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Table of Contents
April 1998 Issue #27


The Answer Guy

The Weekend Mechanic

TWDT 1 (text)
TWDT 2 (HTML)
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This page written and maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette, gazette@ssc.com

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

The Mailbag!

Write the Gazette at gazette@ssc.com

Contents:

Help Wanted -- Article Ideas

Date: Mon, 02 Mar 1998 08:48:14 +0100
From: Per Wigren, wigren@mail.org
Subject: Linux and CDE

Hi! I want to know what makes XiG's and TriTeal's CDE different, other than price! Maybe a comparison could be something for Linux Gazette...

Regards, Per Wigren

Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 18:56:35 +0100 (MET)
From: Scud, scud@zeus.ho.tranas.se
Subject: article idea

I wonder if you can write some article about linux on non x86 platforms and how long linux develelopment has come on those platforms?

emir

Date: Sat, 28 Feb 1998 18:47:55 +0100
From: Grzegorz Leszczynski, rexus@polbox.com
Subject: Hurricane

I would be very grateful if you could help me with my problem. I can't install Linux Red Hat Hurricane 5.0. After choosing the partitions to Linux native and for swap Linux, and after choosing applications to install program says that there is an error: 

mount failed: invalid argument
After than i must return to menu and I don't know what to do. I look forward from hearings from you

Rafal Leszczynski, POLAND

Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 14:11:18 -0500 (EST)
From: N. Lucent, nlucent@mindspring.com
Subject: Linux on a laptop

I finally convinced my girlfriend to make the switch to Linux from windows after she suffered numerous stability problems (big surprise) She currently has an HP Omni-book 600CT, I fdisked her windows partition, and when I ran the install boot disk (for both Red Hat and Slackware) it says floppy 1.44m (I assume this is from the kernel) Then it says no floppy controller found, and just keeps reading the boot disk. Is there anyway that I can force the detection of the floppy? (external floppy drive) I found a WWW page about installing Linux on that notebook, but What it said to do didn't work. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 03:09:06 EST
From: Mktnc, Mktnc@aol.com
Subject: Matrox Millenium II

Anyone using the Matrox Millenium II graphics board with greater than 4 Meg ram with Xfree86? The XFree86 home page is somewhat dated on this card.

Also, anyone running a Voodoo 2 accelerator graphix card with Linux?

Anyone using nasm (Netwide Assembler) for those hard to reach places, under Linux?

Thanks - Nick

Date: Wed, 04 Mar 1998 09:05:00 -0500
From: Dr. Scott Searcy, searcys@baydenoc.cc.mi.us
Subject: X-term for MS-Windows

Does anyone make an X-windows terminal emulator that will run under MS-Windows. I was hoping to find such a program so that I could use X via a network connection from various MS-windows machines that I have to use.

Dr. Scott Searcy

Date: Thu, 05 Mar 1998 23:38:29 -0700
From: Elvis Chow, elvis3@chowtech.cuug.ab.ca
Subject: Hylafax printing filter?

I finally got Hylafax running on a Slackware distribution. Works great. What I need to do now is to get Applixware to print a doc directly to it so it can automatically fax it to a predetermined number. Is there a way of doing this?

Great work on the Gazette! Best source of practical tips I've run across in a long time. Keep it up!!

Elvis Chow elvis@chowtech.cuug.ab.ca

Date: Fri, 06 Mar 1998 18:42:43 +0100
From: Stefano Stracuzzi, stracca@comune.modena.it
Subject: PPP with Linux

I'm a newbie in Linux and I'd like to know how I can configure my connection to my Internet service provider with my Red Hat 5.0!

My modem is internal and it is configured to on the cua1

Thank You Very Much
Stefano Stracuzzi

Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998 10:43:30 -0800
From: jean-francois helie, jfhelie@netrover.com
Subject: Help Wanted!

I am a student at CEGEP T.R. I have a year end project. My project is to installed a Linux based router and a IP generator for 50 PC. I have some informations about the router but i don't have any info about IP generator.

Thank you for your support.
Jean-Francois Helie

Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 15:51:30 +1000
From: Ken Woodward, ken@rich.com.au
Subject: Linux for Amiga

Do you know if it is possible to get a CD distribution of Linux to suit running on an Amiga 3000? It is currently running AmigaUnix, and the Red Hat version 5 copy I purchased installed flawlessly on my PC.

Can I get the same for the old Amiga?

Thanks
Ken

Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 12:58:10 -0800
From: Kevin Long, kevjlong@ix.netcom.com
Subject: Samba Woes

Here's my situation: I'm trying to set up my RH5 terrifically working system to be a PDC equivalent in an NT workstation/95 network. Basically we need to 'login' to the server, and then get access to 'shares'. I tried using NFS as an alternative (with NFS maestro) but it doesn't recognize Linux NFS. However...... I cannot get Samba to work AT ALL. In fact, I have never seen it work. If you've got it working, please help me - I can copy your installation configuration and tweak it, but I need some success. I have plenty of NT, Novel, DOS/win hardware etc. experience, and successfully use NFS exports between Linux machines, but have got nowhere with Samba in a year of trying. Is it a hoax?

Kevin Long

Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 14:55:56 +0800
From: Jason Wong, jasonw@tntexpress.com.hk
Subject: Red hat 5.0 with NT Server 4

I am new to Linux, and wish to set it up at home. The problem I have is:

I wish to run Windows NT + Windows 95 + DOS + Linux. How to do this? I can set it up with Linux & Windows 95/DOS, but how to make Linux co-exist with NT server4?? many thanks!!

(See the Samba page, http://samba.anu.edu.au/samba/. It should be just what you need. --Editor)

Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 10:18:33 +0100 (MET)
From: Fabio Gregoroni, gregoron@CsR.UniBo.IT
Subject: Driver For Scanner

I have to write a driver for a plain scanner on the parallel port. I have following scanners:

  1. PRIMAX 4800 COLORADO DIRECT
  2. PLUSTEK 4830P
I don't need the driver already made, but I need only the transfer protocol documentation ( what I must send and receive ). Can Someone help me ?

Thanks.

Date: Wed, 04 Mar 1998 04:53:01 +0800
From: ahyeop, ahyeop4@tm.net.my Subject: X-Windows too Big!

Lastly I successful install the X-windows for my Linux box using generic chip set or Oak's OTI067 (8 physical RAM is quite slow though..). But the windows are too BIG. I tried modified its XF86Config but it's not working (besides I really doesn't know how to modified it correctly) 

My box spec :   processor:      486 DX2 60MHz.
                RAM:            8 simm ram
                Swap memory:    16 swap ram (I think so...)
                memory:         256 Kbytes
                RAMDAC:         Generic 8-bit pseudo-color DAC (what it
mean ?)
                Linux:          Linux ver. 2.0.27 (Slackware 96)
                monitor:        SVGA monitor (SSVM's 220-240V-50MHz
500mA)
                video card:     Oak's OTI067
                mouse:          MS Mouse
                Keyboard:       101-key
Can anybody help me with problem ? Thank in advance :-)

Ahyeop, Perak, Malaysia

Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 11:25:32 -0100
From: BoD, M39998@lazaro.info-ab.uclm.es
Subject: AGP card on Linux

I like to buy a AGP card based in the nVIDIA RIVA 128 chipset. Can i use it on my Linux RH 5.0 system with Xfree86 3.3.1?

Thanks

Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 11:41:11 -0800 (PST)
From: Lee, cit@itl.net
Subject: Re: Linux Gazette

I've recently been hit by the superforker problem. Someone mentioned that the LG had a script to fix the problem (by removing the directories in /tmp) Do you have such a script? I haven't been able to locate it, and I currently have a ton of directories in /tmp that rm won't remove because the filename is too long.

Please respond quickly while I still have some hair left,
Lee//Cit

(Sorry, I don't remember all the articles we've had, but superforker doesn't sound familiar. However, in issue 18 and 20, Guy Geens has articles about cleaning up the /tmp directory. Perhaps these will be of help to you. --Editor)

Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 09:06:39 +0100
From: javier ballesteros, uei0372195900@eurociber.es
Subject: modem for Linux

I'm a student of telecommunications in the University of Alcala de Henares in Spain, my computer is a Pentium 233 MHz and I have installed Red Hat Linux 5.0, all works properly , but I have a little problem with my modem: Linux can't recognize my modem. My modem is a HSP 336 DELUXE (I know that is very bad but is the only I have). So, is there any possible to install properly my modem? , exist any driver for this specific modem? .Please send me some information or any advice, if you can I will be pleasant.

See you!....

General Mail

Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 00:39:33 -0700 (MST)
From: Michael J. Hammel, mjhammel@csn.net
Subject: Late Night Radio Buzz

I'm sitting here listening to C|Net radios coverage of Internet World. Dan Shafer of Builder.com talked at length about how he (and someone named Desmond) are going to do some serious investigation into what alternative OS's there are - and specifically they are looking into Linux. They mentioned Red Hat and Caldera, that there were lots of applications available and how the Linux community are very much the "just do it" community. All in all, very positive exposure.

Go to http://www.news.com/Radio/Features/0,155,154,0.html and click on the 4:00 CNET Radio Late Update (where it says "Dan Shafer of Builder.com: What's Hot?"). Its a RealAudio interview and you'll have to go about 1/2 way through before they start the Linux discussion.

Dan Shafer said they would be writing up the Linux results they came up with in the BuilderBuzz section of Builder.com (http://builder.com). I just checked and there is nothing there yet - I think he said it was going to start next week. Anyway, I sent him email offering to assist in anyway I could. If I get a response I'll try to get more details on where the info will be located when it becomes available.

C|Net would be wonderful exposure for Linux.

Just thought I'd pass this along. Michael J. Hammel |

Date: Mon, 02 Mar 1998 23:22:14 +0500
From: Larry Taranenko, larry@partners.chel.su
Subject: Re: Linux Gazette #26

You know, we are here interesting in Linux too. But we have much troubles with our unstable connection to the World - that is why I maintained LG mirror in the heart (geographically we live in the center of RUSSIA) of my country. And I have many many friends in my town (apr. 2,5 mln city named Chelyabinsk) who are crazy about Linux as I am. Mostly we use Debian. I like your publications - and think that a little note somewhere there about Linuxoids in RUSSIA will be, maybe, interesting to somebody. See in future.

I hope you understand me in right manner, against my silly English...
God bless you and Linus,
Have a nice day!
Ta-ta

(I think I understand you fine. Why don't you write up an article for us about Linux in Russia? --Editor)

Date: Fri, 27 Mar 1998 03:49:43 -0500 (EST)
From: zaeb@8b28m2.net
Subject: about filedudes

hey, found this real fast download site www.filedudes.com, check it out!

Date: Sat, 07 Mar 1998 22:51:10 -0800
From: Ken Leyba, kleyba@pacbell.net
Subject: $0.02 Tip

In issue 26 of the Linux Gazette there is a two cent tip that refers to the VAX 3400/3300's as MIPS 3000 boxes. These are indeed VAX processors as Digital (DEC) named MIPS boxes as DECStations/DECServers and VAX boxes as VAXStations/VAXServers. I worked for Digital for over 10 years in Multi-Vendor Customer Services and currently use a VAX 3300 running Ultrix, DEC's BSD based Unix for the VAX CPU.

Ken Leyba

Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998 17:09:28 -0500
From: Tunney, Sue (IDS), STunney@ahcpr.gov
Subject: Yes, Grammar does count

I was so pleased to read that *someone* else out there is as aggravated as I am by the continual misuse of the apostrophe in web pages and e-mails by obvious native-born American English speakers. And for anyone who says, "What's the big deal? Doesn't everyone know what I mean?", let this old fogey respond:

Does your computer understand what you mean when you make an error writing code? Doesn't it matter then? If you can't write proper English grammar and spell correctly, what makes you so sure that your computer code is correct? And if you want to spread the good news about Linux, it seems obvious that we will get more attention, and the right kind, if we take the time to write properly. I'm often impressed by how hard the "foreign" letter writers work to make their point clear when they write to LG, often apologizing for their poor English; yet they often do better than us "natives."

Mike, you are absolutely right, and I thank you for saying it. I would also like to eliminate the so-called word "alot" as *there is no such word* (but note that the next letter after Mike's used it. Oh, well...) . If you can't drag out a dictionary, check it out on line; there are lots of fine dictionaries out there.

Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 13:24:03 -0800
From: Rich Drewes, drewes@interstice.com
Subject: Linux market share (news tidbit)

I run an ISP that hosts a variety of customer-owned domains, most not even specifically computer related. I recently did an analysis of the agent_log files to find out how popular Linux really is as a client OS for ordinary users who access the ordinary web pages. The results are at:

http://www.interstice.com/~drewes/linuxcount/main.html

One interesting factoid: Linux now appears to be the #2 most popular Unix OS client!

I enjoy the LG. Thanks for the work.
Rich

Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 21:38:36 -0500 (EST)
From: Tim Gray, timgray@lambdanet.com
Subject: Re: Getting Linux to the public...

Milton, thank you for your response (see Tips)... your's was the first that was genuinely helpful, I have learned many things after posting that letter to the Gazette, one of which is that the Linux user crowd is not free of the type of person that enjoys flaming others, (I had secretly hoped that Linux users were more helpful than resentful) But thank you! It helps alot to fiddle with the settings and I was successful in getting 2 friends converted to Linux, unfortunately there are several colleagues that alas have monitors that are older than dirt itself and cannot go beyond 640X480 :-) But you have helped me migrate 2 windows users! thank you.. and thank you for your supportive letter.

Tim.

Date: Sun, 29 Mar 1998 16:09:41 -0500
From: NYACC AnyNix SIG comm mgr, sigunix@bzsys.dyn.ml.org Subject: Re: Getting Linux to the public...

Timothy D. Gray wrote regarding: Getting Linux to the public:

Has anyone noticed that when your friends see your neat-o Linux system with the nice 17 inch monitor, high quality video card, and fast computer that when they say, "Wow! that is nice, and you can do almost anything on that!" you cringe with the fact that they are going to want you to put it on their system?
I'm glad you have a 17inch monitor and "highquality" video card. Myself, my 50-dollar video card and ten-year-old monitor let me run in 800x600 with 256 colors. I could get 1024x768 if the monitor allowed it. I could get 64K colors (16-bit) if XFree86 allowed it. This is a limitation not of the hardware, not exactly of Linux, but of the XFree86 people who don't wish to take the trouble to support the inexpensive cards on the market.

My present (Oak) card seems to be limited to 8-bit color in any event, my other (Cirrus Logic) card will support 16-bit and 24-bit color, which if fully supported would allow me 64K colors at 800x600 or 16M colors at 640x480 (with a virtual 800x600 window).

The people at XFree86 (one of them a Cirrus employee) have, by their own statement, chosen to spend their time on the latest and greatest cards, with the older, cheaper cards going by the board.

I have tried and failed to get the necessary information from Cirrus Logic to rewrite the XFree driver to better use the card.

Now mind you, I don't cringe on sharing the best O/S on the planet, In fact I want everyone to use Linux. It's just that almost all X windows software is written for 1024 X 768 or higher resolution video screens and that 99% of those wanting to use Linux and X windows only have a 14" monitor that can barely get past 640X480 at 256 colors.
See above. For a cost of no more than $50 they should be able to get a 1MB video card that will handle *much* better resolution.
I tried several times to get friends into Linux and X but to no avail because the software developed for X is for those that have Gobs of money for good video boards and humoungous monitors. It's not a limitation of Linux or X, it that the software that is developed for these platforms are by professionals or professional users that can afford that new 21 inch monitor at the computer store.
You might try pushing different programs. My main problem (except with viewers for Adobe file formats) is getting *multiple* windows on the screen at once. Also, certain *types* of applications, by their very nature, demand lots of screen real estate. An application of that sort is going to be cramped on a small screen *regardless* of underlying OS support. I simply avoid such applications until I can acquire a larger screen (about $500, locally).
We as a group might want to see software scaled back to the 640X480 crowd.. then Linux would take the world by storm.. Until then It's going to be limited to us pioneers and Scientists...
Actually, the *biggest* barrier to using Linux X Apps is that so many of them are written using Motif! That's almost as bad as WinDoze.

--Buz Cory :)

Published in Linux Gazette Issue 27, April 1998

[ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Next

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

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

More 2¢ Tips!


Send Linux Tips and Tricks to gazette@ssc.com

Contents:

RE: Help Wanted - LaserJet 4L

Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 14:38:43 -0500
From: Shane_McLaughlin@stream.com

To: John.H.Gorman@MCI.Com
Re: font sizes + points, Linux Gazette #26 I had a similar problem with an old Deskjet under SunOS and was supplied with the following info by HP support Europe. It applies to DOS but should be applicable to any Un*x system as well These are printer instruction generation wizards URLs

I saw a posting in C.O.L.A. a few months back that someone has already done the tough work and has programmed some mostly-complete PCL 3+ 5 drivers for Linux If all else fails, HP DOS drivers exist that can customise point sizes + fonts and save them permanently to printer memory (5Si's do, i don't know about 4Ls) If you don't have a DOS partition maybe DOSEMU? Good Luck!
Shane McLaughlin

2c tip (StarOffice 4 / Ghostscript)

Date: Mon, 2 Mar 1998 18:48:51 -0500 (EST)
From: Fraser McCrossan, fraserm@gtn.net

I've just started using the excellent Star Office 4.0 (free for personal use - go get it now!), but have noticed that when using Ghostscript to filter its print output on my non-Postscript printer, the results were not quite as they appeared on the screen.

I reasoned that this might be because the fonts supplied with SO didn't quite match those supplied with Ghostscript. However, the SO fonts are Type 1 Postscript fonts... which Ghostscript can use. To make Ghostscript use them, you need to link them to its home directory. For example, if your SO is installed in /home/fraser/Office40, change to the Ghostscript font (normally /usr/local/share/ghostscript/fonts) directory, and do the following: 

 
ln -s /home/fraser/Office40/fonts/type1/*.pf[ab] .
mv Fontmap Fontmap.hide
For some reason, when I tried to add the new fonts to Fontmap in the same format as the existing fonts, GS would crash, hence hiding it. I'm not a GS guru... perhaps someone else can explain why. However, GS works just fine without Fontmap for me, although it probably takes longer to start up - and everything I print looks just like the screen.

--Fraser

RE: Linux and VAX 3400 and 3300

Date: Mon, 02 Mar 1998 20:34:55 -0500
From: RC Pavlicek, pavlicek@radc17.cop.dec.com

The March issue of the Gazette includes the following under 2 Cent Tips: <<I have just purchased a MicroVAX 3400 and 3300. I would like to put <<Linux on these two systems. Can you provide any help in this aspect.

<I believe those are MIPS 3000 boxes, try the Linux VAX Port Homepage at >http://ucnet.canberra.edu.au/~mikal/vaxlinux/home.html <and the Linux/MIPS project at http://lena.fnet.fr/

Anything with "VAX" in its name is just that -- a VAX. Digital made MIPS boxes once upon a time, but they never used the VAX/MicroVAX name. Most of Digital's MIPS boxes were sold under the DECstation or DECsystem name.

The pointer to the VAX/Linux effort is the best one I know about, but the whole VAX/Linux project was not even close to producing usable code last time I checked. NetBSD, if it works on these boxes, may be your best bet.

-- Russell C. Pavlicek
[speaking for himself, not for Digital Equipment Corporation]

xdm with pictures

Date: Thu, 05 Mar 1998 10:34:43 -0000 (GMT)
From: Caolan McNamara, Caolan.McNamara@ul.ie

Can I change the XDM login window/screen? I have a cool house logo so i want to use it in my own Home Network. And at my school they want to know to so. Is it possible. If yes, how? If no, WHY NOT? -- Jeroen Bulters, The netherlands
you could try xdm3d_xpm, which allows a picture in the xdm box, which is 3d with shadows and stuff,one version is at ftp://brain.sel.cam.ac.uk/users/mbm/xdm3d (probably the latest) theres another (older) at http://oak.ece.ul.ie/~griffini/software.html

Re: HELP-Installing Linux on a FAT32 Drive Date: Thu, 05 Mar 1998 11:35:42 -0000 (GMT)

From: Caolan McNamara, Caolan.McNamara@ul.ie

I'm interested in installing linux on a machine I built recently, but when I installed Win95(b), I idiotically opted to format the drive using FAT32, which in a 95-only environment is great, but Linux can't read it for greek. I've looked around for utilities to effectively un-FAT32 the drive, which I will then partition with Partition Magic to use the freespace as a native ext2 partition, etc., but am having little luck. Reformating is a disheartening prospect I would rather not face, but am fully prepared to do so if I don't find any help here. --nate daiger

Well partition magic 3 can repartition fat32 without hassle, and there exists a patch for linux kernel to understand fat32 at http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/people/chaffee/fat32.html which also lists a version of fips which also should understand fat32, to resize your drive.

Regarding "Easter Eggs" in Netscape etc.

Date: Thu, 5 Mar 1998 23:21:20 +0000 (GMT)
From: John Pelan, johnp@am.qub.ac.uk

The on-going 2 cent tips about the hidden "Easter Eggs" in Netscape is interesting. However rather than continually listing them it might be more fruitful to learn how one can try to discover them for oneself.

One useful tool in particular, is the oft neglected 'strings' command. This will locate printable strings in an arbitrary file and display them. So one can do something like; 

 
prompt% strings /usr/lib/netscape/netscape-navigator
which will reveal all the embedded strings in that binary. You might like to redirect the output to a file for analysis. As many of the strings will be rubbish (i.e. 'random' sequences of printable characters) one can always use grep, awk, Perl etc. to help filter in/out particular patterns.

In the case of Netscape, only a tiny set of the strings will correspond to "Easter Eggs" (not all of them will be immediately obvious either) and locating them is left as an exercise to the reader...

Re: Changing XDM windows

Date: Fri, 06 Mar 1998 12:16:02 +1200
From: Craige McWhirter, craige@magna.com.au

From: Jeroen Bulters, jbulters@scoutnet.nl
Can I change the XDM login window/screen? I have a cool house logo so i want to use it in my own Home Network. And at my school they want to know to so. Is it possible. If yes, how? If no, WHY NOT.

Try this web site below. It had everything I needed to customise my XDM login.
http://torment.ntr.net/xdm/

Nice xdm and Linux PPC Date: Fri, 06 Mar 1998 09:09:48 -0500

From: Serge Droz, droz@physics.uoguelph.ca

just a quick comment on two letters in the Linux Gazette #26 (http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue26/lg_mail26.html)

  1. Changing XDM windows: Check out http://jovian.physics.uoguelph.ca/~droz/uni/xdm3d.html for a replacement (This version comes with pam support). This version runs fine on our Redhat systems (Intel & PPC).

  2. New direction: Linux is beeing ported to the PPC chip. See http://www.linuxppc.org for more info, downloads CD's T-shirts.... It actually runs quite stable on my PPC.
Cheers, Serge

Re: Help with Sound Card

Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 20:32:13 +0100 (MET)
From: Roland Smith, rsmit06@ibm.net

According to the Sound-HOWTO:
"MV Jaz16 and ESS688/1688 based cards generally work with the SoundBlaster driver"

To get a PnP card to work, you need to configure it first. There are two ways of doing that:

  1. boot into DOS, use the card's DOS-based initialization program, then do a warm boot to Linux

  2. compile sound support as a module, and use isapnp from the isapnptools package to initialize the card, after which you can insert the sound module.
The isapnptools package can be found at ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/unix/linux/utils

Regards, Roland

Modline for TV

Date: Sun, 8 Mar 1998 13:11:37 +0100 (MET)
From: friedhelm.mehnert@gmx.net

I have shamelessly stolen this from USENET, because I feel this excellent information should appear within the Linux Gazette.

I hope the original author don't mind. :-)

From: Rob van der Putten
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 1998 00:14:15 +0100
Hopefully you won't need this, but if you ever want to display X on a big screen and a TV is the only big screen around you might want to use this.

A TV with a RGB SCART input is nothing more than a fixed sync monitor with a rather low picture quality. This means that you can make a TV compatible signal with a plain vanilla cheapo VGA card.

For the european 625 line (575 visable lines) TV standard a modeline looks like this: Modeline "736x575i" 14.16 736 760 824 904 575 580 585 625 interlace -hsync -vsync

Officially the horizontal resolution is 767 (4 / 3 * 575) pixels with a clock of 14.76 MHz. However, since the clock used is 14.16 MHz, I reduced the horizontal values proportional to 14.16 / 14.76 (and rounded them to the nearest multiple of 8).

If you want to make a 640x480 screen with a black border you can you use this line: Modeline "640x480i" 14.16 640 712 776 904 480 532 537 625 interlace -hsync -vsync

You can center it by altering the 2nd and 3rd horizontal and vertical values (this example shifts the picture to the left): Modeline "640x480i" 14.16 640 728 792 904 480 532 537 625 interlace -hsync -vsync

You can make a non interlaced signal with this modeline: Modeline "736x288" 14.16 736 760 824 904 288 290 292 312 -hsync -vsync

The VGA RGB signals are compatible with the scart bus, the sync signals are not. You have to create a composit sync signal of 0.3 ... 0.5 Vpp. The cirquit below acts both as a AND gate and a level translator. It doesn't need a power supply and can be mounted inside a VGA plug: 
 

 -VS ------------------------+
                             |
                             |
                         |  /
       +-----+           |/
 -HS --+ 3k3 +-----*-----|     BC 548 B
       +-----+     |     |\
                   |     |  \|
                   |        -|     +-----+
                   |         *-----+ 68  +----- -CS 0.3 Vpp
                   |         |     +-----+
                  +++       +++
                  | |       | |
                  | |       | |
                  +++       +++
                   |         |
 GND --------------*---------*----------------- GND
                  1k2       820
You can use any general purpose low frequent low power NPN transistor instead of the BC 548 B
Regards, Rob

mpack 2 cent tip

Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998 11:17:47 +0100 (MET)
From: J.I.vanHemert, jvhemert@wi.leidenuniv.nl

I response to the 2 cent tip of Ivan Griffin, I am sending a two cent tip of my own.

Ivan send in a script that can be used to mail Micro$oft users. I would like to mention the package 'mpack', this program is very handy if you want to send out some mime-encoded mail. Furthermore the package also contains 'munpack' which does the obvious thing.

Mpack can be found on ftp.andrew.cmu.edu in the directory pub/mpack, in the archive mpack-1.5.tar.gz

Cheer, Jano

shutdown and root

Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998 13:10:55 +0100
From: Guido Socher, eedgus@eed.ericsson.se

I noticed that many people still login as root before they power down their system in order to run the command 'shutdown -h now'. This is really not necessary and it may cause problems if everybody working on a machine knows the root password.

Most Linux distributions are configured to reboot if ctrl-alt-delete is pressed, but this can be changed to run 'shutdown -h now'. Edit your /etc/inittab and change the line that starts with ca: 

 
# Trap CTRL-ALT-DELETE
# original line would reboot:
#ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now
# now halt the system after shutdown:
ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -h now
#
Now you can just press crtl-alt-delete as normal user and your system comes down clean and halts.

Perl Script 2 cent tip (maybe even a nickel)

Date: Mon, 09 Mar 1998 18:37:20 -0500
From: Allan Peda, allan@interport.net

When I was putting my network card in my Linux box, I wanted to keep the soundblaster, but the addresses are not easy to read (for me) in hex. Even if there were in decimal, I figured a plot of the areas that appear open would be useful. So I hacked together a little perl script to do just that, Usage: addreses.pl addr.txt > outputfile.txt

Of course it goes to stdout without a redirected file. The input file is constructed with one line for each address: 

 
base_address TAB upper_address TAB :Description
Here's a little perl script that I wrote to help me identify conflicting addreses: 
 
# address.pl  v 0.1
# Allan Peda
# allan@interport.net
#
# How to use: Prepare a file based on the format of the sample at 
# the end of this script.
# This script will plot a servicable chart of the addresses in use,
# with the gaps plainly apparant.
#
$debug = 1;
$min_addr=0;
$max_addr=0;
for ($i=1; <:>; $i++) {
	/^(\w+)\s/; $$memory[$i]{base_addr}=$1;		# base address
	/^\w+\s+(\w+)\s/; $$memory[$i]{upper_addr}=$1;	# upper address
	/\:(.+)$/; $$memory[$i]{addr_descrip} = $1;	# description of address
	$ttl_num_addresses = $i;
	print "$i\t $$memory[$i]{base_addr} \t" if $debug;  
	print hex($$memory[$i]{base_addr}),"\t-->\t" if $debug;
	print " $$memory[$i]{upper_addr}\t" if $debug;  
	print hex($$memory[$i]{upper_addr}),"\t" if $debug;
	print "$$memory[$i]{addr_descrip}\n" if $debug;
	if (( hex($$memory[$i]{base_addr}) < hex($min_addr) ) || $i<=1){ 
		$min_addr = $$memory[$i]{base_addr};	
	}
	if (( hex($$memory[$i]{upper_addr}) > hex($max_addr) ) || $i<=1){ 
		$max_addr = $$memory[$i]{upper_addr};	
	}
}
print "\nTotal number of addreses used = $ttl_num_addresses" if $debug;
print "\nMinimimum address is: $min_addr" if $debug;
print "\nMaximimum address is: $max_addr\n" if $debug;
for ($addr = hex($min_addr); $addr <= hex($max_addr); $addr++) {
	printf "\n%4x -> ", $addr;
	for ($i=1; $i <= $ttl_num_addresses; $i++) {
		if (( hex($$memory[$i]{base_addr}) <= $addr ) and 
		(( hex($$memory[$i]{upper_addr}) >= $addr))){ 
		    print "*** "; 
		    if (( hex($$memory[$i]{base_addr}) == $addr )) {
			print "$$memory[$i]{addr_descrip}";
		    }
		} 
	}
}
# sample file address.txt follows:
__END__
0x1F0		0x1f8		:Hard disk drive
0x200		0x207		:Game I/O
0x278		0x27f		:Parallel Port 2 (LPT2)
0x2e8		0x2ef		:serial port, com4
0x300		0x31f		:Prototype / Network PCB
0x360		0x363		:PC Network (Low address)
0x368		0x36B		:PC Network (High address)
0x378		0x37f		:Parallel Port 1 (LPT1)
0x380		0x38f		:SDLC, Bisync
0x3a0		0x3bf		:MDA / prn adapter (hercules)
0x3c0		0x3cf		:EGA/VGA
0x3d0		0x3df		:CGA/MDA/MCGA
0x3e8		0x3ef		:Diskette controller
0x3fb		0x3ff		:serial port 1 - com 1
The input file looks like this (typically): 
 
0x1F0		0x1f8		:Hard disk drive
0x200		0x207		:Game I/O
0x278		0x27f		:Parallel Port 2 (LPT2)
0x2e8		0x2ef		:serial port, com4
0x300		0x31f		:Prototype / Network PCB
0x360		0x363		:PC Network (Low address)
0x368		0x36B		:PC Network (High address)
0x378		0x37f		:Parallel Port 1 (LPT1)
0x380		0x38f		:SDLC, Bisync
0x3a0		0x3bf		:MDA / prn adapter (hercules)
0x3c0		0x3cf		:EGA/VGA
0x3d0		0x3df		:CGA/MDA/MCGA
0x3e8		0x3ef		:Diskette controller
0x3fb		0x3ff		:serial port 1 - com 1

RE: my dual pentium

Date: Mon, 09 Mar 1998 10:29:24 -0700
From: James Gilb, p27451@email.sps.mot.com

My guess is that the default Caldera kernel does not have multiple CPU's enabled. You will probably have to recompile your kernel to enable SMP. Some kernel versions (even the 2.0.xx) are less stable for SMP than others, unfortunately I can't give you any help on which version to choose. However, you may want to join the Linux-SMP mailing list, email majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu with the text 'subscribe linux-smp' to join the list. An archive is maintained at Linux HQ (http://www.linuxhq.com/lnxlists/linux-smp/), so you may want to look there first before you ask on the mailing list. The May 1997 Caldera newsletter has the following information (a little out of date):

Linux? When will SMP be fully supported?

The Linux 2.x kernel with full SMP support is currently in beta, and will most likely be included in the next stable release of the kernel. The Linux 2.0.25 and 2.0.29 kernels which ship in OpenLinux 1.0 and 1.1 products can reside and are tolerant of an SMP environment, but will not perform load balancing.

To enable SMP, the OpenLinux 1.2 FAQ (http://www.caldera.com/tech-ref/col-1.2/faq/faq-5.html) has the following suggestions:

5.4 How to enable SMP (multiple processor) support:
To enable SMP (multiple processor) support in OpenLinux, you must do three things:

  1. Go to "/usr/src/linux" and uncomment the "SMP = 1" line in the Makefile (to uncomment this line, remove the preceeding "#").
  2. Follow the instructions in Rebuilding the Linux Kernel for Caldera OpenLinux 1.2 (http://www.caldera.com/tech-ref/docs/COL12-Kernel-Rebuild.html) and during the 'make config' step be sure to enable "Real-time clock support". Then recompile your kernel using the remainder of the steps.
  3. Reboot your system.
Currently there is no method for monitoring how much of each processor is being used, but if you run the "top" utility you will most likely see processes that are using more than 100% of a processor; whatever is above the 100% mark is being done with the other processors. Also, to determine if both processors have been detected and are in use, you can cat the "/proc/cpuinfo" file for a report of what processors are recognized by Linux; if there's more than one listed, you are running with SMP support.

Some sources for information on SMP are:

http://www.caldera.com/LDP/HOWTO/Parallel-Processing-HOWTO-2.html
(or any other LDP site)
http://www.linux.org.uk/SMP/title.html
http://www.uruk.org/~erich/mps-linux-status.html
(These pages haven't been updated in a while)

If after reading the above information, you still have questions, you might email Caldera's technical support (assuming you purchased your distribution from them and registered it.) I have had good luck with their technical support, but read the FAQ's first.

BTW: I found most of the above information by going to Caldera's web page and typing SMP in the search box. Thanks Caldera for the web site.

James P. K. Gilb

RE: Changing XDM windows

Date: Mon, 09 Mar 1998 11:20:33 -0700
From: James Gilb, p27451@email.sps.mot.com

Jeroen, there a three ways that I know for sure to customize your login screen.

  1. Get XDM-photo from ftp://tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/linux/sources/usr.bin.X11/xdm-photo-1.1.tar.gz
  2. Use XBanner, which can do some really terrific things with you login screen. If you want a login screen that is the envy of you neighbors, you need XBanner. The URL for XBanner is: http://chaos.fullerton.edu/XBanner
  3. Use Xdm3d/XPM - from http://oak.ece.ul.ie/~griffini/software.html, get the sources and put your own XPM in, although the default penguin is pretty cool.
-- James Gilb

RE: HELP-Installing Linux on a FAT32 Drive

Date: Mon, 09 Mar 1998 11:24:56 -0700
From: James Gilb, p27451@email.sps.mot.com

Nate, there is a patch to allow FAT32 support in the Linux kernel so you can mount the OSR2 drives and even run a umsdos type installation. The web page for the patches is:
http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/people/chaffee/fat32.html

-- James Gilb

Re: Apache SSL extensions...

Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 02:45:06 -0800
From: G-man, gman@infinex.com

I've put up a web page on how to setup apache-ssl Check out http://www.linuxrox.com/WebServer.html .. Also have examples of how the httpd.conf should look like to run secure and non-secure web server using apache-ssl..

Hope that helps..

Reply to locate tip (LG 26)

Date: Wed, 11 Mar 1998 19:37:47 -0500 (EST)
From: Brett Viren, bviren@ale.physics.sunysb.edu

About the problem of `locate' (2c tip #2 LG #26) showing files that normal users can't access: If this happens, it is not a bug with `locate' but rather with the Linux distribution (or the way locate and friends have been installed by hand). `Locate' should be allowed to print any and all matching file that are in the database it is pointed to. However, in the case of the database for general system, it is a security bug (IMO) if the database includes non-world-readable files. Here is were the problem lies.

Debian Linux handles this by running `updatedb' (the program which actually makes the `locate' data base) from /etc/cron.daily/find via: 

 
	cd / && updatedb --localuser=nobody 2>/dev/null
This is also a tad easier than patching/recompiling. Anyways, there is my 2cents.

-Brett.

Re: Getting Linux to the public...

Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 17:19:59 -0500
From: Milton L. Hankins {64892}, mlh@swl.msd.ray.com

(This is in response to the article posted in General Mail, Linux Gazette, Issue 26, March 1998.)

Although I can't speak for developers "that have Gobs of money for good video boards and [humongous] monitors," I can share a few things with you about my experiences with XFree86. I have run it successfully with on a 14 inch monitor, using the standard SVGA X server on a 486-75MHz with a Cirrus video card. It took quite a bit of fiddling, but I eventually figured out how to get it to run in 800x600 mode, and then in 1024x768 interlaced.

A lot of it was just meddling with the XFree86 configuration file directly, hoping that I wouldn't blow my monitor up. There are tools today (like Metro-X) that make this process a fair bit easier.

One thing you might not realize is that the XFree86 config (last I remember) sometimes chooses 640x480 mode on startup, when it actually supports more modes. Try pressing Ctrl-Alt-Keypad+ to change the resolution while running X.

Monitor size is another matter. I recall one application that liked to size itself bigger than my screen. There are a couple ways around this.

The first is the -geometry flag, available to most X applications. If you want to try it, the xterm, xeyes, and xbiff programs all support it. The most basic format is: 

 
-geometry =<width>x<height>+<x>+<y>:
Replace <width> and <height> with the desired width and height of the window, respectively. Sometimes width and height refer to characters, and sometimes they refer to pixels. Your mileage may vary. <x> and <y> refer to the pixel coordinates of the new window's upper left corner. If you want, you can leave out the first half (default size) or the second half (default location). Sometimes you can leave off the equals sign, too.

Some examples: "-geometry 800x600+0+0" will place an 800x600 window in the upper left corner of the screen. "-geometry 400x300+200+150" will place a 400x300 window in the center of an 800x600 display.

You can write shell aliases to run these programs with a default size. A cleaner way is to put geometry specifications in your .Xresources file. Usually this is of the form <programName>*geometry: <width>x<height>+<x>+<y>

Here are some examples: 

XEyes*geometry:                 +1060+40
plan*geometry:         +10+10
Netscape.Navigator.geometry: =336x425
Netscape.Mail.geometry: =300x400
Netscape.News.geometry: =300x400
Netscape.Composition.geometry: =350x350
You may also want to adjust the fonts for your program, especially if it doesn't support the -geometry flag nor X resource.

I, too, feel that Linux is not ready for the public because of its comparatively steeper learning curve. But it's gotten a lot better over the years, thanks to the Linux community. Keep up the good work, everyone!

Milton L. Hankins (no known relation to Greg)

My 2-cents on W95/Linux coexistence

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 17:56:16 -0500
From: Carl Helmers, carl@helmers.com

Re W95 and Linux: With hard disks crashing in price (hopefully not the heads), here is the strategy I used for this problem of getting W95 and Linux on the same machine at the end of 1997: On one of my personal desktop machines, I had excellent results using a product called "System Commander" -- this product has a Linux-savvy manual which explains all the details one needs. The machine in question is a generic Pentium-133 with 32mb memory, a 2GB EIDE drive and a S3 Virge based graphic card. After I got the machine in 1997 I added a removable 2GB EIDE drive in a DataPort drive frame/cartridge setup for testing various Linux versions, keeping the original W95 that came with the machine in the first drive.

Once I installed System Commander I set up the default boot choice on the P133 desktop machine to be (of course) Linux on the second hard drive, where I currently have X installed. I use this machine (running Emacs and a bunch of handy macros) to keep my update log while installing new Linices on my other machines (a Dell Latitude LM Laptop [P133 40mb] with an alternate 2GB hard drive for Linux, and a Cyrix 6X86-166 clone on the desktop next to the P133.

My first attempt at a W95/Linux combination was on that Cyrix clone -- whose W95 seems to have re-written the fundamental hard disk sector map of the second (but different model number, same capacity) Western Digital drive on which I installed Linux through getting a working X display -- before closing down and rebooting with LILO. After that disaster, I just said the heck with W95 and reformatted the 2GB hard disk as the primary Linux disk, with the second disk in its DataPort removable frame retained as an additional file storage region. In my 30 years of using computers since high school in 1966, I have developed the habit of always keeping a detailed log when doing anything I might want to reproduce -- such as installing a Linux release. That way, if I make a mistake I can try again, changing some critical detail or other. I started the habit with pencil and spiral paper notebooks. These days, I use a second computer system sitting on the same desktop running emacs under XFree86 with my custom macros to speed up entry -- but the principle is the same.

In the System Commander desktop machine, I set W95 as a second boot option, and the third option for booting from floppy using the Linux installation boot diskettes. I still useW95 [perish the thought] for one or two commercial Wintel programs I like which do not have a Linux work-alike, and to try out new software packages.

Carl Helmers

2-cent tips in LG 26: core dumps (Marty Leisner)

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 19:45:48 +0100
From: Christoph L. Spiel, Christoph_Spiel@physik.tu-muenchen.de

I was annoyed by "file", too. Under several other unices "file" can be used to identify a core dump. Marty's tip is just fine. You don't have to write any script or other stuff.

I used "gdb" to find out where a "core"-file came from. As a wrapper around it, I wrote "idcore". It has the advantage of displaying only relevant information, i.e., the name of the binary causing the core-dump. This way it can by used, e.g., in cron jobs to notify users. The verbosity of idcore is controlled with the 

 
	--brief
and 
 
	--long
options.

I'd like to paste some sample output here, but neither can I find a core dump on my machine, nor do I know a program that generates one. (This is not a devine linux-box, I have thrown out most instable binaries ;-)

Here comes "idcore": 

 
#!/bin/sh

# name:      idcore  --  identify which binary caused a core dump
# author:    c.l.s. (cspiel@physik.tu-muenchen.de)
# last rev.: 1998-01-22  11:14
# bash ver.: 1.14.7(1)
# $Id: issue27.html,v 1.3 2003/02/03 21:50:18 lg Exp $


# display help message
# char* disp_help(void)
function disp_help
{
	echo "usage:"
	echo "	idcore [OPTION] [[COREDUMP] ...]"
	echo
	echo "	If COREDUMP is omitted the core file in the current"
	echo "	directory is used."
	echo
	echo "	-h, --help	display this help message"
	echo "  -v, --version	show version of idcore"
	echo "	-b, --brief	brief format, i.e. filename only"
	echo "	-l, --long	long format, with filename, signal, user,"
	echo "		        date, and backtrace"
}

# retrieve name binary that caused core dump via gdb
# char* get_name(const char* mode, const char* name)
function get_name
{
	case "$1" in
		brief)
			echo q | gdb --quiet --core="$2" 2>&1 | head -1 | \
			sed -ne "s/^.*\`\(.*\)'\.$/\1/p"
			;;
		standard)
			echo q | gdb --quiet --core="$2" 2>&1 | head -2
			;;
		long)
			dump=$(echo -e "where\nq" | \
				gdb --quiet --core="$2" 2>&1)
			echo "$dump" | head -2 | sed -ne '2,2s/\.$//p'
			ls -l "$2" | \
			awk '{ print "on", $6, $7, $8, "caused by", $3 }'
			echo
			echo "backtrace:"
			echo "$dump" | sed -ne '/^(gdb) /s/^(gdb) //p'
			;;
	esac				
}


#
# start of main
#


myname=$(basename "$0")		# name of shell-script
mode=standard			# normal mode of operation

case "$1" in
	-h | --help)
		disp_help
		exit 1
		;;
	-v | --version)
	        echo "version 0.1.0"
		exit 0
		;;
	-b | --brief)
		mode=brief
		shift
		;;
	-l | --long)
		mode=long
		shift
		;;
	-* | --*)
		echo "$myname: unknown option $1"
		exit 2
		;;
esac

if [ -z "$1" ]; then
	# no argument -> look at core in the current directory
	get_name "$mode" core
else
	# process all arguments
	for c; do
		# echo file we are processing
		if [ "$mode" != "brief" ]; then
			echo "$c: "
		fi
		get_name "$mode" "$c"
	done
fi
exit 0

Perl Script 2C Tip

Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 15:46:25 +0000
From: Mark Hood, mark.hood@deep-thought.ericsson.se

After seeing the "Keeping Track of Tips" suggestion in your October issue, I thought it might be worth contributing this perl script which I use in a similar way. I have a user called 'info' and he has a .forward file consisting of the following line: 

 
"| /home/info/mail2web"
In the user's public_html folder, I created a file called index.html: 
 
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Information Archive</TITLE></HEAD>
<BODY>
<TABLE>
<TR><TH>Subject</TH><TH>Date</TH><TH>From</TH></TR>
<!-- Add after here -->
</TABLE>
</BODY>
</HTML>
This allows me to simply mail directly to this user, and the tip is instantly stored on the web page - no need for cron jobs or external C programs to split the mail up.

This file is provided for free use, feel free to distribute or alter it in any way. Note that there is no warranty - it works for me, but that's all I can say. In particular, I can't promise there are no security holes in it (it never calls 'exec', so it's unlikely a cracker can subvert it on your machine - and it's certainly no more dangerous than a shell script run by cron).

Enjoy! Mark Hood 

 
----- Cut here and save as mail2web -----
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
#
# mail2web (C) 1998 Mark A. Hood (mark.hood@usa.net)
# 
# Takes a file (piped through it, eg. from a .forward file)
# And bungs it in a Web page.
# We have two html files:
# $index is the index file
# $stem  is the base name of the information files - the date & time
#       are appended to make it unique.
#
# The index file must exist and look like this (without the leading #
signs)
# The important bit is the  comment - this script
# uses that to know where to put the new data...
#
# <HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Information Archive</TITLE></HEAD>
# <BODY>
# <TABLE>
# <TR><TH>Subject</TH><TH>Date</TH><TH>From</TH></TR>
# <!-- Add after here -->
# </TABLE>
# </BODY>
# </HTML>

# Variables - change these to match your system

$index = "/home/info/public_html/index.html";
$stem  = "/home/info/public_html/";

# Nothing below this line should need changing

# Define the time and date

($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$syear,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = localtime;

$year = 1900 + $syear;

# Add the time and date to the end of the filestem

$stem = sprintf ("%s%02d%02d%02d%02d%02d%02d.html", 
                $stem, $year, $mon, $mday, $hour, $min, $sec);

# Open the new file 

open ( OUTFILE, ">$stem") ;

# Write the HTML header
print OUTFILE "<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>\n";

$printing = 0;
$from     = "nobody";
$date     = "never";
$title    = "Untitled";

while ($line = <>) {
        if ($line =~ s/^From: (.*)$/$1/g) {             # Sender
                $from = $line;
        } elsif ($line =~ s/^Date: (.*)$/$1/g) {        # Date
                $date = $line;
        } elsif ($line =~ s/^Subject: (.*)$/$1/g) {     # Subject
                $title = $line;
                print OUTFILE $title;
                print OUTFILE "</TITLE><BODY><PRE>";
        } elsif ($line =~ /^$/ && $printing == 0) {     # End of headers
                $printing = 1;                          # Show the info.
                print OUTFILE "From: " . $from;
                print OUTFILE "Date: " . $date;
                print OUTFILE "Subject: " . $title . "\n";
        }
        $line  =~ s/\</\<\;/g;                        # Mask out
specials
        $line  =~ s/\>/\>\;/g;

        if ($printing) { 
                print OUTFILE $line;
        }

}

print OUTFILE "</PRE></BODY></HTML>";                   # Finish the
HTML

close OUTFILE;                                          # Close the file

$newfile = sprintf("%s.new", $index);                   # Backups 
$oldfile = sprintf("%s.old", $index);
open (  INFILE, "$index");

while ($line = <INFILE>) {
        if ($line =~ /^\<\!-- Add after here --\>/ ) {  # Our marker
                print OUTFILE "<TR><TD>";
                print OUTFILE "<A HREF=\"" . $stem . "\">";
                print OUTFILE $title . "</A></TD>";
                print OUTFILE "<TD>" . $date . "</TD>";
                print OUTFILE "<TD>" . $from . "</TD></TR>\n";
        }
        
        print OUTFILE $line;
}
rename ($index, $oldfile);                              # Backup the
current
rename ($newfile, $index);                              # Move the new
one
----- Cut here ----- Cut here ----- Cut here ----- Cut here -----

rxvt 0.02$ tip

Date: Sun, 15 Mar 1998 17:21:26 -0500 (EST)
From: John Eikenberry [MSAI], jae@ai.uga.edu

Recently I hacked together a little shell script for some friends of mine that I thought others might find of interest. It allows you to run rxvt with a random pixmap put in the background. The random pixmap is taken from a directory, thus no hard coding of pixmap names in the shell script.

Well, here it is... oh, this is using bash btw... 

 
----start----
#!/bin/sh
run_rxvt ()
{
        shift $((RANDOM%$#))
        exec rxvt -pixmap ~/.pixmaps/$1
}
run_rxvt `ls ~/.pixmaps/`

Tiny patch to ifconfig

Date: Fri, 06 Feb 1998 23:12:02 -0600
From: John Corey, kunglao@prairienet.org

I've often wondered just how much data I've transmitted through my network. After a little research, I found that the ifconfig program just simply does not display this bit of information in it's results. So, I've fixed that problem.

To install, first get the sources from your favorite sunsite mirror. The file to look for is net-tools-1.432.tar.gz. I found it at ftp://ftp.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/distributions/slackware/source/n/tcpip/net-tools-1.432.tar.gz

Unpack those sources, apply the patch with patch < ifconfig.diff, and compile. I only modify the ifconfig program, so just simply backup your existing binary, then install the newly compiled one (assuming you already have this version of net-tools installed). Here is an example of the new output: 

 
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:40:F6:A4:8E:73
          inet addr:192.168.1.1  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:99773 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:91834 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
coll:6
          RX bytes: 20752805 (19.7 Mb)  TX bytes: 27982763 (26.6 Mb)
          Interrupt:9 Base address:0x280

 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; name="ifconfig.diff"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline; filename="ifconfig.diff"

diff -c -r net-tools/ifconfig.c net-tools-patched/ifconfig.c
*** net-tools/ifconfig.c	Tue Sep 23 15:05:24 1997
--- net-tools-patched/ifconfig.c	Fri Feb  6 15:54:51 1998
***************
*** 190,195 ****
--- 190,196 ----
  static void
  ife_print(struct interface *ptr)
  {
+   unsigned long rx, tx, short_rx, short_tx;  char Rext[5], Text[5];
    struct aftype *ap;
    struct hwtype *hw;
    int hf;
***************
*** 352,357 ****
--- 353,372 ----
  	ptr->stats.tx_packets, ptr->stats.tx_errors,
  	ptr->stats.tx_dropped, dispname, ptr->stats.tx_fifo_errors,
  	ptr->stats.tx_carrier_errors, ptr->stats.collisions);
+ 
+ /* MyMod */
+   rx = ptr->stats.rx_bytes;  tx = ptr->stats.tx_bytes;
+   strcpy(Rext, "");  short_rx = rx * 10;  short_tx = tx * 10;
+   if (rx > 1048576) { short_rx /= 1048576;  strcpy(Rext, "Mb"); }
+   else if (rx > 1024) { short_rx /= 1024;  strcpy(Rext, "Kb"); }
+   if (tx > 1048576) { short_tx /= 1048576;  strcpy(Text, "Mb"); }
+   else if (tx > 1024) { short_tx /= 1024;  strcpy(Text, "Kb"); }
+ 
+   printf("          ");
+   printf(NLS_CATGETS(catfd, ifconfigSet, ifconfig_tx,
+ 	"RX bytes: %lu (%lu.%lu %s)  TX bytes: %lu (%lu.%lu %s)\n"),
+ 	rx, short_rx / 10, short_rx % 10, Rext, 
+ 	tx, short_tx / 10, short_tx % 10, Text);
  
    if (hf<255 && (ptr->map.irq || ptr->map.mem_start || ptr->map.dma || 
  		ptr->map.base_addr)) {

Re: Wanting HELP!

Date: Wed, 04 Mar 98 13:35:24 -0500
From: Bill R. Williams, brw@BRW.ETSU.Edu Status: RO

For anyone interested... IT'S FIXED! (*applause, cheering, etc.*) On Fri, 27 Feb 98 14:16:13 -0500, I (Bill R. Williams) wrote: 

 
...[snip]...
 
In the process of getting a System installed I upgraded from the
original CD-ROM install of (Intel) RedHat 4.2 to the new RedHat 5.0
CD-ROM.  One of the significant items on this system is the mars-nwe
Netware emulator.
Under the RedHat 4.2 with mars-nwe 0.98pl8-1 the mars package ran fine,
but logged copious errors about there being "too many connections --
increase the number in config.h".  But it ran, and I *liked* the way it
happily did Netware duties!  (Especially the printer part.)
The *new* RedHat 5.0 with mars-nwe 0.99pl2-1 offered some very desirable
abilities, not the least of which is the move of some items (such as
number of connections) to the run-time config file (/etc/nwserv.conf
under RedHat, probably nw.ini on other distributions.)  Now the bad
news...
 
...[snip]...
 
This new package spawns out nwconn processes with an empty parenthesis
as the last token instead of the USERID ('nwconn ... ()') until all
connection slots are eaten, and then, of course, will not recognize any
new attempts.  Any users already logged into the nwserv(ice) are Ok.
 
...[snip]...
 
I have tried every combination of parameter twiddling in the run-time
config file that can think of, but to no avail.

...[snip]...
 
Anyone who has solved this problem, please share the secret.
BTW: I had regularly pulled in updates to everything from RedHat errata. I was getting a bit gun shy about updating, because that's how I got into the mess. :-) I had previously tried the "..pl2-3.rpm" when it first appeared, but it died immediatly on startup so I went back to the "..pl2-1.rpm" build which, at least, would run in spite of all the problems I was having with it.

The breakthrough was inspired by a note I got when On Mon, 02 Mar 1998 12:24:37 +0100, Trond Eivind Glomsrd wrote: "Last: You have installed all items from the errata? The glibc updates fixes a lot of bugs, at least."

So I made one more trip to the RH errata repository, and got the absolute latest updates. There did happen to be a newer update of that glibc which Tron had mentioned.

I applied the glibc updates and installed the mars-nwe 0.99pl2-3, and this all seems to have fixed everything. Mars runs, and all the ugly hangups and problems appear to be gone! It's a thing of beauty.

For those keeping score, here are the package levels which are significant to running the mars-nwe on my RH 5.0 System: 

 
    kernel-2.0.32-2
    mars-nwe-0.99pl2-3
    glibc-2.0.6-9
It appears that the mixture of levels I had prior to this set just did not synch up, and I suspect the the fix must have been in the new glibc as Tron suggested it might be.

What a relief!

Bill R. Williams

Re: Help Wanted (usershell on console without logging in)

Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 15:26:17 -0500 (EST)
From: Kragen, kragen@pobox.com

Last month, there was a request by Todd Blake for some help:

I like most people am the only person to use my linux system at home. What I'd like to do is when my system is done booting to have me automatically login as my main user account(not as root though) on one virtual console(the first) and leave all other consoles and virtual consoles alone,

I thought this was a good idea, so I tried to do it. Eventually, I succeeded. The resulting software is at http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/sw/usershell.html. Mr. Blake reports that it is a good job.

Anyone else is welcome to it. I'll even help you if you have trouble with it :)

Kragen

2 cent tip followup -- X

Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 14:26:43 -0500
From: Vivek Khera, vivek@khera.org

In the March issue, you have a tip on using X programs when you've run su to root. By far the easiest method is to simply 

 
setenv XAUTHORITY ~khera/.Xauthority
for your own user name, of course... No need to run any other programs or cut and paste anything.

I have my machines configured so that when someone becomes root, if the file ~/.rootrc exists in their home directory, it is sourced as part of the root's .cshrc file. In there, I put the above setenv command. I've never had to think about it again (in nearly 5 years).

Hope this helps someone.

Vivek Khera, Ph.D.

locate patch

Date: 24 Mar 1998 11:57:20 -0000
From: Remco Wouts, remco@xray.bmc.uu.se

In the Linux Gazette number 26 (march) there was mention of a patch for locate. The idea of the patch was to make it impossible to find out the names of files in directories that you do not have access to.

Unfortunately this patch does not solve the problem at all. So I would advise people not to use this patch, they could be lured into a false sense of privacy. What is the problem and what is wrong with the patch?

Locate allows you to find a file quickly. It does this by consulting a database of filenames. Of course this way of finding a file is much quicker then hunting for it in the file system. However, somebody has to make the database. This is done with the program updatdb, usually from a crontab every day or week. Updatdb can find all files that the user id, it is running as, has access to. So if updatedb is run with an id that has more access rights then the user who invokes the locate command, this user can find out the names of files that he/she otherwise could not find. The author of the locate patch solved the problem simply by changing the locate command. Just before sending the name of a file, it checks whether it exists and if so whether the invoking user has read access. However you don't need to use the locate command at all to read the file database. To make sure every user, who invokes locate, can read it it is stored world readable. The patch does not help at all to solve the privacy problem.

For the moment, if you are concerned about these privacy issues, you should not run 'updatedb' at all, and remove the existing database. Since locate & Co. are very handy utilities it is probably best to leave things as they are and make sure updatedb is run by user nobody from a crontab.

The next easiest solution would be to make the database created by updatedb readable by root only, and change locate to a setuid program which consults the database as root and checks for permissions. I will leave that as a challenge to the author of the patch.

Happy Linuxing.
-- Remco Wouts

locate subdirectories

Date: Thu, 26 Mar 1998 17:02:22 +0000 (GMT)
From: Padraig.Finnerty@acm.org

in a large directory of files it is sometimes hard to locate the subdirectories. to do this you can tag the directories with a '/' (using ls -F) and then grep these out... 

 
ls -F |grep /$
or even better.. 
 
alias sub="ls -F |grep /$"
Padraig

Published in Linux Gazette Issue 27, April 1998

[ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next

This page maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette, gazette@ssc.com
Copyright © 1998 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.

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

News Bytes

Contents:

News in General

May Linux Journal

The May issue of Linux Journal will be hitting the newsstands April 10. The focus of this issue is Cross Platform Development with articles on building reusable Java Widgets, debugging your Perl programs, Modula-3, doubly-linked lists, the Python DB-API and much more. Check out the Table of Contents. To subscribe to Linux Journal, click here.

Linus Torvalds Receives VA Research Excellence Award

February 26, 1998
VA Research granted its Excellence in Open Source Software Award to Linus Torvalds, father of the Linux operating system and one of the most important leaders in information technology. Linus received a VArStation YMP, worth $4500, at The Silicon Valley Linux Users Group meeting in March. (See article in this issue by Chris Dibona.)

The VA Research Excellence in Open Source Software Award honors exceptional individuals within the free software community. Torvalds led this community to create Linux, a freely distributable multi-user, multi-tasking Unix-like operating system. Linux is now used in a range of applications from mission critical servers to desktop workstations.

VA Research is the oldest and largest Linux systems company. Founded in 1993 by electrical engineering doctoral students at Stanford University, VA Research pioneered high performance workstations and servers based on Linux. In 1997, VA Research became an affiliate of Umax.

For More Information:
VA Research, www.varesearch.com
Samuel Ockman, ockman@varesearch.com.

New Linux and Open Source Business Usage Advocacy page

Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 21:06:35 +1100 (EST)
There is a new advocacy page for Linux (and other open source, free software). This site is primarily focused on solid business reasons as to why companies should use Linux. The opening blurb states:

... We (and a growing number of other firms) are heavy users of software such as Linux, GNU and FreeBSD which can be classified as 'freely redistributable' or 'co-operatively developed', but feel that there is considerable lack of knowledge of these systems and applications in the general business community. We (and some of the companies listed below) are therefore building this web presence to help provide information, documentation, showcase projects, links to related sites and other useful resources to to help redress this. This will include freely redistributable systems software, and free and commercial applications which run on these systems which may be of interest to helping you run your business. ...

http://www.cyber.com.au/misc/frsbiz/

For More Information:
Con Zymaris, Cybersource Pty. Ltd.

FREENIX at USENIX Annual Conference

Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 08:54:19 -0800
Here's more than you ever wanted to know:

Share ideas, and actual code, with developers and avid users of freely redistributable software--Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and more--at the 23RD ANNUAL USENIX TECHNICAL CONFERENCE, includes FREENIX, the Freely Redistributable Software Track, June 15-19, 1998 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Sponsored by USENIX, the Advanced Computing Systems Association

FREENIX is co-sponsored by The FreeBSD Project, Linux International, The NetBSD Foundation, Inc., and The OpenBSD Project

Full program and on-line registration:
http://www.usenix.org/events/no98/
Email: conference@usenix.org

FREENIX, a Special Track within the conference, showcases the latest developments and interesting applications in freely redistributable software. FREENIX offers 28 talks, plus evening BoF sessions.

USENIX is the Advanced Computing Systems Association. Its members are the computer technologists responsible for many of the innovations in computing we enjoy today.

For More Information:
Cynthia Deno, USENIX ASSOCIATION, cynthia@usenix.org

Samba: Integrating UNIX and Windows

Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 08:36:32 GMT
Samba is the tool of choice for providing Windows file sharing and printer services from UNIX and UNIX-like systems. Freely available under the GNU Public License, Samba allows UNIX machines to be seamlessly integrated into a Windows network without installing any additional software on the Windows machines. Used in tandem with Linux or FreeBSD, Samba provides a low-cost alternative to the Windows NT Server.

This book, a combination of technical tutorial, reference guide, and how-to manual, contains the depth of knowledge experienced network administrators demand without skipping the information beginners need to get fast results. UNIX administrators new to Windows networking will find the information they need to become Windows networking experts. Those new to UNIX will find the details they need to install and configure Samba correctly and securely.

The book also contains a CD-ROM containing version 1.9.18 of the Samba server, a library of useful tools and scripts, the Samba mailing list archives, and all examples discussed in the book.

Currently available at fatbrain.com (Book shops + Online). www.clbooks.com * 1-800-789-8590 * FAX 1-408-752-9919

Netscape turns to Debian for Licensing Guidance!

Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 09:23:38 GMT
When Netscape decided to make their client software free, they used the Debian Free Software Guidelines for a guide on how to write their license. You can find the draft Netscape license at http://www.mozilla.org/NPL/. This is a historic day for us, since it means that "Mozilla" (Netscape Communicator) will eventually be in the "main" part of Debian and all Linux systems, instead of the "non-free" section as it is now.

A link to a Netscape press release (containing a quote from Bruce Perens) can be found at http://www.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease579.html. The Debian Social Contract and licensing guidelines are at http://www.debian.org/social_contract.html. A web page on the Open Source promotional program for free software can be found at http://www.opensource.org/.

There is work yet to be done - a few license bug-lets will be resolved within the next few days, and once the source code is released there are some parts that Netscape does not own that will most likely have to be replaced with free software.

For More Information:
Bruce Perens, bruce@debian.novare.net

Linux Web Watcher News

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 13:18:11 GMT

Linux Web Watcher, http://webwatcher.org/

The "Linux Web Watcher" now has its own domain, thanks to VA Research. LWW isn't an ordinary links page. It actually keeps track of when the pages were last updated, so you don't have to waste hours checking to see if your favorite web pages have been updated since your last visit to them.

The non-tables page of the Linux Web Watcher have been greatly enhanced to make things easier to read for Lynx users.

For More Information:
Robert E. Blue, reblue@emry.net

Linux questionnaire

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 13:19:49 GMT
Aachen Linux User Group (ALUG) proudly presents the Linux Questionnaire.

The questionnaire consists of 20 questions which cover software, hardware, documentation and installation issues. The questions are a mixture of multiple choice and text areas. The results are updated hourly and can be seen at:
http://aachen.heimat.de/alug/fragebogen2/fragebogen_results2.html

The objective of the questionnaire is to provide a somewhat standardized way to report your experience with Linux and the results should give (in particular, to the newcomer) a coarse-grained view on Linux and its users.

For More Information:
Aachener Linux User Group (Aachen/Germany), http://aachen.heimat.de/alug
Michael Eilers, eilers@rmi.de

Perl Conference 2.0 - Call for Participation

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 14:43:42 GMT
The second annual O'Reilly Perl Conference will be held August 17-20, 1998 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California. The conference will feature two days of tutorials followed by a two day conference. The conference will include sessions for submitted papers on practical and experimental uses of Perl; invited presentations; daily Q and A sessions with leading Perl developers and trainers; a by-invitation Developers Workshop; and nightly user-organized Birds-of-a-Feather sessions for special interest groups.

In the practical spirit of Perl, we seek papers that describe how you are using Perl right now for work or play, and how your experience and your code can help others. This is not a traditional solicitation for academic papers. While we look forward to papers on new and useful extensions, applications, and tools, we are most interested in receiving papers that show Perl hard at work, saving time, money, and headaches for you and your organization. We welcome submissions that work under both Unix and non-Unix systems, such as Win32.

For More Information:
The Perl Institute, Chip Salzenberg
3665 E. Bay Drive, Suite 204-A
Largo, FL 33771-1990

UK Linux Conference

Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 09:18:30 GMT
These are very preliminary details:

Venue: UMIST Conference Centre, Manchester.

Date: Saturday 27th June

Time: A Jam-packed day from 10am (sharp) to around 5:30

Programme (provisional):

For More Information:
UKUUG, http://www.ukuug.org/

French Translation of LG Issue 25

A French translation of some parts of Issue 25 of the Linux Gazette is available at the following URL's :
http://www.linux-kheops.com/pub/lgazette/;
and http://www.linux-france.com/article/lgazette/;

For more information:
Eric Jacoboni : jaco@mail.dotcom.fr

Software Announcements

Help ToolKit for Motif V0.9: Binary beta release now available

Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 23:58:55 -0500
Columbia, MD -- The Help ToolKit for Motif V0.9 has been released and is now available on the web. The Help ToolKit for Motif allows developers to easily add and modify various types of on-line context-sensitive help to Motif applications. Using a small set of functions to install the library, every widget and gadget in a Motif application seemingly inherits new resources allowing help to be configured and changed via X resource files.

The ToolKit supports three core help types: Tips, Cues, and Hints. All of these help types can be assigned to any widget and any Motif-based gadget.

The Help ToolKit distribution can be downloaded from http:www.softwarecomp.com. The complete Programmer's Manual can also be downloaded in PDF format from the same site.

Although the Linux version of this product is freely available for non-commercial purposes, it is copyrighted and is not in the public domain. There is a license associated with the distribution; please read it if you have an interest in the product.

For more information:
Robert S. Werner, rob.werner@softwarecomp.com
info@softwarecomp.com, http://www.softwarecomp.com/

RED HAT SOFTWARE NOW SHIPPING MOTIF 2.1

Date: Tue, 03 Mar 1998 16:16:34 -0500
Research Triangle Park, NC--March 2, 1998--Red Hat Software, Inc., publisher of Red Hat Linux 5.0, the Operating System that was named InfoWorld Magazine's Product of the Year, has announced the availability of Red Hat Motif 2.1 for the Intel Computer. Red Hat Motif 2.1 for the Intel computer is the full OSF/Motif development system. As with the 2.0.1 version of Red Hat Motif, Red Hat Motif 2.1 can turn your Intel computer running Linux into a complete Motif development workstation.

For more information:
Red Hat Software, Inc., "http://www.redhat.com/, melissa@redhat.com

PostShop, ScanShop and OCR Shop

Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 11:38:10 -0800 (PST)
Vividata, Inc. announced the release of Linux versions of its PostShop, ScanShop and OCR Shop software products PostShop transforms inkjet and laser printers to PostScript-enabled ones and makes PostScript printers up to 100 times faster. ScanShop scans, prints, compresses, stores, retrieves and displays pictures and documents in full color, grayscale, and bi-level (black & white), and OCR Shop converts paper documents and images into editable text.

For more information:
Vividata, Inc., info@vividata.com, http://www.vividata.com/. Cobalt Qube Ships

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 17, 1998 - Cobalt Microserver Inc. today announced that its Cobalt Qube(tm) microserver products, which were introduced last month at the DEMO 98 conference, have begun shipping to customers. Cobalt develops and markets simple, low-cost Internet and Intranet servers.

The Cobalt Qube microservers are aimed at work groups and branch offices, Internet service providers, Web developers and educational organizations. They are simple, versatile, scalable, and offer excellent performance for work groups at a fraction of the cost of traditional UNIX(R) and Windows(R) NT servers.

For more information:
Nancy Teater, Hamilton Communications, nrt@hamilton.com, http://web.hamilton.com/

LinkScan 4.0

Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 13:24:29 -8
San Jose, CA, March 10, 1998 - Electronic Software Publishing Corp. (Elsop) introduces a number of new features to enhance the central management of multiple Intranet/Internet web sites in organizations where many different individuals may be responsible for the content. These developments build upon earlier releases which laid down the foundations for these exciting new features. LinkScan enables users to split-up very large sites into smaller sub-sites, to produce different reports for different departments and to configure LinkScan to handle multiple domains hosted on a single server. LinkScan/Dispatch adds a new higher level of capability to those features.

LinkScan/Dispatch is included with LinkScan Version 4.0. It is designed for operators of large web sites where the responsibility for maintenance and updates is distributed among many individuals.

LinkScan 4.0 is priced at $750 per server. Volume discounts are available in single order quantities of five copies or more. Orders may be placed online via a secure server.

For more information:
Kenneth R. Churilla, ken@elsop.com
Electronic Software Publishing Corporation, http://www.elsop.com/

WANPIPE FT1

Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 14:25:12 +0000
Sangoma Technologies Inc. (OFFER VALID UNTIL APRIL 15TH OR WHILE SUPPLIES LAST) is making available our WANPIPE kit that includes the T1 and Fractional T1 DSU/CSU for an END USER price of $799.00! This represents a reduction of 30% from our already low standard price of $1139.00.

WANPIPE provides all you need to turn your NT, Linux, or NetWare server or Windows workstation into a powerful T1 or Fractional T1 router for your LAN. Just plug your server into the wall.

For more information:
David Mandelstam, dm@sangoma.com
Sangoma Technologies Inc.

XFree86 3.3.2 Released

Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 09:59:39 GMT XFree86 version 3.3.2 is now available. The XFree86 3.3 distribution is available in both source and binary form. Binary distributions are currently available for FreeBSD (2.2.2+ and 3.0-CURRENT), NetBSD (1.2 and 1.3), OpenBSD, Interactive Unix, Linux (ix86 and AXP), SVR4.0, UnixWare, OS/2, Solaris 2.6 and LynxOS AT.

The XFree86 documentation is available on-line on our Web server. The documentation for 3.3 can be accessed at http://WWW.XFree86.org/3.3/.

Source patches are available to upgrade X11R6.3 PL2 from the X Consortium (now The Open Group) to XFree86 3.3.2. Binaries for many OSs are also available. The distribution is available from:
ftp://ftp.XFree86.org/pub/XFree86

For more information:
The XFree86 Team, robin@interlabs.com

scwm 0.6 - Scheme Configurable Window Manager

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 12:38:35 GMT
Scwm 0.6 is released. Scwm is the Scheme Configurable Window Manager. This is a highly dynamic and extensible window manager for the X Window System (based originally on FVWM2, but now much enhanced) with Guile Scheme as the configuration/extension language. Nearly all decorations can be changed at run-time or per-window, and eventually many decoration styles and additional features will be supported through dynamically loaded code. A powerful protocol is provided for interacting with the window manager while it is running.

You can download the latest scwm package from:
http://web.mit.edu/mstachow/www/scwm-0.6.tar.gz
http://web.mit.edu/mstachow/www/scwm-icons-0.6.tar.gz

For more information:
Maciej Stachowiak, mstachow@mit.edu,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, http://web.mit.edu/mstachow/www/scwm.html

Yalsim, Yet Another Logic/Timing Simulator

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 12:44:50 GMT This is the second Alpha version of a logic/timing simulator called Yalsim. Yalsim is a hierarchical timing and logic simulator that has been in development (on and off) for over fifteen years and the second pre-beta version is now being sampled. Yalsim can now be obtained (with source code) by individuals from:

ftp:/ftp.eecg.toronto.edu/pub/software/martin/yalsim.tar.gz

The current cost for Yalsim is $1 CDN, when you have time to send it. Sending four U.S. quarters is also acceptable. This may change in the future. However, seriously, please do read the LICENSE file. Yalsim is not public domain or being released under a GNU-like license, although individuals, at non-profit institutions, will always be able to obtain at least binary versions of Yalsim at no or minimal (overhead) cost.

For more information:
Ken Martin, martin@isis.eecg.toronto.edu

SQL RDBMS PostgreSQL v6.3 released for Linux

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 12:56:10 GMT
SQL RDBMS PostgreSQL v6.3 released for Linux. PostgreSQL is a RDBMS SQL server which is the "default SQLserver" shipped with most Linux distributions.

For more information:
http://www.postgresql.org/, gold_bag@yahoo.com

nosql-0.9 - Unix RDBMS

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 12:57:56 GMT
A new release of NoSQL is available at : ftp://ftp.linux.it/pub/database/nosql-0.9.tar.gz

NoSQL is a simple Relational Database Management System for Unix. There have been several major changes from v0.8 to v0.9. Please read file README-v0.9 distributed with the package.

For more information:
ILS - Italian Linux Society, Carlo Strozzi, carlos@linux.it

RITW: Very simple network monitoring tool

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 13:12:39 GMT
RITW is a small set of scripts that allow any user to monitor network/host status using a common WWW browser and a central monitoring site through ICMP and HTTP. Although it will probably run on any platform, it was only tested on Linux.

Primary site is at
http://www.terravista.pt/Ancora/1883/ritw_e.html
http://www.terravista.pt/Ancora/1883/ritw.html (portuguese)

For more information:
Rui Pedro Bernardinoa, Parque Expo'98, Portugal, rbernardino@expo98.pt

Socket Script v1.5

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 13:30:15 GMT Socket Script has been made for people who wants to create networking-oriented programs, but don't want to learn all the socket stuff. It has multiple network commands that enable you to tell the SScript interpreter where you want to connect, and all you have to do is focus on the script itself, leaving the connection parts to SScript. The best part is that most scripts will run on most Unix workstations, and win32 platforms.

Available at:
http://devplanet.fastethernet.net/sscript.html

newsfetch-1.11 - pull news via NNTP to a mailbox

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 14:10:57 GMT
newsfetch: Most Compact and Powerful Utility to download the news from an NNTP server and stores in the mailbox format. New version of newsfetch (1.11) is uploaded to sunsite.unc.edu:

newsfetch-1.11.tar.gz newsfetch-1.11-1.i386.rpm newsfetch-1.11-1.src.rpm

available in ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/Incoming/ and in proper place (/pub/Linux/system/news/reader) when they move the files. New version is available in .tar.gz and .rpm format.

For more information:
Yusuf Motiwala, ymotiwala@hss.hns.com

nv-dc1000 digital camera image reader v0.1 beta

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 1998 14:30:22 GMT
A small program to transfer images from the digital still camera known as NV-DC1000 or PV-DC1000 from Panasonic. First beta version, but it works.

For more information:
Societas Datoriae Universitatis Lundensis et Instituti Technici Lundensis
Fredrik Roubert, roubert@df.lth.se, http://www.df.lth.se/~roubert/NV-DC1000.html

Cecilia2.0 - electroacoustic music software

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 08:45:31 GMT

We are happy to announce version 2 of CECILIA, the musician's software that makes you funnier, smarter and more attractive to the opposite sex.

Cecilia was developed by composers of electroacoustic music for composers of electroacoustic music. If you have to ask, don't bother. Cecilia is probably the wackiest sound maker in the world at this time. In fact, we believe nothing else even comes close. Cecilia is for high-concept audio processing. It is not for sequencing your rinky-dink samplers and synths.

Cecilia is freeware at present. The next version will not be. Count your blessings. Cecilia runs on Macintoshes, Linux boxes and SGIs. It does not run on Windows. When it does, we'll sell it and become obscenely wealthy.

Cecilia is strictly for people who have a sense of humour. We, on the other hand, are very cranky people.

Cecilia is available for download at :
ftp://ftp.musique.umontreal.ca/pub/cecilia/

Cecilia's home page for manuals and info:
http://www.musique.umontreal.ca/CEC/

For more information:
Jean Piche, Universite de Montreal
http://mistral.ere.umontreal.ca/~pichej, http://www.musique.umontreal.ca/electro/CEC/

Free CORBA 2 ORB - omniORB 2.5.0 released.

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 09:12:28 GMT
The Olivetti and Oracle Research Laboratory has made available the second public release of omniORB (version 2.5.0). We also refer to this version as omniORB2. The main change since the last public release (release 2.4.0) is the addition of support for type Any and TypeCode. For further details of the changes, see http://www.orl.co.uk/omniORB/omniORB_250/

omniORB2 is copyright Olivetti & Oracle Research Laboratory. It is free software. The programs in omniORB2 are distributed under the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation. The libraries in omniORB2 are distributed under the GNU Library General Public License.

Source code and binary distributions are available from our Web pages: http://www.orl.co.uk/omniORB/omniORB.html

omniORB2 is not yet a complete implementation of the CORBA core.

For more information:
Eoin Carroll, ewc@orl.co.uk
Olivetti & Oracle Research Lab, Cambridge, UK

Mtools 3.9 - Access MS-Dos/Win 95 disks from Unix without mounting

Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 08:38:33 GMT
I would like to announce a new release of Mtools, a collection of utilities to access MS-DOS disks from Unix without mounting them.

Mtools supports Win'95 style long file names, FAT32, OS/2 Xdf disks and 2m disks (store up to 1992k on a high density 3 1/2 disk). Mtools also includes mpartition, a simple partitioning programming to setup Zip and Jaz media on non-PC machines (SunOs, Solaris and HP/UX).

Mtools can currently be found at the following places:
http://linux.wauug.org/pub/knaff/mtools
http://www.poboxes.com/Alain.Knaff/mtools/

For more information:
Alain Knaff, knaff@tux.org

New XML.com site

Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 20:08:29 -0800 (PST) SEBASTOPOL, CA--XML, the industrial-strength mark-up language used for Web development, is a tool for electronic commerce and information management. With the recent approval of the XML Specification by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), interest in XML development has picked up considerable steam.

To promote the development and commercial acceptance of XML, three companies that have long been Web insiders--O'Reilly & Associates, their affiliate Songline Studios, and Seybold Publications--have joined together to create XML.com (http://www.xml.com), a new Web site that serves as a key resource and nerve center for XML developers and users. A preview site is now available, and the launch date for the full site is May 1, 1998.

XML.com features a rich mix of information and services for the XML community. The site is designed to serve both people who are already working with XML and those HTML users who want to "graduate" to XML's power and complexity.

For more information:
Sara Winge, sara@ora.com

Published in Linux Gazette Issue 27, April 1998

[ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next

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

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

The Answer Guy


By James T. Dennis, linux-questions-only@ssc.com
Starshine Technical Services, http://www.starshine.org/

Contents:

Regarding Compile Errors with Tripwire 1.2

From: Tc McCluan, tc@4dcomm.com

I was on http://www.starshine.org/linux/ and since I am unable to compile Tripwire 1.2 on my system (redhat 4.2 with 2.0.33 kernel) I am trying all avenues of help.

I have tried the recommendation in the /contrib/README.linux but I still get the same error message. I have tried many combinations, but still no luck.

Following are the list of errors I am getting, hopefully you can spot where this compile is failing. Thanks in advance,

You could look for my Tripwire patch at

http://www.starshine.org/linux/

... or you could grab the RPM file from any Red Hat "contrib" mirror like:

ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/contrib/i386/tripwire-1.2-1.i386.rpm

... for a precompiled binary or:

ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/contrib/SRPMS/tripwire-1.2-1.src.rpm

... for sources that you should be able to build cleanly.

So far I really haven't found a tripwire configuration that I really like. I can never quite get the balance between what aspects to ignore (permission and ownership changes on /dev/tty*, /dev/pty*, etc) and which ones I need to watch.

So, if anyone out there as a really good tw.config file that really minimizes the superfluous alerts and maximized the intrustion detection, I'd like to hear about it.

Also if anyone has a YARD or other rescue disk builder that is customized for creating write-protected tripwire boot/root diskette sets (for periodic integrity auditing of Linux systems) I'd like to see a step-by-step Mini-HOWTO or tutorial (maybe as a submission to Linux Gazette).

-- Jim

Applix Spreadsheet ELF Macro Language

From: Paul T. Karsh ITTC-237B 8-286-xxxx, karchpte@acm.org

I happened on the Linux Gazette in the process of searching for some information on "scripting" macros in the Applixware spreadsheet. Although this is not strictly a Linux question, I hope you can help me with some "pointers" (links ?) on how to learn this language. The Applixware help is no help and the company at which I consult does not have the on-line Applixware books nor the hardcopy "macro" manual.

I played with Applixware a little bit -- but was highly discouraged to find that its file conversion package couldn't handle more recent versions of MS Word and Excel. That was my main interest in the product since I occasionally get file attachments in these proprietary formats -- and sometimes they are potential customers.

As for the issue of learning this Macro language without having the appropriate documentation. I would ask your client where their manuals and/or installation CD is -- if they can't produce it and are unwilling to order a replacement then I would question their decision to use the product.

Applixware is a commercial product. Assuming this is on a Linux system you'd probably want to contact Red Hat Corporation to order replacement manuals (I think RH is the sole Linux distributor for Applixware -- just as Caldera is the sole distributor for the Linux version of WordPerfect).

If they have the installation CD -- borrow it and install its online documentation on some system somewhere (long enough to get the information your need). Be sure to remove that installation unless the appropriate licensing arrangements are made, of course.

Is there somewhere on the net (FTP or anything) where I can get an intro to this? I tried the Applixware site; it just seems to be page after page of PR.

I would like to see far more technical content on their web site as well. (The same desire applies to other hardware and software company sites).

-- Jim

Answer Guy Issue 18 -- Procmail Spam Filter

From: Anthony E. Geene, agreene@pobox.com

I'm not a procmail user, but I've found that most spam is sent using envelope addresses, the standard recipient headers are not addressed to the actual recipient. So I set up filters to catch my mailing list mail and any mail that is addressed to a list of my vailid addresses. Other mail is put elsewhere for later review.

Such a method is relatively simple and would catch all but the more sophisticated spammers.

It is a good suggestion. It doesn't work if you have some people that prefer to Bcc: you (use "blind carbon copies"). Naturally many people's mail user agents (MUA's) like elm, pine, etc don't have obvious options for Bcc:'s -- others do (and most Unix/Linux MUA's allow some way to do it -- even if it isn't *obvious*).

There are probably a number of other "false positive" situations. As you say most automated mailing lists have headers that would trigger on your criteria. The obvious response to these problems is to make a list of all the exceptional cases (of which you are aware) and add appropriate rules to precede your anti-spam filter.

In addition it is important to ensure that your disposition of apparently bogus messages is a refile to a specific mail folder. You don't want to file it to /dev/null!

As you check your "probably junk" folder you can manually refile the exceptions -- and optionally add new rules to "pre-approve" lists of your favorite correspondents.

Note: if you keep a list of correspondents and a list of known spammers, and you write a recipe to check the list you may be concerned about the amount of time spent in 'grep'. Here's a hint: keep the list sorted and use the 'look' command.

(The advantage of 'look' is that it does a "binary" search (think about successive approximation to "zero in on" the desired lines) on a sorted file -- and returns the lines that match. While the overhead of 'grep' grows in a linear fashion (the search doubles in time as the file doubles in size) that of 'look' grows much more slowly (it's proportional to the square root of number of records/lines in the file). Similar results would be attained if one used 'dbm' hashes (indexes) -- but there is greater overhead in programming (Perl offers modules to support dbm, gdbm, ndbm and other hashing libraries -- it also has much higher load time overhead as a result of it's generality).

The point is that even on a small file (100 lines) I can see about a 10% difference in overhead. After a few thousand lines the difference is substantial (grep takes twice as long to run).

None of this matters much on your personal workstation which has only one active user and receives a couple hundred e-mail items per day. However -- if you're filtering on the company mailhub, or at your ISP's location -- it's worth it to reduce your impact.

-- Jim

Great Procmail Article!

From: Anthony E. Geene, agreene@pobox.com

I read your procmail article in issue 14 of the Linux Gazette. It was the best explanation of how procmail works that I've seen yet.

I just wanted to say Thanks,
Anthony,

Thanks for the feedback. BTW there is a new article on use TDG (The Dotfile Generator) as a GUI front end for creating procmail scripts. I haven't finished reading it yet -- but it looks pretty good to me.

In your earlier mail you mentioned that you aren't using procmail yet. This article on TDG and my explanation of what's going on "under the hood" may yet change that. (Also, somewhere on that morass of half-baked pages that I keep as a "website" are some links to other procmail and mail filtering resources).

-- Jim

Linux Cluster configuration

From: Antonio Sindona, Antonio.Sindona@trinacria.it

I'd like to create a *Linux cluster configuration* to have some degree of fault-tolerance (Linux normally works ... hardware not always ! ;-) ). Do You know if somebody tried to develo