How difficult is it to package Binary-only software as .deb?
I've got a GVX1 card wich is only supported, software-wise under Xfree864.2.0 and for hardware accelleration, I have to use Accelerated-X. For the moment, I'm using XFree864.2.0 compiled from source for most of my work and the demo X-Server from XIG when I need hardware acceleration. As the XIG server is $129.00 to buy, I would like to be sure I can install it permenately before I pay for it. XIG only provide .rpm's, which I've converted using alien, but I've never trusted alien and I still had to build parts manually before it worked. I know I can use alien to extract the rpm. There are a few sources, mostly binaries and some libs. Here are the important things I know. 1) First, the system has to build a module for the current kernel which needs to be loaded before the server will work. 2)XIG provides it's own OpenGL code and libs. They recommend removing ALL traces of other OpenGL/MESA before installing theirs. I didn't do this, and it currently works, but it's better safe than sorry. 3) The X Server from XIG provides X. This package should take priority over even future versions of XFree86 unless the user specifically wants to replace it with XFree86. So, the thing I want to do is: Create a .deb that; 1) Will compile and install the kernel module, insuring that the module loads at boot time. 2) Conflict with and remove ALL other versions of OpenGL/MESA/XFree86 etc. 3) Install the X Server binaries, and 4) Put X on permanent hold until the user specifically requests to replace it. I realise this goes against the very grain of Debian GNU/Linux, but some of us need to use Proprietory X Servers to get full use of our graphics cards. I've asked XIG to re-consider supporting Debian, but they see Debian as a small target not yet worth supporting. I was hoping that by 'rolling my own .deb' I could provide them with a valid template they could use for converting their other X Servers to Debian format. How difficult would this be for someone with only limited knowledge of Linux and X and even less knowledge of .deb formats? I've read the developers mini howto, but it assumes you are starting with GPL'd code. Obviously none of this code is GPL'd, and most of it is binary-only. I'm esspecially concerned with getting the conflicts right so that this package can cleanly remove XFree86 and install the XIG server and ensuring that future dist-upgrades will not replace the XIG server with newer XFree86 .deb's. Thank you for any tips, hints, pointer to FM's that I should read or any other useful mails. Cheers, John Gay -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: kmidi/timidity configuration
I've allways use timidity myself. I like the sound it give through my Crystal ISA card. I've never had any problems with timidity and timidity-patches loading and configuring automagically on my various Debian systems. The thing I've never got to work properly was kmidi. It opens, will load a midi file but when I start playing the file, kmidi shows it playing, but no sound comes out. Timidity works fine, though. Any info on configuring kmidi will be greatly appreciated by me as well. Cheers, John Gay
Re: Moving selected file systems to new hard disk
I had kept a copy of a really great article posted on another mailing list for this but now seem to have lost it. I would like to upgrade and move things like /home and /usr to a new scsi hard disk drive which has much more room. The old disk is /dev/sda and I am installing a new IBM 18 gig scsi drive to /dev/sdb. I would definitely like to get /home there since it seems to grow quite quickly. If /usr could move also, that would be cool. -- Michael Perry [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- I recently did this on my system, and this is the advise I received. Create the new partitions on /dev/sdb, then mount each partition under /mnt. Go to the directory you want to move, the example shows /usr, but /home, /var and such should be the same. I was told there was some issue with sockets not moving correctly with tar, but I don't know what a socket is, and I was able to move /usr with no issues. As I am new to Linux as well, I asked for, and got a very good explanation of what this command did. After I had moved the directories, I just needed to update /etc/fstab to mount the new partitions under the proper directories. I'm still waiting to copy and resize my root partition. cd /usr tar cpf - . | (cd /mnt ; tar xpf -) tar: you know this c : create p : preserve permisions (rwx and owners, etc) f : file name, the next arg will give the name of the file - : most commands understand this to mean stdin/stdout. tar is one, so this is stdout. . : the current directory. if you make a tar file of . and then do a tar t of it, everything will look like ./foo, ./bar, ./zoo/cow, and so on. an ls -a will show both . and .. dirs. the parenthesis around the other two commands force them into a subshell, so it's almost like piping into a shell script. that way the cd command takes effect, and that's also why the cd doesn't affect your current session - at the end of this command you'll still be in /usr.
Re:USB Support and SiS 6326 built in video
System Celeron 333 96 MB RAM 2.1 GB Samsung HD SiS 5595 Chipset (66/100 MHz bus) I am planning to buy a USB modem shortly. Are there any plans to write drivers for Linux any time soon? I also cannot get the built-in SIS 6326 video to work properly in X-Windows. Any ideas on this? I'm using Hamm. Some USB support is available with Kernel 2.3.xx, currently somewhere around 46 or so. Kernel 2.4 apparently is delayed until Late summer for this and other problems. There are several USB modems known to work, but it requires either using Bleeding edge kernels, or back-patching the USB sources into a 2.2 kernel. Your best bet is to get on the linux-usb mailing list, visit their site and get VERY intimate with EXACTLY what hardware is on your motherboard. I did some experimenting with USB, but there are two different hardware interfaces, and have been a few different stack for each. Don't let this scare you off. You can learn quite a lot from following the list and compiling new kernels. Good luck! Cheers, John Gay
RE: Scanners in Debian
Scanners are supported under sane for Linux. I've got a AGFA Snapscan 1236S SCSI scanner and this works fine with sane, xscanimage, the X window interface and xsane, a separate X interface for sane. This also works directly as a plug-in for gimp as well. I would recommend going to : www.mostang.com/sane and check for supported scanners BEFORE buying anything. My first scanner was an AGFA 1212U USB scanner, which wasn't supported, but now support is available. Once you are sure the scanner you are buying is supported, you can use apt-get to install xsane, this will install the rest of sane as it depends on it. The configuration _should_ be fine once you use apt-get to install. This worked for me first time. If it doesn't, check the doc's. There are a few config files you can change to get everything working. Let me know if you have any problems, and I can try to talk you through it. I'm no expert, but I have been doing some work with my scanner and know a few things to try. Cheers, John Gay
RE: Mustek 1200 LS scanner working in Debian?
Go to www.mostang.com/sane There you will find a link to supported scanners. I know there is a Mustek back-end, but I don't know if it supports the 1200 LS scanner. This will give you just about as much info there is for scanners. Cheers, John Gay
Re: File system/directory structure docs?
FSSTND covers this topic. usually found on /usr/doc/debian-policy/fsstnd/* Dannie Ginsburg Actually, this has been superseded by FHS. This is a more *NIX based document that the FSSTND and I believe that this is what Debian now aims for in compatibility. I must warn you, though. This is aimed more to the SysAdmin and software package writer that the general user. But if you read through it a few times, you will get a general feel for where things should go. This is only a guide, but a very good one and it seems that several *NIX distributors are starting to follow this. http://www.pathname.com/fhs/index.html This will take you to the FHS home page. You will find copies of the doc available from there. I hope this answers you questions. Cheers, John Gay
Hard drive partitioning. My thoughts.
After reading the replies, and the FHS several times, I've decided to use the following partitioning scheme. Currently 6G hda2G for WindowsNT, 100M for /, 64M Swap, 1G for /home, and the rest, almost 2G for /usr. Proposed. 6G hda 2G for WindowsNT, 100M for /, 64M Swap, rest for /home. 13G hdb 4G for /usr, 4G for /opt, 4G for /var, and two 650 M partitions for CD images. I realise the hdb doesn't quite add up, but this is just an approximation. This should give me plenty of room for various app's that I want to install. The most important one being StarOffice. Once I get that installed, I can get the family used to Linux instead of Windows and hopefully I can wipe the Windows partition off completely by the end of the year. If any one thinks I should divide the space differently, I'd like to hear the reasoning. This is based mainly on the FHS and seems to make sense to me, but I'm still learning about Linux. Thanks to everyone who had input, and offered their ideas of partitioning schemes. Cheers, John Gay
New drive ready to partition. Just what some recommendations and suggestions.
I recently got a new 13G hard drive. I've installed it as hdb, and moved my CD-RW to hdc. At the moment I've got a 6G drive with 2G for WindowsNT, 100M for /, 1G for /home and 2G for /usr. I really need more room for both /home AND /usr, but I also need more space for /var and /opt and some others. I would like to make several partitions and use them to my best use, I just wanted to get some recommendations from the Expert/Experienced before I partitioned this drive. I also would like to have a few partitions set aside for CD images as I hope to start selling Software on CD as well. Right now my box is Slink with several Potato things installed. I plan to do a full upgrade as soon as Potato settles down after the freeze. I use it mainly for myself, but my Daughter has an account and as soon as I can get StarOffice installed, I'll be setting up an account for the wife as well. I recently got lxdoom installed and working with the .wads from my 3-CD set, and finally got Netscape installed from the .deb rather than netscapes own package. I'm still learning quite a bit, but I'm getting to the point where I feel I can tell the wife that it's stable for general family use. Once I can get everything we need running in Linux, I'll wipe the WindowsNT partition. My daughter also has a PC with Window95 for games and such, but I also want to set this up as another terminal in the future. SO: With 13G to play with, what partitions should I make and approximately how should I divide them up? I realise there are as many answers as people with PC's, I just want to get a general feel for how big I should make what partitions. Thanks for your help. Cheers, John Gay
Woody? when did this happen?
I just noticed a mail in the list about Woody, and just had a look at ftp.uk.debian.org, where my apt source list is pointing, and sure enough, there's woody, and frozen, along with stable, unstable etc, et-al. I am currently using unstable for upgrading the packages I need from potato. The thing that worries me is, I used this to update some stuff last night, just about 12 hours ago. I've got a slink system I've been upgrading from potato, I suppose now I need to change my source list? I've been keeping an eye on the site, and I'm subscribed to the weekly news list, but this has just taken me by surprise. I knew the freeze was close, I didn't know it had already happened. Fortunately I'm looking forward to doing a complete upgrade as soon as the dust settles. Too bad the 2.4 kernel can't make it. I've been following 2.3's development for a while. I was trying to get some USB stuff working, but had to put it on hold. I'll change my list when I get home so I don't break anything now that I'm finally getting the hang of this Linux stuff. Wow! Woody, that's kewl. Cheers, John Gay
Re: New drive ready to partition. Just what some recommendations and suggestions.
I've got some good suggestions, and apparently raised a few questions as well. Let me outline my reasons for asking and what I hope to do: I've got a CD-RW. I plan to use this for back-ups as well as software publishing. I've also got a SCSI tape drive, but I'm not quite sure how to use it yet. I've got / as a 500M partition. This is perfect for putting onto a bootable CD-RW for emergency recovery. Being new, I've already screwed up my system to the point where it wouldn't boot. Last time I had to do a complete install. I would like to keep the other partitions small enough to put onto just a few CD's each. Worst-case scenario, I trash a complete partition, I can recover from just a few CD's. This also makes backing up each partition less work. I also want to have a few partitions set aside for CD images. I would feel better having a number of smaller partitions that I can back-up and recover quickly, plus fsck would run faster, that just a few really big partitions and lots of sym-links to hide the facts. I've read the multi-disk HOW-TO, as it has some good info on partitions sizes and such. I've also read the FHS info as well. I know StarOffice wants to install in /opt, and apt-get uses /var quite heavily. I expect only three users, and maybe a business account, so mail shouldn't be too much. At the moment I'm more concerned with being able to recover the various system and user programmes before I make my next mistake as root, rather than and user data. This would indicate a good scheme for recovering /usr. Probably spitting it up may help, as long as my / partition would have enough to recover the rest of the system in case of catastrophic failure. Thanks again for your input. I'll have another read of the FHS documents and a good think. aphro [EMAIL PROTECTED] on 18/01/2000 17:11:52 Sent by: aphro [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Onno Ebbinge [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: Ron Rademaker [EMAIL PROTECTED], John Gay/IE/[EMAIL PROTECTED], debian-user@lists.debian.org, recipient list not shown: ; Subject: Re: New drive ready to partition. Just what some recommendations and suggestions. i do stuff along those lines as well ..i dont understand when i installed freebsd it reccomended a 20MB /var partition/slice even though i gave it 6.1GB of space. it doesnt make sense to have such small partitions even if there is nothing on them to me anyways. nate On Tue, 18 Jan 2000, Onno Ebbinge wrote: Onno Sometimes I don't understand the stratagies used in disk partitioning. Onno Onno Please correct me if I'm wrong but I always thought that you split Onno the partitions by long term usage: Onno Onno 1- 2 GB / Onno 1- 2 GB /var Onno 1- 4 GB /var/spool Onno rest on /home Onno Onno Then I link /tmp to /var/tmp Onno Onno WHY: The chance that / is being filled by a user Onno is small this way. Email and printing activities Onno are split from other partitions. Logging, tmp and Onno such are split from other partitions. And last but Onno not least home directories are split from other Onno partitions. Onno Onno Ideas and critical remarks are welcome... Onno Onno Groetjes, Onno Onno Onno Onno Onno At 12:48 PM 1/18/00 +0100, Ron Rademaker wrote: Onno Onno Onno I recently got a new 13G hard drive. I've installed it as hdb, and moved my Onno CD-RW to hdc. At the moment I've got a 6G drive with 2G for WindowsNT, 100M for Onno /, 1G for /home and 2G for /usr. I really need more room for both /home AND Onno /usr, but I also need more space for /var and /opt and some others. I would like Onno to make several partitions and use them to my best use, I just wanted to get Onno some recommendations from the Expert/Experienced before I partitioned this Onno drive. I also would like to have a few partitions set aside for CD images as I Onno hope to start selling Software on CD as well. Onno Onno I don't know if you're willing to reinstall completely or just want to add Onno the space, if you're willing to reinstall I would: Onno Onno1) Your current hd 4 GB on / Onno2) New hd 5 GB on /home Onno3) New hd 8 GB on /usr Onno Onno That way you'll have more on /home, /usr, /var and /opt (both /var and Onno /opt will be on /). Onno Onno If you don't want to reinstall you could set a 5 GB on /home and remount Onno your current /home to /var or /opt (whatever you prefer). That way you'll Onno have more on /home and on /var or /opt. Then you create the 8 GB, mount it Onno somewhere, cp the /usr to that partition, following you mount your current Onno /usr to /var or /opt (just the one you hadn't used) and mount that new Onno partition to /usr. (It'll probably need a reboot because you can't umount Onno your /usr (maybe you can after a init 1 (runlevel 1 single user), I've Onno never tried). Onno Onno Ron Onno Onno Onno -- Onno Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null
First it works, now it doesn't : (
I got my scanner to work just by pointing apt-get to unstable and installing sane 1.0.1 at first. I've been installing quite a few other things, and now my scanner doesn't work any more. I tried installing the latest sane from Debian, as well as the new gimp, and xsane. My scanner is an AGFA 1236S. find-scanner reports it at /dev/sg1. I've modified dll.conf by commenting out everything but snapscan, and changed snapscan.conf to point to /dev/sg1, but scanimage very occasionally will scan, spitting loads of stuff to the console, but most of the time I just get segmentation fault. xscanimage give some error for gtk, sorry I don't have the error available. and xsane just reports no scanner device available. Unfortunately, Debians latest version of xsane in unstable is .49 I'm not sure if they'll include .50 before the freeze. When I get some more time with the PC, I'll see what else I can find out. It seems the problem with xscanimage might be incompatibility with a new version of gtk+, because it was working earlier. As far as scanimage and xsane, I'm not sure. I've set up dll.conf and snapscan.conf to point to the device identified by find-scanner, but the just say that the device is not available? If anyone has any ideas where I should look, it would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, John Gay
RE: Handheld computers - what is available?
I have a customer who runs a van distribution system. He wants his drivers to use handheld computers or barcode readers when they visit shops, to pick up the list of items needing to be replenished. He then wants to print a delivery note on the spot for the customer and transmit the details by modem, for the main office to print and despatch the invoice and update the central database. What Linux-capable handhelds are available that would be suitable for this job? The Palm family of hand-held devices has quite a few tools available for Linux, I've just installed jpilot the I use with xcopilot and it seems to do quite a lot. For Barcode capacity, I believe Symbol has packaged the Palm with a barcode reader built-in. I remember an article about Safeway in the UK was going to give some of these away to it's customers, but I never heard how that went. There are also quite a few programming tools for Palms available in Linux as well. Don't mind my E-Mail address, I am a test support tech, not a sales droid. I, Personally find the Palm family to be very nice, and it seems that a majority of hand-held users feel the same way. As I said, Symbol is selling them, IBM is selling them and more people are signing on to licience the OS for there own uses. The Visor from Handspring looks even better that Palm, but USB for Linux won't work with it right now. Seems the USB driver won't reconise the Visor until you activate the HotSync, but all the Palm tool expect to connect to the device BEFORE you HotSync. Other hand-held options are; WinCE . . . I know nothing about Linux support for these. Does it exist? Psion . . . I believe there is some support for Linux, I remember seeing a package for it once. Apple Newton . . . Has been completely dropped. Could others please add to this list? I don't want to sound TOO biased. This is what I know. I hope some other people out there can add their knowledge. Cheers, John Gay
Re: More on my problems with debconf and perl
I had a similar problem (or as near as I can tell without the error message). For some reason, perl-5.005 was not installed completely, so I went into /etc/alternatives and changed the link `perl' to point to `perl-5.004' instead of `perl-5.005', everything worked fine after that. In other words (as root): # cd /etc/alternatives # rm perl # ln -s /usr/bin/perl-5.004 perl HTH, cbb Actually, this was the fix. Thanx. After this I was able to configure everything else! I really like the timidity. Apparently this is a problem with either debconf or perl 5.005. I'm not sure which. I'll leave it to the smarter people to figure this one out. I think the next step is to upgrade xanim. I use mtvp for mpegs, but need xanim for other video types. Cheers, John Gay
More on my problems with debconf and perl
I mentioned in a previous mail about the slight problem I had with debconf when I tried to install timidity. I've been following the thread about debconf, but my problem is much different. When I first updated timidity from unstable, it installed perl 5.004 and 5.005. This completed properly, but there was something about changing some scripts? I don't use perl, and know nothing about it, so I just left it be. debconf then failed for some strange perl error? it said something about looking for a file in perl. I don't have the details with me, the Linux box is a home. I tried it again last night, with the new, fixed debconf package but I still get the error about the missing perl file. timidity does work with the timidity and timidity-patches installed and not configured due to the debconf problems, but I would like to figure out what is wrong with perl and why it is stopping debconf from configuring? I don't actually use perl, or debconf, and I'm not sure why timidity should depend on it, but I am new to Linux. Please bear with me. Other than that, I really like the apt-get package. Most of this is small AND self-inflicted by using unstable, but I wanted xmms, sane 1.0.1 and timidity. I can see why Corel chose Debian. and that decision make me feel real good about my decision to use Debian when I first started playing with Linux about a year ago. Keep up the good work. Cheers, John Gay
Re: More on my problems with debconf and perl
I had a similar problem (or as near as I can tell without the error message). For some reason, perl-5.005 was not installed completely, so I went into /etc/alternatives and changed the link `perl' to point to `perl-5.004' instead of `perl-5.005', everything worked fine after that. In other words (as root): # cd /etc/alternatives # rm perl # ln -s /usr/bin/perl-5.004 perl HTH, cbb Thanx for the info. I had another look through the Debian package site for unstable and had a good dig through the bug reports for some of the things that failed. I 'think' I may have found a bug report relating to this in perl. I think it might be a termcap problem, whatever that is. I'll have another look at it when I get home. I really appreciate Debians extensive system to ensure All dependencies are met before installation, but it can be frustrating when a package you want installs things like perl and debconf that you will probably never use. But , better safe than sorry. Cheers, John Gay
To the developers of apt-get. Thanx!
I've been fighting with my Linux box for quite some time. I recently installed apt from a corel CD I got from a magazine. I must say, I am very impressed! After fighting with limited success with dselect and dpkg, I really like apt. The first thing I did was to fix my slightly broken installation. I had installed xmms on my slink system and broke a few things in the process. Using apt, I fixed this, but removed xmms in the process. I then changed the source.list to point to unstable and used apt to get sane, as I needed 1.01 instead of 0.74 Imagine my surprise when, after installing loads of stuff, and re-booting to recognise my scanner, not only did it correctly recognise my AGFA 1236 SCSI scanner, which I thought needed a new back-end from Kevin to work AND major tweaking with the scanner list, but it also updated gimp AND set-up xscanimage as a plug-in as well!!! After the re-boot, I was able to open gimp, scan a picture without having to tweak anything! Brilliant! I also got xmms back the same way. I did have some problem when I tried to update timidity. This installed perl 5.004 and perl 5.005, along with debconf, xaw-wrappers, esound and several others. Unfortunately, after successfully installing perl, debconf, and xaw-wrappers failed for something rather strange, and therefore timidity and the others wouldn't install. I don't have the details with me, but I'll probably just wait until potato is stable and update it again. I thought I'd just do an apt-get upgrade, but I didn't have enough disk space. I do have a lot of junk on my system from the original install. As I get to learn more about Linux, I'll start cleaning it out. I just wanted to let you know how impressed I was when sane not only installed, but even configured itself properly for my scanner and gimp without a single prompt! This is what software installation should be like. Great job! Cheers, John Gay
RE: Trying to install X on top of Linux 2.1
XF86Setup tells me Congradulations, you now have a working server and returns me to the prompt. But when I type: startx The following errors are printed to the screen: == (--) SVGA: Revision 0 (--) SVGA: chipset: tvga8900cl (--) SVGA: videoram: 1024K (**) SVGA: clocks: 25.31 28.32 45.37 36.13 57.86 65.76 50.65 40.38 (**) SVGA: clocks: 88.43 98.89 119.43 109.22 72.34 77.61 80.79 75.97 (**) SVGA: using 8 bpp, Depth 8, Color weight: 666 (--) SVGA: maximum allowed dot-clock: 80,000 MHz (--) SVGA: There is no mode definition named 640 X 480 Fatal Server Error No Valid Modes Found _X11TransSocketUNIXConnect: Can't Connect: errno = 111 giving up. xinit: Connection refused (errno111) unable to connect to X server xinit: No such process (errno 3): Server error. == I've tried all combinations of color depth and display types (600 X 800, 640 X 480 etc.) I don't know what the verticl and Horizontal sync rates are for an EverView monitor. I'm using a Trident 8900 video card, and found it as a selectable type in the setup (also selecting 1Meg memory). Is there a package I missed? I was using a trident 1M video card with a Eversync monitor and got X to work. I don't remember what setting I used, but for the sync info on the monitor, I did a search on the web for the monitor type and found a site with sync info for lots of different monitors. I remember that the Eversycn monitor had pretty good numbers for a monitor so old. Also, trident cards have an 8 bit colour limit built-in. I'm not using the old PC right now, but I'll see if I can fire it up and send you the modelines I was using. I wouldn't plug them straight in, but they will give you an Idea of what you need. Good luck with X, it's one of the most difficult things to get going right. From then on, the rest is relatively easy. Cheers, John Gay
Re: GNULinux [Comdex]
I didn't see a reply to this, so I thought I'd through in my 1.575128 Euro's worth. James; Installing Linux, Debian or otherwise can be a very daunting experience for someone from the Windows world. I know, I'm still climbing the learning curve, but I've made some progress and would like to return the favour by offering help where I can. First, get to know the mail lists. They are your friends! I've gotten lots of help on various subjects and have made lots of progress with their help. Second, check the DOC's. Lots of good info is there, you just have to dig for it, and lots of it is over the standard Windows user. This is improving, though. Third, try to be specific about your problem. Pick the first one, identify exactly where you're having difficulty and spell it out for us. Now, to log in as Administrator, the user name is root. Try to avoid using this, though. It can cause major headaches. When you are logged in as yourself, you can use su to login as root, it will ask you for roots password and give you root powers. Again, be VERY careful with this. Any mistakes made as root are unforgiving and may result in having to re-install everything again. Reply to me with specific questions, and I'll do my best to help. Be sure to copy debian-user@lists.debian.org, incase someone else knows more than I do. I just started a year ago and still have lots of problems to overcome. But the liberating experience of knowing exactly what is on my PC and how to add or remove things is more than worth the problems I've had so far. I hope I can help you get started. Cheers, John Gay
How unstable is Potato?
Judging from the Debian weekly news recently posted, the main stopping point for freezing Potato is the boot floppies. I'm running a Slink system because I am very new to Linux and UNIX. The only deviation from Slink is I installed an updated Xserver for my ATI AGP Rage+ video card. I have been compiling new kernels to try to get USB working for a few projects, but other than that, I'm very nervous of upgrading. I recently got a new scanner, because I couldn't get the USB one working, but I can't compile xsane or xscanimage because I need gtk+ 1.2, which, although gtk does have slink .debs for it, it also requires xlib6g =3.3.4. This, in turn relies on libc6 =1.2. Both of these requires Potato. If the boot floppies are the main problem with potato, I'd upgrade because I've already got a working system. But if upgrading is going to break lots of stuff, I guess I'll wait till the next millennium. I did have a very bad experience when I did upgrade libc6 to 1.2 a while ago, then tried to install StarOffice. StarOffice insisted on updating some libraries and rendered my system completely broken! Even the help of Linux experts couldn't recommend anything but a complete install. This was back in June, and I think I remember something about Potato being in very bad shape at that moment. I now have StarOffice rpm's on a CD-ROM I got on a magazine cover, but I haven't installed it yet. So, My main question is, other than the boot floppies, is Potato fairly safe and stable for a relative newbie? My system doesn't have apt installed, but I should be able to use dselect to upgrade. Would it be easier to use dselect to install apt via ftp and then use apt to update the rest of my system? Thanks again for all the help and for a very tidy and easy to update Linux system. Cheers, John Gay
StarOffice and /opt?
I recently got a copy of StarOffice from the cover CD from PCPlus Magazine. It came as a .rpm file. I tried to use alien -i to install, but first I got loads of errors as the .deb file was made, then it started to install in /opt. It created this on my root partition, which is only 100M and about half full. Of course, this failed. I simply removed the /opt directory, as this was not on my system before I started. I am thinking of just putting another Harddrive in my system and setting it up as /opt. My question is, I've noticed that Debian often uses slightly different locations from RedHat. Does Debian put StarOffice in another directory, or does StarOffice expect to de in /opt, and should it stay there. I'm still new to Linux, and, although I've had a good read of FHS documents, it is not very specific. Shouldn't user programmes be installed in /usr? Does the new Sun version of StarOffice meet Debians policy to be included in contrib or non-free for distribution? I've got rather used to using dpkg to install, and I quite like knowing that all dependencies are verified and the menus are updated automatically. I still haven't tried apt yet. It didn't get installed on my system due to some problems I had with the 2.1 boot images and my SCSI motherboard. Thanx for all the help. Cheers, John Gay
RE: USB support in Linux?
USB support is still in development. It has come a long way in the 2.3.xx series of Kernels. The best starting point is none other than www.linux-usb.org I've been trying to get a USB scanner and modem working, and I've found the people on the mailing list to be most supportive! Cheers, John Gay
Debian -VS- RedHat, again?
I recently picked up PC PLUS magazine, it has great Linux coverage this issue. StarOffice and Netscape 4.7 for Linux Plus loads of other Linux software as well. It also has an interview with Colin Fenwick, VP for RedHat Europe. I almost choked when I read the following quote from him. There are four major linux distributors and we are the only one that hasn't added proprietary extensions. I realise Corel has 'Lizard', but I was wondering if he doesn't consider Debian to be a major distributor, or what proprietary extensions has Debian introduced to Linux? I am not Anti-RedHat, I just prefer the .deb package format to the rpm format. I can't wait to install StarOffice and netscape on my system, unfortunately they are rpm's : ( If I use alien, will it update my menus for me? I installed an older version of Netscape using the install script provided by Netscape, but it didn't update my menu and I have to run Netscape by hand at the moment. I have a similar problem with Acrobat reader. I've read the doc's concerning menu's, but right now they are just over my head and I don't get much time at my system to try to puzzle it out right now. Just thought I'd share this with you. Cheers, John Gay
Re: Using linux 2.2.x with Debian 2.1
Myself, I have a pure Slink installation, being a newbie. I'm currently running 2.2.10 kernel for plugpray and sound. I also use 2.3.18 kernels on boot floppies for experimenting with USB with few problems. The only problem I've actually had with the 2.3.x kernels is my sound doesn't seem to work, but I'm sure I've overlooked something. As far as the differences between Debian 2.1 and the kernel versions, I'm no expert, but like I said, I've had no problems running 2.2.10 or 2.3.18 kernels with Debian 2.1. Right now I'm waiting for 2.2 to freeze before I upgrade. After that I'll probably try to use a 2.3.x kernel again. This is just my personal experiences. YMMV. Cheers, John Gay
RE: recommended partitioning
Hi. If there is anyone out there, I am trying to install debian and wondered what would be a good partition scheme for a 408MB drive. It will be running solo debian. Thanks so much Jeff Jeff, I know you've received at least one reply, but let me put in my 1.575128 Euro's worth. With 408M, you'll find it a little tight, depending on what you install. The general rule for swap used to be twice your RAM, but that was when RAM was expensive and swap schemes worked differently. It is hard to get a good answer for swap space now, but I have 64M RAM and 64M swap. For the other partitions, / ROOT doesn't need a lot of space. If you read the FHS, File System Hierarchy System, it will give lots of info for which partitions should be mounted Read-only and which should be Read/Write. I wish I had read this before I'd partitioned, but we all learn as we go. The most important reason for separate partitions is to protect the different directories. I made / small, /usr rather big and /home even bigger. This saved me when a StarOffice installation went horribly wrong. I had to re-install from the boot disk and re-initialise my / and /usr partitions. The stuff in /home was still there. I'm still new, and learning all the time. As I read more about the FHS, I'm looking into re-partitioning my system for even more protection. Again, with only 408M to work with, you want to be very frugal. So, here's the suggestions, open to comments; Swap: The more you run, the more virtual memory your system will need. If you want to run X and Netscape or compile lots of stuff, don't compromise. Otherwise, don't waste the space. / ROOT: this take very little room, so make it small. BUT, make sure you have other partitions for the rest of your system. /home: This is where you will probably keep personal files. This is also where most computer get hung from full file systems. As long as / is on a separate partition, you can still log in as root and remove some stuff to get back in. /usr: This is where most of the app's end up, somewhere. So you want to be sure you have enough for what you want and what you may look for in the future. /var: This is where the system keeps changing info, I.E. variable. Mostly logs and spools for mail or printing. This is another culprit for wasted space. Keeping it on a separate partition will keep a full /var from locking up the system completely. There are lots of other ways to 'Cut the cake'. Have a read through the FHS for a good idea of where different things are kept, and have a look at just how much you want to put on the system to get a good partitioning scheme. Re-partitioning is a pain, so it's better to get it right than to decide you want to change it later. Also, having several partitions will make it easier to move thing around when you add hard drives to your system. This is just some of the info I've picked up since I started learning Linux just over a year ago. I'm sure there is lots of room for comments and corrections. Cheers, John Gay
Sun goes fully open source!
First, IBM, HP, Sun etc . . . join in supporting Linux, Then Apple starts releasing portions of Mac OS, and now . . . SUN MICROSYSTEMS, TO PARALLEL SUCCESS OF LINUX, MAKES SOLARIS CODE AVAILABLE Sun plans to open the source code for its Solaris operating system in hopes of replicating the success of Linux. However, rather than giving the source code away for free, Sun will release Solaris source code under its community-source license, says Sun CTO Greg Papadopoulos. Community-source licensing will allow programmers to download and change Solaris code, provided they include open interfaces to the software they develop and report glitches to Sun and other programmers. Developers using Solaris code for non-commercial applications will not have to pay, while those using the code for commercial programs will pay licensing fees to Sun. Sun's agreement differs from Linux rules because Linux is free even for commercial use, although users must publicly post changes to the code. In opening Solaris' source code, Sun aims to establish Solaris as the leading OS for Internet sites as well as corporate data centers. (Wall Street Journal 10/01/99) How much longer before the other UNIX's follow? How long can Microsoft hold out? Looks like the days of paying through the nose for an OS and being held hostage by current software copyright laws are truly numbered!!! Kinda reminds me of a certain TV commercial from 1984. Cheers, John Gay
Re: Sun goes fully open source!
True, not quite 'Full Open Source', but as Linus says, think of free speech, not free beer! Just having access to the source code puts programmers years ahead of where Microsoft would like them to be. By Sun's licence, I, and many others, can download and run Solaris on my own system, make as many modifications as I like, as long as I don't re-distribute the changes. Sun is only trying to protect it's name and intellectual property. If I feel compelled to distribute my changes, then I post them to Sun, where they will be verified before general release. If I want to actually try to sell my modified version of Solaris, Sun will then require me to pay licensing fees. It is still a much better compromise then before. And, like I said, how long before the other UNIX's follow this example. After IBM releases AIX and HP release HP-UX, they will start battling over the licensing. Once they are on even ground with free source code, the next logical step is to try to out do each other by opening there licensing agreements more than the next guy. Just try to view this as the first step. The battle is far from over, but the first steps have been taken. I look forward to the time, still a few years away, when the O/S will be free AND open. Computer Companies will be service-oriented, rather than software oriented. Computer users will be able to download and modify the O/S and apps as there needs see fit. In the early days, companies bought the computer and hired programmers to write all there apps. In the next millennium, the average worker will have the basic skills to modify the apps for their purposes. We're not there now, but we've taken the first steps. Just my views. John Gay
File location differences between Debian and other 'X'nix's?
Hi, I chose Debian after carefully reading everything I could find and decided that dselect and the .deb format was the better choice. One thing still puzzles me, though, being new to UNIX in general. Debian seems to put most everything into different places than most other 'X'nix's. This issue came up again for me when I tried to update my sane in a valiant attempt to get my USB AGFA scanner working. I am running a slink box, and the last time I tried updating a potato package, after I updated libg6 to 2.1, my system crashed completely! So, I decided, rather than try updating to sane 1.0.1 with the .deb, which would also update libg6, I would download the source and compile and install it myself. The sane sources installed themselves into completely different sub-directories than the old sane was installed in, so my system still uses sane 0.74 rather than 1.0.1. Is there some reason why Debian uses such vastly different directories for installations? Is there a document I should read that would explain the reasoning? I had a similar problem when I installed Netscape from there own install package, rather than the .deb because I figured that since the .deb required downloading the actual programme from netscape, anyway, I'd just use there own install routine. Netscape is now installed in /usr/local/netscape and I currently just use the command /usr/local/netscape/netscape to run it because I haven't figured out how to update my menus yet. As you can probably tell, I'm still climbing a very steep learning curve right now. But, I've made quite some progress and am very proud of the progress I've made. I don't think I would have learned nearly as much if I'd chosen an easier distribution like RedHat or OpenLinux. I'd just like to know what the reasoning is behind the directory layout used by Debian and why most other 'X'nix's seem to use completely different layouts? Thanks again for all your assistance over the past year. Cheers, John Gay
Re: File location differences between Debian and other 'X'nix's?
Sorry for the format, but I'm E-Mailing from Lotus Notes on a Windows PC at work and can't change the format. Sorry. Thanks for the info for the FHS, I'll have a search for it later. This explains why Netscape installed in /usr/local/. . . , but not why Debian puts sane's config files in /etc/sane.d when sane looks for it in /usr/etc/sane.d. I'm thinking, then that sane is to blame for being different? Like I said, I'll have a search for the FHS doc's and have a read. This is how we learn things. As far as RedHat, I'm not necessarily 'bashing' either RedHat or Debian. I was just saying that, with RedHats simpler install, as compared to others, I may have just been tempted to just 'Go with the flow' rather than digging in as I have done. Among the things I've accomplished are, Successfully compiling sound into my kernel. I had lots of problems with the modules, so I've left it compiled in. RedHat, I've heard has sound available at installation. I've got an old 486 set-up as a remote X-Terminal for my daughter. It still needs manual starting, but at least now my daughter can play with Linux without fighting over the one PC. I've recently been experimenting with USB to try to get my AGFA Snapscan1212U working. I'm in contact with some programmers who have been very helpful. We've made some progress, and hopefully, either with or without AGFA's assistance, we'll get this working soon. It seems so empowering to have achieved these simple things in such a short time. Thanks to everyone who as offer information and assistance over the year. Cheers, John Gay
Re: nas???
Thanks for the offer. I can ping between both PC's, it is just ftp and telnet that only work one way. I don't know a lot about networking so I read the net3 HOW-TO and set up some files for the I.P. Addresses and route. I don't know what is configured as far as the I.P. setting. I.E. Masquerading and such. I don't have E-Mail set up on the Linux box yet, I am using E-Mail at work right now. It just seems strange that X would work but not nas? As I understand it, nas works just like X, the server runs on the local PC, providing access to the hardware, in this case the sound card. The client then runs on the remote PC to interface with whatever programme is using the sound interface. When the 486 powers up, I log in as root, the only login on the PC. During bootup the PC reports that the nas services started, but when I use the command auinfo, to get the information on th audio server, I get connection to server refused. This is just local to the PC. When I do this on the PII, I get loads of information about the audio server. Both systems have the same base installation of Debian 2.1, then the 486 only has the minimum X server installed. I then used dpkg -i to install nas on both PC's. This installed and configured nas on both PC's with no complaints. On a related issue, I am a little worried that I can telnet into the PII from the 486 without having set up any type of security. I wouldn't want anyone being able to telnet to my PC when I'm on-line. Right now I use wvdial to connect to my isp, then run Netscape for general surfing. I can also ftp to various sites to download kernels and such. I'm sure there is an easier way, but as I said, I'm new to all this. I have noticed that several ftp sites won't let me connect because they can't resolve my address, or something like that. Is this a problem with my setup or my ISP? Well, work calls. Thanks again for all the help. Cheers, John Gay
Re: WindowMaker for newbie.
Thanks for the info. First, My mail is on Lotus Notes at work on a M$ PC. I don't have access to set the line length, Sorry everyone. I edited my /etc/window-manager file and now WindowMaker starts from login. Boy X is confusing. I downloaded wmsound from the debian site and installed it, I'll have a read through the WindowMaker user guide, I think I installed it, I'll have a look. I do have sound compiled on both mine and my daughters PC's, but I seem to have a network problem which prevents nas to provide sound to my daughters X-Terminal. I'll save this for a separate E-Mail. Thanks again for all your help and information. Cheers, John Gay
nas???
I've been trying to set up Network Audio System for my daughters remote X-Terminal but my lack of networking knowledge is getting in the way. I've got sound compiled and working on her PC, as I can cat bark.au /dev/audio and get a bark from my speakers. At the moment I log into her PC as root, the only user it has, then I use X -query master to connect to my PII. This then gives my the standard xdm login banner from the PII on her 486. I can then log in with her name and get X running. I have installed the nas package on both hers and my PC's. When I do a auinfo on my PC I get lots of info that seems to indicate that it is working, but when I run auinfo on the 486 from the local console, I.E. ALT F2, I get can't connect to server, connection refused. Well, something like that, I'm not at the PC at the moment. I used the net3 HOW-TO to get the PC's to talk to each other, but I don't think I've got everything right. I can ftp and telnet from the 486 to the PII, this is how I loaded the software from the CD on the PII into the 486, but I can't ftp OR telnet from the PII to the 486, I get connection refused. I think this may be related to my problems with nas, but I'm not sure. X connects fine, so I'm wondering why nas wouldn't? Right now I can open xmms on my daughter's display, but when I start to play an MP3, the sound plays from the speakers on the PII! I am hoping when I get nas running properly, I'll be able to play the sound from the speakers on the PC I'm sitting at rather than only the PII. I believe xmms is based on a MP3 player that is nas compatible, so I should only need to get nas working properly and the rest should work. I contacted X.org and got a mail back saying that X is looking for some help to make sound part of the X protocol, but I'm not a programmer. Anyone want to take this up? nas was developed due to the lack of sound support in X, an Xsound package was started by the X consortium, but has since been abandoned. Any takers? Thanks again for all the help. Cheers, John Gay
WindowMaker for newbie.
Well, after my request for info about Enlightenment, I decided to go with WindowMaker due to my daughters 8bit colour limit. I installed it with little problem, except that dselect kept saying that WindowMaker suggested asclock and asclock didn't seem to be available. I ignored this as it was only a suggestion, and WindowMaker installed fine. I did notice that WindowMaker also has something about WMsound, but I couldn't find that on my CD. My system still starts up with fvwm95, but I can switch to WindowMaker from the menu, no problem. I had a go at changing this, but didn't get very far. I use xdm to give me my login screen on boot-up so I read about xdm in the man pages. I currently don't have a .Xsession or .xinit file in either mine or my daughters home directory. I had a look around in the xdm directories, but couldn't find a file that seemed to start fvwm95. I think right now the best place for me to change this would be in the system wide file, so WindowMaker starts for any login, rather than in the individual ~/ directories. I do like the look of WindowMaker and have played around with some of the system tools. They're not quite as easy as Windows control panel, but I really like the way it looks. My daughter has even had a go at it! I want to get the system sound configured, but as I said, I couldn't fine WMsound on my CD. Do I need to get this from WindowMaker's site, or are there .debs available? I'm still having problems with my daughter's sound, but I'll save that for another time. It seems to be a problem with my network settings and nas. Thanks again for all the feedback concerning E and other window managers. WindowMaker look great even on my daughters 8 bit colour PC. Cheers, John Gay
Re: E! Enlightenment for newbie?
Well, after reviewing the replies I've received and having another look through www.x11.org's comparison chart, it look like the best candidate for most features, ease of configuration via GUI tools and good displays on my daughters remote X-Terminal with it's 8 bit colour limit, is WindowMaker. I believe that WindowMaker is installed on my system, I should be able to switch to it from the menu option in fvwm95. When I get a chance to have a good, long sit at my PC again, I'll give it a try. I have been reading up on how to set up the modelines for XF86Config, and my monitor's manual give great details, so I should be able to get this going with little bother, but so far I've got several resolutions available, but the desktop is still 1024x768. At lower resolutions, I can use the mouse to scroll around the screen. How to I get the desktop to change with the resolution? Again, I've found the people on this list to be extremely helpful and I'm forever in your debt for having got as far with my system as I have. I'm sure I'll be coming back here for more help and just wanted to extend my heartfelt thanks. Cheers, John Gay
Subject: How to install a source package?
I'm just a newbie, but as this seems like a newbie question, I'll give my experiences on installing programmes from source-code. You're surfing the web and you find a great utility that you just gotta have on your brand-spanking new Linux box. After searching there site and the debian site, you find that there isn't a .deb file for it : (. So, you download the *.tar.gz file for the source code and decide to brave it out. I usually copy the file to /tmp so that I don't end up filling my hard drive with lots of source code that I already have in a tar file anyway. Then I use tar -zxvf *.tar.gz to uncompress the file. Now I have a directory named *, I.E. whatever the programme is. I cd to that directory and do am ls. Along with a lot of source code and sub-directories, there are usually README, INSTALL and other text files. First, read the README with either more or less. I find less to be a bit easier, but that's personal taste. This will probably tell you a lot about what the programme is supposed to do, how to use it, and possibly what lib's or tools you need to have installed first before you can compile it. After you feel confident with the info in the README, then read the INSTALL file. This will give you the details of how to compile and install the programme itself. It may also tell you more about required libs and toolkits. Quite often you will use the command make to actually compile the source code into a binary programme. There is usually a make_install that will actually copy the binaries to the usual directories so you can run the programme without having to include a path to it. This may also install man pages for the programme as well as other documentation. Many times you will find that the programme was written to compile on different platforms, like HP-UX, AIX etc. . . , Then there is usually a make_linux or some other tool to specify what platform you are installing on. This information should be in the INSTALL file. Read it and the README file well. If you do need to get lib's, try to get .deb's for them. If you can't, when you do install the lib's, you will probably need to run ldconf before your system will recognise them. This can be rather hazardous. Lib's are what make everything in Linux work. But, If you go slow, and read all the documentation, you will probably not have too much trouble compiling and installing programmes from source code. All the files created in the /tmp directory during this process should be wiped out when you re-boot your system. I know my system clears the /tmp directory on re-boot. The source code is still available in the *.tar.gz file if you need it, and the make_install should put all the required files in there proper place. Of course, the easiest way is to find a .deb file for the programme and use dselect or dpkg -i to install it. But if you had found a .deb file, you wouldn't be trying to install from source code then, would you. This is my personal experience in compiling and installing programmes from source code. It doesn't always work, but then neither does all software. I am open to comments, complaints and constructive criticism. Cheers, John Gay
Re: Adaptec AHA-2940
I had a similar problem with my PII. My solution, though not eloquent, was to use 2.0 boot, driver and base disks to start the installation. I then had to upgrade one of the libs before I could then use dselect to install from my 2.1 CD's. dselect will tell you which lib needs updating. You then can copy the required .deb file to /tmp and use dpkg -i libxx.xx.deb to install the new lib. There is probably a better way around this, but this worked for me. It seems the boot kernel for debian 2.1 is more touchy about SCSI that the boot kernel for 2.0. I have even compiled new kernels based on 2.2.9 with no other problems with my SCSI hardware. I'm still new to linux, but I like to offer what help I can to return the favours of all the people on this and other lists that have helped me get this far. Cheers, John Gay
E! Enlightenment for newbie?
I've been having a look around for general info about X, to get a better feel of how it all works, and had a look at www.x11.org. They have a comparison of window managers, and E seems to have more capacity that all the others. Right now I'm using fvwm95, as it installed directly from the CD, as I'm still to new to try any configuring yet. I had a good look at E's website, but I take anything with a grain of salt. I'm interested in trying E, and was just looking for any experiences, good and bad with E. I was also hoping this would provide a simpler GUI for my ten year old daughter. There is a link for .debs @ www.debian.org that I was going to try, but I thought I'd get some feedback first. The basic questions I have are: 1: Most .deb's I've installed went rather well. Sometimes I have to look for other requirement first. Are there any requirements I should get BEFORE installing the Enlightenment.deb's? 2: Will E configure as my default WM, or do I have to go and edit something? 3: Is E fairly stable? I know what E says, I'd like some independent opinions. 4: Is the configuration fairly straight forward? I get the impression that there is a lot of GUI configuring tools for E. Are they easy to find and use? 5: Would this be an easier WM for my daughter? I'd like to provide her with as much access as possible to encourage her to learn how to explore the PC and make the most of it. 6: I've looked at KDE and GNOME, but right now GNOME seems a little TOO new for my liking, and I've heard many complaints that KDE is somewhat bloated. As a newbie, I'm just not ready to tackle these yet. How would you rate E in relation to these? 7: At the moment, my daughter's PC is limited to 8 bit colour. Can E be configured to reduce any problems this causes? Right now, with fvwm95, if I open one app with lots of colours, than another one, the second complains there are not enough colours left and the screen keep switching different colours as the two app's borrow from each other. Is there some way to make the apps use the same colours? I've still got lots of other configurations to figure out, but I'm getting there. Mostly thanks to the great help I get from this and other lists. Thanks for your time and opinions. Cheers, John Gay
Re: Video modes for X?
I tried the videogen utility last night and got a few different video modes working now. Several of them are not to great, but I just printed out the video timing HOW-TO and will try my hand at using that. The max dot clock for my video card is 230Mhz and the manual for my monitor has a table for all it's resolutions and all the horizontal and vertical frequencies. It also includes the polarities for the vertical and horizontal sync pulses. The only problem I have is the lowest resolution given in the manual is 640x400, and I need to get the resolution down to 320x240 for proper full screen video with mpegtv. The video timing HOW-TO doesn't have any info on using double-scan settings. I'll have another read through the man page for XF86Config. Does anyone know of any other doc's I could read for more info? Thanks again for all the assistance. Cheers, John Gay
Re: Video modes for X?
Thanks for the reply. I've heard rumours that trident cards were limited to 8 bit colour, but I've also been told that 1M should give 16 bit colour at lower resolutions. I think you may be right about the card, though. I currently don't have access to newsgroups here at work, and I haven't got my internet connection fully working at home yet. I'll have a look through the buy-N-sell for video cards. Anyone got any recommendations for ISA video cards that can give 16 bit colour or higher? I won't pay a fortune for one, but I'll have a look and see what I can find. Cheers, John Gay
Video modes for X?
I've got Debian 2.1 working on my PII 350 with an AGP ATI 3D Rage IIc Video card, but I only configured one resolution, 1024 X 768. I'd like to add more, for things like mpegtv which needs to be able to switch resolutions to enable full-screen video. I know where the file is that needs to be changed, I even know where in the file to make the changes, But I'm a little wary to make any changes in case I break my working system. I've got the manual for my monitor and it lists all the resolutions with the various sync rates and frequencies, but these don't match up with the info in XF86Config. I know the line is something like; 1024 X 768 35.31 1024 1027 1028 1031 768 771 775 781, I'm not at the PC, but you get the idea. ^ ^ ^^ ^ ^ ^ Resolutionclock Horiz freq's Vert freq's These don't match my manual. My manual lists the different resolutions with the clock freq, then the horiz and vert freq's are listed by period. Is there a simple formula to translate these periods to the settings used by X, or does the Video card have some influence on these setting as well. I used XF86Setup to set up my X server. Is there a simple way to back up the settings for X? What files should I save? My system automatically boots into X using xdm. If I trash my X settings, can I get into a terminal to move the back up files to recover from serious failures? I meant to bring in the manual for my monitor to copy the info into this mail, but I left it at home. Would this info be useful to someone to suggest settings for X? I can bring it in tomorrow. Thanks for all the help and I look forward to getting different video resolutions working so I can enjoy full-screen Video. Cheers, John Gay
Re: Video modes for X?
Thanks for the info. Netscape isn't working here at work, but I downloaded the videogen utility via ftp and I'll give that a try. I'll also have a read through the HOW-TO, but it'll probably go right over my head. I've also been having problems with my daughters PC. She has a 486 set up as a remote X-Terminal from mine. It's got a 1M Trident video card in it. Unfortunately, I can only get 8 bit colour. I've been told that the maths should allow 16 bit colour at lower resolutions, but X reports that only 8 bit colour is available. Could this be related to the resolution settings or just a limit of the card? I'd like to give my daughter 16 bit colour for her video and graphics. Is there another way around this 8 bit limit? The PC only has ISA slots, that is why the 1M trident card. Is there another ISA card that supports 16 bit colour or more? Thanks again for all your help. Cheers, John Gay
USB for Linux???
Does anyone know what the current status of USB on Linux is? I've been to the site listed on www.linux.org, but the page says that the person who started it has left to pursue other things now that he's graduated. I've got an Agfa 1212U USB scanner that I'd like to get working. I bought it in the states and need to get a European power supply for it. But right now it seem I can't use it with either Debian 2.1 OR WindowsNT 4.0 SP5 : ( Right now it is just sitting on my desk collecting dust. The latest word at the Linux USB page is mice and keyboards and such are working, but not image devices like printers or scanners. I'm willing to donate my time and scanner to help development, but I'm not a programmer and I'm fairly new to Linux. I've got Debian 2.1 installed on a PII 350 and am willing to test software for USB scanners if some one needs some debugging done. I realise I could just upgrade the Windows partition to 98 or 2000 to get USB, but I just don't trust either. I'd rather use Linux. If someone could tell me who is working on USB, I'd be glad to offer as much time as I could spare to test software for them. Thanks. John Gay
network audio system?
I've set up an old 486DX33 as an X-Terminal and I plan to put a sound card into it. After a few questions and searching, it seems that nas, network audio system is what I need, but I can't seem to find much information about it on the web. Does anyone know if there is a home site for this? I tried www.ncd.com, but this only talks about thin clients for X-Terminals, even though they are listed as the original creators for nas. I would just like to have some more info on this one. Thanks for all the help and info. Cheers, John Gay
X11amp for 2.1?
I know I've seen a few comments about X11amp before, but most of the suggestions were to upgrade to 2.2. I tried installing the .deb from unstable, and had to upgrade a few other packages before it would work, but this caused many, many conflicts in my system, according to dselect. Everything seemed to work fine, otherwise. UNTIL, I tried to install Star Office. This insisted on upgrading my lib's, all though the README's indicated the Debian 2.1 had the right lib's. After this, my entire system was trashed. I had to re-initialise my / and /usr partitions and re-install from scratch. I don't want to try that again any time soon. Is there any way to install/compile X11amp to run on Debian 2.1 without upgrading the system? As it seems that the freeze for 2.2 is still in the distant future, I would like to have X11amp, but not at the cost of going to unstable. I am still too new to linux to deal with the problems of unstable. Cheers, John Gay
Re: X11amp for 2.1?
Thanks for the pointer to xmms, but that is for potato, I.E. 2.2 I'm running slink, 2.1 I tried installing x11amp from potato and it called for newer libs, this, I believe was the reason Star Office 5.1 wrecked my system when it installed. My question was, is it possible to compile the sources to run on slink rather than potato? Or should I just wait for potato to go into freeze. Will the new Toy Story movie mean new names for Debian releases? Maybe I should build my own distribution and name the releases after characters in Antz. Cheers, John Gay
Re: X11amp for 2.1?
*- On 29 Jul, John Gay wrote about Re: X11amp for 2.1? Actually, I installed from CD with dselect. I haven't set up my internet connection, as phone service here in Ireland is a bit expensive. I usually copy anything I need to floppy at work and bring it home. I suppose I could do this using dpkg and such, right? I'll have a look around the sources directory and see what I can find for xmms. Thanks for the pointer and info. Cheers, John Gay In that case you will need three files for the xmms source from the unstable branch, xmms*.dsc, xmms*.orig.tar.gz, xmms*.diff.gz. You still need the dpkg-dev and what ever headers it might use, it appears to use a fair amount of libs so look for the -dev versions in your slink archive. If they are not available in slink then it could get ugly if you have to build a bunch of other debs. Make sure not to change the size of the tar.gz and diff.gz file. First install dpkg-dev and then you can put all the xmms* files in one directory and run the command dpkg-source -x xmms*.dsc This will extract the source and apply the Debian diffs. Then cd into the directory and run ./debian/rules binary Another option is to ask the list if anybody has it compiled on slink, I don't so I can't help you in this regard. Good luck, -- Brian - Mechanical Engineering [EMAIL PROTECTED] Purdue University http://www.ecn.purdue.edu/~servis - This sound like a good learning experience, but I'll follow your second option first. Has anyone compiled xmms on slink? Would someone with more experience at this like to give it a try first? If someone has already done the leg work, I could avoid re-inventing the wheel. Otherwise, I'll give it a crack. Cheers, John Gay
X-Term and networking
Well, after several attempt and false starts, reading the net3 how-to and as many doc's re: X-Terminals as I could find, I have finally made some progress today I started by configuring the network between the two PC's using ifconfig and route. I used 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.2 for the two PC's, as at the moment they're not on the net. I added these commands to my PII, so that it automatically sets up the route to the 486. I was then able to ftp from the 486 to the PII and fetch the X window software and install it by hand using dpkg. I had to get a few other packages as well, but I finally got the system to run XF86Setup and claim that there was a valid X server running. After several failed attempts to connect to my PC in X, I realised I had the wrong monitor type selected. Fixing this, I used the following command: X -quiet -query 192.168.1.1 Within moments, I had an X login prompt from my PII on the 486 When I use the quit fvwm2 icon, the system re-starts with the login. At the moment, the X session must be started manually, but I want to set-up a script to do it automatically, but only when the PII is up and running linux. There is no point in attempting to connect with out it. I tried running X on the PC alone, it took 5 minutes just to start, and of course there are no app's loaded locally. Not much point or room. The response isn't brilliant, but the 486 only has 8M of memory at the moment. ! ! ! ! ! Anyone got any 4M 30pin SIMMs going cheap The video card is a 1M trident 8900. I can only get 8bit colour at the moment. Is this the limit? I was hoping for at least 16 bit: I've got the shareware version of mpegtv on my system. I can play mpegs on my daughter PC, but it pops up a warning about not being able to share video memory. If I zoom the picture, the video becomes jumpy. Is this because of the video card limit, or the main memory? will increasing the main memory to 32M improve this at all? I still need to refine the networking some. I've only set up two IP addresses for the PC's. I haven't ever tried to fiddle with host names, DNS setting etc. I still want to connect the PII to Oceanfree, but I don't know how to ensure that my local IP addresses don't conflict with the web and I want to be sure that my PC's are secure from the web before I do this. I am also hoping to put a second hard drive into the 486 and use it for more storage space, but I don't know how to mount over the network either. I still don't know the first thing for configuring either PC for sound. I had oss installed and running on the PII for a while, but only in shareware mode. I'm sure it is a trivial thing to compile it in by hand, but I'm new to this and my many attempts never seemed to work out. ! ! ! ! ! I also am in the market for an ISA sound card for the 486. Can X also pass sound offer the network? I sort-of told my daughter the I could put a sound card into her PC and she can have sound. I hope I was right. As you can see, I'm pretty excited over my progress, but I've still got a long way to go before the systems are running the way I want. SO, , , I am looking for some help/assistance/ pointers in getting the networking configured properly and ensuring it can co-exist with Oceanfree. I would also like to be able to shunt some of the slower processes to the 486, where the processor speed doesn't matter. I hope to get several more PC's networked in in the future for more power. I am also looking for help/assistance etc for my sound problems. I've read most of the doc's I could find, but I can't seem to get my head around this. Food/Guinness is on offer for any assistance. Lastly, I'd like to thank all the people on this list that have already given help with my many issues. I don't get to Dublin often, so I can't join in the POTD, but thanks for all the help. Cheers, John Gay
SoundBlaster AWE 64 and 486DX33?
I recently came across a deal on a SoundBlaster AWE 64 ISA card and was wondering what the chances were I could get it to work in a 486DX33 I have set up as an X-Terminal to a PII 350? The 486 only has ISA slots, so I'm limited to ISA cards, but the DOC's for the sound card says it needs at least a Pentium. Would this card work, or will I be better off just getting a cheap 16bit sound card? Will I be able to get sound on my X-Terminal over the network connection? The DOC's I have read talk about keyboard and mouse inputs and video display outputs for the X server, but I can't seem to find anything about sound. Thanks for the information and all the assistance so far. Cheers, John Gay
Re: A few questions from a newbie.
Thanks for the info, but I think you over looked a few items. The reason I want to upgrade to potato is, I installed x11amp, which required newer libs than slink uses. This has broken apt. I've seen this problem mentioned before and the recommended fix was to upgrade to potato. Also, my video card requires the mach64 server for X11R6 3.3.3.1 which is part of potato, slink uses 3.3.2.3 My system is currently working with X3.3.2.3 with the mach64 server for 3.3.3.1, I'm not sure if this is such a good idea, but it works for me for the moment. Due to personal problems, I have to fly to the States this weekend. I'll be gone for 3 weeks. I think I'll just wait till I get back, then pack up my system and cart it down to the local ILUG and have some experts help me set the rest of it up. So, hopefully, by next month I'll have my system up and running and on the net. I'll then be able to work on other probs a lot easier, as I'll then have E-Mail at home! Thanks again for all the assistance. Cheers, John Gay
A few questions from a newbie.
like to stop by and help me get things set-up, but most of them are RedHat users. Replies of RTFM may apply, but without any pointers or references, are just like the joke about the pilot who got directions from Microsoft. Technically correct, but otherwise totally useless. I'll be glad to RTFM, if you could narrow the list down from 'See LDP @. . .' If anyone happens to live in Ireland, a reward of free beer/booze/food is open to anyone willing to stop by and show me any of the things I've listed above. Despite the tone of some of this E-Mail, I am very pleased with Linux and Debian on the whole. I'm just getting impatient constantly climbing this learning curve. Once I get the system more or less how I want it, I plan to go to the basic linux site and spend some more time getting more familiar with Linux and UNIX in general. I also want to enrol in a C programming course from University of Washington. I hope, eventually, to start selling Open-Source CD's to help spread the word to more of the general public. Thanks for a great O/S, great advise and support, and any information will be greatly appreciated. Cheers, John Gay
Lexmark is less than helpful :
This is a reply I received in response to a request for Linux drivers for the Colour Inkjet 3200 printer from Lexmark. I guess I should have checked printer compatibility a bit better before I bought it : ( In reference to your e-mail of 25/05/99, unfortunatly at present we do not have the drivers to work with Linux and have no plans to introduce it in the near future. If there is any move to introduce a range of drivers for Linux, we will inform all customers. If any othrer problems arise with your printer you can contact our technical support line on 01812801701, Monday to Friday 9am to 5.30 pm. Best regards, I especially like the 'Best regards,' bit. Rather Ironic, I think. On a related note, does any one have any experience with attempting to get this printer to work from Linux? I'd have thought that 'a printer was a printer, was a printer' But apparently not. I am not a programmer/hacker type, just an ex-Windows user who is trying to move to something better. I have WindowsNT on a 2G partition, while I learn the ropes of Linux. I hope to re-format that partition within the year, though. I don't want to see what happens with WindowsNT come Y2K. Thanks again for all your help in the past, and all the help I'm sure you will continue to provide in the future. Cheers, John Gay
Re: Lexmark is less than helpful : -
I just found the link, it is: http://www.picante.com/~gtaylor/pht/printer_list.cgi?make=Lexmark This will give you a list of ALL Lexmark printers. The 1000 is listed as 'paperweight' i.e. does NOT work with Linux : ( a number of other Lexmark printer do work, though. Like I said, the best thing is to use this list BEFORE buying a printer, not after, like I did. But, with the support Linux has been getting from all corners lately, I feel it will only be a matter of time before Lexmark and others start to fall in line. What ever happened to 'The customer is ALWAYS Right'? I let Lexmark know I was looking for Linux drivers for their printer, if enough of their other customer also start looking for Linux drivers, they may change their mind about supporting Linux. *WARNING This must NOT turn into an ugly battle. HATE Mail is always forwarded to /dev/null. legitimate requests from customers, though are never ignored for long. I believe there is a HOW-TO for Linux Advocacy which would be good reading before firing off loads of requests for drivers. Myself, when I find a device that isn't supported, I send a simple request for Linux drivers, and hope that others will do the same. That's my 1.575302 Euros worth. Cheers, John Gay
3D stereo glasses for Linux?
I realise this is not only off-topic, but completely out in left field. I have just been searching a few 3D glasses sites, and found many games have 3D patched available for them, including, Quake, Doom and Duke Nukem! But the sites I found only listed DOS and Windows drivers. I was wondering if anyone knew of any software or patches for 3D glasses for Linux. I'm talking about the LCD shutter-type glasses and not the old Red/Blue type ones, of course. I have always had an interest in 3D photography and films and used to have a book called Garage VR that had lots of software for VR stuff, including drivers for generic 3D LCD glasses, special output format that used a stereopticon type viewer that was attached directly to the monitor as well as the old Red/Blue output. This is just for my own curiosity and as an extra selling point to the Wife for Linux. Thanks for your help and information. Cheers, John Gay
Re: Dual Boot Linux/NT and ATI Rage IIc video
Here is the link, as promised: http://www.menet.umn.edu/~kaszeta/unix/xterminal/ I just verified it this morning. Basically, it tells how he set up several cheap '486's the school had sitting around idle as X Terminals. I hope it works for you, I am still looking for a cheap PC for my daughter before I try this myself. Cheers, John Gay
Lotus Notes apps???
I know this is slightly off topic, but. . . I was recently asked by one of the top men in our network division if I knew of any apps to work with Lotus Notes. We use Lotus Notes 4.5 here for basic E-Mail and other functions. I'm no Linux Guru, I'm just a newbie, but I've been pushing Linux here for quite a while. It now seems that I've made a point here. He said he had a look at Lotus' site, and they say that work is in progress. I was just wondering if anyone knew of anything that could be used. I'm just a simple 'point-N-click' type user myself at the moment, I know nothing about setting up E-Mail or other network type things. But, if I had some pointers I could pass on, I could let the powers that be figure out how to use them. Thanks for any information you may provide. Cheers, John Gay
Re: Dual Boot Linux/NT and ATI Rage IIc video
Well, I'm not quite sure what happened, but here it is. I decided that I would try putting the original X files back in from my CD, so I ran dselect, pointed it at my CD, and let it go. It restored alot of files, but not all of them. I ran the install option several time, but kept getting the same dependency problems. Then I tried using dpkg to install JUST xserver-mach64, thinking I could just check the dep's for it, and of course it failed miserably. At this point I figured my X directory was pretty hosed up. XF86Setup kept complaining about xinitrc files missing. I ran xf86config, and it let me select the Rage IIC card. But XF86Setup still wouldn't run. I rebooted it back to Windows out of disgust with myself. Later I figured I would just delete the entire X11R6 directory and try again with dselect. Imagine my surprise when, just as I was waiting for login at tty1, all of a sudden I got the X login screen! I logged in, and now I've got X. About 4 time the size of my 17 monitor. The screen scrolls with the mouse. The menu is there, I'm using fmw95, and lots of app's seem to be installed, but most of them don't work, yet. I haven't tried running XF86Setup yet, But I think I'll contact my friend here and see if he'll burn me a new CD with the latest version on it and try to upgrade with that. I need to get together with some Linux users to find out how to configure the rest of my system, but at least I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I just hope it doesn't turn out to be a train! As for the other prob's, My modem is a Rockwell, I need to get that replaced, I think. My sound card is a crystal something. I have a lexmark 3200 colour printer, and I plan to get a cheap PC for my daughter as an X terminal, so we can stop fighting over the PC! This is certainly going to be an interesting and, hopefully, fun, learning curve. But I might as well jump in with both feet and take the plunge! Wish me luck! Cheers, John Gay
Dual Boot Linux/NT and ATI Rage IIc video
I just got a new PC ( YEA!!!) and loaded WindowsNT onto it ( BOO!!!) to get me by until I'm more familiar with Linux. I downloaded the Dual boot Linux from NT HOW-TO and followed the instructions, more or less. Here is my current situation. WindowsNT resides on hda1, the bootable partition. 2Gb. / ( Root) resides on hda2, 100Mb. swap is on hda3, 64Mb. /usr is on hda5, and /home is no hda6. Windows now boots from NT's OS loader. Linux can boot from a boot floppy made during installation. Using the HOW-TO, I stripped off the boot sector from the floppy, and copied it to c:\ as bootsect.lnx. I modified the boot.ini file according to the how-to, and I get a choice to select NT or Linux. When I select Linux, I get a message, BOOT FAILED at the top of my screen. No other indication of the problem. If I hit any key, the system will then reboot from the BIOS and return to the OS Loader. I can still boot from my Rescue floppy. I'm not quite sure where to go from here, but I have read and re-read the how-to. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated. Problem 2. My system has an ATI Rage IIc video card. I have seen quite a bit of discussion concerning this family of cards. When I tried to set up X Window, the Mach 64 driver offers Rage II and Rage II+, but not Rage IIc. I was looking through the XFree web site and thought I had read that the Rage IIc WAS supported. I think me CD set may not carry the most current Mach 64 server. I will try to have a look around over the weekend for a more up-to-date version. My real question, though is, I plan to get my daughter a cheap PC and set it up as an X terminal, from my system. I have, as I said before, an ATI Rage IIc AGP video card in my PC. My question is; Do I have to put the SAME video card in my daughter's PC to use it as an X Terminal? Can I just use the same Family of card, I.E. a PCI version of the Rage IIc, or even a cheaper Mach 64 type card? I know the console, Monitor and Keyboard, work over the remote X Terminal set-up, but what about sound? I have found a great site for setting up X Terminals, I don't have the URL, but I can post it if anyone is interested. Thanks again for you help, assistance and a Great alternative to Windows. I look forward to becoming a Linux Guru once I get my system up and running and can start teaching my daughter to use a Real OS instead of the watered down version everyone has gotten used to. Cheers, John Gay
Subject: IBM netfinity PCs
Hello, Our school plans on getting some IBM Netfinity computers. Does anyone have any experience running Debian with these computers. These computers come, I think, with built in SCSI, video, and network. Does anyone know 1. what video chip it uses 2. what SCSI 3. what network card chip set I think I can get it with Red Hat, but I may want to compile my own kernel, and install Debian. If you have experience, how do you like them? Thanks in advance King Lee [EMAIL PROTECTED] Actually, IBM now will sell these PC's with Linux installed AND provide full technical support. I believe the distribution is RedHat, But I would think the school would prefer to have the pre-installed software WITH the service contract that to let the students install another OS without a service contract. I would just ensure the machines are requested with Linux installed and rely on IBM to sort any problems. If you DO replace the OS with another distribution, like Debian, IBM may NOT support your machines. This would need some careful consideration. Cheers, John Gay
Have a look at this!!!
Have a look at this link! http://www.diamondmm.com/products/current/rio.cfm Currently, their drivers only support Windows 95/98. How long will it be till the Linux/UNIX drivers are working??? I know the recording and playback software is available for MP3, but we need software to download the MP3's to the player. I hope it's soon!!! Cheers, John Gay
Extreme Security Suggestions?
Hi, I am wondering what is the recommended way to secure a sizeable volume (0.5-2GB ) of confidential data such that it is non-retreivable/unusable even in the event that a hacker has gained user level or shudder root access? I have thought of some kind of encryption; but I haven't seen anything fast enough to make that practical given that I would have to re-encrypt the whole data set after working on it. I also thought of simply having a dedicated partition for the data in question and unmounting it when I leave the machine. But I suppose a hacker with root access could easily remount it. Which leaves the option of having a dedicated physical drive and unplugging it when I leave. But that is annoying since I would have to leave my machine open all the time. :(. So any other suggestions, comments? Thanks! Timothy PS: I have no intention of letting a hacker gain access to my machine; but its nice to be prepared for the worst. ;). This sounds like a job for a ZIP drive? When you're done with the files, just remove the disk. Security problems solved. You may need more than one disk, but that's better than encrypting/decrypting all the time. For fast encryption, check out Sarah Flannerys' encryption technique. She was awarded the Irish Young Scientists Award recently for an encryption based on 2X2 matrixes. It seem to be as good other encryption techniques, but ten times faster. You'll have to do a search for it, though. I do know she published her results, I'm just not sure where. Can anyone out there help with a URL? Cheers, John Gay
