Linux-Misc Digest #776, Volume #21 Sun, 12 Sep 99 15:13:11 EDT
Contents:
Re: FREE EAST TIMOR!!! STOP THE KILLING!!! (Lisa Evans)
Re: FREE EAST TIMOR!!! STOP THE KILLING!!! (Ken Witherow)
Re: General Rant from a Linux Newbie (Darren Winsper)
Re: General Rant from a Linux Newbie (Darren Winsper)
Recompling kernel help!!! ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Major StarOffice for Linux Speed-up trick - quick help? ("Anonymous")
Re: General Rant from a Linux Newbie (Darren Winsper)
Re: Is there a program that returns (guesses) the keyboard type? (Robert Heller)
Re: General Rant from a Linux Newbie (Darren Winsper)
Re: Amiga, QNX, Linux and Revolution (Win right-click) (Aram Iskenderian)
Re: Comments on some of the comments in this URL?
http://www.federaltimes.com/topstory.html (Anthony Ord)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Lisa Evans <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: FREE EAST TIMOR!!! STOP THE KILLING!!!
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 18:09:51 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Vlar Schreidlocke) wrote:
> I think I have a script I wrote around here to "save the world".
> Perhaps I can recode it so it will act specifically on "East Timor".
>
> I don't suppose you care to offer any specific solutions. You have
> posted this on a newsgroup that is specific to a computer operating
> system. People here typically concern themselves with very specific
> information. Information specific to the linux operating system.
> Perhaps you would have better luck running into CompUSA or perhaps a
> shoe store and yelling "FREE EAST TIMOR NOW! STOP THE KILLING KNOW!
> You never know, if you could get just one person to help stop the
> killing, then it would all be worth it. If that one person could stop
> the killing, I wonder exactly how they would have done it. Wow, then
> we could solve all the rest of the world's problems this way.
>
> Wow, you are so smart!
>
> Sorry to post off topic, but has anyone seen my other red sock? With
> all the problems going on in the world I don't know how we can justify
> having this newsgroup, specific to the linux operating system, jeez!
>
I wandered into this group to see if I could solve my problems setting
up my soundcard on linux, and I was heartened to see that people were
discussing East Timor. Only to find that the responses to this post were
the most inhuman, callous, unfeeling collections of words I've ever
seen.
There is a reason to bring up these issues in groups like this. This NG
is surely a network through which one can gain access to fairly highly
paid, intelligent people who are aware of the world, and can wield some
influence if they throw their numbers behind a cause.
Secondly, when a people are suffering genocide, concerned people can
become desperate. They might infringe on your personal space to try to
create interest in their cause. Is it really appropriate to take offence
at this?
I emailed the UN earlier this week. Who knows if it made a difference?
If we all did the same, maybe it would. Anyway, the troops are going in,
so it doesn't matter now.
Lisa Evans
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
------------------------------
From: Ken Witherow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.m68k
Subject: Re: FREE EAST TIMOR!!! STOP THE KILLING!!!
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 14:21:36 -0400
Lisa Evans wrote:
> You people are disgusting. Remind me to make jokes at your expense the
> next time you and your family are shipped to a concentration camp and
> slaughtered, because that's what's happening in East Timor right now.
Good luck. That's why our founding fathers( here in the US ) granted us
the right to keep and bear arms under the second ammendment... to
protect ourselves from a possible tyrannical government. I'm glad your
so eager to kill the fathers, brothers, sons, cousins and friends we
have in support of someone you don't know. If you're so happy for your
fellow countrymen to die, why don't YOU personally go over and stand up
for them instead of complaining about a little non-pc humor here. We ARE
NOT the world's police force.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Darren Winsper)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: General Rant from a Linux Newbie
Date: 12 Sep 1999 18:32:59 GMT
On Sat, 11 Sep 1999 23:25:56 -0700, K. Bjarnason
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] says...
> > User-Agent: slrn/0.9.5.4 (UNIX)
Do I sense an X-newsreader bigot?
> > If you really want standard:
> > tar xfz <filename>
> > cd <dirname>
> > ./configure
> > make
> > make install
>
> Hey, Granddad, write this down. It's only 5 lines.
That part was a little tongue-in-cheek. Must I sprinkle smileys
everywhere to do this sort of thing?
> Now create a shortcut to wherever the program installed itself. Sorry,
> can't help you on doing that... I have to go shoot myself.
I think you'll find my stance is that people like that, who want to
download random programs and install them, are not going to enjoy (Or
be suited to) Linux right now unless they are willing to learn such
things.
--
Darren Winsper - http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/darren.winsper
Stellar Legacy project member - http://www.stellarlegacy.tsx.org
Java leads to Javascript. Javascript leads to Shockwave. Shockwave leads
to . . . suffering.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Darren Winsper)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: General Rant from a Linux Newbie
Date: 12 Sep 1999 18:33:00 GMT
On Sat, 11 Sep 1999 23:25:58 -0700, K. Bjarnason
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > Tell that to my friend who seems to have to reinstall Win98 every
> > other month.
>
> Tell your friend to get a real machine.
Is a PII-350 with 96MB RAM not a real machine in your book? His
family bought a Packard Bell on the assumption that it would at least
work.
> Since installing Win98 on one
> box - a heavily used box - I've had to reinstall it once. It's been
> running now for about 2 years, and has suffered through, among other
> things, two new CD drives, a second HD, a new motherboard, more - and
> less - memory, and three video cards.
Since I switched to Linux and only used Windows for games, I haven't
needed to reinstall except when I replaced the motherboard. However,
when I was using it 'heavily', I found a bad CD could crash the system
resulting in the Windows directory so badly damaged it was reinstall
time again.
> > You call an x86 based machine a "real machine"?!
>
> For a desktop system? Absolutely.
OK then, define "real machine".
> Now, since we _know_ that Windows crashes regularly on crap hardware,
> and we can see that you conveniently dodged the issue, we can conclude
> that the box in question was, in fact, a crap system.
But Win9x is also so buggy and generally unstable that bad hardware
isn't the only thing that can cause it to go down.
> > And you solve the DLL Hell problem how?
>
> Since *nobody* I know has experienced this since Windows 3, I don't see
> any particular need to solve it.
The last time I was caught by it, it was last year; a conflict between
Cleansweep and IE4 so bad the OS had to be reinstalled.
> > NT is much more expensive than Win9x, and won't run all the games I
> > want to run. Is it so much to ask for a stable version of Windows at
> > an affordable price?
>
> Affordable to whom? You? Me? The guy down the street?
Seeing as I was discussing the reasons why I don't use NT, I thought
you'd be able to connect the dots and realise I was talking about
affordable to myself.
> If the pricetag of Windows isn't worth it to you, fine - don't use it.
> If it is, then go buy it and quit whining.
If all everybody does is shut up, then we'll never get progress.
--
Darren Winsper - http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/darren.winsper
Stellar Legacy project member - http://www.stellarlegacy.tsx.org
Java leads to Javascript. Javascript leads to Shockwave. Shockwave leads
to . . . suffering.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Recompling kernel help!!!
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 18:29:35 GMT
Hello
I wonder whether someone could help me to properly recompile
the kernel so that SG_BIG_BUFF (see below) is set to its maximum value.
I modified /usr/include/scsi/sg.h but it didn't work:
st: bufsize 32768, <-- it should be 130560 ----
wrt 30720, max buffers 4, s/g segs 16.
(scsi0) <Adaptec AIC-7850 SCSI host adapter> found at PCI 10/0
(scsi0) Narrow Channel, SCSI ID=7, 3/255 SCBs
(scsi0) Warning - detected auto-termination
(scsi0) Please verify driver detected settings are correct.
(scsi0) If not, then please properly set the device termination
(scsi0) in the Adaptec SCSI BIOS by hitting CTRL-A when prompted
(scsi0) during machine bootup.
(scsi0) Cables present (Int-50 YES, Ext-50 YES)
(scsi0) Downloading sequencer code... 412 instructions downloaded
scsi0 : Adaptec AHA274x/284x/294x (EISA/VLB/PCI-Fast SCSI) 5.1.10/3.2.4
<Adaptec AIC-7850 SCSI host adapter>
Linux defines the size of this
buffer by macro SG_BIG_BUFF in header file
/usr/include/scsi/sg.h. Unless a system is seriously
short on memory, it is recommended to increase this value
to the maximum legal value of 128*1024-512=130560 bytes.
After changing this value, it is necessary to recompile
both the kernel (or the SCSI generic module) and the SCSI
backends.
I am not quite sure what SCSI backends mean.
Any help would be most appreciated.
Thanks a lot.
Ed
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
------------------------------
From: "Anonymous" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: linux.redhat.misc
Subject: Major StarOffice for Linux Speed-up trick - quick help?
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 18:41:11 GMT
I read the following in the Linux StarOffice mini-howto. Can someone verify
that this tactic still works, and detail the "jailing" commands so ordinary
users can put it into effect? (By the way, would this jail the user and the
SO?) Thanks!
"2. I noticed that for a lot of people, StarOffice takes quite a while to
load (upwards of 60 seconds). The consensus on usenet was that a large
chunk of this time was due to the symbol relocations that the dynamic linker
has to do. ie, for each new symbol the dynamic linker has to locate the
appropriate library. StarOffice dynamically links against quite a few
libraries so the dynamic linker spends quite a bit of time searching through
lots of libraries.
There is a solution to this. I run StarOffice in a chroot'd jail. In
the jail, I just put the binaries and libraries that StarOffice uses (all
the libs out of /usr/X11R6/lib, libc/libm and libg++/libstdc++).
StarWriter takes approximately 15 seconds to come up on my P133/32MB. This
is due to the fact that the only libraries present are the ones needed by
StarOffice and hence the dynamic linker spends proportionately less time
searching through all the libraries on the system (ie, it doesn't search
through all the useless libs in /usr/lib etc looking to resolve symbols)."
Any help is appreciated! (Please only reply to group.)
Luke
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Darren Winsper)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: General Rant from a Linux Newbie
Date: 12 Sep 1999 18:32:58 GMT
On Sat, 11 Sep 1999 23:25:38 -0700, K. Bjarnason
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > No. *Driving* a car is simply *using* it. *Installing* software is
> > *not* using a computer
>
> Note to self: when installing applications, you are not using your
> computer. Presumably you are calling the Psychic Friends Network and
> they are beaming healing energy rays at your machine to do what you need
> done.
You are performing the same role (Although to a lesser extent) as an
administrator. The equivalent in the car analogy world is a mechanic.
--
Darren Winsper - http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/darren.winsper
Stellar Legacy project member - http://www.stellarlegacy.tsx.org
Java leads to Javascript. Javascript leads to Shockwave. Shockwave leads
to . . . suffering.
------------------------------
From: Robert Heller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Is there a program that returns (guesses) the keyboard type?
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 18:01:19 GMT
Klaus Zeitler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
In a message on 09 Sep 1999 11:47:30 +0200, wrote :
KZ>
KZ>
KZ> I'm working in a mixed environment with Linux, SUN and HP machines,
KZ> and quite a few different keyboards (101,104 keys, US and unfortunately
KZ> also German layout).
KZ> As long as I used mainly one workstation I simply used xmodmap in my
KZ> .xinitrc for the keyboard attached to this workstation to adjust this
KZ> keyboard to my liking.
KZ> I'm wondering if there's a program that I can use in my .xinitrc that
KZ> makes an (educated) guess of the keyboard type, so that I can
KZ> use the appropriate xmodmap automatically.
2 Questions to think about:
1) Are you swapping different keyboards on the same machine or on
different machines?
2) Are the several machines setup to 'share' a common home
directory or are the home directories separate on each machine?
If 1 is yes, you have to manually swap xmodmap files when you swap
keyboards.
Otherwise, you have two options:
if 2 is yes, then you need to put something in your .xinitrc like this pseudo
code (I don't know sh or bash well):
if (`hostname` is "machine with 101 keyboard") then
xmodmap keyboard.101.keys
else if (`hostname` is "machine with 104 keyboard") then
xmodmap keyboard.104.keys
else if (`hostname` is "machine with German keyboard") then
xmodmap german.keys
else
xmodmap other.keys
endif
If 2 is no, then you just have a machine/keyboard specific .xinitrc file
for each machine's home directory. If maintaining multiple .xinitrc
files is a pain, you can still use the hostname testing hack (the if
statement cascade is a one time deal).
Basically, you either test for the computer's hostname, with the idea
that hostnames map to specific machines, and specific machines have
specific keyboards. with shared (eg NFS mounted) home directories, you
use the hostname command to get the current machine's name and implement
a mapping of machine names to xmodmap files. With non-shared home
directories, no testing is needed, since there is a one-to-one mapping
of home directory to machine w/keyboard.
KZ>
KZ> Cheers Klaus
KZ>
KZ> --
KZ> ----------------------------------------------------------
KZ> | Klaus Zeitler Lucent Technologies |
KZ> | Department: FLI3 Building: 98b Room: 110b |
KZ> | Telefon: 49 911 526 6344 Fax: 3183 |
KZ> | Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] |
KZ> ----------------------------------------------------------
KZ>
--
\/
Robert Heller ||InterNet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://vis-www.cs.umass.edu/~heller || [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.deepsoft.com /\FidoNet: 1:321/153
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Darren Winsper)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: General Rant from a Linux Newbie
Date: 12 Sep 1999 18:33:01 GMT
On Sat, 11 Sep 1999 23:26:01 -0700, K. Bjarnason
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> However, ask yourself this: why would a vendor _care_? Here he is,
> happily shipping DOS-based machines, OS/2 machines, whatever, and
> knowing that other competing OSen are coming down the pipe. What could
> _possibly_ motivate him to save a little money up front at the expense
> of potentially major losses down the line, by agreeing to those terms?
Actually, the price of MSDOS+Windows to venders was lower than for
just MSDOS.
--
Darren Winsper - http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/darren.winsper
Stellar Legacy project member - http://www.stellarlegacy.tsx.org
Java leads to Javascript. Javascript leads to Shockwave. Shockwave leads
to . . . suffering.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Aram Iskenderian)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.qnx,comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: Amiga, QNX, Linux and Revolution (Win right-click)
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 19:00:35 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On 10 Sep 1999 20:46:48 PDT,
In article <7rcjb8$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Guy Macon) wrote:
>Aram Iskenderian wrote:
>
>>Peter Moore wrote:
>>
>>>And please, enough non-Linux stuff...
>>
>>How about no more non Amiga stuff? :-)
>>
>And let's not forget no QNX stuff!
>
Agreed.
>>I neither started the discussion, nor cross posted,
>>I followed up a message.
>
>See this?
>
># From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Aram Iskenderian)
># Subject: Re: Amiga, QNX, Linux and Revolution (Win right-click)
># Date: Fri, 10 Sep 1999 23:50:52 GMT
># Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
># Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.qnx,comp.sys.amiga.misc
>
>You crossposted.
Nonsense.
Would you mind to stop accusing me of crossposting when you have no
collected some facts before you do that?
You're late several messages behind which I posted in this thread.
my first message in this thread was.
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
You can find a copy at.
http://www.deja.com/msgid.xp?MID=<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Or.
http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=522720620&fmt=text
I responded to Jeff Dedge's post.
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Which you can find a copy at.
http://www.deja.com/msgid.xp?MID=<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Or look at
http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=522676302&fmt=text
For the headers.
Now who was the one who cross posted?
And before you misunderstand this I am not accusing Jeff of cross
posting, as this thread was long time here.
--
Aram Iskenderian.
To email, hit reply, check the email address and add "r" somewhere.
Enjoying the speed of ADSL.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Anthony Ord)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Comments on some of the comments in this URL?
http://www.federaltimes.com/topstory.html
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 18:14:46 GMT
On Sat, 11 Sep 1999 16:59:25 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher B.
Browne) wrote:
>On Sat, 11 Sep 1999 11:53:53 -0400, Donn Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>posted:
>>On Sat, 11 Sep 1999, Anthony Ord wrote:
>>
>>> Title says it all I feel.
>>
>>From the article:
>>
>>> Zaman added that Microsoft has been considering making some of its
>>> software products open source for two years.
>>
>>It would be interesting to see how much of it's code MS will release as
>>"open source". They've been talking about it for two years... still, no
>>action.
>
>That really tells you everything you need to know about MSFT and "open
>source."
>
>They uttered platitudes about maybe releasing something, and then released
>nothing.
>
>It's not precisely "FUD," but it's a kid brother to FUD.
It's the standard vapour-ware tactic.
>>> "Open source is a very innovative way to develop software," Zaman said.
>>> "The issue is how much of our own code we should put out in the open
>>> source environment."
>>
>>Put the entire source code to Windows 2000, or even Windows 98 out. It
>>would be interesting to see what comments MS is making in their code
>>(although, I suspect they'll be taking some comments out). If we had the
>>source code to these OS's, we'd be able to see how good (or bad) they
>>really are.
>
>We can likely never see *all* of Windows, of whatever version, for reasons
>that lie outside MSFT's control. There's the legitimate problem that
>MSFT has very probably licensed technologies from other companies that
>they can't release.
What stuff have they licensed? Note: from companies that aren't now part of M$
or dead.
>Look at the "Netscape Navigator - About" screen to see how much stuff
>there is in Netscape Navigator that they couldn't "open source" as part
>of Mozilla. Things from Sun, RSA Data Security, Bitstream, Visigenic,
>Object Design Inc, Full Circle Software, L&H Speech Products, ...
>
>That being said, NCC did strip out the "foreign" bits of Navigator,
>and actually did release Mozilla code, which makes the word "excuse" come
>to mind when thinking of MSFT.
You never know - they may have things to hide. Ask Caldera - they have the
source.
>>I agree with the government's move. However, I'd be disappointed if other
>>OSS OS's such as FreeBSD are being overlooked (the more users you have,
>>the more bugs that can be found). I think, though, that they will be
>>taking a look at Open and/or FreeBSD. I guess they would choose based on
>>where in the government the machine is being used. For high-security
>>applications, I think OpenBSD would be the best choice. (I don't run
>>OpenBSD, so I don't know).
>
>In the long run, more security than that may well be necessary. I surely
>expect that MSFT is looking at their code, even if they're not considering
>adopting the security models involved.
>
>But that's "in the labs," and is only tenuously connected to anything that
>gets sold.
The labs are a sub-division of Marketing?
>The *real* point here is that Microsoft isn't going to really concentrate
>on *real* security until there is both:
>a) A market of would-be purchasers that actually understand computer
> security, and
>b) People making product marketing decisions at MSFT that actually
> understand computer security.
No. Microsoft will only allow real *costly* security when the lack costs them
money. Serious money. I think the comments
"Microsoft software products have been the target of numerous computer
viruses.
One of the best known was the Melissa virus that struck thousands of
government and nongovernment computers in March by exploiting vulnerabilities
in Microsoft Word 97 and Microsoft Word 2000. In June, another virus called
ExploreZip targeted vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98 and
Windows NT. " and
"� The government will buy $2 billion worth of software in 2000, according to
Federal Sources Inc., of Fairfax, Va., a market research company."
say quite a lot.
Also, possibly more importantly, they will drop this costly security when they
believe they will no longer be drained financially by its loss. Remember when
MSDOS came with it's own virus protection? Expensive, and how quickly did it
disappear?
>If you consider that the people that MSFT actually sells to today are the
>marketing reps at PC manufacturers and the marketing reps at computer
>retailers, you will understand why I am terribly skeptical that they
>are likely to sell truly secure systems any time soon.
Especially with the low expectation of service that many people have.
>The *only* way they'd be likely to have any Real Security wash over into
>their retail products would be if they had an organization like unto the
>IBM Federal Sales Division, with security requirements sufficiently
>stringent that it mandated writing software to satisfy the needs of
>government security, as opposed to the more usual:
> "We've got this Windows NT product here; let's sell it to them."
>where the government purchasers get whatever tenuous bits of security
>actually survive once you install MS Office on Windows NT.
Even a refusal by the US Government to buy anymore M$ software until they had
been recompensed for Mellisa etc would send a powerful signal. It would be
brown-trouser day at Redmond.
Regards
Anthony
--
=========================================
| And when our worlds |
| They fall apart |
| When the walls come tumbling in |
| Though we may deserve it |
| It will be worth it - Depeche Mode |
=========================================
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Misc Digest
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