Linux-Misc Digest #53, Volume #25                 Thu, 6 Jul 00 02:13:02 EDT

Contents:
  Re: i need a adduser script (John Hasler)
  Re: newsreader for Linux? (John P)
  Does Gigabyte BX2000+ supported by LInux? (sss)
  Re: route and dial up problems (David Efflandt)
  Re: Synchronising sendmail/fetchmail (David Efflandt)
  bars on top of screen
  Re: Error - cannot find the ppp daemon (alan)
  Re: kernel panic ("beo")
  cron ("David Fleet")
  Installing a CD burner...lots of dumb questions ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
  Re: The Big Dogs and the Tech Shitzus. (C.J.)
  Re: Netscape and RedHat 6.2 (Jimi Aleshin)
  Win32 utility equivalent to lilo -R (Don Hayward,,,n/a)
  Re: Rebuilding rpm database (Praedor Tempus)
  Re: Rebuilding rpm database (Praedor Tempus)
  Re: how to modify gnome-terminal settings ("David ..")
  Re: Can't open serial com2 for modem on RedHat 6.0 ("MarkM")

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: John Hasler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: i need a adduser script
Date: Thu, 6 Jul 2000 02:22:38 GMT

Doug writes:
> In case you missed that one, there's also /usr/sbin/adduser (soft linked
> to useradd)...

Except in Debian, where it is a powerful and user-friendly front-end to
useradd.
-- 
John Hasler
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, Wisconsin

------------------------------

From: John P <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: newsreader for Linux?
Date: 05 Jul 2000 22:27:07 -0500

[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

> Is there a newsreader available for Linux? I get the news files via
> UUCP would like to read them in Linux instead of DOS. Thanks.

See

  http://freshmeat.net/appindex/console/news.html

-John

-- 
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
   - Voltaire

------------------------------

From: sss <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Does Gigabyte BX2000+ supported by LInux?
Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 13:58:00 +1000

Thanks
Sam.


------------------------------

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Efflandt)
Subject: Re: route and dial up problems
Date: 6 Jul 2000 04:21:52 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

On Wed, 5 Jul 2000, Andrew N. McGuire  <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On Tue, 4 Jul 2000, Darren quoth:
>
>[] I have been working on a problem with dial up on Mandrake 7.1.  After
>[] reading from various sources, it seems as though I am having a routing
>[] problem.  I can connect to my ISP, but I can not do anything once connected
>[] (no pinging, telneting or viewing web pages).  I do not experience this on
>[] my local network.
>[] 
>[] I checked (#route -n.)  Finding gateways with the 0.0.0.0, I figured this
>[] was bad, so I gave (#route del default) a try.  But, (#route del default)
>[] doesn't seem to have any affect.  Note the results of (#route del default)
>[] below.
>
>[ snip ]
>
>Are using the defaultroute option with pppd?
>
>man pppd
>/defaultroute
>
>0.0.0.0 is the default route, which according to your posted
>'netstat -rn' output, you are lacking. You should see something
>like the following if your default route is set:
>
>Destination Gateway      Genmask    Flags   MSS Window  irtt  Iface
>0.0.0.0     192.168.0.1  0.0.0.0    UG        0 0          0  eth0 

But do not add a default gw to a box that is going to connect with pppd or
the defaultroute option of pppd will not work.  Other boxes on your LAN
should have a default route to the LAN IP of the box that connects to the
internet.  Then you should also read the IPCHAINS-HOWTO.

-- 
David Efflandt  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://www.de-srv.com/
http://www.autox.chicago.il.us/  http://www.berniesfloral.net/
http://hammer.prohosting.com/~cgi-wiz/  http://cgi-help.virtualave.net/


------------------------------

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David Efflandt)
Subject: Re: Synchronising sendmail/fetchmail
Date: 6 Jul 2000 04:31:29 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

On Wed, 5 Jul 2000, Andrew Ellington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I'm using fetchmail to pop our company email from our service provider -
>works fine.
>I'm also using sendmail/qpopper.
>So far so good.
>However, what I'd like to be able to do is synchronise sendmail queue
>processing and fetchmail to minimise connections over our ISDN dial-up.
>What I have attempted is setting up the sendmail daemon not to process the
>queue, and then to use cron to perform 'sendmail -q' at the same time as
>doing fetchmail.
>Although sendmail -q works from the command line, it doesn't seem to work
>from cron, though it is logged correctly as having happened in cronlog.
>
>Anyone got any suggestions as to how I could synchronise these jobs another
>way or why this isn't quite working?

cron is run with minimal environment (not much of a PATH) so you should
either set your required PATH in crontab or, use full paths to any
programs or related files.  Sendmail is often /usr/sbin/sendmail and
/usr/lib/sendmail (the latter is often a symlink to the former).

-- 
David Efflandt  [EMAIL PROTECTED]  http://www.de-srv.com/
http://www.autox.chicago.il.us/  http://www.berniesfloral.net/
http://hammer.prohosting.com/~cgi-wiz/  http://cgi-help.virtualave.net/


------------------------------

From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: bars on top of screen
Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 04:30:05 GMT

What do you call those bars on top of the screen, the part that has the .[]
X (usually on the upper right of the screen)? How do I change it?


--
Posted via CNET Help.com
http://www.help.com/

------------------------------

From: alan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Error - cannot find the ppp daemon
Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 04:30:05 GMT


I ended up reinstalling. It then worked. Obviously there's something, one
of those networking packages -I'm still not sure which -that you won't get
far without.... It would be nice if they told you that beforehand.

-Alan


Matthew Nimmo wrote:
> 
> Look for pppd - thats the ppp daemon. With me its in /usr/sbin
> 
> AFAIK kppp is just the frontend for a ppp connection so that wont help
> you much.


--
Posted via CNET Help.com
http://www.help.com/

------------------------------

From: "beo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux.suse,alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: kernel panic
Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 04:37:25 GMT

Hello everyone,
I fixed the problem already. Thanks for all the suggestions.
"Leonard Evens" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> beo wrote:
> >
> > Hello all,
> >
> > When I reboot my SuSE 6.2 , my computer just freeze after the message
below.
> > Does anyone know how to fix this problem? Thanks!!
> >
> > *Partition check:
> > *request_module[block_major_8]: root fs not mounted
> > *VFS:cannot open root device 08:01
> > *Kernel Panic:VFS:Unable to mount root fs on 08:01
>
> Your kernel seems to think the kernel is on /dev/sda1, which
> would be the first partition of a SCSI disk.   If you do in
> fact have a SCSI disk, and you are using a generic kernel,
> SCSI support is a module.   As a result there has to be
> an initial ramdisk with some vestigal SCSI support built in
> so that you can actually load the kernel.   This is handled
> in /etc/lilo.conf with an initrd statement.  But for that
> to work, you need to run mkinitrd.
>
> You should still be able to boot from a floppy and fix it
> all.
>
> --
>
> Leonard Evens      [EMAIL PROTECTED]      847-491-5537
> Dept. of Mathematics, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL 60208



------------------------------

From: "David Fleet" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: cron
Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 17:14:16 +0100

Hello,

cron keeps deleting a file from my tmp directory.

Can I stop this by protecting the file with umask, so it's set to the t tag?

How do I do this?

Any help gratefully appreciated.

Han.



------------------------------

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Installing a CD burner...lots of dumb questions
Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 04:39:19 GMT

Help!  Anybody here ever install a CD Burner in a Linux box?

I have an old P90 with Red Hat 6.0, kernel 2.2.1-15.  I want to install
a
Ricoh MP 6200 A burner in it.  I have no idea how.  The CDRecord
software I
downloaded seems to do nothing.  Apparently it can't even detect the
burner,
which mounts just fine when I try to use it as a standard CD-ROM drive.

Anybody got any idea what I'm doing wrong?  Do I have to enable SCSI
support, as one HOWTO suggests?  And how on earth do I do that?

Thanks!


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

------------------------------

Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.os.linux.setup
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (C.J.)
Subject: Re: The Big Dogs and the Tech Shitzus.
Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 04:53:24 GMT

While this isn't comp.os.linux.advocacy I had to put in my $.02

I've worked with:
  MS-DOS 3.x, 4.x, 5.x and 6.x
  IBM-DOS 4.x, 5.x
  DR-DOS 4.x on up
  A few other DOSes that the "old timers" would recognize.
  Windows 3.0, 3.1, 95, 98, NT 3.50, 3.51 and 4.0
  Netware 2.x, 3.x, 4.x, and 5.0
  For Linux I've only tired Slackware 3 and 4 and RedHat 5.2, 6.1 and 6.2

By worked with, I don't mean that I've simply used a PC with these O/Ses on 
them.  I mean I've installed them on completely blank systems and ran them on 
my own systems (server or workstation.)  I've set them up for others and 
managed all sorts of networking combinations in them.  I've done installation, 
maintenance, and troubleshooting as well has help-desk and end-user training.  
I've done programming on many of the above (exception being Netware since I 
never took the time to learn how to make .NLMs)

Do I know all there is to know about them all.  Gawd no!  But I've had a good 
chance to become mighty familiar with them on all sorts of systems used for 
all sorts of purposes.  I still have a long way to go with Linux before I'd 
feel comfortable with someone calling me a guru... if I ever did.

I guess that makes me an "old timer."  I've been a geek/hacker type for I 
guess almost 20 years now... gawd I feel old suddenly.  Anyhow, I'm actually 
going somewhere with all this.

I choose Linux as my OS of choice (I say hypocritcally as I use a Win95 news 
program.)  I do know what I'm doing with Windows.  I know how to baby it so it 
keeps running more than 6 months (sometimes as much as 8) before it needs to 
be rebuilt.  I know how to fix a lot of things without rebuilding Windows 
too... including some of that infurating speed loss that creeps in during 
normal use over time.  (Note I said some... it eventaully still slows to a 
crawl.)  But still I choose Linux.  

I choose linux because once I set it up it stays set up.  Even if something 
gets messed up (which, unlike Windows, rarely happens "spontaniously") I can 
usually fix it without any kind of full re-install or reconfig.  I can count 
on my desktop icons staying on my desktop.  I can count on my system files and 
programs not spontainiously corrupting or being replaced by older versions.

But all that isn't what this message is about either.  It's about People and 
Linux.  It's about why People do/don't want Linux.  By People, I don't mean 
the geeks of the world like myself who actually like digging into the 
text-based config files.  Or the hackers who would rather fix it themselves 
than ask for help.  I mean John/Jane Q. Public who buys a computer at an 
electronics superstore and uses Windows 9x.

Why do they use it?  Because it's there.  It is what is installed.  It is what 
their friends have.  It is what they use/see at work.  They are told so often 
that it is easy and user friendly that the believe it before they even touch a 
mouse. 

 They are so convinced that Window is super easy to use that if they have 
problems, they believe it is their fault.  As a whole, they are happy to use 
the "restore CD" that came with their computer to fix Windows after "they" 
mess Windows up.  They don't question Window's stability. They just say "I 
messed it up," stick in the CD, and reboot.

Why is Windows so popular?  Why do People complain if you give them a 
wonderfully working Linux system.  It's numbers.  It's the 90%+ market share 
that Windows holds.  It's hard to fight that.  Give your non-geek family 
member or loved one a Linux system with Gnome and all the apps you can think 
they may need.  What do you think will happen?

The same thing that happens in the Mac/Windows clashes.  Their friend or work, 
or somebody they happen to know has this cool program.  But guess what.  It's 
not available on Linux.  Someone else has this cool game.  But gues what?  
It's not available on Linux.  They go to a web site that "everybody" is raving 
about and, surprise, they plug in it requires isn't available under Linux.

And why not?  Why is general Linux acceptance thwarted like this?  Because 
it's a minority out there yet.  People write programs and utilities and 
plugins for Windows because that is what there is a LOT of out there.  In a 
catch-22 relationship, acceptance of Linux in place of Windows is slowed 
because these same progs and plugins aren't available for Linux.

So, am I saying Windows rulez?  Hell no.  I'm just saying it is dominant and 
won't go anywhere really soon.  The point I'm trying to get accross is this:  
Linux is emerging.  It's picking up market share.  It's certainly getting the 
attention of industry and developers. 

 I wouldn't have believed it a little over a year ago, but Linux has a real 
shot at some serious dominance in the market. 

Believe it or not, People DON'T CARE what their operating system is.  They 
just want to do something with their system.  If the only thing something 
wants to do is write a novel, they probably could care less if the write it on 
Linux, Windows, BeOS, Mac, or CP/M for that matter.  As long as they can work 
the word processing program they have and it helps writing instead of 
hindering it, they're happy.  (The one exception to this happy state is if 
they think they are lacking features which MIGHT make their job even easier... 
that's where marketing comes in.)

As an example, I set up a Linux account on my system for my wife.  I installed 
everything I could think that she might want.  It worked great... for a while. 
Then she wanted to use Yahoo messenger to talk to her sister and her neice so 
she was back in Windoze.  I found a good Linux util that worked with Yahoo's 
messenger service.  She was once again happy in Linux.  Then she found out 
about dialpad.com.  This site lets you make FREE long distance calls to any 
telephone in the US using your PC.  In order to use Dialpad.com, however, you 
need to use Windows.  Now Linux wasn't good anymore.

The point is that she could care less what the operating system is.  She could 
care less if it is more stable.  She could care less if it made better use of 
the hardware.  For her needs, Linux got in the way of what she wanted to do.  
The things she did like about Linux were some of the Gnome games. (go figure)  

She also liked the idea that she could have her own private folders in Linux 
that the kids couldn't get into.  That puts the score for OS-specific features 
she actually cared about at Linux-1:Windows-0.

Most People would be perfectly happy to receive their new computer with Linux 
pre-installed if only the rest of the world supported it better.  And the good 
news is that slowly, the rest of the world IS supporting it better.  As a 
result, more people will be in the group that simply could care less if they 
had Windows or Linux. 

 When it gets to the point that having Linux will keep you out of no more 
sites or services than having Windows, guess who will be choosing what OS the 
average Joe gets pre-installed on their system.  Believe it or not, it'll be 
the geeks that already see the advantages of Linux over Windows.  Because, if 
you're honest, the average user doesn't support their own system very much.  

It's the brother or sister or son or cousin or uncle or next door neighbor 
that "knows all about computers" who helps install and fix things.  As happy 
as he/she/you/I may be to help out, we all get tired of fixing the same things 
over and over.  We get tired of reinstalling or walking them through 
reinstalling the same apps every time they have to rebuild their system.

When they can get almost all the same services under Linux as they get under 
Windows (plus some non-Windows services.)  They won't care what OS they get.  
Then we'll hear the dreaded "I'm thinking of buying a new computer.  What do 
you think I should get."  We'll recommend Linux.

In article <S_R85.81218$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Brian" 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
><clipped for brevity>
>
>Alex wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>>You really think so? I have used M$ Windoz for over six years. I have done
>>Windoz installation so many times. I find myself having a lot of trouble
>>installing Windoz 98. On the other hand, I only use Linux (Red Hat) for 2
>years
>>(Starting with Version 5.2).
>
>
>I have been installing and configuring Windows since it was called IBM DOS!
>Sometimes the magic works but more often than not there are many problems.
>One of the biggest problems when installing W98 is the horrendous upgrades
>that must be installed by downloading from MS (hours and hours by POTS
>modem), endless reboots, installation of MS applications and then of course
>the upgrades, more hours and more reboots. GAWD!

------------------------------

From: Jimi Aleshin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.questions,comp.os.linux.redhat,comp.os.linux.x
Subject: Re: Netscape and RedHat 6.2
Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 05:23:50 GMT

Yeah same thing happens to me sometimes. Hopefully when the new version6
of Netscape comes out, all this won't happen. Netscape 6 is based on
Netscape Gecko, a new, fully standards-compliant layout engine. 
Everything is basically all brand new.

Charles Leslie wrote:
> 
> At first yes, but now it happens when I have Netscape on the Desktop for
> a long period of time.  I'm going to not use Netscape for a few days and
> see what happens.
> 
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Original Message <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
> 
> On 7/4/00, 5:00:48 PM, Akira Yamanita <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote
> regarding Re: Netscape and RedHat 6.2:
> 
> > Charles Leslie wrote:
> > >
> > > Wish that was the case, I have 384 Megs of Ram and about 512 Meg of swap
> > > space running on a PIII 700mhz.
> 
> > Does this happen only on certain pages that you try to view? Can
> > you reproduce the problem by viewing the same page?

------------------------------

From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Don Hayward,,,n/a)
Subject: Win32 utility equivalent to lilo -R
Date: 6 Jul 2000 00:28:52 -0500


I am setting up a multi-boot system.  I want to have Win98,Win2000, 
and Linux.  I often access this machine remotely via VNC when it
is running Win98 or Win2000, and need to boot into another OS.  The
system defaults to Win2000.  Since VNC only runs after the boot, I 
need some way of choosing which OS to boot into at the next restart.
Under Linux, this functionality can be achieved by using lilo -R <os>.
Is there some way to do this from within Windows?  It could also be
useful for installing software which requires a reboot on the 
non-default OS.

The only way that I think I can do this is to use the NT loader, and 
manipulate the boot.ini file before rebooting, but then I would have
to manipulate it again through some startup script to set the default
back to normal.

Any help that you may be able to offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Don

-- 
Don Hayward
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

------------------------------

From: Praedor Tempus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Rebuilding rpm database
Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2000 23:39:22 -0600

"Lonni J. Friedman" wrote:
> 
> Praedor Tempus wrote:
[...]
> > Is there a method for regenerating packages.rpm?  I have
> > tried "rpm --rebuilddb" but this doesn't work.  It sits
> > there for a while, APPARENTLY doing something, but in the
> > end, no database is generated/regenerated.
> 
> How long is "a while"?  I've seen rpm DB rebuilds take upwards of 10
> minutes on large systems.

I have let it run to completion several times with no result.  It
generally
takes about 5-6 minutes.  Whatever is going on, a database regeneration 
is not part of it.

If packages.rpm is lost, then rpm --rebuilddb IS supposed to regenerate 
it, is it not?  

praedor

------------------------------

From: Praedor Tempus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Rebuilding rpm database
Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2000 23:46:15 -0600

"Lonni J. Friedman" wrote:
> 
> Praedor Tempus wrote:
> >
> > OK, in trying to fix a major problem I have been having with
> > rpm on my Mandrake 7.1 system, I have lost the packages.rpm
> > database file that lists all the packages installed on my
> > system.
> >
> > Is there a method for regenerating packages.rpm?  I have
> > tried "rpm --rebuilddb" but this doesn't work.  It sits
> > there for a while, APPARENTLY doing something, but in the
> > end, no database is generated/regenerated.
> 
> How long is "a while"?  I've seen rpm DB rebuilds take upwards of 10
> minutes on large systems.

What I DO have instead of "packages.rpm" is a directory:

/var/lib/rpmrebuilddb.1676

Within this directory are these files:
Basenames     Group  Packages     Requirename
Conflictname  Name   Providename  Triggername

Is THIS what rebuilddb does?  If so, is there no way to reproduce 
packages.rpm?  Without packages.rpm, rpm doesn't know what I have
installed.  Trying to run "rpm -q <anything>" produces no results.
Trying to run kpackage fails because kpackage cannot find/open
packages.rpm.

praedor

------------------------------

From: "David .." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: how to modify gnome-terminal settings
Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2000 00:32:57 -0500

John D Prokopek wrote:
> 
> everytime I first open a gnome-terminal during a session I have to
> manually change the color settings. How can I have the settings saved?
> Is there a file I can edit?
> 
> I am running RH6.2

Read:  /etc/DIR_COLORS

-- 
Registered with the Linux Counter.  http://counter.li.org
ID # 123538

------------------------------

From: "MarkM" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Can't open serial com2 for modem on RedHat 6.0
Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 22:48:18 -0700

Yer right!!! I guess I'm not used to case-sensitive systems yet having
worked primarily with Microsoft.

Mark M.




M. Buchenrieder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> "Mark M" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> >I have set up mincom to use /dev/ttys1 (ie: com2). When I run minicom it
> >says "Minicom: Cannot open /dev/ttys1: Input/Output error".
>
> [...]
>
> There is no /dev/ttys1. There is, however, a /dev/ttyS1 .
>
> Michael
>
> --
> Michael Buchenrieder * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * http://www.muc.de/~mibu
>           Lumber Cartel Unit #456 (TINLC) & Official Netscum
>     Note: If you want me to send you email, don't munge your address.



------------------------------


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