Linux-Misc Digest #121, Volume #26 Mon, 23 Oct 00 14:13:04 EDT
Contents:
Re: Microsoft Linux? (Leonard Evens)
Re: Memory clean up (Jean-David Beyer)
Re: install under /home or /usr/local (Andreas =?iso-8859-1?Q?K=E4h=E4ri?=)
Re: Mapping SSH IP Clients (Jean-David Beyer)
Re: Problems with floppy (Henrik Carlqvist)
HELP: Boot / HD problem ("Bernd Rellinghaus")
Looking for programs? (Doug Angus)
Dial into Linux to access Internet through high speed connection
([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Looking for programs? (Andreas =?iso-8859-1?Q?K=E4h=E4ri?=)
problems with screen and redhat 6.2 ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: secure bootup phase (lilo,boot) (NAVARRO LOPEZ, =?iso-8859-1?Q?Jes=FAs?= Manuel)
Re: Maximum swap partition size? (NAVARRO LOPEZ, =?iso-8859-1?Q?Jes=FAs?= Manuel)
Problem Building Ghostscript on RH6.1 (Steve)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Leonard Evens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Microsoft Linux?
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 11:37:53 -0500
"David .." wrote:
>
> Linux isn't about world control like M$ is (though many may disagree),
> it is about freedom of choice and control of your system. As long as
> Linux and it's distributors make a powerful & stable system then linux
> will be a contender for M$ to deal with.
>
> I for one don't see where M$ will ever make .NET fly. What are their
> users going to do when the servers go down and all of the "service"
> users can't access their files? When I used M$ products I bought a
> program and used it for years. I still have the programs though now they
> just collect dust. I wouldn't have paid any software company a monthly
> fee for their service. I never did like IE so why should I be forced to
> have it on my system? Now I can download and install what I need for my
> system for free if I choose to. I am no longer tied to M$'s upgrade
> scheme and have a more powerful & stable system to show for it. Not only
> does my system do everything I need it to do, it also has a webserver,
> mail server, Proxy server, DNS, firewall, runs multiple seti@home work
> units, and a few other things and still has power to do much more since
> it is a "true" multi-user multi-tasking system.
>
> If you want a system to play games you buy a toy.
> If you want a system to get things done and not crash you either buy or
> download a linux distribution and install what you want or need not what
> someone shoves down your throat. If I need to install it on 2 systems??
> No problem I don't need to buy a second CD or license to do it. BTW it
> would be a little bit expensive since I have 4 systems running linux.
>
> For years M$ has tried to make it so that everyone needs M$ products
> with their embrace and extinguish tactics and now everyone has a choice.
> Linux isn't for everyone and many may run both linux and M$. I for one
> don't need M$ anymore.
I agree with you that Linux users should not be interested in
destroying Microsoft. But we should be interested in open
standards which don't require the use of Microsoft products to
participate the larger world of computing. Soimething has to
happen to put the fear of God into Microsoft, or they will continue
their monopolistic predatory practices. The only thing I see
at present that will do it is Judge Jackson's breakup order.
But we know pretty much that the fix is in on that when it gets
to the appeals court and maybe also at the level of the Supreme
Court. At some point the whole Microsoft dominated system is
going to collapse under its own weight. But it is not clear
that a healthy Linux will still be there to recoup when that
happens.
>
> --
> Confucius say: He who play in root, eventually kill tree.
> Registered with the Linux Counter. http://counter.li.org
> ID # 123538
--
Leonard Evens [EMAIL PROTECTED] 847-491-5537
Dept. of Mathematics, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL 60208
------------------------------
From: Jean-David Beyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Memory clean up
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 13:02:42 -0400
Andreas K�h�ri wrote:
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Mark Guzzo wrote:
> >Question,
> >
> >When I run Netscape and StarOffice 5.2 (just using them as an example) I
> >end up using all of my RAM(128M) and about 64M Swap out of 256M.
>
> Ok, those applications are notorious memory hogs.
>
> >After I close Netscape and StarOffice and even run gtop to make sure all
> >sure process for the two are closed, the memory is still all used up. Is
> >there any app that will release the memory like there is for Window$?
That is normal. Linux uses all the memory available to it. If memory is
needed and some idle process is not using it, the idle process is swapped
out. When memory is freed, the idle processes are not automatically brought
back in (unless they become active again). Linux tends to use all available
memory for IO buffers and cache (which may be IO buffers for executable
program text, or something; I have never gotten a definitive answer to the
question of what it was.).
> You're not confusing "buffered" and "cached" memory with "used"
> memory, are you? Also, swapped out programs and data won't be
> "swapped in" again until they're needed. That might be why the swap
> is still used.
>
> What does the 'free' command say
>
> 1. Before staring those applications.
> 2. Before quitting the applications (using the quit/exit commands in
> their menus, not by killing their windows).
> 3. After quitting the applications.
>
> It *is* possible there's a memory leak in either SO or NS.
Memory leaks in Unix (unless in the kernel, and I do not notice any of
those) are far less pernicious than in the most popular operating system. In
Unix (and Linux), once the offending process exits, it frees all the leaked
memory, so the system gets it back. I could imagine one exception to this,
and I very much doubt that Netscape has it (and I do not suppose StarOffice
has it, but I do not know about that), and that would be if it ran a bunch
of cooperating sequential processes communicating with shared memory. If
those processes all allocated shared memory, and failed to free it, that
could be considered a leak. But the ipcrm command can be used to free it and
ipcs can be used to detect it. Netscape does not seem to use any shared
memory
--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ Registered Machine 73926.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey
^^-^^ 12:55pm up 13 days, 18:32, 3 users, load average: 2.07, 2.09, 2.08
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Andreas =?iso-8859-1?Q?K=E4h=E4ri?=)
Subject: Re: install under /home or /usr/local
Date: 23 Oct 2000 19:03:39 +0100
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Anderw G. Bacchi wrote:
>This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
>--------------77CB35184E7D3D58DB5B6C82
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>Is there any opinion regarding where applications or databases are
>installed? Is there any reason whether to install under /usr/local or
>/home? Thanks
>
>A
Home directories goes into "/home", locally installed software goes
into "/usr/local". Please, *please*, read the Filesystem Hierarchy
Standard (FHS) at <URL:http://www.pathname.com/fhs/>.
/A
--
Andreas K�h�ri,
Uppsala University, Sweden.
================================================================
Debian GNU/Linux, the choice of a GNU generation.
------------------------------
From: Jean-David Beyer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mapping SSH IP Clients
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 13:04:43 -0400
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have a Linux RH6.2 running SSH server + remote Database access.
> Then, all people connect to server using SSH client + a general
> user account and password.
That is a bad idea. Each user should have his own login and password.
> After this, if I run "who | grep <user> | wc -l" I know how many
> users are currently connected.
Why not just run who?
> Now, I would like to know where the users are connecting from ...
> I need this information to map what are the users currently connected.
If each user had an individual login and password, this would be trivial,
would it not?
> But I don't know how to do this and I would like to know if SSH gives
> this information for me.
>
> Thanks for any help,
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ Registered Machine 73926.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey
^^-^^ 1:00pm up 13 days, 18:37, 2 users, load average: 2.08, 2.09, 2.08
------------------------------
From: Henrik Carlqvist <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.hardware
Subject: Re: Problems with floppy
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 20:48:51 +0200
Filipe Bonjour wrote:
> root 2 % mke2fs /dev/fd0
> mke2fs 1.18, 11-Nov-1999 for EXT2 FS 0.5b, 95/08/09
> mke2fs: Device not configured while trying to determine filesystem
> size
>
> root 3 % mkbootdisk 2.2.14-5.0
> Insert a disk in /dev/fd0. Any information on the disk will be lost.
> Press <Enter> to continue or ^C to abort:
> mount: /dev/fd0 is not a valid block device
>
> Does that mean that the drive is physically damaged? Doesn't sound
> like it to me.
It may be because the floppy isn't formatted:
fdformat /dev/fd0
Or, if that doesn't work:
fdformat /dev/fd0u1440
Then you should be able to put a filesystem or a kernel on the floppy.
regards Henrik
--
spammer strikeback:
root@localhost
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: "Bernd Rellinghaus" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: HELP: Boot / HD problem
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 19:13:44 +0200
Hi there,
I have a problem with booting my notebook (Gericom Silver
Seraph) that is installed for dual boot (Windows98 / Linux):
Normal boot is no longer possible and the system tells me:
<No Operating System>. I cannot boot from the hard disk,
nor can I access it via DOS or Windows utilities. (LILO is
supposed to do the boot job and is thus installed in the MBR
[and it worked well for more than half a year]).
However I CAN boot via Linux boot disk to start linux on the
hard disk. (Trying the same with Windows98 results in an
error message: <Error: 0x01>). Now, here comes the
question: During the (Linux) boot sequence I obtain a message
from the partition check program saying:
< hda: [PTBL] [789/255/63] hda1 hda2 ..... >.
Does anybody now what this means??? (Probably, it wants to
tell me that the partition table is somehow corrupt!?). Attempts
to re-install LILO or to re-write the actual partition table (error
message: <... Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table. Re-read
table failed with error 16: Device or resource busy. ...>)
I would appreciate you sending me any regarding informations!
Thanx in advance,
Bernie.
========================================================================
Dr. Bernd Rellinghaus
Experimentelle Tieftemperaturphysik
Gerhard Mercator Universitaet Duisburg
Lotharstr. 1 (ME 349)
47048 Duisburg,Germany
phone: +49 203 379 2076
fax: +49 203 379 2098
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
WWW: http://ttphysik.uni-duisburg.de/html/personal/brell/
========================================================================
------------------------------
From: Doug Angus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Looking for programs?
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 13:22:56 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
I'm looking to download several programs to play .avi, mpeg, and/or .mp3
files. Anyone know if there exist such programs and if so which are
preferred.
Thanks,
Doug
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Dial into Linux to access Internet through high speed connection
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 17:16:46 GMT
I have a Linux box connected to the Internet through a DSL line. I have
set up mgetty so that I can dial into my Linux box and log on. Can I
set up Linux so that I can access the Internet through the DSL
connection on my Linux box when I dial in from outside my office using a
Windows machine?
Thanks for any help.
Scott
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Andreas =?iso-8859-1?Q?K=E4h=E4ri?=)
Subject: Re: Looking for programs?
Date: 23 Oct 2000 19:37:40 +0100
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Doug Angus wrote:
>I'm looking to download several programs to play .avi, mpeg, and/or .mp3
>files. Anyone know if there exist such programs and if so which are
>preferred.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Doug
>
I'm boring person that doesn't watch movies on the computer, but I do
know that there are programs for showing them.
Go to Freshmeat at <URL:http://freshmeat.net/> and go into their
"appindex" and look for "X11" and then choose either the "Viewers" or
"TV and Video" categories.
/A
--
Andreas K�h�ri,
Uppsala University, Sweden.
================================================================
Debian GNU/Linux, the choice of a GNU generation.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: problems with screen and redhat 6.2
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 17:54:22 GMT
I am having trouble using the unix command "screen". I'm running a
data mining program which takes hours to run, and I want to start the
process in my office, leave, and then connect to it from home. I
thought that I could use screen to start a shell, then start my program,
detach it, go home, and reattach, but I can never seem to reattach; the
program is running (I can see it with ps -aux), and so is SCREEEN. How
do I reattach to it?
I've tried detaching to a session name, and I've tried the cntrol a
control d method to detach. ~/.screen is a directory that gets created,
and it contains a file (8809.pts-0.myhost for the example that follows).
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks,
Mike Tie
P.S. Here's an example of what I'm trying
myhost> screen
myhost> datamine data1
output ...
<cntrl a><cntrl d>
[detached]
myhost> ps -aux | grep mtie
root 8703 0.0 2.1 2240 1356 pts/0 S 12:39 0:00 login --
mtie
mtie 8705 0.0 2.2 2404 1432 pts/0 S 12:39 0:00 -csh
mtie 8809 97.8 1.7 2100 1120 ? R 12:40 3:06 SCREEN
mtie 8810 0.0 1.8 2248 1152 pts/2 S 12:40 0:00 -bin/csh
mtie 8824 0.3 1.0 1388 668 pts/2 S 12:40 0:00 datamine
data1
mtie 8939 0.0 1.3 2532 872 pts/0 R 12:43 0:00 ps -aux
mtie 8940 0.0 0.8 1360 508 pts/0 S 12:43 0:00 grep mtie
myhost> screen -r
There is no screen to be resumed.
myhost> screen -r 8809
There is no screen to be resumed matching 8809.
myhost> screen -r 8809.pts-0.atanasoff
There is no screen to be resumed matching 8809.pts-0.myhost.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: NAVARRO LOPEZ, =?iso-8859-1?Q?Jes=FAs?= Manuel
Subject: Re: secure bootup phase (lilo,boot)
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 19:05:09 +0200
Christoph Kukulies wrote:
>
> I found that one can introduce a lilo password and other countermeasures
> against users getting root access but one can simple bail out
> linux during fsck by hitting ^C.
>
> Does anyone know where to put an according trap to the interrupt signal
> and possibly other (Quit) signals in the rc files, to close this backdoor
> also?
>
This seems to me a "good question-bad answer" case. If you are worried
about somebody reaching your box, either on boot time or any other
moment, then you're worried about *physical* security. Don't think you
will be able to trap *any* software interruption *any* case, but
probably you won't. You migth find a solution for your 'fsck' problem,
but then, most probably will arrive any other circumstance when a shell
is returned on some moment. I think the general approach here is using
physical security.
--
SALUD,
Jes�s
***
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
***
------------------------------
From: NAVARRO LOPEZ, =?iso-8859-1?Q?Jes=FAs?= Manuel
Subject: Re: Maximum swap partition size?
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 19:44:53 +0200
Jean-David Beyer wrote:
>
> "Timothy J. Lee" wrote:
>
> > What is the maximum swap partition size of 2.2 kernels? 2.4 kernels?
>
> I do not know, but I wonder how much swap space I really need. I have
> 512Megabytes of main memory on this machine, and two 127Megabyte swap
> partitions. I seem to use 7 to 12 Megabytes of swap with this, so, as a
> practical matter, 273 Megabytes total is probably enough. ;-)
>
That means probably you're not using swap at all, but they're processes
like init or the like that simply are completly unused.
> On my other machine, which has only 64Megabytes of main memory, and two
> 127Megabyte swap partitions, I seem to use 5 to 10 Megabytes out of 288
> Megabytes total. These are today's numbers. They vary some, mostly slightly
> more than today.
>
Which probably means your system *almost* don't use swap at all, but
from time to time. Which by the way is my own experience: my box *used*
to be on RAM till I went with some memory hoghs like
Gnome+Sawfish+StarOffice+Communicator, and then I went to 128MB (well it
was the other way down: I had to upgrade to 128MB for some other
reasons, so I started to use memory hoghs since now I can). With 128MB
my system (you see a typical desktop system with all the bells and
whistles) doesn't touch swap almost never: still on non-using-swap
systems you will usually see a 4 to 7 MB fingerprint on swap.
> I frequently see the recommendation to use about twice as much swap space
> as you have main memory. This does not make sense. If I doubled the amount
> of memory on this machine, with approximately the same workload, I would
> expect the swapping to go down, not up, and that I would need less, if
> anything, swap space on disk. In other words, I do not think the amount of
> swap space required is properly specified as a fraction (usually greater
> than one) of the amount of RAM. It must be that if a formula is required, I
> am afraid it should include the total memory requirements of the maximum
> number of programs that need to run at the same time. It could be a pain to
> come up with that number.
>
Well, I think it is the Red Hat install Guide (but I'm not so sure) the
one that states *this* is the way to stablish who much swap do you need
and, obviously, this is just common sense: SWAP is like RAM but in your
hard disk, so you need as much RAM+SWAP as the memory needed for your
worst case. Still it can greatly simplied by another common-sense
calculus. While you should need as much RAM+SWAP as the sum of the
programs you need to run on a given moment, still you have (via 'top'
command) a notation of your system's fingerprint on almost 'idle' state
(given by your kernel and daemons always running). Now, you choose the
two-three hughest programs on your system (usually X related, like the
XWindow itself, window/desktop manager and maybe things like Netscape,
StarOffice or the like). Then you can get top again and see what's
going to the swap: as soon as some "crytical" app goes to swap (and for
crytical I mean *rrrreally* critical, like some daemon you know has to
answer fast to queries, or *relatively critical* in the sense that are
interactively used, like StarOffice or Netscape or any other you will
need to use fluently from console) you know you need more RAM, even if
there's still plenty of swap, so usually, how much swap is not the
question, but how much RAM, since you will blame heaven and hell when a
process you want/need to use immediatly is on swap, no matter if there's
plenty.
--
SALUD,
Jes�s
***
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
***
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Steve)
Subject: Problem Building Ghostscript on RH6.1
Date: 23 Oct 2000 19:05:19 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Hi
I'm building ghostscript so that I can use an unsupported printer.
Even without the nonstandard .c file I get the following error:
./obj/echogs -w ./obj/ldt.tr -n - gcc -fno-common -o ./bin/gs
./obj/echogs -a ./obj/ldt.tr -n -s ./obj/gs.o -s
cat ./obj/ld.tr >>./obj/ldt.tr
./obj/echogs -a ./obj/ldt.tr -s - -lpthread -lm
LD_RUN_PATH=; export LD_RUN_PATH; \
XCFLAGS= XINCLUDE= XLDFLAGS= XLIBDIRS= XLIBS= \
FEATURE_DEVS= DEVICE_DEVS= DEVICE_DEVS1= DEVICE_DEVS2= DEVICE_DEVS3= \
DEVICE_DEVS4= DEVICE_DEVS5= DEVICE_DEVS6= DEVICE_DEVS7= DEVICE_DEVS8= \
DEVICE_DEVS9= DEVICE_DEVS10= DEVICE_DEVS11= DEVICE_DEVS12= \
DEVICE_DEVS13= DEVICE_DEVS14= DEVICE_DEVS15= DEVICE_DEVS16= \
DEVICE_DEVS17= DEVICE_DEVS18= DEVICE_DEVS19= DEVICE_DEVS20= \
/bin/sh <./obj/ldt.tr
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lXt
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [bin/gs] Error 1
I've been through the docs and made changes to the makefile as suggested
but still keep getting exactly the same problem.
I'd be grateful if anyone has any knowledge of this problem or even a
fix.
--
Cheers
Steve email mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
%HAV-A-NICEDAY Error not enough coffee 0 pps.
web http://www.zeropps.uklinux.net/
or http://start.at/zero-pps
6:57pm up 12 days, 20:17, 2 users, load average: 1.01, 1.05, 1.28
------------------------------
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End of Linux-Misc Digest
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