Linux-Misc Digest #704, Volume #21 Mon, 6 Sep 99 17:13:12 EDT
Contents:
Re: Should I use Linux or Windows? (George Vlahoulis)
Re: Java Tales (Owen Brydon)
Re: fips or Partition Magic? (Norman Levin)
Re: full backup minus content of CD (Norman Levin)
Re: Peaceful Coexistence (Larry Ozarow)
Re: Source ld-so.2.x.x (Paul Kimoto)
Re: Optimal Linux RAID Support? Questions. (David Cooley)
Re: Bash not running executables (Herb Stein)
Re: bypassing fsck (Norman Levin)
Re: Peaceful Coexistence ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: General Rant from a Linux Newbie (Donovan Rebbechi)
Re: Why is module st0 (SCSI tape drive) always loaded? (MBr)
Minor Probs with RedHat (root)
Re: backup with tar to cdr ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
How do I set the Color depth to 8bpp in Suse 6.1 (John Quinn)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (George Vlahoulis)
Subject: Re: Should I use Linux or Windows?
Date: 6 Sep 1999 13:41:59 GMT
On Mon, 6 Sep 1999 20:22:43 +1000, Mark Leung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I'm just wondering if I should install Linux. I'll need to buy a new hard
>disk to install it. Besides reliability and not being Microsoft, what are
>the real benefits of it? There seems to be a shortage of software for it,
>for example apps like Quicken, Bryce 3D, games and drivers for scanners and
>LS-120 drives. All the windows programs that have an equivelant for Linux
>are not as good (for example, Office 2000 vs StarOffice). I would like to
>switch completely to Linux if the software support was better. So, should I
>install linux?
>
>
It all depends on one thing. do you like adventures? I like to think of it
like that.
1) linux is not as easy as some may say it is.
2) Linux is not as hard as some may say it is.
3) you will learn more about computers and you can impress all your friends
4) 90% of people use 10% of application features. does staroffice have
all the features you need?
5) can you get all the application you need on linux?
6) do you mind learning new things?
7) does it support the hardware you use?
8) want and need are not the same thing. dont say no 'cos you dont have the
amusing(ahem annoying) paperclip or something like that.
My advise is try it. If you dont like it, you only spent $10 or so bucks.
If you dont like it you'll still be better off as you'll have learn a hell of
a log more than staring at blue screens and those annoying windows screen
savers.
And always remember that if linux is not there now it will be soon, for free.
gv
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 06 Sep 1999 17:26:30 +0100
From: Owen Brydon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Java Tales
Jill wrote:
>
> I am taking a Java class this month. I would be interested in hearing how
> people are using Java with linux, where to get compilers, etc. I have had C
> and C++ programming, but am completely clueless about Java. Thanks for any
> replies.
>
> Jill Cohen
Try http://www.blackdown.org/java-linux.html
Regards, Owen
--
Owen Brydon, Test Development Engineer
VLSI Vision Ltd
http://www.vvl.co.uk
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 05 Sep 1999 22:39:35 -0400
From: Norman Levin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: fips or Partition Magic?
Leonard Evens wrote:
>
> Actually, if you run the Partition Magic Setup and choose only
> to make a DOS rescue disk, and not to install PM
> in Windows, it works fine. You can then use that
> disk to resize the partition. We've done this recently with
> Windows 98.
>
While pm lets you make MANY changes to a disk at once by creating a batch
file that it runs when you confirm = do NOT do it. Do one step at a time
and display information - especially on dos partitions. I had pm hose
a drive and I run with the latest fixes.
--
Norman Levin
vm/dynAmIX inc.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 05 Sep 1999 22:47:53 -0400
From: Norman Levin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: full backup minus content of CD
You need to browe thru /usr/bin/ /usr/sbin , /bin and /etc
Try to determine the NEWEST data any file might have from the CD distribution.
Some of the shell scripts in /etc from redhad may have newer dates then the
commands in /usr/bin - but try to come up with the newest value.
Then, create a file in your root directory "touch back_up_date"
and use the touch command to set all three times to be just a bit newer
then that newest date you found.
You can then use the find command with the newer expression, ie:
find / -newer /back_up_date | cpio or whatever
to generate a list of all names of files newer than your 'back_up_date"
file.
>
> On Fri, 03 Sep 1999 19:38:15 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] allegedly wrote:
> >Since I will be upgrading a certain OS made by Microsoft on my machine,
> >I thought I'd backup my Linux partitions first. Of course the question
> >is: How? I don't have a CDR, so must be selective. For example, I am
> >interested in backing up all files on the system EXCEPT those that come
> >from the Linux CD and are unmodified. How do I find out which ones are?
> >
> >This selection procedure of course has to be automatic - there's 1000's
> >of files on the system.
> >
> >System is RH5.2, KDE, kernel 2.2.
> >
--
Norman Levin
vm/dynAmIX inc.
------------------------------
From: Larry Ozarow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Peaceful Coexistence
Date: Mon, 06 Sep 1999 19:39:38 GMT
aydincem wrote:
> hi,
> i'm using loadlin too, but on my machine it's much faster than a floppie
> boot. you don't have to bootup win95/98 completely u just have to boot
> the autoexec.bat and the config.sys and u can modify them to make a boot
> menu. my autoexec.bat looks like this:
>
> goto %config%
>
> :Win95
> <normal win autoexec>
>
> :Dos
> <normal dos autoexec>
>
> and my config.sys:
>
> [menu]
> menuitem=Win95
> menuitem=Dos
> menuitem=Linux
> menudefault=Win95,10
>
> [Win95]
> <normal win config.sys>
>
> [Dos]
> <normal dos config.sys>
>
> [Linux]
> shell=c:\loadlin\loadlin.exe @c:\loadlin\linux.par
>
> [Common]
> accdate=c+ d+ h+
> switches= /f
>
> with this u have a boot menu win, dos, linux
> try it
> it's fast :)
> cu
> cem aydin
I guess it depends on how zippy your hardware is. I just timed my machine and a
Linux boot
spends about 16 seconds accessing the floppy. The rest of the stuff is POST and
normal linux
booting stuff that happens no matter how you boot. I can't imagine that booting into
dos and making a menu selection could be much faster than that. In any event a few
seconds either way
are not going to make much of a difference. I just didn't think Byron's point about
the excruciating slowness of floppies was apt. You do make a good point that you can
avoid the boot
into Windows, which I'll concede probably makes the two approaches comparable.
I just hate being dependent on Microsoft for anything if I can avoid it.
Oz
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Paul Kimoto)
Subject: Re: Source ld-so.2.x.x
Date: 6 Sep 1999 11:21:54 -0500
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Zeger Hendrikse wrote:
> Does anyone know where I can find the source of
> ld-so.2.x.x? I have only stumbled upon the 1.9.5
> and the 1.9.9 source code.
If you mean ld-linux.so.2, which should point to ld-2.x.y.so,
that is part of glibc-2.x.y.
--
Paul Kimoto <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
------------------------------
From: David Cooley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux,comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: Optimal Linux RAID Support? Questions.
Date: Mon, 06 Sep 1999 12:41:35 -0400
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> Someone had indicated that the patch set would apply OK except
> for, ummm, fs.h I believe. That file already had the correct
> changes. But when I tried it, no go. Everything compiled but
> something unpleasant happened during boot so I went back to the
> 2.2.11 kernel with the working patches.
>
> I just saw that the patches have been updated and can be found at this
> URL:
>
> http://www.us.kernel.org/pub/linux/daemons/raid/alpha
>
> filenames "raid0145-19990724-2.2.11.gz" and
> "raidtools-19990824-0.90.tar.gz".
>
I'll have to get those and try again... I have Raidtools 0.90-3 from
the redhat site... I'm running UltraPenguin 1.1.9 and it seems that
although it's based on RedHat 5.2, RH 5.2 for sparc RPM's won't install
giving the error that the SW must be RH 5.1 or greater...
> > My hardware config is:
> > SUN UltraEnterprise 2
> > dual 300MHz UltraII CPU's
> > 256 Meg ram
> > dual internal 9G drives (System)
> > external SUN D1000 StorEdge array with 12-4.2G drives.
> >
> > I'm currently running the raid code and SAMBA. It has become the home
> > file server!
>
> Sheesh! And I thought I was stylin' having my 166MHz/64MB box
> with its two 13GB IDE drives as a server... I get that much Sun
> hardware at work but certainly not at home! ;-)
You should see what we have at work!
E4000, 10cpu's, 1.5G ram, 75G raid 5 (SUN Raid 214 rack), an E450, 2
cpu's, 512M ram, 500G raid 5, 588 slot StorageTek 9710 tape library with
6 9840 drives...
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Herb Stein)
Subject: Re: Bash not running executables
Date: Mon, 06 Sep 1999 20:30:33 GMT
Perhaps too may dots? To run the script which is located in the current
directory, use "./script.pl" with only one dot.
In article <FARA3.8$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>"Bruce Merry (Entropy)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>: Scott Prince wrote:
>
>:> For some reason I can no longer cd to a directory and just type the
>:> filename and have it execute. I have to do something like...
>:>
>:> 'perl /dir/script.pl'
>:>
>:> Have I missed something here or is my shell not behaving properly?
>
>: First, try executing it with the full path (i.e. /dir/script.pl instead
>: of script.pl). Next, check that the header line in the script is correct
>: (i.e. #!/location/of/perl). Also check your log files to see if the
>: kernel threw up on the header line. Also check the permissions on the
>: file (although it sounds like you've done that already).
>
>I'm having a similar problem. I wrote a quick-and-dirty "Hello World" perl
>script. I can run it just fine with
>
>perl hello.pl
>
>but if I try
>
>../hello.pl
>
>the shell tries to run it as a bash script and throws up. I checked the
>file perms for execute. The first line of the script is
>
>#!/usr/bin/perl -w
>
>and I verified that perl is indeed at that path. I'm at a loss. It's no
>big deal to invoke perl explicitly to run my scripts, but it bothers me
>that the "#!" notation does not seem to work properly.
>
>(I'm running RedHat 6.0, btw. Hmmm...perhaps I'll check the Errata page
>again. I don't remember seeing anything on it there, but it may have just
>not stuck in my brain. :)
>
>Antryg - Perl newbie, and hooked...
>
--
Herb Stein
The Herb Stein Group
www.herbstein.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
314 215-3584
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 05 Sep 1999 22:11:45 -0400
From: Norman Levin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: bypassing fsck
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> How can I set things up so that certain partitions are never checked at
> boot time? (They are not written to, and several are normally not read
> from either. I just don't want to have to mount them by hand in the rare
> but occuring case that I need something from them, so they are in
> /etc/fstab.
Make them 'noauto' and you have what you want.
>
> By the way, for those partitions that I want checked, can I arrange fsck
> to run at shutdown time instead of boot time?
When you shutdown, and filesystems are unmounted, the superblock is
marked that his was done 'cleanly'. At start up time, when fsck
see's that the filesystem's were unmounted cleanly, the path
through 'fsck' is very quick. If you have problems at start up
time, you indicate that the close down was not clean - which
means 'fsck' run at that time - might not have a chance to run.
--
Norman Levin
vm/dynAmIX inc.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Peaceful Coexistence
Date: 6 Sep 1999 16:39:22 GMT
Jill wrote:
>
> I have an HP Pavilion PII at 400Mhz. I have W98 installed on it. I
> want to run linux, but I'd prefer to purchase a separate hard disk since I
> have critical stuff on the original disk, and being a newbie.....
> After installing a 2nd disk, can I load linux exclusively on the 2nd
> disk leaving the original untouched? How would I boot? Would it be
> possible to run Windows, and then start a linux session in a Window? I have
> RH 5.2 now. Is there a compelling reason to upgrade to 6?
> Thanks for your help.
A second disk is a great idea when mixing Win98 and Linux. You may want to
put a small Windows partition after the last Linux one on the second hard
drive. There seems to be a bug (perhaps intentional?) in Win98 which causes
it to mount the last partition on your drives. This causes corruption on a
Linux partition if it happens to be the last partition. Drove my son and
I nuts with his laptop until we saw a posting about the problem.
I use LILO and recommend it. I have never had a problem with it. It will
allow you to select at boot time which operating system to boot. Setting
it up is part of a RedHat's install procedure.
When you install Linux make sure to make a bootdisk. Windows upgrades will
uninstall LILO from the MBR (master boot record), and your only way to get
back to Linux is with the boot disk.
I recommend that you go with RH6.0 instead of RH5.2. RH6.0 has glibc-2.1
support. Most of the new software in RH land is migrating that way. It may
save you an upgrade later. Be sure to install any RedHat fixes. These can
be found at www.redhat.com Support errata RH6.0. Many are security fixes,
some, like the XFree86 updates, will improve your X performance.
I would stay away from gnome at this time. Gnome and enlightenment are too
unstable at present (although they are getting better fast). This will
save you much frustration.
Linux and Windows are mutually exclusive unless you use something like vmware.
You have an awful lot of reading and learning ahead of you (unless you are
a UNIX admin). But the view is definitely worth the climb IMHO...
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donovan Rebbechi)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: General Rant from a Linux Newbie
Date: 6 Sep 1999 16:39:33 -0400
On Mon, 6 Sep 1999 11:40:37 -0700, K. Bjarnason wrote:
>Now, now, let's not be silly. Compare this to a typical Win9x
>distribution. (Speaking here of installable end-user apps, not data
>files, etc.)
Now let's not be silly. Compare this to a typical linux distribution
( Speaking here of installable end-user apps).
Simply fire up kpackage, then point and click.
>The two major ways of distributing Win9* native apps is to either stuff
>them into ZIP files or to packagae them as self-extracting EXE files.
The one major way of distributing linux apps *to end users*
is in RPM format. The source tarballs are the *developers* distribution
format. The end users don't need to compile.
>For zip files, you double-click the file and up comes (assuming some
>nice person has pointed you at it) WinZip, which
.... is NOT free, and does NOT come with Windows.
>You click "Install", WinZip minimizes, you install using the defaults,
>it's all done.
.... assuming that you have Winzip.
>Once the install is done, WinZip comes back up, cleans up after itself,
>and you can close it and run your app. Simple, no fancy commands
>required.
Just like installing a linux app ( only the linux tools are free).
>As a developer, I like to have such options available.
How about compile-time options ?
> As a developer,
if you *really* are a developer, you probably need to learn the
basics of the OS, *including* the tar command. Otherwise, you don't.
>I'd be *horribly* ashamed to release a product where the installation
>process *required* anything that remotely resembled that. As a user,
*ALL* linux distributors release in a friendly format that enables the
user to do without using tar.
>_requiring_ such features. From what I read of your text, though, those
>options are _required_ to extract to a location other than the default;
>to me, as a developer, that smacks of pathetic design.
The format of the tar command is irrelevant, since noone
needs to use tar to install binaries ( even slackware has
a package tool )
--
Donovan
------------------------------
From: MBr <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.hardware
Subject: Re: Why is module st0 (SCSI tape drive) always loaded?
Date: Mon, 06 Sep 1999 22:34:48 +0200
Bob Surenko wrote:
>
> In comp.os.linux.hardware Steve Snyder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> : On my all-SCSI system (RedHat v6.0, kernel v2.2.10) I build the CD-ROM
> : and tape drive support as modules. (These devices are rarely used so
> : there's no need to have the device drivers for them occupy RAM all the
> : time.) I notice, though, that the module for the SCSI tape drive,
> : "st0.o", is loaded at boot time and never removed.
>
> : Can anyone explain this to me? Thank you.
>
> I have the opposite problem. I have a SCSI tape drive yet when I installed
> RH 6.0 out of the box it did not create the st module. How do I create it?
Duh, by installing CD-ROM support :D
>
> : ***** Steve Snyder *****
>
> --
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> - Bob Surenko [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> - http://www.fred.net/surenko/ finger for PGP key
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
"It may hurt my pride to be wrong once in a while, but I
rather be flamed with better information than to be left
blissfully ignorant." /-- Manuel Beunder, maintainer of:
http://www.euronet.nl/~mailme - The SB Live!-Linux page
------------------------------
From: root <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Minor Probs with RedHat
Date: Mon, 06 Sep 1999 11:02:12 -0500
I've finally got RedHat 6.0 on my HP Omnibook running great but having a
couple of problems with X window that I'm hoping some one can help me
with.
I am able to play wav files but when I attempt to play cd's I get no
sound at all.
When I attempt to open a terminal window I get no prompt
below is my .xsession-errors file..... it seems to be giving me clues as
to my problems but I don't have the experience to decipher them.
Thanx
Ric
unsupported sound format: 33
Audio device open for 44.1Khz, stereo, 16bit failed
Trying 44.1Khz, 8bit stereo.
unsupported playback rate: 44100
Audio device open for 44.1Khz, stereo, 8bit failed
Trying 22.05Khz, 8bit stereo.
Gdk-Message: Got event for unknown window: 0
xscreensaver-command: no screensaver is running on display :0.0
esd: Esound sound daemon already running or stale UNIX socket
/tmp/.esd/socket
This socket already exists indicating esd is already running.
Exiting...
xscreensaver disabling server builtin screensaver.
xscreensaver: you can re-enable it with "xset s on".
subshell.c: couldn't get terminal settings: Inappropriate ioctl for
device
Gnome-CRITICAL **: file gnome-dentry.c: line 217
(gnome_desktop_entry_save): assertion `!dentry->is_kde' failed.
Gnome-CRITICAL **: file gnome-dentry.c: line 217
(gnome_desktop_entry_save): assertion `!dentry->is_kde' failed.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux
Subject: Re: backup with tar to cdr
Date: 6 Sep 1999 15:42:21 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> I'm looking for a good backup program that uses compressed tar to
> cdrom. I have played with toast and roast which work fine but they
> don't do compressed backup.
>
> How can I use 'cdrecord' (or other utility) to compress tar a filesystem
> to cdr?
>
> Are there any other nice freebee backup programs out there that support
> cdr?
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
I use afio for backup. It individually compresses files. Because of
this and the way it stores files within a backup you won't loose the
whole backup (or from corruption point on) if you get corrupted media.
You will only loose the file which is corrupted.
I have several scripts which I use to make the backup and then write
it to a CD-RW.
======= backup ========================================================
#!/bin/bash
#backup
backup=/tmp/backup/backup.afio
report=/tmp/backup/disk-report
rm -rf /tmp/backup 2>/dev/null
mkdir -p /tmp/backup
echo >$report
date >>$report
echo >>$report
echo >>$report
echo '<<< cat /etc/fstab >>>' >>$report
/bin/cat /etc/fstab >>$report
echo >>$report
echo >>$report
echo >>$report
echo '<<< /sbin/fdisk -l >>>\c' >>$report
echo -e "p\nq" | /sbin/fdisk | grep -v 'Command' | grep -v 'Using'\
>>$report
echo >>$report
echo >>$report
echo >>$report
echo '<<< df >>>' >>$report
echo >>$report
/bin/df >>$report
cat - <<NOCOMPRESS >/tmp/nocompress
.arc
.gif
.gz
.jpeg
.jpg
.lha
.rpm
.srpm
.tpz
.taz
.tgz
.zip
.zoo
NOCOMPRESS
cd /
find root etc home -depth -print |\
grep -v '/.netscape/cache/' |\
grep -v '/.netscape/xover-cache/' |\
afio -ovZz -b 32k -c 32 -E /tmp/nocompress $backup
rm /tmp/nocompress
mkisofs -r -o /tmp/cd_image /tmp/backup
======= mkcdblank ========================================
cdrecord -vv blank=all speed=4 dev=0,0,0
======= backup2cd ========================================
#!/bin/sh
# backup2cd
cdrecord -v speed=4 dev=0,0,0 -data /tmp/cd_image
echo done
==========================================================
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Quinn)
Subject: How do I set the Color depth to 8bpp in Suse 6.1
Date: Mon, 06 Sep 1999 20:17:40 GMT
Reply-To: none
Could any one tell me how I may set the the color depth to
8bpp instead of 1 bpp for Suse 6.1 for printing. I am using the
pbm2ppa program for my HP 720c printer.
When I try to print a file I get the following error message:
GNU Ghostscript: Unrecovable error, exit code 1
If I type the command:
pbmtpg -a4 | pbm2ppa -s a4 > /dev/lp0
It will print a test page no problem.
Thanks
John
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Misc Digest
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