Linux-Misc Digest #195, Volume #19 Fri, 26 Feb 99 21:13:14 EST
Contents:
Re: Linux/FreeBSD compatability (Was Re: Best Free Unix? (why FreeBSD?)) (Matthias
Buelow)
Re: RedHat 5.2 --> 2.2 Kernel
Re: Which terminal ? ("T.E.Dickey")
Re: Anti-Virus for Linux (Darren Greer)
Re: Best Free Unix? (why FreeBSD?) (Jason Clifford)
Re: using 'mail' and pop (Michael Powe)
Re: Which HP DeskJet to buy/not to buy? - quick advice needed, please! (Daniele
Bernardini)
Re: How can I download files by ftp in Linux? ("G. Pollack")
Re: Newbie Question about SCSI ("James M. Dearden")
Re: Best Free Unix? (why FreeBSD?) (Joseph Malicki)
Re: Best Free Unix? (why FreeBSD?) (A Shelton)
Linux box's ethernet address (AME)
Re: Linux is not even in Windows 9X's class. (Ryan Cumming)
Re: desktop indepenent xinfo browser ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Problem making a Custom RedHat 5.2 CD ("jdn")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Matthias Buelow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Linux/FreeBSD compatability (Was Re: Best Free Unix? (why FreeBSD?))
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 02:26:52 +0100
brian moore wrote:
> Why not just make the tables it needs public instead of adding
> yet-another-suid program to the mix of potential security holes?
On Linux, /proc is not a process filesystem but much more; a
garbage dump for all kinds of unordered and unrelated information
available from the kernel. There're no useful system calls for
getting this information, a program has to parse the (ascii!)
text from a file in /proc to get the values it's interested in.
I wouldn't call this very elegant and in fact it certainly isn't.
> I love the Linux /proc filesystem for that simple reason: it suffices as
> a simple and secure method of getting "unclassified" kernel tables.
Make it /kern and give it a reasonable structured layout.
Add /proc for process info only (this way it's available on
several BSD versions; OpenBSD/NetBSD have both /proc and /kern,
I think, however you can do without both; I have not felt the
need to use either on my current OpenBSD setup so far).
On Linux, /proc is just a misused, constantly added-to dump.
Although /proc, /kern etc. are somewhat useful, I also like the
straight simple read-kmem approach; especially since its uses
are not limited beforehand. For often used stuff such as processes,
a seperate /proc structure may be useful, but for more rarely
used kernel variables the effort is probably not necessary;
and then on BSD there's the sysctl(3) system call, a very powerful
facility to read (and set) most important kernel variables.
I find this much cleaner and consistent than reading ascii files
on non-process related information in /proc.
Using kmem reads keeps the cruft low, and does not make the
kernel more complicated than it should. Of course, it has
some disadvantages, which you mentioned.
> > increases the size of YOUR share. In that case somebody else loses.
>
> There is, though, very little of that. The only major exceptions are
> things that are written that only run on the console (and won't even run
> in an xterm on Linux) for no good reason.
There's much more. Many new linux programmers who do not have
Unix programming experience just do things like "#include <linux/asm.h>"
because it looks "kewl". Needless to say that these things are
usually totally unnecessary (like "linux/tcp.h" or similar, which
I've seen in quite a few linux programs) and completely unportable.
It's a shame that you have to invest a lot of time (if you succeed
at all) in porting a Linux-developed X11 game to a different platform
due to such nonsense while the game itself uses only X11 and plain C
and perhaps some basic tcp/ip and such should be inherently portable;
just because the programmer had no clue about portability at all
and is living in his linux-only bowl.
The situation becomes worse when the program in question is something
you might need to get some serious job done.
> Maybe a prettier set of programs than the commercial crowd did (Motif
> and CDE are ugly), and end user applications that'll convince the
As a sidenote (of course completely subjective) I find Motif a nice
looking toolkit (CDE, as an integrated luser interface is kindof ugly
though). Motif (and OpenLook aswell) at least don't look that much
like the Windoze95+ look, which fashion-guis-of-the-month like kde
and gnome/gtk seem to like so much..
> The ability to ssh to a desktop machine to fix their broken software
> will be cool. The use may not know that they're using Unix, but their
> admin sure will and will be glad. :)
Well, I've never been an advocate for "Unix on every desktop".
--
- mkb
------------------------------
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: RedHat 5.2 --> 2.2 Kernel
Date: 27 Feb 1999 00:31:28 GMT
Brandon
I found the following link at Red Hat
http://www.redhat.com/support/docs/rhl/kernel-2.2/kernel2.2-upgrade.html
Hope it helps
Rgds
Mark
Brandon wrote:
> I have a RedHat 5.2 box that I need to upgrade to the 2.2 kernel to
> increase my file handle limits (and other improvements, of course).
>
> I heard RedHat has some instructions to do this and isn't 5.2 supposed
> to be 2.2 ready? I can't find anything on their site though, and I am
> hoping the experience of this group can provide me some fairly simple
> instructions to do this. I am not a pro, but I have recompiled the
> kernel a time or two.
>
> If you can help, PLEASE.
>
> Thanks/
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
================== Posted via SearchLinux ==================
http://www.searchlinux.com
------------------------------
From: "T.E.Dickey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Which terminal ?
Date: 25 Feb 1999 13:53:28 GMT
Michael Creasy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Currently I have nxterm, xterm, xiterm, aterm and at least one other
> installed on my system. Which one is "best" and which should I use.
It depends on what you want (pictures on the background: rxvt/xiterm/aterm/eterm,
or DEC vt100/vt220 compatibility: XFree86 xterm). You don't get both (make a
choice).
> Can any of them do true transparency ? and if so how ? A newbie guide
no.
> please.
> Michael
--
Thomas E. Dickey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.clark.net/pub/dickey
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Darren Greer)
Subject: Re: Anti-Virus for Linux
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 01:34:28 GMT
There are no viruses that can effect linux IIRC. I hear there was one
written a long time ago....but that is the only one that I have ever
heard of.
Darren
On Fri, 26 Feb 1999 20:18:40 -0500, "Brian Donovan"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
-->Hi, I was wondering if there is any anti-viral utilities available for
-->linux. I'm at college with ethernet and like the biological type computer
-->viruses tend to pass rather quick. Thanks for your help,
-->
-->Brian Donovan
-->
-->
------------------------------
From: Jason Clifford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Best Free Unix? (why FreeBSD?)
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 13:54:10 +0000
On 25 Feb 1999, void wrote:
> >No, the issue is that *you* seem to feel that you have some God given
> >right to deny others the right to choose GPL is they wish to.
>
> In a previous posting, you said:
>
> >Once again, John, you are deliverately mis-representing someone else's
> >postings.
> >
> >That is typical of a TROLL.
>
> Physician, heal thyself.
Not one of my postings has stated that one should not be free to choose
the BSD license or any other license for that matter.
I am already on record as stating my belief that the choice of license is
entirely in the hands of the producer of the work.
It would seem I am not suffering from that ailment after all. Perhaps you
meant your diagnosis for someone else?
Jason Clifford
Definite Linux Systems
http://definite.ukpost.com/
------------------------------
From: Michael Powe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: using 'mail' and pop
Date: 25 Feb 1999 00:41:07 -0800
=====BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE=====
Hash: SHA1
>>>>> "Steve" == Steve Gage <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Steve> I would like to sometimes quickly react to email from the
Steve> command line using 'mail'. I use fetchmail to bring mail in
Steve> from my pop box, and read it with 'mail'. But when I send
Steve> mail, the from: address is sent to my local
Steve> [EMAIL PROTECTED], which is a problem because
Steve> 1) I would obviously like people to reply to my pop address
Steve> and 2) some mail servers won't even accept mail from a host
Steve> that's not in their DNS table. I've looked through all the
Steve> mail and sendmail docs I can find, but can't figure this
Steve> one out. Can someone help me out?
Umm, switch to nmh? Works from the command line & you can configure your
return address via templates.
It has a great front end for emacs but I too actually like being able
to grab mail from the command line.
mp
- --
Michael Powe Portland, Oregon USA
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.trollope.org
"Three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write."
-- Anthony Trollope
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------------------------------
From: Daniele Bernardini <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Which HP DeskJet to buy/not to buy? - quick advice needed, please!
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 15:07:20 +0100
Bandyopadhyay Rajarshi Dipak wrote:
>
> In article <Ew8A2.5283$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, A.G. wrote:
> Thanx for *any* input!
>
> Hi
> My 670C works great!!
>
> --Raj
>
> --
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> Let me tonight look back at the span
> 'Twixt dawn and dark & to my conscience say:
> "Because of some good act to beast or man,
> The world is better that I lived today."
>
> ---Ella Wheeler Wilcox
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
I have the same printer and I'am having problems with black printing:
too much ink. Gamma correction doesn't help... :(
Can you please tell me what sort of driver/filter are you using?
Thank you very much,
Daniele
--
********************************************************************
Daniele Bernardini
Sektion Theoretische Physik, LMU Muenchen
Theresienstr. 37, 80805 Muenchen DEUTSCHLAND
Tel: +49 (89) 23944378
e-mail address: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
********************************************************************
------------------------------
From: "G. Pollack" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: How can I download files by ftp in Linux?
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 09:10:32 -0500
Anthony wrote:
>
> February 25, 1999
>
> I am a new user in Linux and want to get help
> on how to download files by ftp or ncftp
> under Linux mode.
>
> After connected to my ISP and confirmed successful
> ppp0 connection by ifconfig and ping, then I can't
> connect to ftp sites to download the latest
> XFree86 3.3.3.1 files to set up the X-Window.
>
> Taking the following ftp site as example, please advise
> what should I type so that I can make the ftp connection
> successfully:
>
> ftp://ftp.nowhere.com.hk/pub/Linux/CLE/CLE/update
>
> Many thanks in advance for your help.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Anthony Cheung
Depends on the software you're using. If you're using netscape, for
example, you would type ftp://ftp.nowhere ... etc. into the location
window of the browser. You can also do this if you have an ftp-aware
file manager, e.g. FileRunner or Midnight Commander. But if you're using
the bare-bones ftp program, you would type the following at the command
line:
ftp ftp.nowhere.com.hk
This would open a connection to the ftp server. You would then have to
log on to the ftp site. For software repositories you usually do this by
entering 'anonymous' (without quotes, of course) as your login name, and
your email address as a password. Then you'd have to navigate to the
directory you want using 'cd'. For the above example, you would do:
cd /pub/Linux/CLE/CLE/update
Once there, you could do 'ls' to see what files it has, and then do:
get file_i_want
Try 'man ftp' for more information.
--
Gerald Pollack
Dept. of Biology, McGill University
------------------------------
From: "James M. Dearden" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Newbie Question about SCSI
Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 20:38:54 -0500
Stuart R. Fuller wrote:
>
> James M. Dearden ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> : Hi,
> :
> : I have an Adaptec 1542 controller, and two drives, a Quantum Maverick
> : 540s and a Quantum Lightning 730s, as well as a Matshita CD-Rom
> :
> : The current set-up is:
> :
> : ID0 LUN0 Maverick 540s
> : ID1 LUN0 Lightning 730s
> : ID6 LUN0 CD-ROm
> :
> : I have the 540 partioned at 400megs for messy-dos, 68 megs swapfile for
> : linux
> : The 730 is all for Linux.
> :
> : The question I have (finally) is should I swap the drive order? In an
> : ide system, I know about primary and secondary drives, but is SCSi
> : similar. Does drive 0 have a higher priority than drive 1, or is it vice
> : versa. Would there be any speed difference?
>
> While there are some theoretical speed differences by putting one drive at ID0
> and the other at ID1, with the Adaptec 1542, there are no practical speed
> differences. In other words, don't bother. Besides, if all of Linux is on
> one drive, it won't make any difference, anyway, since there won't be [much,
> if] any contention. The only contention will occur when swapping is
> happening, and if you have sufficient memory, there won't be much swapping
> going on.
>
> Stu
Thanks, that was just what I was looking for. I will be putting the swap
on one drive, and linux on the other, so that will avoid any swap
contention.
Thanks again!
Jim
------------------------------
From: Joseph Malicki <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Best Free Unix? (why FreeBSD?)
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 09:11:36 -0500
jik- wrote:
> > Also I'd like to muddy the waters by announcing GAMBIT, a GPL'd
> > re-release of the FreeBSD sources (with some additional copyright
> > guff). Available now from www.freebsd.org
> >
> > If I'm not allowed to re-release FreeBSD under a modified license
> > then it seems that any commercial use of FreeBSD code contaminates the
> > ownership of that code, terrible stuff.
>
> First off, gotta say...that was pretty fucked up, least seems to me to
> be. Just seems inflamatory with no real essence...especially since it
> wasn't there that I saw.
>
> Second, what is really funny is your only proving the point that BSDL
> advocates are trying to make. See, if it is ok to relicence FreeBSD
> under GPL then BSDL has that over the GPL. See, this kind of thing
> would NOT be possible with the GPL. Which is exactly the point they are
> trying to make.....
>
> Good job, you just made the other guys point :P
And to me, that is horrible that others could relicense my code without
my permission :). People have different purposes they try to accomplish
with licenses.... one is not "better" than another, they merely accomplish
different goals.
Joseph Malicki
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (A Shelton)
Crossposted-To:
comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.advocacy,comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Best Free Unix? (why FreeBSD?)
Date: 25 Feb 1999 06:20:56 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Sam E. Trenholme) writes:
>>I didn't mention John simply because (no disrespect intended,
>>John) I don't know him from anyone else on the street. However,
>>the name Linus Torvalds is immediately recognizable to many for
>>the bearer's celebrated contributions to others.
>John Dyson is (roughly) to FreeBSD as Linus Torvalds is to Linux.
gah... thanks for filling that in. In that case Linus wins on the
crucial indicator of number of posts and their brevity, since we've
already determined that this argument has no point what so ever.
Also I'd like to muddy the waters by announcing GAMBIT, a GPL'd
re-release of the FreeBSD sources (with some additional copyright
guff). Available now from www.freebsd.org
If I'm not allowed to re-release FreeBSD under a modified license
then it seems that any commercial use of FreeBSD code contaminates the
ownership of that code, terrible stuff.
--
Apparently I'm insane, but I'm one of the happy kinds. (dilbert)
Andrew Shelton [EMAIL PROTECTED]
GCS(2.1)-d+H+sw+v-C++UL+>L+++E-N++WV--R++tv-b+D++e+fr*y?
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (AME)
Subject: Linux box's ethernet address
Date: 25 Feb 1999 14:14:12 GMT
I have a cobalt box running linux. How can I get / know its ethernet
address?
Thanks
Ayman Elsaedi
------------------------------
From: Ryan Cumming <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.linux,alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linux is not even in Windows 9X's class.
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 07:08:51 -0800
"D. Vrabel" wrote:
> > > How about 10 honest reasons why you think windows98 is better than linux?
> > > That would be interesting to hear from a windows hater >:)
> > 1. Better GUI
> > 2. More software
> More software for large sums of money. There is more free software for
> UNIX systems.
>
>
> > 3. More Hardware support
> > 4. Better gaming platform
> Or is this one just: More games are avilable for Windows 98.
I have to disagree here. DirectX services and much more 3D support make Windows a
better platform for gaming.
> > 5. More consistency (see my previous post)
> > 6. One word: Microkernel
> I have to agree that the left-overs of the DOS `kernel' are small.
Ha ha. Yeah, I realize that microkernel isn't a advantage in RL but I neeed 10
reasons :)
>
> > 7. No mounting
> You can have automounting in linux. So this one doesn't count
Niffty. How do you do this? Does it work for local file systems?
>
> > 8. Better file locking
> > 9. More multithreaded apps
> Why is this an advantage? Multithreading is just an implementation
> detail to get some required functionality.
This is an advantage because older apps (libc5) had to do horrible kludges for
things that would be better with multithreading, and many apps want to retain
backwards compatiblilty with libc5.
>
> > 10. Better user support
>
> David
> --
> David Vrabel
> Engineering Undergraduate at University of Cambridge, UK.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: desktop indepenent xinfo browser
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 15:02:28 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Edward Vigmond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Matthias Warkus wrote:
> >
> > It was the Tue, 23 Feb 1999 11:25:44 -0330...
> > ..and Neil Zanella <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > I am looking for a desktop independent graphical info browser for info
files
> > > analogous to xman. Is there any such program out there which was not
> > > developed for any particular desktop?
> >
> > Nothing is "dependent" on a particular "desktop". gnome-help-browser
> > or kdehelp will happily run without any other component of KDE or
> > Gnome running.
>
> This is true but these last programs are so intertwined in the desktop
> that to run the program, one must install about 20 libraries. Then there
> is the nightmare if one tries to upgrade one component of the desktop.
> Upgrading gimp, for example, requires the newest libgtk etc., (which are
> released weekly iot seems) which then break the old gnome-help-browser
> which then requires reloading the entire deskset again.
For kdehelp you only need 3 libraries: libkdecore, libkdeui and libkhtmlw.
And you get them in a single package, called kdelibs.
BTW: between KDE 1.0 and KDE 1.1 there were no library releases, so that
makes it... what, 6 months?
I have no experience about GNOME, though.
--
Roberto Alsina (KDE developer, MFCH)
============= Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ============
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
------------------------------
From: "jdn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Problem making a Custom RedHat 5.2 CD
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 08:41:41 -0600
This is a little obscure, but here goes....
I have an HP CD-Writer Plus 7200i CD-RW drive and want to use it to make a
custom RedHat 5.2 CD that I can install off of (I've been using RedHat 5.1,
which I bought, since October, I think).
I have downloaded all of the relevant files from various mirror sites
(including additional ones like the powertools directory) and have created
the directories and subdirectories properly. I know this because I have
used the directory structure from a FAT partition to install 5.2 using the
"install from a local hard drive" option, using the updated boot and supp
floppies, so I know I can install from a hard drive.
However, when I burn a CD with the same directory structure (albeit with an
additional 'root' directory on the CD, which contains a bunch of downloaded
apps I have), it doesn't work. I boot with the updated boot floppy and
indicate I want to install from the CD-ROM, the drive light blips when it
says it is initializing the CD-ROM, and then...nothing. In order to make
sure there isn't an issue with now having two CD drives (my original and the
HP), I started an install procedure with the Official 5.1 CD-ROM disc, and
it doesn't hang. After it says it is initializing the CD-ROM, it says
"second stage install" for a few moments while reading the CD-ROM, and then
continues.
The odd think is that if I boot into my Linux partition that is already
created, I can read from the burned CD, I can copy files from it, and I can
update RPMS off of it without a problem.
I am using the included Easy CD Creator software to burn the disc. The only
two file systems offered are ISO-9660 (which 'mangles' the file names to
8.3, which is no good) and Joliet. Someone else suggested to me that Joliet
is the problem, but again, my installed Linux partition can read it just
fine.
Maybe there is some boot option to force a recognition of Joliet during the
install process? I could just keep burning CDs that don't work like I want,
but I'd rather not.
Any suggestions?
TIA
jdn
kingcrim at earthlink dot net
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Misc Digest
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