Linux-Misc Digest #886, Volume #27 Thu, 17 May 01 14:13:02 EDT
Contents:
Re: Frustrated -- detailed explanation of my job for SO ("Christopher R. Carlen")
Re: URGENT: Simple RPM problem! (Christopher Albert)
Re: WP Office2000/Hancom Office/Applixware? (John Hong)
Re: MIDI in Netscape??? (fred smith)
Re: Console WAV player wanted (Silviu Minut)
Re: System.map and multiple kernel versions. (Jason Lott)
Re: Losing free diskspace on nothing? (Stephen Rank)
Re: PCMCIA Modem and Linuix ("TitoAnee")
Re: Star Office -- I give up ("Christopher R. Carlen")
Freeing RAM/swap memory. ("Kalimuthu Pothi")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Christopher R. Carlen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Frustrated -- detailed explanation of my job for SO
Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 07:53:50 -0700
Michael Perry wrote:
> Well, I guess it depends on the definition of "work". Some of the work you
> have defined could probably be done with a variety of Linux tools; but I
> venture to guess not as easily with some other tools. My work these days is
> probably not terribly demanding for Linux applications to deal with. I tend
> to edit a document in StarOffice, print it, perhaps embed a spreadsheet as a
> table or drawing. I don't do mailing labels so I cannot help there; but on
> a whim have you searched at freshmeat for an application that would do what
> you want? Here is what I found. I don't have time myself to investigate
> each one; but you tell me...
>
> http://freshmeat.net/projects/labelnation/
> http://freshmeat.net/projects/slap/
The first one is a command line interface for printing on labels.
Doesn't seem like the right thing for preparing labels with complex
graphics.
The second seems to be designed to print on some dedicated label
printing hardware by Seiko.
> But the real thing here is not the tool or what you need to "bend" to get a
> tool to work. The real thing here is finding the right tool. I am convinced
> that computers solve problems for us; but they also cause more problems to
> crop up. Some people may write applications to deal with it; others may
> choose another reality. My reality is that I use the tool that works the
> best for the job I need done.
>
> If I need something which I know beforehand that Star Presents cannot do, I
> tend to boot into win4lin and do it. I don't like disappointment because it
> takes time away from being productive. This to me is not selling out. Its
> simply locating what will make finishing the job easier and then
> implementing it. I understand the frustration. In a lot of ways, I am
> frustrated with things like StarOffice and its insistence that you use its
> crummy desktop manager to launch programs. I would use a tool like applix
> but even the latest one seems rather primitive for some things. All in all,
> the native linux version of WP was good.
I think Star Office is the right tool for my job in this case for a
number of reasons. I will explain exactly what I'm trying to do.
I have a metal electronics rack panel 19"W x 3.5"H in which I have
machined some holes to mount electronic controls and displays. I need
to label this panel in a manner that looks very professional. Consumer
label makers are inappropriate. I have a few options: Laquer decals,
clear laser labels, or send it out to be silkscreened. The final option
isn't valid because it takes a few weeks, and I want it done in a few
days in house. Either of the first two options require computer
printing.
To prepare the labels, I need to visualize exactly how the text will
appear on the panel before printing the labels. Thus, I need to be able
to draw a rendition of the panel with its cutouts, etc., and show how
the text will appear on the panel, to make optimal choices of font,
size, positioning, etc.
It seems that the appropriate tool for this problem is a drawing
program, and it better have good features for precision drawing. Of the
drawing programs I have seen, SO Draw has the best precision drawing
features. The only thing better would be a CAD program. However, the
reason SO is better than a CAD program, is because with SO, I can copy
the resulting drawing objects into the wordprocessor with labels for
printing. You see, after rendering a model of the panel, I still have
to print the text objects onto label stock. I have been unable to find
clear label stock in full pages, to I must use the Avery 5664 which is
the biggest label available, 4.125"W x 3.33"H. Yes, I have seen the
letter size clear adhesive stock used for window decals and stuff like
that, but it is too think and doesn't stick tighly as clear mailing
labels material. After the labels are put on the panel, the panel will
be clear coated. If the label material is not stuck tightly, and very
thin, it will either look ugly or maybe even blister. Thus, clear Avery
label stock is the best choice.
Since the labels are not a full sheet, but a sheet of 6, then it is not
necessary but extremely helpful if the computer can assist me in
locating the text objects copied from the drawing program (remember-that
was not a standard paper sized drawing) onto a sheet of labels. I could
just copy the drawing objects onto a blank letter size drawing page, and
futz around trying to position the objects so they aren't printed over a
gap between labels. But it is much easier and more efficient to use a
label formatting feature of a word processor to assist me to position
the text within the boudaries of the labels. It is the perfect use of
application integration, which is a capability that So promises, and
delivers, when it works right.
Summary: Design a panel in Draw, copy the text objects that will
decorate the panel into StarWriter set up with label formatting to print
the text objects within the label boundaries.
Oh, there is one other feature that I need which rules out most plain
label programs, because you could say that I could just print the text
onto labels in the first place. But that would mean I couldn't model
the panel before printing the labels, and in addition, I want to have
the text objects on the labels have graphic line borders that I can use
as guide lines to cut the text out from the label stock. It is
important to cut them square and with precise margins, to I can line up
the text on the panel carefully.
You can see that this is a fairly complex job and that the capabilities
of SO match it very well. I can think of no other application that is
better matched, particularly in Linux where applications are not well
integrated, making it impossible to easily copy graphic objects from one
program to another without tedious exporting/importing/futzing. Windoze
can do this well even with programs from different brands, but I don't
have a capable drawing program on my Win2k box because M$ Office doesn't
include one, but SO does. And I have tried to use Word to do labels,
and it is very difficult to understand. SO was easy to get to do my
job, the only problem was the .ps output was blank.
Having tried my work on SO on Suse 7.0, lo and behold the .ps prints!
So I am shifting my investigation to Suse 7.1 as the primary cause of
the problem. SO did crash also on the Suse 7.0 machine where I
succeeded at getting SO to print, but not as frequently as SO crashes on
the 7.1 system. No other apps crash disproportionately more on 7.1 vs.
the two other Suse versions I have used, so initially I suspected SO.
_______________________
Christopher R. Carlen
Sr. Laser/Optical Tech.
Sandia National Labs
------------------------------
From: Christopher Albert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: URGENT: Simple RPM problem!
Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 17:58:07 +0200
Dimitris,
I still think you should look at the book but since the question is
simple I'll give you a full answer.
Chris
> Notice that, because I don't have root access, I use my own path for sources
> etc., instead of the default
> /usr/src/redhat. So, the command I invoke is
> rpm --define '_topdir /home/rpm' --define
> '_tmppath/home/rpm/tmp' -ba update.spec
>
If you do
#echo "%_topdir /home/rpm" > .rpmmacros in your home directory
you wont need this command, and you can add other rpm macros later to
that file.
Lets assume your script is called "titi.sh" . Put this script inside a
directory called update-1.0 in /home/rpm/SOURCES directory , and there
tar and gzip it. Now use the following version of your "update.spec",
which assumes you want to install the script in /usr/local/src on
another machine with rpm -i . The RPM_BUILD_ROOT is just the standard,
which normally everyone can write to. THis should work.
Summary: Blah blah
Name: update
Version: 1.0
Release: 0
Copyright: GPL
Group: System Environment/Base
Source: update-1.0.tar.gz
# Patch: null.patch (nothing to patch anyway!)
BuildRoot: /var/tmp/%{name}-%{version}
%description
%prep
%setup
#%patch
%build
mkdir -p $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/usr/local/src
%install
cp titi.sh $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/usr/local/src
%files
%defattr(755,root,root)
/usr/local/src/titi.sh
%doc
%changelog
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Hong)
Subject: Re: WP Office2000/Hancom Office/Applixware?
Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 16:04:35 +0000 (UTC)
"Christopher R. Carlen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>I started with WP5.1 for DOS. I agree with those who assert it was the
>best word processor ever.
Damn straight it was.
>Applixware 3.5 or so for Linux, which has always been stable, but is too
>weak on features to use for a job I need to do now. (Actually I could
>have probably done the job with Applix's limited features in the time I
>wasted battling with Star Office's bugs.)
What features do you need? I have Applixware 5 and it rocks.
>Now I have tried Star Office 5.2 for Linux, and it is so unstable and is
Have you tried the patch from Sun's website? It solves a few
things. Alternatively you could check out Openoffice but that is still a
ways off (www.openoffice.org). Openoffice is based off on the StarOffice
code that Sun has released, however, what the first thing that the
programmers have done is strip away the StarDesktop part so that you can
just get at the applications.
------------------------------
From: fred smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: MIDI in Netscape???
Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 10:17:07 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
: William H. Pridgen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
:> fred smith wrote:
:>> it looks as if Netscrape is trying to use playmidi to do midi instead
:>> of plugger. Check the netscape configs to see if it thinks it should
:>> use playmidi or plugger, betcha it still thinks playmidi.
:> I wish it were so, but Netscape lists Plugger as the plugin for
:> everything audio or video. I thought maybe Timidity was attempting to
:> use playmidi, and playmidi couldn't find an audio device.
:> Until I installed both Plugger and Timidity, I got a Netscape message
:> about needing plug-ins. Afterward, I got the playmidi error.
: Are you sure that your sound card supports midi under Linux? What
: card do you have?
Doesn't need to. Timidity "interprets" the midi itself and turns it
into, oh what is it, is it "wav" ?? Anyway, it works fine on systems
without working hardware midi (such as mine).
: Adam
--
---- Fred Smith -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of
heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."
============================== Matthew 7:21 (niv) =============================
------------------------------
From: Silviu Minut <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Console WAV player wanted
Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 12:44:23 -0400
wavplay
Dunno about displaying time and search though.
"Kilian A. Foth" wrote:
> Is there, or failing that, how do I write a player that can
>
> - run without X
> - play WAVs
> - display the time in the file correctly
> - seek forward and backward interactively?
>
> If I end up doing it myself, I would use ncurses for interactivity,
> libsndfile for WAV decoding and... what lib for sound playback?
>
> --
> These modern kids don't know the simple joy of saving
> four bytes of page-0 memory on a 6502 box.
------------------------------
From: Jason Lott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: System.map and multiple kernel versions.
Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 11:53:00 -0500
On Thu, 17 May 2001 16:53:10 +0800, "Wayne Osborn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Mike Castle"
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Wayne Osborn
>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>Just curious as to the requirement for /boot/system.map when you have
>>>multiple kernel versions setup in lilo.
>>
>> I keep mine in /lib/modules/`uname -r`/System.map
>>
>> mrc
>>
>Thanks Mike,
>
>My whole confusion is this: I can theoretically have 2.2.16 and 2.4.4
>kernels in /boot and with lilo select either at boot time. What do I do
>with the System.map files for both these kernels?
>
>Thanks for your help.
Technically, both System.map files ( System.map-2.2.16 and System.map-2.4.4)
should be present in /boot. As for the System.map symlink, depending on the age
of your linux software, it should point to the latest System.map
(System.map-2.4.4) version, since it will have the complete symbol map of the
latest kernel. Some older software scanned System.map directly (as opposed to
System.map-x.x.x), the symlink is required to satisfy that dependency. On the
other hand, since all of my linux software is relatively new, I no longer have
the System.map symlink but I do have 3 System.maps (System.map-2.2.16,
System.map-2.4.4 and System.map-2.4.5-pre3).
------------------------------
From: Stephen Rank <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Losing free diskspace on nothing?
Date: 17 May 2001 17:56:46 +0100
Frank de Bot <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Hi,
>
> On my linux server I'm running diablo. I feed it with pullnews. At the
> beginning of this day I've freed up to 600MB of diskspace. Then I started
> to feed diablo and after a while ALL my free space was gone! diablo had
> only used 50/60 MB on articles. With du -h --max-depth=1 I couldn't locate
> any directories that were filling up... Does anyone how this is possible?
> And how can I get my free space back?
A more graphical way of examining disk usage is to use xdu:
du / | xdu
Say.
HTH,
Stephen
--
990118558
------------------------------
From: "TitoAnee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.hardware,comp.os.linux.setup,linux.redhat.misc
Subject: Re: PCMCIA Modem and Linuix
Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 17:28:50 GMT
HI All
Now PCMCIA works after using PCMICA Card Server 3.1.24 .
Warm Regads
Titoanee
"TitoAnee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:y8HM6.87053$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> I have linux version 2.2.17, Redhat 6.1 and Pcmica Card Server 3.1.25 and
I
> getting follwing with modem card.
>
> May 16 18:57:56 TitoAnee kernel: Linux PCMCIA Card Services 3.1.25
> May 16 18:57:56 TitoAnee kernel: kernel build: 2.2.17 #14 Wed Sep 27
> 09:36:38 EDT 2000
> May 16 18:57:56 TitoAnee kernel: options: [pci]
> May 16 18:57:56 TitoAnee kernel: Intel PCIC probe:
> May 16 18:57:56 TitoAnee kernel: Intel i82365sl A step rev 00
> ISA-to-PCMCIA at port 0x3e0 ofs 0x00
> May 16 18:57:56 TitoAnee kernel: host opts [0]: none
> May 16 18:57:56 TitoAnee kernel: host opts [1]: none
> May 16 18:57:56 TitoAnee kernel: ISA irqs (default) =
> 3,5,7,9,10,12,14,15 polling interval = 1000 ms
> [root@TitoAnee /dev]# May 16 18:57:57 TitoAnee cardmgr[1365]: starting,
> version is 3.1.25
> May 16 18:57:57 TitoAnee cardmgr[1365]: watching 2 sockets
> May 16 18:57:58 TitoAnee cardmgr[1365]: initializing socket 0
> May 16 18:57:58 TitoAnee cardmgr[1365]: socket 0: Serial or Modem
> May 16 18:57:58 TitoAnee kernel: cs: memory probe 0x0d0000-0x0dffff:
> clean.
> May 16 18:57:58 TitoAnee cardmgr[1365]: executing: 'modprobe serial_cs'
> May 16 18:57:59 TitoAnee cardmgr[1365]: bind 'serial_cs' to socket 0
> failed: Operation not permitted
>
> Any suggestions:
>
> Warm Regards
> TitoAnee
>
>
>
>
>
>
------------------------------
From: "Christopher R. Carlen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Star Office -- I give up
Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 10:01:03 -0700
Kwan Lowe wrote:
> I've had some instability problems with SO with the newest distros (Mandrake 8,
> RedHat 7.1). It might be problems with the later libraries moreso than SO
> itself.
>
> As for the 2.2 kernels, the main issues have been with dealing with imported
> documents (i.e., converted from Word). I've also found that using a recent Sun
> Java helped with performance issues (weird, I know).
>
> Have you looked at the OpenOffice suite? It's based on SO...
Ah-ha! Someone else has observed this instability. Yes, I agree as my
continuing experiments indicate that the instability and malfunctions
are worse on the newest Suse 7.1, but not bad on Suse 7.1. I haven't
had a chance to try older distros. I was just thinking about trying
Mandrake 8, but maybe I shouldn't bother. I will work with Suse mailing
list and support to see if anything can be done there, and I will check
out Open Office.
Thanks for the tip.
_______________________
Christopher R. Carlen
Sr. Laser/Optical Tech.
Sandia National Labs
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ("Kalimuthu Pothi")
Subject: Freeing RAM/swap memory.
Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 18:08:43 +0000 (UTC)
Hally Guys,
There are lot of memory related questions already came here. If this
question is already asked anywhere else please apologize me.
My computer is running Redhat 7.1 with Pentium III processor with 32 MB
RAM. Everytime when I started my PC, i used to run 'free' and 'cat
/proc/meminfo' to check memory status. It always shows like...
RAM:- used = 20MB.
swap:- used = 0MB.
I always start my PC to console. Then i rarely goto GUI to play games, or to
run applications those require GUI. When i returned to console, i always
check my memory status. It usually shows like...
RAM:- used = 32MB. (not exactly 32).
swap:- used = 20MB. (may be greater or shorter)
What i know sofar is that Linux use this memory as cache to load the
shared lib, and common files which are needed to load the (previously used)
application very quickly for the next time it loads.
But i never go back to GUI, once i finished my GUI related work. I even
switched off my xfs server using /etc/rc.d/init/xfs stop after returned to
console. In console I need to run lot of *big* programs (but they occupy
only less than 12MB which is the startup free status of my RAM).
So if i can able to get the original memory status position, i (not only
me, but also my programs) will be very happy. I don't want to go through the
inner working of memory management. But i want to free (useless!) memory
whenever I need some extra memory.
So, my request to all to you is...
Please give me some suggestions and techniques (my technique sofar is
rebooting the system) to use my RAM effectively.
Thanks to all (who write some suggestions and those who fully read my
question!).
--
Posted from [202.142.95.4]
via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG
------------------------------
** FOR YOUR REFERENCE **
The service address, to which questions about the list itself and requests
to be added to or deleted from it should be directed, is:
Internet: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
You can send mail to the entire list by posting to comp.os.linux.misc.
Linux may be obtained via one of these FTP sites:
ftp.funet.fi pub/Linux
tsx-11.mit.edu pub/linux
sunsite.unc.edu pub/Linux
End of Linux-Misc Digest
******************************
