), that this issue was already raised by Phil Hughes in L.J. Nov.1997 p.10; since then, there has been a still-active discussion in http://www.linuxjournal.com/HyperNews/get/certification.html. Therefore, I am somewhat surprised to see this paper appear in Linux Gazette without reference to these discussions. Moreover, Robert Hart of Red Hat has been actively defining a RH certification program; see http://www.redhat.com/~hartr/ .

In principle, I sustain initiatives like these. I strongly disagree however, with Dan York's stress on the benefits for conference centers and publishers. Although I don't care if they make a lot of money out of it, I am very much afraid of the consequences: if something like this really catches on, only people who can afford the certification program will be taken seriously as Linux consultants or developers. Everyone else will be officially doomed to be an "amateur", disrespective of competence or contributions already made to the Linux movement. So I think we should NOT copy the expensive MSCE model, but keep Linux certification affordable.

--
Tom "thriving on chaos" Peters

Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 16:53:56 -0400
From: Dan York, dyork@lodestar2.com
Subject: RE: Linux certification

Tom,
Many thanks for the pointers... I was not aware of the discussion on the linuxjournal.com site and had, in fact, been quite unsuccessful in finding such discussions on the web. Thank you.

Thank you for pointing out Robert Hart's site... yes, others have sent along that pointer as well. Maybe I missed it, but when I was going through Red Hat's site, I didn't see a link to his pages on certification. Thank you for sending the pointer... and I hope Red Hat and Caldera can unify their efforts. We'll see.

As far as your comments on the pricing, I understand your concerns. The struggle is to keep it affordable while also making it objective (which I would do through exams). In truth, Microsoft's MCSE program could cost only $600 (the price of the 6 exams), although in practice people spend much more for books and/or training classes.

Thanks for your feedback - and I look forward to whatever discussions evolve.

Regards,
Dan

Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1998 16:56:14 +0200
From: "David Andreas Alderud", aaldv97@student.hv.se
Subject: Reb0l

Just thought I'd mention something everybody needs to know... Reb0l is no longer beta and is available from www.rebol.com Really nice, I've used Reb0l since late last year (On my Amiga though) and I'm really pleased, sure think it will run over every other script language.

Kind Regards,
Andreas Alderud.

Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 10:29:21 -0500 (CDT)
From: mjhammel@graphics-muse.org
Subject: re: links between identical sections

Although I can't speak for other areas of the Gazette, the Graphics Muse can be searched using the Graphics Muse Web site. I have all the back issues online there with topical headings for the main articles in each issue. This feature just went live (online) last night, so it's brand new (which is why no one knew about it before :-).

Take a look at http://www.graphics-muse.org/linux.html and click on the "Muse" button. That will do it for you.

----
Michael J. Hammel, The Graphics Muse

We've added those requested links to each of the regular columns now. Ellen Dahl did this good work for us. --Editor

Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 04:02:23 -0400
From: "Tim Gray", timgray@geocities.com
Subject: Linux easy/not easy/not ready/ready YIKES!

Ok, I've noticed one very strong theme in every message I have ever read about Linux and how it won't be accepted as a desktop. Every message states in one way or another, "if they see a command prompt, they will panic". I am appalled at how IT professionals view users as idiots and morons. I refuse to call myself an IT professional because I help my users and clients use their software and don't "just fix it when they mess it up". A user can learn the command prompt quickly, and it's easier to teach than, "click on start,settings,controlpanel,system,bla bla bla bla...." than, "just type setupmodem and press enter" or whatever command or script you may like. I have started to move all my clients to Linux starting with the servers, saving them time and money. And I have a CEO that logs in as root and adds and removes users at one location. Users are much smarter than everyone gives them credit for and a command prompt doesn't affect them as if the devil just spoke from the speakers. If the IT departments around the world put 1/5 the effort into educating the users than complaining about them, then it would be a non-issue. As computer professionals, we are to keep things running and educate our users, not sit on the pillar looking down with the look of "what do you do to it now?"

As one last question, everyone says "I'll use Linux when it has a standard GUI"... What is a standard GUI? Windows doesn't have one, Linux is the closest thing to a standard GUI than anything else available.

----
Tim Gray

Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 06:56:51 -0400
From: Nathaniel Smith, slow@negia.net
Subject: Information on Linux

I wrote you on Article Ideas and told you that I thought you should write an article on how to use Linux for us (click and go people, who are computer dummies), and you were kind enough to publish it. Before I wrote you, I had already ordered 4 books (apparently the wrong ones, and had received two, they started out, "I will assume you already have a full working knowledge of Unix commands). I have had several kind souls, who have taken their time and energy, to point me in a direction that I can help myself, and that is all anyone can ask. Some have even tried to go even further and tried to help me with a hard drive problem that I have. I would like to see someone try that with the Windows crowd, you would most likely come up with an empty mail box. I think that says a lot about the type of people that uses Linux and I just want to thank you and everyone who has tried to help me, for I will try to help myself before asking for anymore help. I think that I have enough to keep me busy learning for quite a while.

thank you
Nathaniel

Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998 18:44:33 -0400
From: keith, keithg@bway.net
Subject: suggestion for Linux security feature

I wonder if you can point me in the right direction to make a suggestion for a new "feature" of Linux which could further help to differentiate it in the marketplace, and which might really give it a LOT of exposure (good) in today's security-conscious press...

The security of computer information has been in the press a lot lately, detectability of "deleted" files on people's hard drives, "secret" files, cache files, cookies, etc. which are out of the purview of the typical (and maybe even the advanced!) user. People either think they've deleted things which they haven't really expunged, or their files are infiltrated, perhaps by a child (accidentally, of course!).

It seems to me quite possible to structure an OS like UNIX (and Linux in particular, since it is under development by so many gifted people) in such a way that all such files are created in a directory under the current user's ownership, in a knowable and findable place, so that:

A. only that user could access their own cache, cookies, pointer files, etc. I do not know how deleted files could be safeguarded in this way, unless it is simply to encrypt everything. Hmmm.;

B. these files - the whole lot of them - could be scrubbed, wiped, obliterated (that's why it's important for them to be in a known and findable place) by their owner, without impairing the function of the applications or the system, and without disturbing similar such files for other users.

C. it would be nice too if there were a way to prevent the copying of certain files, and that would include copying by backup programs (for example, I'm a Mac user and we use Retrospect to back up some of our Macs; there's a feature to suppress the backing up of a particular directory by having a special character (a "bullet", or optn-8) at the beginning or end of the directory name.) But if this could be an OS-level feature, it would be stronger.

If I'm user X, and I want to get rid of my computer, or get rid of everything that's mine on the computer, I should just be able to delete all of my data files (and burn them or wipe them or otherwise overwrite that area of the disk), which I can surely do today. But in addition, I should know where to go to do the same thing with whatever system level files might be out there, currently unbeknownst to me, and be able to expunge them also, without affecting anything for anyone else.

Who would work on such a thing as this? Who would I suggest this to? Of course, it's my idea. (c) Keith Gardner 1998. :) But if something like this could be set up, wouldn't it go a long way in the press, in corporate and government buying mind set, etc.?

I'm writing this very quickly, the idea really just came to me while reading the NY Times this morning with an article (in Circuits, 10/8/98) about computer security, and I am on my way out the door. I don't have time to give it much polish. But I hope the ideas are clear enough. Let me know what you think.

Thanks.
Keith Gardner

Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1998 15:41:25 -0500 (CDT)
From: Bret McGuire, mersault@busboy.sped.ukans.edu
Subject: Availability of information for newbies

The October issue of Linux Gazette featured a number of mail messages from individuals seeking basic information on how to start up and run a useful Linux system. A common complaint among these individuals was that basic information was not readily available, leading to the rather humorous suggestion that anyone who operates a usable Linux system was somehow "born with this information". :)

This isn't the case. There are a number of locations on the Web which offer a great deal of information about the Linux operating system. The best starting point is probably still the Linux Documentation Project...

http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/

(or at least that's where I always go... I understand there are mirrors all over)

This site features HOWTO documents on nearly every topic you can imagine, along with current copies of the various Guides (everything from the Installation and Getting Started Guide thru The Linux Users' Guide thru The Linux Network Administrators' Guide, etc.). I suspect that this site either has the answer to your questions or has a link to someplace else that does. Definitely worth looking at...

----
Bret

Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 13:54:18 +0200
From: Jonas Erikson, jonase@admin.kth.se
Subject: go go Network do or die!

My concern is that the free software alternative is going to its grave due to out-dated core bindings to the standard old UNIX core.

In comp.os.plan9 there are discussions like:

| Hasn't the coolness of Linux worn off? If you want true excitement with | how cool an OS is and the fun of pioneering again, how about cloning | Plan 9?

Later in the same thread:

| We need a new Linus to start writing a Plan 9 kernel. GNU's Hurd doesn't | go as far, as a cloned Plan 9 would.

And in other comp.os.* ... more...

I urge not to start all over again - but to modify that what is market recognized and stable. I think, unlike many other freeware enthusiasts, that there is a need for software infrastructure. A weak Linux would scatter a lot of good work and inspirations. For a new alternative it would take far too much time to reclaim the market confidence to freeware again.

I know that what I suggest, is far in terms of development in Linux and that Linux holds a legacy of strong infrastructure. But I don't know if Linux, can tackle the infrastructure requirements building up after the first Internet pioneering..

Users in the MS-world see ACL:s and sharing (thus only the image) capabilities as a condition for selecting system. Also the development trend is that of distributing services, not only inside corporations but also trading with services distributed via CORBA or DCOM. Also other not so heavy standards are emerging as P3P, and do require a more distributive approach.

If we look at sharing with supposed "advanced" like CODA and AFS capabilities in file systems, that is just the beginning. And I think only a symptom, of lacking structures inside UNIX. (CODA _is_ advanced in may aspects not issued here)

New Internet standards make UNIX applications handle more, and more security features not compatible with the system. Building walls in systems by not providing infrastructure is not good for freeware, it's not like Internet at all, not infrastructure.

The emerging operating system would be the most flexible in distributed security and compatible to old standards... And the idea to use a freeware alternative is to be ahead and in control.

Are we still?

So for the Linux Ext2fs kernel 2.3 ACL development: Do embed [domain][gid/uid][rights] for ACL-enteries!

Don't forget that:
Linux is like windows to the whole OS-arena but on the "open/free" OS arena. And software is like infrastructure. - nothing but smaller differences are necessary to gain market. As roads they need to be compatible with most cars, but still improve. Now some infrastructures are gradually being implemented that set new standards to cars, it's a bad idea not to take advantage of these standards.

Jonas

Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998 06:53:39 -0500
From: "Bill Parker", bparker@dc.net
Subject: Compliments on a great issue

Great issue. It will take me some time to absorb even some of the information and good ideas presented here.

I particularly benefited from "Thoughts about Linux," by Jurgen Defurne and "DialMon: The Linux/Windows diald Monitor," by Mike Richardson. I have not had time to read the rest yet.

Thanks and best wishes,
Bill Parker

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 16:16:37 -0800
From: Dave Stevens, dstevens@mail.bulkley.net
Subject: Rant

October 17, 1998, Smithers, B.C.
There is a lot of criticism of Linux that goes more or less like this - "Well if it was so hot it would cost something. Everything free is no good."

It isn't necessarily so and it just isn't so.

Copyright is a social vehicle for compensating creators of intellectual property. The copyright expires eventually. Then the benefit of the intellectual work can, if it is of lasting value, be used more widely and, in principle, at least, in perpetuity. This process and model are very familiar in other fields of intellectual endeavor but are new to computer programming. If we look at the body of english literature that fills our libraries and bookshelves, there is certainly no direct correspondence between copyright and quality. All of Shakespeare, to take a favorite of mine, is long out of copyright and is some of the best literature ever created. Or Mozart, or Dickens. You make the list.

The whole consumer software trip is too new for the copyright process and terms to have worked themselves out full term. The concept of computer software as intellectual work, potentially of a high calibre, is just too new for social understanding to be widespread. The idea that intellectual work might be contributed and protected in such a way as to enlarge the realm of the possible in the computer part of the public sphere certainly has a way to go in being got used to.

Does this mean that some of the criticism offered in superficial? To put it kindly, yes. The open source software community is collaboratively creating a standard for computer software below which any commercial vendor will fall at its peril. If you can have all this for free will you actually pay to get an inferior product? Maybe by accident. But not twice. The growth of acceptance of Linux is a step in the spread of the idea of a body of public domain imperative literature. Its quality is no more to be judged by its price than a Chopin waltz.

I would be happy to discuss any of these ideas with coherent correspondents, and invite both comment and criticism.

Dave Stevens

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!"

Contents:

• No Linux support Lexmark 40 printers
• The Mailbag: Re: text browsers
• RE: Problem mounting vfat filesystem ...
• Re: Linux Newbie
• Locally Searching the Linux Gazette
• Re: Problem mounting vfat filesystem
• Mounting DOS Partitions in Linux
• Re: Canon BJC-250 question
• Re: Help : Modem + HP
• Gnat and Linux: C++ and Java Under Fire LG #33
• Re: Canon BJC-250 question
• re: problem mounting vfat filesystem
• SMB Printing for users with spaces in their SMB username
• 2 Cent Tip -- Netscape
• Cobol
• Piped Signatures
• Fixing backspace and delete Key in X-windows
• Creating bzgrep Program
• Re: Linux on PalmPilot
• Red Hat 5.1 + Acrobat Reader 3.01 HOWTO
• 2 $.25 tips
• S3 Virge/DX and XFree

No Linux support Lexmark 40 printers

For your information:
The Lexmark 40 color printers do all setup/alignment from MS whatever OS.

Lexmark first told me they don't support Linux on their new 40 & 45 printers (all alignment functions are from software under MS something). But hey, the guys at Lexmark came through. They sent me a C program for aligning the printer.

It would be a good candidate to go into an archive (sunsite.unc.edu). I don't know the process for putting software into an archive so I am passing it on to you folks. I also am sending it to Grant Taylor gtaylor+pht@picante.com, who is listed as the custodian of the Printing-HOWTO. The model 40 printer is PostScript and works well.

Cheers
Dale

The Mailbag: Re: text browsers

User has problems with <B>, that is not visible in lynx.

Tomas

RE: Problem mounting vfat filesystem ...

Jan Jansta wrote...
I have permanent problem with mounting any vfat/dos filesystem with write permisions for all users on my Linux machine. I'm using Red Hat 5.1, kernel version 2.0.34 . Does someone know what's not working properly ?

 
/dev/hda1                 /mnt/win95                vfat   umask=000,auto 1 1

Re: Linux Newbie

I saw your letter to Linux Gazette and decided to drop you a few pointers.

Linux Documentation Project:
First, the Linux Documentation Project is your friend. Take a look around the site http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/. The documents that you'll find most valuable as a new Linux user are the "Installation and Getting Started Guide" and the "The Linux Users' Guide". Both are available for download in multiple formats. Descriptions and pointers are at http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/ldp.html. If you really consider yourself (or your curious friends) clueless, then I'd advise you to buy a ream of paper and print the PDF version of the Linux User's Guide for casual reading. Then get one of the easier distributions, back up your Win95 data, and give Linux a whirl.

Linux Distributions:
I'd recommend Caldera http://www.caldera.com/ for casual non-programmers that are comfortable with Win95 and just want to try Linux. Current versions of Caldera come with the KDE desktop http://www.kde.org/. KDE presents a familiar interface to Win95 users. Red Hat http://www.redhat.com/ is very popular and also relatively easy but is oriented more toward knowledgeable computer users. I'm not familiar enough with SUSE http://www.suse.com/ to make a recommendation, although it's supposed to be easy too. Debian http://www.debian.org/ and Slackware http://www.slackware.org/ are considered by most to be for those who already know how to install and use Linux. There are other distributions, but these are the most popular.

Included Documentation:
Once you get Linux installed, fire up Midnight Commander from the command line using 'mc'. This is an easy to use file manager that, despite its DOS look & feel, is also powerful. Use it to take a look around the /usr/doc directory for the wealth of documentation installed in any popular Linux system. You'll be astounded at the amount of information available if you're accustomed to the Win95 way of doing things. The HOWTO documents in particular will be very useful to new users. HOWTOs are cookbook-style documents written by Linux users who have taken the time to share the steps they took to accomplish something in Linux. Perhaps if you use Linux for a while, you'll have occasion to write a HOWTO of your own.

Manual Pages
If you see references to a command in Linux and would like to know more about using it, chances are you'll find a comprehensive description of the command and all its options in the associated Manual Page. Just type: 'man command' at the command line, substituting the name of the command you're interested in and you'll be presented with a summary of the syntax, usage, and available options for the command. Many man pages also include examples and references to related man pages and commands. To see how to use the manual page system itself, just use 'man man'.

Mailing Lists and Newsgroups
Mailing lists and newsgroups provide a good way to find the answer to a question you haven't been able to find the answer to in the extensive documentation included with Linux or available from the LDP. Mailing lists are generally archived and the archives will probably be able to answer your question. If not, post a note asking for a pointer to the documentation and you'll probably get several good answers. If the problem is simple enough, you'll probably get an explanation too. I've found pointers to comprehensive documentation to be more valuable in the long run though. Often, understanding the solution to one problem allows you to solve other problems later. When subscribing to a mailing list or newsgroup, try to find one that's specific to the distribution you use. Most things are the same across distributions, but there are enough small differences that new users would be best served by getting help that's specific to their distribution.

One more thing; be prepared to do lots of reading. ;-)

--
Anthony E. Greene

Locally Searching the Linux Gazette

To begin with, I often like to browse and/or reference present and past issues of the Linux Gazette. But, since I'm not always connected to the Internet, and even when I am, I hate waiting for a page to download; I mirror it locally, both at home, and at work.

On occasion I have found myself grepping the TWDT files for specific references to various topics, commands, packages, or whatever. But, just a plain grep of lg/issue??/issue??.html, will only show references in all but the first 8 issues. So, I made some minor changes in lg/issue01to08, and put an alias (command) in ~/.bashrc, to allow easy scanning of ALL issues.

First, the changes:

 
  cd ~/html/lg/issue01to08
  ln linux_gazette.html lg_issue1.html
  ln linux_gazette.aug.html lg_issue2.html
  ln linux_gazette.sep.html lg_issue3.html
  ln linux_gazette.oct.html lg_issue4.html
  ln linux_gazette.nov.html lg_issue5.html

 
  lgfind () { command grep -i ""$@"" ~/html/lg/issue01to08/lg_issue?.html ~/html/lg/issue??/issue??.html | more ; }

 
  alias lgfind 'grep  -i ""\!*"" ~/html/lg/issue01to08/lg_issue?.html ~/html/lg/issue??/issue??.html | more'

And I suppose I could also have created either soft or hard links to ALL of the TWDT files in another directory. But I would then have to go there and add another link, every time a new issue came out.

Using this is simple, just:

 
  lgfind <string>

Once I have the output of lgfind, I point my browser to another html page that I have generated, that contains just links to all of the TWDT files. I will attach that page to this message. You can either add it to the base files, publish it, or whatever TYO. ;-) I put it in the directory that contains your `lg' directory.

I hope this helps someone else, too.

Ray Marshall

PS: I agree with your decision to use "TWDT". It can be read in whatever way one wishes, including very inoffensively. Wise choice.

Re: Problem mounting vfat filesystem

From: Jan Jansta
I have a permanent problem with mounting any vfat/dos filesystem with write permissions for all users >on my Linux machine. I'm using Red Hat 5.1, kernel version 2.0.34 Does someone know what's not working properly ?

I had somewhat the same problem. What I did was to put this in my

 
/etc/fstab:
/dev/hda1                 /dos                      vfat   user,noauto 0
0

Good luck,
Nick

Mounting DOS Partitions in Linux

Secure Mounting for DOS Partitions:

In order to open up permissions on your DOS partitions in a secure way, do the following:

Note: in the samples below, the dos usrid (63) and grpid(63) were selected so they wouldn't duplicate any other usrid or grpid in /etc/passwd or /etc/group.

Also, this solution works with Red Hat 5.1, you may have to adjust it slightly if you are using a different distribution.

1) Make a dos user who can't log in by adding the following line to /etc/passwd: dos:*:63:63:MSDOS Accessor:/dos:

2) Make a dos group and add users to the dos group. In the following example, root and ejy are in the dos group. To do this, add a line like the following to /etc/group: dos::63:root,ejy

3) Add the following line (changed to suit your system) to

 
   /etc/fstab:
     /dev/hda1  /C      vfat    uid=63,gid=63,umask=007 0 0
   

 
     /sbin/fdisk -l
     df
     cat /etc/fstab

4) Create a mount point for your DOS disk by issuing the following commands as root: mkdir /C chown dos:dos /C

With this setup, the C: drive is mounted at boot time to /C. Only root and ejy can read and write to it. Note that vfat in /etc/fstab works for vfat16 (and vfat32 natively for Linux 2.0.34 and above).

Enjoy...

Re: Canon BJC-250 question

In issue 33 of the Linux Gazette you wrote:
I have a Canon BJC-250 color printer. I have heard many people say that the BJC-600 printer driver will let me print in color. But I have not heard anyone say where I can get such a driver. I have looked everywhere but where it is. Can you help me?

Ghostscript is an interpreter of the Postscript page-description language. In the Unix world, it is kind of a lingua franca of talking to a printer. A lot of programs can produce Postscript output.

More expensive printers support Postscript in hardware, other printers need Ghostscript with a driver for that particular printer compiled in.

Invoke Ghostscript as "gs -?" to see a list of all the printers for which support is compiled in. If your printer is not in the list, use a driver for a printer from the same family. Otherwise you might have to compile GhostScript with another driver.

The Ghostscript 5.1 that I'm using (Debian distro) is compiled with the bjc600 driver.

Roland

Re: Help : Modem + HP

In issue 33 of the Linux Gazette you wrote:
I have already spent hours trying to fix my Supra336 PnP internal modem and my HP DeskJet 720C under Linux! The result is always the same, no communication with teh modem and no page printed on the HP printer! Could someone help me, I am close to abandon!

Log in as root, and execute the command "pnpdump >isapnp.conf" Now edit this file to choose sensible values for the parameters the modem requires. Read the isapnp.conf man page. You might want to do "cat /proc/interrupts", "cat /proc/dma" and "cat /proc/ioports" to see which interrupts, DMA channels and I/O addresses are already in use. Once you're finished. copy the isapnp.conf file to /etc (as root). You can now configure the card by issuing the command "isapnp /etc/isapnp.conf" as root.

This probably must be done before the serial ports are configured. Look at the init(8) manpage, and see where the serial ports are configured in the system initialization scripts. Make sure that isapnp is called before the serial ports are configured.

If the modem is an internal one, you might have to disable one of the serial ports in your BIOS, so the modem can use in's address and interrupt.

Now, about the printer, AFIAK all HP *20 models are Windows-only printers. They use the host computer's CPU to perform all kinds of calculations that are normally done by the printer hardware. Therefore it needs a driver. Since HP doesn't release programming info on these devices, there will probably never be Linux drivers for these printers.

You should avoid this kind of brain-dead hardware (mostly referred to as "winprinters", or "winmodems").

Hope this helps :-)

Roland

Gnat and Linux: C++ and Java Under Fire LG #33

If you want the best of both worlds of Java and Ada, write applets targeted to the JVM in Ada! See these URLs for further info:

http://www.adahome.com/Resources/Ada_Java.html http://www.buffnet.net/~westley/AdaJava/

--
Terry J. Westley

Re: Canon BJC-250 question

You asked:
I have a Canon BJC-250 color printer. I have heard many people say that the BJC-600 printer driver will let me print in color. But I have not heard anyone say where I can get such a driver. I have looked everywhere but where it is. Can you help me?

To see if you have ghostscript installed, type the following:

 
% gs -v

 
Aladdin Ghostscript 4.03 (1996-9-23)
Copyright (C) 1996 Aladdin Enterprises, Menlo Park, CA.  All rights
reserved.
Usage: gs [switches] [file1.ps file2.ps ...]
Most frequently used switches: (you can use # in place of =)
 -dNOPAUSE           no pause after page   | -q       `quiet', fewer messages
 -g<width>x<height>  page size in pixels   | -r<res>  pixels/inch resolution
 -sDEVICE=<devname>  select device         | -c quit  (as the last switch)
                                           |            exit after last file
 -sOutputFile=<file> select output file: - for stdout, |command for pipe,
                                         embed %d or %ld for page #
Input formats: PostScript PostScriptLevel1 PostScriptLevel2 PDF
Available devices:
   x11 x11alpha x11cmyk x11mono deskjet djet500 laserjet ljetplus ljet2p
   ljet3 ljet4 cdeskjet cdjcolor cdjmono cdj550 pj pjxl pjxl300 bj10e bj200
   bjc600 bjc800 faxg3 faxg32d faxg4 pcxmono pcxgray pcx16 pcx256 pcx24b pbm
   pbmraw pgm pgmraw pgnm pgnmraw pnm pnmraw ppm ppmraw tiffcrle tiffg3
   tiffg32d tiffg4 tifflzw tiffpack tiff12nc tiff24nc psmono bit bitrgb
   bitcmyk pngmono pnggray png16 png256 png16m pdfwrite nullpage
Search path:
   . : /usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/Type1 : /usr/openwin/lib/X11/fonts/Type3 :
   /opt/AEgs/share/ghostscript/4.02 : /opt/AEgs/share/ghostscript/fonts
For more information, see /opt/AEgs/share/ghostscript/4.02/doc/use.txt.
Report bugs to ghost@aladdin.com; use the form in new-user.txt.

This output comes from a version of ghostscript built for a Solaris system by someone other than myself. I don't know if this is the default set of devices you'll see on a Linux distribution or not.

The "available devices" say which devices you can use with gs. In this case the bubble jet 250 is not specifically listed (I suspect it would say bjc250, but I could be wrong), so I would (if I were using that particular printer) have to get the source and read the devices.txt file to find out if this printer is supported, either by its own driver or by one of the other drivers (perhaps the bjc600 supports it, for example).

This is the short explanation. To summarize, you'll need to familiarize yourself with Ghostscript and using lpr. If you're lucky and this printer is commonly supported by the various Linux distributions then you may already have this printer configured in the ghostscript you have installed on your box.

For information on Ghostscript you'll need to look at the Ghostscript FAQ at http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsfaq.html. Note that there are two versions of Ghostscript: Aladdin's and the GNU version. Aladdin's is a commercial product but it's free for personal use. If you're not planning on redistributing it then I recommend the Aladdin version.

Okay, that's all the good news. I just checked the devices list at http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/aladdin/devices.html and it doesn't list the Canon Color Bubble Jet 250. If this printer is supported it's either with a newer, unlisted driver or by one of the other drivers. You'll probably need to check the .txt files that come with the source, find the author of the Color Bubble Jet drivers and drop them a line to see if they know if this printer will work with one of the existing drivers.

Hope that helps point you in the right direction.

Michael J. Hammel, The Graphics Muse

re: problem mounting vfat filesystem

Jan,
My /etc/fstab contains this line:

 
/dev/hda4     /f:  vfat    defaults,umask=007,gid=101        1 1

To allow everyone change it to defaults,umask=000

Scott Carlson

SMB Printing for users with spaces in their SMB username

In order to get SMB printing to work under Red Hat Linux 5.1 with my username (which has a single space in it), I made the following addition to the Red Hat print filter "smbprint", located in: /usr/lib/rhs/rhs-printfilters/smbprint

 
USER="`echo $usercmd | awk '{printf "%s %s", $2,
$3}'`"%$password
usercmd=""

 
(echo "print -"; cat) | /usr/bin/smbclient "$share"
$password -E ${hostip:+-I} $hostip -N -P $usercmd
2>/dev/null

This solution only works for usernames with a single space in them. A more complex and full-featured solution would deal with no spaces or multiple spaces, either way. In any case, I feel Red Hat should find a general solution to this and incorporate it in their next release.

Warren

P.S. Thanks for a great forum for sharing tips and tricks for Linux. BTW, does Red Hat read these tips? I'd appreciate it if someone would submit this bug to them for fixing. Generalized fix for SMB printing-- usernames w/spaces Date: Wed, 07 Oct 98 06:38:02 -0800
From: vwdowns@bigfoot.com

I wrote you earlier about a bug in Red Hat 5.1's /usr/lib/rhs/rhs-printfilters/smbprint

I later realized a simple generalized solution, by looking at the source code in more detail. The lines I added before can be replaced with:

 
export USER="$user"%$password
usercmd=""

For a more full-featured fix, simply modify the setting of $usercmd to: 1. Replace references to $usercmd with references to $USER.

2. $USER should be set/exported conditionally as $usercmd is at present.

3. $usercmd should be removed entirely from usage.

The only reliable way to pass a username/password to smbclient is via the USER environment variable.

1. The environment variable will not be seen on the cmd line by someone running ps, thus not exposing your password accidentally.

2. User names/passwords passed on the command line cannot contain spaces. If you embed them in quotes, smbclient keeps the quotes instead of trimming them off, causing username/password mismatch on the server. If you leave off the quotes, normal command-line parsing separates the username/password into separate parameters, and only the first word of each will get used.

Anyone using Red Hat print-filters will want to fix this, just in case they ever decide to set up SMB printing and are stuck with spaces in their username/password (as I am).

Warren E. Downs

2 Cent Tip -- Netscape

we all use Netscape every now and then. Most people won't use it as mailreader since it is too bloated, and the UNIX mailreaders are generally much better.

Nevertheless, Netscape seems to create a directory nsmail in the user's home directory every time it starts and doesn't find it, even if mail is not used. This is annoying. Here's a trick which doesn't make this directory go away, but at least makes it invisible.

I didn't find a GUI equivalent to change this setting so you have to do the following:

Edit the file ~/.netscape/preferences.js and change all occurences of 'nsmail' to '.netscape'. The important thing here is, of course, the leading dot before 'netscape'.

Regards,
hjb

Cobol

I saw your request for help in the Linux Gazette re Cobol. I've been using AcuCobol for 2 years under Linux and I strongly recommend the product and the company.

I don't know the cost of the compiler because my company bought it - but email them and ask for a student copy - they can only refuse... They have a full development environment called 'AcuBench' which currently only runs only under Windows.

The amazing thing about AcuCobol is that programs compiled on one platform will run totally unchanged on another machine - I tend to develop under Windows but install at clients sites on Linux. I hope this has been helpful.

Regards
John Leach

Piped Signatures

This has probably come up before, but the "more fun with pipes" thing in issue 33 reminded me of it.

Have a different signature appear in your emails every time you send one.

Create a subdrectory in your home called .signatures and copy your .signature file into it under a visible name. delete your .signature file and create a pipe in its place using

 
mkfifo .signature

 
#!/bin/sh
while true
do
	for SIGNATURE in ${HOME}/.signatures/*
	do
		# Cat each file out to the .signature and throw away any errors.

		cat ${SIGNATURE} > ${HOME}/.signature 2> /dev/null

		# This sleep seems to be required for Netscape to work properly
		# I think buffering on the filesystem can cause multiple signatures
		# to be read otherwise. I think the sleep allows Netscape to see
		# the End Of File.

		sleep 1
	done
done

Issues and problems:
One issue might be blocking on the pipe. If there is no process feeding signature files down the pipe, any programs which open the pipe can appear to hang until something is written.

--
Colin Smith

Fixing backspace and delete Key in X-windows

If you have installed Red Hat version 5.0, you will have come across this problem. It will not take you long to realise that the backspace key (by this I mean the key above the ENTER key) and the delete key (by this I mean the key below the INSERT key and to the left of the END key) behaves differently on the console than on xterm in X-windows.

This is extremely irritating if like me you work in both the text-only console and xterm on X-windows. I set about to make sure that the behaviour is the same on both of them. In other words I want them to be standardise.

My solution is to make the backspace, delete and the pageup and pagedown key to behave exactly like they do in the text-only console.

The literature to do this is available on the web, however here I shall show those who have not done this yet, the steps needed to acheive this. A word of warning! This is dangerous. You can potentially stuff things up very very badly. In other words you must do this extremely carefully (and make lots of backups).

For your information I included the links below where you may obtain more details about this matter.

http://www.best.com/~aturner//RedHat-FAQ/ http://www.ibbnet.nl/~anne/keyboard.html

Okay now for the step by step instruction to fix the problem

Step one
* * * is to create a directory to store the original files

 
ksiew > mkdir original-terminfo-file
ksiew > cd original-terminfo-file/
original-terminfo-file > pwd
/home/ksiew/original-terminfo-file

Step two
* * * is to save the original copy of the xterm terminfo file

 
original-terminfo-file > locate xterm | grep terminfo | grep x/xterm
/usr/lib/terminfo/x/xterm
/usr/lib/terminfo/x/xterm-bold
/usr/lib/terminfo/x/xterm-color
/usr/lib/terminfo/x/xterm-nic
/usr/lib/terminfo/x/xterm-pcolor
/usr/lib/terminfo/x/xterm-sun
/usr/lib/terminfo/x/xterms
/usr/lib/terminfo/x/xterms-sun
original-terminfo-file > cp /usr/lib/terminfo/x/xterm xterm.original
original-terminfo-file > ls -al
total 5
drwxrwxr-x   2 ksiew    ksiew        1024 Oct 18 15:35 .
drwxr-xr-x  24 ksiew    ksiew        2048 Oct 18 15:31 ..
-rw-rw-r--   1 ksiew    ksiew        1380 Oct 18 15:35 xterm.original

original-terminfo-file > infocmp xterm > xterm
original-terminfo-file > less ./xterm
#	Reconstructed via infocmp from file: /usr/lib/terminfo/x/xterm
xterm|vs100|xterm terminal emulator (X11R6 Window System), 
	am, km, mir, msgr, xenl, xon, 
	cols#80, it#8, lines#65, 
	acsc=``aaffggjjkkllmmnnooppqqrrssttuuvvwwxxyyzz{{||}}~~..--++\
054\054hhII00, 
	bel=^G, bold=\E[1m, clear=\E[H\E[2J, cr=^M, 
	csr=\E[%i%p1%d;%p2%dr, cub=\E[%p1%dD, cub1=^H, 
	cud=\E[%p1%dB, cud1=^J, cuf=\E[%p1%dC, cuf1=\E[C, 
	cup=\E[%i%p1%d;%p2%dH, cuu=\E[%p1%dA, cuu1=\E[A, 
	dch=\E[%p1%dP, dch1=\E[P, dl=\E[%p1%dM, dl1=\E[M, 
	ed=\E[J, el=\E[K, enacs=\E(B\E)0, home=\E[H, ht=^I, 
	ich=\E[%p1%d@, ich1=\E[@, il=\E[%p1%dL, il1=\E[L, 
	ind=^J, 
	is2=\E[r\E[m\E[2J\E[H\E[?7h\E[?1;3;4;6l\E[4l, 
	kbs=^H, kcub1=\EOD, kcud1=\EOB, kcuf1=\EOC, 
	kcuu1=\EOA, kend=\EOe, kent=\EOM, 
	kf1=\E[11~, kf10=\E[21~, kf11=\E[23~, kf12=\E[24~, 
	kf2=\E[12~, kf3=\E[13~, kf4=\E[14~, kf5=\E[15~, 
	kf6=\E[17~, kf7=\E[18~, kf8=\E[19~, kf9=\E[20~, 
	khome=\EO\200, kich1=\E[2~, kmous=\E[M, knp=\E[6~, 
	kpp=\E[5~, rc=\E8, rev=\E[7m, ri=\EM, rmacs=^O, 
	rmam=\E[?7l, rmcup=\E[2J\E[?47l\E8, rmir=\E[4l, 
	rmkx=\E[?1l\E>, rmso=\E[m, rmul=\E[m, rs1=^O, 
	rs2=\E[r\E[m\E[2J\E[H\E[?7h\E[?1;3;4;6l\E[4l\E<, 
	sc=\E7, sgr0=\E[m, smacs=^N, smam=\E[?7h, 
	smcup=\E7\E[?47h, smir=\E[4h, smkx=\E[?1h\E=, 
	smso=\E[7m, smul=\E[4m, tbc=\E[3k, u6=\E[%i%d;%dR, 
	u7=\E[6n, u8=\E[?1;2c, u9=\E[c, 

Change from

 
	kbs=^H, kcub1=\EOD, kcud1=\EOB, kcuf1=\EOC, 
	kcuu1=\EOA, kend=\EOe, kent=\EOM, 

 
	kbs=\177, kcub1=\EOD, kcud1=\EOB, kcuf1=\EOC, 
	kcuu1=\EOA, kdch1=\E[3~, kend=\EOe, kent=\EOM, 

 
original-terminfo-file > mkdir ~/.terminfo

original-terminfo-file > export TERMINFO=~/.terminfo

 
    original-terminfo-file > setenv TERMINFO ~/.terminfo

original-terminfo-file > export TERM=xterm

 
    original-terminfo-file > setenv TERM xterm

original-terminfo-file > su
password: opensesame

#| tic xterm

 
#| cd ~/.terminfo/x/
#| cp xterm /usr/lib/terminfo/x/xterm
#| cd ~
#| rm -rf .terminfo
#| exit
ksiew>

 
ksiew> logout
login: ksiew
password: opensesame
ksiew> less .Xdefaults

 
xterm*VT100.Translations: #override\n\
	<KeyPress>gt;Prior : scroll-back(1,page)\n\
	<KeyPress>gt;Next : scroll-forw(1,page)
nxterm*VT100.Translations: #override\n\
	<KeyPress>gt;Prior : scroll-back(1,page)\n\
	<KeyPress>gt;Next : scroll-forw(1,page)

 
xterm*VT100.Translations: #override\n\
	<KeyPress>gt;Prior : string("\033[5~")\n\
	<KeyPress>gt;Next  : string("\033[6~")
nxterm*VT100.Translations: #override\n\
	<KeyPress>gt;Prior : string("\033[5~")\n\
	<KeyPress>gt;Next  : string("\033[6~")
*VT100.Translations: #override \
        <Key>gt;BackSpace: string(0x7F)\n\
        <Key>gt;Delete:    string("\033[3~")\n\
        <Key>gt;Home:      string("\033[1~")\n\
        <Key>gt;End:       string("\033[4~")
*ttyModes: erase ^?

Steven

Creating bzgrep Program

If you have ever used zgrep on gzip-textfiles then you would have realise what a wonderful it is. The program zgrep allows you to grep a textfile even if the text file is compressed in gzip format. Not only that it can also grep a uncompress textfile. For example if you have the following directory

 
testing > ls -al
total 2086
drwxrwxr-x   2 ksiew    ksiew        1024 Oct 18 11:07 .
drwxr-xr-x  24 ksiew    ksiew        2048 Oct 18 11:00 ..
-rwxrwxr-x   1 ksiew    ksiew     1363115 Oct 18 11:01 cortes.txt
-rwxrwxr-x   1 ksiew    ksiew      172860 Oct 18 11:01 lost_world_10.txt.gz
-rwxrwxr-x   1 ksiew    ksiew      582867 Oct 18 11:00 moon10a.txt

 
testing > zgrep -l haste *
cortes.txt
lost_world_10.txt.gz
moon10a.txt

Now if you compress a textfile using the famous bzip2 compress program, you have a problem.

 
testing > bzip2 cortes.txt 
testing > ls -al
total 1098
drwxrwxr-x   2 ksiew    ksiew        1024 Oct 18 11:12 .
drwxr-xr-x  24 ksiew    ksiew        2048 Oct 18 11:12 ..
-rwxrwxr-x   1 ksiew    ksiew      355431 Oct 18 11:01 cortes.txt.bz2
-rwxrwxr-x   1 ksiew    ksiew      172860 Oct 18 11:01 lost_world_10.txt.gz
-rwxrwxr-x   1 ksiew    ksiew      582867 Oct 18 11:00 moon10a.txt
testing > zgrep -l haste *
lost_world_10.txt.gz
moon10a.txt

What we need is a new program bzgrep which can recognise bzip2 compress text files.

The best way to create bzgrep file is to modify the existing zgrep file.

 
testing > locate zgrep
/usr/bin/zgrep
/usr/man/man1/zgrep.1

testing > su
password: opensesame
#| cp /usr/bin/zgrep /usr/local/bin/bzgrep

We cannot change the last few lines to the following

res=0
for i do
  if test $list -eq 1; then
    bzip2 -cdf "$i" | $grep $opt "$pat" > /dev/null && echo $i
    r=$?
  elif test $# -eq 1 -o $silent -eq 1; then
    bzip2 -cdf "$i" | $grep $opt "$pat"
    r=$?
  else
    bzip2 -cdf "$i" | $grep $opt "$pat" | sed "s|^|${i}:|"
    r=$?
  fi
  test "$r" -ne 0 && res="$r"
done
exit $res

Now the bzgrep file is a program that will be able to grep bzip2 compressed textfiles. BUT there is a problem.

bzgrep program WILL NOT recognise ordinary textfiles or gzip compress textfiles. This is a major problem! It means you have to compress all your textfiles with bzip2 in order to use bzgrep program.

Luckily there is always a solution in Linux. All we have to do is alter the program to be more choosy on which decompression program to use. ie. Do it uses gzip -cdfq or bzip2 -cdf

Now change the last few lines again to resemble this

 
res=0
for i do
  case "$i" in

  *.bz2 )
      if test $list -eq 1; then
        bzip2 -cdf "$i" | $grep $opt "$pat" > /dev/null && echo $i
        r=$?
      elif test $# -eq 1 -o $silent -eq 1; then
        bzip2 -cdf "$i" | $grep $opt "$pat"
        r=$?
      else
        bzip2 -cdf "$i" | $grep $opt "$pat" | sed "s|^|${i}:|" 
        r=$?
      fi ;;

  * )
      if test $list -eq 1; then
        gzip -cdfq "$i" | $grep $opt "$pat" > /dev/null && echo $i
        r=$?
      elif test $# -eq 1 -o $silent -eq 1; then
        gzip -cdfq "$i" | $grep $opt "$pat"
        r=$?
      else
        gzip -cdfq "$i" | $grep $opt "$pat" | sed "s|^|${i}:|" 
        r=$?
      fi ;;
  esac
  test "$r" -ne 0 && res="$r" 
done
exit $res

Steve

Re: Linux on PalmPilot

In a previous message, dino jose says:
Hi... Mike, I read your article about the Linux in palm pilot.Its very intersting.Iam kind of new in LINUX platform! Because Iam so curious about Linux. I bought a palm pilot 111 the new version of palm with 2meg of memory.the main problem is, I don't know where to get the Linux operating system that it runs on palm pilot 111 the newer version. what about the HOW TO LINUX DOCUMENTATION FROM from its official site? Once I get this software do I run this in Linux operating system then transfer this to palm 111? Iam kind novice in Linux. If you could help me.I would gladly appreciated. Thanks a lot....

Don't let using Linux confuse you. You use Linux in the same way you use Microsoft Windows - it runs on your PC to do word processing or spreadsheets or whatever. You then pass data files back and forth the the Pilot using special tools.

If you want to try out a program that helps transfer files back and forth you can try my XNotesPlus. Its a sticky notes program that will allow you do backups of your Pilot to your local hard disk and will transfer the Address database from the Pilot to be used in doing some simple printing of envelopes. You can download the program from http://www.graphics-muse.org/xnotes/xnotes.html. You will also need to get the PilotLink software that I described in the article you read. XNotesPlus uses PilotLink to do the actual data transfers to and from the Pilot.

Hope this helps.

Michael J. Hammel, The Graphics Muse

Red Hat 5.1 + Acrobat Reader 3.01 HOWTO

Some people I know went nuts trying to install Acrobat Reader 3.01 as a helper app in Netscape, as shipped with Red Hat Linux 5.1. Here's how I've done it:

1. Download Acrobat Reader 3.01 from ftp.adobe.com. Let the installer script install the whole thing under /usr/local/Acrobat3.

2. Create the following shell script: /usr/local/Acrobat3/bin/nsacroread

 
    #!/bin/sh
    unset LD_PRELOAD
    exec /usr/local/Acrobat3/bin/acroread $* >$HOME/.nsacroread-errors
2>&1

3. Don't forget to make this script executable:

 
    # chmod 755 /usr/local/Acrobat3/bin/nsacroread

5. Copy (exactly) the following two files into this directory.

mailcap:

 
      #mailcap entry added by Netscape Helper
      application/pdf;/usr/local/Acrobat3/bin/nsacroread -tempFile %s

 
      #--Netscape Communications Corporation MIME Information
      #Do not delete the above line. It is used to identify the file
type.
      #
      #mime types added by Netscape Helper
      type=application/pdf  \
      desc="Acrobat Reader"  \
      exts="pdf" 

Note: You can do without the last two steps and instead configure the helper apps with the Edit >> Preferences menu of Netscape. This will create similar .mailcap and .mime.types files in the user's home dir. But IMHO the first method is best because this way you can configure Acrobat Reader for all users at once.

Cheers,
Louis-Philippe Brais

2 $.25 tips

1. I was having some real problems with Netscape (3.04 Gold) the other day. No matter what I did, I could not get the helpers to work. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew that they had worked in the past, but I couldn't see anything that I'd changed. A few messages on various newsgroups turned on the lights: I had upgraded my Bash to 2.0.0--and this version has a bug in it. Expressions of the form ((..) .. ) are interpreted as arithmetic expressions, rather than nested sub-shells. Upgrading to 2.02.1(1) was almost painless and fixed the Netscape problem.

To get 2.02.1(1) go to the gnu site (www.gnu.org) and follow the links to the software sections. The new software should compile out of the box (it did for me). One problem I had was that the install script put the new binaries in /usr/local/bin, and since I had my old versions in /usr/bin they weren't found. A quick mv solved that.

2. For a number of years I've been struggling trying to read the results of color-ls on my xterm screens. A number of the colors (green and blue) were just too bright to read. I didn't want to turn down the brightness of my monitor...so I mostly just squinted. For some reason I was looking at the XTerm.ad file, and noticed that the colors could be adjusted! The XTerm.ad file should be located in /usr/lib/X11/app-defaults (or something similar). It is read each time a new xterm start up and sets various options. If you look near the end of this file you'll see a number of definitions for the VT100 colors. I changed:

	*VT100*color2: green3

 
	*VT100*color2: green4

 
	*VT100*color6: cyan3

 
	*VT100*color6: cyan4

--
Bob van der Poel

S3 Virge/DX and XFree

I had a S3 Virge/DX, and couldn't get it working well in XFree. This made me very mad since there is a specific XFREE_S3V (S3 virge server).

I used a borrowed Xaccel, but it made me feel guilty real quick. :) So I decided that I need to get XFree configured well, and then ditch Xaccel. I found that xfree86config can not be well used to configure a Virge.

Here are the modelines I use for a mid-range 17 inch monitor @ 16bpp using the SVGA server. *WARNING* If this blows up your monitor/card, It's not my fault, although it shouldn't.

 
   Modeline "640x480"    31.5   640  680  720  864   480  488  491  521
   ModeLine "640x480"    31.5   640  656  720  840   480  481  484  500 -HSync -VSync
   Modeline "640x400"     36     640  696  752  832   480  481  484 509 -HSync -VSync
   Modeline "800x600"     40     800  840  968 1056   600  601  605  628 +hsync +vsync
   Modeline "800x600"     50     800  856  976 1040   600  637  643  666 +hsync +vsync
   Modeline "800x600"    60.75  800  864  928 1088   600  616  621 657 -HSync -VSync
#  Modeline "1024x768"   85.00 1024 1032 1152 1360 768 784 787 823
   Modeline "1024x768"     85.00   1024 1052 1172 1320    768  780  783 803
#  Modeline "1152x864"   85.00   1152 1240 1324 1552   864  864  876  908
   Modeline "1152x864"     85.00   1152 1184 1268 1452    864  880  892 900

Andy

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 Software Announcements

December Linux Journal

The December issue of Linux Journal will be hitting the newsstands November 6. The focus of this issue is System Administration. We have an interview with Linus Torvalds and an article about the 2.2 kernel. We also have articles on X administration and performance monitoring tools. Check out the Table of Contents at http://www.linuxjournal.com/issue56/index.html. To subscribe to Linux Journal, go to http://www.linuxjournal.com/ljsubsorder.html.

TIME Talks about Linux

Check out this cool article in TIME!

http://cgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/1998/dom/981026/technology.the_mighty_f1a.html.

Design by Contract

Dr. Bertrand Meyer, designer of the Eiffel programming language, was in Seattle to give his one day seminar on "Design by Contract". The purpose of this workstation is teach software engineers this unique object-oriented development method which emphasizes building reliable sytems through well-defined specifications and communication between the different parties to the system.

Talking to Dr. Meyer by phone, I asked him how Eiffel was better than Java. He gave me three reasons:

• Eiffel supports multiple inheritance.
• Eiffel more easily builds container structures such as lists, queues, stacks and trees.
• Eiffel has built in support for "design by contract" development.

by M. L. Richardson

Debian and the NetWinder

It is now possible to boot the Corel NetWinder Computer with Debian GNU/Linux, thanks to the work of Jim Pick and the other team members of the Debian Arm port. A disk image with instructions on how to use it is available from ftp://ftp.jimpick.com/pub/debian/netwinder/bootable-image/

A kernel package of the new ELF kernel (some notes are available at http://www.netwinder.org/~rahphs/knotes.html)

This alleviates the need for the chroot environment that previous development work was being conducted in, and allows work to progress even faster than before. This will also allow more people to join in the development effort easily.

Open Letter from Corel to Debian

Corel Computer and Red Hat Software Announce Linux Operating System Partnership

SPI Web Pages Active

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 10:33:43 -0500
Software in the Public Interest, Inc. is pleased to announce its new web pages. They can be found at http://www.spi-inc.org/. SPI is a non profit organization that was founded to help projects in developing software for the community. Several projects are currently being supported through monetary and hardware donations that have been made to SPI. As SPI is a non profit organization, all donations to it and the projects it supports are tax deductible.

Projects that are affiliated with and receive support from SPI are:

• Berlin http://www.berlin-consortium.org/
• Debian http://www.debian.org/
• GNOME http://www.gnome.org/
• Linux Standard Base http://www.linuxbase.org/
• Open Source http://www.opensource.org/
• Open Hardware http://www.openhardware.org/

For more information:
SPI Press Contact, press@spi-inc.org
SPI homepage: http://www.spi-inc.org/

Amiga/LinuxInfo starts a daily news section for Amiga and Linux

The leading printed Amiga magazine in Sweden, AmigaInfo, is starting a daily news section in Swedish for Amiga and Linux news.

AmigaInfo will also start a large Linux section (about 25 pages to start with) in the upcoming issue.

http://www.xfiles.se/amigainfo/

Oppression?

A student at UCLA, and several of the Linux users there in the dorms claim they are experiencing severe discrimination. The whole story is at http://www.nerdherd.net/oppression/. Take a look!

Debian GNU/Linux 2.0 Hamm

The Debian GNU/Linux 2.0 'Hamm' distribution was recently recognized by Australian Personal Computer Magazine http://www.apcmag.com/. It received the 'Highly Commended Award' for being 'a very high-quality distribution, with an extensive selection of carefully prepared software packages.

More information including a review of the distribution can be found at http://apcmag.com/reviews/9809/linux.htm.

Check Out This New Mailing List

Check out lug_support@ntlug.org

About this mailing list:
The purpose of this mailing list is to an open forum to discuss anything related to starting, growing and maintaining Linux User Groups. Whether you are trying to get a new LUG started and need some practical advice, or have built one already and are willing to help other groups, this is the mailing list for you, whether you have 5 members or 500!

How to subscribe to this list:
Send a message to majordomo@ntlug.org with the following text in the message body:
subscribe lug_support YOUR_EMAIL_ADDRESS

Free Software Award Event Kicks off "One World, One Net" Conference

Larry Wall received the First Annual Free Software Foundation Award for the Advancement of Free Software at the MIT Media Lab on Friday evening. At a reception and presentation attended by CPSR Conference registrants, computer hackers and members of the press, FSF Founder Richard Stallman presented the award, a quilted GNU (GNU's Not Unix) wall hanging.

Larry Wall won the Free Software Foundation Award for the Advancement of Free Software for his programming, most notably Perl, a robust scripting language for sophisticated text manipulation and system management. His other widely-used programs include rn (news reader), patch (development and distribution tool), metaconfig (a program that writes Configure scripts), and the Warp space-war game.

Eureka!

On Tuesday, September 15th, 1998 in Paris, France at our user event named "Eureka", and again on October 5th at DECUS in Los Angeles, Compaq Computer Corporation announced intent to extend their support to the Linux operating system to include Intel as well as the Alpha platforms. In addition to extending this support to another architecture, Compaq is in the process of putting together a comprehensive program of Linux support.

This support includes, but is not limited to:

• working with the Linux community to port Linux to new platforms
• qualification of Linux on both Intel and Alpha platforms
• providing selected platforms with no license, specifically for Linux and other freely available operating systems
• working with the Linux community and distributions to provide world-wide telephone and hardware support
• porting selected Compaq software products to both Intel and Alpha platforms

In continuing the concept of working with the Linux community, Compaq intends to extend its Linux support through its extensive channels partner programs. Compaq feels that this will give the broadest possible selection of products and solutions to our end customers, with our VARs, OEMs, Distributors and Resellers working with the customer to match the distribution, the layered products and third party offerings to that customer's needs.

IBM Enhances its Websphere Application Server

IBM announced that it has extended the HTTP services in IBM WebSphere* Application Servers in the areas of performance, security and platform support by adding new functionality to the HTTP services that are packaged with WebSphere and are based on the Apache HTTP Server.

Today's announcements include technology developed by IBM Research that boosts the performance of HTTP services in the IBM WebSphere Application Server and Secure Socket Layer (SSL) support that provides customers with the security necessary to operate a web site that can handle sensitive information, such as financial transactions. In addition, IBM announced a port of the Apache HTTP Server to the AS/400* operating system. The AS/400 port will be offered to the Apache Group through the Open Source model. The Fast Response Cache Accelerator (FRCA) technology, developed by IBM Research, doubles the performance of HTTP services in WebSphere on Windows NT, according to lab tests done by SPEC (The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation).

Both the FRCA and SSL technologies from IBM will be available at no additional charge as part of all editions of the IBM WebSphere Application Servers. The technologies will be released in the next version of WebSphere Application Server before the end of the year. The FRCA technology will also be used to boost the performance of the HTTP Server for OS/390*, and will be available as part of OS/390 Version 2 Release 7 in March of 1999.

CommProc

A new OpenSource project, a general distributed-computing toolkit for quick assembly of distributed applications called CommProc, was presented at the October ApacheCon98 conference. CommProc is an advocacy effort for Linux and Apache and includes an interface module for the Apache HTTP server. Documentation and source code for the project is available at: http://www.commproc.com

Launch of LinuxWorld Magazine

IDGs Web Publishing Inc. announced the launch of LinuxWorld magazine (http://www.linuxworld.com). A Web-only magazine supplying technical information to professional Linux users who are implementing Linux and related open source technologies in their computing environments.

Inside the first issue are stories such as an interview with Linus Torvalds, the first installment of the Linux 101 column titled "A distribution by any other name," and a look at the new Windows NT domain security features found in Samba 2.0 titled "Doing the NIS/NT Samba."

Linux Expo 1999 Call for Papers

May 18 - 22, 1999
Raleigh, North Carolina
Dates for Refereed paper submissions

• Extended abstracts and/or full papers due: December 1, 1998
• Notification to authors: January 15, 1999
• Full papers due for final review: February 15, 1999
• Camera-ready full papers due: March 1, 1999

Program Committee

• Marc Ewing, Red Hat Advanced Laboratories
• Richard Henderson, Cygnus Solutions
• Dirk Hohndel, S.u.S.E. GmbH
• Larry McVoy, BitMover (Chair)
• Carl Staelin, Hewlett-Packard Labs
• Theodore Ts'o, MIT
• Stephen Tweedie, Red Hat Software
• Victor Yodaiken, New Mexico Institute of Technology

Overview

The goal of the technical track of Linux Expo is to bring together engineers and researchers doing innovative work associated with Linux.

See you at LinuxExpo '99!

USENIX 1999 Events

Upcoming Events for 1999

SmartWare DevCon99

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 20:28:52 -0600
DevCon99 is scheduled for November 14 and 15, 1998. 49 hours of training shoehorned into two days including "How to Use the Graphic Database Frontend", Developing a RAD application, the introduction of the SmartERP program, marketing, advertising and free videotapes for all attendees. SmartWare2000, offers solutions for the small to medium company and is the only product capable of running on everything from old 286 ATs up to Sun or SiliconGraphics systems and use the same data at the same time.

When: November 13 (Dinner at Clubhouse Inn), 14 & 15
Where: Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas
What: 2 Full Days of training on SmartWare2000, The Graphic Database Front End, RAD, Free SmartWare2000, Food, Room, Videos and more.

For more information:
Greg Palmer, greg@mobiusmarketing.com

Linux Links

Linux FAQ: http://www.terracom.net/~kiesling/

QtEZ, a GUI builder for the Qt library: http://qtez.zax.net/qtez/

Blackmail 0.29: http://www.jsm-net.demon.co.uk/blackmail/source/blackmail-0.29.tar.gz

SGMLtools homepage: http://www.sgmltools.org/

Distribution Answers: http://www.angband.org/~joseph/linux/ Mini-howto on setting up Samba on Red Hat Linux: http://www.sfu.ca/~yzhang/linux/

PostgreSQL Database HOWTO: http://sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/PostgreSQL-HOWTO.html

DragonLinux: IronWing: http://members.tripod.com/~dragonlinux/

Cygnus Solutions Announces Low Cost Verions of GNUPRO Toolkit for Linux

Cygnus(R) Solutions announced the availability of GNUPro(TM) Toolkit, a new product line of fully tested, low-cost development tools releases for native and embedded software developers. Addressing the needs of the growing Linux community, the first release of Cygnus GNUPro Toolkit is targeted at software engineers developing commercial applications on the Linux operating system (OS). Today's announcement marks the first in a series of GNUPro Toolkit releases planned for a range of platforms. "Cygnus has extended its commitment to the Linux community and users of Red Hat Linux by providing a fully-certified official release of GNU development tools," said Bob Young, president and CEO of Red Hat Software. "Given the increasing popularity of both Red Hat Linux and Cygnus GNUPro, Red Hat is pleased to continue its partnership with Cygnus to provide software developers the highest quality Linux operating system and development tools."

Key Features and Benefits

• Cygnus GNUPro C Compiler - The latest advances in compiler optimization extend the programmer's ability to optimize code for speed and size, resulting in faster execution.
• Cygnus GNUPro C++ Compiler - The industry-leading C++ compiler provides enhanced exception handling and more extensive template functionality. Cygnus offers the most comprehensive support for C++ and continues to track the standard, leading to greater C++ coding flexibility.
• Cygnus GNUPro Visual Debugger - A source- and assembly-level debugger, it includes Cygnus' high-performance graphical user interface that enables users to quickly visualize, locate, and debug code.
• Highly Tested Tool - Includes 47,000 unit tests (30,000 for the standard compiler test suite, 10,000 for the native debugger test suite, and 7,000 for C++ features); regression testing (both reported bugs and those uncovered by Cygnus); conformance testing (tests from Perennial and Plum Hall); and tests for building popular applications.

Pricing and Availability

Cygnus GNUPro Toolkit for Linux is priced at $149 and is immediately available for Red Hat Linux 4.2 and 5.1 on x86 platforms by ordering online at http://www.cygnus.com/gnupro/.

Panorama

Panorama is part of the GNU project. For more information about it, visit the URL 'http://www.gnu.org'. It is released under the GPL license, that you can read in the file 'LICENSE' in this directory.

Panorama is a framework for 3D graphics production. This will include modeling, rendering, animating, post-processing, etc. Currently, there is no support for animation, but this will be added soon.

Functionally, it is structured as an API, composed by two dynamic libraries, and several plugins, that you can optionally load in runtime. A simple console mode front-end for this API is included in the package, that can load a scene description in one of the supported scene languages, and then outputs a single image file in any of the supported graphic formats.

Panorama can be easily extended with plugins. Plugins are simply dynamically linked C++ classes. You can add plugins without recompilation, and even in runtime, when this option is added to the graphic interface.

You can find more information about Panorama, or download latest distribution at: http://www.gnu.org/software/panorama/panorama.html

Netscape Wrapper v2.0.0

What is it:
The Netscape Wrapper is a bourne shell script used to invoke Netscape on a Unix platform. It performs copying initial default files, a postscript bug work around, security check, and setting up the environment. The new version also provides enhanced functionality.

What is new in this version:

• Rewritten. Faster and cleaner execution.
• Fully sh. No longer relies on bash features.
• Root security check bypass.
• New options subset. (+news, +mail, ...)
• Defaults to opening a new window.

The most significant change is that the script will attempt to open a new browser before executing Netscape. IE if no Netscape process is present, Netscape will be executed, otherwise a new browser window is created. Likewise when using the new option subset, if Netscape is not running, it will be execute with that option as the default window, or if Netscape is running, that option will be opened using the current process.

ftp://ftp.psychosis.com/linux/netscape-wrapper_2.0.0

plotutils

Version 2.1.6 of the GNU plotting utilities (plotutils) package is now available. This release includes a significantly enhanced version of the free C/C++ GNU libplot library for vector graphics, as well as seven command-line utilities oriented toward data plotting (graph, plot, tek2plot, plotfont, spline, ode, and double). A 130-page manual in texinfo format is included.

As of this release, GNU libplot can produce graphics files in Adobe Illustrator format. So you may now write C or C++ programs to draw vector graphics that Illustrator can edit. Also, the support for the free `idraw' and `xfig' drawing editors has been enhanced. For example, the file format used by xfig 3.2 is now supported.

RPM's for the plotutils package are available at ftp://ftp.redhat.com

For more details on the package, see its official Web page.

PROCMETER V3.0

This is a new version of ProcMeter that has been re-written almost completely since the previous version.

It is now designed to be more user-friendly and customisable, the textual as well as graphical outputs and the extra mouse options avilable are part of this. It is perhaps now less of a system status monitor and more of a user information display. It can be configured to show the date and/or time instead of having a clock and it can also monitor your e-mail inbox and act like biff.

The ProcMeter program itself is a framework on which a number of modules (plugins) are loaded. More modules can be written as required to perform more monitoring and informational functions. Available at ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/unix/linux/X11/xutils/procmeter3-3.0.tgz

Take a look at the ProcMeter web page

ypserv 1.3.6

Version 1.3.6 of an YP (NIS version 2) Server for Linux is 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.

ypserv 1.3.6 is available under the GNU General Public License.

You can get the latest version from: http://www-vt.uni-paderborn.de/~kukuk/linux/nis.html

MAM/VRS

MAM/VRS is a library for animated, interactive 3D graphics, written in C++. It works on Unix (tested on Linux, Solaris and Irix) and Windows 95/98/NT. MAM/VRS can produce output for many rendering systems: OpenGL (or Mesa), POVRay, RenderMan and VRML are supported yet. It provides bindings to many GUIs: Xt (Motif/Lesstif/Athena), Qt, Tcl/Tk, MFC and soon GTk. It is covered by the terms of the GNU LGPL. Visit our homepage for more information and to download it: http://wwwmath.uni-muenster.de/~mam

KIM - interactive process manager 1.1-1

Description:
The Kim is interactive (ncurses) user friendly process manager for OS Linux. It reads the /proc(5) directory. The '/proc' is a pseudo-filesystem which is used as an interface to kernel data structures.

Features:

• process list
• process tree
• select more process
• send all existing signals (to one or more process)
• reload
• process sort
• display /proc/#/maps
• display 45 information about all process
• and more...

Download:

* source, rpm, deb

URL: http://home/zf.jcu/cz/~zakkr/kim/

Version & Dependency:
The Kim is independent on other program, but all version depend on libproc >= 1.2.6 and ncurses.

Lincense:
Copyright (c) 1998 Zak Karel "Zakkr"

PIKT

PIKT is a set of programs, scripts, data and configuration files for administering networked workstations. PIKT's primary purpose is to monitor systems, report problems (usually by way of e-mail "alerts"), and fix those problems when possible. PIKT is not an end-user tool; it is (for now) to be used by systems administrators only.

PIKT includes an embedded scripting language, approaching in sophistication several of the other scripting languages, and introducing some new features perhaps never seen before.

PIKT also employs a sophisticated, centrally managed, per-machine/OS version control mechanism. You can, setting aside the PIKT language, even use it to version control your Perl, AWK, and shell scripts. Or, use it as a replacement for cron.

PIKT is freeware, distributed under the GNU copyleft.

Check out the Web Page for more info!

Yard 4.04.03

YARD-SQL version 4.04.03 has been released. Until now, it is available for Linux and SCO-UNIX and contains the following new features:

• YARD-ESQLC now contains libsql and sqlnets as shared libraries. The product YARD-ESQLC now contains libsql.a and sqlnets.a as shared objects too. The names are libsql.so and sqlnets.so
• The base address of dynamic SHM is choosen based on existing segments. Until know the base address of dynamic SHM segments was determined by the kernel (Parameter 0 in shmat()). Know this address is calculated from the existing SHM segments, so that the complete SHM will have no gaps. This behaviour can be switched off by setting the environment variable YARD_NOCONSECSHM.
• The socket flag TCP_NODELAY is set for socket connections. On some OS (eg. FreeBSD), setting TCP_NODELAY on the socket connection between client and server dramatically improves performance. There should be no negative effect by setting this flag. So it will now always be set. It can be disabled by setting the environment variable YARD_NOTCPNODELAY to 1.
• The disk configuration of a DBS is stored in the DBS in addition to the cfgfile
• yardinit offers a new option -l for reducing logfiles. If option -l is used when a DBS is switched from offline mode to main- tenance mode, all logical logs are released instead of performing a logical recovery. Though this jeopardizes logical consistency it is an easy way for starting a DBS when all logical logs are filled up. The correct way for starting such a DBS is to start yardinit -m on one terminal and then start yardarch -l on another terminal for backing up the logical logs while yardinit is waiting.
• Clients can use strings for inserting data into BLOBs Until now, a BLOB structure (eg. in ESQLC) or an object type (in Java) had to be used for inserting data into a BLOB/TEXT column. Now, Clients can use simple strings for that purpose. When the server runs in batch mode, a string will still be used as file name.
• and more....

Check out http://www.yard.de for more information about YARD

RealSecure 3.0

ISS today announced RealSecure 3.0, a new, integrated system that combines intrusion detection with state-of-the-art response and management capabilities to form the industry's first threat management solution. Formerly known as "Project Lookout", RealSecure 3.0 is the integrates network- and system-based intrusion detection and response capabilities into a single enterprise threat management framework providing around-the-clock, end-to-end information protection.

Visit the ISS web site.

Applix Released Applixware 4.4.1 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows Platforms

Applix, Inc. the release of Applixware 4.4.1 for the Linux platform as well as all major UNIX operating systems, Windows NT and Windows 95. This latest release delivers a new filtering framework that has been optimized for document interchange between Microsoft's Office 97 product, as well as Y2K compliance.

Applixware includes Applix Words, Spreadsheets, Graphics, Presents, and HTML Author. This Linux version also includes Applix Data and Applix Builder as standard modules. Applixware for Linux is available directly from Applix, as well as from its partners, including Red Hat and S.U.S.E.

Linux version beta test users also attest to the results. "Export of Applix Words documents to Word 97 works great, even with Swedish letters," said Klaus Neumann, a university cognitive scientist. He continued, "I think Applixware is the most promising office solution for Linux. I've tried StarOffice, WordPerfect, Lyx. Nothing comes even close to Applixware--there are none of the memory, uptime, printing, or spell-checking problems I experience with the other suites."

Applixware 4.4.1 for Linux includes for the first time Applix Data, a new module offering point and click access to information stored in relational databases. No SQL knowledge is required to access the information. Once accessed, the data can be linked directly into Applix Words, Spreadsheets, Graphics, Presents, and HTML Author.

Visit the company's web site for more information.

iServer

Servertec announced the release of iServer, a small, fast, scalable and easy to administer platform independent web server written entirely in JavaTM.

iServer is a web server for serving static web pages and a powerful application server for generating dynamic, data driving web pages using Java Servlets, iScript, Common Gateway Interface (CGI) and Server Side Includes (SSI).

iServer provides a robust, scalable platform for individuals, work groups and corporations to establish a web presense.

Visit the Servertec Web site for more information.

TkApache v1.0

TkApache v1.0 was released unto the unexpecting world Thursday, October 16th. In it's first few hours, more than a 1,000 downloads were logged!

Anyway, it's a fully GUI front-end to managing and configuring an Apache web server and it's written in PerlTk - released under the GPL, developed COMPLETELY under Linux, Website, graphics, code, etc.

The TkApache home page could tell you a lot more...

Crack dot Com is closing its doors

WHY: Ran out of cash.

REALLY WHY: Lot of reasons, but then again, there are a lot of reasons that we got as far as we did. I think the killer reason, though, was that Golgotha was compared by publishers primarily to Battlezone and Uprising, and those titles sold really poorly.

WHAT NOW?: Now we file articles of dissolution w/ the secretary of state, and we file bankruptcy.

IS THAT IT?!: No.

WHAT ELSE?: We're releasing the Golgotha source code, and data to the public domain.

WHERE'S THE SOURCE CODE?: I want to personally thank everyone who supported & rooted for us. That was really nice of you.

BLAH BLAH, WHERE'S THE SOURCE?: I want to apologize to the fans and business partners we've let down.

BOO HOO! WE CARE. OUT WITH IT!: Thanks for your patience. The source & data can be found at http://www.crack.com/golgotha_release. And of course, the ex-Crack developers are up to new & interesting things which you can follow at the web site.

Sincerely, Dave Taylor

This page written and maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette, gazette@ssc.com
Copyright © 1998 Specialized S