Re: Is it possible to scroll back and see bootup messages on console?
On Thu, 26 Nov 1998, Stan Brown wrote:
In FreeBSD, you can hit the {Scroll Lock} button and scroll back on the
console using {Page Up and {Page Donw} keys.
Is there anything similar in Debian?
Sure. Shift-PageUp and Shift-PageDown. At least, they work in xterms. I
*think* I've used the feature in console, but I can't be sure.
Andrew Tarr
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
web design question
I was wondering whether it was possible to overlay text on to an image in HTML... specifying a background image for a table cell or something like that. I think I've seen it done before, but of course I can't find the website now. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
Re: bogomips
On Tue, 10 Nov 1998, Oz Dror wrote: Hi I have a pentium-II 400Mhz and a pentium MMX 200Mhz both have 400.59 bogomips Why? Because bogomips are bogus and meaningless? Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate |___ http://multinet.co.nz/personalhomepages/locusmeus/antechamber.html |~~~
Re: standardising X
On Mon, 9 Nov 1998, Jiri Baum wrote: Hello, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (richard): This is purely an asthetic question, so all coments are welcome. I'd like to standardise my X Windows, so that they all look and operate the same. In X, any window can look any way it likes. That said, though, most X apps are written using one of only a few toolkits (widget sets), and all apps written with the same toolkit will look similar and configure similarly. Perhaps try thinking of Athena as membrane keys and Motif as push-buttons. Nobody seems to mind if the microwave oven has different type of buttons than the blender... You'll be able to configure some things to be the same (scrollbar dragging), but others will be difficult (3D look). You could try nextaw or xaw3d or xaw95. These are plug-in replacements for the standard athena widget set which give a NeXtStep, a 3d, or a win95 look-n-feel respectively. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate |___ http://multinet.co.nz/personalhomepages/locusmeus/antechamber.html |~~~
Re: netscape mail; mount on startup
I don't know much about the mail problem, but you might want to 'man xhost' which might tell you how to get multiple users using the same X server. I believe there is a better way to do it than this, but I ca't remember what it is. As far as mount on startup goes, you want the file /etc/fstab 'man fstab' will tell you all about it, you probably want a line like # file system mount point type options dump pass /dev/hda1 /win95 vfatdefaults0 2 another useful line would be /dev/fd0/floppyvfatnoauto,user,umask=022 0 0 which allows a normal user to 'mount /floppy' and have access to /floppy. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
Re: Micro$oft decommoditizing things -- a solution?
On Sat, 7 Nov 1998, Steve Lamb wrote: On Sat, Nov 07, 1998 at 07:57:50PM +, Kevin Grant wrote: to read the new style web pages). But remember that the Debian development community is far larger (and faster) than M$. The one problem with that is not tat we can't code faster and better, but the fact that we don't define the standards. We code to the standards set forth by the IETF(? I'm prolly wrong on that one) as well as other standards bodies. Sure, we can code nifty keen things, but it won't be standard just because we coded it. Also, if we stick it into open source, as we should, M$ *still* has access to it to do as they please. I've a couple of things to say on this topic. Firstly, *I* (for one) would see it as comprimising our principles if we were to produce a debianized HTML to work on a debianized browser. Linux has usually played by the rules as far as standards go, rather than playing fast and loose like microsoft. The Right Thing To Do is to adhere to the standards set forth in this case by the W3C. One of Linux's primary features is its ability to work with Secondly, it probably wouldn't work. Microsoft can use its dominant position in the marketplace to enforce de facto standards, we don't. If debian produces a version of HTML with all these nifty features then theres no garauntee that anyone else will pick it up and run with it. Thirdly, we have to ask ourselves whether we actually want HTML with extra bangs and whistles. There are plenty of people who are sick to death of crummy webpages with blinking tags, animated gifs and silly java apps who only use Lynx because they can get away from all that and still browse the web. I'm bearing in mind the streamed graphics that Intel is using to cripple your machine to sell you Pentuim IIs. Fourthly, to a certain extent the Free Software community already *has* extended HTML: Perl (probably) does everything whatever microsoft's dynamic HTML backofficey thing is, probably does it better, and probably did it before Microsoft had put finger to keyboard. Why BackOffice gets more press and is used by more end user-type people is left as an excercise for the reader. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
Re: simple question
On Wed, 4 Nov 1998, Davide Duran wrote: Linux is great thanks to over 1000 programmers who hard worked on it in their free time. It was a passion, an hobby. For sure, the best valuable passion or hobby I ever seen, but I ask: who can say me that I can be sure that this programmers will continue their great job? I know that there are a lot of programmers, but Well, given that Linux already is as good as or better than a commercial OS, then more programmers aren't a necessity. And I think it unlikely that a significant number of programmers would suddenly get bored and give up. the problem is that, IF LINUX would reach (and I hope) a BIG MARKET SHARE, a lot of people will buy it and use it. How can this programmers to support such a market ?? Well, if you mean support as in continue programming, then I don't see having a BIG MARKET SHARE would cause anyone to *stop* programming. I think it would more likely have the opposite effect. If you mean support as in who's going to answer my questions, then the answer is: not the programmers (in general). Support comes from fellow users through mailing lists like this one, usenet and local linux groups. As the market share increases, so will the number of users, and so will the support. This support already wins awards. Failing that, you could always buy a commercial distribution which comes with a degree of support, or you could pay someone to support it for you. They are not paid (economically) from their job. They're Linux system programmers in their free time. I know they're paid from their first job (most of them are programmers), but imagine that Linux would gain a lot of market. How can I put my firm in the hands of their free time ??? Well, you've said it yourself in your parenthical economically comment. They are paid not with money but with things which are worth more: satisfaction of creating something good, the joy and frustration of day to day hacking, kudos from their peers, slavish fans ready to do their every will and (of course) loads of free software from other programmers. Why, when they're getting paid like this, would they want to walk away from their job any more than if they were getting paid money? And if they don't have anymore free time, what can we do?? Learn to program yourself? I'm only half joking. You seem to be under the misconception that because any individual programmer may run out of time and impetus the whole lot might. This is a very faint possibility. The number of free software developers is growing, so there is always more people to take over the ones that leave. Having the whole free software community die is rather less likely than everyone at Microsoft resign to spend more time with their families. The other thing to take into account is that if you buy commercial software, you are actually have *less* gaurantee that the product will be continually supported. At any time the company could go under or simply stop supporting it. Free software on the other hand never dies. Because the source is always available you can (in priniciple, anyhow) support it yourself if nescessary. k Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
Re: [Off Topic] An EXCELLENT Microsoft Confidential document on
On Thu, 5 Nov 1998, Martin Bialasinski wrote: s == stick [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: s Me too! I'm usually a very cautious person...How do we *know* that this s has even originated from MicroSoft? So there is the issue of whether or s not it's from MS, and if it is it it truly confidential? M$ had confirmed, that this document is a M$ memo. See slashdot for the pointer. Ciao, Martin Also, it's unlikely that this was deliberatly leaked by microsoft (IMHO), because it's not exactly good publicity for them. Far more PR damage is possible because of (admittedly somewhat backhanded) admissions of how well the Free Software community is doing and the subtefuge they are planning to combat it than any gain they could get from seeing our relations to it. Rememeber it's not only Free Software enthusiasts and microsoft haters who will be reading it. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
Re: FLOPPY DISK INSTALLATION RAWRITE
On Sat, 31 Oct 1998, Bill Miller wrote: Dear Friends, I have several problems with the file copying that I baaadly need help with. First, the instructions say to use the utility program, rawrite, to write the appropriate files to my 1.44 MB 3.5 floppy disks. As both rawrite and the other files are located on your server, how do I use rawrite on your server to access the files on your server and indicate the result should end up on my A: drive? Presumably you have net access if you think you can access the debian server: download the floppy images, download rawrite and follow the instructions in that come with rawrite (I think it's available as a zip file which comes with instructions). rawrite just copies files bit for bit onto a floppy: it doesn't do anything fancy like download anything from the internet. Second, when I format floppy disks in Windows 95 ( which exists on a system that is not the target Linux box), the format program says I have 1.45 MB free on each floppy. However, both the Windows Explorer and My Computer screens say I have 1.38 MB free. This makes a direct copy (ie. not run through rawrite) of the .bin files impossible as each file is 1.44 MB. Yep, that's right. rawrite overwrites the formatting information on the disk which is why you can fit more onto the floppy (exactly 1.44M in this case). The other factor is that the first disk has to be bootable. I'm not sure what's invovled here, but I'd wager you can't make a bootable floppy by working within the confines of the FAT filesystem. Maybe there is a Master Boot Record at the start which FAT ignores. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
Re: More than one question....
On Mon, 26 Oct 1998, Vincent Rosso wrote: Yep, I still have more questions. Ugh. But, things are shapping up at least. 1. Netscape Messenger takes a /very/ long time to load. Navigator loads No idea about this one. Don't use messenger? 2. I have 32 megs of RAM, but when I call free, it says that I have 30. Where'd my last two go??? Actually, why don't I just show you: total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 30264 29080 1184 17572172 12296 -/+ buffers/cache: 16612 13652 Swap:64256 12952 51304 Also, should the system be taking up so much? Right after I reboot, it's already taking up almost all of the real RAM. I'm going to upgrade anyway, but I was wondering if this was normal? Right, I'm going out on a limb here and I really don't know what I'm talking about, so keep that in mind. But: I believe Linux caches a lot of things into memory (including disk read/writes). This improves system performance. Once you load other programs up, Linux relinquishes it's cache to make room for them. Incidentally, this cacheing behaviour is why you should always umount a removeable disk before removing it (unless you use mtools) because the system may still have a lot of stuff you've written to it in memory cache and hasn't got around to putting it on the physical medium yet. I have 32 Mb memory and 32 of swap, and I've just had my first out of memory error. I was running Netscape, Xemacs, and The Gimp (all of which had multiple windows open) and I tried to compile a Java program. Buy more by all means, but 32 Mb is more than adequate to run linux plus tons of programs. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
someone pass me the dunce-cap, please
I sent a message to the list a couple of days ago, in desperation over my not working .xsession file. I forgot that I wasn't subscribed to the list, so I have no idea whether there were any responses or in fact whether my message even appeared. But what I truly deserve the dunce-cap for, is the problem with my .xsession file. I had the first line as #! \bin\sh of course, it should have been #! /bin/sh It's all microsoft's fault, of course. Why couldn't they have got their slashes around the right way? Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
Re: Partitioning programs
On Thu, 1 Oct 1998, Tom Pfeifer wrote: Not sure what post you are referring to, but here's some URLs for some well known partitioning programs: Yeah, I realised it was actually comp.os.linux.misc that had the URLs. Thanks anyway, Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
Partitioning programs
Could someone send me the recent post(s) with URLs about partitioning programs? I seem to have deleted them in a fit of incompentency. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate |___ http://multinet.co.nz/personalhomepages/locusmeus/antechamber.html |~~~
Re: Installation
On Wed, 23 Sep 1998, Kent West wrote: At 10:54 PM 9/23/1998 +, Menno Scholten wrote: Hello there, I have a major problem with the installation of Debian. I already have Windows as OS but I wanted to have Linux as well. So I downloaded the basic files for installation. My harddisk has already 2 partitions, so I tried to install it on D:\. Next I executed the installation program. Everything went as planned, except that I don't now how to partion D:\ again so that I can use one partition as swap disk (my first question).I solved this problem by not using a swap disk at all ( I have 32 MB of RAM). But I sure like to use a swap disk. Okay, so you have (at least) two partitions already in existance: what Win/dos sees as C:\ and D:\. If you want a swap partition, you'll need to make another partition. AFAIK the only way to do this with Windows is to reformat your hard drive. Fortunately, there are other solutions. One is to use Partition Magic, which is supposed to be wonderful and can create and destory partitions at will without touching data on the other ones. Unfortunately, you need to buy it. The other is to use fips, a DOS program that comes with most Linux distributions. This is a little limited in that it can only truncate partitions: you put all your files at one end of the disk (by defragmentation) and partition at the other. The program comes with documentation, and should be adequate for your purposes. So what I would do is: 1) defragment C:\ 2) use fips, and repartion D:\ to 32 megs (or however big you want your swap partition to be), and create E:\ with the rest of the disk. 3) instal Debian on E:\ Legend has it that putting the swap partition earlier on the drive results in a small performance increase. I have no idea whether this is true or not. Anyway here is my major problem: Do you have a debian CD? If so, and you can convince your computer to boot off it (most new computers can) you should be able to boot off the debian CD and this should solve your problems. Even if you can't, you should be able to create a boot disk (using rawrite like Kend suggested) and use that to boot, and point the installation program at the CD-rom. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
Re: MTA Frustration: Exim
On Sun, 20 Sep 1998, George Bonser wrote: Ok, the permissions appear wrong on /var/spool/mail. my /var/spool/mail directory looks like this: drwxrwsr-t 2 root mail 1024 Sep 19 23:43 mail I am not positive that is correct, just that this is how it is installed on my system by debian a long time ago. Make sure that the mail group has write access in there. Okay, my /var/spool/mail was group root. a simple chgrp has everything working (exim is still set up only for local mail, but I have every confidence). Thanks very much for your help. I apologise for my whingy initial post, but I *have* been tearing my hair out over this one. Be seeing you, Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
Re: MTA Frustration: Exim
On Fri, 18 Sep 1998, George Bonser wrote: Unfortunately, it doesn't work. I've also tried running eximconfig and selecting local system (mail is sent and recieved only locally). This doesn't work either. This is making me quite suspicious: maybe something else is broken. Is it possible exim doesn't like my machine name (Caliban) starting with a capital? Can you give an example of the exact error you are getting. A look at the /var/log/exim/mainlog and /var/log/exim/paniclog might be helpful. *slaps himself on the forehead* Of course, check the logfiles! *solemly puts on duncecap* Okay the messages I get when local delivery attempted are: main: 1998-09-20 15:55:28 0zKaau-7s-00 == [EMAIL PROTECTED] T=local_delivery defer (13): Permission denied: creating lock file hitching post /var/spool/mail/ajt.lock.Caliban.36047cb0.01ea paniclog: 1998-09-20 15:42:54 socket bind() to port 25 for address (any) failed: Address already in use: daemon abandoned This looks diagnostic, although I don't know what to do about it. I would change that hostname to caliban if I were you. have done so. I was rather more ignorant of hostname/username conventions when I first set up the machine. I guess I could always use Pann's smail configuration stuff, but I've read too much of the exim docs to give up now. Anyhow, I like exim better than smail :] Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
Re: MTA Frustration: Exim
On Fri, 18 Sep 1998, George Bonser wrote: On Sat, 19 Sep 1998, Andrew wrote: Is this line right from exim.conf? local_domains = csc.canterbury.ac.nz:student.canterbury.ac.nz If you want all email for [EMAIL PROTECTED] and [EMAIL PROTECTED] to be delivered to the local machine, yes. right, I don't want to do that. What exactly are you trying to do? If your machine is calabash.student.canterbury.ac.uk then THAT is what you need as the local domain. Any domain that is not your machine is not a local domain. A local domain means the local machine ... not one within a few miles of your location. eximconfig asks: What is the `visible' mail name of your system? This will appear on From: lines of outgoing messages. I answered student.canterbury.ac.nz, because that's what I want on the From: lines of outgoing messages. eximconfig puts it on the local_domains list. I take it this is not what I want. THis of course assumes that calabash.student.canterbury.ac.uk is a real machine with real DNS and can have mail delivered directly to it from the internet. Otherwise, you are probably better off using your university mail server as your smarthost and set your mail client to read pop3 mail from their server just like Windows clients That's what I want to do. Outgoing mail is working fine. The only other thing I want is for local mail (such as [EMAIL PROTECTED]) to be delivered. At the moment it's not being delivered, and I have no idea why. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate |___ http://multinet.co.nz/personalhomepages/locusmeus/antechamber.html |~~~
Re: MTA Frustration: Exim
On Fri, 18 Sep 1998, George Bonser wrote: Right, because if you have a local user of foo, it tries to deliver it to [EMAIL PROTECTED] NOT [EMAIL PROTECTED] because that is what you have told it to do. It then finds that another server is the official mailhost for student.canterbury.ac.nz and tries to deliver it there but since there is no [EMAIL PROTECTED], it probably bounces. Try this: rerun eximconfig, select staellite system, let it configure your system. Add an /etc/alias entry for each real user on your local system: joe: real-joe bill: real-bill jeff: real-jeff exactly as shown. Any user with real- prepended gets delivered locally. I saw that in the docs somewhere. I thought it looked useful, but I had no idea how to use it. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. I've also tried running eximconfig and selecting local system (mail is sent and recieved only locally). This doesn't work either. This is making me quite suspicious: maybe something else is broken. Is it possible exim doesn't like my machine name (Caliban) starting with a capital? Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
support for AGP
Does Linux (or, more specifically, XFree86) support AGP video boards? The specific one in question is an ASUSTEK V3000 or something of the sort. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
Re: GUN Owners READ IMMEDIATELY!!
StEve, Your post is completely inappropriate to the debian mailing list. I fail to see what this issue has to do with computers, the GNU/Linux operating system, or the debian distribution thereof. I do not own a gun, nor do I live in California, or for that matter in the USA. In these respects I am similar to many other people subscribed to the list. Please do not post on such matters again. If we all flooded the list with our personal political concerns, we would have no time for discussing debian. How would you feel if I posted something on New Zealand Electoral Reform? Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
Re: Making Xemacs remember font and faces changes.
On Tue, 25 Aug 1998, Christopher Barry wrote: Also, is there a way to run plain old console emacs under X instead of If memory serves: xemacs -nw (nw= no window, not surprisingly) Andrew Tarr
Re: What is hurd?
I've browsed through the Hurd faq, but I'm still not clear exactly what advantages Hurd has over the Linux kernel. The FSF say that when they decided to continue Hurd development in 1990 once they heard about Linux, Linux was not portable and didn't scale well (esp. to multiprocessor machines). That's not true anymore (although maybe the Hurd can do it better?). The Hurd uses the Mach microkernel: microkernels are supposedly more efficient, but somewhere I read (I vaguely think it was by Linus, arguing with Tanenbaum about whether Minix was superior to Linux) that in the Real World, microkernels aren't as superior to monolithic kernels as they are theoretically supposed to be. Also, loadable modules give Linux some of the flexibility of microkernels. If anyone's keen to enlighten me/us on the intracacies of operating system kernels, they might like to comment on cached microkernels, like what the freedows project uses (www.freedows.org), or what the essential differences are between the Linux and BSD kernels. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
gimp: can't load or save anything but xcf
I can't seem to convince the Gimp (1.0) to load or save anything but xcf. The load/save menu thing doesn't even have any other options. Am I missing a package? I can't find it if I am. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
Re: new user needs help
On Wed, 19 Aug 1998, Brian D Kellogg wrote: hello, I have the following problems after installing Debian. 1. I can't mount the cdrom. i get this error--can't find /dev/hdc in /etc/mtab or /etc/fstab. It's a standard Atapi cdrom. How are you trying to mount it? It sounds like you're typing mount /cdrom (or something similar), which won't work unless you have information in /etc/fstab telling mount what the filesystem is, etc. try mount -t iso9660 /dev/hdc /mnt where /mnt is an empty directory. I use /cdrom if that works, put a line like #file systemmount pointtype /dev/hdb/cdrom iso9660;ATAPI (IDE) CDROM in your /fstab. (I copied this out of a post about setting up partitions, and I think there's a column missing. do a man fstab to see what you need. then you should be able to mount /cdrom without problems. I forget what /etc/mtab is exactly. 3. I can't start x i get this error--x: exec of /usr/bin/X11/XF86_NONE failed I have a notebook computer. I know X will work on it because I used to have SUSE linux on it. Have you run xf86config or XF86Setup? It sounds like you're X server hasn't been configured. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate |___ http://multinet.co.nz/personalhomepages/locusmeus/antechamber.html |~~~
Re: First time Linux user.
1) Where would be a good site for information regarding Linux, perhaps a site maintained by the creator of Linux, Linus Torvalds. Linus doesn't have much except penguins on his home page (at least, last I checked) 2) Where would be a good place to get information regarding the use of Linux. (As I have yet to find the equivalent to the DOS cd and dir command.) http://www.linux.org and http://www.linuxhq.com try http://www.linuxhq.com/LDP for such gems as the Linux Users Guide and the Linux Administrators Guide (you are an administrator if you own your own computer :]) As far as the commands go, they're pretty much the same as any Unix. See if you can find a Unix user book in your local library. They may even have a linux book if you're lucky. Here's some to get you started: DOS Unix cd cd del rm dir ls rmdir? rmdir (removes directories) mkdir? mkdir (creates directories) help command man command (chances are on a small system you don't have the man pages installed) more file gives you the contents of a file in a pageable fashion. (I think this is the same as DOS). less file will do the same, except it's nicer. zless will read compressed (*.gz) files, I think there is also zmore. Documentation is stored in /usr/doc, mostly in compressed form. Here are a couple of quite nessecary commands that stumped me at first: mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /floppy (mounts the msdos formatted disk in the fd0 drive as the directory /floppy . The directory /floppy has to exist, you may need to create it) shutdown -h now (for turning off the computer. shutdown -r now restarts it) Have fun, Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate |___ http://multinet.co.nz/personalhomepages/locusmeus/antechamber.html |~~~
Re: First time Linux user.
On Mon, 10 Aug 1998, GamerZ wrote: okay this is hopefully my last question for today the simple alphabet of DOS no longer exists it was extremely simple (which haha confused even some) linux uses a single tree supposedly, and has to mount devices to this tree every bootup, i believe what would be the paths to all of the standard DOS drives: The information in the file /etc/fstab (or something) has mounting information about the disk drives/partitions. Normally one would mount different partitions as standard directories in the standard file system. For example, / (the root directory) might be on hda6 (last partition on the 1st drive, perhaps d: in dos parlance). hdb1 might be mounted as /usr, hdb2 might be /var or whatever. hda1 might hold windows95 and be mounted as /win95 or something. How you actually organise all this (especially as you seem to have lots of harddrives) is beyond me, although others may give you considerations. It's OK (although not ideal) to have the entire thing on one partition, it's probably easier this way at least at first. You'll want lots of room for /usr though, that's where all the program files go. My system has two harddrives, and the arrangement looks something like: device size filesystem mount point contents hda1 (400Mb)'vfat'/win95win95, oddly enough hda5 (~32Mb) linux swapN/A swap space/virtual memory hda6 (~370Mb) ext2/ /, /home/ajt (my user directory) and everything that's not elsewhere hdb1 (100Mb)ext2 this ones's going to be / when I clean out hda hdb2 (32Mb) linux swap N/A swap space hdb3 (100Mb)ext2/varstuff that gets changed by programs often hdb4 (1000Mb) ext2/usrprograms/applications etc. This probably isn't ideal, either. Unix accesses devices as files, that's what the /dev/fd0 was in my mount example. here are the normal device files for the devices you wanted a: (floppy) /dev/fd0 b: (other floppy) /dev/fd1 c: (primary master) /dev/hda1 d:(prim. slav.) /dev/hdb1 e:(sec. mas.) /dev/hdc1 f: (sec. slav.) /dev/hdd1 where would the cdrom be, and where would the actual os be stored, like what are the most common directories... cdrom depends on the make of your cdrom, mine's /dev/sbpcd1 (sound blaster). I created a directory /cdrom and mount it there. I've already covered some of the directories in my mounting example, but here are the other usual ones: /bin (system binaries, things like ls etc) /home (All the user directories are subdirectories of /home) /root (except for the superuser who resides here) /etc ( configuration files) /usr (lots of stuff, including /usr/sbin (administration programs) /usr/bin (application programs) /usr/doc (documentation) /var (stuff that changes often, like news spools/ mail etc. ) It's a bit daunting, but it has a certain warped logic and arcane elegance to it. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate
Debian 2.0 in Linux Gazette
There's a review of Debian 2.0 in Linux Gazette (http://www.linuxgazette.com). The basic thrust of the article is that Debian is technically a good distribution, but dselect is a little daunting, especially for people installing linux for the first time. Also, Linux has a nice write up in my local newspaper: http://www.press.co.nz/31/980804c0.htm Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate |___ http://multinet.co.nz/personalhomepages/locusmeus/antechamber.html |~~~ -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null
libc6 upgrade
Should I be wary of ubgrading from libc6 2.0.6 to 2.0.7? Or can I just blithely replace the library? Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate |___ http://multinet.co.nz/personalhomepages/locusmeus/antechamber.html |~~~ -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null
Netscape install was Re: memory usage and Netscape
While we are on the topic, I have had problems using the debian install package to install Netscape 4.05. I copy the .tar.gz file (somethinging like netscape-405-unknown-linux20-export.tar.gz, IIRC), rename it by deleting the export word (so the install package doesn't complain) and do a dpkg -i netsca~2.deb (my debian CD was cut from a DOS/win3.11 system. So shoot me.) and then I get an error message something like illegal seek: ns-install. plus the usual unable to install package messages. It's not as if ns-install isn't there, either, because I untarred and gunziped it by hand and used the self-same script to install it, heretically not using the .deb package. Is there something that's eluding me? Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate |___ http://multinet.co.nz/personalhomepages/locusmeus/antechamber.html |~~~ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
toolkits look and feel (Qt, GTK, Motif)
Some people talk about Qt or GTK as being good looking. I don't have any Qt applications (although QtMozilla looks worth having) or any GTK applications except The Gimp, but I've looked at screenshots and I've looked at screenshots and I can't for the life of me see much difference between the three (GTK, Qt, and Motif), and they don't look *that* much different to the Windows toolkit either. Am I missing something here? Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate |___ http://multinet.co.nz/personalhomepages/locusmeus/antechamber.html |~~~ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
ppp automation
I get sick of typing in my password and stuff, so I want to automate the process. Unfortunately, every piece of documentation I read uses different scripts. The PPP-Howto, the debian user's guide and the ISP-Hookup-HOWTO all seem to differ, and none of them use pon and poff which seem to be the recommened way for debian. Presumably there's some reason why pon and poff are used. Can someone explain the script setup to me or point me to some documentation? Or else I'll just use the setup recommended in the PPP-Howto. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate |___ http://multinet.co.nz/personalhomepages/locusmeus/antechamber.html |~~~ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
man problems.
Whenever I invoke man as user for a man page I havne't read before I get this: bash-2.01$ man pppd Reformatting pppd(8), please wait... man: can't create /var/catman/cat8/572: Bad file descriptor zsoelim: /tmp/zman00572aaa: No such file or directory man: can't remove /tmp/zman00572aaa: Bad file descriptor and then I get a largely blank xterm with : man: can't unlink /var/catman/cat8/572: Bad file descriptor Manual page pppd(8) line ?/? (END) at the bottom. I can read them as root fine, and when I go back to them as a normal user they're fine then too. What's gone wrong and how do I fix it? Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate |___ http://multinet.co.nz/personalhomepages/locusmeus/antechamber.html |~~~ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: TeTex upgrade problems
On Tue, 19 May 1998, Matt Thompson wrote: OK, multi-part question. 1.) Just upgraded my hamm dist., got this: ??? Looks like it didn't work. I have no idea 2.) What the heck *is* TeX anyway, and are there applications that call/use it regularly? Because I have never invoked it for any purpose. This I can answer. It's a typesetting system invented by Donald Knuth because he wanted something better than troff to write his on-going, multi volume saga the Art of Computer Programming. The major application that uses TeX is LaTeX, which is basically a set of TeX macros that you can use to give a document logical markup. LaTeX needs TeX. If you don't use TeX, LaTeX, or LyX for anything then you probably don't need tetex. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate |___ http://multinet.co.nz/personalhomepages/locusmeus/antechamber.html |~~~ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: irc and that Free Software thing
On Sun, 10 May 1998, Hamish Moffatt wrote: I apologize for preaching, but usually universities ban IRC because it consumes finite resources which are needed for course-related work. As a university student myself, I get pretty annoyed if I can't get a terminal to do some work because people are browsing the web, for example. I don't know about .NZ, but in .AU net access isn't really too expensive. Likewise, I apologise for replying in my defence, but my university acts as an ISP. I dial in from home, I never have problems getting through so I presume that there isn't a big demand for dial in access at the times I dial in, and I pay for what I use. It was the free software thing I wanted to see on IRC. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate |___ http://multinet.co.nz/personalhomepages/locusmeus/antechamber.html |~~~ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's the storywith 2.0?
On Mon, 4 May 1998, Craig Sanders wrote: [snip] a lot of users (note, users not only developers) have done this already and are very happy with the results. I am one of them, except for the fact GV doesn't work :[ I have had no problems. The upgrade was easy, everything worked as it always did. And I'm not a developer nor super-linux-savy. It's been less than a year since I got my debian 1.3.1 CD. [snip] the long time to debian 2.0 is actually a deviation from previous history - *caused* by the fact that we are switching to libc6. in the past, anyone could safely install a few 'unstable' packages on a 'stable' system. Just an ignorant question, how often do new libcs come out? What's the story with glibc (how is it different from libc6)? Also, do the hamm install disks work yet, or is it better when installing from scratch to do a bo install and upgrade using the most excellent autoupgrade script? Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate |___ http://multinet.co.nz/personalhomepages/locusmeus/antechamber.html |~~~ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Web Browsers without xwindows?
On Mon, 27 Apr 1998, Keith Alen Vance wrote: I am new to Linux and have installed Debian 1.3 without xwindows. I want to do as much if not everything I can without using xwindows or some other windows like interface. I would like to know if there is a web browser that I can use that does not require some type of Windows interface. I am just trying to learn everything about Linux and want to learn the hard way. Anyone can point and click. If I wanted to do that I would have installed Windows 95 or bought a Mac. Not that in the future I might not want to go to xwindows or something but for now I want to learn the nitty gritty. Mind you, it's not as if X-Windows suddenly turns Linux into MacOS. Most windows managers don't provide flashy icons for everything, so you end up executing most things from Xterms. These days I mostly use X as a platform for lots of xterms. Plus the odd Xemacs window (which also doesn't get vastly easier to use in a windowing environment), and the odd graphical web-browser. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate |___ http://multinet.co.nz/personalhomepages/locusmeus/antechamber.html |~~~ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: X-Windows
On Sat, 25 Apr 1998, Joost Kooij wrote: On Fri, 24 Apr 1998, Jario Araujo Silva wrote: Hi I need your help. I don't know to config. xfree86. Anyboby, can help me ? short method: su - [now type in root's password] XF86Setup also the text-based program xf86config (or something like that) which worked better for me (as it actually explained what you were entering in) longer (lasting) method: cd /usr/doc/X11 less * (or more * if you didn't install less) and man X man 5 XF86Config man XF86Setup Cheers, Then of course vi /etc/X11/XF86Config (or xemacs, or whatever) I'm still waiting for a clear day and the energy and courage to do that one. I'm sick of my meagre 640x480 resolution :] Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate |___ http://multinet.co.nz/personalhomepages/locusmeus/antechamber.html |~~~ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: X: competition for colours
On Tue, 21 Apr 1998, G. Crimp wrote: Hi, I have a generic S3 Trio64V+ card. Until recently it had only the stock 1 M of memory. With that, if I had, Netscape running and then tried to run something else that used a lot of colour, occasionally, the second app would fail to start up with a message like `Not enough colours'. If I retried once or twice to run it, it would eventually come up. Okay, here's a couple of ideas. Even with your new video card, you may still be running with 8 bit colour (that's the default for X, I believe). Use startx -- -bpp 16 to get 16 bit colour, (you can use 24 or 32 as well). If you use xdm, you have to put something in one of the X resource configuration files, but I can't remember what. I think the file might be .Xresources, check the man pages. Also, you can start netscape with it's own colour map (this means when netscape comes into focus, all the colours on your screen change to match netscape's own colour map). This is done with a command line option, something like netscape -private Again, I've forgotten what the precise option is, check the man page. Andrew Tarr If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate |___ http://multinet.co.nz/personalhomepages/locusmeus/antechamber.html |~~~ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: What's /dev/dsp device?
On Fri, 27 Mar 1998, Art Lemasters wrote: When I accessed a particular www server with Netscape, it tried to open /dev/dsp (unsuccessfully). What's /dev/dsp? Thanks. Art I believe it's a sound device (like /dev/audio). The server must have been trying to play you a sound file. If you don't have sound enabled in your kernel, it won't work, obviously ;-] Andrew -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
crash burn win95 splashscreen
Last year, I think it was, someone mentioned a crash burn win95 logo splash screen. Does anyone know where it is (I've tried to look for it, but there are a *lot* of win95 startup screens)? This is actually the second time I've asked. I'm just useless, I guess :] Andrew -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
gv doesn't work
Um, gv doesn't work on my hamm system. It seemed to install okay, but when you execute it, you get an error message: gv: no message for missing resources or something like that anyway. The only thing I could think of is that this is something to do with the new wiget sets (which, by the way, I'm not overly enthusiastic about. Some of the 3d buttons look good, but others really suck. Especially the scrollbars. Any way to get the old Athena scrollbars back?). I did install xaw-wrappers. Andrew -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Re: question on using lpr
On Thu, 29 Jan 1998 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 1st line 2nd line 3rd line 4th line ..(you get the idea). no idea on this one, sorry. Also, how can I copy a file from my harddrive to a floppy (i.e., A: in Windows or MS-DOS). I am taking a class on UNIX and may need to transport files from my PC to the lab. as root, issue mount -t [filesystem type] [device] [mount point] this is normally mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /floppy but make sure you have a directory called /floppy in your root directory to act as a mount point. Apparently, mount /floppy as a normal user also works, although i've never tried it. Then cp ~/myfile /floppy. you may need to make sure the read-write permissions are correct on /floppy, though. If you want to eject the disk you'd better umount /floppy this cleanly unmounts the disk and makes sure everything is written on it. I suggest you have a read of some of the pretty good online users guides etc. I can't remember the URLS, but Linux Gazette (www.linuxgazette.com) has a link to a linux resources page, which in turn has a link to the linux documentation project (LPD) which has lots of stuff to read on it. Andrew -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
using dselect with an ftp proxy
How do you set dselect to use an ftp proxy? I tried setting a ftp_proxy environment variable but that didn't seem to work. Andrew -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Re: using dselect with an ftp proxy
Well, after reading down my mail I find someone has already asked my question and recieved an answer. That ought to teach me for posting before I read my mail :] Please ignore my previous post. Andrew -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Re: SEUL distribution?
On Wed, 14 Jan 1998, Craig Sanders wrote: why not pick a subset of debian as your base distribution? more than the debian base disks but less then the full distribution. modify the packages as appropriate for your needs. then users of seul would be able to install any .deb package out of the debian archive in addition to .deb packages from the seul dist. in effect, the debian ftp site would become a 'contrib' section for your dist. debian has always been intended to be a good base from which other distributions can be built... craig This was just what I was about to suggest. It would be awkward if SEUL users had to go to a different packaging system for packages not available in SEUL. In effect it would become a kind of Debian-lite, (or, dare I say it, a Red Hat-lite or whichever distribution you feel is most suited to the goals of SEUL). Dselect is one thing that has to be improved (and I understand it is - any hints as to what Diety is going to be like, developer-people?) I didn't find the interface to hard to understand, although it might be a little daunting for people expecting a Win95 InstallShield. But it's habit of searching through the entire CD when you want to install just one little package is inconvienient. The other thing I'd suggest is picking one mail transfer agent and sticking with it. I had more trouble configuring mail than anything else. All the documentation seems to assume you're installing it on a network. Andrew -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
mounting win95 partition was Re: multiple fs types for user floppy access?
On Thu, 8 Jan 1998, Daniel Martin at cush wrote: /dev/fd0/floppy/msdos msdos user,rw 0 0 /dev/fd0/floppy/ext2 ext2 user,rw 0 0 /dev/fd0/floppy/vfat vfat user,rw 0 0 Speaking of which, I have a line which goes something like /dev/hda1 /win95 vfat[can't remember the rest] on startup, it always complains about vfat being an unsupported fs. Yet mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /win95 works okay. Do I have to compile vfat support directly into the kernel rather than as a loadable module or something? Andrew -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Lynx: proxy server
how do I set up Lynx to use my ISP's www proxy server? There's nothing obvious in either the man page or the online help. Andrew -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Re: Two Mice
Just as a matter of interest, why do you want to use two mice? Andrew -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
disturbing problem rears its ugly head again
I've had this problem before after I unwisely used vi to read a core file. Last time it went away by itself, now it's back and it's lasted longer. vi (i.e. elvis) prints out skipping session file X where X is a number from one to seven, and then it says no such session or somesuch, exits, and causes bash to no longer print out user input or start new lines. Fvwm puts white borders around everything and none of the usual mouse commands work. curiously enough, both programs work fine under root, but not under a new user. I've reinstalled both packages to no avail. I installed fvwm95 which works fine but I don't like it. Help! Andrew Tarr ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) God put me on this Earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now, I am so far behind I shall never die. -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Images in LaTeX (urgently needed for xmas cards!)
How does one place gifs, jpegs into a LaTeX document? The book I have (The LaTeX Companion) mentions a graphics package but says its under development. However, the book is a few years old, so maybe it's been developed. Failing that, how do you convert gifs etc. into eps? The book tells me how to deal with that format (= encapsulated postscript?) You know you've been working with *nix too long when you think xmas must be an X windows program :]. Andrew Tarr ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) God put me on this Earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now, I am so far behind I shall never die. -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
