
           Linux Gazette... making Linux just a little more fun!
                                      
  Copyright  1996-97 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc. linux@ssc.com
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                       Welcome to Linux Gazette! (tm)
                                      
   Sponsored by:
   
                                 InfoMagic
                                      
   Our sponsors make financial contributions toward the costs of
   publishing Linux Gazette. If you would like to become a sponsor of LG,
   e-mail us at sponsor@ssc.com.
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
    "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
    
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                                The Mailbag!
                                      
                    Write the Gazette at gazette@ssc.com
                                      
                                 Contents:
                                      
     * Help Wanted -- Article Ideas
     * General Mail
       
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                        Help Wanted -- Article Ideas
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Date: Mon, 23 Jun 1997 22:40:39 -0500
   From: Tom Cannon tomc@usit.net
   Subject: Cobal
   
   Are there any Cobal compilers that will run under Linux, I have a
   serious need to move some code to the Linux platform if there is
   something available. Thanks.
   
     (Check with Acucobol Inc., info@accubol.com,
     http://www.acucobol.com --Editor) 
     
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Date: Sat, 21 Jun 1997 16:02:04 -0400
   From: Linda Brooks lbrooks@stc.net
   Subject: Packard Bell SOUND16A Soundcard
   
   I have a Packard Bell Pack-Mate 4990CD, which has a soundcard
   apparently called a "SOUND16A" (the documentation doesn't make it
   clear whether PB or Aztech made it, or if it was a joint production).
   It is a 16 bit sound card, which I can use under Windows 95 as such.
   However, in Linux, the best I can do is 8 bit sound (via Sound Blaster
   Pro 2.0 emulation). The card claims to support MSS, but nowhere in the
   documentation or setup program does it specify which IRQ this runs at,
   although it does tell what port. I have contacted Packard Bell's tech
   support, but they say they only support Windows software for free, and
   that if I wanted to talk about Linux or some such operating system, I
   would need to get "special support" which would cost a ridiculously
   high number.
   
   As a struggling college student, I don't have much money to spend on
   the computer (it is actually my family's that I scratched up enough
   space to install Linux on), so I can't get a new sound card, and I am
   not even sure if the commercial sound drivers support this particular
   sound card.
   
   I'm probably spoiled by Windows, but it's not asking too much for 16
   bit sound so I can listen to 44KHz samples in stereo (I'm quite a MOD
   fan), listen to MP2's or MP3's, etc...
   
   I'm not much of a coder, so I can't go about writing my own drivers.
   If anyone knows of how to set up this sound card for full 161 bit
   sound, please inform me. Or, if you know of any 8 bit .MP? players,
   that would work too =)
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 12:03:00 -0400
   From: Albert Race race@dgms.com
   Subject: Linux HELP!
   
   I would like to install Linux on a Sun 386i machine with 16 meg of
   ram, 2 350 meg scsii drives color video adapter and a tape drive, and
   Network support. When I try to install using a boot disk, I get the
   following message.
        Boot: Device fd(0,0,0): Invalid Boot Block

   This occurs with any boot disk except for Sun. Is there a way I can
   get Linux to install to this system? Any suggestions would be greatly
   appreciated. If you can not help me, Please redirect this message to
   someone who could. I don't know where to get this type of information.
   I received these machines for free and would like to put them to use
   using Linux.
   
   Thank you Albert F. Race
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 11:44:43 +0200
   From: Claudio cricci@cpiprogetti.it
   Subject: Matrox
   
   Is there a chance to correctly configure a Matrox Mystique with 4MB
   RAM under X or I must throw away it ?
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 00:11:40 -0300 (EST)
   From: Rildo Pragana rpragana@acm.org
   Subject: Interfacing Genius Color Page-CS Scanner
   
   Hello, Please help-me to interface my Color Page CS desktop scanner to
   Linux. Now, I can scan only from Windows (Argh!!) and it would be fine
   to have The Gimp accessing my scanned material. I can program in C and
   Tcl/tk, if I at least have the information on its SCSI card, and the
   scanner itself. Any information you may have is precious to me. When I
   have this job done, of course, I'll be happy to publish my adventures
   in the Gazette.
   
   best regards,
   Rildo Pragana
   Greetings from Recife, the Brazilian's Venice
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 14:36:09 -0400 (EDT)
   From: David Bubar bubarda@sch.ge.com
   Subject: Q: How do you un virtual a virtual screen?
   
   My screen maybe 800x600 but my virtual screen is set at something like
   1600x1200. How do I change this? Note:
    1. This is not virtual Desktops, I like use of the PAGER
    2. I wish you would put out a configuration guide for X that does NOT
       have to be a TOME but a small book(let) that helps users customize
       X to work the way they want.
       
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Date: Mon Jun 16 13:46:14
   From: Ade Bellini, AdeBellini@aol.com
   Subject: *2+ Processing
   
   Sir, I am a 35 from Sweden using at present *2 90 Pentium /NT4 and
   Slakeware 1.2.13 and Red Hat 3.0 (and DOS 6.22 !) all on the same
   machine. (paranoid !) I am interested in knowing how to take advantage
   of the *2 cpu's on a Linux based machine. Any thing regarding *2 +
   processing is of interest to me, as i use the NT4 as a server and
   would like to try using Linux instead. many thanks in advance
   
   Ade.
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 07:33:50 -0700 (PDT)
   From: David Mandel dmandel@transport.com
   Subject: CD Burners, Scanners, Digital Cammeras, etc.
   
   I have a mess of family photographs and possibly 35mm slides that I
   want to preserve. One idea I'm considering is scanning these and
   putting them on CDs. So I have a few questions.
    1. Will a Sony CDU926S burner work with xcdroast? The documentation
       says a Sony CDU920S will work, but I don't know the differences
       between the CDU920S and CDU926S. A bare bones (no docs, drivers,
       software) CDU926S is only $265. The MS ready version is $350, but
       who would want that?
    2. What is a good, but cheap flatbed scanner to use? (Good means 24
       bit color and >= 300dpi optical resolution.) What software (in
       Linux) supports the scanner?
    3. I can't afford one, but... Are there any 35mm slide scanners on
       the market with Linux support?
    4. And as long as I'm asking dumb questions... Does Linux have
       support for any digital cameras yet? Someday many of us will want
       to change to digital photography, and it would be awful to have to
       learn Windows to do this.
       
   Thank you for your time and help,
   Dave Mandel
   
     (We'll have to depend on our readers for 1 and 3. As to 2, we use
     the HP5P flatbed scanner, which fits your qualifications for good.
     As to cheap it depends on your definition--it sells for around
     $400. The Linux software that supports all HP scanners is XVscan,
     and a very nice program it is. As to 4, the answer is yes; Hitach
     MP-EG1A, http://www.mpegcam.net/. --Editor) 
     
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 09:01:06 +0100 (BST)
   From: Andrew Philip Crook shu96apc@reading.ac.uk
   Subject: Ascii Problems with FTP
   
   When I use a dos ftp(in ascii mode) program to download a Linux
   Script, because it is not running yet, the script fails to work when
   installed. This is because a ^M is appended to every line, take them
   out and it works.
   
   What's happening?
   
   How can I stop it?
   
   Or how can a filter all the ^M's out?
   
   Many Thanks
   Andrew Crook.
   
     (In a couple of last year's issues, there are several Tips & Tricks
     for getting rid of ^M. You can't stop them from happening. I
     personally get rid of them in vi using a global replace (e.g.,
     :%s/^M//g); one command and they're gone forever. --Editor) 
     
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Date: Thu, 05 Jun 1997 23:08:08 -0400
   From: Steve Malenfant, smalenfant@cablevision.qc.ca
   Subject: Problems with XFree86
   
   I'm a new user to Linux and the problem still XFree86! So then I tried
   to know want can I do to Linux community. In Issue #16, you said that
   the problem is not video card and is Monitor balancing. So why Windows
   95 can have all these preset on monitor and Linux don't have? Why we
   can't use the stuff in the Microsoft Lib to transfer it into the
   database of XF86Setup or something like that. Cause that's real that
   the dotclock and all this is very scrambled! Why not just resolution
   and Virtual Refresh, that's all we need to know, the program could do
   the rest! We don't have to know what horizontal frequency and dotclock
   it is!
   
   Steve Malenfant
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1997 15:39:58 -0700
   From: Kevin Hartman KevinH@hsaeug.com
   Subject: Afterstep
   
   Would anyone be interested in an Afterstep customization how-to/where
   to get?
   
   Kevin
   
     (Have you got one setup or just trying to find out if there's a
     need? --Editor) 
     
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Date: Sat, 07 Jun 1997 02:34:57 -0400
   From: sinyz, sinyz@superlink.net
   Subject: Need Help
   
   Hi, If you happen to have time on your end please be so kind as to
   answer a few questions for a newbie!
   
   Well , here is the situation and I need to get some serious advice
   from people like you. I have been reading the newsgroups and HOWTO's .
   They have been quite informative and ,increasingly so, as I continue .
   Now , thank GOD I got my Linux (RED HAT 4.1) box set up and running on
   my slave drive with Win95 on the Master. It detected my CDROM and I
   also configured my Xwindows (X11R6) .
   
   But there are couple of questions
    1. I have a video card of type diamond s3 virge 3D 2000 . The driver
       for S3 was a choice in the XF86Setup which I chose and everything
       seems to work fine. Also I chose the 800*600 resolution SVGA
       monitor . I have been hearing rumors from friends that the video
       card when being used by Xwindows may mess up the monitor . This
       has been troubling me quite a bit . What's up with this ??
    2. I read using the dmesg command that Linux at boot time does not
       notice that there is a device on tty1 . The specific line reads
       this
Serial driver version 4.13 with no serial options enabled
 tty00 at 0x03f8 (irq=4) is a 16550A
 tty03 at 0x02e8 (irq=3) is a 16550A
   There seems to be no mention of tty1 (com 2 irq 3) where my modem is
       installed at !How to fix this ?? By the way my modem happens to be
       a plug-n-play modem -SUpra 28.8bps. I have heard that pnp modems
       have problems with Linux and there are fixes for pnp types -
       please recommend any.(In effect how do I get my Modem to work)
    3. Also I did not notice during the boot time messages any thing to
       do with PPP Protocol which I definitely need to dialup to an ISP .
       Does that mean recompiling the Kernel -- HOw ( if red hat
       distribution has specific or simpler way of doing things then let
       me know ) Thanks a lot in anticipation.
       
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 11:06:57 +0200 (MET DST)
   From: Martin Lersch lersch@athene.informatik.uni-bonn.de
   Subject: User-Level Driver For HP ScanJet 5p?
   
   Hello! Please can you point me to some direction were I can find a
   user-level driver for the HP ScanJet 5p? There exist the HPSCANPBM
   driver which works in part, but does not support the -width and
   -height options for the ScanJet 5p. I guess it was written for a
   ScanJet 4c or something like that. BTW: The homepage of HP does not
   give much support for Linux users. They do not publish the ESCAPE
   sequences of the scanners.
   
   Regards, Martin Lersch
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                                General Mail
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Date: Sun, 01 Jun 1997 00:56:52 -0500
   From: Piotr Mitros pmitors@mit.edu
   Subject: WordPerfect for Linux
   
   Before more users spend many hours downloading the 50 megabyte (!)
   WordPerfect for Linux, you may want to note that the beta download
   lets you get a demo version that times out after just 15 days. They
   seem to have demo versions of WordPerfect 6 available, so it is not
   that big a deal.
   
   However, I would like to see a comparison of WordPerfect for Linux,
   StarOffice's word processor and the what is planned for GNU WP.
   
   Piotr
   
     (I'd like to see that comparisom too. --Editor) 
     
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 06:42:47 -0400
   From: Stephen L. Cito al256@detroit.freenet.org
   Subject: Question about downloading the archive
   
   Hello, I'd like to download the past issues of LG (having enjoyed LJ
   now since last fall), but I don't think I could even get an 11 meg
   file downloaded over my 14.4 modem within the 1 hour that I have
   before my local Internet connection (the Greater Detroit Free Net)
   times out on me. Is there any way to download the past issues in
   smaller "chunks"?
   
   Thanks and have a real nice day...
   
   SC, Novi, MI
   
     (Hmmm, that is a problem. No, I don't save the individual tar files
     of previous issues separately. There is, of course, The Whole Damn
     Thing, option for each issue which gives you the issue as one great
     big file. Not as nice as the normal multi-file format but very
     popular so must work for some. --Editor)
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
     Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 22:52:36 -0700
     From: James Zubb jimz_@ecom.net
     Subject: ActiveX for Linux
     
     Hi, I read the ActiveX for Linux question in the Answer Guy's
     article, I did a little looking and came up with a web site:
     http://www.sagus.com/Prod-i~1/Net-comp/dcom/index.htm
     
     I don't know if this is actually the ActiveX port for Linux or not,
     I didn't feel like trying to figure it out, but there is a Beta for
     Linux there. Beats me what it does or how it does it...
     
     -- Jim Zubb
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
     Date: Fri, 6 Jun 1997 19:01:40 +0100 (BST)
     From: Adrian Bridgett apb25@cam.ac.uk
     Subject: Re: X Color Depth (In response to the message by Roland
     Smith)
     
     Normally 8-bit displays use 256 colours chosen from 2^24
     (16,777,216), and 15/16/24/32 bits displays just use a fixed number
     of colours spread "evenly" throughout the colour spectrum.
     
     16-bit displays use 5 bits for red, 5 bits for blue and 6 bits for
     green, however the 65536 colours cannot be changed and so the
     overall "resolution" of colour is lower than 256 bit displays. For
     instance you can only have 2^5 different shades of green, rather
     than 2^8.
     
     Adrian
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
     Date:Thu June 12 08:39:19 PDT 1997
     Timothy Gray timgray@lambdanet.com
     Subject: CNE Certification for Linux?
     
     Oh, no not a certification suggestion......
     
     Linux was developed as a better and free version of UNIX. Now
     someone wants to make a CNE for Linux? As a successful Linux
     Network Administrator (and Business owner that proudly states no
     Microsoft here!) I am appalled at charging ten's of thousands of
     dollars to get a piece of paper that states I can do my job. As an
     Internet service provider and an avid Linux, Freeware, and Free
     Software Foundation supporter I hire my network administrators and
     Engineers( We call them System Administrators ) based on their
     abilities and trainability. A CNE paper does not nor will ever
     impress me. Even suggesting such an idea toward Linux is appalling.
     Let's keep our last bastion of freedom from the clutches of
     cooperate greed! If we must have a Linux CNE make it 100% free and
     available to everyone on the planet.
     
     Thank you, Timothy Gray
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
               Published in Linux Gazette Issue 19, July 1997
                                      
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
     [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Next 
     
      This page written and maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette,
      gazette@ssc.com
      Copyright  1997 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.
      
    "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun! "
    
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
                               More 2 Tips!
                                      
                                      
               Send Linux Tips and Tricks to gazette@ssc.com 
                                      
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Contents:
  
     * Rude Getty
     * Keeping Track of File Size
     * What Packages Do I Need?
     * Sound Card Support
     * InstallNTeX is Dangerous
     * Relpy to Dangerous InstallNTeX Letter
     * Monitoring An FTP Download
     * Programming Serial Ports
     * Grepping Files in a Directory Tree
     * More Grepping Files
     * Still More on Grepping Files
     * More on Grepping Files in a Tree
     * Grepping
     * Untarring/Zip
     * Hard Disk Duplication
     * Reply to ncftp
     * Sockets and Pipes
     * Hex Dump
     * More on Hex Dump
     * Reply to Zprotocol
       
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Rude Getty
  
     Date: Mon, 23 June 1997 21:12:23
     From: Heather Stern star@starshine.org
     
     I have a fairly important UNIX box at work, and I have come across
     a good trick to keep around.
     
     Set one of your console getty's to a nice value of very rude, -17
     or worse. That way if a disaster comes up and you have to use the
     console, it won't take forever to respond to you (because of
     whatever went wrong).
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Keeping Track of File Size
  
     Date:Mon 16 June 1997 13:34:24
     From: Volker Hilsenstein vhilsens@aixterm1.urz.uni-heidelberg.de
     
     Hello everyone, I just read Bob Grabau's 2C-tip for keeping track
     of the size of file. Since it is a bit inconvenient to type all
     these lines each time you download something I wrote this little
     script:

#!/bin/bash
# This script monitors the size of the files given
# on the command line.
while :
do
  clear
    for i in $@; do
     echo File $i has the size `ls -l $i   | tr -s " " | cut -f 5 -d " "` bytes
;
   done
sleep 1
done

     Bye ... Volker
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Reply to "What Packages do I Need?"
  
     Date: Tue 24 June 1997 11:15:56
     From: Michael Hammel, mjhammel@long.emass.com
     
     You asked about what packages you could get rid of and mentioned
     that you had AcceleratedX and that because of this you "can get rid
     of a lot off the X stuff". Well, thats not really true.
     AcceleratedX provides the X server, but you still need to hang onto
     the X applications (/usr/X11R6/bin/*) and the libraries and include
     files (/usr/X11R6/lib and /usr/X11R6/include) if you wish to
     compile X applications or run X binaries that require shared
     libraries.
     
     Keep in mind that X is actually made up of three distinct parts:
     the clients (the X programs you run like XEmacs or Netscape or
     xterm), the server (the display driver that talks to your video
     adapter), and the development tools (the libs, header files, imake,
     etc). General users (non-developers) can forego installation of the
     development tools but need to make sure to install the runtime
     libraries. Each Linux distribution packages these differently, so
     just be careful about which ones you remove.
     
     One caveat: I used to work for Xi Graphics, but that was over a
     year and a half ago. Although I keep in touch with them, I haven't
     really looked at the product line lately. Its possible they ship
     the full X distributions now, but I kind of doubt it. If they are
     shipping the full X distributions (clients, server, development
     tools) then disregard what I've said.
     
     Hope this helps.
     -- Michael J. Hammel
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Sound Card Support
  
     Date: Mon 24 June 1997: 11:16:34
     From: Michael Hammel, mjhammel@long.emass.com
     
     With regards to your question in the LG about support for the MAD16
     Pro from Shuttle Sound System under Linux, you might consider the
     OSS/Linux product from 4Front-Techologies. The sound drivers they
     supply support a rather wide range of adapters. The web paget
     http://www.4front-tech.com/osshw.html gives a list of what is and
     isn't supported. The Shuttle Sound System 48 is listed as being
     supported as well as generic support for the OPTi 82C929 chipset
     (which you listed as the chipset on this adapter).
     
     This is commercial software but its only $20. I've been thinking of
     getting it myself. I have used its free predecessor, known at times
     as OSS/Lite or OSS/Free, and found it rather easy to use. I just
     haven't gotten around to ordering (mostly cuz I never seem to have
     time for doing installation or any other kind of admin work). I
     will eventually.
     
     4Front's web site is at http://www.4front-tech.com.
     
     Hope this helps.
     
     -- Michael J. Hammel
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  InstallNTeX is Dangerous
  
     Date: Fri 06 June 1997 12:31:14
     From: Frank Langbein langbein@mathematik.uni-stuttgart.de
     
     Dear James:
     On Fri, 6 Jun 1997, James wrote:
     
     You have still
 make_dir "       LOG" "$VARDIR/log"       $DOU 1777

   make_dir " TMP-FONTS" "$VARDIR/fonts"     $DOU 1777

     If I hadn't (now) commented-out your
(cd "$2"; $RM -rf *)

     then both my /var/log/* and /var/fonts/* files and directories
     would have been deleted!
     
     Actually VARDIR should also be a directory reserved for NTeX only
     (something like /var/lib/texmf). Deleting VARDIR/log is not really
     necessary unless someone has some MakeTeX* logs in there which are
     not user writable. Any pk or tfm files from older or non-NTeX
     installations could cause trouble later. Sometimes the font metrics
     change and if there are some old metrics used with a new bitmap or
     similar the resulting document might look rather strange. Further
     log and fonts have to be world writable (there are ways to prevent
     this, but I haven't implemented a wrapper for the MakeTeX* scripts
     yet), so placing them directly under /var is not really a good
     idea. I am aware that the documentation of the installation
     procedure is minimal which makes it especially hard to select the
     directories freely.
     
     The real problem is that allowing to choose the directories freely.
     Selecting the TDS or the Linux filesystem standard is rather save
     and at most any other TeX files are deleted. The only real secure
     option would be to remove the free choice and only offer the Linux
     filesystem standard, the one from web2c 7.0 which is also TDS
     conform and a TDS conform sturcutre in a special NTeX directory.
     The free selection would not be accessible for a new user. I could
     add some expert option which still allows to use a totally free
     selection. Additional instead of deleting the directories they
     could be renamed.
     
     There are plans for a new installation procedure, also supporting
     such things as read only volumes/AFS, better support for multiple
     platform installation, etc. This new release will not be available
     before I managed to implement all the things which were planed for
     2.0. But that also means that there will probably be no new release
     this year as I have to concentrate on my studies. Nevertheless I
     will add a warning to the free selection in InstallNTeX. That's
     currently the only thing I can do without risking to add further
     bugs to InstallNTeX. Considering that my holiday starts next week I
     can't do more this month.
     
     BTW, on another point, I had difficulty finding what directory was
     searched for the packages to be installed. Only in the ntex-guide,
     seemingly buried, is there:
     
     This is caused by different ways to look for the package in
     NTeX-install, the text version of InstallNTeX and the Tcl/Tk
     version of InstallNTeX. Therefore you get some warnings even if
     NTeX-install would be able to install the packages. The minimal
     documentation is one of the real big drawbacks of NTeX. I'm
     currently working on a complete specification for the next release
     which will turn into a real documentation.
     
     Thanks for pointing out the problems with the free selection of
     that paths. So far I concentrated on setting the installation paths
     to non-existing directories.
     
     Regards,
     Frank
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Reply to Dangerous InstallNTeX Letter
  
     To: Frank Langbein, langbein@mathematik.uni-stuttgart.de
     Date: Sat, 07 Jun 1997 10:11:06 -0600
     From: James james@albion.glarp.com
     
     Dear Frank:
     The hidden application of the operation
rm -rf *

     to the unpredictable and unqualified input from a broad base of
     naive users is highly likely to produce unexpected and undesired
     results for some of these users. This is the kind or circumstance
     more usually associated with a "prank". If this is _not_ your
     intent, then further modifications to the script "InstallNTeX" are
     required.
     
     The script functions at issue include: mk_dirchain() ($RM -f $P),
     make_dir() ($RM -rf * and $RM -f "$2"), make_tds_ln() ($RM -f
     "$3"), and link_file() ($RM -rf "$2"). The impact of the operations
     when using unexpected parameters, from misspellings or
     misinterpretations, for instance, should be considered.
     
     You might simply replace these operations with an authorization
     dialog, or you could create a dialog with several recovery options.
     (For the moment, I have replaced them with `echo "<some <warning
     parm&gr;"'.)
     
     James G. Feeney
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Monitoring An FTP Download
  
     Date: Tue, 10 Jun 1997 19:54:25 +1000 (EST)
     From: Nathan Hand Nathan.Hand@anu.edu.au
     
     I saw the recent script someone posted in the 2c column to monitor
     an ftp download using the clear ; ls -l ; sleep trick. I'd just
     like to point out there's A Better Way.
     
     Some systems will have the "watch" command installed. This command
     works pretty much like the script, except it uses curses and
     buffers for lightning fast updates. You use it something like
   watch -n 1 ls -l

     And it prints out the current time, the file listing, and it does
     the refreshes so fast that you don't see the ls -l redraws. I think
     it looks a lot slicker, but otherwise it's the same as the script.
     
     I don't know where the watch command comes from. I'm using a stock
     standard Red Hat system (4.0) so hopefully people with similar
     setups will also have a copy of this nifty little tool.
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Programming Serial Ports
  
     Date: Wed 18 June 1997 14:15:23
     From: Tom Verbeure to_verbeure@mietec.be
     
     Hello, A few days ago, I had to communicate using the serial port
     of a Sun workstation. A lot of information can be found here:
     http://www.stokely.com/stokely/unix.serial.port.resources and here:
     http://www.easysw.com/~mike/serial
     
     Reading chapters 3 and 4 of that last page, can do wonders. It took
     me about 30 minutes to communicate with the machine connected to
     the serial port. The code should work on virtually any unix
     machine.
     
     Hope this helps, Tom Verbeure
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Another Way of Grepping Files in a Directory Tree
  
     Date: Thu 12 June 15:34:12
     From: Danny Yarbrough danny@interactive.visa.com
     
     That's a good tip. To work around the command line length
     limitation, you can use xargs(1):

find . -name "\*.c" -print | xargs grep foo

     this builds a command line containing "grep foo" (in this case),
     plus as many arguments (one argument for each line of its standard
     input) as it can to make the largest (but not too long) command
     line it can. It then executes the command. It continues to build
     command lines and executing them until it reaches the end of file
     on standard input.
     
     (Internally, I suppose xargs doesn't build command lines, but an
     array of arguments to pass to one of the exec*(2) family of system
     calls. The concept, however is the same).
     
     xargs has a number of other useful options for inserting arguments
     into the middle of a command string, running a command once for
     each line of input, echoing each execution, etc. Check out the man
     page for more.
     
     Cheers! Danny
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  More Grepping Files
  
     Date: Mon 16 June 1997 08:45:56
     From: Alec Clews Alec@tca.co.uk
grep foo `find . -name \*.c -print`

     The only caveat here is that UNIX is configured to limit max chars
     in a command line and the "find" command may generate a list of
     files too huge for shell to digest when it tries to run the grep
     portion as a command line. Typically this limit is 1024 chars per
     command line.
     
     You can get around this with
find . -type f -name \*.c -exec grep foo {} /dev/null \;

     Notes: The -type f skips directories (and soft links, use -follow
     if needed) that end with a c
     
     The /dev/null is required to make grep display the name of the file
     it's searching. grep only displays the file name *and* the search
     string when there are multiple files to search, and /dev/null is a
     0 length file.
     
     Regards,
     Alec
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Still More On Grepping Files
  
     Date: Sat 14 June 1997 10:57:34
     From: Rick Bronson rick@efn.org
     
     Here is similiar way to grep for files in a directory tree. This
     method uses xargs and as such does not suffer from the max chars in
     a command line limit.
sea ()
{
    find . -name "$2" -print | xargs grep -i "$1"
}

     I've defined it as a function in my .bashrc file, you would use it
     like:
sea "search this string" '*.[ch]'

     Rick
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Grepping
  
     Date: Thu 19 June 1997 09:29:12
     From: David Kastrup dak@neuroinformatic.ruhr-uni-buchum.de
     Reply to "Grepping Files in a Tree Directory"
     
     Well right. That's why most solutions to this problem are given
     using the xargs command which will construct command lines of
     appropriate size.
     
     You'd write
find . -name \*.c -print|xargs grep foo

     for this. This can be improved somewhat, however. If you suspect
     that you have files containing newlines or otherwise strange
     characters in them, try
find . -name \*.c -print0|xargs -0 grep foo --

     This will use a special format for passing the file list from find
     to xargs which can properly identify all valid filenames. The --
     tells grep that even strange file names like "-s" are to be
     interpreted as file names.
     
     Of course, we would want to have a corresponding file name listed
     even if xargs calls a single grep in one of its invocation. We can
     manage this with
find . -name \*.c -print0|xargs -0 grep foo -- /dev/null

     This will have at least two file names for grep (/dev/null and one
     given by xargs), so grep will print the file name for found
     matches.
     
     The -- is a good thing to keep in mind when writing shell scripts.
     Most of the shell scripts searching through directories you find
     flying around get confused by file names like "-i" or "xxx\ yyy"
     and similar perversities.
     
     David Kastrup
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  More on Grepping Files in a Tree
  
     Date: Mon 02 June 1997 15:34:23
     From: Chris Cox ccox@central.geasys.com
     
     My favorite trick for look for a string (or strings - egrep) in a
     tree:
$ find . -type f -print | xargs file | grep -i text |
   cut -f1 -d: | xargs grep pattern

     This is a useful technique for other things...not just grepping.
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Untarring/Zip
  
     Date: Sun 22 June 1997 13:23:14
     From: Mark Moran mmoran@mmoran.com
     
     I read the following 2-cent tip and was excited to think that I've
     finally reached a point in my 'linux' expertise I COULD contribute
     a 2-cent tip! I typically run:
tar xzf foo.tar.gz

     
     to unzip and untar a program. But as Paul mentions the directory
     structure isn't included in the archive and it dumps in your
     current directory. Well before I do the above I run:
tar tzf foo.tar.gz

     
     This will dump out to your console what going to be unarchived
     easily allowing you to see if there's a directory structure!!!!
     
     Mark
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  An Addition to Hard Disk Duplication (LG #18)
  
     Date: Thu 12 June 1997 15:34:32
     From: Andreas Schiffler schiffler@zkm.de
     
     Not suprisingly, Linux can do that of course for free and - even
     from a floppy bootimage for example (i.e. Slackware bootdisk
     console).
     
     For identical harddrives the following will do the job:
cat /dev/hda >/dev/hdb

     For non-identical harddrives one has to repartition the target
     first:
     fdisk /dev/hda record the partitions (size, type)
     fdisk /dev/hdb create same partitions
     cat /dev/hda1 >/dev/hdb1 copy partitions
     cat /dev/hda2 >/dev/hdb2 ...
     
     To create image files, simply redirect the target device to a file.
cat /dev/hda >image-file

     To reinstall the MBR and lilo, just boot with a floppy using
     parameters that point to the root partition (as in LILO> linux
     root=/dev/hda1) and rerun lilo from within Linux.
     
     Have fun
     Andreas
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Reply to ncftp (LG #18)
  
     Date: Fri 20 June 1997 14:23:12
     From: Andrew M. Dyer, adyer@mcs.com
     
     To monitor an ftp session I like to use ncftp which puts up a nice
     status bar. It comes in many linux distributions. When using the
     standard ftp program you can also use the
hash

     command which prints a
#

     every 1K bytes received. Some ftp clients also have the
bell

     command which will send a bell character to your console for every
     file transferred.
     
     For grepping files in a directory tree I like to use the -exec
     option to find. The syntax is cryptic, but there is no problem with
     overflowing the shell argument list. A version of the command shown
     in #18 whould be like this:
find . -name \*.c -exec grep foo {} /dev/null \;

     (note the /dev/null forces grep to print the filename of the
     matched file). Another way to do this is with the mightily cool
     xargs program, which also solves the overflow problem and its a bit
     easier to remember:
find . -name \*.c -print | xargs grep foo /dev/null

     (this last one is stolen from "UNIX Power Tools" by Jerry Peek, Tim
     O'Reilly and Mike Loukides - a whole big book of 2 cent tips.
     
     For disk duplication we sometimes use a linux box with a secondary
     IDE controller, and use
dd

     to copy the data over.
dd if=/dev/hdc of=/dev/hdd bs=1024k

     this would copy the contents of /dev/hdc to /dev/hdd. The bs=1024k
     tells linux to use a large block size to speed the transfer.
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Sockets and Pipes
  
     Date: Thu, 12 Jun 1997 23:22:38 +1000 (EST) From: Waye-Ian Cheiw,
     itchy@jaguar.snafu.com
     
     Hello!
     
     Here's a tip!
     
     Ever tried to pipe things, then realised what you want to pipe to
     is on another machine?
spiffy $ sort < file
sh: sort: command not found
spiffy $ # no sort installed here! gahck!

     Try "socket", a simple utility that's included in the Debian
     distribution. Socket is a tool which can treat a network connection
     as part of a pipe.
spiffy $ cat file
c
b
a
spiffy $ cat file | socket -s 7000 &   # Make pipe available at port 7000.
spiffy $ rlogin taffy
taffy $ socket spiffy 7000 | sort      # Continue pipe by connecting to spiffy.
a
b
c

     It's also very handy for transferring files and directories in a
     snap.
spiffy $ ls -F
mail/   project/
spiffy $ tar cf - mail project | gzip | socket -qs 6666 &
spiffy $ rlogin taffy
taffy $ socket spiffy 6666 | gunzip | tar xf -
taffy $ ls -F
mail/   project/

     The -q switch will close the connection on an end-of-file and
     conveniently terminate the pipes on both sides after the transfer.
     
     It can also connect a shell command's input and output to a socket.
     There is also a switch, -l, which restarts that command every time
     someone connects to the socket.
spiffy $ socket -s 9999 -l -p "fortune" &
spiffy $ telnet localhost 9999
"Baseball is ninety percent mental.  The other half is physical."
Connection closed by foreign host.

     Will make a cute service on port 9999 that spits out fortunes.
     
     -- Ian!!
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Hex Dump
  
     Date: Tue 24 June 1997 22:54:12
     From: Arne Wichmann aw@math.uni-sb.de
     
     Hi.
     
     One of my friends once wrote a small vi-compatible hex-editor. It
     can be found (as source) under
     vieta.math.uni-sb.de:/pub/misc/hexer-0.1.4c.tar.gz
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  More on Hex Dump
  
     Date: Wed, 18 Jun 1997 10:15:26 -0700
     From: James Gilb p27451@am371.geg.mot.com
     
     I liked your gawk solution to displaying hex data. Two things
     (which people have probably already pointed out to you).
    1. If you don't want similar lines to be replaced by * *, use the -v
       option to hexdump. From the man page:
       -v The -v option causes hexdump to display all input data. Without
       the -v option, any number of groups of output lines, which would
       be identical to the immediately preceding group of output lines
       (except for the input offsets), are replaced with a line comprised
       of a single asterisk.
    2. In emacs, you can get a similar display using ESC-x hexl-mode. The
       output looks something like this:

00000000: 01df 0007 30c3 8680 0000 334e 0000 00ff  ....0.....3N....
00000010: 0048 1002 010b 0001 0000 1a90 0000 07e4  .H..............
00000020: 0000 2724 0000 0758 0000 0200 0000 0000  ..'$...X........
00000030: 0000 0760 0004 0002 0004 0004 0007 0005  ...`............
00000040: 0003 0003 314c 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ....1L..........
00000050: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 2e70 6164  .............pad
00000060: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0014  ................
00000070: 0000 01ec 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ................
00000080: 0000 0008 2e74 6578 7400 0000 0000 0200  .....text.......
00000090: 0000 0200 0000 1a90 0000 0200 0000 2a98  ..............*.
   (I don't suppose it is supprising that emacs does this, after all,
       emacs is not just and editor, it is its own operating system.)
       
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Reply to Z Protocol
  
     Date: Mon 09 June 1997 19:34:54
     From: Gregor Gerstmann gerstman@tfh-berlin.de
     
     In reply to my remarks regarding file transfer with the z protocol
     in LinuxGazette issue17, April 1997, I received an e-mail that may
     be interesting to others too:
     
     Hello!
     
     I noticed your article in the Linux Gazette about the sz command,
     and really don't think you need to split up your downloads into
     smaller chunks.
     
     The sz command uses the ZMODEM protocol, which is built to handle
     transmission errors. If sz reports a CRC error or a bad packet, it
     does not mean that the file produced by the download will be
     tainted. sz automatically retransmits bad packets.
     
     If you have an old serial UART chip ( 8250 ), then you might be
     getting intermittent serial errors. If the link is unreliable, then
     sz may spend most of its time tied up in retransmission loops.
     
     In this case, you should use a ZMODEM window to force the sending
     end to expect an `OK' acknowledgement every few packets.
  sz -w1024

     Will specify a window of 1024 bytes.
     
     -- Ian!!
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
               Published in Linux Gazette Issue 19, July 1997
                                      
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
     [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next 
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
      This page maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette, gazette@ssc.com
      Copyright  1997 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.
      
    "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
    
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
                                 News Bytes
                                      
                                 Contents:
                                      
     * News in General
     * Software Announcements
       
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
                              News in General
                                      
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  SPAM Counter Attack!
  
     If you'd like to have your voice heard regarding SPAM mail, why
     don't you consider writing a letter to your representative?
     
     If you're not sure of who your representatives are, check the
     Congressional websites:
     * House: http://www.house.gov/writerep/
     * Senate: http://www.senate.gov/senator/index.html
       
     The postal addresses for your members are:
     The Honorable (Senator name) The Honorable (Rep. name) Washington,
     DC 20510 Washington, DC 20515
     
     The letter doesn't have to be long... two paragraphs is as
     effective as 10 pages. And you don't need to write different
     letters, the same one can be sent to each Member. (Just remember to
     change the mailing address!)
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Linux-Access Web Pages
  
     The Center for Disabled Student Services at the University of Utah
     in Salt Lake City Utah, today announced it's newly re-designed
     linux-access web pages. linux-access is a mailing list hosted by
     CDSS which is used by both developers and users of the Linux
     operating system in order to aid development and integration of
     access related technology into the Linux OS and available software.
     
     Both users and developers of Linux are encouraged to join the
     mailing list and help Linux become more accessible to everyone.
     Among those encouraged to subscribe to the list are companies
     making Linux distributions so that they can incorporate access
     technology into their products as well as get valuable feedback
     from users.
     
     Location of the new pages is at:
     http://ssv1.union.utah.edu/linux-access/.
     Location of the blinux FTP mirror is at
     ftp://ssv1.union.utah.edu/pub/mirrors/blinux/.
     
     An archive of the mailing list can be found on the Linux v2
     Information HQ site at:
     http://www.linuxhq.com/lnxlists/linux-access/.
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Supreme Court Ruling
  
     The U.S. Supreme Court extended free-speech rights to cyberspace in
     its recent ruling striking down a federal law that restricted
     indecent pictures and words on the Internet computer network.
     
     The court declared the law that bans the dissemination of sexually
     explicit material to anyone younger than 18 unconstitutional.
     
     "Notwithstanding the legitimacy and importance of the congressional
     goal of protecting children from harmful materials, we agree ...
     that the statute abridges 'freedom of speech' protected by the
     First Amendment," Justice John Paul Stevens said for the court
     majority in the 40-page opinion.
     
     The ruling represented a major victory for the American Civil
     Liberties Union (ACLU) and groups representing libraries,
     publishers and the computer on-line industry, which brought the
     lawsuit challenging the law.
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  The Power OS
  
     Matthew Borowski has created a new website featuring Linux
     information. Entitled "Linux - THE POWER OS", and featuring Linux
     links, software, help, and a discussion forum, Linux - THE POWER OS
     is also a member of the Linux Webring.
     
     The software listing is top-of-the-line, featuring a list of
     powerful applications that will change the way you make use of
     Linux. The modem setup section will help you get your modem working
     under Linux, and the StarOffice-miniHOWTO will help fix Libc
     problems when installing Staroffice under Linux.
     
     If you have a chance, visit "Linux - THE POWER OS" at:
     http://www.jnpcs.com/mkb/linux or http://www.mkb.home.ml.org/linux/
     
     For more information write to mkb@poboxes.com
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  June 1997 PowerPC Project
  
     The Linux for PowerPC project announces its June 1997 CD of the
     Linux operating system for the PowerPC. The CD is the second
     release following the first one in January 1997. The June release
     is significantly faster and has improved memory handling. It now
     contains over 400 different software packages and everything needed
     to install and run Linux on any of the PowerPC machines
     manufactured by Be Inc, Apple Computer, IBM, Motorola and most
     other manufactures of PowerPC computers. Go to
     http://www.linuxppc.org/ to order your own CD or to find out more
     about
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Sunsite Link
  
     Check out http://sunsite.unc.edu/paulc/liv
     
     This lets you view the contents of SunSITE's /pub/Linux/Incoming
     directory, but extracts all the descriptions out of the map files
     (.lsm) and displays them in a table. It has links for 24 hours/7
     day/14 day and 28 day lists.
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  GLUE Announcement
  
     Caldera has announced that it will give a free copy of OpenLinux
     Lite on CD-ROM for each group member of GLUE. Caldera, Inc.
     (http://www.caldera.com/) is located in Provo, Utah. For full
     details on GLUE and to register your group as a member, visit the
     GLUE web site at http://www.ssc.com/glue.
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
                           Software Announcements
                                      
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Woven Goods for LINUX
  
     World-Wide Web (WWW) Applications and Hypertext-based Information
     about LINUX. It is ready configured for the Slackware Distribution
     and currently tested with Version 3.2 (ELF). The Power Linux LST
     Distribution contains this collection as an integral part with some
     changes.
     
     The Collection consists of five Parts, so it can be used for
     multiple purposes depending on the installed Parts:
     
     The five Parts of Woven Goods for LINUX are:
    1. World-wide Web Browser The World-wide Web Browser from Netscape
       for X11 and Lynx for ASCII terminals.
    2. LINUX Documents The LINUX Documents contain the HTML Pages of
       Woven Goods for LINUX, FAQs, HOWTOs, LDP Documents and more in
       different formats like Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), Text, PDF
       and Postscript.
    3. World-wide Web Server The Apache World-wide Web Server with
       additional CGI Scripts for Statistics, viewing MAN Pages and
       Counters, Glimpse Search Engine and the Documentation for Apache
       Server. Furthermore the Apache Module PHP/FI as well as the BSCW
       system and the necessary Python interpreter are included.
    4. Hypertext Markup Language The HTML-Editor asWedit allows the
       creation of HTML-Pages. Some Graphic Tools allow the creation and
       modification of GIFs.
    5. External Viewers The external Viewers are nessesary to present
       Information which can not be viewed by the WWW Browsers. Only the
       usefull Viewers (xanim, acroread, ia, raplayer, str, splay,
       swplayer, vrweb, etc.) are included which are not part of the
       Slackware Distribution (xv, ghostview, showaudio).
       
     Availabilty & Download
     
     Woven Goods for LINUX is available via anonymous FTP from:
     ftp://ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/Linux/woven
     
     Installation
     
     For Installation Instructions see the Installation Guide:
     ftp://ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/Linux/woven/README.install or
     http://www.fokus.gmd.de/linux/install.html
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Qbib Version 1.1
  
     Qbib is a bibliography management system based on Qddb. Features
     include the Qddb database, import BibTeX .bib giles, custom export
     options and a friendly user-interface just to name a few.
     
     For more information about Qbib (including an on-line manual), see
     http://www.hsdi.com/qddb/commercial
     
     To order Qbib or other Qddb products/services, visit the Qddb
     store: http://www.hsdi.com/qddb/orders
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  WipeOut Version 1.07
  
     WipeOut is an integrated development environment for C++ and Java.
     It contains project manager, class browser, make tool, central text
     editor with syntax highlighting and a debugger frontend. WipeOut is
     available for Linux and SunOS/Solaris both under XView.
     
     For the new release we have especially extended the class browser
     and the text editor. Check out the changes list for all new
     features and fixed bugs.
     
     You can obtain the software and documentation at:
     http://www.softwarebuero.de/ndex-eng.html
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
               Published in Linux Gazette Issue 19, July 1997
                                      
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
     [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next 
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
      This page written and maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette,
      gazette@ssc.com
      Copyright  1997 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.
      
    "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
    
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
                               The Answer Guy
                                      
                                      
                   By James T. Dennis, jimd@starshine.org
          Starshine Technical Services, http://www.starshine.org/
                                      
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Contents:
  
     * Mounting Disks Under Red Hat 4.0
     * Weird LILO Problems
     * Running FileRunner
     * Adding Linux To a DEC XLT-366
     * Disk Support
     * Legibility
     * MetroX Problems
     * Installing Linux
     * Adding Programs to the Pull Down Menus
     * Linux Skip
     * ActiveX for Linux
     * Bash String Manipulations
     * Blinking Underline Cursor
     * File Permissions
       
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Mounting Disks Under Red Hat 4.0
  
     From: Bigby, Bruce W. bbigby@frontiernet.net
     
     Hi. The RedHat 4.0 control-panel has an interesting problem. I have
     two entries in my /etc/fstab file for my SCSI Zip Drive--one for
     mounting a Win95 Zip removable disk and another for mounting a
     removable Linux ext2fs disk--
/dev/sda4 /mnt/zip   ext2fs rw,noauto 0 0
/dev/sda4 /mnt/zip95 vfat   rw,noauto 0 0

     I do this so that I can easily mount a removable zip disk by
     supplying only the appropriate mount point to the mount
     command--for example, by supplying
mount /mnt/zip

     when I want to mount a Linux ext2fs disk, and
mount /mnt/zip95

     when I want to mount a Windows 95 Zip disk. 
     
     Yes, I do this all the time (except that I use the command line for
     all of this -- and vi to edit my fstab). I also add the "user" and
     a bunch of "nosuid,nodev,..." parameters to my options field. This
     allows me or my wife (the only two users with console access to the
     machine) to mount a new magneto optical, floppy, or CD without
     having to 'su').
     
     Unfortunately, the control-panel's mount utility treats the two
     lines as duplicates and removes the additional lines that begin
     with /dev/sda4. Consequently, the control panel's mount utility
     only sees the first line,
/dev/sda4 /mnt/zip   ext2fs rw,noauto 0 0

     In addition, the utility also modifies my original /etc/fstab. I do
     not 
     
     Bummer! Since I don't use the GUI controls I never noticed that.
     
     desire this behavior. I prefer that the utility be fairly dumb and
     not modify my original /etc/fstab. Has RedHat fixed this problem in
     4.2? 
     
     I don't know. There are certainly enough other fixes and upgrades
     to be worth installing it (although -- with a .1 version coming out
     every other month -- maybe you want to just download selective
     fixes and wait for the big 5.0).
     
     (My current guess -- totally unsubstantiated by even an inside
     rumor -- is that they'll shoot for integrating glibc -- the GNU C
     library -- into their next release. That would be a big enough job
     to warrant a jump in release numbers).
     
     Can I obtain the sources and modify the control-panel's mount
     utility so that it does not remove, "so-called," duplicates? 
     
     Last I heard the control-panel was all written in Python (I think
     they converted all the TCL to Python by 4.0) In any event I pretty
     sure that it's TCL, Python and Tk (with maybe some bash for some
     parts). So you already have the sources.
     
     The really important question here is why you aren't asking the
     support team at RedHat (or at least posting to their "bugs@"
     address). This 'control-panel' is certainly specific to Red Hat's
     package.
     
     According to the bash man page, bash is supposed to source the
     .profile, or .profile_bash, in my home directory. However, when I
     login, bash does not source my .profile. How can I ensure that bash
     sources the .profile of my login account--$HOME/.profile? 
     
     The man page and the particular configuration (compilation) options
     in your binary might not match.
     
     You might have an (empty?) ~/.bash_profile or ~/.bash_login (the
     man page looks for these in that order -- with .profile being the
     last -- and only it sources the first of them that it finds).
     
     You might have something weird in your /etc/profile or /etc/bashrc
     that's preventing your ~/.bash_* or ~/.profile from being sourced.
     
     Finally you might want to double check that you really are running
     bash as your login shell. There could be all sorts of weird bugs in
     your configuration that effectively start bash and fail to signal
     to it that this is a "login" shell.
     
     Normally login exec()'s bash with an "ARG[0]" of "-bash" (preceding
     the name with a dash). I won't get into the gory details -- but if
     you were logging in with something that failed to do this: bash
     wouldn't "know" that it was a login shell -- and would behave as
     though it were a "secondary" shell (like you invoked it from your
     editor)).
     
     If all else fails go over to prep.ai.mit.edu and grab the latest
     version of the GNU bash sources. Compile them yourself.
     
     -- Jim
     
       ______________________________________________________________
                                      
  Weird LILO Problem
  
     From: David Runnels david_runnels@smb.com
     
     Hi Jim. I read your column in the Linux Gazette and I have a
     question. (If I should have submitted it some other way I
     apologize.) 
     
     I recommend using the tag@starshine.org address for now. At some
     point I hope to have SSC set up a tag@gazette.ssc.com address -- or
     maybe get linux.org to give me an account and set up some custom
     mail scripts.
     
     I've been using Linux casually for the last couple of years and
     several months ago I installed RedHat 4.0 on the second IDE drive
     of a Win95 system. Though I've used System Commander in the past I
     don't like using it with Win95 so I had the RedHat install process
     create a boot floppy. This has always worked fine, and I made a
     second backup floppy using dd) which I also made sure booted fine. 
     
     This probably isn't really a "boot" floppy. It sounds like a "lilo"
     floppy to me. The difference is that a boot floppy has a kernel on
     it -- a "lilo" floppy just has the loader on it.
     
     The confusing thing about Linux is that it can be booted in so many
     ways. In a "normal" configuration you have Lilo as the master boot
     program (on the first hard drive -- in the first sector of track 0
     -- with the partition table). Another common configuration places
     lilo in the "superblock" (logical boot record) of the Linux "root"
     partition (allowing the DOS boot block, or the OS/2 or NT boot
     manager -- or some third party package like System Commander) to
     process the partition table and select the "active" partition --
     which *might* be the Linux root partition.
     
     Less common ways of loading Linux: use LOADLIN.EXE (or
     SYSLINUX.EXE) -- which are DOS programs that can load a Linux
     kernel (kicking DOS out from under them so to speak), put Lilo on a
     floppy (which is otherwise blank) -- or on a none Linux boot block
     (which sounds like your situation).
     
     Two others: You can put Lilo on a floppy *with* a Linux kernel --
     or you can even write a Linux kernel to a floppy with no lilo. That
     last option is rarely used.
     
     The point of confusion is this: LILO loads the Linux kernel using
     BIOS calls. It offers one the opportunity to pass parameters to the
     kernel (compiled into it's boot image via the "append" directive in
     /etc/lilo.conf -- or entered manually at boot time at the lilo
     prompt).
     
     Another source of confusion is the concept that LILO is a block of
     code and data that's written to a point that's outside the
     filesystems on a drive -- /sbin/lilo is a program that writes this
     block of boot code according to a set of directives in the
     /etc/lilo.conf. It's best to think of the program /sbin/lilo as a
     "compiler" that "compiles" a set of boot images according to the
     lilo.conf and writes them to some place outside of your filesystem.
     
     Yet another source of confusion is that the Linux kernel has a
     number of default parameters compiled into it. These can be changed
     using the 'rdev' command (which was originally used to set the
     "root device" flags in a kernel image file). 'rdev' basically
     patches values into a file. It can be be used to set the "root
     device," the "initial video mode" and a number of other things.
     Some of these settings can be over-ridden via the LILO prompt and
     append lines. LOADLIN.EXE can also pass parameters to the kernel
     that it loads.
     
     There's a big difference between using a kernel image written
     directly on a floppy -- and a LILO that's built to load an image
     that's located on a floppy filesystem (probably minix or ext2fs).
     With LILO the kernel must be located on some device that is
     accessible with straight BIOS calls.
     
     This usually prevents one from using LILO to boot off of a third
     IDE or SCSI disk drive (since most systems require a software
     driver to allow DOS or other OS' to "see" these devices). I say
     "usually" because there are some BIOS' and especially some BIOS
     extensions on some SCSI and EIDE controllers that may allow LILO to
     access devices other than the first two floppies and the first two
     hard drives. However, those are rare. Most PC hardware can only
     "see" two floppy drives and two hard drives -- which must be on the
     same controller -- until an OS loads some sort of drivers.
     
     In the case where a kernel is directly located on the raw floppy --
     and in the case where the kernel is located on the floppy with LILO
     -- the kernel has the driver code for your root device (and
     controllers) built in. (There are also complex new options using
     'initrd' -- an "initial RAM disk" which allows a modular kernel to
     load the drivers for it's root devices.
     
     Yet another thing that's confusing to the DOS user -- and most
     transplants from other forms of Unix -- is that the kernel doesn't
     have to be located on the root device. In fact LOADLIN.EXE requires
     that the kernel be located on a DOS filesystem.
     
     To make matters more complicated you can have multiple kernels on
     any filesystem, any of them might use any filesystem as their root
     device and these relationships (between kernel and root
     device/filesystem can be set in several ways -- i.e. by 'rdev' or
     at compile time, vs. via the LOADLIN or LILO command lines).
     
     I recommend that serious Linux users reserve a small (20 or 30 Mb)
     partition with just a minimal installation of the root/base Linux
     software on it. This should be on a separate device from your main
     Linux filesystems.
     
     Using this you have an alternative (hard drive based) boot method
     which is much faster and more convenient than digging out the
     installation boot/root floppies (or having to go to a working
     machine and build a new set!). I recommend the same thing for most
     Solaris and FreeBSD installations. If you have a DOS filesystem on
     the box -- at least stash a copy of LOADLIN.EXE and a few copies of
     your favorite kernels in C:\LINUX\ (or wherever).
     
     Now that more PC SCSI cards support booting off of CD-ROM's (a
     feature that's been long overdue!) you can get by without heeding
     my advice -- IF YOU HAVE SUCH A CONTROLLER AND A CD TO MATCH.
     
     (Incidentally -- I found out quite by accident that the Red Hat 4.1
     CD is "bootable" on Adaptec 2940 controllers -- if you have the
     Adaptec configured to allow it. I've also heard that the NCR
     SymBIOS PCI controller supports this -- though I haven't tested
     that yet).
     
     In any event we should all make "rescue disks" -- unfortunately
     these are trickier than they should be. Look for the Bootdisk HOWTO
     for real details about this.
     
     About a week ago I put the Linux floppy in the diskette drive,
     reset the machine and waited for the LILO prompt. Everything went
     fine, but all I got were the letters LI and everything stopped. I
     have tried several times, using the original and the backup
     diskette, with the same results. 
     
     Did you add a new drive to the system?
     
     I have done nothing (that I can think of!) to my machine and I'm at
     a loss as to what might be causing this. Just to ensure that the
     floppy drive wasn't acting funny, I've booted DOS from it and that
     went fine. 
     
     When you booted DOS where you able to see the drive? I'd get out
     your installation floppy (or floppies -- I don't remember whether
     Red Hat 4.0 had a single floppy system or not -- 4.1 and 4.2 only
     require one for most hardware). Boot from that and choose "rescue"
     or switch out of the installation script to a shell prompt. You
     should then be able to attempt mounting your root filesystem.
     
     If that fails you can try to 'fsck' it. After that it's probably a
     matter of reinstallation and restoring from backups.
     
     Any ideas you have would be appreciated. Thanks for your time.
     
     Dave Runnels 
     
   Glad I could help.
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
  Running FileRunner
  
   David E. Stern kotsya@u.washington.edu I wanted to let you know that
   you were right about relying too heavily on rpm. In the distant past,
   I used file text-based file compression utilities, so I tried it again
   and tarballs are actually quite nice. I also found that rpm --nodeps
   will help. Tarballs are also nice because not all apps are distributed
   with rpm. (bonus! :-) I'm also told that multiple versions of tcl/tlk
   can peacably coexist, although rpm won't allow it by default. Another
   ploy with rpm which I didn't see documented was that to avoid circular
   dependencies, update multiple rpms at the same time; i.e.: rpm -Uvh
   app1.rpm app2.rpm app3.rpm . Another thing I learned about was that
   there are some non-standard (contributed) libraries that are required
   for certain apps, like afio and xpm. Thanks for the great ideas and
   encouragement.
   
   The end goal: to install FileRunner, I simply MUST have it! My
   intermediate goal is to install Tcl/Tk 7.6/4.2, because FileRunner
   needs these to install, and I only have 7.5/4.1 . However, when I try
   to upgrade tcl/tlk, other apps rely on older tcl/tk libraries, at
   least that's what the messages allude to:
libtcl7.5.so is needed by some-app
libtk4.1.so is needed by some-app

   (where some-app is python, expect, blt, ical, tclx, tix, tk,
   tkstep,...)
   
   I have enough experience to know that apps may break if I upgrade the
   libraries they depend on. I've tried updating some of those other
   apps, but I run into further and circular dependencies--like a cat
   chasing it's tail.
   
   In your opinion, what is the preferred method of handling this
   scenario? I must have FileRunner, but not at the expense of other
   apps. 
   
   It sounds like you're relying too heavily on RPM's. If you can't
   afford to risk breaking your current stuff, and you "must" have the
   upgrade you'll have to do some stuff beyond what the RPM system seems
   to do.
   
   One method would be to grab the sources (SRPM or tarball) and manually
   compile the new TCL and tk into /usr/local (possibly with some changes
   to their library default paths, etc). Now you'll probably need to grab
   the FileRunner sources and compile that to force it to use the
   /usr/local/wish or /usr/local/tclsh (which, in turn, will use the
   /usr/local/lib/tk if you've compiled it all right).
   
   Another approach is to set up a separate environment (separate disk, a
   large subtree of an existing disk -- into which you chroot, or a
   separate system entirely) and test the upgrade path where it won't
   inconvenience you by failing. A similar approach is to do a backup,
   test your upgrade plan -- (if the upgrade fails, restore the backup).
   
   Thanks, -david 
   
   You're welcome. This is a big problem in all computing environments
   (and far worse in DOS, Windows, and NT systems than in most multi-user
   operating systems. At least with Unix you have the option of
   installing a "playpen" (accessing it with the chroot call -- or by
   completely rebooting on another partition if you like).
   
   Complex interdepencies are unavoidable unless you require that every
   application be statically linked and completely self-sufficient
   (without even allowing their configuration files to be separate. So
   this will remain an aspect of system administration where experience
   and creativity are called for (and a good backup may be the only thing
   between you and major inconvenience).
   
   -- Jim
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
  Adding Linux t a DEC XLT-366
  
   From: Alex Pikus alex@webexpress.net
   
   I have a DEC XLT-366 with NTS4.0 and I would like to add Linux to it.
   I have been running Linux on an i386 for a while.
   
   I have created 3 floppies:
     * Linload.exe and MILO (from DEC site)
     * Linux kernel 2.0.25
     * RAM disk
       
   I have upgrade AlphaBIOS to v5.24 (latest from DEC) and added a Linux
   boot option that points to a:\ 
   
   You have me at a severe disadvantage. I've never run Linux on an
   Alpha. So I'll have to try answering this blind.
   
   When I load MILO I get the "MILO>" prompt without any problem. When I
   do
show

   or
boot ...

   at the MILO I get the following result ...
   
   SCSI controller gets identified as NCR810 on IRQ 28 ... test1 runs and
   gets stuck "due to a lost interrupt" and the system hangs ...
   
   In WinNTS4.0 the NCR810 appears on IRQ 29. 
   
   My first instinct is the ask if the autoprobe code in Linux (Alpha) is
   broken. Can you use a set of command-line (MILO) parameters to tell
   pass information about your SCSI controller to your kernel? You could
   also see about getting someone else with an Alpha based system to
   compile a kernel for you -- and make sure that it has values in it's
   scsi.h file that are appropriate to your system -- as well as insuring
   that the corrective drivers are built in.
   
   How can make further progress here? 
   
   It's a tough question. Another thing I'd look at is to see if the
   Alpha system allows booting from a CD-ROM. Then I'd check out Red
   Hat's (or Craftworks') Linux for Alpha CD's -- asking each of them if
   they support this sort of boot.
   
   (I happened to discover that the Red Hat Linux 4.1 (Intel) CD-ROM was
   bootable when I was working with one system that had an Adaptec 2940
   controller where that was set as an option. This feature is also quite
   common on other Unix platforms such as SPARC and PA-RISC systems -- so
   it is a rather late addition to the PC world).
   
   Thanks!
   Alex. 
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
  Disk Support
  
   From: Andrew Ng lulu@@asiaonline.net
   
   Dear Sir, I have a question to ask: Does Linux support disks with
   density 2048bytes/sector? 
   
   Apparently not. This is a common size for CD-ROM's -- but it not at
   all normal for any other media.
   
   I have bought a Fujitsu MO drive which support up to 640MB MO disks
   with density 2048bytes/sector. The Slackware Linux system does not
   support access to disks with this density. Windows 95 and NT support
   this density and work very well. Is there any version of Linux which
   support 2048bytes/sector? If not, is there any project working on
   that? 
   
   I believe the drive ships with drivers for DOS, Windows, Windows '95
   and NT. The OS' don't "support it" the manufacturer supports these
   OS'.
   
   Linux, other the other hand, does support most hardware (without
   drivers being supplied by the hardware manufacturers). Granted we get
   some co-operation from many manufacturers. Some even contribute code
   to the main kernel development.
   
   We prefer the model where the hardware manufacturer releases free code
   to drive their hardware -- whether that code is written for Linux,
   FreeBSD or any other OS. Release it once and all OS' can port and
   benefit by it.
   
   I hear a lot of praise about Linux. Is Linux superior to Windows NT in
   all aspect? 
   
   That's controversial question. Any statement like: Is "foo" superior
   to "bar" in all aspects? ... is bound to cause endless (and probably
   acrimonious) debate.
   
   Currently NT has a couple of advantages: Microsoft is a large company
   with lots of money to spend on marketing and packaging. They are very
   aggressive in making "partnerships" and building "strategic
   relationships" with the management of large companies.
   
   Microsoft has slowly risen to dominance in the core applications
   markets (word processors, spreadsheets, and databases). Many industry
   "insiders" (myself included) view this as being the result of
   "trust"-worthy business practices (a.k.a. "verging on monopolistic").
   
   In other words may people believe that MS Word isn't the dominant word
   processor because it is technically the superior product -- but
   because MS was able to supply the OS features they needed when they
   wanted (and perhaps able to slip the schedules of certain releases
   during the critical development phases of their competitors).
   
   The fact that the OS, and the principal programming tools, and the
   major applications are all from the same source has generated a
   amazing amount of market antagonism towards Microsoft. (Personally I
   think it's a bit extreme -- but I can understand how many people feel
   "trapped" and understand the frustration of thinking that there's "no
   choice").
   
   Linux doesn't have a single dominant applications suite. There are
   several packages out there -- Applixware, StarOffice, Caldera's
   Internet Office Suite. Hopefully Corel's Java Office will also be a
   useful to Linux, FreeBSD and other users (including Windows and NT).
   
   In addition to these "suites" there are also several individual
   applications like Wingz (a spreadsheet system), Mathematica, (the
   premier symbolic mathematics package), LyX (the free word processor --
   LaTeX front-end -- that's under development), Empress, /rdb (database
   systems), Flagship and dbMan IV (xBase database development packages),
   Postgres '95, mSQL, InfoFlex, Just Logic's SQL, MySQL (database
   servers) and a many more. (Browse through the Linux Journal
   _Buyer's_Guide_ for a large list -- also waltz around the web a bit).
   
   Microsoft's SQL Server for NT is getting to be pretty good. Also,
   there are alot of people who program for it -- more than you'll find
   for InfoFlex, Postgres '95 etc. A major problem with SQL is that the
   servers are all different enough to call for significant differences
   in the front end applications -- which translates to lots of
   programmer time (and money!) if you switch from one to another. MS has
   been very successful getting companies to adopt NT Servers for their
   "small" SQL projects (which has been hurting the big three -- Oracle,
   Sybase and Informix). Unfortunately for Linux -- database programmers
   and administrators are very conservative -- they are a "hard sell."
   
   So Linux -- despite the excellent stability and performance -- is not
   likely to make a significant impact as a database server for a couple
   of years at least. Oracle, Sybase and Informix have "strategic
   relationships" with SCO, Sun, and other Unix companies.
   
   The established Unix companies viewed Linux as a threat until
   recently. They now seem to see it as a mixed blessing. On the up side
   Linux has just about doubled the number of systems running Unix-like
   OS', attracted somewhere between two and eight million new converts
   away from the "Wintel" paradigm, and even wedged a little bit of
   "choice" into the minds of the industry media. On the down side SCO
   can no longer charge thousands of dollars for the low end of their
   systems. This doesn't really affect Sun, DEC, and HP so much -- since
   they are primarily hardware vendors who only got into the OS business
   to keep their iron moving out the door. SCO and BSDI have the tough
   fight since the bulk of their business is OS sales.
   
   (Note: BSDI is *not* to be confused with the FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD,
   or 386BSD (Jolix) packages. They are a company that produces a
   commercial Unix, BSDI/OS. The whole Free|Net|Open-BSD set of
   programming projects evolved out of the work of Mr. and Mrs. Jolitz --
   which was called 386BSD -- and I call "Jolix" -- a name with I also
   spotted in the _Using_C-Kermit_ book from Digital Press).
   
   So there don't seem to be any Oracle, SyBase, or Informix servers
   available for Linux. The small guys like JustLogic and InfoFlex have
   an opportunity here -- but it's a small crack in a heavy door and some
   of them are likely to get their toes broken in the process.
   
   Meanwhile NT will keep getting market share -- because their entry
   level still a tiny fraction of the price of any of the "big guys."
   
   I've just barely scratched the tip of the iceberg (to thoroughly blend
   those metaphors). There are so many other aspects of comparison it's
   hard to even list them -- let alone talk about who Linux and NT
   measure up to them.
   
   It's also important to realize that it's not just NT vs. Linux. There
   are many forms of Unix -- most of them are quite similar to Linux from
   a user and even from an administrators point of view. There are many
   operating systems that are vastly different than either NT (which is
   supposed to be fundamentally based on VMS) and the various Unix
   variants.
   
   There are things like Sprite (a Berkeley research project), Amoeba and
   Chorus (distributed network operating systems), EROS, and many others.
   
   Here's a link where you can find out more about operating systems in
   general: Yahoo! Computers and Internet: Operating Systems: Research
   
   -- Jim
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
  Legibility
  
   From: Robert E Glacken glacken@bc.seflin.org
   
   I use a 256 shade monochrome monitor. The QUESTIONS are invisible. 
   
   What questions? What OS? What GUI? (I presume that the normal text is
   visible in text mode so you must be using a GUI of some sort)?
   
   I wouldn't expect much from a monochrome monitor set to show 256 (or
   even 127) shades of grey. That's almost no one in the PC/Linux world
   that uses those -- so there almost no one that tunes their color
   tables and applications to support it.
   
   Suggestions -- get a color screen -- or drop the GUI and use text
   mode.
   
   -- Jim
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
  MetroX Problems
  
   From: Allen Atamer atamer@ecf.toronto.edu
   
   I am having trouble setting up my XServer. Whether or not I use MetroX
   or Xfree86 to set it up it's still not working.
   
   When I originally chose metrox to install, i got to the setup screen,
   chose my card and resolution, saved and exited. Then i started up the
   xwindows, and my screen loaded the Xserver, but the graphics were all
   messed up. I exited, then changed some settings, and now i can't even
   load the xserver. The Xerrors file says it had problems loading the
   'core'. 
   
   Hmm. You don't mention what sort of video card you're using or what
   was "messed up." As I've said many times in my column -- I'm not must
   of an "Xpert" (or much of a "TeXpert" for that matter).
   
   MetroX and XFree86 each have their own support pages on the web -- and
   there are several X specific newsgroups where you'd find people who
   are much better with X than I.
   
   Before you go there to post I'd suggest that you type up the type of
   video card and monitor you have in excruciating detail -- and make
   sure you go through the X HOWTO's and the Red Hat manual. Also be sure
   to check the errata page at Red Hat
   (http://www.redhat.com/errata.html) -- this will let you know about
   any problems that were discovered after the release of 4.1.
   
   One other thing you might try is getting the new version (4.2 --
   Biltmore) -- and check it's errata sheet. You can buy a new set of
   CD's (http://www.cheapbytes.com is one inexpensive source) or you can
   use up a bunch of bandwidth by downloading it all. The middle road is
   to to download just the parts you need.
   
   I notice (looking at the errata sheets as I type this) that XFree86 is
   up to version 3.3.1 (at least). This upgrade is apparently primarily
   to fix some buffer overflow (security) problems in the X libraries.
   
   By the way, how do I mount what's on the second cd and read it?
   (vanderbilt 4.1) 
   
   First umount the first CD with a command like: umount /cdrom Remove
   it. Then 'mount' the other one with a command like: mount -t iso9660
   -o ro /cdrom /dev/scd0 ... where /cdrom is some (arbitrary but extent)
   mount point and /dev/scd0 is the device node that points to your CD
   drive (that would be the first SCSI CD-ROM on your system -- IDE and
   various other CD's have different device names).
   
   To find out the device name for your CD use the mount command BEFORE
   you unmount the other CD. It will show each mounted device and the
   current mount point.
   
   Personally I use /mnt/cd as my mount point for most CD's. I recommend
   adding an entry to your /etc/fstab file (the "filesystems table" for
   Unix/Linux) that looks something like this:

# /etc/fstab
/dev/scd0      /mnt/cd            iso9660 noauto,ro,user,nodev,nosuid 0 0

   This will allow you to use the mount and umount commands as a normal
   user (without the need to su to 'root').
   
   I also recommend changing the permissions of the mount command to
   something like:
-rwsr-x---   1 root     console         26116 Jun  3  1996 /bin/mount

   (chgrp console `which mount && chmod 4550 `which mount`)
   
   ... so that only members of the group "console" can use the mount
   command. Then add your normal user account to that group.
   
   The idea of all this is to strike a balance between the convenience
   and reduced "fumblefingers" exposure of running the privileged command
   as a normal user -- and the potential for (as yet undiscovered buffer
   overflows) to compromise the system by "guest" users.
   
   (I recommend similar procedures for ALL SUID binaries -- but this is
   an advanced issue that goes *WAY* beyond the scope of this question).
   
   Allen, You really need to get a copy of the "Getting Started" guide
   from the Linux Documentation Project. This can be downloaded and
   printed (there's probably a copy on your CD's) or you can buy the
   professionally bound editions from any of several publishers -- my
   favorite being O'Reilly & Associates (http://www.ora.com).
   
   Remember that the Linux Gazette "Answer Guy" is no substitute for
   reading the manuals and participating in Linux newsgroups and mailing
   lists.
   
   -- Jim
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
  Installing Linux
  
   From: Aryeh Goretsky aryeh@tribal.com
   
   [ Aryeh, I'm copying my Linux Gazette editor on this since I've put in
   enough explanation to be worth publishing it ]
   
   ..... why ... don't they just call it a disk boot sector . .... Okay,
   I've just got to figure out what the problem is, then. Are there any
   utilities like NDD for Linux I can run that will point out any errors
   I made when entering the superblock info? 
   
   Nothing with a simple, colorful interface. 'fsck' is at least as good
   with ext2 filesystems as NDD is with FAT (MS-DOS) partitions. However
   'fsck' (or, more specifically, e2fsck) has a major advantage since the
   ext2fs was designed to be robust. The FAT filesystem was designed to
   be simple enough that the driver code and the rest of the OS could fit
   on a 48K (yes, forty-eight kilobytes) PC (not XT, not AT, and not even
   close to a 386). So, I'm not knocking NDD when I say that fsck works
   "at least" as well.
   
   However, fsck doesn't touch your MBR -- it will check your superblock
   and recommand a command to restore the superblock from one of the
   backups if yours is damaged. Normally the newfs (like MS-DOS' FORMAT)
   or mke2fs (basically the same thing) will scatter extra copies of the
   superblock every 8K sectors across the filesystem (or so). So there
   are usually plenty of backups.
   
   So, usually, you'd just run fdisk to check your partitions and
   /sbin/lilo to write a new MBR (or other boot sector). /sbin/lilo will
   also update its own "map" file -- and may (optionally) make a backup
   of your original boot sector or MBR.
   
   (Note: There was an amusing incident on one of the mailing lists or
   newsgroups -- in which a user complained that Red Hat had "infected
   his system with a virus." It turns out that lilo had moved the
   existing (PC/MBR) virus from his MBR to a backup file -- where it was
   finally discovered. So, lilo had actually *cured* his system of the
   virus).
   
   Actually when you run /sbin/lilo you're "compiling" the information in
   the /etc/lilo.conf file and writing that to the "boot" location --
   which you specify in the .conf file.
   
   You can actually call your lilo.conf anything you like -- and you can
   put it anywhere you like -- you'd just have to call /sbin/lilo with a
   -C switch and a path/file name. /etc/lilo.conf is just the built-in
   default which the -C option over-rides.
   
   Here's a copy of my lilo.conf (which I don't actually use -- since I
   use LOADLIN.EXE on this system). As with many (most?) Unix
   configuration files the comments start with hash (#) signs.

boot=/dev/hda
# write the resulting boot block to my first IDE hard drive's MBR.
# if this was /dev/hdb4 (for example) /sbin/lilo would write the
# resulting block to the logical boot record on the fourth partition
# of my second IDE hard drive.   /dev/sdc would mean to write it to
# the MBR of the third SCSI disk.
# /sbin/lilo will print a warning if the boot location is likely to
# be inaccessible to most BIOS' (i.e. would require a software driver
# for DOS to access it).

## NOTE:  Throughout this discussion I use /sbin/lilo to refer to the
## Linux executable binary program and LILO to refer to the resulting
## boot code that's "compiled" and written by /sbin/lilo to whatever
## boot sector your lilo.conf calls for.  I hope this will minimize the
## confusion -- though I've liberally re-iterated this with parenthetical
## comments as well.

# The common case is to put boot=/dev/fd0H1440 to specify that the
# resulting boot code should be written to a floppy in the 1.44Mb
# "A:" drive when /sbin/lilo is run.  Naturally this would require
# that you use this diskette to boot any of the images and "other"
# stanzas listed in the rest of this file.  Note that the floppy
# could be completely blank -- no kernel or files are copied to it
# -- just the boot sector!


map=/boot/map
        # This is where /sbin/lilo will store a copy of the map file --
        # which contains the cylinder/sector/side address of the images
        # and message files  (see below)
        # It's important to re-run /sbin/lilo to regenerate the map
        # file any time you've done anything that might move any of
        # these image or message files (like defragging the disk,
        # restoring any of these images from a backup -- that sort
        # of thing!).


install=/boot/boot.b
        # This file contains code for LILO (the boot loader) -- this is
        # an optional directive -- and necessary in this case since it
        # simply specifies the default location.
        
prompt
        # This instructs the LILO boot code to prompt the user for
        # input.  Without this directive  LILO would just wait
        # upto "delay" time (default 0 tenths of a second -- none)
        # and boot using the default stanza.
        # if you leave this and the "timeout" directives out --
        # but you put in a delay=X directive -- then LILO won't
        # prompt the user -- but will wait for X tenths of a second
        # (600 is 10 seconds).  During that delay the user can hit a
        # shift key, or any of the NumLock, Scroll Lock type keys to
        # request a LILO prompt.

timeout=50
        # This sets the amount of time LILO (the boot code) will
        # wait at the prompt before proceeding to the default
        # 0 means 'wait forever'

message=/etc/lilo.message
        # this directive tells /sbin/lilo (the conf. "compiler") to
        # include the contents of this message in the prompt which LILO
        # (the boot code) displays at boot time.  It is a handy place to
        # put some site specific help/reminder messages about what
        # you call your kernels and where you put your alternative bootable
        # partitions and what you're going to do to people who reboot your
        # Linux server without a damn good reason.

other=/dev/hda1
        label=dos
        table=/dev/hda
        # This is a "stanza"
        # the keyword "other" means that this is referring to a non-Linux
        # OS -- the location tells LILO (boot code) where to find the
        # "other" OS' boot code (in the first partition of the first IDE --
        # that's a DOS limitation rather than a Linux constraint).
        # The label directive is an arbitrary but unique name for this stanza
        # to allow one to select this as a boot option from the LILO
        # (boot code) prompt.

        # Because it is the first stanza it is the the default OS --
        # LILO will boot this partition if it reaches timeout or is
        # told not to prompt.  You could also over-ride that using a
        # default=$labelname$ directive up in the "global" section of the
        # file.

image=/vmlinuz
        label=linux
        root=/dev/sda5
        read-only
        # This is my "normal" boot partition and kernel.
        # the "root" directive is a parameter that is passed to the
        # kernel as it loads -- to tell the kernel where its root filesystem
        # is located.  The "read-only" is a message to the kernel to initially
        # mount the root filesystem read-only -- so the rc (AUTOEXEC.BAT)
        # scripts can fsck (do filesystem checks -- like CHKDSK) on it.
        # Those rc scripts will then normally remount the fs in "read/write"
        # mode.

image=/vmlinuz.old
        label=old
        root=/dev/sda5
        append= single
        read-only
        # This example is the same except that it loads a different kernel
        # (presumably and older one -- duh!).  The append= directive allows
        # me to pass arbitrary directives on to the kernel -- I could use this
        # to tell the kernel where to find my Ethernet card in I/O, IRQ, and
        # DMA space -- here I'm using it to tell the kernel that I want to come
        # up in "single-user" (fix a problem, don't start all those networking
        # gizmos) mode.

image=/mnt/tmp/vmlinuz
        label=alt
        root=/dev/sdb1
        read-only

        # This last example is the most confusing.  My image is on some other
        # filesystem (at the time that I run /sbin/lilo to "compile" this
        # stanza). The root fs is on the first partition of the 2nd SCSI drive.
        # It is likely that /dev/sdb1 would be the filesystem mounted under
        # /mnt/tmp when I would run /sbin/lilo.  However it's not "required"
        # My kernel image file could be on any filesystem that was mounted
        # /sbin/lilo will warn me if the image is likely to be inaccessible
        # by the BIOS -- it's can't say for sure since there are a lot of
        # BIOS' out there -- some of the newer SCSI BIOS' will boot off of a
        # CD-ROM!

   I hope that helps. The lilo.conf man page (in section 5) gives *lots*
   more options -- like the one I just saw while writing this that allows
   you to have a password for each of your images -- or for the whole
   set. Also there are a number of kernel options described in the
   BootPrompt-HOWTO. One of the intriguing ones is panic= -- which allows
   you to tell the Linux kernel how long to sit there displaying a kernel
   panic. The default is "forever" -- but you can use the append= line in
   your lilo.conf to pass a panic= parameter to your kernel -- telling it
   how many seconds to wait before attempting to reboot.
   
   In the years that I've used Linux I've only seen a couple (like two or
   three) kernel panics (that could be identified as such). Perhaps a
   dozen times I've had a Linux system freeze or go comatose enough that
   I hard reset it. (Most of those involve very bad hardware IRQ
   conflicts). Once I've even tricked my kernel into scribbling garbage
   all over one of my filesystems (don't play with linear and membase in
   your XConfig file -- and, in particular don't specify a video memory
   base address that's inside of your system's RAM address space).
   
   So I'm not sure if setting a panic= switch would help much. I'd be
   much more inclined to get a hardware watchdog timer card and enable
   the existing support for that in the kernel. Linux is the only PC OS
   that I know of that comes with this support "built-in"
   
   For those that aren't familiar with them a watchdog timer card is a
   card (typically taking an ISA slot) that implements a simple
   count-down and reset (strobing the reset line on the system bus)
   feature. This is activated by a driver (which could be a DOS device
   driver, a Netware Loadable Module, or a little chunk of code in the
   Linux kernel. Once started the card must be updated periodically (the
   period is set as part of the activation/update). So -- if the software
   hangs -- the card *will* strobe the reset line.
   
   (Note: this isn't completely fool-proof. Some hardware states might
   require a complete power cycle and some sorts of critical server
   failures will render the systems services unavailable without killing
   the timer driver software. However it is a damn sight better than just
   hanging).
   
   These cards cost about $100 (U.S.) -- which is a pity since there's
   only about $5 worth of hardware there. I think most Sun workstations
   have this feature designed into the motherboard -- which is what PC
   manufacturers should scramble to do.
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   AG
   
   At 11:43 AM 6/10/97 -0700, you wrote: Subject: Once again, I try to
   install Linux... ...and fail miserably. This is getting depressing.
   Someone wanna explain this whole superblock concept to me? Use small
   words.... 
   
   Aryeh, Remember master boot records (MBR's)? Remember "logical" boot
   records -- for volume boot records?
   
   A superblock is the Unix term for a logical boot record. Linux uses
   normal partitions that are compatible with the DOS, OS/2, NT (et al)
   hard disk partitioning scheme.
   
   To boot Linux you can use LILO (the Linux loader) which can be written
   to your MBR (most common), to your "superblock" or to the "superblock"
   of a floppy. This little chunk of code contains a reference (or "map")
   to the device and logical sector of one or more Linux kernels or DOS
   (or OS/2) bootable partitions.
   
   There is a program called "lilo" which "compiles" a lilo.conf
   (configuration file) into this LILO "boot block" and puts it onto the
   MBR, superblock or floppy boot block for you. This is the source of
   most of the confusion about LILO. I can create a boot floppy with
   nothing put this boot block on it -- no kernel, no filesystems,
   nothing. LILO doesn't care where I put any of my linux kernels -- so
   long as it can get to it using BIOS calls (which usually limits you to
   putting the kernel on the one of the first two drives connected to the
   first drive controller on your system).
   
   Another approach is to use LOADLIN.EXE -- this is a DOS program that
   loads a Linux (or FreeBSD) kernel. The advantage of this is that you
   can have as many kernel files as you like, and they can be located on
   any DOS accessible device (even if you had to load various weird
   device drivers to be able to see that device.
   
   LOADLIN.EXE is used by some CD-ROM based installation packages --
   avoiding the necessity of using a boot floppy.
   
   The disadvantages of LOADLIN include the fact that you may have loaded
   some device drivers and memory managers that have re-mapped (hooked
   into) critical BIOS interrupt vectors. LOADLIN often needs a "boot
   time hardware vector table" (which it usually writes as
   C:\REALBIOS.INT -- a small hidden/system file). Creating this file
   involves booting from a "stub" floppy (which saves the table) and
   rebooting/restarting the LOADLIN configuration to tell it to copy the
   table from the floppy to your HD. This must be done whenever you
   change video cards, add any controller with a BIOS extension (a ROM)
   or otherwise play with the innards of your machine.
   
   Call me and we can go over your configuration to narrow down the
   discussion. If you like you can point your web browser at
   www.ssc.com/lg and look for articles by "The Answer Guy" there. I've
   described this a greater length in some of my articles there.
   
   -- Jim
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
  Adding Programs to the Pull Down Menus
  
   From: Ronald B. Simon rbsimon@anet.bna.boeing.com
   
   Thank you for responding to my request. By the way I am using RedHat
   release 4 and I think TheNextLevel window manager. I did find a
   .fvwm2rc.programs tucked away in... 
   
   Ronald, TheNextLevel is an fvwm derivative.
   
   /etc/X11/TheNextLevel/. I added a define ProgramCM(Title,,,program
   name) and under the start/applications menu I saw Title. When I put
   the cursor over it and pressed the mouse button, everything froze. I
   came to the conclusion that I am in way over my head and that I
   probably need to open a window within the program that I am trying to
   execute. Any way I will search for some 'C' code that shows me how to
   do that. Thanks again! 
   
   I forgot to mention that any non X program should be run through an
   xterm. This is normally done with a line in your rc file like: Exec
   "Your Shell App" exec xterm -e /path/to/your/app & ... (I'm using fvwm
   syntax here -- I'll trust you to translate to TNL format). Try that --
   it should fix you right up.
   
   Also -- when you think your X session is locked up -- try the
   Ctrl-Alt-Fx key (where Fx is the function key that corresponds to one
   of your virtual consoles). This should switch you out of GUI mode and
   into your normal console environment. You might also try Alt-SysReq
   (Print-Screen on most keyboards) followed by a digit from the
   alphanumeric portion of you keyboard (i.e. NOT from the numeric
   keypad). This is an alternative binding for VC switching that might be
   enabled on a few systems. If all of that fails you can try
   Ctrl-Alt-Backspace. This should (normally) signal the X server to
   shutdown.
   
   Mostly I doubt that your server actually hung. I suspect that you
   confused it a bit by running a non-X program not "backgrounded" (you
   DO need those trailing ampersands) and failing to supply it with
   communications channel back to X (an xterm).
   
   Please remember that my knowlege of X is very weak. I hardly ever use
   and almost never administer/customize it. So you'll want to look at
   the L.U.S.T. mailing list, or the comp.windows.x or (maybe) the
   comp.os.linux.x (although there is nothing to these questions which is
   Linux specific). I looked extensively for information about
   TheNextLevel on the web (in Yahoo! and Alta Vista). Unfortunately the
   one page that almost all of the references pointed to was down
   
   The FVWM home page is at:
   http://www3.hmc.edu/~tkelly/docs/proj/fvwm.html
   
   -- Jim
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
  Linux Skip
  
   From: Jesse Montrose jesse@spine.com 
   
   Time warp: This message was lost in my drafts folder while I was
   looking up some of the information. As it turns out the wait was to
   our advantage. Read on.
   
   Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 13:54:34 -0800
   
   Greetings, this question is intended for the Answer Guy associated
   with the Linux Gazette..
   
   I've recently discovered and enjoyed your column in the Linux Gazette,
   I'm hoping you might have news about a linux port of sun's skip ip
   encryption protocol.
   
   Here's the blurb from skip.incog.com: SKIP secures the network at the
   IP packet level. Any networked application gains the benefits of
   encryption, without requiring modification. SKIP is unique in that an
   Internet host can send an encrypted packet to another host without
   requiring a prior message exchange to set up a secure channel. SKIP is
   particularly well-suited to IP networks, as both are stateless
   protocols. Some of the advantages of SKIP include:
     * No connection setup overhead
     * High availability - encryption gateways that fail can reboot and
       resume decrypting packets instantly, without having to renegotiate
       (potentially thousands) of existing connections
     * Allows uni-directional IP (for example, IP broadcast via satellite
       or cable)
     * Scalable multicast key distribution
     * SKIP gateways can be configured in parallel to perform
       instant-failover
       
   I heard a bit about SKIP while I was at a recent IETF conference.
   However I must admit that it got lost in the crowd of other security
   protocols and issues.
   
   So far I've paid a bit more attention to the Free S/WAN project that's
   being promoted by John Gilmore of the EFF. I finally got ahold of a
   friend of mine (Hugh Daniel -- one of the architects of Sun's NeWS
   project -- and well-known cypherpunk and computer security
   professional)
   
   He explained that SKIP is the "Secure Key Interchange Protocol" --
   that is is a key management protocol (incorporated in ISAKMP/Oakley).
   
   For secure communications you need:
     * Key management (which -- between strangers requires some sort of
       RSA (Public Key) or Diffie-Hellman key exchange or even some
       variant of elliptic curve -- from what I've heard).
     * Encrypted Link (which will be built into IPv6 and will be
       available as IPSec extensions to IPv4 -- using tunnelled
       interfaces from what I gather).
     * Secure-DNS (this is related to the key management problem -- we
       need a trustworthy source of public key information -- Verisign
       and Thawte offer commercial "Certification Authority" services --
       but the 'net needs something a bit more open and standards based).
       
   My employer is primarily an NT shop (with sun servers), but since I
   develop in Java, I'm able to do my work in linux. I am one of about a
   dozen telecommuters in our organization, and we use on-demand ISDN to
   dial in directly to the office modem bank, in many cases a long
   distance call. 
   
   I'm finally working on configuring my dial-on-demand ISDN line here at
   my place. I've had diald (dial-on-demand over a 28.8 modem) running
   for about a month now. I just want to cut down on that dial time.
   
   We're considering switching to public Internet connections, using skip
   to maintain security. Skip binaries are available for a few platforms
   (windows, freebsd, sunos), but not linux. Fortunately the source is
   available (http://skip.incog.com/source.html) but it's freebsd, and I
   don't know nearly enough deep linux to get it compiled (I tried making
   source modifications). 
   
   If I understand it correctly SKIP is only a small part of the
   solution.
   
   Hopefully FreeS/WAN will be available soon. You can do quite a bit
   with ssh (and I've heard of people who are experimenting with routing
   through some custom made tunnelled interface). FreeBSD and Linux both
   support IP tunneling now.
   
   For information on using ssh and IP tunnels to build a custom VPN
   (virtual private network) look in this month's issue of Sys Admin
   Magazine (July '97). (Shameless plug: I have an article about C-Kermit
   appearing in the same issue).
   
   Another method might be to get NetCrypto. Currently the package isn't
   available for Linux -- however McAfee is working on a port. Look at
   http://www.mcafee.com
   
   After much time with several search engines, the best I could come up
   with was another fellow also looking for a linux version of skip :)
   Thanks! jesse montrose 
   
   Jesse, Sorry I took so long to answer this question. However, as I
   say, this stuff has changed considerably -- even in the two months
   between the time I started this draft message and now.
   
   -- Jim
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
  ActiveX for Linux
  
   From: Gerald Hewes hewes@OpenMarket.com
   
   Jim, I read your response on ActiveX in the Linux Gazette. At
   http://www.ssc.com/lg/issue18/lg_answer18.html#active
   
   Software AG is porting the non GUI portions of ActiveX called DCOM to
   Linux. Their US site where it should be hosted appears down as I write
   this e-mail message but there is a link of their home page on a Linux
   DCOM beta: http:/www.sotwareag.com 
   
   I beleive the link ought to be
   http://www.sagus.com/prod-i~1/net-comp/dcom/index.htm
   
   As for DCOM, its main value for the Linux community is in making
   Microsoft Distributed Object Technology available to the Linux
   community. Microsoft is trying to push DCOM over CORBA. 
   
   I know that MS is "trying to push DCOM over CORBA" (and OpenDOC, and
   now, JavaBeans). I'm also aware that DCOM stands for "distributed
   component object model" and CORBA is the "common object request
   broker" and SOM is IBM's "system object model" (OS/2).
   
   The media "newshounds" have dragged these little bones around and
   gnawed on them until we've all seen them. Nonetheless I don't see its
   "main value to the Linux community."
   
   These "components" or "reusable objects" will not make any difference
   so long as significant portions of their functionality are tied to
   specific OS (GUI) semantics. However, this coupling between specific
   OS' has been a key feature of each of these technologies.
   
   It's Apple's OpenDoc, IBM's DSOM, and Microsoft's DSOM!
   
   While I'm sure that each as their merits from the programmer's point
   of view (and I'm in no position to comment on their relative technical
   pros or cons) -- I have yet to see any *benefit* from a user or
   administrative point of view.
   
   So I suppose the question here becomes:
   
   Is there any ActiveX (DCOM) control (component) that delivers any real
   benefit to any Linux user? Do any of the ActiveX controls not have a
   GUI component to them? What does it mean to make the "non-GUI
   portions" of DCOM available? Is there any new network protocol that
   this gives us? If so, what is that protocol good for?
   
   For more information, checkout http://www.microsoft.com/oledev
   
   While I encourage people to browse around -- I think I'll wait until
   someone can point out one DCOM component, one JavaBean, one CORBA
   object, or one whatever-buzzword- you-want-to-call-it-today and can
   explain in simple "Duh! I'm a user!" terms what the *benefit* is.
   
   Some time ago -- in another venue -- I provided the net with an
   extensive commentary on the difference between "benefits" and
   "features." The short form is this:
   
   I benefit is relevant to your customer. To offer a benefit requires
   that you understand your customer. "Features" bear no relation to a
   customers needs. However mass marketing necessitates the promotion of
   features -- since the *mass* marketer can't address individual and
   niche needs.
   
   Example: Microsoft operating systems offer a "easy to use graphical
   interfaces" -- first "easy to use" is highly subjective. In this case
   it means that there are options listed on menus and buttons and the
   user can guess at which ones apply to their need and experiment until
   something works. That is a feature -- one I personally loathe. To me
   "easy to use" means having documentation that includes examples that
   are close to what I'm trying to do -- so I can "fill in the blanks"
   Next there is the ubiquitously touted "GUI." That's another *feature*.
   To me it's of no benefit -- I spend 8 to 16 hours a day looking at my
   screen. Text mode screens are far easier on the eyes than any monitor
   in graphical mode.
   
   To some people, such as the blind GUI's are a giant step backward in
   accessibility. The GUI literally threatens to cut these people off
   from vital employment resources.
   
   I'm not saying that the majority of the world should abandon GUI's
   just because of a small minority of people who can't use them and a
   smaller, crotchety contingent of people like me that just don't like
   them. I'm merely trying to point out the difference between a
   "feature" and a "benefit."
   
   The "writing wizards" offered by MS Word are another feature that I
   eschew. My writing isn't perfect and I make my share of typos, as well
   as spelling and grammatical errors. However Most of what I write goes
   straight from my fingers to the recipient -- no proofreading and no
   editing. When I've experimented with spell checkers and "fog indexes"
   I've consistently found that my discourse is beyond their capabilities
   -- much too specialized and involving far too much technical
   terminology. So I have to over-ride more than 90% of the
   "recommendations of these tools.
   
   Although my examples have highlighted Microsoft products we can turn
   this around and talk about Linux' famed "32-bit power" and "robust
   stability." These, too are *features*. Stability is a benefit to
   someone who manages a server -- particularly a co-located server at a
   remote location. However the average desktop applications user could
   care less about stability. So long as their application manage to
   autosave the last three versions of his/her documents the occasional
   reboot is just a good excuse to go get a cup of coffee.
   
   Multi-user is a feature. Most users don't consider this to be a
   benefit -- and the idea of sharing "their" system with others is
   thoroughly repugnant to most modern computer users. On top of that the
   network services features which implement multi-user access to Linux
   (and other Unix systems) and NT are gaping security problems so far as
   most IS users are concerned. So having a multi-user system is not a
   benefit to must of us. This is particularly true of the shell access
   that most people identify as *the* multi-user feature of Unix (as
   opposed to the file sharing and multiple user profiles, accounts and
   passwords that passes for "multi-user" under Windows for Workgroups
   and NT).
   
   So, getting back to ActiveX/DCOM -- I've heard of all sorts of
   features. I'd like to hear about some benefits. Keep in mind that any
   feature may be a benefit to someone -- so benefits generally have to
   be expressed in terms of *who* is the beneficiary.
   
   Allegedly programmers are the beneficiary of all these competing
   component and object schema. "Use our model and you'll be able to
   impress your boss with glitzy results in a fraction of the time it
   would take to do any programming" (that seems to be the siren song to
   seduce people to any of these).
   
   So, who else benefits?
   
   -- Jim
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
  Bash String Manipulations
  
   From: Niles Mills nmills@dnsppp.net
   
   Oddly enough -- while it is easy to redirect the standard error of
   processes under bash -- there doesn't seem to be an easy portable way
   to explicitly generate message or redirect output to stderr. The best
   method I've come up with is to use the /proc/ filesystem (process
   table) like so:
function error { echo "$*" > /proc/self/fd/2 }

   Hmmmm...how about good old
>&2

   ?
$ cat example
#!/bin/bash
echo normal
echo error >&2
$ ./example
normal
error
$ ./example > file
error
$ cat ./file
normal
$ bash -version
$ bash -version
bash -version
GNU bash, version 1.14.4(1)

   Best Regards, Niles Mills 
   
   I guess that works. I don't know why I couldn't come up with that on
   my own. But my comment worked -- a couple of people piped right up
   with the answer.
   
   Amigo, that little item dates back to day zero of Unix and works on
   all known flavors. Best of luck in your ventures.
   
   Niles Mills 
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
  Blinking Underline Cursor
  
   From: Joseph Hartmann joeh@arakis.sugar-river.net
   
   I know an IBM compatible PC is "capable" of having a blinking
   underline cursor, or a blinking block cursor.
   
   My linux system "came" with a blinking underline, which is very
   difficult to see. But I have not been able (for the past several
   hours) to make *any* headway about finding out how to change the
   cursor to a blinking block. 
   
   You got me there. I used to know about five lines of x86 assembly
   language to call the BIOS routine that sets the size of your cursor.
   Of course that wouldn't work under Linux since the BIOS is mapped out
   of existence during the trip into protected mode.
   
   I had a friend who worked with me back at Peter Norton Computing -- he
   wrote a toy program that provided an animated cursor -- and had
   several need animated sequences to show with it -- a "steaming coffee
   cup," a "running man," and a "spinning galaxy" are the ones I
   remember.
   
   If you wanted to do some kernel hacking it looks like you'd change the
   value of the "currcons" structure in one of the
   /usr/src/linux/drivers/char/ files -- maybe it would be "vga.c"
   
   On the assumption that you are not interested in that approach (I
   don't blame you) I've copied the author of SVGATextMode (a utility for
   providing text console mode access to the advanced features of most
   VGA video cards)
   
   Hopefully Koen doesn't mind the imposition. Perhaps he can help.
   
   I've also copied Eugene Crosser and Andries Brouwer the authors of the
   'setfont' and 'mapscrn' programs (which don't seem to do cursors --
   but do some cool console VGA stuff). 'setfont' lets you pick your text
   mode console font.
   
   Finally I've copied Thomas Koenig who maintains the Kernel "WishList"
   in the hopes that he'll add this as a possible entry to that.
   
   Any hints? Best Regards,
   
   Joe, As you can see I don't feel stumped very often -- and now that I
   think about it -- I think this would be a neat feature for the Linux
   console. This is especially true since the people who are most likely
   to stay away from X Windows are laptop users -- and those are
   precisely the people who are most likely to need this feature.
   
   -- Jim
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
  File Permissions
  
   From: John Gotschall johng@frugal.com
   
   Hi! I was wondering if anyone there knew how I might actually change
   the file permissions on one of my linux box's DOS partition.
   
   I have Netscape running on one box on our local network, but it can't
   write to another linux box's MSDOS filesystem, when that filesystem is
   NFS mounted. It can write to various Linux directories that have
   proper permissions, but the MSDOS directory won't keep a permissions
   setting, it keeps it stuck as owned by, read by and execute by root. 
   
   What you're bumping into is two different issues. The default
   permissions under which a DOS FAT filesystem is mounted (which is
   "root.root 755" that is: owned by user root, group root, rwx for
   owner, r-x for group and other).
   
   You can change that with options to the mount (8) command.
   Specifically you want to use something like:
mount -t msdos -o uid=??,gid=??,umask=775

   ... where you pick suitable values for the UID and GID from your
   /etc/passwd and /etc/group files (respectively).
   
   The other culprit in this is the default behavior of NFS. For your own
   protection NFS defaults to using a feature called "root squash" (which
   is not a part of a vegetable). This prevents someone who has root
   access to some other system (as allowed by your /etc/exports file)
   from accessing your files with the same permissions as you're own
   local root account.
   
   If you pick a better set of mount options (and put them in your
   /etc/fstab in the fourth field) then you won't have to worry about
   this feature. I DO NOT recommend that you over-ride that setting with
   the NFS no_root_squash option in the /etc/exports file (see 'man 5
   exports' for details). I personally would *never* use that option with
   any export that was mounted read-only -- not even in my own home
   between two systems that have no live connection to the net! (I do use
   the no_root_squash option with the read-only option -- but that's a
   minor risk in my case).
   
   Is there a way to change the MS-DOS permissions somehow? 
   
   Yes. See the mount(8) options for uid=, gid=, and umask=. I think you
   can also use the umsdos filesytem type and effectively change the
   permissions on your FAT based filesystem mount points.
   
   This was a source of some confusion for me and I've never really
   gotten it straight to my satisfaction. Luckily I find that I hardly
   ever use my DOS partitions any more.
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                     Copyright  1997, James T. Dennis
            Published in Issue 19 of the Linux Gazette July 1997
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next 
   
    "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
    
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
Adventures in Linux: A Redhat Newbie Boldly Treks Onto the Internet Frontier
                                      
                 By A. Cliff Seruntine, cliff@micronet.net
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Ever tried using chat to dial out with your modem? If you have, then
   after a few hours of mind-numbing inproductivity you may have found
   yourself developing an odd, convulsive twitch and banging your head
   against your monitor? Another dozen hours of typing in reworded chat
   scripts and you will find yourself wishing the program was a living,
   tangible entity so you could delete it once and for all out of the
   known universe, and thus gain a measure of relief knowing that you
   have spared others the terrible ordeal of sitting in front of their
   monitors for perhaps days on end coding pleas for chat to just dial
   the #!%$ telephone. Truthfully, I have found few programs under any of
   the operating systems I am familiar with give me the jitters the way
   chat does.
   
   I recall one frosty summer morning (I live in Alaska, so I can
   honestly describe some summer mornings as being frosty) when I boldly
   set off where no Microsoft hacker has gone before-Linux, the final
   frontier. Well, that's a bit extreme. Many Microsoft hackers have seen
   the light and made the transition. Anyway, I had decided I was going
   to resist Bill Gatus of Borg, and not be assimilated, so I put a new
   hard drive in my computer, downloaded Redhat Linux 4.1 from Redhat's
   ftp server (a two day ordeal with a 33.6 modem, I might add) and read
   enough of the install documentation to get started.
   
   Now friends already familiar with the Linux OS offered to come by and
   help me set it up. But I'd have none of it. After all, I owned a
   computer and electronics service center. I was the expert. And I was
   firmly convinced that the best way to truly learn something is to plow
   through it yourself. So I sat down in front of my PC with a cup of
   tea, made the two required floppy disks for a hard drive install, and
   began my voyage into Linux gurudom.
   
   About 45 minutes later I was surprised to discover that I was done.
   Linux had been installed on my system and little fishies were swimming
   around my monitor in X windows. Well, I was impressed with myself.
   "Hah!" I said to the walls. "They said it couldn't be done. Not
   without background. Not without experience. But I've showed them. I've
   showed them all! Hah! Hah! Hah!" And then, being the compulsive hacker
   that I am, I began to do what comes naturally. I hacked. And being the
   Net buff that I am, the first thing I decided to do was get on the
   Internet through Linux. And all the stuff I'd read about in my printed
   copy of the works of the Linux Documentation Project said that the way
   to dial out with Linux was through chat.
   
   Four days later I found myself on my knees in front of my computer,
   wearily typing in yet another reworded script for chat, half plea,
   half incantation, hoping beyond reason that this time chat would
   perform the miracle I had so long sought and just dial the $#%! phone.
   Yes, I was by that time a broken man. Worse, a broken hacker. My
   spirit was crushed. My unique identity was in peril. I could hear Bill
   Gatus in the distance, but getting closer, closer, saying, "Resistance
   is futile. You will be assimilated." Resigned to my fate, I wrung my
   hands, achy and sore from writing enough script variants to fill a
   novel the size of War and Peace, and prepared to type halt and reboot
   into Windows 95.
   
   Then a voice said, "Luke. Luke! Use the X, Luke!" I don't know why the
   voice was calling me "Luke" since my name is Cliff, but somehow I knew
   to trust that voice. I moved the cursor onto the background, clicked,
   and opened up the applications menu. There I found a nifty little
   program called Minicom. I clicked on Minicom, it opened, initialized
   the modem, and a press of [CTRL-a, d] brought up the dial out options.
   I selected the edit option with the arrow keys, and at the top entered
   the name and number of my server. Then I selected the dial option with
   the arrow keys, and pressed [RETURN]. The X was with me, the modem
   dialed out, logged into my server, and with a beep announced that I
   should press any button. Minicom then asked me to enter my login name
   and password. I breathed a sigh of relief, opened up Arena, typed in
   an address, and . . . nothing happened. Worse, after about a minute,
   the modem hung up.
   
   "What?" I wondered aloud, squinting into my monitor, certain that
   behind the phosphorescent glow I could see little Bill Gatuses
   frantically chewing away the inner workings of my computer. "Join me,
   Cliff," they were saying. "It is your destiny."
   
   "I'll never join you," I cried out and whipped out my Linux
   Encyclopedia. I couldn't find anything in the index on how to avoid
   assimilation, but I did find out that I needed to activate the ppp
   daemon and give control of the connection from Minicom to the daemon.
   The command line that worked best was:
pppd /dev/cua2 115200 -detach crtscts modem defaultroute

-detach

   is the most important option to include here. It causes the daemon to
   take over control of the modem from Minicom. pppd activates the Point
   to Point Protocol daemon. /dev/cua* should be given whatever number
   corresponds to the serial port your modem is attached to, as long as
   you have a serial modem. 115200 is the max speed of my modem with
   compression. You should set this to the max speed of your own modem.
   crtscts tells your modem to negotiate high speed transmissions. modem
   simply indicates the daemon should use the modem as its means of
   networking. It is a default setting, but I like to set it anyway to
   remind me whats going on. And defaultroute tells the daemon which
   route the incoming and outgoing data are going through.
   
   The trick is to enter all this before the Minicom connection times
   out. You could go through the trouble writing it out every time you
   log on, but a better way is to edit an alias in .bashrc. Go down to
   the /root directory and type emacs .bashrc (or whatever your prefered
   editor is) and enter the line below as follows:
alias daemon = <pppd /dev/cua* <your modem speed> -detach crtscts modem
defaultroute>

   
   (Do not forget the quotes or your alias will not function.)
   
   Finally, go into the control panel, double click on the networking
   icon, and select the last tab that appears. There you will find near
   the top the option to set your default gateway and your device. Set
   your default gateway to whatever your Internet server specifies.
   Specify your device as /dev/cua (whatever serial port your modem is
   attached to). Sometimes simply /dev/modem will work if it has been
   symbolically linked in your system. (By the way, if you haven't
   already done it, in X you also need to double click the modem icon in
   the control panel and set your modem to the correct /dev/cua(serial
   port number) there too). And if you have a SLIP account (rare these
   days) add the pertinent info while setting up your gateway.
   
   Reboot your system. Now your new alias and settings will all be in
   effect. Now just invoke Minicom and dial out. Then at xterminal type
   daemon. Minicom will beep at you for taking away its control of the
   modem. To be on the safe side, I like to kill Minicom to make sure it
   stops fighting with the daemon for control of the modem. Occasionally
   it will succeed and weird things will happen. Then invoke your browser
   and you are on the World Wide Web.
   
   As a final note, Arena's HTML is kind of weak, and you may find it
   locking up with newer, more powerful web code. It is a good idea to
   download a more capable browser such as Netscape 3.01, which makes a
   fine Linux browser, and install and use that as soon as possible.
   
   And that's all there is to taking your Linux webship onto the
   Information frontier. Well, I'm enjoying my time on the web. I think
   I'll build a new site dedicated to stopping the assimilation.
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                     Copyright  1997, Cliff Seruntine
           Published in Issue 19 of the Linux Gazette, July 1997
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next 
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
    "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
    
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                          Atlanta Showcase Report
                                      
                By Phil Hughes, fyl@ssc.com todds@ontko.com
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   The Atlanta Linux Showcase is over, and everyone is beginning to
   recover. Recover, that is, from being awake too long, being on a plane
   too long and stuffing more Linux than will fit into one weekend.
   
   ALS was put together by the Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts, the local Linux
   user's group in Atlanta, Georgia. The show began on Friday evening,
   June 6 and ran through Sunday afternoon. More than 500 people
   attended. The report following this one by Todd Shrider covers much of
   the show, including the talks.
   
   I want to thank Amy Ayers and Karen Bushaw for making their photos
   available to us with a special thank you to Amy for getting them
   scanned and uploaded to the SSC ftp site.
   
   I spent most of my time in the Linux Journal booth giving away
   magazines and talking to show attendees. One aspect that made this
   show special for me is that I didn't spend most of my time explaining
   that Linux is a Unix-like operating system to the attendees. Instead,
   I got to discuss Linux with experienced people with thoughtful
   questions, letting them know in the process how LJ could help them.
   Each attendee was truly interested in Linux and stopped at each booth
   in the show. I expect attendees appreciated the low signal-to-noise
   ratio in the booths; that is, conversations were solely about Linux.
   
  The Roast
  
   On Saturday night there was a roast--no, I didn't change from a
   vegetarian into a meat eater overnight--we were roasting Linus. That
   is, a group of people presented interesting stories about Linus,
   intended to only slightly embarrass him. At the end of the evening, I
   felt that the roast had been successful in every way.
   
   In front of a crowd of about 115 people, Eric Raymond, David Miller,
   Jon "maddog" Hall and I got to pick on this Linus character. Topics
   varied from Linus almost being hit by a car in Boston because he was
   so engrossed in talking about a particular aspect of kernel code, to
   the evolution of the top-half/bottom-half concept in interrupt
   handlers and to why Linus was apparently moving from geekdom to
   becoming a "hunk" sportswear model. (See the cover of the San Jose
   Metro, May 8-14, 1997.)
   
   Maddog finished the roasting by telling a few Helsinki stories and
   showing a video that included Tove's parents talking about Linus. A
   good time was had by the roasters and the audience and, as Linus'
   closing comment was "I love you all," we assume he had a good time too
   and wasn't offended by our gentle ribbing.
   
  The Future
  
   The show came off very well. I consider this sucess an amazing feat
   for an all-volunteer effort. The ALE members plan to write an article
   for Linux Gazette about how they made this happen. We'll also make
   this information available on the GLUE web site. I would like to see
   more shows put on by user groups. The local involvement, the
   enthusiasm of the attendees and the all Linux flavor of the show made
   this weekend a great experience. We are already thinking about a
   Seattle or Portland show and would like to help others make regional
   shows a reality.
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Take a look at the ALS Photo Album.
   
                                More on ALS
                                      
                    by Todd M. Shrider, todds@ontko.com
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   I first started writing this article in my hotel room late Sunday
   evening (or early Monday morning) planning to get just enough sleep
   that I would wake up in time to catch my plane. The plan didn't
   work--I missed my 6:00 AM flight out of Atlanta. I did the second
   draft while waiting for my new 9:45 AM flight. The third draft came
   (yes, you guessed it) while waiting for my 1:30 PM connection from
   Detroit to Dayton, also having missed the previous connection because
   of my first flight's late arrival. Suffice it to say, I'm now back
   home in Indiana and still enjoying the high received from the Atlanta
   Linux Showcase.
   
   Thanks to all the sponsors and to our host, the Atlanta Linux
   Enthusiasts user group, the conference started with a bang and went
   off without a hitch. The conference was a three day event, starting
   with registration Friday and ending Sunday with a kernel hacking
   session led by none other than Linus himself. In between there were
   numerous conferences found in both a business and technical track,
   several birds of a feather (BoF) sessions and a floor show. These
   events were broken up with frequent trips to local pubs and very
   little sleep.
   
   This was my first (but not last) Linux conference, and I found that an
   added benefit of ALS was meeting all the people who use Linux as a
   viable business platform/tool. (These same people tend to be doing
   very cool things with Linux on the side). From companies such as Red
   Hat to Caldera to others such as MessageNet, Cyclades and DCG
   Computers, it was obvious that many people have very creative ways to
   make money with Linux. This wasn't limited, by any means, to the
   vendors. Many of the conference speakers talked of ways to make money
   with Linux or of their experiences with Linux in a professional
   environment.
   
   All of these efforts seemed to compliment the key-note address, World
   Domination 101, where Linus Torvalds, called for applications,
   applications, applications. Did I say he thought Linux needed a few
   more useful applications? Anyway, he pointed out the more or less
   obvious fact that, if Linux is going to be a success in a world of
   commercial operating systems, we need every application type you find
   in other commercial operating systems. In other words, if you're
   thinking about doing--don't think--just do it. Another thing that
   Linus pointed out, and that I was glad to hear echoed throughout the
   conference, was that Linux needs to be easy to use. It needs to be so
   easy that a secretary or corporate executive could sit and be as
   productive as they would be with Windows 95. We need to make people
   realize that Linux has gotten rid of the high learning curve usually
   associated with Unix.
   
   Something pointed out by Don Rosenberg, while speaking on the "how-to"
   and "what's needed next" of commercial Linux, was that we are now in a
   stage where the innovators (that's us) and the early adopters (that's
   us as well as the people using Linux in the business world today) must
   continue to push forward so that we can get a group of early adopters
   (the old DOS users) to take us seriously. In Maddog's closing remarks
   he urged us all to find two DOS users, convert them to Linux and then
   tell them to do the same. As a step in this direction, today I
   introduced a local computer corporate sales firm to Linux; whether
   they take my advice and run is left to be seen, but believe me, I'm
   pushing.
   
   The rest of the conference was filled with business and technical
   talks. The business talks included things such as Eric Raymond's "The
   Cathedral and the Bazaar", talks on OpenLinux by both Jeff Farnsworth
   and Steve Webb and "Linux Connectivity for Humans" by none other than
   Phil Hughes. Lloyd Brodsky was on hand to talk about Intranet Support
   of Collaborative Planning while Lester Hightower brought us the story
   of PCC and their efforts to bring Linux to the business world. Mark
   Bolzern spoke of the significance of Linux and Bob Young talked of the
   "process" not the "product" of Linux.
   
   The technical discussion track started with Richard Henderson's
   discussion of the shared libraries and their function across several
   architectures. Michael Maher gave a HOWTO of Red Hat's RPM package
   management system and Jim Paradis discussed EM86 and what remains to
   be done, so that one can run Intel/Linux binaries under Alpha Linux.
   David Miller then followed giving a boost of enthusiasm with his
   discussion of the tasks involved in porting Linux to SPARC and Miguel
   de Icaza took us on a trip to the world of RAID and Linux. We convened
   the next day to hear David Mandelstam discuss what is involved with
   wide-area networks and Mike Warfields anatomy of a cracker's
   intrusion.
   
   All in all, the conference was a huge success. What I might suggest as
   an improvement for next year is more involvement from the vendors (or
   maybe just more vendors), a possible sale from the vendors of their
   special Linux wares to the conference attendees and a possible
   tutorial session like the ones seen at Uselinux (Anaheim, California,
   January 1997). Other than that, a few virtual beers (I owe you Maddog)
   and lots of great geek conversation made for one wild weekend.
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
             Copyright  1997, Phil Hughes and Todd M. Shrider
           Published in Issue 19 of the Linux Gazette, July 1997
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next 
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
    "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
    
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   SSC is expanding Matt Welsh's Linux Installation & Getting Started by
   adding chapters about each of the major distributions. Each chapter is
   being written by a different author in the Linux community. Here's a
   sneak preview--the Caldera chapter by Evan Leibovitch.--editor
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                             Caldera OpenLinux
                                      
                    By Evan Leibovitch, evan@teely.on.ca
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   This section deals with issues specific to the Caldera releases of
   Linux, how to install the current release (Caldera OpenLinux) and
   prepare for the steps outlined in the following chapters. It is
   intended to be a complement to, not a replacement for, the "Getting
   Started Guides" Caldera ships with all of its Linux-based products.
   References to the Getting Started Guide for Caldera Open Linux Base
   will be indicated throughout this chapter simply as "the Guide".
   
  What is Caldera?
  
   The beginnings of Caldera the company come from an internal Novell
   project called "Corsair". While Novell had owned Unix System V in the
   early 1990s, Corsair was formed to see if there were things Novell
   could learn from Linux.
   
   Corsair was a casualty of the changing of the guard at Novell that
   also caused it to sell off Unix to SCO and WordPerfect to Corel.
   Novell founder Ray Noorda gave startup capital to this group with the
   intention of making Linux available in a manner that would be as
   acceptable to business users and corporate MIS as commercial versions
   of Unix. Caldera is a privately-held company based in Orem, Utah.
   
   The implementation of this goal has resulted in a series of
   Linux-based products that "broken the mold" in a number of ways.
   Caldera was the first Linux distribution to bundle-in commercial
   software such as premium X servers, GUI desktops, backup software and
   web browsers; at the time of writing, Caldera is the only Linux
   distribution officially supported by Netscape.
   
  The Caldera Network Desktop
  
   Caldera's first product, the Caldera Network Desktop (CND), was
   released to the public in early 1995 in a $29 "preview" form (a rather
   unusual manner to run a beta test), and in final release version in
   early 1996. The CND was based on the 1.2.13 Linux kernel, and included
   Netscape Navigator, Accelerated-X, CrispLite, and the Looking Glass
   GUI desktop. It also was the first Linux release to offer NetWare
   client capabilities, being able to share servers and printers on
   existing Novell networks. Production and sale of CND ceased in March
   1997.
   
  Caldera OpenLinux
  
   In late 1996, Caldera announced its releases based on the Linux 2.0.25
   kernel would be named Caldera Open Linux (COL) and would be made
   available at three levels;
     * COL Base, which includes Navigator, CrispLite, and the Metro-X
       server;
     * COL Standard, which would add the Netscape FastTrack secure web
       server, the StarOffice desktop productivity suite, and NetWare
       connectivity;
     * COL Deluxe, which incorporates all the features of Standard and
       also offers NetWare--server--capabilities.
       
   As this is written, only the COL Base release is shipping, and feature
   sets of the other packages are still being determined. For specific
   and up-to-date lists of the comparative features of the three levels,
   check the Caldera web site http://www.caldera.com.
   
   Because all three levels of COL build on the Base release, all three
   are installed the same way. The only difference is in the different
   auxiliary packages available; their installation and configuration
   issues are beyond the scope of this guide. Most of COL's add-on
   packages contain their own documentation; check the /doc directory of
   the Caldera CD-ROM for more details.
   
  Obtaining Caldera
  
   Unlike most other Linux distributions, COL is not available for
   downloading from the Internet, nor can it be distributed freely or
   passed around. This is because of the commercial packages which are
   part of COL; while most of the components of COL are under the GNU
   Public License, the commercial components, such as Looking Glass and
   Metro-X, are not. In the list of packages included on the COL media
   starting on page 196 of the Guide, the commercial packages are noted
   by an asterisk.
   
   COL is available directly from Caldera, or through a network of
   Partners around the world who have committed to supporting Caldera
   products. These Partners can usually provide professional assistance,
   configuration and training for Caldera users. For a current list of
   Partners, check the Caldera web site.
   
  Preparing to Install Caldera Open Linux
  
   Caldera support the same hardware as any other release based on Linux
   2.0 kernels. Appendix A of the Guide (p145) lists most of the SCSI
   hosts supported and configuration parameters necessary for many
   hardware combinations.
   
   Taking a page out of the Novell manual style, Caldera's Guide provides
   an installation worksheet (page 2) that assists you in having at hand
   all the details of your system that you'll need for installation. It
   is highly recommended you complete this before starting installation;
   while some parameters, such as setting up your network, are not
   required for installation, doing it all at one time is usually far
   easier than having to come back to it. Sometimes this can't be
   avoided, but do as much at installation time as possible.
   
  Creating boot/modules floppies
  
   The COL distribution does not come with the floppy disks required for
   installation. There are two floppies involved; one is used for
   booting, the other is a "modules" disk which contains many hardware
   drivers.
   
   While the Guide recommends you create the floppies by copying them
   from the CD-ROM, it is better to get newer versions of the disks from
   the Caldera web site. The floppy images on some CD-ROMs have errors
   that cause problems, especially with installations using SCSI disks
   and large partitions.
   
   To get newer versions of the floppy images, download them from
   Caldera's FTP site. In directory {\tt pub/col-1.0/updates/Helsinki},
   you'll find a bunch of numbered directories. Check out the directories
   in descending order---that will make sure you get the latest versions.
   
   If you find one of these directories has a subdirectory called
bootdisk

   , the contents of that directory are what you want.
   
   You should find two files:
install-2.0.25-XXX.img
modules-2.0.25-XXX.img

   The
XXX

   is replaced by the version number of the disk images. At the time of
   writing, the current images are 034 and located in the 001 directory.
   
   Once you have these images, transfer them onto two floppies using the
   methods described on page 4 of the Guide, using RAWRITE from the
   Caldera CD-ROM if copying from a DOS/Windows system or
dd

   from a Linux system.
   
   While Caldera's CD-ROM is bootable (if your system's BIOS allows it),
   if possible use the downloaded floppies anyway, since they are newer
   and will contain bug-fixes that won't be in the CD versions.
   
  Preparing the hard disks
  
   This procedure is no different from that of other Linux distributions.
   You must use fdisk on your booted hard disk to allocate at least two
   Linux partitions, one for the swap area and one for the root file
   system. If you are planning to make your system dual-boot COL with
   another operating system such as MS Windows or DOS or even OS/2, it's
   usually preferable to install COL last; its "fdisk" recognizes
   "foreign" OS types better than the disk partitioning tools of most
   other operating systems.
   
   To run the Linux fdisk, you'll need to start your system using the
   boot (and maybe the modules) floppy mentioned above. That's because
   you need to tell COL what kind of disk and disk controller you have;
   you can't even get as far as entering
fdisk

   if Linux doesn't recognize your hard disk!
   
   To do this, follow the bootup instructions in the Guide, from step 2
   on page 33 to the end of page 36. Don't bother going through the
   installation or detection of CDROMs or network cards at this time; all
   that matters at this point is Linux sees the booting hard disk so you
   can partition it using fdisk. A brief description of the use of the
   Linux fdisk is provided on page 28 of the Guide.
   
   Remember that when running fdisk, you need to set up both your root
   file system (type 83) and your swap space (type 82) as new partitions.
   A brief discussion of how much swap space to allocate is offered on
   page 10 of the Guide.
   
   As soon as you have completed this and written the partition table
   information to make it permanent, you will need to reboot.
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                     Copyright  1997, Evan Leibovitch
           Published in Issue 19 of the Linux Gazette, July 1997
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next 
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
    "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
    
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
             CLUELESS at the Prompt: A new column for new users
                                      
                      by Mike List, troll@net-link.net
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                                  [INLINE]
                                      
    Welcome to installment 6 of Clueless at the Prompt: a new column for new
    users.
    
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   This time let's take a quick look at the XF86Setup utility. at X
   window managers, concentrating on FVWM, adding popup menus, adding and
   subtracting apps from existing popups and other relatively easy ways
   to get a custom appearance and feel.
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
    Using XF86Setup to configure X
    
   Judging from the posts I've seen on the usenet, a lot of people aren't
   aware that there's an easier way to get X up and running than
   configuring it the old confusing way(at least I found it to be that
   way), using a tcl/tk script called XF86Setup. While it doesn't totally
   eliminate the need to manually edit your XConfig, it does provide a
   method of getting a usable configuration for most common video cards
   and monitors. XF86Setup first appeared in the XFree86 3.2
   distribution, and uses the lowest common denominator VGA 16 color mode
   server and a tcl/tk(corrections welcome) script to start the config
   process in X and by using the graphical nature of this utility script
   you can be almost certain to have X running in a couple of tries, and
   if worst comes to worst you can have it running in 16 color mode until
   you can get the details to optimize it to your video hardware. Current
   downloads of Xfree86 all seem to have this included, and if your CDROM
   diskribution has X 3.2 or better you already have it available to
   install to your HD. If you download it from xf86.org, be sure to read
   the Relnotes for the component files necessary to insure a successful
   install. You'll need :
     * preinst.sh Pre-installation script
     * postinst.sh Post-installation script
     * X3?bin.tgz Clients, run-time libs, and app-defaults files
     * X3?doc.tgz Documentation
     * X3?fnts.tgz 75dpi, misc and PEX fonts
     * X3?lib.tgz Data files required at run-time
     * X3?man.tgz Manual pages
     * X3?set.tgz XF86Setup utility
     * X3?VG16.tgz 16 colour VGA server (XF86Setup needs this server)
       
   , where ?=the level of the distribution you're using, ie.3.2, 3.3
   etc., for all installations, read the relnotes for any oher files your
   specific hardware might need. Since the 3.3 version just came out, if
   you are just getting around to setting up X you will most likely want
   to get this distribution, since every successive version has support
   for more hardware and often better support for hardware already
   supported.
   
   OK, you have the files you need, that is the ones listed above, and
   the server for your particular video card, in my case the SVGA server,
   you may need to do a little detective work to determine which server
   to use. If you are using the X version that comes on your CDROM, you
   can probably install all the servers(assuming there's space on your
   HD)and let the XF86Setup prog make the choice. To install,type:

       cd /usr/X11R6

   Next, copy the preinst.sh and postinst.sh scripts to /var/tmp, then go
   to /usr/X11R6 and type:


        cd /usr/X11R6
        sh /var/tmp/preinst.sh

   the script will remove some symbolic links, and check to see that all
   the files you need are available, and may output a message asking for
   those files that are needed but not present. But assuming that you
   have followed the above, everything should be in place, and you should
   get a generally encouraging message on exit from the script.
   
   Now for the installation itself,type:
       tar -zxvf /wherever/you/have/X3?files.tgz

   you'll have to repeat this step with each of the required files,
   although if you have these files in a directory by themselves, you may
   be able to type:

       tar -zxvf /wherever/youhavethem/*.tgz

   although it's been awhile, and I can't recall if it works, it won't
   hurt anything to try, since the alternative is to unpack each tgz file
   separately.
   
   Next you run the postinst.sh script in the same manner as the
   preinst.sh above, this will make sure that you have all the X
   components in the correct places.Run ldconfig something like:

       ldconfig -m /usr/X11R6/lib

   or reboot to run ldconfig automatically. This links the libraries
   necessary to run X. At this point you should be able to start the
   actual setup by typing, naturally:

       XF86Setup

   which will present a dialog box asking if you want to start in
   graphical mode or tell you it will start momentarily. At this point
   you'll be in X, using the 16 color VGA server.Read all the
   instructions, and follow the routine, which I found to be pretty
   self-explanatory. You will probably have the most trouble finding the
   right mouse device and protocol, but try each one in turn if you
   aren't sure. You'll probably also want to change the keyboard to
   102key US International keyboard. Specify the video card, and monitor
   info, don't worry if you don't know the salient monitor inf, you cna
   start at the top of the list and work your way down the list until you
   reach a good setting.Much easier if you have your monitor manual
   available, so have it on hand if you can. Finish the routine when you
   think it's right and that should do it. Congratulations on your
   hopefully valid Xconfiguration. If you muff it just try again using
   slightly different settings until you do get it right.
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
    Window Managers
    
   Most Linux distributions that i'm familiar with use the FVWM window
   manager as default and the rest of them should have it present, unless
   you downloaded the files directly from xf86.org, in which case the
   default is TWM.
   
   FVWM is highly configurable by editing the
   /var/X11R6/lib/fvwm/system.fvwmrc file.You can use the file as it is,
   since it has the most common installed features already configured,
   but you can comment out those programs that you don't have installed
   by adding a "#" at the beginning of the lines you wish to drop, change
   colors, add popup menus, and more just by following the examples. Just
   be sure to save the system.fvwmrc by typing:

       cp /var/X11R6/lib/fvwm/system.fvwmrc
/var/X11R6/lib/fvwm/system.fvwmrc.old

   or something similar, so if you do mess up on your customization you
   can always start from scratch by cp'ing .old to the original
   system.fvwmrc.A couple of months ago The Weekend Mechanic column had
   some very cool ideas on wallpapering the root window, so you might
   want to check them out.
   
   I made "Internet" and "PPP" popup menus to include lynx, Netscape and
   a couple of telnet sites, as well as an IRC client, and to use the
   chat script from X. you may have other ideas more to your liking,
   don't be afraid to try, you can always start over again if you don't
   like the results.
   
   Take a look at my system.fvwmrc, nothing too sophisticated, but if you
   compare it to the original you should get the idea. I commented the
   changes that I made so you can see some of the ways in which you can
   customize yours.
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                        Copyright  1997, Mike List
           Published in Issue 19 of the Linux Gazette, July 1997
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next 
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
    "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
    
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Welcom to the Graphics Muse
   Set your browser to the width of the line below for best viewing.
    1997 by mjh
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Button Bar muse:
    1. v; to become absorbed in thought
    2. n; [ fr. Any of the nine sister goddesses of learning and the arts
       in Greek Mythology ]: a source of inspiration
       
   W elcome to the Graphics Muse! Why a "muse"? Well, except for the
   sisters aspect, the above definitions are pretty much the way I'd
   describe my own interest in computer graphics: it keeps me deep in
   thought and it is a daily source of inspiration.
   
                   [Graphics Mews] [Musings] [Resources]
    indent T his column is dedicated to the use, creation, distribution,
        and discussion of computer graphics tools for Linux systems.
          This month has been even more hectic than most. I finished the
   first pass of an article on the 1.0 release of the GIMP and submitted
     it to the LInux Journal editors. That will be out in the November
   Graphics issue. I'll probably have to do some updates after I get back
     the marked up version. I'm also working on the cover art for that
     issue, using the developers release (currently at 0.99.10) of the
   GIMP. I've also had quite of bit of regular work (that kind that pays
    the rent) since I'm getting very close to my code freeze date. This
      weekend I'll be writing up documentation for it so I can give an
      introductory class to testers, other developers, Tech Pubs, Tech
   Support, and Marketing on Monday. I think I picked a bad time to start
                           lifting weights again.
                    In this months column I'll be covering ...
     * More experiences with printing using the Epson Stylus Colro 500
     * A brief discussion about DPI, LPI, and Halftoning
     * An even briefer discussion about 3:2 pulldown - transerring film
       to video.
       
    Next month may not be much better. I don't know exactly what I'll be
    writing about, although I do have a wide list from which to choose.
    Mostly I'm looking forward to my trip to SIGGRAPH in August. Any one
    else going? I should have plenty to talk about after that. I plan on
      going to at least two of the OpenGL courses being taught at the
    Conference. I haven't completely decided which courses I'm going to
                               take, however.
          I'm also looking forward to a trip to DC in August as well. A
   real vacation. No computers. Just museums and monuments. I may need to
         take some sort of anti-depressant. Nah. I need the break.
                                      
                               Graphics Mews
                                      
          Disclaimer: Before I get too far into this I should note that
     any of the news items I post in this section are just that - news.
    Either I happened to run across them via some mailing list I was on,
       via some Usenet newsgroup, or via email from someone. I'm not
         necessarily endorsing these products (some of which may be
     commercial), I'm just letting you know I'd heard about them in the
                                past month.
                                      
                                   indent
                                      
                       Announcing bttv version 0.4.0
                                      
          BTTV is a device driver for Booktree Bt848 based frame grabber
    cards like the Hauppauge Win/TV pci, Miro PCTV, STB TV PCI, Diamond
      DTV2000, and AverMedia. Major new features in version 0.4.0 are
   rudimentary support for grabbing into user memory and for decoding VBI
                 data like teletext, VPS, etc. in software.
                                      
    The Motif application xtvscreen now has better support for selecting
   channels and also works in the dual visual modes (255+24 mil. colors)
                 of Xi Graphics AcceleratedX 3.1 X server.
                                      
                                  Author:
                       Ralph Metzler rjkm@thp.uni-koeln.de 
                      Marcus Metzler mocm@thp.uni-koeln.de 
                                 Web Site:
         http://www.thp.uni-koeln.de/~rjkm/linux/bttv.html indent indent
                                      
                              OpenGL4Java 0.3
                                      
         This is an initial developer's release of an (unoffical) port of
    OpenGL(tm) for java. Leo Chan's original package has been ported to
   both WindowsNT/95 and to Linux. Several features have been added, the
   main one being OpenGl now draws into a Java Frame. What advantage does
   this provide? Well, you can now add menus to the OpenGL widget as well
   as receiving all normal events such as MouseMotion and Window events.
   You could very simply have a user rotate a OpenGL object by moving the
    mouse around in the Frame ( the demo for the next release will have
                              this feature ).
                                      
              You can grab it from the developers web page at
                      http://www.magma.ca/~aking/java.
                                   indent
                                      
                WebMagick Image Web Generator - Version 1.29
                                      
    WebMagick is a package which makes putting images on the Web as easy
                   as magick. You want WebMagick if you:
     * Have access to a Unix system
     * Have a collection of images you want to put on the Web
     * Are tired of editing page after page of HTML by hand
     * Want to generate sophisticated pages to showcase your images
     * Want to be in control
     * Are not afraid of installing sophisticated software packages
     * Want to use well-documented software (33 page manual!)
     * Support free software
       
   After nine months of development, WebMagick is chock-full of features.
      WebMagick recurses through directory trees, building HTML pages,
   imagemap files, and client-side/server-side maps to allow the user to
   navigate through collections of thumbnail images (somewhat similar to
      xv's Visual Schnauzer) and select the image to view with a mouse
    click. In fact, WebMagick supports xv's thumbnail cache format so it
                    can be used in conjunction with xv.
                                      
    The primary focus of WebMagick is performance. Image thumbnails are
    reduced and composed into a single image to reduce client accesses,
    reducing server load and improving client performance. Everything is
    pre-computed. During operation WebMagick employs innovative caching
      and work-avoidance techniques to make successive executions much
    faster. WebMagick has been successfully executed on directory trees
    containing many tens of directories and thousands of images ranging
                from tiny icons to large JPEGs or PDF files.
                                      
   Here is a small sampling of the image formats that WebMagick supports:
     * Windows Bitmap image (BMP)
     * Postscript (PS)
     * Encapsulated Postscript (EPS)
     * Acrobat (PDF)
     * JPEG
     * GIF (including animations)
     * PNG
     * MPEG
     * TIFF
     * Photo CD
       
    WebMagick is written in PERL and requires the ImageMagick (3.8.4 or
    later) and PerlMagick (1.0.3 or later) packages as well as a recent
     version of PERL 5 (5.002 or later). Installation instructions are
                  provided in the WebMagick distribution.
                                      
                Obtain WebMagick from the WebMagick page at
   http://www.cyberramp.net/~bfriesen/webmagick/dist/. WebMagick can also
           be obtained from the ImageMagick distribution site at
             ftp://ftp.wizards.dupont.com/pub/ImageMagick/perl.
                                   indent
                                      
        EasternGraphics announces public release of `opengl' widget
                                      
         EasternGraphics announces the public release of `opengl' widget
   which allows windows with three-dimensional graphics output, produced
       by OpenGL to be integrated into Tk applications. The widget is
                available for Unix and MS-Windows platforms.
                                      
      You can download the package from ftp://ftp.EasternGraphics.com/
                       pub/egr/tkopengl/tkopengl1.0.tar.gz
                                      
                      Email: wicht@EasternGraphics.com
             WWW: http://www.EasternGraphics.com/ indent indent
                                      
                ELECTROGIG's GIG 3DGO 3.2 for Linux for $99.
                                      
          There is a free demo package for Linux. Its roughly 36M tarred
   and compressed. A 9M demo's file is also available for download. I had
     placed a notice about this package in the May's Muse column, but I
   guess ELECTROGIG had missed that, so they sent me another announcement
   (I got the first one from comp.os.linux.announce). Anyway, one thing I
    didn't mention in May was the price for the full Linux product: $99.
    This is the complete product, although I'm not sure if this includes
     any documentation or not (it doesn't appear to). The Linux version
   does not come with any product support, however. You need a 2.0 Linux
                          kernel to run GIG 3DGO.
                                      
    I also gave a URL that takes you to an FTP site for downloading the
    demo. A slightly more informative page for downloading the demo and
     its associated files is at http://www.gig.nl/support/indexftp.html
                                   indent
                                      
                             Type1Inst updated
                                      
            James Macnicol uploaded version 0.5b of his type1inst font
   installation utility to sunsite.unc.edu. If its not already there, it
                   will end up in /pub/Linux/X11/xutils.
                                      
     Type1inst is a small perl script which generates the "fonts.scale"
     file required by an X11 server to use any Type 1 PostScript fonts
     which exist in a particular directory. It gathers this informatiom
    from the font files themselves, a task which previously was done by
    hand. The script is also capable of generating the similar "Fontmap"
    file used by ghostscript. It can also generate sample sheets for the
                                   fonts.
                                      
   FTP: ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/X11/xutils/type1inst-0.5b.tar.gz
                                      
   Editors note: I highly recommend this little utility if you are intent
       on doing any graphics arts style work, such as with the GIMP.
                                   indent
                                      
                 libgr-2.0.13 has been updated to png-0.96
                                      
         It seems the interface to png-0.96 is not binary compatible with
     png-0.89, so the major version of the shared library was bumped to
           libpng.so.2.0.96 (last version was libpng.so.1.0.89).
                                      
                               WHAT IS LIBGR?
    Libgr is a collection of graphics libraries, based on libgr-1.3, by
            Rob Hooft (hooft@EMBL-Heidelberg.DE), that includes:
     * fbm
     * jpeg
     * pbm
     * pgm
     * png
     * pnm
     * ppm
     * rle
     * tiff
     * zlib, for compression
       
    These are configured to build ELF static and shared libraries. This
           collection (libgr2) is being maintained by Neal Becker
                           <neal@ctd.comsat.com>
                                      
                   FTP: ftp.ctd.comsat.com:/pub/linux/ELF
                                   indent
                                   indent
                                   indent
                                      
                               Did You Know?
                                      
   ...there is a site devoted to settign up Wacom tablets under XFree86?
   http://www.dorsai.org/~stasic/wacomx.htm The pages maintainer, Edward,
                                   says:
                                      
     So far, nobody has told me that he or she couldn't follow the
     instructions.
     
     Fred Lepied is the man who actually created the support for the
     Wacom tablets under XFree86. He gave me instructions on setting my
     ArtPad II up and I repeated this, periodically, on Usenet. When the
     requests for help there turned into a steady stream, I decided to
     put up a web page (mainly to show that I can make one but not use
     it for a lame ego trip).
     
   Adam D. Moss <adam@uunet.pipex.com> has said he's also gotten this to
     work and offered to help others who might need assistance getting
                               things set up.
                                      
    ...there is rumored work being done on 3Dfx support for Linux? Tige
                                  writes:
                                      
     I was looking around for info about the 3Dfx based cards and came
     across a guy's page that said he is working on a full OpenGl driver
     for 3Dfx boards for NT. What does this have to do with Linux? Well,
     he says that after the NT driver is done, he is going to start work
     on 3Dfx drivers for Linux and an OpenGl driver for XFree86/3Dfx.
     
     The guy's name is Zanshin and the address of his site is:
     http://www.planetquake.com/gldojo/
     
     Most of this stuff is in the News Archives section under 4/18/97 Oh
     yeah, he also mentions hacking SGIQuake to work with Linux, so we
     may get to see a hardware accelerated version of Quake for Linux.
     
   ...the MindsEye Developers mailing list has moved to mindseye@luna.nl.
               unsubscribing can be done by sending a body of

         unsubscribe
                
                 to mindseye-request@luna.nl and a body of
         unsubscribe mindseye@luna.nl
                
      to majordomo@luna.nl Other majordomo commands should be send to
   majordomo@luna.nl a body of 'help' gives an overview. Users which are
   subscribed to the old mindseye@ronix.ptf.hro.nl adress do not need to
    unsubscribe. The list will be removed shortly afterwards. They will
       get this message twice: one from mindseye@luna.nl and one from
     mindseye@ronix.ptf.hro.nl. A HTML interface by using hypermail is
                            under construction.
                                      
                                  Q and A
                                      
   Q: Forgive what might be a dumb question, but what exactly is meant by
                                "overlays"? 
                                      
       A: Imagine a 24bpp image plane, that can be addressed by 24bpp
     visuals. Imagine an 8bpp plane in front of the 24bpp image plane,
                         addressed by 8bpp visuals.
                                      
   One or more of the 8bpp visuals, preferably the default visual, should
      offer a 'transparent pixel' index. When the 8bpp image plane is
    painted with the transparent pixel, you can see through to the 24bpp
     plane. You can call an arrangement like this, a 24bpp underlay, or
                  refer to the 8bpp visuals as an overlay.
                                      
     Strictly, we call this "multiple concurrent visuals with different
   color depths", but that's rather a mouthful. Hence, shorthand we refer
        to it as "24+8" or "overlays", with "24+8" as the preferred
                                description.
                                      
                 From Jeremy Chatfield @ Xi Graphics, Inc.
                                   indent
                                   indent
                                   indent
                                      
                                  Musings
                                      
                            Microstation update
                                      
         After last months 3D Modeller update I received email from Mark
    Hamstra at Bentley Systems, Inc. Mark is the man responsible for the
     ports of Bentley's MicroStation and Masterpiece products that are
    available for Linux. I've included his response below. The stuff in
                  italics is what I had orginally written:
                                      
     Thanks for the mention in Gazette #18 --it's kinda fun watching
     where MicroStation/Linux info pops up. Being the guy that actually
     did the ports of MicroStation and Masterpiece, I'll lay claim to
     knowing the most about these products. Unfortunately, you've got a
     few errors in Gazette #18; allow me to correct them:
     
     Includes programming support with a BASIC language and linkages to
     various commericial databases such as Oracle and Informix. 
     
     Programming support in the current product includes the
     MicroStation Development Language (C syntax code that compiles to
     platform-independent byte-code), BASIC, and support for linking MDL
     with both MDL shared libraries and native code shared libraries
     (i.e., Linux .so ELF libraries). For a look at the future direction
     of Bentley and MicroStation, take a look on our web site at the
     recent announcement by Keith Bentley at the AEC Systems tradeshow
     of MicroStation/J and our licensing agreement with Javasoft.
     
     Because of the lack of commercial database support for Linux, there
     are no database linkage facilities in the current Linux port of
     MicroStation.
     
     This looks like the place to go for a commercial modeller, although
     I'm not certain if they'll sell their educational products to the
     general public or not. 
     
     Nope, academic-only at this time; although we're collecting
     requests for commercial licensing (at our normal commercial prices)
     at http://www.bentley.com/products/change-request.html. The only
     thing preventing MicroStation from being available commercially for
     Linux is a lack of adequate expressed interest.
     
     Note that the Linux ports have not been released (to my knowledge -
     I'm going by whats on the web pages). 
     
     The first two of our new Engineering Academic Suites that contain
     the Linux ports, the Building Engineering and GeoEngineering
     Suites, have been available in North America since the middle of
     February. European and worldwide distribution should be underway
     now too, although it took a little longer. Incidentally, the web
     pages you list are for our Europe, Middle East, and Africa (ema)
     division; you probably actually want
     http://www.bentley.com/academic.
     
     [output formats] Unknown 
     
     We output a wide range of formats (and import a wider range than
     you give us credit for). I always forget just which ones are
     actually in the product and which are only in my current builds
     from the most recent source, so I'll just refer you to
     http://www.bentley.com/products/microstation95 and
     http://www.bentley.com/products/masterpiece, and note that my copy
     of MicroStation/Linux currently lists DGN, DWG, DXF, IGES, CGM,
     SVF, GRD, RIB, VRML, Postscript, HPGL, PCL, TIFF, TGA, BMP, and a
     couple other raster and animation formats as output options -- and
     I know I haven't currently got some of our soon-to-be-released
     translators compiled. Like I said, probably not all of these are in
     the current Linux port, but it's a simple matter to add whatever's
     not there to future versions of the Linux products, provided
     there's enough demand to keep the project going.
     
    I wasn't sure what a few of these formats were, so I wrote Mark back
     to ask about them. He informed me on the following (which were the
                   ones I had asked specifically about):
     * DGN is MicroStation-native design file format and has its ancestry
       in the Intergraph IGDS file format.
     * SVF is the Simple Vector Format (see http://www.softsource.com),
       which works pretty good for web browser plug-ins.
     * GRD is used by our MicroStation Field product.
     * CGM is the Computer Graphics Metafile format, a vendor-independent
       standard supported in various software packages, browser plug-ins,
       printers/plotters, etc.
       
    I want to thank Mark for offering updated information so quickly. My
   information is only as good as what I can find or am fed, and it helps
   when vendors, developers or end users provide me with useful info like
                          this. Many thanks Mark.
                                      
     If you've used this product on MS platforms feel free to drop me a
   line and let me know what you thought of it. I'm always out to support
          commercial ports of graphics-related products to Linux.
                                   indent
                                      
                  Printing with an Epson Stylus Color 500 
                                      
          I bought an Epson Stylus Color 500 printer back in December of
     last year so I could print in color. I had done some research into
     what printers would be best, based in part on reviews in online PC
      magazines and also on support available in the Ghostscript 4.03
   package. The Epson Stylus Color 500 was rated very high by the reviews
   and I found a web page which provided information on how to configure
      Ghostscript for use with the printer. I bought the printer, got
   Ghostscript working in a very marginal way (that is to say, it printed
   straight text in black and white). But thats as far as it went. I had
   gotten some minor printing in color done, but nothing very impressive
                     and most of it was downright bad.
          Earlier this month I was given the opportunity to work on the
     cover art for an issue of the Linux Journal. A few trial runs were
     given the preliminary ok but they were too small - the size of the
      image needed to be more than twice as big as the original I had
    created. Also, because the conversion of an image from the monitors
       display to printed paper is not a straightforward one (see the
      discussion on LPI/DPI elsewhere in this months column) it became
    apparent I needed to try printing my artwork to sample how it would
    really look on paper. I had to get my printer configuration working
                                 properly.
           Well, it turned out to be easier than I thought. The hardest
   part is to get Ghostscript compiled properly. The first thing to do is
     to be sure to read the text files that accompany the source code.
                         There are 3 files to read:
     * make.txt - general compiling and installation instructions
     * drivers.txt - configuration information for support of the various
       devices you'll need for your system.
     * unix-lpr.txt - help on setting up a print spooler for Unix
       systems.
       
     The first two are the ones that made the most difference to me. I
     didn't really use the latter, but my solution isn't very elegant.
       However, what it lacks in grace it makes up for in simplicity.
          Building the drivers was fairly simple for me - I took most of
      the defaults, except I added support for the Epson Stylus Color
      printers. There is a section in make.txt devoted specifically to
    compiling on Unix systems (search for How to build Ghostscript from
   source (Unix version) in that file). In most cases you'll just be able
   to type "make" after linking the correct compiler specific makefile to
   makefile. However, I needed to configure in the Epson printers first.
         What I did was to edit the unix-gcc.mak file to change one line.
                            The line that begins
                                  DEVICE_DEVS= 
                            was modified to add
                                   stcolor.dev 
   right after the equal sign. I also didn't need support for any of the
          HP DeskJet (DEVICE_DEVS3 and DEVICE_DEVS4) or Bubble Jet
   (DEVICE_DEVS6) devices so I commented out those lines. Now, once this
             file had been linked to makefile I could just run
                                       make
                                  make install 
   At this point the Ghostsript package was ready for use. Note that many
   of the current distributions already include Ghostscript, but may not
                         have the 4.03 release. Run
                                      gs -v 
   to find out if you have Ghostscript 4.03. You'll need it to work with
                        the Epson Stylus Color 500.
          Now I needed to set up my print spooler. This turned out to be
   rather easy. First, you need to know that the stcolor driver (which is
      the name of the driver Ghostscript uses to talk to Epson Stylus
   printers) has a pre-built Postscript file that is used to prepare the
    printer for printing. This file, called stcolor.ps, is included with
     the 4.03 distribution. The file contains special commands that are
       interpreted by the printer, however it does not actually cause
                          anything to be printed.
                                      
                 -Top of next column- indent indent indent
    More Musings...
     * DPI, LPI, Halftoning and other strange things - A short discussion
       on printing computer images.
     * How many frames makes a movie? - a discussion with Larry Gritz
       about how video animations are transferred from film.
       
                               indent indent
     When you want to print something you need to first print this file
   followed by the file or files you want to print. Don't worry about how
     to do this just yet - I have a set of scripts to make this easier.
         There were a number of options I could use with Ghostscript for
      my printer, but I found I only needed to work with one: display
       resolution or Dots Per Inch (DPI). In order to handle the two
   resolutions I simply created two scripts which could be used as input
    filters for lpr (the print spooler). The scripts are almost exactly
   the same, except one is called stcolor and one is called stcolor-high,
       the latter being for the higher resolution. Both of these were
      installed under /var/spool/lpd/lp and given execute permissions.
            Next came the configuration for lpr. I needed to edit the
    /etc/printcap file to create entries for the new printer filters. I
      decided to give the printers different names than the standard,
     non-filtered printer name. In this way I could print ordinary text
    files (which I do more than anything else) using the default printer
    and use the other printer names for various draft or final prints of
                        images, like the cover art.
         Now the system was ready to print my images, but I still needed
     to do a couple more things. First, I wanted to write a script for
   handling printing of my images in the most common formats I created. I
   wrote a script to do this which I named print-tga.sh. I made symbollic
    links from this file to variations on the name. The script uses the
    name used to invoke it to determine which type of conversions to run
     before printing the file. The script converts the various formats,
   using the tools in the NetPBM kit, to Postscript files and then prints
   them to the high resolution printer setup in the previously mentioned
                               printcap file.
         Once I got all this done I was able to print full page images on
   high-gloss paper. They come out beautifully. The images I created for
    the cover art are far bigger than the paper, so Ghostscript resizes
    them to fit. It wasn't until I got this working that I realized just
    how good Ghostscript is. Or just how good the Epson Stylus Color 500
                                    is.
         As a side bonus, I also discovered that I could now print pages
   from my Netscape browser to my printer. I configured the print command
       to be lpr -llpps (using the lower resolution printer from the
     /etc/printcap file) in the Print dialog. Since Netscape passes the
    page as a Postscript file to the filter, there is no need to do any
    conversions like I do with my images. I now get full color prints of
   the pages I wish to save (like SIGGRAPH's registration forms). I also
         can print directly from Applixware using the same printer
    configurations. I just had to set up the print options to output as
                 Postscript, which was simply enough to do.
          There are a number of other settings that can be set using the
    filters. If you are interested in using these you should consult the
     devices.txt file for information on the stcolor driver. There are
    probably some better settings than what I'm using for other types of
                              printing needs.
         Well, thats about it. I hope this was of some use to you. I was
      really thankful when I got it working. My setup is probably not
   exactly like anyone elses, but if you have the Epson Stylus Color 500
    you should be able to get similar results. Don't forget: if you plan
    on printing high resolution images using the 360 DPI (as opposed to
    the 180 DPI also supported by the printer) then you'll probably want
   to print on high-gloss paper. This paper can be rather expensive. The
    high-gloss paper Epson sells specifically for this printer is about
    $36US for 15 sheets. Also, I should note that I recently heard Epson
   now has a a model 600 that is to replace the model 500 as their entry
     level color printer. I haven't heard if the 600 will work with the
    stcolor driver in Ghostscript so you may want to contact the drivers
    author (who is listed in the devices.txt file, along with a web site
            for more info) if you plan on getting the model 600.
                                   indent
                                   indent
                                      
                                 Resources
       The following links are just starting points for finding more
     information about computer graphics and multimedia in general for
    Linux systems. If you have some application specific information for
   me, I'll add them to my other pages or you can contact the maintainer
   of some other web site. I'll consider adding other general references
    here, but application or site specific information needs to go into
        one of the following general references and not listed here.
                                      
                         Linux Graphics mini-Howto 
                          Unix Graphics Utilities 
                           Linux Multimedia Page 
                                      
   Some of the Mailing Lists and Newsgroups I keep an eye on and where I
                get alot of the information in this column:
                                      
              The Gimp User and Gimp Developer Mailing Lists.
                         The IRTC-L discussion list
                     comp.graphics.rendering.raytracing
                     comp.graphics.rendering.renderman
                          comp.graphics.api.opengl
                           comp.os.linux.announce
                                      
                             Future Directions
                                      
                                Next month:
                                      
     I have no idea. I have a ton of things that need doing, but I just
     haven't had time to figure out what I *should* do. I still have
     part 3 of the BMRT series to do, which I plan on doing as part of
     the process of creating an animation. The animation is another
     topic I'd like to do. I've also had requests for a number of other
     topics. One good one was to cover the various Image Libraries that
     are available (libgr or its individual components, for example). I
     have a review of Image Alchemy to do (long ago promised and still
     not done *sigh*). Well, at least I'll never be short a topic.
     
                 Let me know what you'd like to hear about!
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                    Copyright  1997, Michael J. Hammel
           Published in Issue 19 of the Linux Gazette, July 1997
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
              [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next 
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
           "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                  Intranet Hallways Systems Based on Linux
                                      
                By Justin Seiferth, seifertj@af.pentagon.mil
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
    Using Linux: An Intranet Hallways SystemLike many of you, I like to
   use Unix, esp. Linux when ever and where ever it seems to be the best
      fit for the job. This means I have to work fast and be creative;
   making opportunities when and where ever I can't take them. I had just
   such an opportunity recently when I put together a system which allows
   my workplace to publish the common file sharing areas of its Microsoft
     Windows NT based desktops. I thought others might be interested in
   this system and created a distribution have your own Intranet Hallways
   system or as the popular press would put it an "enterprise information
   warehouse".  Don't let on how easy it is and you'll be able to make a
    bundle reselling the system.  Here's what you need to do to make it
                                  happen:
                                      
     Kernel Options
   
     Support Utilities
   
     HTML pages and scripts
   
     Some Configuration Changes
   
     A Quick installation
   
     Other things you might do with it
   
   Once you've retrieved the distribution, it shouldn't take more than an
      hour to get things running; let me know what you think about the
                            system when you do.
                                      
                              The Opportunity
    Microsoft's Windows NT suffers from a file system inherited from its
   MS-DOS lineage. For those of you who haven't had the displeasure this
   means file systems are cryptically named A-Z, can't automount and the
    process of manually mounting them is much more complicated and error
    prone than the more user friendly tools like Red Hat's fstool. These
      problems have been worked around somewhat at my agency through a
    series of .bat files which mount server drives in standard places so
    users can say "Just look at the T: drive" or something similar. This
    still left users with problems searching tens of thousands of files
    spread thousands of directories located on servers across the world.
   The Microsoft Windows NT operators were trying to figure out a way to
   present an efficient, agency-wide view of these servers so that users
   could easily find and retrieve things. We used Linux to integrate and
             publish these file sharing areas on our intranet.
                                      
                               Before theShow
    Key to the system is the ability of the Linux kernel (later 2.0 and
     2.1 versions) to mount local NTFS and remote SMB volumes. There's
    nothing esoteric about enabling or using this option, just check it
    off when you're compiling the kernel. (Don't run away at the thought
     of compiling a kernel! Most distributions include these options in
   their default kernel so you probably don't have do anything- just try
    it out smbmount and see if it works). If any of your network shares
     are coming from Windows 95 machines, make sure to also select the
     patch for Windows 95 machines and long file names. If you are just
   serving Microsoft Windows NT or Samba shares, don't use the Windows 95
    option as I've found it has a noticeable impact on the speed of the
                       SMB mount and file operations.
                                      
   Once you've got an SMB capable kernel installed you're almost ready to
   go. The other critical components are thesmbfs utilities, the wu-ftpd
      suite, a web server, a search engine and a javascript - capable
    browser. Your distribution has probably installed an operational FTP
      and HTTP server and most people nowadays have a Netscape browser
   installed so all you really need to do is compile the smbfs utilities
   and setup a search engine. If most of the documents on your SMB shares
   are in text or HTML format, there are a number of search engines that
   you can choose from- htdig and glimpse come to mind. If you want to be
      able to search non-HTML documents then you might need one of the
       commercial search engine. We use Netscape's catalog server for
                                  Solaris.
                                      
   The system will work without a javascript browser; it just won't be a
    easy to use. Hit the links to grab the software tools you need from
   the list above set it up. If you run into problems, be sure and check
      out the linux HOWTOs and mailing list documentation on the sites
    offering the software.  If you have RedHat's RPM or Debian's package
   tools somebody else has probably already made a binary available; just
                         check your local archive.
                                      
                                Set andStage
     I'm assuming you've tested your kernel to make sure you can indeed
    mount SMB shares and that your ftp server is up and alive. Before we
   can start serving your "enterprise information warehouse" there are a
     few files which need to be added to or modified on your system in
   addition to the HTML files we'll discuss later. The first addition is
   a new init.d file for automatically mounting SMB shares when you boot
     your system. Then we'll enable a few features of your FTP server.
                                      
     First, let's contend with mounting shares automatically. I do this
    with a standard run-level 3/5 initscript; here's an excerpt with the
                            most critical lines:
   ______________________________________________________________________
                                      
                                      
                       # Check that networking is up.
                      [ ${NETWORKING} = "no" ] exit 0
                                      
                         # See how we were called.
                                case "$1" in
                                   start)
                      echo -n "Mounting SMB shares..."
                           echo "Mounting share1"
     /usr/sbin/smbmount //hostname/share /home/ftp/mountpoint -n -uftp
                     -gftp -f755 -Ihostnames_IP_address
                         # mount your other shares
                                  echo ""
                                     ;;
                                   stop)
                     echo -n "Umounting SMB shares..."
                   /usr/sbin/umount /home/ftp/mountpoint
                   #insert other mount comments here ....
                                  echo ""
                                     ;;
                                     *)
                    echo "Usage: hallways {start|stop}"
                                   exit 1
                                    esac
   ______________________________________________________________________
                                      
                                      
   The smbmount(8) and umount(8) man pages have more details on what all
    those flags are about. Basically, we are mounting the shares into a
   directory accessible via anonymous FTP. The permissions and groups are
   "fake" in the sense that they don't map to anything sensible in the NT
    file system; they are only for the convenience and protection of the
    Unix system. Our common shares are read/write for everyone; if your
    site is more cautious you may want to review the implications of the
   file permissions and ownership or perhaps impose access controls using
           your file system and web server's security mechanisms.
                                      
   Now, let's take a look at the scripts used to startup your FTP server.
         You have to make sure you're taking advantage of wu-ftpd's
   ftpaccess(5) configuration capabilities. If you start your FTP daemon
       using the -a option the /etc/ftpaccess file will allow you to
         customize many aspects of the FTP server's performance and
   capabilities. Normally, you enable the -a option of your FTP server in
     your /etc/inetd.conf file; some people run their FTP full time, in
   this case check out the startup files in your /etc/rc.d/rc3.d or rc5.d
   directory and add the option when the daemon is started up. Among the
      benefits of using ftpaccess is the ability to specify header and
      trailer messages in the directory listings generated by your FTP
    server. These directives, message and readme are key to our system's
                               capabilities.
                                      
    We created an HTML file within the directory structure accessible to
   the FTP daemon; in our case it is called 'welcome.html', this file is
     placed in the root directory of the FTP daemon's file area and the
                       entry in ftpaccess looks like:
                                    ...
                        message /welcome.html login
                                    ...
   Now the contents of welcome.html will be displayed at the beginning of
    directory listings. The contents of welcome.html are a little tricky
     if you're not familiar with javascript. They are designed to both
   dynamically tailor the HTML based on the position of the page within a
      browser.  These dynamic web pages tailor the help message to the
                          context of the display.
   ______________________________________________________________________
                                      
                                      
                                   <HTML>
                                   <HEAD>
                       <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
                                      
                          function OpenNewWindow()
                                     {
     alert("To Upload a file go to file...Upload File on the browser's
                                button bar")
                parent.frames[2].location.protocol = "ftp:"
                window.open(parent.frames[2].location.href)
                                     }
                                      
                                 </SCRIPT>
                                   </HEAD
                          <BODY bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
                                   <FORM>
                       <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
                              if (self!=top) {
   document.write('<i><B>Hi!</b></i>' + "You can preview, download files
    or search for information here.<p>You can also upload a file<br>" +
                                 '<FORM>' +
           '<CENTER>' + '<INPUT TYPE="button" Value="Upload File"
                          onClick="OpenNewWindow()
                      ">' + '</CENTER>' + '</FORM>');
                                     }
                                    else
                                     {
   document.write('<i><B>Hi!</b></i> This is a special screen for adding
     information to hallways.<p> To Upload a file, go to FILE | Upload,
     like <a href="http://webserver/access_directory/file_upload.gif">
                                  this</a>
                                   <p>');
                                     }
                                 </SCRIPT>
                                  </FORM>
                                  </BODY>
                                  </HTML>
   ______________________________________________________________________
                                      
   This interface is not the first one we tried. I really wanted to make
     the system intuitive; then we'd have to spend less time answering
   questions and could spend more time working on new ideas. The tests we
    conducted showed most people knew how to download files but were not
    aware you could upload files or view the contents of non-HTML files.
   We tried HTTP uploads and downloads but settled on the combination of
   FTP and HTTP generated screens. We needed a design which allowed easy
   navigation around a complicated system and kept at least minimal help
    hints in front of the users all the time. The final HTTP based frame
         design allowed us to put together an attractive interface.
    Encapsulating the FTP file display simplified uploads and downloads.
   Unlike a web server, our FTP server labels all files as a single MIME
   type allowing us to use a single helper application to easily display
   all files.; Getting this preview function to work will require editing
      the association of mine types with an application on the user's
   computer. We use a universal viewer, you can use one of these if your
   network already has one installed or you might investigate one of the
     many plug-ins which allow viewing files within the browser itself.
                                      
                             The Curtain Rises
     Now the majority of the work and trickery is done; all that remains
    is a frame based user interface, a few snazzy graphics and some help
    files. In a nutshell, if the FTP listing is contained within a frame
   then the if part of the conditional is presented. This HTML allows the
    user to press an "upload" button which will pop open another browser
        instance with the FTP directory within the root window. When
       welcome.html is displayed within this root window, it contains
   instructions on how to upload a file using the FTP capabilities of the
   browser. The best way to understand how the code works is of course to
                      just load it up and experiment.
                                      
      This isn't a tutorial on HTML so I'll just let you know you can
    download this whole package (minus a few of the graphics we used in
                          our user interface) from
   ftp://www.disa.mil/pub/linux_gazette_stuff.tgz. We can't redistribute
     some of the graphics we use but you can just draw up your own and
                         stick them into HTML code.
                                      
        During your review of the code you may notice that our frame
    definition document distributes this system across several machines;
      for us this is an important feature. We make use of local proxy
    servers for FTP and HTTP traffic. These proxy servers keep down the
    loading of our backbone. Our system is distributed such that the web
   server documents and graphics will be served from a local departmental
   web server while the FTP server distributes information from another,
   centralized location. Since the proxy and web are local to our subnet
    documents stored on the SMB hallways area are served from the proxy
   (cache)- speeding up the file transfer times dramatically and reducing
    our wide area network traffic. We are also using the Solaris version
   of the Netscape Catalog Server to allow users to expediently find any
    document or content within a wide variety of popular Unix, MacIntosh
      and Windows application formats. This feature provides some much
   needed help to users who must retrieve one of several hundred thousand
   documents stored on servers spread across the globe; it was absolutely
   infeasible using the Microsoft Windows NT file manager search feature
        previously recommended by the Microsoft Windows NT operators
                                      
                           Applause and Royalties
     You can provide many other enhancements such as browser access to
      multiple file system types (NFS, Appleshare, SMB, AFS, etc) and
   internet/intranet FTP areas are easily added. We are also working on a
    management add-on using PHP/FI and Postgress to present users with a
    fully graphical file upload facility which will also store meta data
        on documents such as the originator of the information, the
    originators e-mail address, etc. In fact I think with a little more
   work this system is a pretty good replacement for some the proprietary
       commercial document management applications that cost tens of
                           thousands of dollars.
                                      
    I hope these ideas and this system will help you and your workplace
    out. If you have other creative examples of simple systems that help
   bring people working around the world together, I'd like to here about
                       them. Thanks for listening...
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                     Copyright  1997, Justin Seiferth
           Published in Issue 19 of the Linux Gazette, July 1997
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
              [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next 
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
           "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                     Linux and Artificial Intelligence
                                      
                     By John Eikenberry, jae@ai.uga.edu
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
     Three years ago when I was starting my last year of my masters of
    philosophy degree. I found myself asking that eternal question, "Ok,
   now what in the hell am I going to do?" Not wanting to continue on in
   philosophy, what could a philosopher (and computer enthusiast) do that
    would be both fun and profitable. Artificial Intelligence of course
                   (but you saw that coming didn't you?)
                                      
   I had fallen in love with Linux in late 1993 and after seeing all the
   Suns scattered about the AI Dept, it seemed like the perfect OS for AI
     research. Guess what, I was right. I have found so many resources
   available for doing AI research on Linux that I had to write them all
        down (warning: blatant plug follows), thus my Linux AI/Alife
                        mini-HOWTO came into being.
                                      
       Ok, enough of this drivel, now on to the meat of the article.
                                      
   Modern AI is a many faceted field of research, dealing with everything
   from 'traditional' logic based systems, to connectionism, evolutionary
   computing, artificial life, and autonomous agents. With Unix being the
   main platform for AI, there are many excellent resources available for
     Linux in each of these areas. The rest of this article I'll give a
    brief description of each of these areas along with one of the more
             interesting resources available to the Linux user.
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
          I know I didn't mention this above, but there are many
          programming languages that have been specifically designed with
          AI applications in mind.
          
   DFKI OZ
          Web page: www.ps.uni-sb.de/oz/
          FTP site: ps-ftp.dfki.uni-sb.de/pub/oz2/
          Oz is a high-level programming language designed for concurrent
          symbolic computation. It is based on a new computation model
          providing a uniform and simple foundation for several
          programming paradigms, including higher-order functional,
          constraint logic, and concurrent object-oriented programming.
          Oz is designed as a successor to languages such as Lisp, Prolog
          and Smalltalk, which fail to support applications that require
          concurrency, reactivity, and real-time control.
          
          DFKI Oz is an interactive implementation of Oz featuring a
          programming interface based on GNU Emacs, a concurrent browser,
          an object-oriented interface to Tcl/Tk, powerful
          interoperability features (sockets, C, C++), an incremental
          compiler, a garbage collector, and support for stand-alone
          applications. Performance is competitive with commercial Prolog
          and Lisp systems.
          
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   TRADITIONAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
          Traditional AI is based around the ideas of logic, rule
          systems, linguistics, and the concept of rationality. At its
          roots are programming languages such as Lisp and Prolog. Expert
          systems are the largest successful example of this paradigm. An
          expert system consists of a detailed knowledge base and a
          complex rule system to utilize it. Such systems have been used
          for such things as medical diagnosis support and credit
          checking systems.
          
   SNePS
          Web site: www.cs.buffalo.edu/pub/sneps/WWW/
          FTP site: ftp.cs.buffalo.edu/pub/sneps/
          The long-term goal of The SNePS Research Group is the design
          and construction of a natural-language-using computerized
          cognitive agent, and carrying out the research in artificial
          intelligence, computational linguistics, and cognitive science
          necessary for that endeavor. The three-part focus of the group
          is on knowledge representation, reasoning, and natural-language
          understanding and generation. The group is widely known for its
          development of the SNePS knowledge representation/reasoning
          system, and Cassie, its computerized cognitive agent.
          
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   CONNECTIONISM
          Connectionism is a technical term for a group of related
          techniques. These techniques include areas such as Artificial
          Neural Networks, Semantic Networks and a few other similar
          ideas. My present focus is on neural networks (though I am
          looking for resources on the other techniques). Neural networks
          are programs designed to simulate the workings of the brain.
          They consist of a network of small mathematical-based nodes,
          which work together to form patterns of information. They have
          tremendous potential and currently seem to be having a great
          deal of success with image processing and robot control.
          
   PDP++
          Web site: www.cnbc.cmu.edu/PDP++/
          FTP site (US): cnbc.cmu.edu/pub/pdp++/
          FTP site (Europe): unix.hensa.ac.uk/mirrors/pdp++/ 
          As the field of connectionist modeling has grown, so has the
          need for a comprehensive simulation environment for the
          development and testing of connectionist models. Our goal in
          developing PDP++ has been to integrate several powerful
          software development and user interface tools into a general
          purpose simulation environment that is both user friendly and
          user extensible. The simulator is built in the C++ programming
          language, and incorporates a state of the art script
          interpreter with the full expressive power of C++. The
          graphical user interface is built with the Interviews toolkit,
          and allows full access to the data structures and processing
          modules out of which the simulator is built. We have
          constructed several useful graphical modules for easy
          interaction with the structure and the contents of neural
          networks, and we've made it possible to change and adapt many
          things. At the programming level, we have set things up in such
          a way as to make user extensions as painless as possible. The
          programmer creates new C++ objects, which might be new kinds of
          units or new kinds of processes; once compiled and linked into
          the simulator, these new objects can then be accessed and used
          like any other.
          
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTING [EC]
          Evolutionary computing is actually a broad term for a vast
          array of programming techniques, including genetic algorithms,
          complex adaptive systems, evolutionary programming, etc. The
          main thrust of all these techniques is the idea of evolution.
          The idea that a program can be written that will evolve toward
          a certain goal. This goal can be anything from solving some
          engineering problem to winning a game.
          
   GAGS
          Web site: kal-el.ugr.es/gags.html
          FTP site: kal-el.ugr.es/GAGS/
          Genetic Algorithm
          
       application generator and class library written mainly in C++.
         As a class library, and among other thing, GAGS includes:
     * A chromosome hierarchy with variable length chromosomes. Genetic
       operators: 2-point crossover, uniform crossover, bit-flip
       mutation, transposition (gene interchange between 2 parts of the
       chromosome), and variable-length operators: duplication,
       elimination, and random addition.
     * Population level operators include steady state, roulette wheel
       and tournament selection.
     * Gnuplot wrapper: turns gnuplot into a iostreams-like class.
     * Easy sample file loading and configuration file parsing.
       
   As an application generator (written in PERL), you only need to supply
      it with an ANSI-C or C++ fitness function, and it creates a C++
   program that uses the above library to 90% capacity, compiles it, and
        runs it, saving results and presenting fitness thru gnuplot.
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   ALIFE
          Alife takes yet another approach to exploring the mysteries of
          intelligence. It has many aspects similar to EC and
          connectionism, but takes these ideas and gives them a
          meta-level twist. Alife emphasizes the development of
          intelligence through emergent behavior of complex adaptive
          systems. Alife stresses the social or group based aspects of
          intelligence. It seeks to understand life and survival. By
          studying the behaviors of groups of 'beings' Alife seeks to
          discover the way intelligence or higher order activity emerges
          from seemingly simple individuals. Cellular Automata and
          Conway's Game of Life are probably the most commonly known
          applications of this field.
          
   Tierra
          Web site: www.hip.atr.co.jp/~ray/tierra/tierra.html
          FTP site: alife.santafe.edu/pub/SOFTWARE/Tierra/
          Alternate FTP site:
          ftp.cc.gatech.edu/ac121/linux/science/biology/
          Tierra's written in the C programming language. This source
          code creates a virtual computer and its operating system, whose
          architecture has been designed in such a way that the
          executable machine codes are evolvable. This means that the
          machine code can be mutated (by flipping bits at random) or
          recombined (by swapping segments of code between algorithms),
          and the resulting code remains functional enough of the time
          for natural (or presumably artificial) selection to be able to
          improve the code over time.
          
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   AUTONOMOUS AGENTS
          Also known as intelligent software agents or just agents, this
          area of AI research deals with simple applications of small
          programs that aid the user in his/her work. They can be mobile
          (able to stop their execution on one machine and resume it on
          another) or static (live in one machine). They are usually
          specific to the task (and therefore fairly simple) and meant to
          help the user much as an assistant would. The most popular (ie.
          widely known) use of this type of application to date are the
          web robots that many of the indexing engines (eg. webcrawler)
          use.
          
   Ara
          Web site: www.uni-kl.de/AG-Nehmer/Ara/
          Ara is a platform for the portable and secure execution of
          mobile agents in heterogeneous networks. Mobile agents in this
          sense are programs with the ability to change their host
          machine during execution while preserving their internal state.
          This enables them to handle interactions locally which
          otherwise had to be performed remotely. Ara's specific aim in
          comparison to similar platforms is to provide full mobile agent
          functionality while retaining as much as possible of
          established programming models and languages.
          
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                     Copyright  1997, John Eikenberry
           Published in Issue 19 of the Linux Gazette, July 1997
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next 
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
    "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
    
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                      Linux: For Programmer Only--NOT!
                                      
                      By Mike List, troll@net-line.net
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   A couple of weeks ago, I was in a computer repair shop, trying to get
   a deal on some hardware. The owner was trying to sell me on how cool
   Win95 is. I told him I run Linux, then gave him the same hard/soft
   sell I give to every one that I think might have use for Linux. I'm
   just a glutton for punishment that way. He looked at me blankly, and
   said Unix is a programmer's OS and it's not good for the average user.
   My turn to look blankly, "Apparently that means that MS is an
   illiterate's OS, and not good for the educated user". I didn't say
   that but I thought it very loudly, and the conversation was over....
   
   I should have been more understanding of his attitude. Part of the
   reason that Linux hasn't become more mainstream is the belief that you
   must be a highly trained programmer to make it run. That simply isn't
   the case.
   
   I hope to dispel some of this notion by pointing out my personal
   experience with Linux. I am not a programmer, I can barely write a
   good shell script, but I am happy as a clam with my Slackware 3.2 beta
   installation and only very infrequently boot to the DOS/WFWG 3.11
   partition.
   
   Programming consists of writing code and compiling it, and very little
   of this is required to effectively use Linux. Although many
   applications are distributed as source code, the source code in most
   cases require very little modification. Compiling source code,
   moreover is not as complicated as it might seem. One command, "make"
   can usually accomplish this compilation and the advice to inspect
   MakeFiles can largely be ignored(I probably should be horsewhipped for
   the previous statement, but in my experience it's nonetheless true.).
   There is no doubt that the Linux experience is enhanced by programming
   ability. Linux does lend itself to source code modification, which is
   part of the reason that its development and bug fixes have been so
   rapid, and continuous improvement has been the hallmark of Linux, as
   well as the whole of the GNU organization.
   
   It might be closer to the truth to consider Linux a hacker's medium,
   simply because "hacker" means different things to different people.I
   do not consider myself a hacker, although several MS Windows users
   have described me that way. "Hacker", "cracker" and "programmer" are,
   in my opinion often erroneously used as synonyms, by people who
   haven't acquired computer skills beyond user level.
   
   This myth is probably furthered by manufacturers of the more well
   known OS, although not necessarily deliberately. Salesmanship requires
   manipulation of certain facts, and in the case of OS software, this is
   even more likely to be the case. FACT: There is no perfect OS. FACT:
   Proponents of any OS tend to misplace that fact, even Linux advocates.
   
   In my own family there exists a conflict of opinion regarding WFWG
   3.11 vs. Linux, which in time is growing weaker, with Linux becoming
   more acceptable to my wife and kids(I have admittedly used subversive
   techniques to accomplish this goal, such as leaving the computer on
   all the time, in X). In addition, I made sure to download programs
   that were similar to ones used by my kids in WFWG, such as xpaint, and
   Netscape, as well as several games, both SVGALIB, and X. Koules is a
   big favorite, as is SASTEROIDS, and some while ago I had a flight sim,
   FLY8111, that was a litle too challenging so it quietly disappeared. I
   have put the BSD text based games on as an inducement to get my 15
   year old foster son to read with some enthusiasm, with moderate
   success. All I have to do now is find a word processing application
   that my wife will accept readily, and I'll experience little
   resistance, hopefully to commandeering the drive that's currently
   loaded with DOS and WFWG.When I recompiled the kernel, I added sound
   support, and even though I've had a little trouble installing a sound
   playing program, the kids and I still make use of a pair of extremely
   basic scripts based on the drivers README that allow us to record and
   playback music. My sound card is an old eight bit SoundBlaster so the
   sound quality isn't great, but I used it to rehearse the song I sang
   at my oldest daughter's wedding, to good effect.
   
   Earlier, I stated that I'm not really capable of writing a decent
   shell script, but very simple scripts similar to DOS batch files can
   be written by nearly anyone, and examples of scripts abound on many
   sites, so keystroke saving measures are available to any one who cares
   to try their hand at it. The Linux Gazette, in particular has provided
   me with plenty of template like scripts from which I have learned what
   little I know about more advanced scripting.
   
   Linux advocates need, in my opinion to show patience with new users to
   a greater degree than is currently the fashion. Banter among the
   initiated has camaraderie value, but often puts off the prospective
   Linux convert. When I was investigating Linux, I was told by one
   respondent to my usenet posting "Do not meddle in the ways of wizards
   for their ways are subtle and quick to anger." Hardly an encouraging
   statement, but with my temperament it served to strengthen my resolve
   to show the SOB. I daresay most casual computer users would not
   respond as I did, however.
   
   For the advancement of Linux I would recommend that you (Linux gurus)
   choke on RTFM, unless you're sure that the person you are talking to
   has acquired the skills needed to effectively read those FMs. My
   experience has shown me that Linux distributions are almost as plug
   and play as anything MS, IBM, Apple or anyone else has to offer. This
   provides a jumping off point that will motivate users to learn skills
   that they previously thought to be beyond them. By drawing them into
   Linux operation slowly, they may become capable programmers, at which
   point they will have made it their OS. A programmer's OS.
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                        Copyright  1997, Mike List
           Published in Issue 19 of the Linux Gazette, July 1997
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next 
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
    "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
    
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                        QPS, A New Qt-Based Monitor
                                      
                               by Larry Ayers
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                                Introduction
                                      
   The Qt C++ software development toolkit, by Norway's Troll Tech, has
   been available long enough now that applications are beginning to
   appear which use Qt rather than Motif, Xlib or Tcl/TK. Programs
   developed with Qt have an identifiable and distinctive appearance,
   with some resemblance to both Windows and Motif. There has been some
   resistance in the Linux community to widespread adoption of the
   toolkit due to its hybrid licensing arrangement. The toolkit is freely
   available in the Linux version, and its use in the development of
   free, GNU-ish software is free and unrestricted, but for other
   platforms and for commercial Linux software Qt is a commercial
   product.
   
   Remember when Tcl/Tk began to become widely used a couple of years
   ago? Applications and utilities written with the toolkit began to
   proliferate, one reason being that the learning curve is relatively
   gentle and a quick X interface to a command-line utility could be
   contrived in a short time. C programmers found that the guts of a
   program could be written in C, while the tricky X-windows interface
   could be quickly put together with Tcl/Tk. This benefited the Linux
   community as a whole, making it easier for new users and developers to
   gain a foothold on the sometimes forbiddingly steep unix terrain.
   
   Qt is an entirely different sort of toolkit than Tk, since it is based
   on C++ and doesn't have the interpreted script layer of Tk. (It more
   closely resembles Bruce Wampler's V package, described in the Dec.
   1996 issue of Linux Journal.) In order to run QT applications the
   libqt shared lib must be available as well as a small executable, moc.
   The Qt header (include) files are needed as well to compile these
   applications from scratch. The Qt source package is available from the
   Troll Tech FTP site. Many small sample applications and demos, as well
   tutorials and ample documentation, are included in the package.
   
                                    QPS
                                      
   Mattias Engdegrd has recently written and released a process monitor
   similar to top, the classic interface to ps. Top, though a
   character-mode application, is commonly run in an xterm or rxvt window
   in an X session. There is one problem with top in a window; scrolling
   down to the bottom of the process list doesn't work, so the entries at
   the bottom are inaccessible without resizing the window. There may be
   a way to do this, but I haven't been able to find one. A minor issue,
   I suppose, since the ordering of the entries can be easily toggled so
   that either the most memory-intensive or the most CPU-intensive
   processes appear at the top.
   
   Qps is a more X-friendly application than top, with scrollbars and a
   mouse-oriented interface. Clicking on any of the header categories,
   such as %CPU, SIZE, or %MEM, will sort the processes in descending
   order. Alt-k will kill a highlighted process. A series of bar-graphs
   along with an xload-like meter form a status bar at the top of the
   window. This can be toggled on and off from the menu-bar. When Qps is
   iconified the icon is the small xload-like pane from the status-bar,
   which is a nice touch.
   
   Here's a screenshot:
   
   Qps screenshot
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Qt applications don't use the X resources typical of most X programs;
   one result of this is that Qps seems to be confined to the default
   white, gray, and black color scheme. It can generate a resource file
   in your home directory which specifies which fields you'd like to see
   and whether the status-bar should be visible or not.
   
   Qps could be thought of as a sort of second-generation Linux utility,
   written for users who rarely work from the console and boot directly
   into an X session. It should fit in well with the KDE suite of
   applications, which are also being developed with Qt. Though it uses
   more memory than top in an rxvt window, I find myself using it often
   while running X. I think this is a solid, dependable application and
   deserves attention from the Linux community.
   
                                Availability
                                      
   Currently the Qps-1.1 source is in the Sunsite Incoming directory, but
   will most likely end up in the status directory. An alternate Swedish
   site is here.
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                       Copyright  1997, Larry Ayers
           Published in Issue 19 of the Linux Gazette, July 1997
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next 
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
    "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
    
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                         The UnRpm-Install Package
                                      
                               by Larry Ayers
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                                Introduction
                                      
   No matter what distribution of Linux you have installed, there will
   come a time when you would like to install a package in one of the
   other distribution's formats. No one distribution has available every
   possible package, and the updates to packages often depend on a
   volunteer's inclination and time constraints.
   
   On a reasonably current and well-maintained Linux system, most of the
   quality source-code packages will compile without much effort beyond
   perusal of the README and INSTALL files. In other words, *.rpm and
   *.deb packages aren't vitally necessary, though the ease of upgrading
   or removal possible with these packages makes them a time-saving
   convenience.
   
   But few people have both the time and/or inclination to compile every
   new program from source. It does take more time than using a
   precompiled package, and often a package maintainer will have access
   to patches which haven't yet been incorporated into an official
   release. One of these patches might be just what it takes to insure a
   successful installation on your system! Therefore it stands to reason
   that the more different genera of precompiled packages you have
   available, the wider the pool of available software.
   
   A year and a half ago I was running a Slackware 3.0 system, but had
   used Redhat just long enough to appreciate the value of an rpm
   package. As I remember, there were a few pieces of software which I
   was unable, no matter what tweaking I did, to successfully compile.
   The rpm's available for those packages were tempting, but I didn't
   want to start from scratch and reinstall the Redhat Linux distribution
   just for a few packages. Poking around the Redhat FTP site, I saw that
   the source for the then-current version of rpm was available, and
   after various trials and tribulations I managed to successfully
   compile and install it. The crucial factor which made it all work was
   downloading and installing a newer version of cpio, which was right
   there in the Redhat rpm directory. It wasn't the easiest installation
   I've ever done, but I don't blame the folks at Redhat for not making
   it a no-brainer. After all, they evidently worked long and hard
   developing the rpm package system and they surely wanted to leverage
   its value in influencing users to buy their distribution. Redhat is to
   be commended for resisting purely commercial urges and making rpm
   freely available.
   
   Two distributions later, I never have gotten around to reinstalling
   rpm, partly because the Debian distribution has a utility called
   alien, which will convert an *.rpm file into a *.deb file. This is a
   nice utility, but sometimes I'd just like to poke around inside a
   package and see what's there without actually installing it. Both rpm
   and Debian's dpkg utility have command-line switches for just listing
   the contents, or extracting individual files from a package. These
   aren't the sort of switches I would use often enough to memorize, and
   it's a pain to read the man page each time. So I gradually meander my
   way to the point of this article...
   
                               UnRpm-Install
                                      
   Recently, in nearly daily updates, Kent Robotti has been releasing to
   the Sunsite archive site a package of programs and scripts which
   simplify working with these various package formats. UnRpm is most
   useful when used in conjunction with the Midnight Commander file
   manager, as one component of the package is a set of entries meant to
   be appended to the mc user menu.
   
   This is what the package includes:
     * the version of cpio which works well with rpm
     * two shell scripts from the Slackware distribution, installpkg and
       removepkg
     * rpm2cpio, a program from Redhat which converts an rpm archive to a
       cpio archive
     * dpkgdeb, a program from the Debian distribution which unpacks,
       packs, or provides information about a Debian archive file
     * unrpm and undeb, two shell scripts which can either be used as is
       or be called by the Midnight Commander.
     * Update.mc, a shell script which will append entries for the above
       scripts and programs to the /usr/lib/mc/mc.menu file
     * Install, a shell script which installs the above binaries and
       shell scripts, and also thoughtfully renames any pre-existing
       equivalents in case you may want to back out any of the installed
       files
       
   The earlier versions of UnRpm-Install included statically-linked
   binaries, no doubt to make them usable by a wider variety of users,
   but with the disadvantage of large binaries. Since most systems have
   compatible libc versions installed, which is the only library linked
   with the binaries, recent versions have included the smaller
   dynamically-linked versions.
   
   The Midnight Commander in its recent incarnations has excellent
   support built-in for treating these various archive formats as virtual
   file-systems, allowing the user to browse through their contents
   without actually expanding them. The menu entries provided by UnRpm
   expand upon these capabilities, making it easier than ever to convert
   one format to another and to see just what an archive will install on
   your system.
   
   There's nothing in UnRpm-Install which you couldn't gather up
   yourself, from various FTP sites or distribution cd's. What makes the
   package valuable is that Kent Robotti has done this for you, and
   presented these disparate binaries and scripts as a coherent whole,
   bound together by the Midnight Commander used as archive manager.
   
                                Availability
                                      
   Various versions of UnRpm-Install are still in the /pub/Linux/Incoming
   directory of the Sunsite FTP archive, but the most recent version will
   eventually make its way into the archive utility directory.
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                       Copyright  1997, Larry Ayers
           Published in Issue 19 of the Linux Gazette, July 1997
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next 
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
    "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
    
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                      Single-User Booting Under Linux
                                      
         By John Gatewood Ham, zappaman@alphabox.compsci.buu.ac.th
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   I was trained as a system administrator on HP, IBM, and Sun
   workstations while working as a DRT consultant assigned to Informix as
   an alpha-tester. There I learned the need for a true single-user
   operating mode in Unix. When I tried to use the single user mode with
   Linux, it did not work in the way that I expected. After many, many
   reboots I worked out the right configuration to support a true
   single-user mode on the distribution I was using, Slackware 3.2, by
   modifying the boot process.
   
   This article will now explain how to setup the bootup process for
   Linux so that single-user mode really works if you are using the
   Slackware 3.2 distribution (or a derivative). I will begin by assuming
   that your kernel is correctly configured and that the init program
   starts successfully. See the Installation-HOWTO at
   ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/Installation-HOWTO for help
   to get this far. Once you have a system that boots, however, you have
   only begun. Why? Most distributions will give you a generic set of
   initialization scripts that are designed to work for an average
   installation. You will want to customize this in order to run extra
   things you want and/or to prevent running things you do not want. With
   the dozen or so standard startup scripts things can seem confusing,
   but after you read this article you should be able to understand
   enough to create a custom environment when you boot that exactly suits
   you.
   
   As I stated earlier, I will begin by assuming that init has started
   successfully. It will examine the file /etc/inittab to determine what
   to do. In that file are located the lines to activate your login
   devices such as terminals, modems, and your virtual consoles. Leave
   that stuff alone. What we are interested in are the lines which call
   the startup/shutdown scripts. These lines will look something like
   this:
   
# Default runlevel.
id:3:initdefault:

# System initialization (runs when system boots).
si::sysinit:/etc/rc.d/rc.S

# Script to run when going single user (runlevel 1).
l1:1:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc.K

# Script to run when going single user (runlevel S or s)
mm:S:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc.K2

# Script to run when going multi user.
rc:23456:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc.M

# Runlevel 0 halts the system.
l0:0:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc.0

# Runlevel 6 reboots the system.
l6:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc.6

   The comments are present and are very helpful. First you need to
   determine your default runlevel. In this case it is 3. The format of
   the /etc/inittab file section we are looking at is simple. Blank lines
   are ignored. Lines with '#' as the first character are comments and
   are ignored. Other lines have 4 parts separated by the colon
   character. These parts are 1. symbolic label, 2. runlevel, 3. action
   and 4.command to run. These are documented in the section 5 manual
   page for /etc/inittab (man 5 inittab). First we must find a line with
   an action of initdefault, and then see what runlevel it has. That will
   be the default runlevel. Obviously you should not have 2 lines that
   have initdefault as the action in an /etc/inittab file. Once you know
   the default runlevel, you will be able to know what /etc/inittab
   entries will be processed by init. The 1 runlevel is considered
   single-user maintenance mode, but it supported multiple simultaneous
   logins in virtual terminals with the default /etc/inittab on my
   systems. You can prevent this by removing the 1 from the getty lines
   of the tty2, tty3, tty4, etc. The 3 runlevel is considered the normal
   multi-user mode with full networking support. The S runlevel is
   supposed to be true single-user, and you can theoretically enter that
   runlevel using the lilo parameter single. However, for the Slackware
   3.2 distribution, that does not put you in a single-user mode as you
   would expect, but instead you wind up in runlevel 3. The /etc/inittab
   file I show here does not have that problem however. Once you have
   read this article you can change the system to behave in the expected
   manner. So we know we will go to runlevel 3. That means init will
   perform every command in the /etc/inittab file that has a sysinit,
   then boot, or bootwait, and finally any entries for our runlevel 3.
   When you want to run a script when entering a runlevel, it doesn't
   make sense to have more than one script line in the /etc/inittab file
   for that level. Instead, you should put everything in 1 script, or
   call scripts from within the script mentioned in the /etc/inittab file
   using the dot method. Once thing to note is that field 2, the runlevel
   field, can have more than 1 runlevel specified. The init program will
   first run the si entry (and we will wait for it to finish running
   /etc/rc.d/rc.S) since it has sysinit (which implies wait) in the third
   field. Then it will run everything with 3 specified. So in our example
   file we will run the si target, then the rc target (and we will wait
   for it to finish running the /etc/rc.d/rc.M script since the third
   field is wait), and finally we it will do the c1 through c6 targets
   which set up the virtual ttys during a normal boot.
   
   If we boot (via lilo) and add the single parameter, we will still run
   the si target (/etc/rc.d/rc.S) and wait for it to complete, but then
   we will run the mm target (/etc/rc.d/rc.K2). Keep in mind that
   runlevel 1 and runlevel S are essentially the same when you enter
   them, but how you get there is very different. Runlevel 1 can be
   entered by using the command /sbin/telinit 1, but /sbin/telinit s will
   send you to runlevel 5 often for some reason (some kind of bug).
   Runlevel 1 will give you a normal log in, and allows 1 user (any 1
   user) to log in at the console. With this setup, runlevel S will give
   you a special root-only login that allows only root to use the
   console. Since only root can log in, only a special password prompt is
   displayed. If you press enter or ctl-D, the system will return to
   runlevel 3. This root-only login is accomplished by using the
   /bin/sulogin program. Runlevel S is probably what you want when you
   think single-user, but you have to reboot the machine and use lilo and
   have the single parameter to make it work. You can use runlevel 1 to
   accomplish the same things, but remember you will have to manually
   return to runlevel 3 when you are done with another call to
   /sbin/telinit 3 or a reboot, and you must insure that nobody else can
   get to the console but the root user. WARNING: The true single-user
   mode entered with the single parameter to lilo with my /etc/inittab
   and /etc/rc.d/rc.K2 will support only 1 console and no other virtual
   terminals. Do not run anything that locks up the terminal!
   
   Ok, so what do we know now? We know what scripts init will call and
   when they will be called. But what can be in those scripts? The
   scripts should be written for bash unless you are a real guru and KNOW
   the other shell you wrote scripts for will be available during boot.
   There is nothing preventing you from using perl or tcsh or whatever,
   but traditionally most everyone uses bash scripts (ok, ok, Bourne
   shell scripts) for unix boot scripts. The /etc/rc.d/rc.S script which
   is called at system boot time should take care of things like fsck'ing
   your file systems, mounting them, and starting up swapping and other
   essential daemons. These are things that you need independent of
   runlevel. The /etc/rc.d/rc.M script which is called when you enter
   runlevel 3 should start all the processes that remain that you usually
   need during normal system operation EXCEPT things like getty.
   Processes that must be restarted whenever they stop running like getty
   should be placed in the /etc/inittab file instead of being started by
   a boot script. So what is in a typical /etc/rc.d/rc.M script? Usually
   configuring the network , starting web servers, sendmail, and anything
   else you want to always run like database servers, quota programs,
   etc.
   
   The only startup script I mention in my /etc/inittab that is not
   included in the Slackware 3.2 distribution is /etc/rc.d/rc.K2, and it
   is merely a modified version of /etc/rc.d/rc.K set up for single user
   mode. Remember this is the startup script that will be used if you
   choose to enter the single parameter to lilo. At the end of this file
   you will see a line:
   
exec /bin/sulogin /dev/console

   This will replace the current process which is running the script with
   the /bin/sulogin program. This means, of course, that this has to be
   the last line in your script, since nothing after this line will be
   processed by bash. After that program starts, it displays a message to
   either enter the root password or press ctl-D. If you enter the
   correct root password, you will be logged in as root in a true
   single-user mode. Be careful, though, because when you exit that shell
   the machine will go into runlevel 3. If you want to reboot before
   entering runlevel 3 you must remember to do it (via shutdown) instead
   of just exiting the shell. If you press ctl-D instead of the root
   password, the system will enter runlevel 3. I have changed the
   incorrect calls to kill to use the killall5 program, since the lines
   with kill caused init to be killed and a runlevel change was happening
   incorrectly.
   
   Well, I hope that this description of how I enabled my Linux machine
   to have a single-user mode similar to that of the big-name
   workstations proves helpful to you. Customizing your boot process is
   not too hard, once you understand something about how the /etc/inittab
   and /etc/rc.d/* scripts work. Be sure you 1. backup your entire
   system, 2. have a boot floppy, and 3. a rescue floppy that can restore
   the backup (or any individual files) you made in step 1 using the boot
   floppy from step 2 to boot the machine. If you make a 1 character typo
   you can prevent the machine from booting, so the backup steps, while
   tedious, are really necessary to protect yourself before you
   experiment.
   
                                 The Files
                                      
   Here are the files I used. Use at your own risk. They work for me, but
   may need to be modified to work for you.
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                                /etc/inittab
                                      
#
# inittab       This file describes how the INIT process should set up
#               the system in a certain run-level.
#
# Version:      @(#)inittab             2.04    17/05/93        MvS
#                                       2.10    02/10/95        PV
#
# Author:       Miquel van Smoorenburg, miquel@drinkel.nl.jugnet.org
# Modified by:  Patrick J. Volkerding, volkerdi@ftp.cdrom.com
# Modified by:  John Gatewood Ham, zappaman@alphabox.compsci.buu.ac.th
#
# Default runlevel.
id:3:initdefault:

# System initialization (runs when system boots).
si::sysinit:/etc/rc.d/rc.S

# Script to run when going maintenance mode (runlevel 1).
l1:1:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc.K

# Script to run when going single user (runlevel s)
mm:S:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc.K2

# Script to run when going multi user.
rc:23456:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc.M

# What to do at the "Three Finger Salute".
# make the machine halt on ctl-alt-del
ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -h now "going down on ctl-alt-del"

# Runlevel 0 halts the system.
l0:0:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc.0

# Runlevel 6 reboots the system.
l6:6:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc.6

# What to do when power fails (shutdown to single user).
pf::powerfail:/sbin/shutdown -f +5 "THE POWER IS FAILING"

# If power is back before shutdown, cancel the running shutdown.
pg:0123456:powerokwait:/sbin/shutdown -c "THE POWER IS BACK"

# If power comes back in single user mode, return to multi user mode.
ps:S:powerokwait:/sbin/init 5

# The getties in multi user mode on consoles an serial lines.
#
# NOTE NOTE NOTE adjust this to your getty or you will not be
#                able to login !!
#
# Note: for 'agetty' you use linespeed, line.
# for 'getty_ps' you use line, linespeed and also use 'gettydefs'
# we really don't want multiple logins in single user mode...
c1:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty1 linux
c2:235:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty2 linux
c3:235:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty3 linux
c4:235:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty4 linux
c5:235:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty5 linux
c6:235:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty6 linux

# Serial lines
#s1:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 19200 ttyS0 vt100
#s2:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty 19200 ttyS1 vt100

# Dialup lines
#d1:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -mt60 38400,19200,9600,2400,1200 ttyS0 vt100
#d2:12345:respawn:/sbin/agetty -mt60 38400,19200,9600,2400,1200 ttyS1 vt100

# Runlevel 4 used to be for an X-window only system, until we discovered
# that it throws init into a loop that keeps your load avg at least 1 all
# the time. Thus, there is now one getty opened on tty1. Hopefully no one
# will notice. ;^)
# It might not be bad to have one text console anyway, in case something
# happens to X.
x1:4:wait:/etc/rc.d/rc.4

# End of /etc/inittab

     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                               /etc/rc.d/rc.K
                                      
# /bin/sh
#
# rc.K          This file is executed by init when it goes into runlevel
#               1, which is the administrative state. It kills all
#               deamons and then puts the system into single user mode.
#               Note that the file systems are kept mounted.
#
# Version:      @(#)/etc/rc.d/rc.K      1.50    1994-01-18
# Version:      @(#)/etc/rc.d/rc.K      1.60    1995-10-02 (PV)
#
# Author:       Miquel van Smoorenburg miquels@drinkel.nl.mugnet.org
# Modified by:  Patrick J. Volkerding volkerdi@ftp.cdrom.com
# Modified by:  John Gatewood Ham zappaman@alphabox.compsci.buu.ac.th
#
  # Set the path.
  PATH=/sbin:/etc:/bin:/usr/bin

  # Kill all processes.
  echo
  echo "Sending all processes the TERM signal."
  killall5 -15
  echo -n "Waiting for processes to terminate"
  for loop in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ; do
    sleep 1
    echo -n "."
  done
  echo
  echo "Sending all processes the KILL signal."
  killall5 -9

  # Try to turn off quota and accounting.
  if [ -x /usr/sbin/quotaoff ]
  then
        echo "Turning off quota.."
        /usr/sbin/quotaoff -a
  fi
  if [ -x /sbin/accton ]
  then
        echo "Turning off accounting.."
        /sbin/accton
  fi

     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                              /etc/rc.d/rc.K2
                                      
# /bin/sh
#
# rc.K          This file is executed by init when it goes into runlevel
#               1, which is the administrative state. It kills all
#               deamons and then puts the system into single user mode.
#               Note that the file systems are kept mounted.
#
# Version:      @(#)/etc/rc.d/rc.K      1.50    1994-01-18
# Version:      @(#)/etc/rc.d/rc.K      1.60    1995-10-02 (PV)
#
# Author:       Miquel van Smoorenburg miquels@drinkel.nl.mugnet.org
# Modified by:  Patrick J. Volkerding volkerdi@ftp.cdrom.com
# Modified by:  John Gatewood Ham zappaman@alphabox.compsci.buu.ac.th
#
# Set the path.
PATH=/sbin:/etc:/bin:/usr/bin

# Kill all processes.
echo
echo "Sending all processes the TERM signal."
killall5 -15
echo -n "Waiting for processes to terminate"
for loop in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ; do
  sleep 1
  echo -n "."
done
echo
echo "Sending all processes the KILL signal."
killall5 -9

# Try to turn off quota and accounting.
if [ -x /usr/sbin/quotaoff ]
then
        echo "Turning off quota.."
        /usr/sbin/quotaoff -a
fi
if [ -x /sbin/accton ]
then
        echo "Turning off accounting.."
        /sbin/accton
fi

# Now go to the single user level
exec /bin/sulogin /dev/console

     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   
    zappaman@alphabox.compsci.buu.ac.th
    Information about me.
    
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                    Copyright  1997, John Gatewood Ham
           Published in Issue 19 of the Linux Gazette, July 1997
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next 
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
    "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
    
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                        User Groups and Trade Shows
                                      
                  Lessons from the Atlanta Linux Showcase
                                      
                                   [LINK]
                                      
                              by Andrew Newton
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Trade shows and expos are not at all uncommon in the computer
   industry. But not since the early days of microcomputers, when CP/M
   was King and toggle switches were the user interface, have user groups
   been heavily involved. So in the era of powerful non-commercial
   software, couldn't the trade shows also be non-commercial?
   
   We, the members of the Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts (ALE), found out the
   answer is yes. Originating from correspondence with Linux
   International for some local help for Linux vendors at COMDEX and our
   own Linux demo fest (called the "Geek-Off") a year earlier, we put
   together a non-commercial, user group organized trade show. On June 7,
   1997, we put on the largest Linux vendor showcase to date.
   
   Get Started With The Essentials
   
   So let's say you, being the Linux activist of your community, want to
   do your bit to spread the word. Where would you start?
   
   Although we didn't necessarily do this, we learned there are two
   essential things to get a Linux trade show off the ground: 1) a time
   and place, and 2) a checking account. And in the words of our own Marc
   Torres, once you have those two items, "the rest grows from there."
   
   It was a given that we would hold the Atlanta Linux Showcase as close
   to COMDEX as possible. After all, this whole idea came from helping
   out the Linux vendors at COMDEX. Plus the idea of getting the COMDEX
   crowd was good. We theorized that many people flying in for COMDEX
   would stay over the following weekend to save on air fare. And they
   could easily justify it if they were attending another computer show.
   
   Picking the place was a little more troublesome, but not impossible.
   We finally decided on The Inforum because it was located only blocks
   away from the venue for COMDEX, was in downtown Atlanta, and well
   known to many.
   
   Finally, the checking account is very important. As it turns out we
   didn't do this immediately and paid the price in countless hours of
   meetings discussing logistics. A checking account is important because
   it gives you a place from which to send money and, more importantly, a
   place to receive money. People like it better when they can write
   checks to "Big Time Linux Event" instead of "Bob Smurd."
   
   One of the major inhibitors behind our acquisition of a checking
   account was our incredible lack of knowledge when it comes to the law.
   After all, we are a bunch of computer jocks, not attorneys. We had
   many seemingly endless discussions on issues such as incorporation,
   non-profit status, tax codes, the right to bear arms, etc. In the end,
   David Hamm, one of our most active members, just ended up going to a
   bank and getting a new checking account under his control.
   Incidentally, David became the treasurer.
   
                                  [INLINE]
                                      
        David Miller eyes a bottle of ALS Ale. - Photo by Amy Ayers
                                      
   Put Time On Your Side
   
   Unfortunately, we didn't. Of course, we had the COMDEX target date to
   shoot for giving us little time between our mobilization and the
   event. If you can pick a date over six months out, do so. There are
   multiple reasons for this, most of which have to do with reserving
   space.
   
   First, you must reserve space somewhere to hold your event. We lucked
   out in our case, but many venues will require booking many months
   ahead of time, especially the ones that don't often cost so much money
   such as college campuses and state buildings.
   
   Second, you must reserve space in print media for advertising and
   publicity. While we were able to get ads in our local computer
   magazines and the event listed in some calendars, we did miss
   deadlines elsewhere. You may have noticed there were no advertisements
   for the Atlanta Linux Showcase in Linux Journal. We missed the
   deadline. In addition, it takes time to grease the wheels for free
   publicity.
   
   A brief word about FREE PUBLICITY - There is no such thing; you'll
   work for every last bit of it. Free publicity means getting listed in
   upcoming events calendars and maybe an article or two about Linux in
   the local paper with a small plug at the end for the event. If you do
   take the time to pay for advertising, use the advertising
   representative as a way of getting your event some extra publicity in
   that publication. Many publications put on the appearance that their
   articles are completely disjoint from their advertising on the basis
   of journalistic ethics, but with the exception of SSC that isn't true.
   
   A brief word about paid advertising - It is like buying a used car.
   What an ad rep puts on a rate card isn't necessarily the price you
   have to pay. Try talking them down. Again, this doesn't apply to SSC.
   
   Organize Your Volunteers
   
   We divided our group into two major camps, organizers and volunteers.
   The first were the people that planned the event out for months and
   did a lot of the leg work. The second were the people that showed up
   the day of the show and manned the registration desk, checked badges,
   etc.
   
   You don't want to have too many organizers as it becomes difficult to
   manage a large group of people over a large span of time. We divided
   up our group into teams of 3 or 4, with many people being on 2 or more
   teams. This gave us what philosophical management types like to call
   cross-functional teams. By having more than one person on a team, it
   helped insure no one person was the only source of information or
   action.
   
   We had the following teams:
     * Vendor - contacted vendors
     * Talks - organized the speakers and presenters
     * Publicity - handled advertising and publicity
     * Finance - dealt with our mounds of gold
     * Logistics - managed booth layouts and site coordination
       
   In hind sight, we should have also created a "Registration" team to
   handle all the registrations for both walk-in and pre-paid
   registrations. Our answer to this was to make the Talks team and the
   Logistics team work together, which worked but not as smoothly as we
   would have liked. It is better to have a group of people who are
   solely in charge of registration and aren't distracted with other
   problems.
   
   We didn't solicit for volunteers until a month before our show. In
   retrospect, it probably should have been two months. We gave our
   volunteers a briefing the day before the Showcase and had a work
   schedule already printed when they arrived. We also required them to
   work 2 three-hour shifts for manageability purposes and to keep the
   number of volunteers to a minimum but in the end solicited for some
   more at the last minute (thanks Ben and Vicki).
   
   A brief note about Volunteers - Treat them well, because they are
   working for free. And if you do that, most will go the extra mile
   treating the attendees well and pulling those extra shifts or duties
   you didn't anticipate (thanks James). Also put your "people-person"
   types at the registration desk where they will likely be needed the
   most. More personable people will be able to sell t-shirts and so
   forth much more easily (thanks Karen). Finally, thank your volunteers.
   Everybody likes to be told they've done a good job (thanks everyone
   else).
   
   Another seemingly weird thing we did was to make our volunteers pay
   for the honor to work our event. It seems odd, but it worked. The idea
   was to have them show us they weren't going to volunteer and then back
   out on us at the last minute. In exchange for their $30, they got a
   polo shirt and were able to see all the presentations at a lower price
   than anyone else. And the cash flow didn't hurt either. While we
   didn't mandate this for the organizers, it wouldn't be a bad idea.
   However, all the organizers did have to pay for their own shirts and
   many loaned hundreds of dollars to the effort.
   
                                  [INLINE]
                                      
   Linus, Tove and Patricia meet Zeph Hull, a showcase volunteer. - Photo
                                by Amy Ayers
                                      
   Coordinate Vendors
   
   Organize your vendor team so everybody knows which person is calling
   what company but only one person is calling each. It is nice for
   everyone to know the status of a potential vendor. It is not nice to
   have 3 separate people make 3 separate cold calls to the same
   potential vendor.
   
   When contacting vendors, use the phone as your primary means of
   communications and not e-mail. While it seems e-mail would work, it is
   human nature to give it a much lower priority than a phone call. We
   found many companies that ignored our e-mail's responded quite
   positively to our phone calls.
   
   One of the things we should have done sooner was bill the vendors. We
   charged each vendor $400 for a booth and sent them an invoice. While
   we were expecting one week turn turnarounds on payment, the business
   world doesn't work that way. In many cases, paperwork and payments can
   take up to 30 days to get through the accounting offices of some
   companies.
   
   Get People To Talk
   
   We solicited for speakers and presenters over the
   comp.os.linux.announce news group. This had to be done multiple times,
   but eventually the offers started rolling in. We also drew upon some
   local talent. And in many cases, the vendors also wanted to give
   presentations.
   
   Getting speakers to volunteer was the easy part. Getting them to the
   Showcase was the difficult part. We had to solicit money from
   sponsoring companies and the vendors in order to pay for the travel
   and lodging expenses for Linus Torvalds, Eric Raymond, David Miller,
   Richard Henderson, Miguel de Icaza, and the rest of the crew (and we
   still owe a debt of gratitude to Digital and Caldera for all they did
   in this department).
   
   Once the money was appropriated, travel plans and hotel accommodations
   were made - at least that's how it works in the ideal world. A lot of
   the travel costs were floated on the credit cards of organizers until
   they could be reimbursed. Do make plane reservations and travel
   arrangements as far ahead of time as possible; you can save on air
   fare that way.
   
   Work The System
   
   This involves taking advantage of perks and getting the extras out of
   the people with whom you are doing business. For example, we decided
   to also rent some conference rooms at the Days Inn which was just next
   store to The Inforum. These conference rooms were used for Birds Of A
   Feather sessions and impromptu meetings by our attendees. In order to
   secure a good price on the room rental, we made an agreement with the
   hotel management that we would guarantee they got a certain number of
   room bookings based on our event. We then set-up that hotel as our
   "Official" hotel and asked most of our out-of-town guests to try the
   Days Inn first. In addition, our attendees were able to get a
   reasonable rate at a downtown hotel. Our guest speakers were also
   booked there. 
   
   Genie Travel also became our "Official" travel agent. Genie gave us a
   certain percentage on every flight booked through them, and their air
   fares were very reasonable. Although we didn't take advantage of this
   until very late in the game, it would be very advantageous for us to
   do it again. Genie Travel uses Linux in their day-to-day operations
   and probably would be very happy to repeat this arrangement with
   another Linux event.
   
   Another good idea would be to solicit the help of other Linux users
   groups. Often other users groups that are geographically close by may
   be able to help. Be sure to get them in on it early in the planning
   stage. For instance, we solicited SALUG (Southern Alabama) and
   CHUGALUG (Athens, GA), albeit at the last minute. Coordinating with
   other users groups also insures that the Linux community isn't
   throwing a trade show every month in towns only 100 miles apart (this
   stretches the resources of the Linux vendors and the enthusiasm these
   shows generate)..
   
   One last thing that can help is to have a Sugar-Daddy. In our case it
   was Linux International. Jon "Maddog" Hall of Linux International
   helped get us credit through which we were able secure our lease on
   the rooms at The Inforum. If you ask him nicely, he may do the same
   for you.
   
   Have Fun
   
   Keep in mind that organizing such an event is very hard word and
   requires a lot of time. We estimate over 2000 man hours were spent by
   ALE members putting together our show. But with any luck, your user
   group will be able to pull off a grand Linux event. And remember, have
   fun. Don't hold your trade show to make money. Do it to spread the
   word of Linux and to cavort with other like-minded Linux hobbyists.
   
   Finally, we'd like to thank all our volunteers, vendors, speakers, and
   organizers for helping out with the Atlanta Linux Showcase. If you are
   interested in any videos of the presentations at the 1997 Atlanta
   Linux Showcase or t-shirts and polo shirts, please visit our web site
   at http://www.ale.org/showcase/. And if you have any questions, please
   feel free to send us e-mail at ale-expo@cc.gatech.edu.
   
                                  [INLINE]
                                      
     Greg Hankins hangs out with Maddog and David Hamm. - Photo by Amy
                                   Ayers
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                      Copyright  1997, Andrew Newton
           Published in Issue 19 of the Linux Gazette, July 1997
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next 
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
    "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
    
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                    Using Python to Generate HTML Pages
                                      
                   By Richie Bielak, richieb@netlabs.net
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
Introduction

   I have waited for a long time to set up my own Web site, mostly
   because I didn't know what to put there that others may want to see.
   Then I got an idea. Since I'm an avid reader and an aviation
   enthusiast, I decided to create pages with a list of aviation books I
   have read. My initial intention was to write reviews for each book.
   
   Setting up the pages was easy to start with, but as I added more books
   the maintenance became tedious. I had to update couple of indices with
   the same data and I had to sort them by hand, and alphabetizing was
   never my strong suit. I needed to find a better way.
   
   Around the same time I became interested in the programming language
   Python and it seemed that Python would be a good tool to automatically
   generate the various HTML pages from a simple text file. This would
   greatly simplify the updates of my book pages, as I would only add one
   entry to one file and then create complete pages by running a Python
   script.
   
   I was attracted to Python for two main reasons: it's very good at
   processing strings and it's object oriented. Of course the fact that
   Python interpreter is free and that it runs on many different systems
   helped. At first I installed Python on my Win95 machine, but I just
   couldn't force myself to do any programming in the Windows
   environment, even in Python. Instead I installed Linux and moved all
   my Web projects there.
   
The Problem

   The main goal of the program is to generate three different book
   indices, by author, by title and by subject, from a single input file.
   I started by defining the format of this file. Here is what a typical
   entry describing one book looks like:

        title: Zero Three Bravo
        author: Gosnell, Mariana
        subject: General Aviation
        url: 3zb.htm
        # this is a comment

   Each line starts with a keyword (eg. "title:" or "author:") and is
   followed by a value that will be shown in the final HTML page.
   Description of each book must start the "title:" line, there must be
   at least one "author:" tag, and the "url:" entry points to a review of
   the book, if there is one.
   
   Since Python is object-oriented we begin program design by looking for
   "objects". In a nutshell, object oriented (OO) programming is a way to
   structure your code around the things, that is "objects", that the
   program is working with. This rather simple idea of organizing
   software around what it works with (objects), rather than what it does
   (functions), turns out to be surprisingly powerful.
   
   Within an OO program similar objects are grouped into "classes" and
   the code we write describes each class. Objects that belong to a given
   class are called "instances of the class".
   
   I hope it is pretty obvious to you that since the program will
   manipulate "book" objects, we need a Python class that will represent
   a single book. Just knowing this is enough to let us suspend design
   and write some code.
   
The Book Class

   Before we start looking at the code we need to consider briefly how
   Python programs are organized. Each program consists of a number of
   modules, each module is contained in a file (usually named with the
   extension ".py") and the name of the file (without the ".py") serves
   as the module name. A module can contain any number of routines or
   classes. Typically things that are related are kept in one module. For
   example, there is string module that contains functions that operate
   on strings. To access functions or classes from another module we use
   the import statement. For example the first line of the Book module
   is:

    from string import split, strip

   which says that the routines split and strip are obtained from the
   strings module.
   
   Next, I have to point out few syntactic features of Python that are
   not immediately obvious the code. The most important is the fact that
   in Python indentation is part of the syntax. To see which statements
   will be executed following an "if", all you need to look at is
   indentation - there is no need for curly braces, BEGIN/END pairs or
   "fi" statements.
   
   Here is a typical "if" statement extracted from the set_author routine
   in the Book class:

        if new_author:
            names = split (new_author, ",")
            self.last_name.append (strip (names[0]))
            self.first_name.append (strip (names[1]))
        else:
            self.last_name = []
            self.first_name = []

   The three statements following the "if" are executed if "new_author"
   variable contains a non-null value. The amount of indentation is not
   important, but it must be consistent. Also note the colon (":") which
   is used to terminate the header of each compound statement.
   
   The Book class turns out to be very simple. It consists of routines
   that set the values for author, title, subject and the URL for each
   book. For example, here is the set_title routine:

    def set_title (self, new_title):
        self.title = new_title

   The first argument to the "set_title" method (that is a routine which
   belongs to a class) is "self". This argument always refers to the
   instance to which the method is applied. Furthermore, the attributes
   (i.e. the data contained in each object) must be qualified with "self"
   when referenced within the body of a method. In the example above the
   attribute "title" of a "Book" object is set to value of "new_title".
   
   If in another part of a program we have variable "b" that references
   an instance of a "Book" class this call would set the book's title:

    b.set_title ("Fate is the Hunter")

   Note that the "self" argument is not present in the call, instead the
   object to which the method is applied (i.e. the object before the ".",
   "b" above) becomes the "self" argument.
   
   At this point a reasonable question to ask is "Where do the objects
   come from?" Each object is created by a special call that uses the
   class name as the name of a function. In addition a class can define a
   method with the name __init__ which will automatically be called to
   initialize the new object's attributes (in C++ such a routine is
   called a constructor).
   
   Here is the __init__ routine for the Book class:
    def __init__ (self, t="", a="", s="", u=""):
        #
        # Create an instance of Book
        #
        self.title = t
        self.last_name = []
        self.first_name = []
        self.set_author (a)
        self.subject = s
        self.url = u

   The main purpose of the above routine is to create all the attributes
   of the new "Book" object. Note that the arguments to "__init__" are
   specified with default values, so that the caller needs only to pass
   the arguments that differ from the default.
   
   Here are some examples of calls to create "Book" objects:
    a = Book()
    b = Book ("Fate is the Hunter")
    c = Book ("Some book", "First, Author")

   There is one small complication in the "Book" class. It is possible
   for a book to have more than one author. That's why the attributes
   "first_name" and "last_name" are actually lists. We'll look more at
   lists in the next section.
   
   The complete Book class is show in Listing #1. To test the class we
   add a little piece of code at the end of the file to test if the code
   is running as __main__ routine, that is execution started in this
   file. If so, the code to test the Book will run.
   
The Book_List Class

   Once the Book is tested we can go back to designing. The next obvious
   object is a list which will contain all the "book" objects. For the
   purposes of our program we have to be able to create the book list
   from the input file and we have to sort the books in the list by
   author, title or subject. Sorted list will then be used as input into
   the code that actually generates HTML pages.
   
   As it turns out one of Python's built-in data structures is a list.
   Here is a snippet of code showing creation of a list and addition of
   some items (this example was produced by running Python
   interactively):

Python 1.4 (Dec 18 1996)  [GCC 2.7.2.1]
Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam
>>> s = []
>>> s.append ("a")
>>> s.append ("hello")
>>> s.append (1)
>>> print s
['a', 'hello', 1]

   Above we create a list called "s" and add three items to it. Lists
   allow "slicing" operations, which let you pull out pieces of a list by
   specifying element numbers. These examples illustrate the idea:

>>> print s[1]
hello
>>> print s[1:]
['hello', 1]
>>> print s[:2]
['a', 'hello']
>>> print s[0]
a

   s[1] denotes the second element of the list (indexing starts at zero),
   s[1:] is the slice from the second element to the end of the list,
   s[:2] goes from the start to the third element, and s[0] is the first
   item.
   
   Finally, lists have a "sort" operator which sorts the elements
   according to a user supplied comparison function.
   
   Armed with the knowledge of Python lists, writing the Book_List class
   is easy. The class will have a single attribute, "contents", which
   will be a list of books.
   
   The constructor for the Book_List class simply creates a "contents"
   attribute and initializes it to be an empty list. The routine that
   parses the input file and creates list elements is called
   "make_from_file" and it begins with the code:

   def make_from_file (self, file):
        #
        # Read the file and create a book list
        #
        lines = file.readlines ()
        self.contents = []

   The "file" argument is a handle to an open text file that contains the
   descriptions of the books. The first step this routine performs is to
   read the entire file into a list of strings, each string representing
   one line of text. Next, using Python's "for" loop we step through this
   list and examine each line of text:

        #
        # Parse each line and create a list of Book objects
        #
        for one_line in lines:
            # It's  not a comment or empty line
            if (len(one_line) > 0) and (one_line[0] != "#"):
                    # Split into tokens
                    tokens = string.split (one_line)

   If the line is not empty or is not a comment (that is the first
   character is not a "#") then we split the line into words, a word
   being a sequence of characters without spaces. The call "tokens =
   string.split (one_line)" uses the "split" routine from the "string"
   module. "split" returns the words it found in a list.

                    if len (tokens) > 0:
                        if (tokens[0] == "title:"):
                            current_book = book.Book (string.join (tokens[1:]))
                            self.contents.append (current_book)
                        elif (tokens[0] == "author:"):
                            current_book.set_author (string.join (tokens[1:]))
                        elif (tokens[0] == "subject:"):
                            current_book.set_subject (string.join (tokens[1:]))
                        elif (tokens[0] == "url:"):
                            current_book.set_url (string.join (tokens[1:]))

   The first token (i.e. word) on the line is the keyword that tells us
   what to do. If it is "title:" then we create a new Book object and
   append it to the list of books, otherwise we just set the proper
   attributes. Note that the remaining tokens found on each line are
   joined together into a string (using "string.join" routine). There is
   probably a more efficient way to code this, but for my purposes this
   code works fast enough.
   
   The other interesting parts of the Book_List class are the sort
   routines. Here is how the list is sorted by title:

    def sort_by_title (self):
        #
        # Sort book list by title
        #
        self.contents.sort (lambda x, y: cmp (x.title, y.title))

   We simply call "sort" routine on the list. To get proper ordering we
   need to supply a function that compares two Book objects. For sorting
   by title we have to supply an anonymous function, which is introduced
   with the keyword "lambda" (those of you familiar with Lisp, or other
   functional languages should recognize this construct). The definition:

      lambda x, y: cmp (x.title, y.title)

   simply says that this is a function of two arguments and function
   result comes from calling the Python built-in function "cmp" (i.e.
   compare) on the "title" attribute of the two objects.
   
   The other sort routines are similar, except that in "sort_by_author" I
   used a local function instead of a "lambda", because the comparison
   was little more complicated - I wanted to have all the books with the
   same author appear alphabetically by title.
   
   You can see complete listing of book_list class in Listing #2.
   
Generating Pages:

   Now that we have constructed a list of books, the next step is to
   create the HTML pages. We begin by creating a class, called Html_Page,
   that generates basic outline of a page and then we extend that class
   to create the titles, authors and subjects pages.
   
   The idea that existing code can be extended yet not changed is the
   second most import idea of OO programming. The mechanism for doing
   this is called "inheritance" and it allows the programmer to create a
   new class by adding new properties to an old class and the old class
   does not have to change. A way to think about inheritance is as
   "programming by differences". In our program we will create three
   classes that inherit from Html_Page.
   
   Html_Page is quite simple. It consists of routines that generate the
   header and the trailer tags for an HTML page. It also contains an
   empty routine for generating the body of the page. This routine will
   be defined in descendant classes. The __init__ routine let's the user
   of this class specify a title and a top level heading for the page.
   
   When I first tested the output of the HTML generators I simply printed
   it to the screen and manually saved it into a file, so I could see the
   page in a browser. But once I was happy with the appearance, I had to
   change the code to save the data into a file. That's why in Html_Page
   you will see code like this:

        self.f.write ("<html>\n")
        self.f.write ("<head>\n")

   for writing the output to a file referenced by the attribute "f".
   
   However, since the actual output file will be different for each page
   opening of the file is deferred to a descendant class.
   
   You can see complete code for Html_Page in Listing #3. The three
   classes Authors_Page, Titles_Page and Subjects_Page are used to create
   the final HTML pages. Since these classes belong together I put them
   in one module, called books_pages. Because the code for these is
   classes is very similar we will only look at the first one.
   
   Here is how Authors_Page begins:
class Authors_Page (Html_Page):

    def __init__ (self):
        Html_Page.__init__ (self, "Aviation Books: by Author",
                            "<i>Aviation Books: indexed by Author</i>")
        self.f = open ("books_by_author.html", "w")
        print "Authors page in--> " + self.f.name

   To start with that the class heading lists the name of the class from
   which Authors_Page inherits, mainly Html_Page. Next notice that the
   constructor invokes the constructor from the parent class, by calling
   the __init__ routine qualified by the class name. Finally, the
   constructor names and opens the output file. I decided not to make the
   file name a parameter for my own convenience to keep things simple.
   
   Since the book list is needed for to generate the body of each page I
   added a book_list attribute to each page class. This attribute is set
   before HTML generation starts.
   
   The generate_body routine redefines the empty routine from the parent
   class. Although fairly long, the code is pretty easy to understand
   once you know that the book list is represented as an HTML table and
   the "+" is the concatenation operator for strings.
   
   In addition to replacing the generate_body routine we also redefine
   generate_trailer routine in order to put a back link to the book index
   at the bottom of each page:

    def generate_trailer (self):
        self.f.write ("<hr>\n")
        self.f.write ("<center><a href=books.html>Back to Aviation Books Top Pa
ge</a></center>\n")
        self.f.write ("<hr>\n")
        Html_Page.generate_trailer (self)

   Notice how right after we generate the back link, we include a call to
   parent's generate_trailer routine to finish off the page with correct
   terminating tags.
   
   Complete listing for the three page generating classes are found in
   Listing #4.
   
   The main line of the entire program is shown in Listing #5. By now the
   code there should be self explanatory.
   
Summary

   As you can see this particular program was not hard to write. Python
   is well suited for these types of tasks, you can quickly put together
   a useful program with minimal fuss.
   
   After I have got the program to work I realized that its design is not
   the best. For example, the HTML generating code could be more general,
   perhaps the Book class should generate it's own HTML table entries.
   But for now the program fits my purposes, but I will modify if I need
   to create other HTML generating applications.
   
   If you like to see the results of this script visit my book page.
   
   To learn more about Python you should start with the Python Home Page
   which will point you to many Python resources on the net. I also found
   the O'Reilly book Programming in Python by Mark Lutz extremely
   helpful.
   
   Finally, any mistakes in the description of Python features are my own
   fault, as I'm still a Python novice.
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                      Copyright  1997, Richie Bielak
           Published in Issue 19 of the Linux Gazette, July 1997
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back Next 
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
    "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
    
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                      Using SAMBA to Mount Windows 95
                                      
                 By Jonathon Stroud, jgstroud@eos.ncsu.edu
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Many major universities are now offering network connections to
   students in their rooms. This is really a wonderful thing for the
   Linux community. Whereas, the majority of student owned computers on
   these networks are still running Windows 95, many students are making
   the switch to Linux. One thing that newcomers to Linux are constantly
   asking is, "Can I access a directory shared by a Windows 95 computer
   in the 'Network Neighborhood', and can I share files to Windows 95
   users?" The answer, of course, is YES. I keep trying to tell them that
   there is nothing that Linux can not do, yet they continue to come to
   me and ask if they can do this in Linux, or if they can do that. I
   have never once answered no.
   
  Samba
  
   To mount a Windows 95 share, we use a program called Samba. Samba is a
   program that allows Linux to talk to computers running Windows for
   Workgroups, Windows 95, Windows NT, Mac OS, and Novel Netware. Samba
   even allows you to share a printer between computers using these
   different operating systems. Samba comes with most distributions of
   Linux, but if you do not have it installed, you can obtain a copy from
   the Samba home page at http://lake.canberra.edu.au/pub/samba/.
   
  Mounting Windows 95 Shares
  
   The first thing you will probably want to do, is check to see what
   directories are shared on the computer you are trying to mount off of.
   To do this type smbclient -L computername. This will list all the
   directories shared by the machine. To mount the directory, we use the
   command smbmount. Smbmount can be a little tricky though. I have
   created a script, named smb, that allows users to mount drives using
   smbmount, with relative ease.
   #usage  smb computername sharename
   #!/bin/sh
   if [ $UID = 0 ]; then
      if [ ! d /mnt/$1 ]; then
         mkdir /mnt/$1
      fi
   #You may want to add the -u option here also if you need to
   #specify a login id (ie: mounting drives on Windows NT)
      /usr/sbin/smbmount //$1/$2 /mnt/$1 I $1 c etc
   else
      if [ ! d ~/mnt/ ]; then
         mkdir ~/mnt/
      fi
      if [ ! d ~/mnt/$1 ]; then
         mkdir ~/mnt/$1
      fi
   #You may want to add the -u option here also if you need to
   #specify a login id (ie: mounting drives on Windows NT)
      /usr/sbin/smbmount //$1/$2 ~/mnt/$1 I $1 c etcfi

   To execute this script you simply type smb followed by the name of the
   computer you are mounting off of, and then the directory you wish to
   mount (ex. smb workstation files). If you are root, the script creates
   a directory in /mnt by the same name as the computer, and mounts the
   directory there. For any other user, the script makes a directory in
   the users home directory named mnt. In that directory it makes another
   directory by the same name as the computer and mounts the share there.
   
  Sharing files with Windows 95
  
   Now to share a file. This also is not too difficult. To share a
   directory you need to edit /etc/smb.conf. By default, Samba shares
   users' home directories, but they are only visible (and accessible) to
   the owner. This means that the person accessing the share should be
   logged into Windows 95 with the same loginid, as they use to log into
   your Linux box.
   
   Let's say you want to let 'bob' access the directory '/shares/files',
   and you do not want anyone else to access it. To do this, add these
   lines to your /etc/smb.conf file.
   [bobsfiles]
      comment = files for bob
      path = /shares/files
      valid users = bob
      public = no
      writable = yes
      printable = no
    1. indicates the name the directory will be shared under.
    2. is a comment that can be displayed in the Windows 95 Network
       Neighborhood.
    3. lists the directory on your computer that will be shared
    4. when set to yes allows users to access the directory with guest
       privileges.
    5. indicates whether or not the user has write permissions to the
       indicated directory
    6. when set to yes allows users to spool print jobs from that
       directory
       
   More examples on sharing files can be found in the default smb.conf
   file. For more help on setting up this file, see the Samba web page,
   or type man smb.conf.
   
  More cool Samba stuff
  
   If a Windows 95 user on your network is running winpopup (an instant
   massaging program), you can send them a winpopup message using Samba.
   To do this just type
smbclient -M computername
message_text

   .
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                     Copyright  1997, Jonathon Stroud
           Published in Issue 19 of the Linux Gazette, July 1997
                                      
                          Linux Gazette Back Page
                                      
           Copyright  1997 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.
For information regarding copying and distribution of this material see the
                              Copying License.
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
  Contents:
  
     * About This Month's Authors
     * Not Linux
       
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                         About This Month's Authors
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
    Larry Ayers
    
   Larry Ayers lives on a small farm in northern Missouri, where he is
   currently engaged in building a timber-frame house for his family. He
   operates a portable band-saw mill, does general woodworking, plays the
   fiddle and searches for rare prairie plants, as well as growing
   shiitake mushrooms. He is also struggling with configuring a Usenet
   news server for his local ISP.
   
    Jim Dennis
    
   Jim Dennis is the proprietor of Starshine Technical Services. His
   professional experience includes work in the technical support,
   quality assurance, and information services (MIS) departments of
   software companies like Quarterdeck, Symantec/ Peter Norton Group, and
   McAfee Associates -- as well as positions (field service rep) with
   smaller VAR's. He's been using Linux since version 0.99p10 and is an
   active participant on an ever-changing list of mailing lists and
   newsgroups. He's just started collaborating on the 2nd Edition for a
   book on Unix systems administration. Jim is an avid science fiction
   fan -- and was married at the World Science Fiction Convention in
   Anaheim.
   
    John Eikenberry
    
   John currently lives in Athens, GA where he is both a student and an
   employee of the University of Georgia. He is working on his masters
   thesis in artificial intelligence while working full time as a system
   administration and programmer for the College of Education. Prior to
   his coming to Athens, John studied psychology and philosophy ending
   with a Masters of Philosophy from the University of Toledo. He has
   been using Linux since 1994 and maintains the Linux Ai/Alife
   mini-Howto.
   
    John Gatewood Ham
    
   John Ham was born June 10, 1964, in Florence, Alabama. He has a B.S.,
   Mathematics, from The University of the South, Sewanee, TN and an
   M.S., Computer Science, from The University of Missouri-Rolla, Rolla,
   MO. He is currently working as an Instructor in the Computer Science
   Department at Burapha University, Bang Saen, Cholburi, Thailand. He
   teachs in English -- he does not speak Thai. He lives in Thailand,
   because his wife is Thai and did not wish to live in the United
   States. His Home Page
   
    Michael J. Hammel
    
   Michael J. Hammel, is a transient software engineer with a background
   in everything from data communications to GUI development to
   Interactive Cable systems--all based in Unix. His interests outside of
   computers include 5K/10K races, skiing, Thai food and gardening. He
   suggests if you have any serious interest in finding out more about
   him, you visit his home pages at http://www.csn.net/~mjhammel. You'll
   find out more there than you really wanted to know.
   
    Evan Leibovitch
    
   Evan is a Senior Analyst for Sound Software of Brampton, Ontario,
   Canada. He's installed almost every kind of Unix available for Intel
   systems over the past dozen years, and this year his company became
   Canada's first Caldera Channel Partner.
   
    Mike List
    
   Mike List is a father of four teenagers, musician, printer (not
   laserjet), and recently reformed technophobe, who has been into
   computers since April,1996, and Linux since July.
   
    Andy Newton
    
   Andy Newton is a Java programmer for Automated Logic Corporation and
   has been an active member of the Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts for two
   years. When not playing with computers, he enjoys running,
   backpacking, political banter and spending time with his fiancee,
   Karen. His Home Page
   
    Justin Seiferth
    
   When Justin's not busy improving our nation's information boreen, he's
   at home hacking various projects.  If you are cut off by a silver
   coupe with New Mexico plates on the roads around our nation's capital,
   feel free to wave hello!  Justin and his family will be making their
   annual sojourn to relatives in Ireland during July- he'd like to hear
   from fellow Linux users over there.
   
    Cliff Serutine
    
   Cliff Seruntine is a writer and an electronics and computer
   technician, web designer and all around hacker. He lives in Alaska
   with his family of four where they fight a never-ending battle against
   the evil computer assimilators and spend their weekends salmon
   fishing. He'd love to have you over to visit. Meet him at
   http://www.micronet.net
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
                                 Not Linux
                                      
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Thanks to all our authors, not just the ones above, but also those who
   wrote giving us their tips and tricks and making suggestions. Thanks
   also to our new mirror sites.
   
   My assistant, Amy Kukuk, did all the work again this month. She's so
   good to me. Thank you, Amy.
   
   I'm going on vacation from July 3 to July 13, and I am truly looking
   forward to it. I've been working much too hard since taking over as
   Editor of Linux Journal, and a week or so with no work in my thoughts
   is going to be a much needed break. Riley and I are flying to Southern
   California to visit his dad--the esteemed UCLA Professor Emeritus, Dr.
   Ralph Richardson. We also will be visiting my daughter Lara and her
   children. Pictures of all my grandchildren are on my home page--they
   are, of course, the most beautiful and most intelligent grandkids in
   the world. I am very proud of them, as you can see.
   
   Have fun!
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Marjorie L. Richardson
   Editor, Linux Gazette gazette@ssc.com
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   [ TABLE OF CONTENTS ] [ FRONT PAGE ] Back 
   
     _________________________________________________________________
                                      
   Linux Gazette Issue 19, July 1997, http://www.ssc.com/lg/
   This page written and maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette,
   gazette@ssc.com
