Thu, 20 May 2004 23:03:09 +0100
Thomas Adam (thomas_adam from bonbon.net)
Question by lgang (lgang from linuxnj.com)
This is a discussion that took place about the decline of e-mails to TAG
and possible reasons why this is. In this discussion, a number of issues
have been raised, and we would value your input, gentle readers.
-- Thomas Adam
Hi all,
I am also deeply concerned by the lack of e-mails that we are
receiving. To date, we only have one (possible) TAG thread and that will
only be of any use and that is only if I pad the contents out at
publishing time. Truth is, I have noted a considerable drop in e-mails
over the months, ever since the move...
Now it may well be down to the time of year that we're at -- it is
approaching summer for most people, and so maybe people aren't as
computer-oriented as they might normally have been. But if things
continue in this way....
Luckily we have a little stash of backlogged e-mails. The only danger
with these though is that some of the information may well be out of
date, but that's something that we can either correct, or ignore.
Depends.
Maybe we need to "advertise" more somehow?
-- Thomas Adam
I am also deeply concerned by the lack of e-mails that we are
receiving. To date, we only have one (possible) TAG thread and that will
only be of any use and that is only if I pad the contents out at
publishing time. Truth is, I have noted a considerable drop in e-mails
over the months, ever since the move...
[Ben]
[Nod] That's a huge, primary concern for me; Heather and I had a longish
conversation about it when I decided to take this gig, and I expressed
it to her then. She had a few really good suggestions, and I had a
couple of small ideas of my own; it's going to require some cash - which
I'm willing to toss at the problem - and a fair bit of getting
pro-active in getting the word out, something I haven't had much time to
do lately and is a somewhat bitter pill for me because of that. I've
never been particularly good at marketing - which, of course, is what's
involved here - bit I'm going to have to grit my teeth and learn
somehow.
[Sluggo]
There was a significant drop in mails with the move to linuxgazette.net.
My opinion is not to stress out about it but just adjust the zine
accordingly. Maybe combine the three TAG columns into one. Maybe focus
more on articles and less on TAG. The article supply is still holding
steady, even though it doesn't look like it till the last couple days of
the month. But it's always been like that.
One thing Margie did that I gradually lazed out on was sending an
email to all the authors who had published in the last three issues
reminding them about the next article deadline. Maybe that could be
combined with an encouragement for articles. Certainly there are several
strong authors like Rob Tougher and Mark Nielsen that we haven't heard
from recently. Maybe Mark has some already-written articles he can send
us. There's also Pradeep Padala, Pramode C E, and the other guys at that
engineering school in India. I can go through the authors directory and say
which are the most promising prospects.
[Thomas]
I'm wondering whether it is something more than a campaign ad. With the
vast amount of literature already out there in the form of howtos, web
forums, IRC, etc -- people are not only able to fix their problems with
relative ease, but also experiment for themselves much more easily.
We've actually already created ourselves an indirect target audience --
the complete clueless.
Gone are the days of "The Answer Guy" when
e-mails were coming in by the sackful. Those people that know how to do
something are not going to be interested in using the LG as a resource,
since they can do it.
The quality of questions coming in has dimnished greatly as well. I can
only put this down to resource availability -- if something has been
done and documented (assuming a person reads it) then they'll use it.
This is also true of articles. But then as I now have lots of time to
spare, I can get cracking on that.
It's interesting to note therefore, that LG is actually
self-perpetuating its own demise in a way. The more we document things
(in terms of articles and TAG, etc) the less we actually need to answer
since it has already been answered.
I partly blame the move from SSC for this -- it was done with great
haste - certainly something that could not be avoided, but I wonder just
how many people know of the original us?
[Ben]
Anyone who's got advice or can offer help on this point is more than
welcome to step up to the line.
Luckily we have a little stash of backlogged e-mails. The only danger
with these though is that some of the information may well be out of
date, but that's something that we can either correct, or ignore.
Depends.
Maybe we need to "advertise" more somehow?
[Ben]
I'll need to get together with Heather again and go over the ideas that
she had, which ranged from good to terrific, and toss money and effort at
the problem. Anyone willing to share in the effort part, particularly
those who have some experience and/or knowledge in it, would be
welcomed with relief and joy.
[Sluggo]
That's a good idea, but I don't know how you reach people who don't
read LWN or Slashdot. If SSC had been willing to put reciprocal links
to the other zine it would have helped enormously, but that was nothing
we could control. It looks like we need a "marketing task force".
[Thomas]
But I think you missed my point -- it's not so much a decline as such,
since there are people moving to linux everyday -- but that is perhaps
more true on a corporate level.
[Ben]
By 'decline', I meant a decline in our readership. There's certainly
none in the adoption of Linux, which is what's setting off my alarm
bells; I'd like to see somewhat of a parallel between the two, which
seems like a reasonable goal to me.
[Thomas]
It's these people (businesses) that are
going to now capture the interest of Linux. But then corporations are
going to be out-sourcing people to train their staff (one hopes) so it
probably won't be more of an individual-basis as it was when Linux was
very much a curio for people to "try" out. But you never know -- if it
may well encourage people into looking at it from a personal viewpoint
as well.
[Ben]
Y'know, that may well be a very strong point to consider. "Newbie"
doesn't have to mean "non-professional"; it may well be that we need to
put some thought into connecting with the segment of the business world
that wants to jump on the Linux bandwagon. Well spotted, Thomas.
[Thomas]
It is a valid and worthy opinion to consider -- especially when that is
how a lot of news about Linux (via radio, columns, etc) is covered; it's
done from a business angle.
[Ben]
I've contacted a friend of mine who did graphic design for Apple for a
number of years, and he's agreed to do a column on it - the main thrust
of it is to teach people how to present a professional appearance in
their products, whether Web pages or UIs. It's not specifically Linux,
but it's a strongly relevant issue, and I believe that it's a pretty
good move toward adding a bit more professionalism to LG.
[Thomas]
Oooh, I like this idea. Sounds like just the kind of wedge that might
set a trend. Unfortunately, what I cannot do is focus upon that aspect
since as you all know, business just is not my area.
However, what I can do is seriously look, cover, divulge information
and articles about how Linux is being used in education, specifically
within the UK. This is a really hot topic at the moment. I am on a
tiny mailing-list (SuSE-Linux-Schools-UK) that was originally setup as
means of sysadmins to ask their problems. I joined it, since I was one
of the admins at school at the time.
Now though, they have evolved much more such that we're seeing a serious
consideration for Linux in schools (not quite dual-boot for the students
alas, but rather server-side) <www.schoolforge.org.uk>.
[Thomas]
What we need to do, is to make LG (as I have been saying) more at the
forefront for information and appealing to any target audience,.
[Ben]
Err. That word, "any", is a nasty one in this context. It's impossible
to be all things to all people; trying to is a classic way to go broke
in business. In effect, you're trying to produce infinite output from
finite resources. What I'm looking for is a place to concentrate our
efforts - we may end up with something a bit more broad or more
narrow; I suspect the former but refuse to predict.
[Thomas]
Perhaps we need to focus a little on how businesses are using Linux?
[Ben]
Hmm. Say, interviews with CTOs of Linux-using businesses? That strikes a
spark of interest with me. I'm not in much of a position to do it myself
- I don't think there are too many Linux-using businesses in the
techno-hinterland I inhabit or in the farming communities surrounding it
- but I surely consider such an interview applicable to even LGs current
mission: I've never believed that a newbie's education in Linux consists
of strictly technical coverage. Thomas, you're really striking oil
today!
[Thomas]
But these are only trivial examples --- it is not a popularity contest.
If we start trying to compete we'll fall under completely. We need to
try and work alongside what it is that makes the success of the other
sites more appealing, for want of a better word. What I _don't_ want to
see is a loss of continuity with what we have at the moment. We just
need to try and introduce a new concept into LG.
[Ben]
[Nod] Agreed. I don't want to imitate anyone else - if we're doing that,
then there's no need for LG at all. Revitalizing those parts of LG that
are good but have fallen asleep, cautiously adding new pieces that we
believe will improve the readers' experience (as well as ours - if it
ain't fun, it's not worth doing), and sloughing off (again, very
slowly and carefully) those pieces that we've decided don't work: that's
my goal. In a lot of ways, it's like running a business - but on a
cooperative model.
Will it work? Hell if I know. I do think that the experiment is worth
making, though, and I'm willing to pump my time and effort into it. All
I can promise you folks is that I'm going to do my damndest to make it
go - but I can't do it alone. I can only hope that all of you will
extend me a bit of your trust, patience, and cooperation as I work to
fit myself into this job.
[Thomas]
It would be interesting to know how each of us here actually heard of
LG. I know for me, it was a link from tldp.org
[Ben]
Hmm. I couldn't even tell you, actually; a dim little memory says that I
found LG via a search engine while searching for some Linux-related
info, but I can't recall for sure.
The thread changes slightly to Tom Brown coming up with some excellent
ideas
-- Thomas Adam
[Tom]
OK, I'm gonna jump into this discussion, even though I'm gonna regret
it. I've stirred up hornet nests before, so this won't be the first
time. I fully expect to get a few "stinging" replies.
[Ben]
Heck, Tom, we don't skin people and roll'em in salt... at least not
until their second fox pass (never could speak that French stuff,
anyhow.) Besides, I've asked for input; it would be damn silly of me
to reject it without considering it even if I didn't like it right off
the bat (and as it happens, I think you've got some good skull sweat in
this one.)
[Tom]
When talking to the people new to Linux, I think part of the challenge
is that they don't have the same mind-set or point-of-view as "old-time"
or "traditional" Unix/Linux users. Part of it is the GUI/CLI issue that
others have mentioned, but it's more than that.
[Ben]
[Nod] I think this is one of the largest parts of the shift in the type
of new adopters. At first, we got "the brave techies"; next, we got
folks who couldn't afford the Wind0ws environment with their "pay
through the nose for every breath you take" model (and we're still
getting lots of those); now, we're getting corporate people to whom time
is a precious resource and who want their info - solid, in-depth, and
yet clearly stated - and want it right now.
[Tom]
The CLI in Linux is
richer, and more complex than the MS-DOS that a lot of folks are used
to. Another problem is that a lot of people aren't interested in
becoming programmers. They just want to know how they can rip tunes from
an audio CD, or whatever. While some people do want to learn it all, I
think those people are in the minority.
[Tom]
Those would be the future sysadmins - but not everyone wants to become
one. Mostly, the answer for that larger group is "install Knoppix and be
happy"; I think that Jimmy's articles and tips would hit these guys
square in the center.
My own problem is that I am an old-time geek and a CLI addict; I don't
know how the heck I'd work in a straight-GUI environment - it would just
strangle me, reduce my productivity to 10% of what it is now. In some
cases, I'd be unable to perform the work at all. So, what I have to do
is to ignore my own prejudices and think of what is good for LG - and in
this regard, I agree with what you're saying.
[Tom]
Now, I think giving people a CLI as well as a GUI way of accomplishing
what they want is a great idea. Especially if you're giving them an
easy-to-use shell script that prompts for parameters, instead of making
someone type-in a huge command line with lots of alphabet-soup options
they'll never remember. They're not really looking for a GUI, just an
easy step-by-step "cookbook" way of getting the job done. Without
learning what is, to them, a programming language.
[Ben]
This, though, isn't possible. If there was a single subset of complex
commands that every Linux user needed - yeah, sure. We're certainly not
going to hide it from them. Since EPID, so are the tasks they need to
accomplish - and that's why shell scripting is a language, flexible
enough to accomplish tasks that _aren't_ predetermined.
You *can't* have power and flexibility without complexity. We're not
here to teach people The One True Way to use a buzzsaw; if they don't
learn the whys and the wherefores and the safety considerations (not
just the requisite motions), they are going to get their hands chopped
off. If it was totally safe, then it wouldn't cut the lumber.
If you have a list of common tasks for which you use your "magic lines",
great - feel free to expound on why and how. If people find them useful
and clamor for more, I'll be the first to admit to being wrong.
[Tom]
Each time I tried to start an article in this vein, for example,
I quickly discovered that I lacked the in-depth knowledge and experience
to do an adequate job.
[Ben]
Don't you think that that's an indicator? Think of it this way: the
folks who created the standard Unix toolkit were trying to address the
same concern that you're voicing now. If there really was a need for a
specific task, why would they have omitted it? If a utility was useless,
why wouldn't they have dropped it? Over time, the toolkit has been
polished to a high gloss due to the huge number of people using it - and
so it becomes a classic example of Open Source development, where
worthwhile projects survive, and others dive into complete obscurity. If
you find yourself lacking in experience for this task, it may well be
because far more experienced people - and lots of them - have already
done the job you're trying to improve on.
[Tom]
As to your other ideas - which I uniformly like and think valuable:
Here's a rough top-of-my-head list of topics:
* The Hardware Department: Pick some bit of hardware that isn't
automatically handled by Linux, or isn't handled well, and show the user
what to do to make it work (cookbook fashion). Another topic might be
the sort of benchmark article LG did recently. Another might be helping
a user select a good video card (or printer, etc.) to use with Linux.
[Ben]
Heh. If it isn't handles well, that's a bug worth filing. However,
there's hardware out there that's complex to set up regardless of the OS
- and I think that it would be a good idea to set up a Hardware Corner
where we discuss exactly that. This will, however, require some
knowledgeable folks to contribute their experience.
Say, how about this: what if we contact OEMs for the various types
of hardware and see if they'd be willing to give us an article on
setting their stuff up under Linux? I'll bet that most of them would be
pretty happy to get their product's name in print.
Would anybody care to volunteer to select companies and prod them?
[Tom]
* The To-Do List: Pick a task (or a series of them) the user might want
to do, and again, show them cookbook-style
[Ben]
Those would be the shell, Perl, etc. tips that have been here all along.
[Tom]
* Finder Free: Pick a Windows or Mac application, and discuss the "free
software" alternatives. For CLI apps, you might want to include a script
file that makes using them (almost) as easy as a GUI.
[Ben]
Oooh, nice. Wanna write this?
BONUS: I'd be happy to help you with
the CLI part, if and when it's applicable.
[Tom]
* Up Against the Wall: Security issues are very much on people's minds
these days. Linux security issues, and solutions are different from
Windows. Topics here might include: how to update different distros
(those without a built-in mechanism to do this), how to configure a
firewall, etc.
[Ben]
[Nod] We've had security articles here before; however, we don't have a
regular "security" writer. It would be nice if we did. I could do some
good bits myself, but I'm being extra-careful not to overload myself on
the LG side - I have 1) a bad reaction to being overloaded and 2) work
commitments that can pretty much shut me down for days at a time. For
now, doing the gig and trying to puzzle out these issues with everyone's
help is about as much as I want to handle. I've also got an article in
process for this month, and that feels like I'm already skating on thin
ice.
[Tom]
* Brain Surgery For Beginners: Pick a Sys Admin task that someone might
want to do (configure Samba comes to mind), and describe the steps most
people will really need to do, pointing them to specific documentation
elsewhere for problems.
[Ben]
Ditto.
[Tom]
* Paint and Wallpaper: GUI desktop issues. Some topics here might be how
to use Superkaramba, as well as KDE and Gnome topics (perhaps a
step-by-step on upgrading from one version of KDE or Gnome to another
for the non-rocket-scientist)
[Ben]
Ditto.
[Tom]
*Arresting Development: Topics related directly to programming and
programming languages. Tutorials in something common to Unix/Linux, but
not the DOS/Windows world (awk, python, etc) might be nice.
[Ben]
Got'em; see my Shell Scripting and Perl tutorials here in LG.
[Tom]
*Tales From The Dark Side: Running a specific Windows app in Linux via
Wine or Wine-x. Mono tutorials, tips and suggestions.
[Ben]
Hmm. That would be someone else's pidgin; I'm not too knowledgeable in
that respect. What I'd love to see would be someone doing an article
about VMware - installation, issues, etc.
[Tom]
Normally, I wouldn't think to tell you guys what to do, or suggest any
changes. This is your gig after all, and you're doing a teriffic job.
But you did ask for suggestions.
[Ben]
Yeah, yeah.
Drop the defensive posture, Tom; you're in TAG, and
always welcome to contribute. That's a large chunk of what The Gang
does; at least that's the way I've always seen it.
Well, there you have it folks. As I say, this is your magazine. Please,
let us know your views and what you think.
-- Thomas Adam
Best of not so best but please update it?
Thu, 13 May 2004 16:22:09 -0800
Rebecca Alden> (LG)
From one of my local LUG members, who is new to Linux.
-- Heather
I was told to go check out Linuxgaztte and I am glad that I did. It has
lots of good things in it. But I am still on Windoze and if I'm going
to install Linux I didn't want to wait for the installfest. Gues I will
have to though, because the howto you have on burning ISO under that
other OS I found the past answers section doesn't work.
It looks like she is correct. The general principle works, but there
are new common places to look forr all the CD images at once, and nearly
all of the software links for trial software for mswin have gone bad.
Since the material in that thread was mostly from our readers, it looks
like you'll have to rescue us again, folks. Most of our Answer Gang are
rather purely Linux now. Alternatively, if you can't help directly but
really want to see this yourself; let me know, and if the idea
is popular enough I'll do the research to write an update for it.
-- Heather
Jimmy O'Regan
sends his regrets on being
unable to do his "Songs in the Key of Tux" this month. He was going to
cover recording software, but it seems that his drummer got broken... and
unfortunately, he's not talking about a piece of software (ouch. Jimmy,
please emphasize to the man that "percussion" does not involve car
crashes. Unless, of course, you're with a Progressive Technical Death
Thrash Metal band, in which case carry on as you were.) Despite all that,
Jimmy has still managed to get in a couple of articles this month and has
promised more for the months ahead. I tell you, the man is unstoppable.
As of press time Jimmy is fine, but still has a bit of RSI. We'll see
more of him next month.
-- Heather
This page edited and maintained by the Editors of Linux Gazette HTML script maintained by Heather Stern of Starshine Technical Services, http://www.starshine.org/
I am a little bit concerned the people here (especially those that are
more established) don't fully understand what constitutes a 2c-tip. A
2c-tip is just that -- something that is short and easy and can be done
in a few steps. Asking whether it is appropriate (Neil!) just causes us
more grief to wade through meta questions!
This might be in the form of a configuration tweak, or a minuture
program that performs a given task, etc. Often though, larger tips are
turned into TAG column entries -- and vice versa.
Often what would be flagged by Heather and I as a TAG entry might well
form off-shoots to 2c-tips if the quality of the thread in question is
not worthy.
But we will publish anything not only explicitly marked as a 2c-tip, but
also what we deem appropriate to be one. We certainly don't filter out
sent in tips -- only vary rarely. The only thing I will say to you is
that don't always expect to submit one and see it in the next
release of LG. Heather and I decide which tips get published when.
Between these two lists, I figured my problem out. My TZ87 tape drive
works perfectly under Linux. I found a product called vmsbackup that
allows unix users to extract plain-text files from a VMS backup tape.
If anyone else is interested in such a piece of arcana, it can be
downloaded from http://vms.process.com/ftp/vms-freeware/FREE-VMS. I
had to hack the code (can't use any other word than that, as I'm not a C
coder at all) to eliminate certain files from being attempted. Once I
did all that, every came off the tape nice and clean.
Next topic will be... smile
Thanks to everyone who has had input here - I really do appreciate the
help!
Becca
[Ben]
That's great, Becca - I'm glad to know that we could help, and like to
hear success stories. Too bad more of the folks we help don't let us
know the end result; a sense of completion is a pretty nice thing to
have.
The main bulk of this thread appears in this month's TAG column, here:
Well, my problem is a little bit different. I'm building up a network at home and I want all computers with Windows 2000 and also Linux. Every computer is working ok with both operating systems, but the server. The two operating systems are installed already but, linux is not showing up. You go to the cmos setup and see Linus there in its own partition. But when the computer is booting, it doesn't show up and no way to boot from Linux. Now, even Windows is not showing up. After a few steps, [ counting memory, detecting drivesetc, it gets stuck ]
Could you give me a hint to solve this?
[Kapil]
I sense some serious confusion. How can the CMOS show you partitions,
let alone Linus (I presume you mean Linux)? Even the BIOS setup doesn't
know anything about the operating systems.
1. Try to use a rescue floppy (your created one at install time didn't
you?!) to boot your system. If you don't have any such alternate method
to boot the existing system you may have no choice but to re-install.
2. When you run a server, it doesn't really make sense to run two
different O/Ses on it. How would the clients/users know before
connecting what they could expect from the server?
[JimD]
Your question doesn't quite make sense. You can't see partitions or
OS installations from your CMOS Setup. You can see drives.
So when you say things like: "linux is not showing up" and that you
"see Linus[sic] there" and "it doesn't how up" it's not clear what
you're looking at, where you're expecting to see it. You say that
"you go to the cmos setup" but as I've said a normal BIOS setup
doesn't display partitions and doesn't provide a list of installed
or available OS' or other boot options.
So you must be looking at a bootloader (LILO, GRUB, System Commander,
ChOS, NT's "Boot Manager" or something else. So, figure out which
bootloader you're trying to use. You could also try booting from a
rescue disk like Knoppix, Tom's Root/Boot, the LNX-BBC or whatever and
using that to install a different boot loader like LILO.
It sounds like you'll need help with that, too. Without more details
about which distribution you installed, the order in which you
installed Linux and Win2K etc. (Hint: install Microsoft products first,
then let Linux work around their settings).
Multiple people using the same machine configuration and it's programs is a
wonderfull thing. Especially when the other people want to be at their own
machine and not install linux on their machine. There Exceed starts to be
very effective. So far so good.
Now the problem. I updated my pc from Mandrake 8 to 9.1(standard kernel). I
had XDCMP Xclients working on MDK 8 before. That worked perfectly. Now I have
xdm partially configured and I am able to login at the remote PC graphically,
but then the server seems to be giving the client one screen/window for the
desktop, one for each program and so on. I used to get one integrated thing
completely filling the client PC's physical screen as if using Linux in stead
of Windows with Exceed.
Anyone knowing what I have to change(or where to look) to get things identical
to the "local" behaviour?
Does anyone know some place to find some good backgrounds on Xserver, Xfs and
X in general?
Thanks for your time,
Michiel Leegwater
[Kapil]
Let A be the client program (the "Xserver" which can be full screen or smaller)
which in your case is Exceed.
Let B be the server system with which A is communicating which in your
case is a GNU/Linux Mandrake machine.
B makes requests to A to create and destroy Xobjects; the actual
placement, rendering and so on of these objects is a matter for A to
decide.
So I do not think the problem you have given has to do with the Mandrake
Server (B). Instead look at the configuration of the Exceed software (A).
The very strange thing is I never changed the config of B. And after I did now
the situation did not much improve(no improvement actually). Any more hints?
Because there's more than just xdm I also tried gdm, kdm and kde (editing
/etc/sysconfig/desktop)
Turning to kde or kdm has a strange extra effect logged in /var/log/messages:
Aug 11 19:46:10 obelix mdkkdm[8558]: Greeter exited unexpectedly
Aug 11 19:46:10 obelix mdkkdm[8558]: Abnormal helper termination, code 1,
signal 0
Aug 11 19:46:34 obelix mdkkdm[8567]: Greeter exited unexpectedly
Aug 11 19:46:34 obelix mdkkdm[8567]: Abnormal helper termination, code 0,
signal 11
Does anyone know why this happens??
[Chris]
It's been a while. I used Exceed Version 7 for grins. If I recall, in the
configuration options (I think it was screen), I had a choice between
multiple windows or a single window. With multiple windows, you get the
wonderful Microsoft background with a new window popping up with each
application. With the single window choice, you see what you would if
you were running X on the Linux machine.
For example, I set up Exceed to run in passive mode listening on port 6000.
I then telnet into the Linux machine, set my DISPLAY name to refer to
the appropriate host with window 0 (for example "export DISPLAY=nitro:0"),
and might (from the telnet session) type "icewm &".
That's the way I do it. Hmmm.
I'm guessing that you might wanna see the graphical login, so, I am hoping
that all you have to do is the single window selection thing, and things
will work. I hope.
Regards,
Chris Gianakopoulos
Linux Filesystem
Joydeep Bakshi (joy12 from vsnl.net)
Answered By Faber Fedor, Benjamin Okopnik
Hi,
I am a computer faculty & also teach Linux. I am interested to know about the
advantage/disadv. & the difference of ext2,ext3 and the new Reiserfs
file-system of linux. could any one please provide me these info. ?
any link for further reading is also welcome.
[Ben]
[blink] Joydeep... how do you do that if you're not familiar with even
the very basics of finding information under Linux? I really don't envy
your students the quality of information they're receiving. The above
may sound harsh, but given the questions you've posted to this list over
time - including this one - and the skills required for teaching
(considered independently from the actual content), I find the above
statement highly incongruous with your level of knowledge.
ReiserFS isn't what I'd call "new". You can find out about the various
filesystems by looking at the relevant HOWTOs - the Filesystems-HOWTO,
the ext3-(mini,usage)-HOWTOs - and the kernel documentation, usually
available (if you have the kernel sources installed) in
"/usr/src/kernel-source-<version>/Documentation/filesystems, with each
type of supported FS having its own explanatory file.
Ive just bought a new pc, and had the vendor load linux mandrake, as I =
am not impressed with micoscum corp. I need to run mechanical desktop =
which dosent seem to like linux, so can u please advise.
talking to some boffins, I need to partition the drive, and set up =
windows, can u please advise, and if this is the case, can u please =
advise how to go about it, as I am a real novice at linux.
thankyou
john savic
[K.-H]
well -- whatever mechanical desktop is, if its a win only application
you'll need windows.
If it's not very hardware intensive you might get away in an emulator
(e.g. wine). Then there is (commercial) vmware which runs a virtual PC inside
linux (which can run windows). Or you change to a dual boot system Linux/win.
Dual boot system are best set up right from the beginning. Messing around
with partitions after everything is installed is always risky. You can try
(commercial) PartitionMagic to repartition.
fips http://www.igd.fhg.de/~aschaefe/fips is a free version with a less
fancy GUI I guess.
What partition layout would be useful (or possible) depends on how it is now
and what you want. Usually I would put firs the win partition and then only
the Linux partitions (note plural), often in an extended partition. If you've
one huge Linux partition now I don't know if you can free the beginning -- it
might be restricted to free the top end.
Well -- messing around (successfully) with partitions takes at least some
knowledge of partitions on PC systems. This is not (very) specific to Linux,
but of course all the Linux tool behave a little different from the old DOS
tools (like fdisk, format,...).
There is a nice page giving hints how to ask questions which get
answered/answered with something really helpful:
which also mentions the possibility to search on TAG or google for relevant
search criteria: "linux partition resize" might be all that's needed.
PPP over parport?
Peter Paluch (peterp from frcatel.fri.utc.sk)
Question by linux-questions-only (linux-questions-only from linuxgazette.com)
Answered By Thomas Adam
Hello,
Originally it started as a non-Linux problem. I had to interconnect two
Windows95 machines via a serial link using the Direct Cable Link function.
However those machined refused to connect (of course, what else could I
expect from M$ products...). After several hours of unsuccessful experiments
I finally booted Linux on one of these machines and after five minutes of
playing with pppd I had the Windows95 and Linux up-and-connected perfectly.
However, the serial link was too slow because of an old UART, so I thought
of using a parallel cable instead, with Win95 at one side of the link and
Linux at the another. But here I have a bigger problem. The Direct Cable
Link in Windows always uses PPP protocol, no matter what type of cable it is
used over. However, as it seems, the pppd daemon under Linux supports serial
ports only. I could not force it into using the parallel port, neither lp0
nor parport0. This is the only answer I got from it:
Aug 2 14:20:44 gericom pppd[11246]: pppd 2.4.1 started by root, uid 0
Aug 2 14:20:44 gericom pppd[11246]: tcgetattr: Invalid argument(22)
Aug 2 14:20:45 gericom pppd[11246]: Exit.
I did my Google homework but I couldn't find any clues how to use PPP
protocol over parallel port under Linux and there is no mention of anything
similar in the pppd documentation or source files.
Is it possible at all to run PPP over parallel cable under Linux? If yes,
how should it be done?
I know there is PLIP but it won't work. Win95 really uses PPP even over
parallel cable.
Thanks in forward.
Regards,
Peter
[Thomas]
That's because you cannot. Alas, as your observations and in-depth
research show, you can only use pppd over serial (in Linux anyhow).
I use PLIP all the time, although I have never had the need to use it to
connect to windows, but that doesn't mean I don't know of a few things to
try
Would you go as far as to allow DOS <-> Linux connection? There's a link
on the PLIP-HOWTO.
I would like to setup a VPN network between my offices.
I really would to stick to linux that ohter OS's .
What do you recommend I go with?
I have read some thing about PPTD would this be a could choice for me?
Thanks
Emmanuel
[Jay]
PPTP, actually. The Microsoft Approved VPN -- which means don't use it
unless you have to.
If this is for a business application, you might want to consider buying
boxes -- the SnapGear's do both PPTP and IPSec, the other alternative, and
they run Linux, which might make your life easier if you're a linux guy; I
am, we resell them, and they Just Work. They start at about $250 a side,
which is probably less than you'll pay yourself to set up IPSec on a pair of
linux boxes, not to mention the time you'll spend tightening those two Linux
boxen to be safe directly connected to the net.
If you really want to do it yourself, PPTP and IPSec are the two things to
Google for.
This is the homepage of frox. It is a transparent ftp proxy which is released under
the GPL. It optionally supports caching (either through an external http cache (eg.
[1]squid), or by maintaining a cache locally), and/or running a virus scanner, on
downloaded files. It is written with security in mind, and in the default setup it
runs as a non root user in a chroot jail.
[Thomas]
Cool, I like this! As I am resident on the Squid-Users mailing list, I
have word that they developers do plan to allow FTP access at some point
through Squid, but they're not sure when.
will tell you two things -- a) that the subject line of this e-mail is
dismal, and b) you should send your e-mails to this list in PLAIN TEXT
only and not HTML. If you look below betweeen the "---annoyance---"
marker, that is a sample of how your e-mail has reached us. Hardly
distinguishable.
However, to answer your question...
"Swap" refers to the term by which disk-space can be used as memory. Under
Windows (Note Bene -- it is not a windows XP specific concept, but is
generic over all windows'), this is represented by a file.
In Linux, however, this is represented by a partition (an area of disk
that is "housed" by itself). This is then mounted at boot-time in
/etc/fstab (assuming you have the correct entry). You can make a swap
partition by doing...
mkswap /dev/hdxx && swapon
where /dev/hdxx is the device that you want to use for your swap.
It is also possible to share your windows swapfile with Linux. The
following howto will help you with that:
I'm running Slackware 3.0 on a 486sx with 4MB of ram, and I want to install
some tar archives.
Here's my question:
After I have untared a file is there a way I can
"undo" the changes that tar made?
I looked on freshmeat.net and could not find any "Install trackers."
Perhaps I should download that RPM thing from Red Hat and just use that.
[Ben]
Yep; fairly basic, in fact.
rm `tar tf tarfile.tar`
This, of course, assumes that the tar file is still in the same
directory from which you untarred it, your UID and the directory/file
permissions haven't been changed, etc. That is, if you just untarred it
with:
tar xf tarfile.tar
then the above will get rid of the newly-created files.
<smile> Searching for specific software often requires more than just
trying a single query and giving up, particularly when the phrasing of
the query is not definitive. You should also take a look at
"checkinstall" and "stow" for relevant solutions which you may find
necessary later in the installation cycle - this assumes that you're
installing a non-Slack tarball. I also suggest reading my "Installing
Software from Source" article in LG#74; it deals with several important
parts of this process.
If you're using Slackware, its default package manager (IIRC) is based
on gzipped tar files. You really don't want to start messing with
alternate package schemes until you're comfortable with the native one.
I just caught a hidden assumption in what I wrote, above - I was
presuming that no existing files were overwritten by the untarring
process. If you were to, e.g., untar a file that replaced your
"/etc/passwd" and then "rm"ed the contents list as above, your system
would become, erm, slightly less useful than formerly.
The standard solution is "don't do that, then." As I described in my
article, you should untar into a directory reserved or created for the
purpose, then make the decision about what gets installed vs. deleted,
etc. Again, this is in regard to a "random" (meaning that it is not a
part of your distribution) tarball; as with any piece of software you
install on your system, you need to vet it carefully - something that is
normally done for you in the distro packages. This strongly implies the
above procedure; when you untar a file as root, particularly in '/',
you're exposing your system to anything that the tarball author wants
to do - including complete system takeover or erasure. /Caveat emptor/.
Recently there had been discussion on the method of switching off the UTF-8
LANG setting that is appearing in recent RedHat (and maybe other) distros.
The best way of turning this off for the whole system is by editing the file
/etc/sysconfig/i18n
For setting it up for a particular user, create a file ~/.i18n and put the
setting there.
ashwin
This page edited and maintained by the Editors of Linux Gazette HTML script maintained by Heather Stern of Starshine Technical Services, http://www.starshine.org/
The Answer Gang
Linux Gazette 103: The Answer Gang (TWDT)The Answer Gang 103:
By Jim Dennis, Karl-Heinz Herrmann, Breen, Chris, and...
(meet the Gang) ...
the Editors of Linux Gazette...
and
You!
We have guidelines for asking and answering questions. Linux questions only, please.
We make no guarantees about answers, but you can be anonymous on request. See also: The Answer Gang's
Knowledge Base
and the LGSearch Engine
Welcome to a summer day among The Answer Gang. We're having a quiet
little picnic here... hmm, perhaps a little too quiet. Nonetheless
we've got some juicy Answers for you to enjoy reading.
If you've got a good juicy question I encourage you to please email it
to The Answer Gang (tag@lists.linuxgazette.net). I mean, sure, we have these
nice guidelines we'd like you to try out first - but we welcome the
stumpers. There's a lot more distros than there used to be and even we
learn something from our fellow Gang members occasionally.
As the question of how big business takes Linux to heart is now taken a
bit more seriously than in past years, we'd like to encourage corporate
types to ask us their tricky questions too. We can't promise the
speediest response time (although many have been pleasantly surprised) or
that we really will answer (although we have quite a few people now -
your chances are good). If you want to be anonymous we can take it a
step further and try to sanitize things like IP addresses when you
describe your network... feel free to go into detail, or to sanitize
your notes yourself (encouraged). If you've got one of those "this may
be confidential" notes, make sure you've explicitly granted us
permission to publish the thread worldwide.
"The enterprise" is such an incredibly vague buzzword these days I'm
surprised Viacom/Paramount doesn't get mad about the press abusing it.
Of course they're the ones who named their now famous line of starships
after a verb that we've turned into this planet's most abused group
noun. But let's take a serious look at the question, shall we?
What draws the line between simply a decent sized company and an
"enterprise"? Multiple sites, sure. Is a family chain of restaurants
an "enterprise" then? Maybe. Divisions and departments and layers of
management who have never met each other, because the heirarchy has
grown over time to handle so many groups of people? Yeah, definitely
getting there. So we need project planning software. OpenOffice serves
charting needs and presentation, plus the usual word processing. How
about planning large networks? Some of the logic I've seen for keeping
departments out of each others business via internal firewalling ...
defies all logic but slicing through the Gordian knot and redesigning
the layout. There's social questions too (what, you think internal
policies grow on trees? Cut down quite a few, maybe) and development
plans that may span 5 or 6 years.
Oops, 6 years ago we weren't nearly so impressive. I think that some
companies will only see Linux creep into units as their plans turn out
to be met by it. So for a long while to come, it's going to be very
important how we handle working with multiple platforms - whether
they're the Borg of Redmond, or Sun, or Macintoshes. That means
coughing up schematics and documents that their software will handle too -
or making sure that our open source stuff runs on a world of other
systems. The latter is a better answer for the long term - applying new
logic of ergonomics and workplace expectations into the results - but
sucks for the short term, because units don't necessarily want to fire
all their software - or risk being unable to work on the same documents
as other divisions do. Or their partner companies in a consortium.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Something that's not quite a
chicken, generally waits for the chicken to "lay an egg" in the
idiomatic sense: Linux or another free solution will be tried when an
expensive one is either too painfully expensive to contemplate first, or
flops so horribly that departments stray from the golden path of Fully
Paid Support Contracts to get something that Just Works.
And, as my husband has discovered in small business of years gone by,
there will be times that when such solutions work they will be left to
stay and serve. In fact it will be insisted upon, as department heads
change and the server continues to operate a given system will retain
its traditional bearing... and it will be just as hard for a $DISTRO
driven company to switch to $DISTRO2 if the first does not serve them
optimally - because there will be years of unit dependence on features
that work "just so" on $DISTRO. This is the real thing any new distro -
or in fact any distro which seeks to move people around the new
"enterprise" linux users over to their userbase - has to make easy, or
it will be an uphill battle every step of the way.
We already know that at least some of "the enterprise" is ready for
Linux... here and there. Is "the enterprise" ready for the change in
paradigm to go with it, of how our software changes and open source
projects flow into and out of the equation? We don't know. Are the
brand name distros up to the combined challenge of having their toes
nibbled by specialty distributions (see LWN's
Distributions
page) at the same time as trying to play both the "Try us, we're
different" and "no problem, we're the same" cards in the battlefield...
err, marketplace, yeah, that's what they call it.
Speaking of the battlefield, in my country, the last Monday in May was
Memorial Day, when we honor our war veterans of all varieties. So I'd
like you to stop, and consider those you know, or who your families know,
who have fought great battles and won... especially those who won at
the cost of their lives or livelihood, and also of those who fought
for the lives and livelihood of people they never knew or understood.
Thanks for reading. Have a great summer. See you next month.
Network Connection Problem
From Chris Gibbs
Hi ya,
I think this is more a Microslop question, but maybe you can help.
I have 2 PC's on 10baseT network, normally both run linux and everything
is
fine. I have a fairly paranoid setup where hawklord.universe.com is
192.168.0.1 and cannot ftp gigahawk.universe.com. But hawklord can http
gigahawk ok. (confession... my modem is ISA, hawklord has ISA slots,
gigahawk
does not... so hawklord is just a box I can ssh to and run Netscape
from, its
also where I keep documentation on an Apache server, so the ability to
http
hawklord would be good)
[Faber]
I didn't quite follow this. I think you're saying that everything works
the way you want it to, right?
And are these names related to that Saturday morning cartoon where all
the heroes had wings? I think one of them was called Hawkman.
gigahawk (192.168.0.2) can ftp hawklord, http hawklord whatever.
Security don't
matter at all for hawklord, I just assume its insecure.
If I boot Windoze ME on gigahawk I just can't find hawklord. ping just
times out.
[Faber]
Oh, that's easy enough to fix. Don't boot into Windows ME!
<bah-da dump> <rimshot>
So like er, how do I get MS ping to find the linux box? Everything on
hawklord
works fine.
[Faber]
You can ping hawklord by IP address, right? Go no further until you
do can that. Run winipcfg to make sure it has the IP Address/subnet
mask you think it does. If you can ping hawklord by the IP Address (NOT
the name!), then you may read on.
[Ben]
If you can't find "winipcfg", try "ipconfig" from the CLI. There are
several versions of Wind0ws that don't have the GUI version.
People complain Linux is hard to configure but is (at
least for me)
simplistic compared to Wintendo. I've found places in Windoze to put
DNS numbers,
what I can't find is hosts.allow;
[Faber]
And you won't.
What you're looking for it the /etc/hosts file.
hosts.allow is used only for, IIRC, tcp-wrappers.
[Ben]
BZZT. It's just a host access control mechanism, not dependent on TCP
wrappers AFAIK (although you can do some interesting additional stuff if
you have it; see "man hosts.allow".)
[JimD]
Well, actually, hosts.allow and hosts.deny are used by tcpd and
other programs compiled against libwrap (the TCP Wrappers libraries)
which include things like the Linux portmapper (used by NFS, and
other ONC RPC services).
So you're sort of both right, depending on what you mean by "TCP
Wrappers" (the binary /usr/sbin/tcpd, or the library, libwrap.so
against which it's linked).
[Faber]
The file you want is in $(WINDIR)/System32/etc/hosts.sam (I'm pretty
sure that's where it is. At worst, search for "etc"). You need to
populate it and rename it to simply "hosts".
[Ben]
"hosts" does not have the functionality of "hosts.allow" or
"hosts.deny"; it just does IP to-hostname-mapping. Chris is right:
there's no equivalent file in Wind0ws - although you can get the
functionality in other ways (not that I'm an expert on obsolete OSes,
but I've had to set up a few mixed networks.)
[Faber]
You will also see a "lmhosts.sam"; don't bother with that unless you
have Samba running on hawklord. And if you're going to play with Samba
and lmhosts, be sure to read up on MS netbios technology; that oughtta
make you not want to do it.
[JimD]
If you can't ping it by IP address, and it's on your LAN; that
suggests an ARP problem on one side or the other. Try arp -d $IPADDR
on the Linux side of things. Then try running tcpdump -e -v
to watch the ARPs and other traffic between the two. The -e will
force tcpdump to print MAC addressing info on each dataframe it
captures --- so you can spot if some other ethernet card is responding
to the ARP requests. Of course you can use ethereal or "tethereal"
(the text mode of ethereal) in lieu of tcpdump if you prefer.
[Ben]
BTW, there's a really good intro to reading what I think of as "libpcap
syntax" - the stuff that's put out by tcpdump, ethereal, etc., by Karen
Kent Frederick at SecurityFocus. In fact, it's a four-part series:
Ok I tried winipcfg and I think it gives the clue cause there is a tick
in
the NetBIOS Resolution Uses DNS checkbox. Apart from that its what I
expect. ping 192.168.0.1 continues to time out.
[Faber]
Since you're pinging the IP address, name resolution (DNS, /etc/hosts,
etc.) doesn't work into it. (But does Windows try to do a NetBIOS name
resolution with the IP Address? Hmm...)
If you can't ping using the IP address, something is screwed up on your
network, either the IP address (the other box isn't on the
192.168.[something other than 0] network, is it?), the subnet mask is
wrong, or the Windows box isn't configured for networks.
Did you try Jim's suggestion about ARP? That information would be
useful.
Does that mean I must set up a name server on hawklord?
Also I'm confused about bindings seems I must check client for MS
networks or
printer sharing else I don't get anything. I don't really seem able to
alter anything (situation normal for me in Microkak)
[Faber]
Get it to ping ith the IP Address, then we'll worry about name servers
(but in general, no you don't have to set up a name server).
You do have TCP/IP installed on the Windows box, yes? "Client for MS
networks" enables SMB/NEtBIOS stuff. PRinter sharing uses the same
stuff; I don't know why they're separate.
[David]
Silly idea, try having the MS boxen ping itself. Have seen times that
the MS boxen was so confused that it could not ping itself let alone
someone else. It took a reboot, removal of all networking, reboot,
reinstall networking, reboot and finally it would ping itself and low
and behold it could ping the rest of the network too.
[Ben]
I'm with David on this one, and will confirm the above as standard
behavior (I've seen it a number of times), although I think of it in
different terms:
ping 127.1 # Test the local TCP/IP stack
ping localhost # Test the local hosts file
ping xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx # Test "outside" - ping the immediate upstream IP
ping foo.bar # Test all by pinging an "outside" host by name
Finding out where this breaks is the first key to troubleshooting this
kind of problems, whatever the OS.
Linux and SCSI tape drives
From Becca Putman
In your webpage, you said, "If you can't access your tape drive, try
loading the st.o module."
I'm very new at this, so please bear with me... how do I load that
module? I did a simple installation of RedHat 9(Shrike). When I
installed my Adaptec aha-2940 card, RH saw it immediately. It also sees
my tape drive (a DEC TZ87 - supposed to be the same as a Quantum
DLT2000), but it doesn't load a driver for it. Suggestions?
[Faber]
Are you sure RH hasn't loaded a driver for you? Sounds like it did. Why
do you say it didn't load the module?
Anywho, you can look at the list of loaded modules with 'lsmod' to see if
it is loaded. To load a module, you can type "modprobe st" and the
system will load the st.o modules and any dependencies.
I created the tape with high density
and 6250 blocksize. However, restore is complaining about a tape read
error on first record. If I take out the blocksize argument, it says:
[root@tara tape]# restore -x -v -f /dev/st0 *
Verify tape and initialize maps
Input is from tape
restore: Tape block size (80) is not a multiple of dump block size
(1024)
[K.-H]
/dev/st0 rewinds automatically on closing of the filehandle.
/dev/nst0 is the no-rewind version which will not rewind the tape
automatically
This is valid for all commands using the /dev/[n]st0 icluding mt
[Faber]
Isn't this saying that you should be using 80 instead of 6250?
[Ben]
Probably not. I suspect that what it's seeing is a header that it
doesn't understand, which happens to have "80" in the position where
the block size would normally go.
The tape was created with OpenVMS v6-something back in 1997. Please
tell me there is some way to read it...? Pretty please? Pretty
please with sugar on top?
[Faber]
Can anyone help the lass? I can't remember the last time I did a tape
retore let alone doing one from an different OS (waitaminnit! can you
restore a VMS tape to a un*x/Linux box?).
[Ben]
Erm, well... only if you wanted to make it into a VMS box.
In short,
no - at least as far as I know. You should be able to extract the tape
contents, though - and I seem to remember that there's a VAX/VMS
emulator available for Linux, so you might even be able to run what you
extract.
I found a free product called vmsbackup, which will take a tape made
with VMS and extract it to a unix (read, Linux) box. It can be found at
http://vms.process.com/ftp/vms-freeware/FREE-VMS, if anyone is
interested.
Anyway, I've come to the realization that my tape has a bad block -
right at the very front. sigh I tried to use mt to move the tape
past it, but it appears that just before mt exits, it rewinds the tape.
Real helpful.
Opening bz2/Z file in ViM
From Ashwin N
Hi,
I am facing a strange problem. ViM has a plugin that enables users to edit a
compressed file just like a normal file. Say you open a file.txt.gz in ViM,
it directly shows and allows you to edit the uncompressed test. But,
strangely on my system this is working for .gz files but not working for
.bz2 files!
The plugin file in question is gzip.vim (on my system it is in
/usr/share/vim/vim61/plugin/gzip.vim). The file insides look OK to me, the
right commands are being called for .Z, .gz and .bz2 files. But, when I open
a text file compressed using bzip2 I get junk in ViM, whereas .gz files open
correctly.
Hoping a solution/lead from you guys
[Kapil]
It works here! What I have is:
Package: vim
Version: 6.1
Debian version: 320+1
You didn't say what version etc. you have!
One possible problem that you may have is that your gzip.vim
calls "bunzip2" rather than "bzip2 -d". The former may not exist in some
broken installations of "bzip2".
Mine is ViM Version 6.1, from RedHat 8.0.
No, it uses "bzip2 -d". And both "bzip2 -d" and "bunzip2" work at the shell.
I even changed "bzip2 -d" to "bunzip2" in the gzip.vim file, but it is still
not working
This strange problem is really bugging me. I am lost wrt to the solution for
this. Any other things I need to check?
[Jason]
The 'gzip.vim' in /usr/share/vim/plugin has last change date as 2003 Apr
06
My version uses the '-d' flag and doesn't rely upon gunzip and
bunzip2.
This is just a shot in the dark, but you might want to try list the
autocommands in the 'gzip' group in vim, like this:
:au gzip
....which should dump a list that looks something like this:
--- Auto-Commands ---
gzip BufRead
*.gz let ch_save = &ch|set ch=2
'[,']!gunzip
set nobin
let &ch = ch_save|unlet ch_save
execute ":doautocmd BufReadPost " . expand("%:r")
gzip BufReadPre
*.gz set bin
gzip BufWritePost
*.gz !mv <afile> <afile>:r
!gzip <afile>:r
gzip FileAppendPost
*.gz !mv <afile> <afile>:r
!gzip <afile>:r
gzip FileAppendPre
*.gz !gunzip <afile>
!mv <afile>:r <afile>
gzip FileReadPost
*.gz let ch_save = &ch|set ch=2
'[,']!gunzip
set nobin
let &ch = ch_save|unlet ch_save
execute ":doautocmd BufReadPost " . expand("%:r")
gzip FileReadPre
*.gz set bin
gzip FileWritePost
*.gz !mv <afile> <afile>:r
!gzip <afile>:r
All .gz related stuff, nothing to do at all with .bz2 and .Z. At this point,
I realized that after the commands in gzip.vim were being loaded, they were
being overridden by the above somewhere.
I checked the global vimrc file, which is in /usr/share/vim/vim61/macros and
I hit bull's eye. In that file, the gzip command was getting overridden with
the stuff shown above. So, I just deleted the gzip autocommands in the
global vimrc file and everything is working fine now. All the three
supported files (.gz, .Z, ,bz2) are opening properly.
[Thomas] This incident was also reported on the Vim mailing list, but I was too
slow on the uptake to mention it at the time.
Submitters, send your News Bytes items in
PLAIN TEXT
format. Other formats may be rejected without reading. You have been
warned! A one- or two-paragraph summary plus URL gets you a better
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bytes@linuxgazette.net
Legislation and More Legislation
European Software Patents
The subject of European software patents has returned to the news in
the past few weeks. As was reported some months ago, when the European
Parliament last looked at the question of software patents it included
several amendments to the original proposals. These amendments were
seen by many in the small-medium-enterprise and open-source communities
as representing a welcome move away from unfettered and universal
patenting of software. Now, however, the European Council of Ministers
has reversed many of the Parliament-introduced changes, to the anger of many MEPs.
This latest twist in the European patent saga is far from being the end
of the story. The common position agreed by the Council of Ministers
must now pass the law before parliament again for a second reading, and only when both bodies agree on it can it be passed and become law.
If any European readers have specific views on this issue, it is a very
opportune time to raise it with your MEP, and with the other candidates
running for MEP in your constituency (European Parliament elections are
on June 11th 2004).
Independent?
The Age has published an interesting article by Leon Brooks discussing the "independence" of various policy think-tanks.
For most GNU/Linux users and enthusiasts, these bodies only become
visible when they issue pronouncements on the undesirability of Free
and Open Source Software. Brooks makes insightful, and useful,
comparisons between these organisations' opinions on Free Software, and
on other issues of economic and social freedom. The facts behind the
rhetoric indicate that though the terms free trade and free market are
often invoked, the underlying ideology is one of protectionism and the
support of vested interests.
"putting a mail server on the Internet
without filtering is like covering yourself with barbecue sauce and
breaking into the Charity Home for Badgers with Rabies."
Connexions
is a Content Commons of free, open-licensed educational materials in
fields such as music, electrical engineering and psychology. Mostly
college level, but some content for younger students too. a place for
communities of authors and instructors to create, find, and share
content.
X.org
The X.org foundation has issued their first release of the X Window System
since the formation of the Foundation in January of this year. The new
X.Org release, called X Window System Version 11 Release 6.7 (X11R6.7), builds on the work of the X.Org X11R6.6
and XFree86TM Project Inc. V4.4RC2 releases to combine many of the
latest developments from a large number of the participants and
companies working with the X Window community.
To assure consistency with industry and community requirements and practices, it was developed from the X.Org X11R6.6
code base and the XFree86 V4.4RC2 code base, with the addition of bug
fixes and enhancements. These enhancements include: new IPv6
functionality, Freetype V2.1.7, fontconfig V2.2.2, Xft V2.1.6, Xcursor
V1.1.2, and Xrender V0.8.4, with corresponding changes in documentation
and notices. Additional source and binary releases are anticipated
during 2004.
Slashdot compiled a selection of links on recent Gentoo goings on, including the departure of Daniel Robbins, and the possibility of a major push into the enterprise sector.
Linux From Scratch
The Linux From Scratch community
has proudly announced the release of LFS-5.1. This patch release
contains many bug fixes and package upgrades since LFS-5.0. In
particular, this release features the Linux kernel 2.4.26, GNU C
Library (glibc) 2.3.3 and the GNU Compiler Collection (gcc) 3.3.3. The
book's layout has also been improved, leading to enhanced readability
and improved clarity.
SuSE has announced the release of SuSE Linux version 9.1.
Software News
vnc2swf
vnc2swf
is a screen recording tool for X-Window (X11), Windows and Mac OS
Desktop. Vnc2swf captures the live motion of a screen through VNC
protocol and converts it a Macromedia Flash(TM) movie (.swf).
Originally hailing from Ireland, Michael is currently living in Baden,
Switzerland. There he works with ABB Corporate Research as a
Marie-Curie fellow, developing software for the simulation and design
of electrical power-systems equipment.
Before this, Michael worked as a lecturer in the Department of
Mechanical Engineering, University College Dublin; the same
institution that awarded him his PhD. The topic of this PhD research
was the use of Lamb waves in nondestructive testing. GNU/Linux has
been very useful in his past work, and Michael has a strong interest
in applying free software solutions to other problems in engineering.
How Linux is Changing the Face of Education in Africa
Okay, let's get the formalities out of the way first, so we can get
on with what this article is actually about: the FOSS revolution happening
in African Educational institutions today.
My name is A.J. (It stands for an unpronounceably long Afrikaans name
so just don't ask), and what I do is to develop FOSS solutions for
Education. I work as lead developer for a company called DireqLearn. We are
South-African in origin, but have offices in several other African
countries now. The past two years have been very exciting for us. But this
is not about my company, it's an attempt to share what I have learned and
seen over this period about what is happening in Africa today: the
successes, the failures, and the alteration in mindset we are witnessing.
Two years ago, we started deploying LTSP-based thin-client solutions in
schools. As we progressed, we found that there were so many specific setups
and enhancements that we were doing over and over again, that we started
doing single pre-installed disk images, which we then just dd'd onto the
drives for the schools.
This worked for a little while, but it didn't scale up far enough. Our
answer was to develop our own distribution that meets the needs of schools
specifically. We called it OpenLab. There are a number of other
similar projects out there, although as best I am able to ascertain,
OpenLab is currently the most advanced project to create a distribution
specifically tailored to the needs of the African education market.
But why is education in Africa different from anywhere else? Why not
just use K12LTSP and be done with it?
Because the first thing you realize if you do this for a while, is that
when you put a computer lab into a school in rural Namibia where there is
only dirt roads and solar power, the teachers - petrified of damaging this
valuable gift, and generally petrified - will lock up the lab, and never
open it up again. In direct contrast, put children in front of these
computers and they will start exploring, digging, learning - not just about
computers; it becomes a means of accessing the wealth of knowledge that is
just a google away. A way for a little 8 year old boy who lives essentially
in the middle of knowhere [ I don't know if A.J. intended to use this
word or if it's a misspelling, but I'm leaving it in just as it is - I
like it. - Ben ] to become a citizen of the world.
But you need to overcome the teacher barrier first. That means training
teachers until they are comfortable with the technology. Only then will
they let the children use them. Only then can you see growth, and
learning. I am an African, born and raised, and all too aware that the
continent is in shambles (and we do not gain anything by denying that fact.)
I know that at least part of the answer is education. It takes a lot more
than computers in schools to fix education, but it is a step in the right
direction.
FOSS in this world is not just an idea, but a crucial requirement to
success, I believe. It's not just about cost, in fact with some of the
"education initiatives" a certain huge software developer has launched in
Africa, you could well find the costs basically equalling out. It's about
at least two other things.
There is a philosophical side to it. Africa cannot proceed into the
twenty-first century as just a software consumer, we have a lot of
programming talent and potential on this continent, and we want to
participate in the global software industry as equals. That means skills
development. FOSS is just that, a form of skills development everyone can
afford. Universities and colleges are out of the price-league of most
Africans by far, but anyone can download and study source-code. By giving
more people access to FOSS systems, we improve the market for skills
attained on them, we increase the abilities of these people to gain and
expand those skills and perhaps most importantly, we keep our markets alive
and vibrant with the reality that alternatives exist.
There is also a practical, technical side to it. Thin-client computing
doesn't just save money, it actually works much better in educational
environments. Suddenly, you are talking about a user-based system, rather
than a machine-based system. This means that you can let the children
explore and learn without worrying that they'll break the system for
everybody else. If a user in a Wind0ws(tm) lab hides the 'My Computer'
icon, the teacher has to waste time helping the next user get his system
standardized again in order to do the days lesson. This leads to draconian
measures - suddenly everyone just follows the rules, there is no personal
data, no exploration, no development. LTSP solves this nicely: if a user
hides an icon from the desktop, it's hidden on his desktop, no problem.
Also for the first time, users can learn to customize desktops to really
suit their working style, despite sharing resources. Some people prefer a
taskbar at the bottom, some prefer it on the left hand side. Neither is
better, each just a matter of preference. The more the computer works like
you think, the easier it is to work on. LTSP makes this possible.
Finally FOSS offers one thing that is absolutely crucial to education,
and which no other model can compete with. Language support. First language
education is proven to be by far the most effective kind. FOSS systems
simply have better language support. Anyone can translate open code. The
number of African languages for which desktops, spellcheckers, and useful
applications are available is increasing almost daily, with the translate.org.za project taking a leading
position here, including teaching translation skills to people doing
similar work in other countries.
So all this sounds nice, but I said there is a revolution happening, so
I need to back that up. Here are just some of the projects which are
currently running OpenLab or
similar systems, such as K12LTSP and
SkoleLinux.
In Nigeria, the Education Tax Fund along with SchoolNet Nigeria has
already deployed 35 school sites with LTSP based systems.
In Uganda, a project launched by SchoolNet Uganda has convinced the
ministry of education to mandate thin-clients for all future funded school
lab roll-outs.
In Namibia a project currently running led by Schoolnet Namibia, will
be placing thin-client labs with wireless Internet access into over 200
schools. The largest non-Microsoft based lab roll-out in Africa to date.
Schoolnet Namibia aims to eventually put such labs into every school in
Namibia.
Apart from the thin-client labs which is the area I am most heavily
involved in, there are numerous other projects currently running. The OSSMS project as well as
the schooltool project at schooltool.org are working on creating
viable school administration software. Currently both are in advanced,
stable and usable states. In South-Africa the CSIR also has a number of
FOSS education projects under way.
Simply put there is a revolution under way in Africa, education is being
revamped and taken to new levels. FOSS, and especially Linux is a key part
of this. Will it be successful? Will Africa move out of it's legacy of
poverty, disease, corruption and war? Perhaps not, it probably takes a lot
more than any given type of software to achieve a social revolution on that
scale, but it is not unattainable, and education is a key factor in
uplifting any society, and FOSS is changing the face of education in Africa
for the better.
Security is an issue that every Internet-connected user needs
to consider. Attackers are using increasingly sophisticated tools
to attempt to access our computers, and unfortunately they
sometimes succeed. Denial of service attacks, worms, viruses,
data theft and plain old vandalism are common, and chances are
that if you haven't yet been affected, you know someone who has.
Even home dial-up users should be aware of the risks. Firewalling
is one of the primary tools for controlling computer security,
and in this article I'll try to explain what a firewall is and
what it does, without getting bogged down in too much technical
jargon. So do you need a firewall? If you connect to the
'net, even via dial-up, the answer is probably yes.
Who This Article Is For
It's for ordinary users who run Linux on their home computers,
and who'd like to improve their security without having to wade
through reams of documentation. I've tried to write in plain
English, keeping it as simple as possible. As a result, this
article only just scratches the surface of Linux firewalling, and
the areas I've covered are somewhat oversimplified. Hopefully
though, there'll be enough detail to get you started.
Whatever you do, don't think that just because you are using
Linux that you'll be safe - sure, you'll be immune to most of the
worms and viruses out there, but that doesn't mean your machine
won't get "owned". And let's face it; some Linux distros
as-installed are as insecure as MS Windows...
Firewalls - What They Are and What They Do
Originally, the term Firewall was used to describe a wall
isolating one section of a building from another in case of fire.
In a computing environment, a firewall performs a similar
protective and isolating function, and forms a sort of security
gate between your computer and the Internet.
Firewalls can take a variety of physical forms, using both
hardware and/or software. They can be dedicated hardware devices,
or combined with other devices such as modems or routers.
Sometimes a computer will be set up to do nothing but act as a
firewall to protect a local network. For the home computer user
however, firewalling is usually implemented as a software package
installed and configured to protect not just the home computer,
but any other computers on the local network that share the
Internet connection.
How do They Work?
In simple terms, we could say that firewalls are used to control traffic
between your computer (or LAN) and the Internet. More accurately, a
firewall is a way of enforcing a policy or a set of rules governing the
flow of data packets to and from the outside world. Firewalls that are
used to protect home computers are usually based on packet filtering, i.e.
data packets are admitted or rejected according to the way the rules are
configured. Most firewalling tools for end users will come with a sensible
set of rules by default, so that they can benefit from at least some
protection even without any configuration.
Some Jargon
Here are a few of the basic terms you are likely to encounter
when setting up a firewall. You might already be familiar with
them; if so read on anyway to see how they relate to
firewalling...
Hosts - A host is simply a computer that is connected
to (or a part of) a network. This includes the Internet, which is
basically just a network of networks. Firewalls can be configured
to prohibit access by specific hosts.
Ports- These are the virtual connection points used by networking
services; not to be confused with physical ports like the serial or USB
ports. They are allocated an identifying number, and common services are
associated with specific ports by convention. For example web servers
generally use port 80, outgoing email uses port 25 and so on. Many
operating systems will have lots of ports open unnecessarily - these
are potential access points for attackers. You could think of ports as
being analogous to the doors of a building. For a building to be of any use
it must allow some access; on the other hand trying to maintain security in
a building with dozens of open or unlocked doors will be impossible. A
firewall can not only control access through these doors, it can make the
unused doors invisible to hosts on the outside.
Packets - Data doesn't flow between hosts on a network
in a continuous stream, but rather it is broken down into
manageable chunks called packets. Each packet contains
information related to the type of packet it is, where it is
going to and where it has come from, as well as the data itself.
Firewalls will handle individual packets in one of these ways,
depending on how the packet matches the firewall rules:
Accept (a.k.a. allow) - This lets the packet through the
firewall. Same as no firewall.
Reject - Prohibits the package from passing through. A
"destination-unreachable" message is normally sent back to the
sending host.
Drop (a.k.a. deny, blackhole)- Prohibits the packet from
passing, with no response sent back to host.
Protocols are the methods or systems that define how
networking clients and servers will communicate. You are probably
familiar with at least some of these listed here; they are common
protocols that can be controlled with firewall filtering
rules.
TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) - The
main protocol for data delivery over the Internet
HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) - used for the
Web
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) - used for downloading
and uploading files
UDP (User Datagram Protocol) - used for one-way data
flow, e.g. streaming media
ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) - this one
allows routers to pass messages to each other, amongst other
things. It also allows hosts to "ping" others, which can
sometimes reveal useful info to a potential intruder.
SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) - for sending
email
Telnet - used to log in to a remote computer, telnet
is notoriously insecure. If you really need to do this, use
something like SSH instead
Rules - Firewalling is simply the enforcement of a set
of configurable rules. Each packet of data is assessed and then
accepted or rejected depending on how it compares to criteria set
in the rules. Firewall applications allow the user to configure
the rules, and then implement them.
Monitoring and Logging
As well as controlling network traffic, firewalling tools also
allow you to monitor or log network activity. The type of
activity that's reported on is configurable, so that you only
need be shown the interesting stuff, and not be overwhelmed with
tons of entries describing legitimate traffic. Log files can be
somewhat cryptic unless you know what to look for, and can
quickly become huge. GUI apps like Firestarter have a
big advantage in this area; they can monitor and display the
information in a way that is easy to understand.
How Linux Implements Firewalling
Firewalls under Linux (using software) utilize a tool called
iptables with the 2.4 series kernels, and ipchains
with the earlier 2.2 series kernels. In fact, it's quite possible
to run an effective firewall simply by entering ipchains/iptables
commands from a shell prompt. These commands configure the rules,
and start the packet filtering process. Entering these commands
manually would be difficult though, and here's why: first, you'd
have to be familiar with the iptables/ipchains syntax to know
what to type in. Secondly, because firewall rules tend to be
rather complex, it'd be time consuming. Thirdly, you'd have to go
through the exercise every time you booted, and fine-tuning would
involve typing in more obscure (to the average user) commands.
For these reasons, iptables/ipchains is generally run from a
script rather than directly from the command line. This way the
script can be automatically run at boot-up, and tuning carried out
simply by editing the script with a text editor or alternatively
from a GUI front end. There are plenty of pre-configured scripts
available, and if you prefer your firewalls point'n'clicky, you
can do it all with a mouse. So in fact, when we talk about
firewall programs, we're really talking about front-ends for
iptables/chains. Firewalls for home computers are generally based
around iptables' packet filtering capabilities - however, iptables is
capable of doing much more.
Setting up your Firewall
Which firewall tool should you choose? This is a bit like
asking which editor is best, or which distro to choose - ask
twenty different users and you'll get nearly as many different
answers. In other words, it doesn't really matter, they all do
the job so just use something that suits your own preferences.
Running a firewall on a home machine needn't be difficult, and
often requires no more than a couple of mouse clicks. Here are
your options:
Use your existing distro-supplied tools - This
should probably be your first choice. Most, if not all distros,
will set up basic firewalling by default. Mandrake, for
example, does this using rules whose "strictness" is determined
by the security level you select. The lowest security level
under Mandrake doesn't provide any firewalling, while the
highest enables a firewall using relatively restrictive rules.
You can change the security level at any time, not just at
installation. Other home-desktop style distros will have
similar tools, but they aren't always listed in the menus or
some other conspicuous place. This means you might have to dig
through your distros documentation to find out what tools are
available (there may be several, including GUI tools), and how
to run them. Most distros (e.g. Mandrake again) include a great
tool named Bastille that allows easy
firewall configuration, as well as many other security related
tasks. Some Internet related programs (e.g. Roaring Penguin's
ppp-oe package) can also set up a firewall, though the
configuration options may be somewhat limited.
Use a Pre-Configured Script - There are plenty of
these available for download on the 'net. These scripts usually
have a well-commented configuration section that you can edit
to suit your own requirements. This makes it easy to tailor
your firewall without having to understand lots of obscure
iptables options. They are usually sensibly configured by
default, so will provide reasonable protection for most users
as-is. Most people will probably want to add their firewall
script to their start-up scripts to enable the firewall on
boot-up.
Use a GUI Firewall - For those who prefer graphical,
mouse-click type tools, there are some of these available as
well. These are basically graphical front ends for iptables
scripts, and are an exceptionally easy way to configure and run
a firewall. They have the advantage of being a simple way to
monitor network activity like uninvited connections and port
scans etc.
The Hardware Firewall - It's unlikely that you'd run
a dedicated hardware firewall on your home computer or network,
but that doesn't mean some sort of hardware option is out of
the question. There are quite a few ADSL modems/routers on the
market that include firewalling capabilities, and they're often
no more expensive than a plain modem. The firewalling functions
on these devices require little or no setup, so for some they
can be an attractive option.
The Dedicated Firewall PC - Yet another option for
those running a home network is an old PC (e.g. 486) set up as a
dedicated firewall/router. There are distros designed for this
type of application (e.g. Smoothwall) that are easily set up via
a web browser. If you have a few machines on your network, this
might be a good way to set up a cheap and secure gateway.
Configuration
Before you even start, make sure you have no unnecessary
services running. Some of the older distros in particular would
run all sorts of servers by default, so turn 'em off and strip
them from your startup scripts. Whichever way you choose to run
your firewall, you'll probably need to configure a few things. In
general, I'd recommend starting off by blocking just about
everything, and only opening things up if they prove to be too
restrictive. The general idea is to shut off anything that you
don't need. Some questions you may be asked include:
Your Internet and LAN interface, e.g. ppp0 and eth0
Ports you will allow access to. For the average home user
who just wants to browse the web and do email etc. you can just
close them all. You might find that some apps (p2p filesharing
apps, or online gaming for example) will complain, but you can
always open ports later if you need to. Of course, those
running servers will need to keep the appropriate ports
available - but then if you are running servers, you
should be taking security very seriously, and I strongly
recommend that you get more detailed advice than what's
available here...
Permitted protocols - Again, only allow what you need.
The address of the internal LAN
The addresses of any hosts that you want to explicitly
exclude from accessing your computer.
What to do with unwanted packets - i.e. set to "REJECT" or
"DENY"
Many firewall tools (especially the ones that come with your
distro) should be able to figure much of this out for themselves,
and if you aren't sure, just go with the defaults.
Testing your firewall
It's important to check that your firewall is actually
running, and doing what it's supposed to be doing. The easy way
to do this is to connect to one of the online services like
ShieldsUp or
Sygate Online Services.
These can tell you quite a bit (using wanky buzzwords like
"stealthed"), such as which ports are open, closed or blocked,
how your computer responds (or doesn't) to different types of
requests and so on.
Links
There is an abundance of firewall related stuff on the web.
Here are a few that may interest you:
Some Ready-Made Firewall Scripts: MonMotha's
Firewall Scripts are popular, and a good choice for
non-techie users. The configuration section is brief and simple,
and the script is well commented. Arno's Firewall
Script is another popular choice, but more complex and
detailed than MonMotha's.
Graphical (GUI) Firewalling Tools: Firestarter is
very widely used, and has a graphical interface and firewall
setup and monitoring capabilities. TurtleFirewall is an
easy to use tool with a graphical configuration via Webmin. Guarddog A
firewall setup tool for KDE users..
Other Tools Smoothwall is a
software package designed to turn a PC into a dedicated
firewall/router. Configured through a web browser, and a cost
effective way of protecting a local network.
[Lgang] linuxgazette.net down......
Asking 2c-tips of TAG
Network Connection Problem
Greetings from Heather Stern
[Faber]
I didn't quite follow this. I think you're saying that everything works
the way you want it to, right?
European Software Patents
![[Picture]](../gx/2002/tagbio/conry.jpg)
Originally hailing from Ireland, Michael is currently living in Baden,
Switzerland. There he works with ABB Corporate Research as a
Marie-Curie fellow, developing software for the simulation and design
of electrical power-systems equipment.