Linux Gazette... making Linux just a little more fun! Copyright © 1996-97 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. linux@ssc.com ______________________________________________________________________________________ Welcome to Linux Gazette! (tm) Linux Gazette, a member of the Linux Documentation Project, is an on-line WWW publication that is dedicated to two simple ideas: * Making Linux just a little more fun * Sharing ideas and discoveries The basic idea behind these two concepts is that Linux is one cool OS, whose price for admission is a willingness to read, learn, tinker (aka, hack!), and then share your experiences. The Gazette is a compilation of basic tips, tricks, suggestions, ideas and short articles about Linux designed to make using Linux fun and easy. LG began as a personal project of John M. Fisk, and grew to include contributions freely provided by a growing number of authors. Linux Journal is now publishing the Gazette using material contributed by outside authors (note to potential authors). Without these authors there would not be a Gazette, and I thank them all. Drop a note to the author of anything that you find helpful or instructive--the author's e-mail address is included for this very purpose. Linux Gazette is a non-commercial publication and will remain that way. A tar, gzip file containing all issues of Linux Gazette and one containing the current issue can be found at ftp://ftp.ssc.com/pub/lg/ Thanks to Matt Welsh, coordinator of the Linux Documentation Project, for graciously bringing the Linux Gazette under the auspices of the LDP. The material included in these documents is covered by a designedly liberal copyright. For information regarding copying and distribution of this material read the Copying License. A new table of contents will appear with each issue that will allow you to easily find articles of interest. A search engine is also provided to allow you to search all issues for items relating to a particular subject. Have fun! ______________________________________________________________________________________ * Table of Contents Issue #14 * Table of Contents Issue #13 * Table of Contents Issue #12 * Table of Contents Issue #11 * Table of Contents Issue #10 * Table of Contents Issue #9 * Table of Contents Issues #1-#8 * Index of All Issues ______________________________________________________________________________________ Search In: [Linux Gazette (TM).......] Search For: ______________________________ ______ ______________________________________________________________________________________ Linux Gazette WWW & FTP Mirror Sites For those readers who are accessing Linux Gazette from outside the U.S. or are having problems with slow connections at a particular site, mirror sites are available worldwide. Thanks to all of the people who have kindly offered the use of their WWW and FTP sites in order to make this possible! ______________________________________________________________________________________ [ Hot Linux News! ] [ Linux Resources ] Two SSC links that you might find useful. The first is to Linux Journal 's "Hot Linux News" page, and the second is to SSC's Linux Resources page. ______________________________________________________________________________________ LINUX GAZETTE IS PUBLISHED BY: SSC - Publishers of Linux Journal (tm) ______________________________________________________________________________________ Got any great ideas for improvements! Send your comments, criticisms, suggestions and ideas. Linux Gazette, http://www.ssc.com/lg/ This page written and maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette, gazette@ssc.com [IMAGE] "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more lovable!" [IMAGE] ______________________________________________________________________________________ The Mailbag! Write the Gazette at gazette@ssc.com CONTENTS: * Help Wanted -- Article Ideas * General Mail [IMAGE] ______________________________________________________________________________________ HELP WANTED -- ARTICLE IDEAS ______________________________________________________________________________________ Date: Mon, 20 Jan 97 13:22:54 EST Subject: Linux on Compaq From: afarnsworth@S1.DRC.COM Hi, I just received a brand spanking new Compaq Deskpro 6000 with Adaptec 2940U SCSI card and Compaq Netflex III ethernet card. I think I have the SCSI card problem whipped, but how do I find drivers for the Netflex III card? I have check the usual places, does it even exist? The Compaq Deskpro 6000 is a fairly new system out, though Compaq has been building Deskpro's for many years. The only problem I have had with them is their proprietary hardware. This is usually either their Network cards or their Hard drive controllers (usually RAID controllers). Other than that, it's pretty standard. Please reply to my email address : afarnsworth@s1.drc.com for I don't have the ability to check the gazette often. Thanks. Andy Farnsworth, Dynamics Research Corporation ______________________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sat, 18 Jan 1997 12:38:45 +0200 (EET) Subject: Office-tools From: J.Hernetkoski, jjjj@zenith.yok.utu.fi Hi! Could you write an article about these two office-package for Linux: * Applixware * StarOffice Thanks Jukka Hernetkoski (An article about StarOffice by Dwight Johnson appeared in issue 9 of Linux Gazette. An article about Applixware will be in the April issue of Linux Journal. I can probably get permission to run it in LG also, but not until that issue of LJ is on the stands. Which means it would also be the April issue of LG. Anyone want to do one sooner?--Editor) ______________________________________________________________________________________ Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 09:43:58 -0500 Subject: Linux samba win95 From: nravin@cs.fit.edu -I am a system administrator....manages 20 PC's....all running windows95 -We were running Windows NT server(4.0) in the lab for some time Then we realised we had only 10 client access licenses and so were forced tp SWITCH to Linux. -Linux emulates NT, as you may know -I had the CONFIG.POL working perfectly with the NT network. -But when I switched to Linux I lost that control. No longer are the clients able to access the CONFIG.POL file even though I have kept it in the NETLOGON share. -Now whosoever uses the PC's(most are novices) play around with the settings( of client) and is giving me nightmares, since I cannot lock them out. -Is there a way out? How can I make the clients read the system policies from the CONFIG.POL using Linux server? Please help. Thanks Neal ______________________________________________________________________________________ Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 15:03:07 +0000 Subject: dbms connectivity From: Mike Lewis, mlewis@burly.com Hi. I love linux but most of the projects I work on preclude it because of a lack of dbms connectivity. None of the major dbms players (Oracle, Sybase, Informix, etc.) or 3rd party developers (Intersolv, Visigenic, etc.) offer access from a linux client. I've tried a middleware solution from Openlink and I guess you could run SCO drivers with emulation, assuming you can get your hands on the low-level libraries. This seems to be the only thing standing in the way of Linux getting business worthy respect. Could you put together a piece on this issue and explore the future availability of dbms connectivity from linux? Thanks. Mike ______________________________________________________________________________________ Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 18:21:57 -0800 Subject: X Windows & Unix From: Nestor Villalobos, n.villalobos@codetel.net.do Hi there! I just got Linux from RedHat and I have been wondering how to do Animations in XWindows. I would like a little picture box on the lower right hand corner of the screen on startup to start an animation. Is this possible? If it is, please email me back with instructions!!! Thanks for the help. One Unix man to the other, Nestor Villalobos [IMAGE] ______________________________________________________________________________________ GENERAL MAIL ______________________________________________________________________________________ Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 15:24:16 -0700 Subject: Update web link in my article From: Henry Lu, honglu@rt66.com I have changed my web page (email is unchanged). Can you update my web page in the #10 issue, article "setting up a Dynamic web server"? http://www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/g625/luxx0024/ I got couple of email inquiry about the bad link. Henry (Be happy to fix it up. We like to stay up to date. --Editor) ______________________________________________________________________________________ Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 13:20:49 -0700 Subject: C++ Programming w/ Linux From: James Cannon, cannonj@jads.kirtland.af.mil Hi, About a month ago I asked about help with C++ programming on Linux. I am currently using the Walnut Creek Slackware, kernel 1.3.20. I had a hard time getting a simple "Hello World" program to compile. "cc" couldn't find the ".h" files like "stdio.h", which are normally in /usr/include. I had to create a "$INCLUDE" variable in my ".profile". So, when compiling, I used "g++ -I $INCLUDE -o hello hello.c" to compile. Well, I received help via e-mail pointing me to this page: phttp://www.cuug.ab.ca:8001/~barkers/slackware-fixes/3.0-fixes.html Look for the section titled: Problem Using G++. Great mag! James Cannon, http://www.jads.abq.com/ ______________________________________________________________________________________ Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 20:36:39 -0800 Subject: Color Depths in X From: Chris Spiegel, matrix@wolfenet.com (RE: Color depths in X) Well, I know this isn't really a fix, and it's not that great, but I have 2 scripts. startx which starts me in 16 bit color and start8, which starts in 8 bit. As I said, not a solution, but a pretty painless alternative... ______________________________________________________________________________________ Date: Fri, 3 Jan 1997 17:14:19 -0500 (EST) Subject: Further note about the spiral notebook page design. From: Ben Boule, bouleb@rpi.edu Someone else noted that his web browser didn't correctly show the spiral notebook background. I use Netscape, so that isn't a problem for me, but I do have another problem with the background. It's very hard to look at on an interlaced display. I can always switch to a non-interlaced mode in XFree86, but I'd bet some people can't. I know that the interlaced mode that I use looks fine on 99.99% of web pages, so it usually isn't a problem for me. Thanks, Ben Boule ______________________________________________________________________________________ Date: Mon, 06 Jan 1997 13:42:25 -0600 Subject: RE: Linux networking problem with VINES From: Jack N. Gallemore, jgallemore@okokc.ang.af.mil To: Stephen, Tauche%fbm%mfh@mfhdvzis.mfh-iserlohn.de Unfortunately, Banyan is a pretty tight (read: won't work with much) OS, so you are pretty limited. There is a way for Linux to sign onto Banyan, but you have to use DOSEMU.60.1. The later versions will not work. (Disclaimer: I have not used the patch for dosemu.60.4). If you have not used DOSEMU, the setup is fairly straightforward. As for using Linux as a resource, you will have to use IP stuff (ftp, telnet, etc) to do so. There are no ports for LinuxBanyan stuff. BTW, Jon is still doing Linux and Banyan. His site (http://www.netmind.com) is running Linux! Check it out! Jack N. Gallemore jgallemore@okokc.ang.af.mil ______________________________________________________________________________________ Date: Mon, 20 Jan 97 16:12:00 PST Subject: Vines IP and TCP/IP From: Denis Dimick, ddimick@irvine.ddddf.com Back on Dec 5, 1996 Stefan wrote wanting help with Vines. ************************************************************** Stefan the problem you're having sounds like the Vines Servers are not passing TCP/IP.. By default Banyan Vines doesn't pass route TCP/IP thru the servers. You have to have the TCP/IP option installed on all the servers your going to route thru. This option cost $$$ about $1200.00 US if I remember correctly. So there's p[robally a good chance your school didn't buy this option... Vines doesn't have anything that will cause IP to tunnel via Vines IP.. So your only chance might be to get access to the same segment that the internet is running off of... But it sounds like your sysadmin is using the Banyan Server as the gateway to the internet, if this is the case your out of luck... Since I've worked with Banyan Vines for the last 7 years, I'm sorry to say you might not be able to set up the Linux Box on the internet routing thru your Banyan Servers... Denis, dgdimick@sure.net ______________________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sat, 11 Jan 1997 11:49:18 -0700 Subject: Linux Applications and Utilities Page From: David Puryear, dayear@market1.com Hi, I came across Linux Applications and Utilities Page while I was learning about linux. It helped me get the feel for what is able in linux. http://www.xnet.com/%7Eblatura/linapps.shtml The guy that maintains it is Bill Latura. I hope people will get good use out of it and maybe help it become even more complete:) David (We found it too; see News Bytes. --Editor) ______________________________________________________________________________________ Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 06:06:09 -0800 Subject: isssue 8 & ftp server From: Rick Lim, rick_lim@bc.sympatico.ca Hi there, thanks for hosting the gazette. Is there a way of just downloading the text of each issue? I have downloaded LinuxGazette_jan97.tar.gz and it seems that issue8.txt is missing. also I have tried to ftp LinuxGazette_dec96.tar.gz but after 1770k of 2751k the server seemingly goes into ignore mode, this has happened about 5 times. Thanks again rick (Don't know why you are having trouble ftp'ing LinuxGazette_dec96.tar.gz, but can tell you that you have LinuxGazette_jan97.tar.gz you have everything that is in dec96. We took over LG for issue 9, so there is no file issue8.txt or 1 to 7 either. We use Lynx to save the HTML as text. Perhaps we'll do it for 1-8 one day when we have time. --Editor) ______________________________________________________________________________________ Date: Sun, 26 Jan 1997 17:00:35 -0600 Subject: suggestion From: dave Stephens, ts@fuzzy4u.com can you put some thing in each week for the new linux ueser the newbe things thank you Dave (LG is posted once a month not weekly. All the material in LG is contributed to me by outside authors. I take whatever I get. A lot of it is geared toward the newbee, and this month we have a new column called "Clueless At the Prompt" by Mike List that is designed for the newbee. Sounds like just what you are looking for. --Editor) ______________________________________________________________________________________ [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Next This page written and maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette, gazette@ssc.com Copyright © 1997 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. [IMAGE] "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more lovable!" [IMAGE] ______________________________________________________________________________________ MORE 2¢ TIPS! Send Linux Tips and Tricks to gazette@ssc.com ______________________________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS: * Backquote Warning * Browser Background Tip * Even Better Lowercasing of Filenames * Filtering Advertisements from WWW Tip * Getting Less to View gzipped Files * Help for Help on the Bash Shell * Lower Your Caps * Making Linux Boot Floppies * More on Xterm Titlebar * Remind Tip * Script to Call Your Editor * Tip for Your Web Page * Titlebar Tip * 2 Bit Tip -- Heartbeat * 2 Cent Tip for xdm * Two 2 Cent Tips -- syslog & X Color Depth * X Windows Depth ______________________________________________________________________________________ [IMAGE] BACKQUOTES WARNING Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 00:40:21 -0800 From: alan bailward In the $0.02 tip for using the script 'swaplogs' the commands : cp /var/adm/messages /var/adm/messages.'date +%d' uses the wrong quotes. The backquote not the forward quote has to be used here, to make the *output* of the command part of the filename. alan (Actually, the backquote is in the html. It's just that some Browser fonts wont print a backquote -- in fact, mine doesn't. I'm not sure how to get around this other than to warn people who are reading online. If you print LG out, the quotes will be in the right direction. --Editor) ______________________________________________________________________________________ [IMAGE] WWW BACKGROUND TIP Date: Wed, 8 Jan 1997 12:23:03 -0500 (EST) From: Kurt M. Hockenbury, kmh@linux.stevens-tech.edu I noticed people complaining about backgrounds making text unreadable. Personally, I got tired of unreadable backgrounds, as well as large image downloads, so I turned them off. I also turned off those annoying blink tags. How? Add these two lines to your ~/.Xdefaults file. Netscape*documentColorsHavePriority: False Netscape*blinkingEnabled: False In LG #13, Eje Gustafsson, gne@ffa.se writes: >> 1.mv /var/adm/messages /var/adm/messages.prev >> 2.touch /var/adm/messages >> 3.kill -1 pid-of-syslogd >> >> This should work on a decent Unix(like) system, and I know Linux >>is one of them. > >This is NOT an proper way of truncate /var/adm/messages. > >It is better to do: > > 1.cp /var/adm/messages /var/adm/messages.prev > 2.>/var/adm/messages or cp /dev/null /var/adm/messages (both of them makes >the file empty). > 3.No more. I'm sorry, but (at least on Linux) this is flat out _wrong_. The first method (mv & HUP) is the correct method of truncating syslog files (such as /var/adm/messages). Your method looses any messages that get syslog'd between steps 1 and 2; anything that comes in after the first cp gets overwritten when the second cp happens. >The problem is that when you remove the /var/adm/messages syslogd gets >confused and unhappy and you have to give syslogd a HUPSIG but if you >just sets the file length to zero without removing the file syslogd >don't complain. And if you are really unlucky your system will go down >because you didn't create /var/adm/messages quick enough or forgot it. Not so. mv'ing /var/adm/messages doesn't bother syslogd at all, as long as you stay on the same partition. In fact, you can 'mv /var/adm/messages /var/adm/fish', and until syslogd is HUP'd or otherwise restarted, it will keep logging in the file fish. Try it if you don't believe me - it's true! That is because once syslogd has open()d the file, it will keep writing to that file until it close()s it - and a file in the Unix world is an inode, not a filename. (As an aside, this is how you can have the 100% full empty partition. Even though you unlink or rm a file, the file doesn't actually go away until all programs that have it open close it.) syslogd doesn't get confused at all. You can even rm /var/adm/messages, and syslogd won't crash your system, though eventually the partition may fill up with syslog messages you can't easily read since there isn't a filename associated with the log file anymore. Kurt Hockenbury, Distributed Systems Administrator Stevens Institute of Technology ______________________________________________________________________________________ [IMAGE] EVEN BETTER LOWERCASING OF FILENAMES Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 19:17:16 -0800 (PST) From: Greg Badros, gjb@cs.washington.edu It's even easier with zsh (3.0.x) to convert filenames to all-lowercase: for i in *(.); mv $i ${i:l} The *(.) uses a modifier on the wildcard to mean "only regular files" (i.e., not directories). And the ${i:l} converts the variable to lowercase, so we don't have to use tr. This is not only shorter to type, but doesn't exec multiple programs (test + mv + tr) for each file, and looks at fewer files since the shell implicitly does the first test. Greg ______________________________________________________________________________________ [IMAGE] FILTERING ADVERTISEMENTS FROM WEB PAGES USING WEBFILTER Date: Thu, 16 Jan 97 20:28:50 PST From: Axel Boldt, boldt@cardinal.math.ucsb.edu Hi, In last month's Gazette, David Rudder wrote an article about how to filter advertisements from web pages using IPFWADM, the idea being that many ads come from the same site and it is easy to configure a Linux firewall to refuse all connections from such a site. This approach has two disadvantages: you have to be root in order to use the IPFWADM tool, and it allows you only to block entire sites. Very often, you want to filter out only a specific ad residing on a site, without blocking the rest of that site's material. Moreover, different users of the Linux box might have different tastes when it comes to ads. I believe that my tool WebFilter a.k.a. NoShit addresses these issues and is better suited for filtering ads from specific web sites. The idea is the following: the user runs WebFilter as a personal filtering proxy server, and the browser contacts this proxy whenever it wants to fetch a web document. The proxy then actually goes out and downloads the page, checks whether any filterscripts apply to this page, and if yes, pipes it through those scripts and returns the output to the browser. The mapping between URL and filterscript has to be provided by the user in advance. A filterscript can be an arbitrary program that reads the original document from standard input and produces the filtered version on standard output. In practice, filterscripts are most often short sed, awk, or perl scripts. If you often use sites such as Yahoo or Infoseek, you can easily write filterscripts that excise the ads from their pages. This saves time, money, and bandwidth. More information about WebFilter can be gotten from its homepage. There you'll also find links to other programs implementing the same idea. Have fun, Axel ______________________________________________________________________________________ [IMAGE] GETTING LESS TO VIEW GZIPPED FILES Date: 09 Jan 1997 20:18:58 -0600 From: Alan Shutko, ats@wydo125.wustl.edu A little known ability of less is the ability to define filters when it opens and closes files. This excerpt from the man page deserves broader attention, since it can easily be extended to other types. For example, on many Unix systems, these two scripts will allow you to keep files in compressed format, but still let less view them directly: lessopen.sh: #! /bin/sh case "$1" in *.Z) uncompress -c $1 >/tmp/less.$$ 2>/dev/null if [ -s /tmp/less.$$ ]; then echo /tmp/less.$$ else rm -f /tmp/less.$$ fi ;; Version 321: 18 Jul 96 16 esac lessclose.sh: #! /bin/sh rm $2 To use these scripts, put them both where they can be exe- cuted and set LESSOPEN="lessopen.sh %s", and LESSCLOSE="lessclose.sh %s %s". More complex LESSOPEN and LESSCLOSE scripts may be written to accept other types of compressed files, and so on. Alan Shutko ______________________________________________________________________________________ [IMAGE] HELP FOR HELP ON THE BASH SHELL Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 15:36:50 +0100 (NFT) From: mailto:fk5a005@math.uni-hamburg.de you did hear about help for the bash. if you invoke help for then you will get some help about for. Okay, you know that one. But did you know you can see all the helps at once? I did not know it. Then I tried help "$*" and what happend was: every help was shown! Of course too much for one screen. so I piped it to less: help "$*" |less is quite good. But then I thought about having a search command with less. possible? yes, just do a less -p word file to see it. So I put everything together and like I do often I created an alias: alias helpall="help '$*' | less -p " and tried it: beautiful, I might not need man bash all the times. Try it yourself. Perhaps try helpall " let " to see a result. Have a nice and bright Linux-year! Matthias ______________________________________________________________________________________ [IMAGE] LOWER YOUR CAPS Date: Sat, 25 Jan 1997 20:44:42 -0800 (PST) From: Peat Bakke, pb@europa.com One of those little things that gets to me is unzipping DOS pkzipped files. All of the filenames are in all caps. I'm not sure why it bugs me, but it does. Anyhow, here's a quick script that I've found useful to convert all the caps in a directory into lower case (rather nice when you've got one of those big, 200 file zips): #!/bin/tcsh foreach i (*) mv $1 `echo $1 | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'` A word to the wise -- this lowers ALL caps, so be careful with those Makefiles and such. -Peat ______________________________________________________________________________________ [IMAGE] MAKING LINUX BOOT FLOPPIES Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 18:40:49 -0800 (PST) From: Andy Kahn, kahn@vivian.cs.ucla.edu After reading Bill Duncan's excellent article in issue #13 on using and managing floppies in Linux, I figured I'd toss in a 2-cent tip. Here is a script I use to make emergency boot floppies on my system (kernel v2.0.27). The need arose when I installed RedHat 4.0 for the first time and noticed that the installation procedure doesn't automatically prompt you to create boot floppies (Slackware does, and chances are that RedHat will also in the next version). #!/bin/csh -f # # makebootfloppy v0.2 # # DESCRIPTION: # User friendly script (with lots of verbose messages) used to make # Linux boot floppies, using the 2.x kernels. # # Formats, creates the file system, mounts the floppy, installs the Linux # kernel, installs LILO, umounts floppy, and cleans up. # stty intr set PATH=(/usr/sbin /sbin /bin /usr/bin) # the generic floppy device (usually auto-detected) set GENFLOPPY=/dev/fd0 # the low-level floppy device, used with fdformat. this might be obsoleted # on your system set LLFLOPPY=/dev/fd0H1440 # a temporary mount point for your floppy. make sure it has enough space # to copy the kernel into set MOUNTPOINT=/tmp/floppy # boot set BOOT=/boot/boot.b set KERNEL=/boot/vmlinuz # LILO label set LABEL=linux # here we go! ############# echo -n Insert a blank floppy into the drive and hit return... set FOO=$& /dev/null mount $GENFLOPPY $MOUNTPOINT # Copy the kernel to the floppy cp $BOOT $MOUNTPOINT cp $KERNEL $MOUNTPOINT # Install lilo echo image=$MOUNTPOINT/`basename $KERNEL` label=$LABEL | \ lilo -C - -b $GENFLOPPY -i $MOUNTPOINT/boot.b -c -m $MOUNTPOINT/map sync # Unmount floppy umount $MOUNTPOINT # Deleting temporary mount point rm -rf $MOUNTPOINT echo All done. ______________________________________________________________________________________ There's currently no error handling, so if one command fails, the remaining commands will fail as well. Other than that, feel free to modify and use it as you like. If you have suggestions on better ways to do something, I'd love to hear them. --Andy, kahn@cs.ucla.edu ______________________________________________________________________________________ [IMAGE] MORE ON XTERM TITLEBAR TIP Date: Wed, 15 Jan 1997 23:33:34 -0700 (MST) From: Michael J. Hammel, mjhammel@csn.net I got a lot of email about my tip, most confused by the use of escape/control characters in the script. Here is my response. > > Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 15:18:01 -0600 > > From: Roger Booth > > To: Linux Journal Editor > > > > The Jan97 Issue 33 of Linux Journal contained the "Linux Gazette Two Cent Tips". > > I was interested in the tip "X Term Titlebar Function". Although > > the text of the tip stated that the tip would work in ksh-based > > systems, I could not get it to work as shown. I think there are > > three problems. First, I think there are a few transcription > > errors in the script. Second, I believe the author is using I don't think there were transcription problems. I'm pretty sure it was the way I sent it, however.... > > embedded control characters and it was not obvious to me which > > character sequences are representations of control characters > > and which characters should be typed verbatim. Third, the Yes, there were control and escape characters in the file. This was a problem and many people wrote me to ask about it. In the following lines: ilabel () { echo -n "^[]1;$*^G"; } label () { echo -n "^[]2;$*^G"; } the characters "^[" are an escape character and the characters "^G" are a CONTROL-G character. In order to add these to your file (when you type it in by hand) using vi you would type: ^VESC - which means CTRL-SHIFT-V followed by the ESCAPE key and ^V^G - which means CTRL-SHIFT-V followed by CTRL-SHIFT-G Note that in *this* email I didn't actually include the control or escape characters - I simply used their ASCII equivalents. Hopefully this isn't too confusing. > > author uses a command-line option to the echo command which > > is not available on all Unix platforms. This is also a problem. See below. > > I finally used the following script: > > > > if [ ${SHELL##/*/} = "ksh" ] ; then > > if [[ $TERM = x"term" ]] ; then > > HOSTNAME=`uname -n` > > label () { echo "\\033]2;$*\\007\\c"; } > > alias stripe='label $LOGNAME on $HOSTNAME - ${PWD#$HOME/}' > > cds () { "cd" $*; eval stripe; } > > alias cd=cds > > eval stripe > > fi > > fi > > I don't use vi, so I left out that functionality. I tried this and various similar responses that were mailed directly to me. It should work using the octal versions of the escape sequences, but I couldn't get it to work. My problem is that I use the label() function from the command line at times to simply set the title bar to some arbitrary value and using the octal sequences didn't seem to work for me. I'm not sure why, however. I do believe that, sometime in the distant past, I too used octal sequences to set the xterm title bar. I've long forgotten why I switched. > > The functional changes I made are all in the arguments to the > > echo command. The changes are to use \\033 rather than what > > was shown in the original tip as ^[, to use \\007 rather than > > ^G, and to terminate the string with \\c rather than use the > > option -n. All of these should work just fine in ksh. Your observation that not all shells accept "echo -n" is correct. I often have to check which works and then manually set the echo line to either use "-n" or to print a \c. One or the other will always work, depending on if the echo is a shell builtin or an actual Unix command. > > On AIX 4.1, the command "echo -n hi" echoes "-n hi"; in other > > words, -n is not a portable command-line option to the echo > > command. I tested the above script on AIX 3.2, AIX 4.1, > > HPUX 9.0, HPUX 10.0, Solaris 2.4 and Solaris 2.5. I'm still > > trying to get Linux and my Wintel box mutually configured, > > so I haven't tested it on Linux. I don't use X on the AIX or HPUX boxes at work. I just rlogin from my Sun boxes. However, both Solaris and Linux should work with the -n option if you're using the echo shell builtin. If not, the \c will probably be required. On my Linux box I type bash% type echo which reports echo is a shell builtin so I know which one I'm using. Knowing this you can provide alternatives within your .bashrc or .kshrc to determine which version of the echo line to use. This is true of any Unix platform on which you use ksh or bash (I believe). > > I have noticed a problem with this script. I use the rlogin > > command to log in to a remote box. When I exit from the > > remote box, the caption is not updated, and still shows the > > hostname and path that was valid just before I exited. I tried > > adding > > > > exits () { "exit" $*; eval stripe; } > > alias exit=exits > > > > and > > > > rlogins () { "rlogin" $*; eval stripe; } > > alias rlogin=rlogins > > > > Neither addition updated the caption to the host/path > > returned to. Any suggestions? Add this right after the alias for cd in the original script: rlogins () { "rlogin" $*; cds . } alias rlogin=rlogins Its a hack, but it works. You have to use "cds" instead of the alias "cd" or else the real cd gets used and the title bar won't change. In case anyone is wondering, the reason you enclose "rlogin" (or "cd" or "vi") in double quotes in this script is so the function rlogins() will run the real rlogin and not get stuck recursively calling itself. Neat, eh? Boy, this stuff could get confusing fast. Maybe it wasn't such a good tip after all. Michael J. Hammel ______________________________________________________________________________________ [IMAGE] REMIND TIP Date: Mon, 20 Jan 97 15:42:04 PST From: jmy@gim.net This is a nice little script wich I have made, it places reminders to ~/.tcshrc or whatever. I think it's very useful. To use it first place at THE END OF ~/.tcshrc: \echo echo "--------------------( R E M I N D E R S )--------------------" echo "-------------------------------------------------------------";\echo Then use this script: ------------------------------c-u-t--h-e-r-e------------------------------- #!/bin/tcsh # Nice little scipt that places reminders to the end of ~/.tcshrc or whatever. # Made by jmy@gim.net email if you like it! echo Remind 1.0 by jmy@gim.net if ($#argv == 0) then echo Use like \'remind \ \\' echo Option is \'a\' for add , \'u\' for undo and \'r\' for remove, pretty easy huh..:\) \echo echo NOTE: IF YOU REMOVED A LINE YOU DIDN\'T MEAN TO REMOVE, USE UNDO\! \echo exit 666 endif if ($argv[1] == a) then cat ~/.tcshrc | awk '\!/-------\";\\echo/ { print }' >! /tmp/remind.$user echo echo $argv[2-] >> /tmp/remind.$user echo 'echo "-------------------------------------------------------------";\echo' >> /tmp/remind.$user cp ~/.tcshrc ~/.tcshrc.remind rm -f ~/.tcshrc mv /tmp/remind.$user ~/.tcshrc echo Added reminder: $argv[2-] else if ($argv[1] == r) then cat ~/.tcshrc | grep -v "echo $argv[2-]" >! /tmp/remind.$user cp ~/.tcshrc ~/.tcshrc.remind rm -f ~/.tcshrc mv /tmp/remind.$user ~/.tcshrc echo Removed Reminders: diff ~/.tcshrc ~/.tcshrc.remind | awk '$2 ~ /echo/ { print$3,$4,$5,$6,$7,$8,$9, $10,$11,$12,$13,$14,$15,$16,$17,$18,$19,$20,$21,$22,$23,$24,$25 }' else if ($argv[1] == u) then if (-e ~/.tcshrc.remind) then mv ~/.tcshrc ~/.tcshrc.remtemp mv ~/.tcshrc.remind ~/.tcshrc mv ~/.tcshrc.remtemp ~/.tcshrc.remind echo Undo completed else echo No undo file was found \(~/.tcshrc\) endif else echo Error: invalid argument\(s\) run it with no argument for a short help \echo exit 666 endif \echo ---------------------c-u-t--h-e-r-e--a-l-s-o------------------------------ Dont forget to do a 'chmod a+x remind' And NEVER place any new lines after the lines you placed in ~/.tcshrc If you wan't to use it with some other shell it should just be like changing the paths in the script. And yes, it maybe should have been alot easier to put the reminders in a separat file, but i like this solution i'ts alot cooler...and maybe it can show someone how awk works. ______________________________________________________________________________________ [IMAGE] SCRIPT TO CALL YOUR EDITOR Date: Thu, 16 Jan 97 15:21:34 PST From: Gary Chambers, geecee@gwi.net I just found the Linux Gazette... Thankfully! It has truly made using Linux more fun. I use the Linux version of Marko Macek's FTE editor. Since it is comprised of a separate X and console version, I began to get frustrated with having to manually specify a default editor. Now, wherever I can specify it (e.g. Pine), I use my edit script. It also provides similar functionality at the command line. I'm new to Linux, so there may be better ways of doing this. I submitted this for inclusion in your 2-cent tips (my favorite section). #!/bin/bash # Determine whether we're in X Windows and call the proper editor # if [ "$WINDOWID" = "" ]; then fte $1 $2 $3 $4 $5 else xfte $1 $2 $3 $4 $5 fi GeeCee, Gary Chambers ______________________________________________________________________________________ [IMAGE] TIP FOR YOUR WEB PAGE Date: Fri, 3 Jan 1997 17:26:14 -0500 (EST) From: Ben Boule, bouleb@rpi.edu One cool tip that I have found useful is the following. If you are running your web page on your own machine or have the directory on NFS, put the following in your .profile : cp ~/.netscape/bookmarks.html ~/public_html/bookmarks.html cp ~/lynx_bookmarks.html ~/public_html/bookmarks2.html Change for different browsers and server setups. Then you can link them on your web page, and they get updated every time you log in, start a new xterm, etc... Of course, this assumes you don't care about other people looking at your bookmarks. Later, Ben Boule ______________________________________________________________________________________ [IMAGE] RE: TITLEBAR TIP Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 18:40:38 +0200 (SAT) From: Christopher Gordon, chris@bayes.agric.za Roger Booth sent in a corrected version of the Titlebar script. I found that in order to get this working on a Slackware distribution of Linux, using the bash shell, further modifications were neccesary. The control characters need one \ as opposed to \\. The "echo" command required an -e switch. The "if" statement only needed one [] not two. Finally, the script needed to check if "bash" was running or not. I also added a command to simplify the prompt. Here is the corrected script. It can be run using the source command. if [ ${SHELL##/*/} = "bash" ] ; then if [ $TERM = x"term" ] ; then HOSTNAME=`uname -n` label () { echo -e "\033]2;$*\007\c"; } alias stripe='label $LOGNAME on $HOSTNAME - ${PWD#$HOME/}' cds () { "cd" $*; eval stripe; } alias cd=cds eval stripe export PS1='\$ ' fi fi Standard disclaimers apply. Regards, Christopher Gordon, Remote Sensing, Inst. for Soil, Climate and Water Pretoria, South Africa ______________________________________________________________________________________ [IMAGE] TWO BIT TIP -- HEARTBEAT Date: Wed, 22 Jan 1997 22:29:06 -0800 (PST) From: Kragen Sittler, kragen@netcom.com #!/bin/sh # This is a shell archive (produced by GNU sharutils 4.1). # To extract the files from this archive, save it to some FILE, remove # everything before the `!/bin/sh' line above, then type `sh FILE'. # # Made on 1997-01-22 22:11 PST by . # Source directory was `/usr/local/heartbeat'. # # Existing files will *not* be overwritten unless `-c' is specified. # # This shar contains: # length mode name # ------ ---------- ------------------------------------------ # 2222 -rw-r--r-- README # 102 -rw-r--r-- crontab # 371 -rwxr-xr-x heartbeat # 142 -r-xr-xr-x rc.heartbeat # 1045 -rwxr-xr-x update.sessionid # touch -am 1231235999 $$.touch >/dev/null 2>&1 if test ! -f 1231235999 && test -f $$.touch; then shar_touch=touch else shar_touch=: echo echo 'WARNING: not restoring timestamps. Consider getting and' echo "installing GNU \`touch', distributed in GNU File Utilities..." echo fi rm -f 1231235999 $$.touch # # ============= README ============== if test -f 'README' && test X"$1" != X"-c"; then echo 'x - skipping README (file already exists)' else echo 'x - extracting README (text)' sed 's/^X//' 'README' && Heartbeat package X My computer seems to crash often -- about once every ten days. I've been wanting to know when this happens, but since the computer is busily crashing, it doesn't have time to tell me. (I suspect this happens because of power outages.) X So I wrote a simple heartbeat package, which would keep a record in the filesystem when it was alive. That way, I could look at this record when the machine crashed and tell when and how long it had crashed. X So I wrote a few scripts and created a new user. I named the heartbeat user 'heartbeat'. (I know it's not really kosher to have a nine-letter username, but the only thing that has problems with it so far is ls.) X heartbeat is the first script; it updates a file in /var/log/heartbeat. X Here's the meat of heartbeat. X X #!/bin/sh X touch /var/log/heartbeat/"`cat /var/run/heartbeat.sid`" X /var/log/heartbeat should be writable and executable by the heartbeat user; you may want to use root. heartbeat gets run once a minute on my system, from the heartbeat's crontab: X * * * * * /usr/local/heartbeat/heartbeat X (For some reason, my crond does not like whitespace before crontab entries.) X The name of the file it updates is taken from /var/run/heartbeat.sid. (I'm not sure /var/run is really an appropriate place to put this, but I couldn't find a better place.) This file should be readable and writable by the heartbeat user. X heartbeat.sid is updated at boot time by a Perl script called update.sessionid. update.sessionid also puts some information in the file that heartbeat updates. X I run update.sessionid (as the heartbeat user) from /etc/rc.d/rc.M, just before cron is started. X Here's the section from my rc.M: X X.... # # Update heartbeat sessionid. # This helps us find out when there was a crash. [ -x /etc/rc.d/rc.heartbeat ] && /etc/rc.d/rc.heartbeat X # Start crond (Dillon's crond): X.... X and here's /etc/rc.d/rc.heartbeat: X #!/bin/sh # Update the heartbeat sessionid. # This should be done before starting cron. su heartbeat -c /usr/local/heartbeat/update.sessionid X Now, when I want to know when the machine crashed, I can look in /var/log/heartbeat for the times of system shutdowns -- planned or otherwise. SHAR_EOF $shar_touch -am 0122221197 'README' && chmod 0644 'README' || echo 'restore of README failed' shar_count="`wc -c 'crontab' && # MIN HOUR DAY MONTH DAYOFWEEK COMMAND * * * * * /usr/local/heartbeat/heartbeat SHAR_EOF $shar_touch -am 0122221197 'crontab' && chmod 0644 'crontab' || echo 'restore of crontab failed' shar_count="`wc -c 'heartbeat' && #!/bin/sh # script to continually update a file's timestamp, except when the machine # is down # # This should be put in a crontab to be run every minute, or five minutes, # or whatever. # # /var/run/heartbeat.sid contains a sessionid that is incremented at each # bootup, and is suitable for use as a filename. X touch /var/log/heartbeat/"`cat /var/run/heartbeat.sid`" SHAR_EOF $shar_touch -am 0122210097 'heartbeat' && chmod 0755 'heartbeat' || echo 'restore of heartbeat failed' shar_count="`wc -c 'rc.heartbeat' && #!/bin/sh # Update the heartbeat sessionid. # This should be done before starting cron. su heartbeat -c /usr/local/heartbeat/update.sessionid SHAR_EOF $shar_touch -am 0122221197 'rc.heartbeat' && chmod 0555 'rc.heartbeat' || echo 'restore of rc.heartbeat failed' shar_count="`wc -c 'update.sessionid' && #!/usr/bin/perl # Update sessionid for heartbeat, creating new sessionid file. # This should be run at boot time. X my $sessionidfile = "/var/run/heartbeat.sid"; my $heartbeatdir = "/var/log/heartbeat"; X open SESSIONIDFILE, $sessionidfile or X die "Couldn't open for read"; X my $sessionid = ; close SESSIONIDFILE; chomp $sessionid; X if ($sessionid !~ /^[a-zA-Z]*[0-9]{4,}$/) { $sessionid = "boot0000"; } X $sessionid ++; X open SESSIONIDFILE, ">$sessionidfile" or X die "Couldn't open for write"; X print SESSIONIDFILE "$sessionid\n"; close SESSIONIDFILE; X my $heartbeatfile = "$heartbeatdir/$sessionid"; X open HEARTBEATFILE, ">$heartbeatfile" or X die "Couldn't open for write"; X my $message = failed after open; fs full? stopped"; X close HEARTBEATFILE; X Xexit 0; SHAR_EOF $shar_touch -am 0122211997 'update.sessionid' && chmod 0755 'update.sessionid' || echo 'restore of update.sessionid failed' shar_count="`wc -c ______________________________________________________________________________________ [IMAGE] 2 CENT TIP FOR XDM Date: Sun, 5 Jan 1997 21:28:02 -0600 (CST) From: Andrew Dyer, adyer@Mcs.Net here are several ways you can dress up an xdm login screen: 1. use the 'Xbanner' program available on sunsite 2. run a program like xearth or xfishtank that writes to the X login screen background 3. use a static image display program like 'xv' to put up a simple bitmap I use xv to put up an image - to do this add a line like the following to the file /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm/Xsetup_0 (at least that's where is is in my system (Caldera)): /usr/X11R6/bin/xv -rmode 1 -nc 64 -quit /home/adyer/pics/arcade.bmp This line will run 'xv' to put the image file at the end of the command line onto the background window in 'root tiled' mode, dithers the image to only use 64 colors (to preserve colormap slots on my 256 color display), and tells xv to exit after doing this. Note that if you run a program like xearth it will continue to run after you have started the session and will contiinue to run by default until the session is exited. See the 'xdm' man page for more details. !!!!!!!!!!!!! !! WARNING !! !!!!!!!!!!!!! programs run by xdm are usually run as root, and so pose a potential security risk if they are not specifically designed for this. You have been warned :-) Andrew M. Dyer ______________________________________________________________________________________ [IMAGE] TWO 2 CENT TIPS -- SYSLOG & X COLOR DEPTH Date: 13 Jan 1997 10:33:29 +0100 From: Marco Melgazzi, marco@techie.com Dear sirs Here's two 2c tips for your wonderful Linux Gazette. Note that all the lines ending with \ have to be joined on one line. 1. :::: Syslog fun (oh no, not again) ::::: Everybody seem to like to put a line like the following in their syslog: *.* /dev/ttyx this way every message is printed on an unused tty and the curious ( or worried ) user can switch to it and see what's going on. This approach has a big advantage ( it doesn't use any system resource ) and a couple of disadvantages ( notably you have to switch to text mode to read the messages and then you don't have scrollback ). So I have this little workaround: in /etc/syslog.conf put something like *.* /var/adm/current_session_log In rc.local or whatever file is called before starting syslog /bin/cat /dev/null > /var/adm/current_session_log In fvwm you can add something like this: Style "tail" NoTitle, NoHandles, Sticky, WindowListSkip Style "tail" StaysOnTop, CirculateSkip *GoodStuff S-Log telnet-sm.xpm Exec "rxvt" \ rxvt -geometry 132x45-0+0 -sl 1200 -font fixed \ -e tail -n 1200 -f /var/adm/current_session_log & So when you press the goodstuff button named 'S-log' you get a big rxvt with a nice scrollback buffer that displays exactly what's going on in the system. If your linux system stays up for weeks at a time you'll probably have to set up a CRON entry that trims this file every once in a while but this is left as an exercise for the reader ;-) To pop down the rxvt a simple Ctrl-C is more than enough. By the way, this approach will surely save a lot of stress to the monitor electronics: in fact switching from text mode to hires a) takes time b) involves quite a lot of non-trivial adjustments in the monitor circuitry so it could likely acceelerate its ageing process. 2. ::::: How to use X with more than one color depth :::::: I normally use X in 8bit ( since my board is not VRAM based 1152x864 at 70Hz slows down things considerably ) but, since when I hacked my XF86_S3 to let me use higher clocks in 16bit mode :), occasionally I need to switch to the 16bits depth (notably when using the oh-so-amazing 'The Gimp'). Since leaving two servers up and running all the time via xdm seemed a waste of memory, by tinkering with manual pages and articles from the net I came up with a viable alternative. Let me first tell you one thing: in this way, when the second server is running, you get both :0 (in 8bit) that is managed by xdm and :1 that has been started on-demand. Since I don't usually use :1 while I'm online I didn't took the time to provide MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE authorization for it: this is a thing you -should- do if you plan to use this on the net. Here there are a couple of my scripts: ::: ---------------------------------------------------------------- :::/usr/local/bin/1open16 ::: ---------------------------------------------------------------- xinit ~/.x_rc_for_1_16 -- /usr/X11/bin/X16 :1 vt8 & ::: ---------------------------------------------------------------- :::/usr/X11/bin/X16 ::: ---------------------------------------------------------------- #!/bin/sh exec XF86_S3.new -bpp 16 ${@+"$@"} ::: ---------------------------------------------------------------- :::~/.x_rc_for_1_16 ::: ---------------------------------------------------------------- #!/bin/sh # $XConsortium: xinitrc.cpp,v 1.4 91/08/22 11:41:34 rws Exp $ userresources=$HOME/.Xresources_for_1_16 usermodmap=$HOME/.Xmodmap sysresources=/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/.Xresources sysmodmap=/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/.Xmodmap export PATH= .... path .... # merge in defaults and keymaps if [ -f $sysresources ]; then xrdb -merge -display :1 $sysresources & fi if [ -f $sysmodmap ]; then xmodmap -display :1 $sysmodmap & fi if [ -f $userresources ]; then xrdb -merge -display :1 $userresources & fi if [ -f $usermodmap ]; then xmodmap -display :1 $usermodmap & fi .... misc other variables .... exec fvwm -f .fvwmrc_for_1_16 ::: ---------------------------------------------------------------- ::: in ~/.fvwmrc_for_1_16 I have this: I'm not sure this duplication ::: is necessary but in my configuration it is. YMMV ::: ---------------------------------------------------------------- Function "InitFunction" Exec "I" xrdb -display :1 -merge ~/.Xresources & Exec "I" xmodmap -display :1 ~/.Xmodmap & Module "I" GoodStuff Exec "I" emacs & EndFunction In this way when you execute the 1open16 script you will get a 16bit screen on :1 at the default resolution you put in your system XF86Config for 16bit depth. Things get a little more hairy if you want to open the new screen with a different set of resolutions: unluckily ( I guess for security reasons ) XFree lets you use a new XF86Config -only- if you are root. So to play Quake on :1 you have to do the following... ::: ---------------------------------------------------------------- ::: in ~/.fvwmrc ( this is nice for password requests, I use it all the ::: time, just put the word 'Password' in the rxvt that you need and use ::: the supplied style. I use it for going online, to access netscape & ::: other net stuff ( I'm paranoid so I created a user named -net- that ::: I use for all internet related stuff, I hate live-data trojans etc.) ::: you get the point.) ::: ---------------------------------------------------------------- Style "*Password" NoTitle, NoHandles, Sticky, WindowListSkip,StaysOnTop ::: in a menu entry Exec "Quake (normal)" exec rxvt -fn \ "-b&h-lucidatypewriter-medium-r-*-*-*-180-75-75-*-*-*-*" \ -geometry 40x1+1-1 -T \"Quake Password" -e \ su root -c "/home/marco/bin/qk" & ::: ---------------------------------------------------------------- ::: /home/marco/bin/qk. The redundant su is needed if you plan to launch ::: this file from the command line too. ::: ---------------------------------------------------------------- cd /home/marco/quake su -c "xinit ./xf86quake -- /usr/X11/bin/X -bpp 8 :1 vt8 -xf86config \ /home/marco/lib/XF86Config.quake" Of course /home/marco/lib/XF86Config.quake will contain only the resolution that I usually play quake at ( that is 400x300 or 512x384 ). In this way you can play quake without hassless even if you usually run at 1000-or-so x 800-or-so at whatever depth. Now if only Linus released the updated 1.06 xf86quake ;-) (in 1.01 you can't use a custom heap, you have the fixed 8mb one :( ). Hope you'll like these tips! Marco Melgazzi ______________________________________________________________________________________ [IMAGE] X WINDOWS COLOR DEPTH Date: Fri, 17 Jan 1997 08:38:20 -0500 (EST) From: Aaron B. Dossett, aarond@ewl.uky.edu >I have recently been messing with my x-server, and have managed >to get a depth of 16, ie 2^16 colors. This works >really nice with Netscape, but some programs (doom, abuse, and >other games) wont work with this many colors. Do >you know of a fix? I have tried to get X to support multiple >depths--to no avail. The man-page suggests that some >video cards support multiple depths and some don't. How do I know >if mine does. Well, if your video card has enough RAM and you've got enough modes defined in your XF86Config file then you can specify the bit depth from the command line. If you have a link called X to the server then the command X -bpp 8 or X -bpp 16 or X -bpp 24 can be used. I like to alias the commands X8, X16, and X24 to the above. For this to work best you should have your XF86Config file setup so that each mode uses the maximum resolution possible. Aaron Dossett, aarond@ewl.uky.edu ______________________________________________________________________________________ [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next ______________________________________________________________________________________ This page maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette, gazette@ssc.com Copyright © 1997 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. [IMAGE] "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more lovable!" [IMAGE] ______________________________________________________________________________________ News Bytes CONTENTS: * News in General * Software Announcements [IMAGE] ______________________________________________________________________________________ NEWS IN GENERAL ______________________________________________________________________________________ LINUX GAZETTE ITALIAN EDITION Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 14:42:52 +0100 The first issue of the Italian Edition of the Linux Gazette, is now available on our site, www.media.it/LUGBari/lgtp/index.html. It is in the spirit of helping italian Linux users and, naturally, this italian edition is under the copying license of your original Linux Gazette. Bye (and many many thanks!) Francesco De Carlo, fdecarlo@sole.media.it CICCIO-X, LUGBari Coordinator ______________________________________________________________________________________ LINUX ADVOCACY MINI-HOWTO Date: Sat, 11 Jan 1997 11:53:19 +0100 (MET) This is the Linux Advocacy HOWTO and is intended to provide guidelines and ideas to assist with your Linux advocacy efforts. -- authored by Paul L. Rogers, Paul.L.Rogers@li.org Related Links: Lars Wirzenius also has some thoughts about Linux advocacy. The Linux Advocacy Project's goal is to encourage commercial application developers to provide native Linux versions of their software. ______________________________________________________________________________________ LINUX IN THE NEWS Linux was chosen by PC Week as part of its list for the top ten products of 1996. See the December 16, 1996 issue. The same issue has a related article about Linux and the Internet. ______________________________________________________________________________________ LINUX SITES TO CHECK OUT http://www.m-tech.ab.ca/linux-biz This site contains anecdotal references about the commercial applications of Linux. Example uses of Linux in various industries, fulfulling various tasks are listed. Includes form / CGI script that visitors can use to enter data about their own commercial Linux sites. -- Idan Shoham, idan@m-tech.ab.ca http://www.xnet.com/~blatura/linapps.shtml The Linux Applications and Utilities List is an organized collection of pointers to the WWW home pages of over 600 different Linux compatible application programs, system admin tools, utilities, device drivers, games, servers, programming tools, file, disk and desktop managers, internet apps, and more. The January 8 edition has added links to over 80 new programs, as well as corrections to numerous existing listings. -- Bill Latura, blatura@xnet.com http://www.linuxware.com This site is a Linux Support, Information, and general purpose Linuxer Hangout Site -- a meeting place for people interested in learning more about Linux, providing help to other Linuxers, and promoting Linux!!! -- Peter Lazecky, peter@linuxware.com ______________________________________________________________________________________ PNG ARTICLE (SEE ISSUE13) UPDATE Apparently Netscape has finally committed to supporting PNG in Navigator and actually made public statements to that effect at its Internet Developers' Conference last October, although there's no indication of it anywhere on their web site. The only question is when: Navigator 4.0 has a fixed release date, and PNG support may not be ready by then. -- Greg Roelofs, newt@pobox.com ______________________________________________________________________________________ ROCHESTER, REVISED OS SEMINAR SERIES SCHEDULE Date: Sun, 12 Jan 1997 02:36:18 GMT Computer Science House at Rochester Institute of Technology Presents: an Operating System Seminar Series Wednesday evenings at 8:00PM. Attendance is free of charge and is open to the public. * February 5: The Inferno Operating System for Everything From Embedded Systems To Network Operating Systems. - David Bort (Student, RIT) * February 12: Sun Microsystems new JAVA Based Network Computers - Jeff Rice (Sun Microsystems) * February 19: ShagOS -- An experimental Object Oriented Micro kernel. - Frank Barrus (Xerox) * February 26: Solaris - Geordie Klueber (Sun Microsystems) For additional information, directions, comments or if you would like to be a guest speaker, e-mail tad@csh.rit.edu. Computer Science House, cshouse@csh.rit.edu, http://www.csh.rit.edu/os-seminars ______________________________________________________________________________________ LINUX CD GIVEAWAY LIST Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 05:16:52 GMT If you have a spare Linux CD to give away, you can list your email address at http://emile.math.ucsb.edu:8000/giveaway.html Interested parties will contact you, then send in a self-adressed stamped envelope and you send them the CD. If you would rather (or in addition) lend a Linux CD locally, you can now specify that as well. For additional information: Axel Boldt, boldt@math.ucsb.edu, http://www.math.ucsb.edu/%7Eboldt/ Univ of California at Santa Barbara, Dept of Mathematics ______________________________________________________________________________________ LINUX BROWSER PROJECT - A NEW WWW BROWSER FOR LINUX Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 06:34:56 GMT Announcing the Linux Browser Project -- a group of developers developing a world wide web browser for Linux and other platforms. The goal of this project is to develop a web browser which consists of a modular program architecture based around a small, fast kernel which would load necessary modules on demand. The project is in its early stages, and we are announcing the project at the moment to make ourselves known to the rest of the Linux community. If anyone would be interested in helping us out in any way, please feel free to join the mailing lists or visit the web site and let us know that you are willing to help. For additional information: See the Linux Browser Project home page at http://www.tjhsst.edu/LBP/. Jason A. Miller, Project Coordinator, jasonm@trib.com, The Linux Browser Project Team [IMAGE] ______________________________________________________________________________________ SOFTWARE ANNOUNCEMENTS ______________________________________________________________________________________ XFMAIL 1.0 - MAIL PROGRAM FOR X Date: Sun, 05 Jan 1997 00:59:12 GMT Xfmail 1.0 is finally out! XFMail is an X-Windows application for sending and receiving electronic mail. It uses the XForms GUI library toolkit by T.C. Zhao and Mark Overmars. It has a user-friendly interface and online help to make it easy to use. It implements most of the mail functionality in one program and it does not require any additional tools. You can ftp XFMail at: ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/applications/xfmail-1.0.tar.gz ftp://Burka.NetVision.net.il/pub/xfmail/xfmail-1.0.tar.gz For additional information: http://Burka.NetVision.net.il/xfmail/xfmail.html Jacek Bochenek, jacek@coig.katowice.pl Organization: COIG S.A. ______________________________________________________________________________________ IMAGEMAGICK 3.7.9 ELF BINARIES - GENERAL IMAGE MANIPULATION TOOL Date: Sun, 05 Jan 1997 00:59:19 GMT ImageMagick (TM), version 3.7.9, is a package for display and interactive manipulation of images for the X Window System. ImageMagick supports also the Drag-and-Drop protocol form the OffiX package and many of the more popular image formats including JPEG, MPEG, PNG, TIFF, Photo CD, etc. You will also need the package libIMPlugIn-1.0-elf to get it working. Here are the locations you can get the packages from: Site: sunsite.unc.edu /pub/Linux/X11/xapps/graphics 942k ImageMagick-3.7.9-elf.tgz 1k ImageMagick-3.7.9-elf.lsm 886k libIMPlugIn-1.0-elf.tgz 1k libIMPlugIn-1.0-elf.lsm For additional information: Alexander Zimmermann, Alexander.Zimmermann@FMI.Uni-Passau.de, http://www.uni-passau.de/~zimmerma Organization: Universität Passau ______________________________________________________________________________________ VISUAL TCL 1.07 BETA Date: Sat, 11 Jan 1997 02:42:27 GMT Visual Tcl 1.07b is a quality application development environment for UNIX, Windows and Macintosh platforms. Visual Tcl is written entirely in Tcl/Tk and covered by the GNU General Public License. Please choose the location nearest you since my connection can become saturated at peak times. Home Site: http://www.neuron.com/stewart/vtcl/ Australia: http://holmes.ccs.deakin.edu.au/vtcl/ United Kingdom: http://www.jessikat.demon.co.uk/vtcl/ Germany: http://www.ifconnection.de/~rjs/vtcl/ US East: http://www.ultra.net/~eugene/mirror/vtcl/ US Mid: http://chaos.uark.edu/vtcl/ For additional information: Stewart Allen, stewart@neuron.com ______________________________________________________________________________________ NEXS 1.3-BETA X-WINDOWS SPREADSHEET NOW AVAILABLE Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 05:16:23 GMT X Engineering Software Systems (XESS Corp.) announces the immediate availability of the BETA version of the NExS 1.3 spreadsheet for Linux and UNIX workstations. NExS, the Network Extensible Spreadsheet, is a full-featured, graphical spreadsheet developed specifically for UNIX and the X Window System. NExS has more than 237 built-in business and scientific functions, allows user-customized functions, displays data using 2 and 3 dimensional graphs, and imports and exports data in a wide variety of formats (including HTML tables). Demonstration copies and additional conNExions plug-ins may be downloaded from http://www.xess.com. NExS is priced at $149 for the Personal Edition, and $249 if a floating license is desired. For addtional information: xess@vnet.net Vnet Internet Access, Inc. - Charlotte, NC. ______________________________________________________________________________________ PHT RELEASES RED HAT 4.0 Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 06:35:52 GMT Pacific HiTech is proud to announce the release of our newest Linux product for the i386 architecture: Turbo Linux: Red Hat 4.0 It features a modular 2.0.18 kernel, better networking, more packages, and, of course, the floppy-less install. The second CD contains the entire contrib/ directory from ftp.redhat.com (the Live Filesystem was scrapped in order to put the contrib/ directory on, which we felt would be more useful for more people). The 2 CD set is only $19.95 plus s/h. If you want more details on the product, visit http://www.pht.com/linux. For additional information: Scott M. Stone, sstone@pht.com Chief Linux Developer/UNIX SysAdmin for Pacific HiTech, Inc. http://www.pht.com/ ______________________________________________________________________________________ PHT RELEASES MKLINUX DR2 Date: Tue, 14 Jan 1997 06:35:56 GMT Pacific HiTech is proud to announce our newest Linux offering for the PPC architecture: MkLinux DR2 is the latest pre-release version of MkLinux, and it is MUCH MUCH better than DR1 - more stable, more hardware support, and a much smoother installation. It was uncompressed from the FTP distribution and burned as a Macintosh HFS format CD - you don't need to decompress the files onto your hard drive, you can just put in the CD and GO. It's only $19.95 plus s/h. See http://www.pht.com for ordering information, or email sales@pht.com. For additional information: Scott M. Stone, sstone@pht.com Chief Linux Developer/UNIX SysAdmin for Pacific HiTech, Inc. http://www.pht.com/ ______________________________________________________________________________________ [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next ______________________________________________________________________________________ This page written and maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette, gazette@ssc.com Copyright © 1997 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more lovable!" [IMAGE] ______________________________________________________________________________________ THE ANSWER GUY By James T. Dennis, jimd@starshine.org ______________________________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS: * Netscape Mail Block * Dealing with e-mail on a pop3 server * Security Problem * More on Security Problem * Dial-up Problem * X Window Problem ______________________________________________________________________________________ NETSCAPE MAIL BLOCK Date: Sun, 15 Dec 1996 23:16:10 -0800 (PST) hi... mitch here in mobile, alabama... i need to refuse to accept email from a particular person... how can i configure netscape and/or cnd1.0 to bounce the person's mail back to them? I'd use procmail. CND uses procmail as your "local delivery agent" (by default). This means that sendmail passes any mail to a local account to procmail and lets procmail due the final delivery to your mail box (/var/spool/mail/$YOUR_LOGIN_NAME). However, when procmail does this, it checks for a .procmailrc file in your home directory (and does some ownership and permissions checks on it for you). procmail is a little programming language specifically for processing mail. Your .procmailrc file can have a variety of settings and clauses (which are called "recipes" by the author). You can also modularize this by using a variety of INCLUDE directives. Here's a simple example that should get you started. :0 hr * ^From.*spammer.you.despise@spamhaven.com * !^FROM_MAILER * !^FROM_DAEMON * !^X-Loop: ${USERNAME}@`hostname`" | (formail -r -A"X-Loop: ${USERNAME}@`hostname`" \ -A"Precedence: junk" ;\ echo "Your mail is not welcome here." echo "Please don't mail me again." echo cat ~/your.signature.or.flame ) The :0 marks this as a new recipe (so each new recipe starts with a :0 line). The 'h' on that line is one of several flags to procmail about what parts of the message to hand to your action line (which comes up later). 'h' says: give me the header 'r' says: treat the incoming data as "raw" (so his failure to put a blank line at the end of his message won't cause your response to fail). The four "star" lines after that are conditions -- the first specifies that the header indicates that the message be "from" your spammer (or unwanted sender). This will actually match any "from" or "From:" line that contains your targets e-mail address. The next two lines try to ensure that you don't respond to daemons and mailers (mailing lists). The next one (which you should fill in with your username and hostname) makes sure that your don't respond to your own response. Those three conditions are to protect your script from being tricked into doing bad things. Consider them to be the minimum overhead on any autoresponders that you write. The next line (starting with a "|" pipe character) is the action to take. In procmail there are three types of actions. A filename simply specifies an mbox (elm, pine, or mailx compatible) folder to file this away in. A directory name specifies an mh or mmdf folder to store the message in (mh and mmdf use different naming schemes for the messages in their folder directories -- you don't need to worry about this unless you use on of these mail user agents). A '!' (bang) line specifies an e-mail address to which to bounce the message. A '|' (pipe) line specifies that the message should be filtered through a local program. formail is a program that comes with the procmail package. It "formats mail headers." This particular formail command formats a "reply" (-r) header and adds two additional header lines -- a standard "Precedence: junk" line and a personal "X-" line (which the RFC822 spec allows you to use to embed custom information into a header). This is where your message adds the line that would prevent an attack by routing your response back into your script (a mail loop). The echo and cat statements after the formail line just provide output that is appended after the mail header. This becomes the body of your response. You can add additional echo lines -- or you can create a file and just 'cat' it here. If you are new to procmail (which is almost certain given your question -- autoresponders are some of the first things procmail'ers learn) you may be nervous about 'breaking' something and losing some of your mail. So -- to protect yourself from that you might want start your .procmailrc with the following simple recipe: :0 c fallback Which (if it is the *first* recipe) simply appends a copy of every incoming message to a file (in your ~/Mail directory by default) named fallback. You can compare the contents of that folder to your inbox until you're confident that things are working as you expect. Please read the procmail and procmailex (examples) man pages for more details. The author Stephen van der Berg, has also written an automated mail list management package called SmartList -- which is highly regarded among people who've tried it. I like SmartList *much* more than majordomo. --Jim ______________________________________________________________________________________ DEALING WITH E-MAIL ON A POP3 SERVER Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 04:02:06 -0800 (PST) From Moe Green: Is there any way (or any program out there) which will not only get my email from a pop3 server off of one account, then distribute it to multiple users on my system by either the from: or subject: lines??? Example: Perhaps popclient could get the mail and save to temp, then is there a program which would go through and say, hmmm...this mail is from johndoe@linux.org and it goes to root...then the next message is from mike@canoe.net and it goes to dave??? Thanks for your time, keep up the good work. -Moe Green, starved@ix.netcom.com It is possible to write procmail scripts that can do this sort of thing. However I don't recommend this approach at all. The current version of 'popclient' is called 'fetchmail' (because it supports IMAP and some other mail store and forward protocols). It's default is to fetch the mail from your POP or IMAP server and feed it to the smtpd (sendmail) on your local host. This means that any special processing that would be done by the aliases or .forward files (especially any processing through procmail scripts) will be done automatically. It is possible to over-ride that feature and feed the messages through a pipe or into a file. It is also possible, using procmail or any scripting language, to parse and dispatch the file. Using anything other than procmail would require that you know *alot* about RFC822 (the standard for internet mail headers) and about e-mail in general. I did write an article on procmail this month -- but may have submitted it too late for inclusion into this month's Linux Gazette. The gist of it is available on my own mail server (send mail to info@starshine.org with a subject of ``procmail'' or ``mailbot''). The reason I don't recommend all of this is that it violates the intentions and design of internet e-mail. A better solution is to find a provider of UUCP services (or at least SMTP/MX services). UUCP is the *right* way to provide e-mail to disconnected (dial-up) hosts and networks. It was designed and implemented over 25 years ago and all of the mail systems on the Internet know how to gateway to UUCP sites. As for SMTP/MX services for disconnected hosts/networks. Various ways of hacking sendmail and DNS configurations have been developed in the last few years -- with a variety of shell scripts and custom programs to support them. All of these provide essentially the same services as mail via UUCP over TCP -- but without conforming to any standard (meaning that whatever you learn and configure with one ISP probably won't work with the next one). Glad I could help. I hope that article on procmail helps. --Jim ______________________________________________________________________________________ SECURITY PROBLEM Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 04:02:06 -0800 (PST) From Jay: Recently a cracker got into my linux system on the internet. He didn't do a lot of damage but he did turn off system logging. I guess so I couldn't see what he'd done. Now I can't get it working again.... 1. I've made sure that the syslogd program is running using 'ps' 2. I've read the syslogd.conf file to make sure it's logging everything, and where it's going to. 3. I've checked permissions on the log file 4. I did a 'kill -HUP' on the syslogd process and it writes 'restart' to the log 5. 'logger' does nothing when I run it (no log entry, no error) 6. All my C programs that wrote to syslog don't anymore Anyone have any good ideas what to do from here? Thanks --Jay, jay@shadow.ashpool.com I do but they are rather too involved for me to type up tonight. I really recommend that you reinstall the OS and all binaries from scratch whenever you think that root has been compromised on a system. I realize that this is a time-consuming proposition -- but it is the only way to really be sure. I also recommend tripwire (ftp.cs.perdue.edu in the COAST archive -- and it's mirrors). Please feel free to write me if you continue to have system security problems. jimd@starshine.org Sorry to take so long to respond. I've been literally swamped all month. --Jim ______________________________________________________________________________________ MORE ON SECURITY PROBLEM Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 18:56:22 -0800 (PST) From Jay: >>> Recently a cracker got into my linux system on the internet. >> >> Did you restart the whole system? >> I would consider replacing syslog from your CD's and >> restarting your system. > I found that the cracker had replaced my syslogd with a packet sniffer. I think he had copied the syslogd code and replaced parts of it with his sniffer. It seemed to have some functionality but not a lot... I also found a SUID version of bash in my /tmp directory. My thought is that this is how he originally got root access. Not too surprising. He was probably using a 'rootkit.' However he obviously didn't do a very good job of covering his tracks. You should consider all passwords for all of the systems on the local net to be compromised. Force password changes across the board and consider installing ssh or stelnet (secure, encrypted replacements to rlogin/rsh and telnet respectively). He probably got in through the "Leshka" sendmail bug (allowing any shell user to create a root owned SUID shell in /tmp/ on any system with an SUID root copy of sendmail (version ~8.6.x to 8.7.x ???) using a bug in sendmail's handling of ARGV[0] and it's subsequent SIGHUP handling. Everyone using earlier versions of sendmail should upgrade to 8.8.3 or later (www.sendmail.org for details). How important are this system and the other systems on the same LAN segment to your business? I'd seriously consider hiring a qualified consultant for a full day risk assessment and audit. Unfortunately you'll probably pay at least $125/hr for anyone that's worth talking to and many of the "security consultants" out there are snake oil salesmen. I personally trust Peter Shipley (www.dis.org) and Brent Chapman (www.greatcircle.com) (co-author of the O'Reilly Firewalls book) Strat Rose (www.virtual.net) and Dan Farmer (www.trouble.org) (co-author of SATAN). Most of them are live in the SF Bay Area (silicon valley) and most of them aren't available most of the time (Brent is working on a large project to integrate the SGI and Cray WAN's; Strata has accepted a full-time position at synopsis.com, etc). I only consider myself to be a student, at best an apprentice, at data security. I'm willing to help -- but I can offer a list of satisfied clients for RASA services and I have no official "credentials." --Jim ______________________________________________________________________________________ DIAL-UP PROBLEM Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 22:56:35 -0800 (PST) From Seth Vidal: I was reading your answer in LG(#13) to the individual who had slow rate problems with ppp. Something which he did not mention that might be of help is the MTU. Some isp's set the mtu or have ppp do the negotiation. NOT all. Some of the newer ones have not quite figured out that a 14.4 or 28.8 is not going to get a packet size over 576 very often. If he sets his mtu to 576 (or even 296 for a 14.4) he may be able to force the provider's setting down. I have found that in a standard (slackware or redhat) linux distribution that the mtu defaults to 1500 which will result in slow downs and problems if your modem encounters errors frequently. I know what ppp is "supposed to do" when set up correctly. But he cannot control the ignorance of his ISP and therefore it would be to his behest to give that a try. If you'd like to pass the information along to the individual who wrote the message feel free. I hope this helps him and any others. cheers, Seth Vidal, skvidal@terminus.ehc.edu ______________________________________________________________________________________ X WINDOW PROBLEM Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 04:02:06 -0800 (PST) From: Chris Lee, techno@usa.net 1.) X Windows I got a Cirrus 5434 1mb video card, whenin 640x480x8bit the video is *fine* not great, I get little specs once in awhile on the screen, they go away with a simple [refresh] but still... When in 800x600x8bit I get lines, not specs anymore, alomst allways horizontial, and about 3pixels high, and allways croos the entire screen, not the virtual screen though, and they also go away with a simple [refresh] thses line occur alot more then the specs did. My vid card works fine in DOS/Windows. Any suggestions ? You can look for the SuperProbe utility that comes with most recent distributions. This will provide info that can be autodetected about your video card. Frankly XWindows configuration under XFree86 is black magic. A few people are really good at it and mere mortals (such as I) just plug along and hope for the best. The new XFree86 3.1.2 release seems to be better about this but I'm sure that I'm not getting the optimal color and clock settings from my various X installations either. 2.)Is there any Linux or X-Windows mailing-lists ? would help alot for me. There are many Linux mailing lists -- and some of them and some independent ones cover XFree86 (which is used by Linux, FreeBSD and the rest of the free BSD derivatives (NetBSD and OpenBSD). The three best web sites for information about Linux seem to be: * http://www.li.org/, Linux International * http://www.ch4549.org/lust/, L.U.S.T. (Linux User's Support Team) * http://www.ssc.com/linux/, SSC Inc. I don't know much about X Windows and the XFree86 project but I think they maintain a web site -- probably at www.xfree86.org. It's an often overlooked fact that there are competitors to Linux in the field of freely available Unix for PC's. You can look at www.freebsd.org, www.netbsd.org and www.openbsd.org for some of those. Thanks for your time :) Chris Lee, Computer Science P.S. You Linux people are great, so much out there, so many people helping you, nothing like this for DOS/Windows DOS heralded the "sharing" of software (shareware) while Linux and the GNU project has promoted a *giving* of software -- and support. I think one is largely and extension of the other. Personally some of the best news I've heard for die hard PC users in the last year is the announcement that Caldera purchased DR-DOS and intends to release the sources as soon as the clean up the code enough to compile cleanly in a sane production environment. Look at www.caldera.com for details about that. OpenDOS will be one of the final pieces in the puzzle of how we (PC users, IS managers, and others) can truly protect the investment we've made in our legacy software. (Currently, with dosemu -- the BIOS emulator, you have to install a copy of DOS unto your system in addition to installing and configuring the Linux interface to your DOS programs -- which is want dosemu provides). -- Jim ______________________________________________________________________________________ Copyright © 1997, James T. Dennis Published in Issue 14 of the Linux Gazette ______________________________________________________________________________________ [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more lovable!" [IMAGE] ______________________________________________________________________________________ CLUELESS at the Prompt: A New Column for New Users By Mike List, troll@net-link.net ______________________________________________________________________________________ I'm sure you've heard it before, but Welcome to Linux! You've heard the stories, your friends told you "Don't do it" but the allure of an operating system with at least the power of NT that can run on 4 MB of RAM on the same disk, even on the same partition with your DOS/Windows installation, was too big to be ignored. So you went on a FTP spree or bought a Red Hat or Slackware CD, installed it and you are confused, things don't work the way you expected, the man pages seem to be written in another language, and the people on the USENET keep telling you to RTFM and belittling you. That's why I decided to ask if I could write this column, it happened to me. Actually, when I got into computers (less than a year ago,) my friend Trippy told me to learn DOS before trying Windows. Thanks Trippy, you saved me a lot of trouble. So when I read about Linux, I thought -WHOA COOL!!, and downloaded the mini-linux distribution from Sunsite."HEY!Wait a minute, how come the keyboard doesn't work right?" Turns out the key table is Portuguese and requires file editing to be usable by us Yanks. Thanks to SGK from the Debian group, I got that squared away, so I decided to go with Debian, but with my small disk and no CD-ROM, Debian's Compatibility/Conflict Resolution was too much for me. So I got a second disk, 100 MB but it was still too small. So I decided to give Slackware a try. That's what I'm running now. The point is, I'm not a college educated computer expert but I still ended up(for now) with a running linux box. You can too, if you are willing to tinker (hack later, tinker now).I made every possible mistake, I thought until I saw some of the questions in the news groups. But enough about me, what do you think about me?;-) The first things you need to know after you install Linux are the most common commands. Here I'm going to assume that you have at least some DOS background. The following list will attempt to correlate Linux commands: LinuxDOS ls /directory/namecd\directory\name -- dir ls /directory | more ls " " | lessdir | more cat /filetype \file cat " " | more less /file" " | more cp /file /file /tocopy \file \to cd /directorycd\directory mkdir /directorymkdir \directory rm /filedel \file This list is not nearly complete, there are many more commands in both OS but these are very likely the most commonly used ones. For command help in DOS type: help :in linux type: man (command, substitute the command name): Both of these help utilities give options or switches that change the nature of the command. You can see that there are similarities in the command line operation of both OS, historically they share a common ancestry. In fact, to use a oversimplified view, at the command line linux could be thought of as SUPERDOS. In fact this SUPERDOS can actually be used to run MS Windows - check into WINE and WABI home pages on the Internet.(More on those later, maybe.) One of the next things you will need to do is find out how to write or change file contents with an editor.I used to think elvis was the easiest editor, until Konrad Rokicki told me about pico, which comes with the pine mail server. If you used MS Write or Notepad, you'll find it very easy to use. Save Emacs for another day unless you are a good typist, I found the keyboard commands to be confusing for my two-fingered style. If you don't have pico installed, try elvis in the input mode, by typing: input filename, it's pretty easy too, except watch out for command mode and input mode (type: man elvis :and read the page.If you have a CD version of Linux, you either have pico installed or can have it if you choose. If you're like me one of your priority projects will be to to do is use an Internet protocol to connect to your Internet Service Provider. My ISP uses PPP so that's what I used, and the following descriptions are for PPP. The first thing you will need to confirm is that your kernel supports PPP, either in the kernel or by loadable modules. Type: pppd :and hit enter. If your kernel doesn't support PPP, you'll get a negative message, if you get a prompt you can assume for now that it's supported. Next you will need to type: ls /usr/sbin | more :and hit enter. Look for files called ppp-on and ppp-off. Next, type: ls /etc | more : and hit enter. Here you will be looking for a file called resolv.conf. Then type: ls /etc/ppp : you can skip the: | more :this time, since it's a small directory,and hit enter. You'll be looking for files called options and ppp-on-dialer. Edit your /etc/resolv.conf to look something like: domain net-link.net nameserver 205.207.6.2 nameserver 205.217.6.3 gateway 205.217.6.10 Naturally you will have to change the name and numeric to match that of your ISP . Next, edit your /etc/ppp/options file to look something like this: /dev/modem 38400 # at this line you could substitute 19200, 57600, 115200 defaultroute noipdefault debug crtscts lock modem These two files are necessary to either of the methods I am going to describe. Now you can use minicom to dial up your ISP. Type: minicom :, and when it loads, type: ATDTYOURISPNUMBER :hit enter. When the remote modem answers you will be prompted for your username and password. When you have responded with this information, a string of garbage characters will run across the screen. Type: ctrl(key)a :then: Q :which will let you out of minicom without hanging up the modem. Then immediately type: pppd :then hit enter. Type: ping YOURISP'SNUMERIC :you will get a message that will inform you if you are connected. If you get a message that says in part "network not reached" try again. If no luck after a couple more tries, check to see that the files you edited have the correct information. Try changing your connection speed in /etc/ppp/options to 19200 and try again. If you connect this time, then one at a time try the faster speeds until you can't connect, then drop back to the fastest speed that worked. There is an easier method using the script /usr/sbin/ppp-on, that involves editing that file to give your ISPdialup number, username, and password and optionally your connection speed. It is commented to help you figure out how to change those lines that you need to change. When that is done correctly, you can dial up by typing: ppp-on : Pretty cool, huh? If these methods don't work for you, start by reading the PPP_HOWTO in your /usr/doc/faq/howto directory, then respond by e-mail to troll@net-link.net, telling me any error messages, and I'll try to square you away. There is another method using the chat program, but I haven't had much luck there, yet. Future installments, if any will fill you in on that if it seems that it's wanted. Personally, ppp-on is just fine for me so far. you will want to get an e-mail program and a browser, if you don't already. I recommend lynx. It's fast and you don't need X installed to use it. There probably is a lynx binary in your distribution, but if not you can get one from sunsite or other ftp.Pine is a good mail program, and it includes the pico editor, as noted above. NOTE TO LINUX EXPERTS- I would be glad to accept reasonable criticism of this article and the information therein. I don't really want to put up with heavy fire, if you can help the new user better than me, write an article yourself, there are plenty of avenues where such information would be of great service. NEXT TIME- E-MAILTROLL@NET-LINK.NET ME AND ASK, OTHERWISE I'LL JUST WRITE ABOUT WHAT GAVE ME TROUBLE AND HOW I GOT PAST IT. TTYL, Mike List ______________________________________________________________________________________ Copyright © 1997, Mike List Published in Issue 14 of the Linux Gazette ______________________________________________________________________________________ [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next ______________________________________________________________________________________ "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more lovable!" [IMAGE] ______________________________________________________________________________________ The Cracraft and Lijewski DIRED Programs By Grant B. Gustafson gustafso@math.utah.edu ______________________________________________________________________________________ The directory navigator and program launcher called "DIRED" in the original incarnations of EMACS has two stand-alone Unix clones. Mike Lijewski's "dired" 2.2 is written in C++ (1996). The original "dired" was written in C by Stuart Cracraft (1980), available as version 3.05 (1997). Historically, shortly after emacs "dired" appeared in the TECO implementation, a stand-alone version was written by Stuart Cracraft (1980). The emacs version and the C version have not kept up with one another. Lijewski wrote "dired" in 1990, while at Cornell University Theory Center, without any knowledge of Cracraft's "dired". The Theory Center ran on IBM VM/CMS, under which there is a utility call "file manager". This program manages the flat VM/CMS file system and represents the main user interface into files. The creation of "dired" eased the transition from VM/CMS to Unix. Lijewski's "dired" has the advantage of hindsight and C++ program development so it promises to be written in modern syntax and very maintainable. Cracraft's "dired" was rewritten in 1996 in ANSI C. It suffers with flaws in both design and readability, but the features are there. ______________________________________________________________________________________ COMMON FEATURES OF CRACRAFT'S AND LIJEWSKI'S "DIRED" * Copy current file * Hard link current file to another file. * Symbolic link current file to another file. * Unzip current file (gunzip). * Zip current file (gzip). * Rename current file. * Display help. * Cursor up one. * Cursor down one. * Back one page. * Forward one page. * Go to first file. * Go to last file. * Do shell command /w filename substitution. * Search forward for file matching regular expression. * Search reverse for file matching regular expression. * Launch EDITOR on a file or DIRED on a directory. * Recognize new window size and refresh screen. * Delete current file * Prompt for and edit a directory. * Change the mode of the current file. * Launch PAGER on this file. * Sort the file list. * Print file contents. * Reload directory. * Abort DIRED. * Suspend DIRED. * Exit immediately. * Setup by command line, resource file or environment variable. Minor differences exist in the implementation of these features. Cracraft's dired supports split screen. Lijewski's dired supports scrolling by half-page. Deletes in Cracraft's dired are done in batch whereas Lijewski's dired does them immediately. Curiously, the common features of the two direds also account for the most often used dired commands. The differences between Lijewski's "dired" and Cracraft's "dired" in 1997 appear below. Many features commonly exist in both versions, so only the superficial differences are discussed. Strengths and weaknesses of each are also listed. ______________________________________________________________________________________ UNIQUE FEATURES OF LIJEWSKI'S "DIRED" * Compress current file. * Uncompress current file. * Change the group of the current file. * View only files matching a regular expression. Strengths: * Excellent for persons with minimal Unix knowledge. * Has a full complement of basic commands for file maintenance. * Key configuration in resource file "~/.diredrc". Weaknesses: * Does file maintenance one file at a time with prompts. * Fixed full screen format. * No ANSI colorization to match color-ls. ______________________________________________________________________________________ UNIQUE FEATURES OF CRACRAFT'S DIRED 3.05 * Manual page display, DIRED 3.05 in detail. * Key Tutor. Describe key. Execute key. * Tag files for later processing. * Dynamic format setup for the screen and shell commands. * Toggle colorization of file names (4 color tables). * Undo search and page move. * Bookmarks. * Abort or suspend DIRED and PUSHD to the displayed directory. * Groff current file as a manual page. * Type current text or binary file on terminal with pause. * Write the formatted file list to a unique file in /tmp. * Aliased shell commands, interactive or in resource ~/.diredset. * Setup for shell commands attached to internal variables. Strengths: * Favors use by seasoned Unix people. * Configurable screen format. * Keys are fixed to give uniformity across different hosts. Weaknesses: * Key configuration is compiled into "dired" and can't be changed. ______________________________________________________________________________________ MISFEATURES OF BOTH VERSIONS OF "DIRED" The program tends to be used for browsing and deleting files; users find the other features too obtuse for daily use. Too many commands. Its hard to remember what key does which command. ______________________________________________________________________________________ HOW TO GET DIRED Find dired305.zip at http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/. Or email to gustafson@math.utah.edu for location of recent version. Find Lijewski's c++ dired by sending email to lijewski@mothra.lbl.gov for location of the recent version. If you want to see it on sunsite, then let Mike hear about it! ______________________________________________________________________________________ Copyright © 1997, Grant B. Gustafson Published in Issue 14 of the Linux Gazette ______________________________________________________________________________________ [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next ______________________________________________________________________________________ "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more lovable!" [IMAGE] ______________________________________________________________________________________ Directory Trees in Outline Format By James T. Dennis jim@starshine.org ______________________________________________________________________________________ Since I frequently post messages to various Unix and Linux newsgroups and mailing lists I often get technical questions mailed to me ``out of the blue.'' I recently received a request for a script to produce the following sort of output: dir/ file1 file2 file dir/ dir/ file (etc) Here was my quick and dirty solution: find . | awk -F/ '{for (x=1;x Button Bar --> muse: 1. v; to become absorbed in thought 2. n; [ fr. Any of the nine sister goddesses of learning and the arts in Greek Mythology ]: a source of inspiration W elcome to the Graphics Muse! Why a "muse"? Well, except for the sisters aspect, the above definitions are pretty much the way I'd describe my own interest in computer graphics: it keeps me deep in thought and it is a daily source of inspiration. [Graphics Mews] [Musings] [Resources] indent T his column is dedicated to the use, creation, distribution, and dissussion of computer graphics tools for Linux systems. Last month I had promised to do a review of Keith Rule's new book on 3D File Formats this month. I'll also said there would be a section on adding fonts on Linux in last months colums. Ok, I'm a liar. First, I decided that although Keith's book deserves some examination I felt that another book, Mark Kilgard's OpenGL text, had a more direct bearing on Linux users. I'll consider taking a look at Keith's book some time in the future. Second, I had quite a bit of other material for January's column so had decided to move the font discussion to February's column. However, I forgot to update the introduction in January's column to reflect this change. My apologies. Now for the bad news: I had a major system crash on the 16th of January which first of all caused me over a week of grief trying to recover and second caused the loss of a large number of files. No, I wasn't doing backups. So shoot me. I managed to recover an earlier copy of this months Muse column from a laptop I have, but I lost a good portion of what I'd already done. Now, as I write this, I have 3 days to get the column done and uploaded. The result is that the book review and a number of other items will have to be put off till another time. So, does anyone have a decent tape backup system that can run on ftape drives? In this months column I'll be covering, along with how to add fonts to your system: * a GIF Animations update: the MultiGIF program * some Printer info I gathered in the past month * tkPOV V2.0 - a graphical front end to POV-Ray 3.0 NOTE: I lost all my old email and mail aliases when my system went down. If you have been in touch with me in the past and want to stay in touch please send me some email (mjhammel@csn.net)! I'm particularly interested in hearing from Paul Sargent, who was helping me with my look into BMRT. I lost your email address Paul, along with all the messages we'd exchanged on the BMRT article series! Write me (or if you know Paul, please have him contact me)! Graphics Mews Disclaimer: Before I get too far into this I should note that any of the news items I post in this section are just that - news. Either I happened to run across them via some mailing list I was on, via some Usenet newsgroup, or via email from someone. I'm not necessarily endorsing these products (some of which may be commercial), I'm just letting you know I'd heard about them in the past month. xfig 3.2.0 Beta available Xfig is a menu-driven tool that allows the user to draw and manipulate objects interactively in an X window. The resulting pictures can be saved, printed on postscript printers or converted to a variety of other formats (e.g. to allow inclusion in LaTeX documents). xfig is available on ftp.x.org in /contrib/applications/drawing_tools/xfig. You also need a JPEG library, which can be found in /contrib/libraries. and TransFig version 3.2.0-beta1. TransFig contains the postprocessor needed by xfig to convert fig files to one of several output formats, such as PostScript, pic, LaTeX etc. The TransFig package is in the directory /contrib/applications/drawing_tools/transfig. indent indent Alexander Zimmermann has uploaded another update to his ImageMagick package. ImageMagick (TM), version 3.7.9, is a package for display and interactive manipulation of images for the X Window System. The package has been uploaded to sunsite.unc.edu:/pub/Linux/Incoming as: * ImageMagick-3.7.9-elf.lsm * ImageMagick-3.7.9-elf.tgz ImageMagick supports also the Drag-and-Drop protocol form the OffiX package and many of the more popular image formats including JPEG, MPEG, PNG, TIFF, Photo CD, etc. You will also need the package libIMPlugIn-1.0-elf to get it working. These can be retrieved from ftp.wizards.dupont.com /pub/ImageMagick/binaries. indent World Movers, the first VRML 2.0 Developer Conference I received the following information via email (unsolicited, but its probably the first time I got something I found really interesting via a blind email post). Note that I have nothing to do with this conference, other than I wish they'd invite me to go - expenses paid, of course: World Movers, the first VRML 2.0 Developer Conference, will be held on January 30 and 31 at the ANA Hotel in San Francisco, CA. At World Movers you will: * Select from sessions in three key tracks over two days + Content Creation + Business Applications of VRML + Future Directions and Current Technologies * Learn how to create great VRML 2.0 content and applications * See and learn about real applications that use VRML * Find out about the latest tools for VRML 2.0 With a pan-industry advisory board and a wide array of hosts and participants, World Movers will give you a complete picture of VRML 2.0 content and applications from all perspectives. Register by calling (800)488-2883 or (415)578-6900, or go online at http://www.worldmovers.org. indent PNG Magick Plug-in 0.8 There is a new plug-in for Unix/Linux versions of Netscape called PNG Magick Plug-in 0.8. This plug-in supports the following file formats: PNG, XPM, TIFF, MIFF, TGA, BMP, PBM, PGM, PPM, PNM, PCX, FITS, XWD, GIF, JPEG, WAV and MPEG-1. It is reported to support Drag and Drop capabilities as well. For MPEG-1 support you need the Xew library which doesn't seem to work well with the Linux version of this plug-in. PNG Magick Plug-in 0.8 is published under the GNU General public License and is available at http://home.pages.de/~rasca/pngplugin/. indent indent TkFont v1.1 There is a new tool for viewing fonts on Linux. I haven't tried this yet so I don't know how well it works. It has been uploaded to tsx-11.mit.edu in the /incoming directory. The file-name is `tkfont-1.1.tar.gz'. indent Version 0.1.8 of Lib3d is now available from Sunsite. Lib3d is a high performance 3d C++ library distributed under the GNU LGPL. Lib3d implements sub-affine texture mapping, Gouraud shading and Z-buffer rasterization, with support for X11, DGA, SvgaLib and DOS. Lib3d is available from ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/Incoming/lib3d-0.1.8.tar.gz For more information: http://www.ozemail.com.au/~keithw indent CFP: ACM SIGGRAPH 97 Sketches Program Deadline: April 16, 1997 The following was posted in a number of places. I got it via a friend on the Gimp User mailing list. I have no association with SIGGRAPH (unfortunately) so can offer no other details than the following: SKETCHES are live, 15 minute presentations that provide a forum for unique, interesting ideas and techniques in computer graphics. Sketches allow the presentation of late-breaking results, works in progress, art, design, and innovative uses and applications of graphics techniques and technology. Sketch abstracts will be published in the Visual Proceedings.