Linux-Misc Digest #895, Volume #19 Sun, 18 Apr 99 23:13:12 EDT
Contents:
Re: linux being user-friendly (brian moore)
HP Pavilion anyone? (jrd)
Re: Wanted: Database/Contact mgr with backend on Linux/FreeBSD, web frontend (Gary
Momarison)
Re: Autoconf ("Tom Holmes")
Re: .a => .so library? (NF Stevens)
Re: getting my start menu changes to "stick" (AfterStep) (Jack Orenstein)
Re: Best ISDN-adapter for Linux (Matthew Bafford)
Re: linux being user-friendly (Dennis)
Re: VMware sell-out to Microsoft??? (Dan Swartzendruber)
Re: FREE Computer Documentation (jik-)
Includes blues. (Macro)
Re: Netscape subprocess diagnostics (Andy Piper)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (brian moore)
Subject: Re: linux being user-friendly
Date: 19 Apr 1999 01:31:18 GMT
On Sat, 17 Apr 1999 22:57:43 GMT,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I think Linux can be friendly and powerful at the same time. I
> mean, if it's a free software, someone can find the way to make it
> friendly for the new users.
Actually, from talking to new users (as opposed to those that have
expectations from their use of other systems), Linux is fine.
The Mac user interface is very different from Microsoft's. Why should
Linux have to look just like Windows in order to be 'easy to use'?
MacOS doesn't look like Windows, and it seems to be even easier to use
than Windows.
> Linux is fighting against Debill Gates and his Windows. Users are
> gonna change Windows for other OS, and that Os will have to be
> better in all the possible ways, and it includes the interface.
Linux isn't fighting against anyone. If Linux happens to interfere with
Microsoft, that's Microsoft's problem. The goal of Linux is merely to
provide a good POSIX-compliant operating system with the functionality
needed by its users.
There is no marketing department, no "we have to ship this now!", no
concern over market share. Those are the problems of proprietary
software companies.
Linux will -lose- if it tries to play the game using the Microsoft
rules. It will succeed if it continues playing by its own rules.
Open, standards-based software and protocols will win every day. Not
even Microsoft has been able to defeat the "CB radio" fad that we know
as the Internet. See the first edition of Gates "The Road Ahead", where
he denounced the Internet as a fad, and now he claims to have invented
it (with Algore?).
Open protocols are damned powerful stuff. No need to "fight" when you
have nukes.
> Linux HAS to change its command-line interface for a graphic interface. Now,
> only the experts can use Linux, but it is made for everyone. We can make it
> attractive to the users by changing its interface.
Linux has had a GUI for years.
Certainly not everything is available through it, but the same could be
said for Windows and NT.
--
Brian Moore | "The Zen nature of a spammer resembles
Sysadmin, C/Perl Hacker | a cockroach, except that the cockroach
Usenet Vandal | is higher up on the evolutionary chain."
Netscum, Bane of Elves. Peter Olson, Delphi Postmaster
------------------------------
From: jrd <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.x,comp.os.linux.questions
Subject: HP Pavilion anyone?
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 20:26:05 -0500
Hi linux wizards. I just bought an HP Pavilion 6470Z, with the intent
of running linux on it.
Going through the installation procedure, I cam across several oddities:
1. This machine comes with a Quantum bigfoot drive, nominally 12Gb.
When partitioning
the drive, fdisk couldn't see more than 8 Gb of the drive. The
partitions I created work fine,
but I'd like to get back my other 4 Gb.
2. I created a swap partition of 500Mb, but when I did mkswap at it, it
complained that it was
truncating the swap partition to 132Mb.
3. I wasn't able to figure out how to get X set up. The display
hardware on this beast claims
to be an ATI Technologies Rage Pro Turbo AGP 2X. I tried various of the
canned XF86_mumbles,
which claimed to support other varieties of ATI hardware, but couldn't
find one that would work.
I'm starting from a linux 2.0.0 distribution that's a couple of years
old, which may be part of
the problem. Does anybody have hints on how to resolve these issues?
Please send mail, (doing the obvious thing to my address) as I don't
ordinarily monitor these groups.
Thanks in advance.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: Gary Momarison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Wanted: Database/Contact mgr with backend on Linux/FreeBSD, web frontend
Date: 18 Apr 1999 18:26:29 -0700
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Daniel Ts'o) writes:
> I am looking for a database application that either is like, or could
> be made similar to Symantec ACT, ie a contact manager which organizes
> people, companies, addresses, phone numbers, contact notes, group membership,
> action notes, perhaps scheduling, phone log, calendar, etc.
>
> It should be "client/server" (unlike ACT), preferably with the client
> being any decent HTML browser on the Internet and the backend running on Linux
> or FreeBSD (e.g. Apache + PHP + MySQL). In addition to DB entry and reporting,
> it would be nice if it were capable of printing address labels after a
> selection (ie print labels in zipcode sorted order for all contacts who are
> interested in X, or the member of group Y).
>
> I gather that much of this could be implemented with MS Outlook and MS
> Exchange on NT, dialing in with RAS. However I would prefer an "open source"
> solution.
>
> Such a thing around ? Thanks.
MOT (Ministry Of Truth) sounds like what you want. If my brief
look captured it right, it is a fairly generic DB kind of thing
which can be set up to do what you asked and an example is
is provided to do that. The author seems confused, though: He
says "this is free software", but he retains ownership and
licences its use to prevent you from using it freely. "Ministry
Of Truth" indeed. Orwell would be proud.
Look for it (and some calendar/scheduling stuff) in
in http://www.aa.net/~swear/pedia/pim.html
--
Look for Linux info at http://www.dejanews.com/home_ps.shtml and
Gary's Encyclopedia at http://www.aa.net/~swear/pedia/index.html
------------------------------
From: "Tom Holmes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.help,comp.os.linux.questions
Subject: Re: Autoconf
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 14:59:34 -0400
Thanks very much for the help. I found the link you provided very helpful
and I upgraded all my neccessary RPM's and I re-made the kernel. This has
been working well for me.
However, after I followed ALL the instructions and re-compiled the kernel,
and re-booted. I still found no /usr/include/autoconf.h or
/usr/include/modversions.h.
I don't know how/why I got these files last week. Someone suggested I run a
'make oldconfig' and that would help make the 'autoconf.h' , and I think it
did, then I re-compiled the kernel and it worked, and then I was able to
re-compile the 'c' network card driver.
As the story goes today...when I follow the instructions to re-compile the
driver, I get the message that the '-f' is not a valid option and
'compilation of header file requested'
If I knew what the latter error was, I'd think I'd be all set. As it stands
right now, if I do get the file compiled, when I try to load it, it comes up
with a ton of unresolved symbols.
Maybe I have another problem now other then autoconf.h?
Anyways, thanks for the help.
Tom
Gary Momarison wrote in message ...
>"Tom Holmes" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>[...]
>> I have the latest rtl8139.c driver which came with the 2.2.4 source. I
>> opened the file and got the instructions on how to compile the driver for
a
>> SMP system. When I run the command, I get the error that the autoconf.h
>> file is not found. Sure enough, this file is nowhere to be found on the
>> system, or at least I couldn't find it. I looked in '/usr/include/linux'
>> and it is not there.
>
>If the provide instructions don't work (and you're sure you prepared
>OK), contact the driver author so he knows it's broken. He'll help
>you out too, probably.
>
>Did you follow all the 2.2 preparation stuff before building the 2.2
>kernel? People have prepared help on that which you can find from
>http://www.aa.net/~swear/pedia/kernel.html
>
>autoconf.h was in RH52's kernel-headers-2.0.36-0.7 RPM, but I have
>no idea whether you're wasting your time trying to use it with your
>driver under kernel 2.2.
>
>--
>Look for Linux info at http://www.dejanews.com/home_ps.shtml and in
>Gary's Encyclopedia at http://www.aa.net/~swear/pedia/index.html
>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (NF Stevens)
Subject: Re: .a => .so library?
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 18:58:16 GMT
oak <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I just compiled tcl but it created
>libtcl7.6.a instead of libtcl7.6.so
>My "expect" program requires
>libtcl7.6.so Where or how can I get .so?
IIRC you need to add the option --enable-shared
when you run the configure script. You'll then
need to remake the package. i.e.
configure --enable-shared
make
make install
HTH
Norman
------------------------------
From: Jack Orenstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: getting my start menu changes to "stick" (AfterStep)
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 16:02:42 -0400
Justin Nawrocki wrote:
> Hi, I just recently installed RedHat 5.2 and I'm using AfterStep (soon
> enough to switch to GNOME) as my GUI. My problem is this:
>
> I had Netscape 4.07 installed and I just installed 4.51, as well as
> JavaICQ and WordPerfect. I want them on my startbar, and I figured out
> that I need to
> edit the "links" in
> /"my account"/GNUstep/Library/AfterStep/start/Networking
>
> So I edit those links and restart my session, and everything works
> fine. ICQ, WordPerfect, and Communicator are in my start menu and are
> the
> versions I want. HOWEVER...whenever I logout and log back in,
> everything gets changed back to the default settings...netscape reverts
> back to 4.07 and ICQ disappears from my start menu. Not only that but
> even though all my settings for color and background stay what I want
> them at, the freakin mouse speed goes back to the slowest possible
> setting. Is there something I'm doing wrong? Why won't anything stay
> changed? Thanks, I really hope someone can help me...please email me
Red Hat 5.2 does some non-standard things with AfterStep configuration. In
particular, it seems to keep rebuilding the start directory. To make sure
the changes are kept, do the following:
echo "exec afterstep" >~/.xinitrc
echo "exec afterstep" >~/.xsessions
chmod 700 ~/.xsessions
(This comes from the AfterStep FAQ:
http://www.music-satellite.de/spearhead/faq/afterstep-faq.1999-1-5-4.html#ss4.7)
Jack Orenstein
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Matthew Bafford)
Subject: Re: Best ISDN-adapter for Linux
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 19:06:13 GMT
On Sun, 18 Apr 1999 16:14:05 +0200, Rolf Inge Stangeland Salte <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
lucked upon a computer, and thus typed in the following:
) Must also run in Windows.
) Please forward with a mail.
It's going to be a tight fit, but I'll try.
--Matthew
------------------------------
From: Dennis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: linux being user-friendly
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 15:19:28 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
You can tell from this thread that "User Friendly" is a hot topic. I
wonder though if this is really what we mean, or something said in
fustration. For example, my neighbor's car had a problem with with the
fuel injection system. Well as most of you know - these are closed
systems and definitely not consumer friendly. Well, I got a really good
manual that had a flow chart in it that stepped us from one thing to the
other. It explained every step of the way and what to do, and we didn't
have to go back to the starting point. After a few hours, we found the
problem - TPS drop out. While we spen a few hours on this, it was very
stright forward, which is what I think some Linux users really mean when
they say "User friendly".
I have noticed that most Linux users don't like the way Windows hides
things from you (protects you??), and they would rather do a custom
istall than the mindless express install. So, maybe the answer to "User
Friendly" installation, configuration, etc. really comes down to a more
stright forward process that is complete and doesn't confuse people.
The fact that it may take a few hours may not be that important. Also,
if the process is done well, we learn a lot about what is going on (as I
did with how the throttle position sensor works).
Just my thoughts - what's your's?
Dennis,
hellraiser wrote:
>
> why are poeple trying to make linux user-friendly? i don't think linux
> should be any user-friendly than it already is. the morons complaining
> about linux having to many confusing aspects or cryptic commands, etc.
> etc. shouldn't be using linux and should use windows instead. not
> everyone should use linux... only those who actually need linux to
> perform some powerful, administrative tasks, not the general public...
> the general public should be using winblows. gnome, kde and the other
> desktop envoirnments are trying to make linux operation easier, but i
> don't think they should make it too easy. linux isn't supposed to be
> friendy... it's supposed to be a powerful, stable os that can actually
> do stuff... stuff that windoze can't do and other operations that would
> be too confusing for the average windoze user.
>
> what do you think?? i'm just curious as to what anybody else thinks
> about this. btw, i have slackware and use fvwm2... i don't really like
> fancy stuff (as you've probly guessed). i love my command line and i
> love typing away furiously doing various complex commands... so i wanna
> hear what you think (if you like lots of terminals and typing... or a
> nice, easy interface). just curious... hope i didn't offend anyone,
> (ie, kde/gnome users) heh...
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dan Swartzendruber)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
Subject: Re: VMware sell-out to Microsoft???
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 15:29:22 -0400
In article <7f5k63$qv$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
says...
> Edwin E. Thorne ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
>
> : Do you know of anyone who has walked completely away from Windows on other
> : than a server or a home machine? Can you really give up the vast amount
> : of Windows software?
>
> Yes. My office machine runs Linux all the time. (There's a copy of Windows
> on the disk that came with the machine, but it's been about a year since I
> booted it. I put in a new video card since then, so I'm not sure that
> Win95 will run anymore, even if I wanted to.)
>
> I've given up all that Windows software in favor of all that Linux software,
> and haven't missed it.
I'm happy for you. Get back to me when I can run the following on Linux:
1. Quicken99 Home&Business.
2. SideKick97.
3. Hotfax Message Center.
4. Excel.
5. Word.
6. Powerpoint.
(please don't give me grief about the last three. I have clients send me
documents and/or data files in those three formats all the time). I need
the first two because I run a business and have lots of data in those two
applications. The third is just handy...)
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 12:56:49 -0700
From: jik- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.networking
Subject: Re: FREE Computer Documentation
Chris Sherlock wrote:
>
> FREE Computer Documentation
>
> books, standards, specifications, source code, and more
> ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/LDP - The Linux Documentation
> Project!
>
> Welcome there.
xc/doc/hardcopy - The X Window System source tree
------------------------------
From: Macro <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup,alt.linux,alt.os.linux
Subject: Includes blues.
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 21:51:09 GMT
Hallo friends,
After long fighting with my include files I decided to ask experts (you) for
help.
My situation is following: I have an already heavily modified system on the
base of old SUSE 5.2 distribution, which originally came with 2.0.36 kernel,
its sources and includes. Since then I have updated my kernel to 2.2.5,
installed glibc2 and many other things. I had to update many other packages
in order to move to the newest stand.
Many Many times I found out what my includes where not newest anymore and had
to update them, while doing it I recognized what many of includes which come
with newest kernel sources do not work well and often the same-named from
glibc2 tarball are the ones to use.
But I still get compilation errors here and there which are definitely caused
by older or wrong include files.
So my question is:
Is there any HOWTO or WWW site which could help me to understand how to bring
my /usr/include/ dir on the newest stand ?
Is there a source for the newest and working includes on the web where I can
download them ?
Is that really correct what I should always try to avoid the includes which
come with kernel tarball and use glibc ones ?
Regards
Macro
============= Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ============
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
------------------------------
From: Andy Piper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Netscape subprocess diagnostics
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 1999 19:58:44 +0000
"William W. Hart" wrote:
>
> I have problem that occurs in Netscape when I access certain web pages.
> I have not been able determine the commonalties between the web pages
> that are causing the problem. When I access certain web pages, mostly
> those web pages with some type of web cam on them (but not always), the
> page will load fine but after 30 seconds to a minute I will get a window
> poping up with the following message:
>
> Netscape: subprocess diagnostics (stdout/stderr)
I get this problem often using NS 4.5, usually on pages with
Java or some complicated scripting. It may also have
something to do with too many Netscape windows being open,
although I think not.
Other problems with 4.5 involve the task becoming
processor-bound, or the program just shutting down
unexpectedly (the latter problem seems to happen a lot with
the Freshmeat news page).
Unfortunately, I don't know of any solution :-(
Andy
--
Andy Piper [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fareham, Hampshire
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Misc Digest
******************************
