Linux-Misc Digest #550, Volume #25 Thu, 24 Aug 00 22:13:03 EDT
Contents:
??:How To Read Multiple Data Tracks From A CD?? (Douglas E. Mitton)
RXVT: How to make its marking work with XClipboard (like XTERM does) ? (Kenny
McCormack)
Re: NEWBIE-Shell scripting - When to use script variable vs. create tmp file???
(John Hasler)
Re: KDE and Gnome (Eric Kristopher Sandall)
Re: Vmware: booting os installed on raw disk under VM (John-Paul Stewart)
GNOME problem gazillion shells (Robert Schweikert)
Re: Linux, XML, and assalting Windows ("Joseph T. Adams")
recompiled kernel (ufs support) errors ("Alexander K")
Re: NEWBIE-Shell scripting - When to use script variable vs. create tmp file???
(Grant Edwards)
Re: Linux, XML, and assalting Windows ("Joseph T. Adams")
Local network with lots of arp who-has traffic (Stewart Honsberger)
Re: Where to install apps on Linux system? (Garry Knight)
Re: If XWin hang, how to kill it (Garry Knight)
Re: XWindow Managers (Garry Knight)
lilo + big disks - help (James Linder)
Re: Linux, XML, and assalting Windows (Christopher Browne)
Re: X11R6.5.1? XFree86 4.0? Do I need them? (Christopher Browne)
Re: Distro change: To debian or SuSE ?? (Christopher Browne)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Douglas E. Mitton)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.hardware
Subject: ??:How To Read Multiple Data Tracks From A CD??
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 01:40:51 GMT
Hi All;
I'm trying to find out how to read multiple data tracks from a CD! If
I use "dd" I only get the first track. Do I need a separate program
to do this or can I give specific parameters to "dd" to do it. I
haven't been able to figure it out from the man page.
In particular, I'm trying to read the individual tracks listed when
you do a "cdrecord -toc" on a multisession CD.
Just as a side note I can read audio tracks off with cdda2wav, then
write them back to create a new audio CD. How do I do it with data?
Thanks in advance.
------------------------------------------------
Doug Mitton - Brockville, Ontario, Canada
'City of the Thousand Islands'
EMail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.cybertap.com/dmitton
Other: mitton.dyndns.org
SPAM Reduction: Remove "x." from my domain.
------------------------------------------------
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kenny McCormack)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.questions,comp.os.linux.x
Subject: RXVT: How to make its marking work with XClipboard (like XTERM does) ?
Date: 24 Aug 2000 19:47:40 -0500
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The problem: When I mark text in RXVT, I want the text to show up in
xclipboard (i.e., the application known as xclipboard). By default,
xclipboard doesn't pick up marked text (although that marked text is stored
internally in the clipboard).
For Xterm, somewhere along the way, a million years ago, someone suggested:
*VT100*translations: #override \
<BtnUp>:select-end(PRIMARY, CUT_BUFFER0, CLIPBOARD) \n\
and this works very well. However, it doesn't seem to do the trick for RXVT.
Anyone know how to do this in RXVT?
------------------------------
From: John Hasler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.aix,comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: NEWBIE-Shell scripting - When to use script variable vs. create tmp
file???
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 00:07:01 GMT
Grant Edwards writes:
> First make it work. Then make if faster
And more secure. Shellscripts that use tempfiles can create security
holes.
--
John Hasler
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dancing Horse Hill
Elmwood, Wisconsin
------------------------------
From: Eric Kristopher Sandall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: KDE and Gnome
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 13:36:39 -0700
On Thu, 24 Aug 2000, Juergen Neuhoff wrote:
> I have installed a Red Hat Linux 6.2 with the Gnome GUI.
> How can I also install the KDE and use both according
> to what I need at a given time?
>
> Juergen Neuhoff
This is assuming that you have a logon manager running (aka You get a
graphical prompt when RH loads asking for a name/pw).
Just install KDE in the usual way (RPM), and when you boot up there should
be an option on the (GUI) logon screen to choose which WM you want to use,
just select KDE or GNOME, that's how I do it on my system.
Eric Sandall
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://jet.homeip.net/
------------------------------
From: John-Paul Stewart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Vmware: booting os installed on raw disk under VM
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 01:36:35 GMT
"David B. van Balen" wrote:
>
> I'm currently running Windows off of a virtual disk under Vmware. Recently
> I decided it would be nice if I could install Windows onto the raw disk
> so that I could dual boot as well as running it in a VM.
> After doing some research on vmware's web site, I found out that while
> this is technically possible, a windows installation made from a virtual
> machine probably won't be directly bootable... it doesn't, however, say
> why, which I found annoying.
> I doubt that I'd be able to install windows (95/98, anyway) onto that
> partition at this stage without wiping out my Linux install, so being able
> to do the above would be very convenient for me.
>
> My question: has anyone been able to do the above? i.e. install windows on
> a raw disk using vmware and then boot it directly. If so, does anything
> need to be done other than adding the windows partition to lilo?
>
> TIA
It's not likely to work well since win 95/98 needs a VMWare-specific video
driver, network driver, printer driver, etc., when running in a virtual
machine. It needs hardware-specific drivers when running natively. You'd have
to constantly be changing device drivers (likely receiving those "New hardware
found" messages) when changing from VMWare to native.
In short, it'll be a huge headache to manage.
J-P Stewart
------------------------------
From: Robert Schweikert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: GNOME problem gazillion shells
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 21:37:08 -0400
I am running RH6.2 distro with some modifications, upgarded to GNOME 1.2
and ma using IceWm. Creating a number of shell windows on the desktop
and saving the set up results in the creation of a large number of shell
windows after I log out an log back in. I tried Enlightenment as WM and
Sawmill as WM, same problem, thus I think it's a GNOME problem does
anyone have an idea how to fix this?
Thanks,
Robert
--
Robert Schweikert MAY THE SOURCE BE WITH YOU
[EMAIL PROTECTED] LINUX
------------------------------
From: "Joseph T. Adams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.text.xml,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linux, XML, and assalting Windows
Date: 25 Aug 2000 01:38:50 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy mlw <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: This who XML hysteria worries me. We have people thinking that it is
: something other than a very inefficient text based file format. Example:
A lot of folks haven't quite grasped yet what the XML fuss is all
about. I'd like to try to explain it as best I can, as someone who's
new to the XML world myself, but VERY impressed by its potential.
XML is, at its core, a way of representing structured information (as
opposed to flatfile information) in a way that is very easily read by
both machines and humans, and very easily converted to/from other
formats.
It does for structured information (i.e. most information) what ASCII
did for plain text/character information.
As such, it opens up the possibility for different applications,
written using different languages, platforms, and philosophies,
separated by space *or* time, to communicate easily, in a standardized
way, and without necessarily having any direct knowledge of one
another, in a way that is not otherwise possible.
Virtually any kind of data that has a hierarchical or tree-like
structure (or, with the help of XML schemas, a relational structure)
can be expressed easily in XML. XML expresses not only the data but
the structure or metadata as well.
The possibilities are quite exciting. Sure, there's a lot of hype,
just as there was for Java and then Linux. Not all the hype is
justified. But a lot of it is. XML will be one of the building
blocks for a whole new world of (primarily) business-to-business
applications, the economic and political significance of which
potentially exceeds that of the entire Web as we know it today.
Fans of Linux and other free software should note that not only XML
itself, but nearly all of the related technologies (DOM, CSS, XSLT,
DTDs, SGML, etc.) are published, open, well-documented and carefully
developed standards, with reference implementations that are free and
open-source. Many free software projects are adopting XML-based file
formats.
XML is verbose, as your example shows. Most of the verboseness comes
from the repetition of information inside element tag names. This
does not result in inefficiency, since this kind of repeated
information is easily stripped out by any decent compression
algorithm. As a result, large XML files compress very well.
Because XML is a text format, not binary, it is inherently more
difficult to obfuscate XML-based formats, or to prevent reverse
engineering of them. It is true that Microsoft has been heavily
involved in the development of XML standards and related technology.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether it will follow these
standards. I believe Microsoft embraced XML because it wants to gain
and maintain a foothold in the burgeoning business-to-business
E-commerce world. In addition to M$, much more reputable companies
including IBM and Sun, as well as free software projects such as
Apache, KDE, Gnome, Mozilla, and numerous others, have embraced and/or
contributed to the development and promotion of XML and XML-based
technologies.
All modern programming languages, and even legacy languages such as
COBOL and VB, can create and process XML easily, and native XML
support is being added to many of them. Support for legacy languages
is important because it allows XML support to be added to legacy
applications, which then can communicate far more easily with the
outside world, in both directions.
XML is very cool stuff. I would really encourage you or anyone else
reading this to spend just a little bit of time checking it out.
Joe
(Mark's brief XML example follows - XML at its core really is this
simple!)
: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1" ?>
: <!DOCTYPE RESULTSET SYSTEM "http://fubar.com/fubar.dtd">
: <RESULTSET>
: <RESULT ID="0" >
: <MATCHES>0</MATCHES>
: <TIME>0.1605</TIME>
: <RATINGS>0</RATINGS>
: <MAXSCORE>2510</MAXSCORE>
: <SCORE>6947</SCORE>
: <SIZE>6536</SIZE>
: <LANGUAGE>_LANG1_</LANGUAGE>
: <DATE>957148708</DATE>
: <FORMAT>0</FORMAT>
: <MODDATE>0</MODDATE>
: </RESULT>
: </RESULTSET>
: That's all that XML is, nothing more. It can not replace programs, it is
: not a new concept in operating systems.
: --
: http://www.mohawksoft.com
------------------------------
From: "Alexander K" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: recompiled kernel (ufs support) errors
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 03:41:20 +0200
hello.
i just installed slack7.1 and then recompiled the 2.2.16 kernel.
deselected as much as possible, but included UFS support.
now i get these messages at boot when i try out the new kernel:
{
Sound initialization started
[AEDSP16] aedsp16_dsp_reset: failed!
AWE32: not detected
Sound initialization complete
}
it hangs and waits quite a while at the [AEDSP16... line.
whats it about?
and then this:
{
Partition check:
hda: hda1 hda2 < hda5 hda6 hda7 > hda3! hda4! < hda8 hda9 >
VFS: Can't find a valid MSDOS filesystem on dev 03:03.
}
i take it 03:03 is hda3, which is formatted as a FreeBSD ufs slice.
why is it even looking for a MSDOS partition there???
further it writes this:
{
You didn't specify the type of your ufs filesystem
mount -t ufs -o ufstype=sun|sunx86|44bsd|old|nextstep|netxstep-cd|openstep
...
>>>WARNING<<< Wrong ufstype may corrupt your filesystem, default is
ufstype=old
ufstype=old is supported read-only
ufs_read_super: bad magic number
}
whats this about???
where do i specify the type of the ufs?
i know that i am supposed to do that when i manually mount,
but that also doesnt work.
like this:
{
[root ~]# mount -t ufs -o ufstype=44bsd /dev/hda3 /bsd
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda3,
or too many mounted file systems
}
anyone got any ideas on this?
thanks in adv. / alex k
ps. partitiontable as reported by fdisk
and contents of /proc/filesystems
Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 1650 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 765 6144831 b Win95 FAT32
/dev/hda2 766 1147 3068415 5 Extended
/dev/hda3 1148 1529 3068415 a5 BSD/386
/dev/hda4 1530 1650 971932+ a5 BSD/386
/dev/hda5 766 766 8001 83 Linux native
/dev/hda6 767 770 32098+ 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda7 771 1147 3028221 83 Linux native
ext2
vfat
nodev proc
iso9660
ufs
nodev autofs
nodev devpts
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Grant Edwards)
Crossposted-To: comp.unix.aix,comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: NEWBIE-Shell scripting - When to use script variable vs. create tmp
file???
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 01:43:59 GMT
In article <kuip5.37$Oe.1382@burlma1-snr2>, Barry Margolin wrote:
>In article <_Xgp5.7578$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>Grant Edwards <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>Under any decent OS (Linux included), operations on a tempfile
>>are, in practice, done on a block of memory in the buffer
>>cache.
>
>Except that closing a file typically starts flushing it to disk.
I don't think Linux acts that way. For smaller programs I can run makes
that generated handfuls of temp files, and if the machine isn't busy it all
happens in memory with almost no disk activity at all.
>What you describe is likely only if /tmp is mounted on a ram-disk (e.g.
>Solaris "tmpfs").
--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! Isn't this my STOP?!
at
visi.com
------------------------------
From: "Joseph T. Adams" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.text.xml,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linux, XML, and assalting Windows
Date: 25 Aug 2000 01:51:50 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy Matthias Warkus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: It was the 24 Aug 2000 10:43:56 -0600...
: ...and Craig Kelley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
:> Take a look at MacOS X Bundles:
: [schnipp]
:> Linux is halfway there already with RPM and deb; but the ultimate goal
:> is to just get rid of them.
: Uh-oh, I feel another flamewar coming up on NeXTish .app encapsulation
: vs. the classic Unix way of spreading an application out over bin,
: lib, share etc...
Yuck. :(
I can certainly see major pros and cons to each approach. What I
can't see is why we couldn't combine the best features of each.
Example: program Foo contains an install script or makefile target
that can put its code, classes, libraries, and other needed files
either in (a) the traditional Unix places, or (b) a single,
user-designated place such as /opt/Foo or /usr/share/Foo. Optionally,
the script also can make soft or hard links to the other. It keeps a
record of what was done during the install, knows how to find the file
containing this record, and can use it to un-do the install if
necessary.
While this doesn't solve the dependency problem, and thus doesn't
replace the need for packaging systems such as *BSD ports or .debs or
RPMs, it *would* seem to me to make life far easier for sysadmins,
especially amateur sysadmins (which comprise by now the vast majority
of Linux users).
And aside from the very minor issue of a few wasted inodes and the
need to come up with suitable scripts, I can't think of any major
drawbacks.
Am I missing something here?
Joe
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Stewart Honsberger)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.os.os2.networking.misc
Subject: Local network with lots of arp who-has traffic
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 01:52:49 GMT
[Note: Followup-To set to the group I read most thoroughly]
Our local network, comprised currently of a Rogers@Home cable modem being
gated (NAT) through an OS/2 Warp 4 machine w/ 2 NICs to our LAN via a 5-port
hub. The machines residing on the LAN are the Warp 4 machine, my SuSE 6.4
machine, and a Win'98SE machine. (There also exists a Win'95 machine, but
it's rarely ever on - including now when I'm experiencing this problem).
The NAT is being handled by the InJoy Firewall for OS/2 (Registered for,
I believe, 5 IPs).
Every so often we get spontaneous traffic being generated (broadcast
traffic) requesting the MAC address of 192.168.0.164 - a machine we
currently don't have on our (192.168.0.0/8 class "C") private LAN.
Here's a snippet of the traffic as reported by 'tcpdump' on my Linux
box. For the record, 'tinys.cx' is the NAT/Gateway machine;
21:41:16.995858 arp who-has 192.168.0.164 tell tinys.cx
21:41:17.299962 arp who-has 192.168.0.164 tell tinys.cx
21:41:17.300338 arp who-has 192.168.0.164 tell tinys.cx
21:41:19.008545 arp who-has 192.168.0.164 tell tinys.cx
21:41:19.317633 arp who-has 192.168.0.164 tell tinys.cx
21:41:20.335058 arp who-has 192.168.0.164 tell tinys.cx
21:41:21.035186 arp who-has 192.168.0.164 tell tinys.cx
21:41:21.340692 arp who-has 192.168.0.164 tell tinys.cx
21:41:23.060216 arp who-has 192.168.0.164 tell tinys.cx
21:41:25.079465 arp who-has 192.168.0.164 tell tinys.cx
21:41:25.379148 arp who-has 192.168.0.164 tell tinys.cx
21:41:26.391733 arp who-has 192.168.0.164 tell tinys.cx
21:41:27.103918 arp who-has 192.168.0.164 tell tinys.cx
As you can see, it's happening quite often; averaging about twice per
second. Now, our 10BaseT network doesn't have a very high traffif load,
nor do we require vast amounts of free bandwidth in a way that the odd
128byte packets and 64byte replies (as far as I can tell from watching
my eth0 monitor, anyways) would bother us, but I greatly dislike unknown
sources of traffic being generated.
Being somewhat unfamiliar with the internal workings of a NAT program,
I'm not sure if this is related to the way the IPs are being translated
by the gateway?
Anyways, I'd be greatful for any input anybody could come up with. Thanks
in advance.
--
Stewart Honsberger (AKA Blackdeath) @ http://tinys.cx/blackdeath
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Remove 'thirteen' to reply privately)
Humming along under SuSE 6.4, Linux 2.4.0-test6
------------------------------
From: Garry Knight <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Where to install apps on Linux system?
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 01:02:47 +0100
On Thu, 24 Aug 2000, David Dorward wrote:
>The root directory is really the home directory of the root user.
Strictly speaking, the /root directory is root's home. At least, it is on my
Mandrake 7.1 distro. I think the original poster meant / when he said "root
directory".
--
Garry Knight
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: Garry Knight <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: If XWin hang, how to kill it
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 00:40:03 +0100
On Thu, 24 Aug 2000, Peter T. Breuer wrote:
>(I'm still vagoue about the difference between tErm and
>kIll or whatever. I think one kills all tasks and one kills the ones
>attached to your tty.
Doesn't one send a SIGTERM and the other a SIGKILL to *all* running tasks?
--
Garry Knight
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: Garry Knight <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: XWindow Managers
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 01:06:51 +0100
On Thu, 24 Aug 2000, paul simdars wrote:
[re lost window title bar]
>GNOME with Enlightenment. The .Xdefaults files don't seem to mean much to
>me. I did rename the one in my user account and copied the one from my root
>account into my user directory and nothing different.
>I did try to look in control-center and nothing seems to apply. I come to the
>end of my rope so often in Linux.
When you say "control-center", do you mean the Enlightenment Configuration
Editor? The one you get to from Main Menu > Settings > Desktop > Window Manager?
I run KDE, so I can't tell you exactly where or how to fix the problem.
Having the title bar on or off is an option in Enlightenment, IIRC. If you
can't find a way of changing it in the Configuration Editor, try clicking the
desktop with either mouse button, with or without Ctrl and Alt. I think one of
these combinations comes up with a menu where you can configure your window
settings.
It's there somewhere, but you'll need to let some more rope out... :o)
--
Garry Knight
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: James Linder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: lilo + big disks - help
Date: 25 Aug 2000 01:59:41 GMT
Hi
Is this solvable?
I have a quantum 15G lct disk CHS 29104/16/63
Bios is set for LBA giving a partition table of
1 1 261 win98
2 393 654 linux /
3 655 686 swap
4 687 1826 linux /home
dmesg STILL reports 29104/16/63
At boot lilo says
LI
so I tried linear and this make continious 01 01's
I don't really want a C: small enough for lilo < 1024 and a D: for the
w98.
Why won't the kernel see the c/h/s set by LBA.
(other disks do report the LBA setting for smaller disks ie 4G)
Is there a solution or must I do the c: d: solution?
Thanks
James
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux,comp.text.xml,comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linux, XML, and assalting Windows
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 02:03:55 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when paul snow would say:
>Here is a few observations:
>
>Linux on the desktop (and as a server) requires it to beat Windows XXX hands
>down for ease of configuration, security, and management.
>
>Installing software is simply the act of constructing in storage a proper
>representation of the software. In other words, our talking about
>installing software on a computer is like a painter insisting she is
>installing a picture of a duck onto her painting. It doesn't matter how she
>does it, she is rendering the duck, not installing it.
>
>We need to get rid of install programs, on all platforms. There isn't
>another single thing we do on computers that causes more in dollars and time
>(Solitaire *is* a close second, however ;-).
>
>XML can be used to define a program in abstract. A single, separate
>Software Rendering Facility can be used to take a program's abstract form in
>XML and render it to the target computer system.
>
>XML can be used to capture the options required for this rendering.
>
>XML can be used to refer to a group of programs in abstract (XML), and their
>options (XML), in order to define a single definition that can be expressed
>in different ways on different computer systems to construct an operational,
>distributed application. (Unlike today, where we have to install every web
>server, every firewall, every Java JDK, every etc. all from scratch, with
>one mistake preventing any of it from working!)
>
>This discussion about how XML might be used along with Linux to create a new
>concept in Operating Systems is beginning. We have the technology and the
>know how. We just have to take our computer system, set it on its side and
>view it a bit differently. This technology is going to completely change
>the rules of software configuration, management, and security, and you can
>make it happen.
>
> http://www.egroups.com/group/xmlos/
> http://www.egroups.com/subscribe/xmlos/
>
>Paul Snow
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Go design your "XMLOS," and be happy.
If you feel that there is some value in using Linux as the kernel for
your "XMLOS," that's well and good.
Here are a few more observations:
- There is _NO_ requirement that Linux "beats" Windows XXX; if Linux
happens to be a _useful_ OS kernel, and if systems constructed on
that kernel happen to be _useful_, they will get used.
- I suggest that you not talk about "installing ducks;" if you
actually have a point to make about installation, it will be better
made by demonstrating the point, not by making vague analogies.
- You seem to have fallen into the trap of believing all the hype
about XML. Yes, XML can be used to "express anything," but the same
is just as true of ASCII as well as of S-expressions.
If you want to use data-driven programs, I suggest you consider
looking at Open Genera, which is just such a system. If the fact
that it uses Lisp scares you, then that probably means that _real_
data driven programming is far too scary for you to be able to cope
with.
In any case, the discussion certainly belongs elsewhere than
*.linux.*.
--
(concatenate 'string "cbbrowne" "@" "acm.org")
<http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
The people's revolutionary committee has decided that the name "e" is
retrogressive, unmulticious and reactionary, and has been flushed.
Please update your abbrevs.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Subject: Re: X11R6.5.1? XFree86 4.0? Do I need them?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 02:03:56 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Andrew Purugganan would
say:
>I have an old 233Mhz PC with a Diamond Stealth+Voodoo1 card, so it
>may not be worth the trouble or time-to-download.
X11R6.5.1 is a brand spanking new sample release that probably doesn't
support your graphics card, and which certainly hasn't had the
"systems integration" work done to make it usable to anyone that is
not comfortable with compiling X from scratch.
The same is true, though arguably somewhat less so, for XFree86 4.0.1.
I'd suggest waiting for XFree86 4.0.x until some time in the fall as
installation tools start to mature.
--
(concatenate 'string "aa454" "@" "freenet.carleton.ca")
<http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/>
"I've run DOOM more in the last few days than I have the last few
months. I just love debugging ;-)" -- Linus Torvalds
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Subject: Re: Distro change: To debian or SuSE ??
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 02:04:06 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Kyle Parfrey would say:
>First of all I don't want to know what the "best" distribution is, so
>don't start on that :)!
>I am currently using Caldera 2.4, but am considering changing distro
>due to some problems. I am by no means an experienced linux user, having
>only about 3 weeks use time but am thinking of trying debian , partly because
>I hear it has a program that eradicates the annoying dependancy problems
>with rpms.
>
>Some questions:
>Is debian as hard as they say?
If you're scared of command lines, then perhaps.
If you're not afraid of seeing stuff that is _not_ graphical, it
should not be considered dauntingly difficult.
>Does the apt-get program work?
Absolutely.
>Can debian use rpm and is it easy to get .deb packages?
There _is_ a package called "alien" that translates RPM files into
.deb form and vice-versa; it may be reasonable to use it for
_applications_, but it is _not_ terribly satisfactory for use with
libraries and other lower level "system stuff."
I've used alien to take RPMs for the SAP R/3 presentation server and
run it on Debian; works fine.
I wouldn't even _think_ about trying to install GNOME via translating
RPMs into .deb form; that would be _insane._
A _better_ answer is to not need to translate at all, but rather use
applications compiled and packaged for use with Debian. There are a
_HUGE_ number of applications packaged by interested people for use
with Debian, and that sort of stuff is readily available whether from
"official" sources (e.g. - ftp.debian.org, www.debian.org, and mirrors
thereof), or from other sites. See:
<http://www.internatif.org/bortzmeyer/debian/apt-sources/>
>General: is it good?
Not to be too Clintonesque (which meaning of "the" are you talking
about? :-)), but it all depends on what metrics you have for "good."
>A review in kclinux.com talks of a "commercial version" including 3 cd's
>and a book. Where can this be got, a vendor in europe is needed as I
>live in Ireland. I would be looking for Debian 2.2
Look for some options at:
<http://www.debian.org/distrib/vendors#uk>
You can get an "Official Debian 2.2" package with 3 CDs for 3 pounds
from <http://tree.uk.com>
This doesn't include the "Installing Debian" book from O'Reilly that
comes with the "boxed set" produced by VA Linux Systems, but I hope
you can locate books through other means.
>Other than that I see that SuSE are about to launch a new version.
>Thinking of that also.
SuSE 7 is coming shortly; it has a whole _barrel_ of software with it,
coming with, in the "boxed" form, about 6 CDs full of stuff.
Probably the _best_ way of deciding is to look around and see if there
are people nearby in Ireland running one or another system that would
be willing to be of some assistance when you run into things you don't
quite understand.
OpenBSD is a (non-Linux) system that is often considered somewhat
daunting to get installed; if you had a friend locally that could help
you out, that "scary" choice could well be the best one for you
because the "daunting" parts are overcome by having someone that can
help you past them.
--
(concatenate 'string "aa454" "@" "freenet.carleton.ca")
<http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/>
"I've run DOOM more in the last few days than I have the last few
months. I just love debugging ;-)" -- Linus Torvalds
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