Linux-Misc Digest #199, Volume #20 Fri, 14 May 99 02:13:10 EDT
Contents:
LILO, partitions, and performance, Re: fdisk /MBR ??? ("Cameron Spitzer")
Re: KDE very slow ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Gnum as default instead of Fvwm ("Gero H. Marten")
Re: Proper use of /usr/local (Re: The Best Linux distribution?) (Leslie Mikesell)
Re: Some USR modems are MS-only, Re: [SURVEY] Who has an internal modemin his linux
box ? ("DP30Dev")
Re: please suggest a smaller WWW browser. ("Gene Zesch")
HELP PLEASE!! Info, links and tips wanted to setup a mail server behind router
(Savas Pavlidis)
Re: How to get Linux 2.0.30 to mount FAT32 ("Spud")
Red Hat info needed. ("Peter F. DeMos")
Re: Exhaustive testing of a suspect hard drive ("Clifton T. Sharp Jr.")
Re: Proper use of /usr/local (Re: The Best Linux distribution?) (Leslie Mikesell)
Re: Proper use of /usr/local (Re: The Best Linux distribution?)
([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: RH6.0 - Staroffice 5.0 does not work (Sympatico)
Re: Printer Help Please ("Matthew Hager S.")
Re: Starting X at boot-up (Mark Tranchant)
Re: Kernel version labelling? (Mark Tranchant)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Cameron Spitzer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.help,alt.linux,alt.os.linux
Subject: LILO, partitions, and performance, Re: fdisk /MBR ???
Date: 14 May 1999 04:55:15 GMT
In article <7hg1e2$9oq$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Christopher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> "J=FCrgen Exner" wrote:
>> > =
>>
>> > Joachim Feise <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>> > [...]
>> > > I sure wished
>> > > Redhat would change their installation procedure to keep lilo out
>of =
>> the
>> > mbr. That
>> > > would also cut down on the amount of newsgroup questions on this
>topic
The #1 reason there are a bazillion LILO questions in this newsgroup
is that I am a slob and haven't updated the LILO mini-HOWTO in years.
Well I am finally getting around to it. If there is a Freequently
Asked Question about LILO that you Freequently Answer,
please visit http://judi.greens.org/lilo and write your Answer in one
of the forum pages. I will compile the answers into a FAQ and update the
HOWTO.
>
>I don't know why anyone would want to boot off of the disk drive anyway
>they sould all boot off of the network. Netrom has the right idea. I've
>never been able to use lilo except off of a floppy and that's the worst.
>crank crank crank ...
Actually, LILO boot floppies can be made remarkably fast,
while preserving the property of not touching the MBR because we
don't want to mess with OS-2/NT/Partition Magic/System Commander.
The trick is to put boot.b on the floppy and everything else anywhere
on the first 1024 cylinders of the first hard drive.
A boot floppy like that is not noticeably slower than booting from
hard disk. If you had to use OnTrack or E-Zdrive because of an old
BIOS, you put the mapfile on the floppy too, and it is still way faster
than if the kernel were there.
> while ya wait. Maybe someone has fixed lilo by now
>but last year if you had 12 gigs and didn't want it partitioned... you
>were in for a suprise.
>Any Questions?
I just can't imagine a situation where I had a 12 GB drive for Linux and
would not use multiple partitions. Even if I were going to use the
same partition for /var, /usr, and /home, I would still want a
relatively small root. Mounting a 12 GB ext2 root file system at boot time
will take longer than reading a 300 KB kernel from a LILO floppy!
And if I were concerned about performance at all I would use a swap
partition somewhere near the middle of the drive. On a computer with
one 12 GB drive, if I *needed* a single huge file system, I'd partition it:
hda1 150 MB root
hda2 2GB /m2
hda3 250 MB swap
hda4 10GB /m4
and /var and /home would be symlinks into /m4 while /usr was a symlink
into /m2. Swap partitions are just so much faster than swap files.
And root is certain to land inside the first 1024 cylinders so you can
put LILO there and boot fast. If I didn't need the single huge fs,
swap would be closer to the middle.
Cameron
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: KDE very slow
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 03:24:10 GMT
Before using KDE I was using fvwm2. When I installed KDE I thought it
looked pretty cool, but I made a system menu program that runs when I
initially log in which prompts me for which windows manager I want. I
have been having serious problems with KDE as well. It is quite
sluggish, and often it will lock up my system hard. I can not
ctrl-alt-backspace or ctrl-alt-del out of the session. I can telnet
into the system from another machine on my network but when I kill X
nothing happens. There is nothing I can kill which frees the system
from the locked X session. The only thing I can do is init 6 or init
0. It takes about 3 minutes to respond to that, then finally reboots
(or shuts down).
I am on fvwm2 again right now for the first time in a few weeks and am
reminded of how snappy/fast my system once was. I've already tried
taxing my system to see if it will crash the way KDE does, and I've not
been able to crash it with fvwm (opening several instances of Netscrape
with heavy java pages, etc).
I have a K6-200, 64M memory, 128M swap, RH5.2 (kernel 2.0.36). I
ordered RH6.0 yesterday. I read somewhere that kernel 2.2 improves
things. Hopefully so.
Has anyone tried GNOME? How does it compare? Slow?
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
jik- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I recently tried KDE 1.1.1pre1 and yes, KDE is tremendously slow.
> Someone somewere down the development line REALLY screwed this one up.
> KDE Beta3 was the last KDE I tried that worked (Beta4 turned out
broken
> and I quit using it) it was somewhat slow to start, but then ran just
> fine for the most part...slower then other systems, but it was a
> reasonable amount for what you got. The new KDE seems to be much
slower
> then would be expected for what you get, especially considering that
it
> runs slower now on a 200Mhz then it did then on a 150 with less RAM.
> Looks like the desktop fiasco has taken a major turn for the worst.
>
--== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==--
---Share what you know. Learn what you don't.---
------------------------------
From: "Gero H. Marten" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Gnum as default instead of Fvwm
Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 23:15:11 +0200
"Itzik S." wrote:
>
> Hi,
> I'm trying to set Gnum to be default instead if Fvwm,
> but with no success.
> Can anybody help ?
> Thanks,
> Itzik.
What is Gnum please?
--
Gero H. Marten
<http://www.provi.de/gmarten/index.html>
--
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Proper use of /usr/local (Re: The Best Linux distribution?)
Date: 14 May 1999 00:56:14 -0500
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Leslie Mikesell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >snip<
>: Ah, does anyone remember the days of booting from a tiny drive that
>: couldn't hold all of your binaries and libraries so they had to be on a
>: separate partition and mounted later? Now, what's the smallest drive you
>: can buy - 2 gigs or so? I think this contortion can be considered a
>: historical artifact.
>
> Then you'd be surprised to learn that diskless workstations using
> from bootp are still common.
No, that's sensible, but continuing to build disk layouts that
pretend that there is some reason for expecting an artificially small
amount of space available as you boot isn't. There really isn't much
reason for the separation of /bin, /usr/bin and /sbin, /usr/sbin
anymore. Most of us still have to live with some bios constraints but
that only affects loading the kernel itself.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: "DP30Dev" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Some USR modems are MS-only, Re: [SURVEY] Who has an internal modemin
his linux box ?
Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 21:34:17 -0600
Although most US Robotics modems say if they are winmodems, the new PCI
internal 56K modem is a winmodem and you won't find that anywhere on the
box. Most of us buy modems that say made for windows but we know that most
will work with linux(obviously not winmodems). I think better Labeling is
required...it really sux to get a PCI modem which you think is better than
the old ISA connection and find out that it really is a winmodem.
David
------------------------------
From: "Gene Zesch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: please suggest a smaller WWW browser.
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 00:58:15 -0500
Opera has demonstrated a Linux version. It should be available soon.
Gene
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Savas Pavlidis)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.networking
Subject: HELP PLEASE!! Info, links and tips wanted to setup a mail server behind router
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 06:05:42 GMT
I have a router that does IP Masquarading (NAT). I have a static IP
connection to Internet. My ISP gives me the capability to store all
incoming emails and forward them on demand via ETRN. The ISP
implements POP3 for normal email download.
So I want to setup a Linux or FreeBSD Server, that primarily will
handle all emails as the central email server. All intranet emails
will be handled immediately. All outbound emails will be stored and
forwarded
on a schedule (every 3 hours). During that connection (every 3 hours),
all incoming emails should be got from ISP to our mail server.
The problem is that I am not knowledgable enough to do this without
some hints. I have searched tutorials and how-tos, and I found a large
number of programs that can do the job (or so it seems), like
fetchmail to get the emails, and sendmail or qmail to send the emails.
But in our situation the mail server is in the intranet and uses IP
address in the form 192.68.xxx.xxx and the only valid IP is the static
IP of the router. From the info I red (and red quite a lot), I havenot
found a way to surpass this problem (or so it seems).
So if anyone has made a similar setup, please give me some details, at
least some hints and the links to read to make this possible. Also if
anyone has made a DNS proxy (that caches DNS requests) the info supply
would be helpful.
Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the trouble to reply.
Savas Pavlidis
pavlidis at nettaxi dot com
------------------------------
From: "Spud" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: How to get Linux 2.0.30 to mount FAT32
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 05:07:50 GMT
Make sure that support for MSDOS FAT filesystem is compiled into your
kernel. Then issue the following command:
mount -t msdos /dev/<partition> /<mountpoint>
You could also use the -t vfat option, for long filenames. However, im
really not sure if VFAT was around in kernel 2.0.30.
>I got a new computer and the hard drives are FAT32.
>
>How do a get Linux 2.0.30 to mount the FAT32 partition.
>
>I have Linux 2.2.7 on the FAT32 drive and have no way of getting it to
>my Linux partition unless I can mount the FAT32 drive.
>
>
>All help is appreciated.
>
>Michael
>
>
>
------------------------------
From: "Peter F. DeMos" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Red Hat info needed.
Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 22:54:51 -0700
Randy wrote, after Carlos wrote:
>> I am a fairly new linux user, I am looking for soem advice
>> as far as resources , there's so much, I want some guidance as into
>> what to read and what is garbage,, I have mastering linux, linux for
>> dummies,
> > and special edition using linux, But still There might be something
> > better,, I got thru the installation part pretty easy,, I only had
> > trouble with my sound card which is not supported that's all,,,
> Try RedHat Secrets 5.2 (if you're using RedHat). It's a pretty good
> book and can be found at most big stores.
I just installed RH5.2 on a box, with no apparent probs. Didn't do any
printer or modem setups at the time, cuz I didn't have any ready to go.
Did a clean install, workstation style, completely eliminating anything
previously on the box. I now have Xwindows coming up when booting.
Four questions here:
a) Question 1 is how do I get the CDrom to be recognized automatically,
and be able to navigate the CD that is in there, installing something if
I so feel. So far, the only thing I can see is that I have to mount it
manually, every time I boot. Now, admittedly, it's been at least 5 years
since I worked on a -Nix machine, so maybe that's just the way it is,
but 5 years is 15 or more generations in pooter life. I would think I
could just have the CDRom mount automatically, just like I do the
Xwindows. Is that possible, or am I dreaming? And is there an "Explorer"
tool I can use to visually inspect what's on the drive?
b) I now wish to install a modem, I have a 56K PCI Modem Blaster. Is
there anything I need to know to get that recognized as well.
c) RH appears to automatically come up in the bash shell, and I am used
to a cshell. Is there a way to get the flippin' thing to automatically
boot to a cshell instead?
and... d) Is there a faq for this group? If so, how/where do I get it?
Does it get posted monthly? I sense that I will have several questions
over the next few weeks, and hope to not have to inundate you Randy (or
other RH gurus), or the group, with said questions. Especially if they
are covered in the faq.
TIA,
peterd
--The original peterd. Accept no substitutes.--
http://www.peterd.com
------------------------------
From: "Clifton T. Sharp Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.hardware
Subject: Re: Exhaustive testing of a suspect hard drive
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 01:07:18 -0500
Matthew B. Kennedy wrote:
> My question: Is there a way I can thoroughly scan the disk for bad
> sectors and surface problems? Something like scandisk under dos,
> perhaps?
Manufacturers frequently have something like that on their web sites. The
one I got for my Western Digital not only found a bad sector but managed
to "repair" it (swap in the spare sector on that track) with no data loss,
automatically. Unfortunately, they're frequently DOS programs, and I'm not
at all sure I would want to experiment by running it under DOSEMU.
--
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
| Cliff Sharp | "Speech isn't free when it comes postage-due." |
| WA9PDM | -- Jim Nitchals, founder, FREE |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- http://www.spamfree.org/ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Proper use of /usr/local (Re: The Best Linux distribution?)
Date: 14 May 1999 01:09:53 -0500
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Donn Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> job of assembling a nice set of KDE and GNOME apps that I wouldn't have
>> had time to select and put together myself.
>
>True, true... but unfortunately, RH doesn't provide a script for
>adduser, and that kind of sucked for me. However, there *is* the
>linuxconf in RH, which certain users will like more...
Huh? It's an executable, not a script, but /usr/sbin/adduser is
on my system. Perhaps you missed it because it isn't in your
PATH unless you log is as root or 'su - root' to run it.
>I think both FreeBSD and Slackware do a reasonable job of
>selecting which apps I wanted to have installed. RedHat ended up
>installing fvwm2-95, which is something I didn't want... That
>aside, I'm surprised anyone would *want* a window manager that is
>pixel-for-pixel equivalent to Windows'. Not that I hate Windows
>or anything, but I like originality in a WM.
I take it you haven't loaded RedHat 6.0 on anything yet. Or the
Mandrake distribution. Mandrake was basically RedHat 5.2 with
KDE included, 6.0 includes both Gnome and KDE.
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Proper use of /usr/local (Re: The Best Linux distribution?)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Date: Fri, 14 May 1999 04:22:59 GMT
Leslie Mikesell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>snip<
:> Create your own install.cfg. AFAIK most (all?) Linux distributions
:> have very similar systems.
:
: Did you miss the 'someone else' part?
Oh, sorry, I forgot you wanted the system installer to be able to
read your mind too. :-P
: RedHat seems to have done a nice job of assembling a nice set of KDE and
: GNOME apps that I wouldn't have had time to select and put together
: myself.
You want app-balls? We got your app-balls. Check out the
/usr/ports/x11/kde and gnome meta-ports. The proverbial kitchen
sink of KDE and GNOME installs. Again, you're only a "make install"
away.
:> You got it. Hit the All button on any release of Linux or *BSD and
:> you're done.
:
: Does *bsd have a reasonable set of new apps selected for you in every
: release?
Reasonable for you is *far* from reasonable for me, and my
"reasonable" is far from the next guy. You can *not* please
everyone, nore can you even please most. Since selecting the apps
that *you* want *IS* so incredibly trivial any attempt at reading
your mind is futile.
: It is about a 15 minute job to answer the start-up questions for a RedHat
: install, letting it wipe out / and /usr.
Ditto for FreeBSD.
: Then you go for coffee while it copies the files in, then put a few saved
: files back in /etc, and you're good for another year.
Ditto for FreeBSD.
: How much time does it kill if you have a single mistake in an upgrade
: procedure that tries to mix and match your old and new files?
I wouldn't know, I haven't had that problem.
>snip<
: They are custom local programs, some mine, some from previous people at
: this location. They need to be executable by others on the machines.
And /usr/local/share or similar wouldn't work for you?
:> With *thousands* of programs available, do you really think someone
:> has sat down and tested each and every configuration?! You've got
:> to be joking (or stoned)!
:
: Actually with Linux, yes I do think that - and within weeks of a
: release.
3k or so apps? Sorry man, but you're on drugs. It would take the
better part of a few man-years to do that kind of testing. "Within
weeks of a release"? Not on your life.
: People who will try things that paid quality control workers wouldn't even
: dream of... And I appreciate the value of that.
Please, show me the system that has 3k+ apps installed and used,
even just for testing. At most we're talking about a lint build,
not full app testing.
--
-Zenin ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
My code is filled with comments! It's just that my comments are
written in Perl.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: RH6.0 - Staroffice 5.0 does not work
From: Sympatico <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 15:47:41 GMT
Peter Englmaier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>After upgrading to RH6.0 the star office 5.0 (filter upgrade)=20
>stopped working.=20
>
>Any idea, why?
>
>Peter.
Something about Star Office having conflicts with the glibc version inclu=
ded
with RH6. This should be solved shortly.
Ben
------------------------------
From: "Matthew Hager S." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Printer Help Please
Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 10:59:58 -0500
To start reading, if you haven't already stopped at metalab, I'd suggest you
go there. They keep a very through list of HOWTOS, mini's and whatnot.
It's also the home of the Linux Documentation Project:
http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP
Here's the direct link for the Printing HOWTO:
http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/Printing-HOWTO.html
It was updated 9 March 1999, so most of the stuff in this HOWTO is fairly
relevant.
Another place to stop at is the Unix Guru Universe: http://www.ugu.com it
also has a bunch of info on various un*x flavors.
I know setting up the print queue under linux you will need to edit the
printcap file on your system. I've never personally done this for a
parallel printer, all of the printers I've set up have had ethernet
connections. Other man pages you might look into are lpr, lpq, and lpd. I
do not know if these will help you out or not, or if you have already looked
at these man pages.
Hope this helps....
-mhs
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> I want to get my Epson 640 printer working under Linux. I am not asking
> how to do it. What I am asking is 'what do I read?'.
>
> I know nothing about setting up a printer under LInux and there are tons
> of man pages, info, etc etc. I dont know where to start. Could someone
> suggest what I shoud read and in what order I should read it.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Brad
>
------------------------------
From: Mark Tranchant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Starting X at boot-up
Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 15:53:59 +0100
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Not necessarily 5. 4 on Slackware systems. /etc/inittab should make it
clear somewhere.
Mark.
Jort Verhoeven wrote:
>
> Change the systems runlevel to 5 at bootup by editing /etc/inittab (the line
> with the string "initdefault")
>
> Jim McIntyre wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> >Some question about my boot-up process.
> >
> >1. How do I boot Linux directly into X. I cant' find the command to use
> >anywhere.
> >2. Do I insert the command into .bashrc or Xinitrc.
> >3. Are there any potential security compromises associated with booting
> >directly into X.
> >
> >Thanks in advance
> >
> >Jim McIntyre
> >Webmaster Program
> >Dalhousie University
> >Halifax, Nova Scotia
> >
------------------------------
From: Mark Tranchant <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Kernel version labelling?
Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 16:31:52 +0100
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> hi
>
> sorry but this may sound too obvious, yet I would like to know...
No problem.
>
> now that the 2.2 series of the kernel have been released, which set (if
> any) are the production kernels and which are the development kernels?
2.[even] are production, 2.[odd] are development. So 2.2.x are "stable"
(which means feature-frozen, with further development being focussed on
fixing bugs) and 2.3.x are "development" (starting from a base of 2.2.8
and adding new features, concepts and technologies). Only use 2.3.x if
you know what you are doing and don't mind losing all your data (no
joke, 2.1.44 could do that).
>
> I know with linux 2.0.xx, 2.0 were the stable production and there was
> also 2.1.xx which were the devel kernels.
>
Correct, see above.
> So, which of the new kernel sets are stable production versions which I
> could get.
2.2.x, see above.
>
> Also is there any good place which gives a min/recommended requirements
> list of the packages which are required for kernel 2.2.xx? To that,
> which distributions are 2.2 ready? All that I know is that the 2.2
> kernels require glib2 but thats about it! :-)
Look at the Documentation/Changes file in the kernel source. 2.2.x does
not require glibc2 - this is a vicious rumour.
>
> Again, I appologise to you if this sounds obscenely obvious, but I've
> been out of the linux community for too long and only recently had a
> chance to come back(sort of!)
>
Welcome back.
Mark.
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Misc Digest
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