Visit Our Sponsors:		Table of Contents: The MailBag News Bytes The Answer Gang More 2-Cent Tips Linux User Caricatures , by Franck Alcidi PDF Service with Samba , by John Bright SAGU, Free Software for Academic Administration , by Cesar Brod Automated Logins Revisited , by Adrian J. Chung Battle for the Desktop: Why Linux Isn't Winning , by Dennis Field Installing Linux on a Sun SPARC Ultra 5 , by Bruce Forsberg The Godfather of Computing - Charles Babbage , by G James Jones Standard Database Setup with Perl and PostgreSQL: Part 3 , by Mark Nielsen The Foolish Things We Do With Our Computers , by Mike "Iron" Orr Qubism , by Jon "Sir Flakey" Harsem A Quick and Easy Way to Set Up a Mailing List , by Lawrence Teo Setting Up a Web-based Archive for a Mailing List , by Lawrence Teo The Back Page

Linux Gazette Staff and The Answer Gang

Editor: Michael Orr
Technical Editor: Heather Stern
Senior Contributing Editor: Jim Dennis
Contributing Editors: Ben Okopnik, Dan Wilder, Don Marti

TWDT 1 (gzipped text file) TWDT 2 (HTML file) are files containing the entire issue: one in text format, one in HTML. They are provided strictly as a way to save the contents as one file for later printing in the format of your choice; there is no guarantee of working links in the HTML version.
Linux Gazette, http://www.linuxgazette.net/ This page maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette, gazette@linuxgazette.net Copyright © 1996-2001 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.

Send tech-support questions, Tips, answers and article ideas to The Answer Gang <tag@lists.linuxgazette.net>. Other mail (including questions or comments about the Gazette itself) should go to <gazette@linuxgazette.net>. All material sent to either of these addresses will be considered for publication in the next issue. Please send answers to the original querent too, so that s/he can get the answer without waiting for the next issue.

Unanswered questions might appear here. Questions with answers--or answers only--appear in The Answer Gang, 2-Cent Tips, or here, depending on their content. There is no guarantee that questions will ever be answered, especially if not related to Linux.

Before asking a question, please check the Linux Gazette FAQ to see if it has been answered there.

• LWN links
• Linux support call handling
• DSL Drivers
• university engineering team
• Deleting items in KDE 2.1.1 "Run Command"
• GUI and CMOS clock (2 Questions)
• poster
• How to configure AutoFS to automount NFS exported volumes
• Net bios code
• does anyone know how one can set quotas in linux for a directory rather than home

LWN links

Linux Weekly News needs fresh sponsorship soon. See our News Bytes for details (there's a mailing list).

Your Editor would be greatly saddened to see LWN disappear. -Mike

Many of the Gang use it; Jim and I would sorely miss it... We do have a 2c Tip this month pointing at LWN, too. - Heather

Linux support call handling

Hi,

I have been searching through the Linux Gazette website for anyting on the industry average of call handling times for Linux support. So far I have not found anything.

I was wondering if you had done an article or come across this. I was wondering if there were any industry documents that measured the average time it would take a customer to call in for support till the time that their problem was resolved.

Any information that you may have would be very helpful.

Thanks, Darlene

I don't think we've ever covered that topic. -- Mike

If anyone has enough information that isn't under some sort of NDA, to write such an article, it'd be interesting to see. Unfortunately statistics about how long an Answer Gang member takes to answer a querent are a bit fuzzy; we don't get docked for answering late, nor promise we'll answer at all; some "answers" are really requests for more data and touched with tidbits in the hopes it will help somehow -- and we may or may not ever learn if our reader got the answer they needed. (Well, that last part's no different from phone support, anyway.) -- Heather

BTW.. I tried sending this message to tag@lists.linuxgazette.net (documented on your website) and my mail was returned.

That address was changed because of the large number of off-topic questions we received. The address was posted widely on web pages with no explanation that it was for Linux questions or that querents are supposed to do their own research first. The current address is linux-questions-only at ssc.com. Where did you see tag@lists.linuxgazette.net documented? We changed the home page and the current issue, although we haven't changed the back issues. -- Mike

...but our readers are helpful souls. Thanks, Darlene! ...

I found tag@lists.linuxgazette.net refrenced twice on the FAQ page under # 4 Guidelines for answering questions.

OK, thanks. We used to have a mailback running after we turned the tag address off. Then the mailback got into a mail loop with one address and we turned it off, but didn't think about updating the FAQ. -- Mike

DSL Drivers

Hello eveyone at the gazette I've been all over the net trying to find out the answer about problem im having I have an Efficient Networks 4060 USB Modem . I want to run Mandrake 8.1 but dont know if there any drivers or if they even exist.maybe you guys can help me with any info

Lots of people have been caught with DSL USB modems without Linux drivers. So there may be a driver, but it's not too likely. Your best bet may be to return it for an external modem that connects to an Ethernet card. These are much more Linux-friendly.

TAG members, are there any USB and/or internal DSL modems that do have Linux drivers? -- Mike

Apparently not enough of TAG use USB for serial gadgetry, so perhaps you can help us out, dear readers! -- Heather

university engineering team

This request originally arrived as a letter to "our HR department." We advised them we aren't a company. They hope that our readership at large will have a good idea or two about something specific they can contribute to.

By the way, before you start groaning about Visual Basic not being Linux, check out GNOME Basic at http://www.gnome.org/gb ... -- Heather

Thank you sir, as per your directions we are sending you same letter addressed to linux users . so please publish it in your mailbag. Also if you are having mail ids of some more organisations having projects related to drivers, we request you to send them to us, so that we can cntact them also.

We don't have a list of projects related to drivers. But there are thousands of them.

Answer Gang, is there a list somewhere of Linux driver projects these people can contribute to, or nonexistent drivers that need to be written? -- Mike

Deleting items in KDE 2.1.1 "Run Command"

The number of items listed in KDE's 2.1.1 "Run Command" is getting ridiculous.

I'd like to edit this list. I've tried "Clear" but it merely clears the item in the box, but retains the list. I've also tried editing "History= . . ." in /home/username/.kde(2)/share/config/kdesktoprc file. Unfortunately, the list remains intact whether I restart kde or not.

Will this list eventually seize control of my hd?

Help!
TIA, Andre

GUI and CMOS clock (2 Questions)

I am new to Linux and am desperate to solve 2 problems. I run a new Evesham PC with a 1.4GHz Athlon chip, NVIDIA GeForce 2MX graphics card with a Taxan crystal vision 680 TCO99-S monitor.

When I boot my SuSE 7.1 installation from the floppy, the boot process hangs at 'setting up CMOS clock'. I have to hit the restet button, boot Windows, shut down Windows and restart Linux. I other words, I cannot get Linux to boot sucessfully twice in a row. I have to boot WIndows in between.

My second problem is with XFree86 ver4.0.2. The windowing system seems to have a mind of its own. Usually when I arrive at the graphical login, the scree is offset about 2 inches to the right. If I go into Sax2 to configure using Xfine the screen display will 'snap' into place when I stick with the 600x800 setting. When I come out of Sax2 sometimes the setting will be saved. Sometimes the virtual desktop space is larger that the actual resolution setting. If I try to configure for 1024x768, this does not work at all. On the limited occasion I have got an 800x600 screen set up successfully, if I shut down and reboot, the same problem reappears even thought I have apparantly saved the settings.

HELP!!??

James Rutter

poster

I'm a teacher of the computer study and I take care of the school laboratory in the Special Secondery School. The real name of my school is - Szkoła Zawodowa Specjalna nr 4 w Nowym Sączu.

My pupils are different than the healthy children so I have to do everything what is the best for them. Because for some years I have been using Linux (Rh 5.0) in my private computer I thought about my pupils. So lately I have started to learn them the Linux system at school. Now we've got only Linux in our laboratory.

At the moment I'm looking for some posters or calendars or advertisements or others informations about Linux. I want put them on the walls in my classroom. I hope that my pupils'll be more interested in Linux this way. So if you can help me please write how can I get these things which I wrote before or how can I buy them. Thanks a lot for helping me.

Rams Grzegorz
33-300 Nowy Sacz
ul.Kunegundy 68
POLAND

[Mike Martin] Off the top of my head Publicity departments of the following Linux cos


Red Hat
SUSE
Caldera? (sorry - a bit of bias)
Mandrake

and Linux friendly cos


HP
IBM (with their linux promo budget they must have posters to give away)

and of course it would be worth checkong on debian and linux.com

We can send you the covers from several Linux Journal magazines over the past year. Would you like that?

You can preview the images at http://noframes.linuxjournal.com/lj-issues/mags.html , and click on the links for issues 76-91, and tell us which covers you'd like. Also, is your mailing address correct?

We are also looking for other organizations who may have other posters.

There is also something called the Linux Image Montage Project. I don't have the URL offhand, but they are collecting linux-related images and putting them together into a huge penguin image. -- Mike

Penguin Computing has some very amusing posters.

And there's always some potential to find cool things at ThinkGeek.com -- Heather

How to configure AutoFS to automount NFS exported volumes

I need to set up a RH Linux 7.1 system to automatically mount exported NFS filesystems on the fly. I realize the security implications inherint in such a request, but require the functionality despite the dangers right now. On my Unix boxes I could simply add a line in the auto_master file "/net -hosts -soft,noac" and set a couple of flags in the nfsconf file (AUTOFS=3D1, NFS_CLIENT=3D1, NFS_SERVER=3D1) and everything works fine. I've tried this on the Linux box without success. Is there something I'm missing?

Thanks in advance, Aaron

Net bios code

Hai ,

Can you send the netbios code for interction b/n linux and windows

systems .Through this code I want windows system properties(like user name, IP,memory like) display on linux system.

waiting for reply.

Karunakar Reddy B.V

A little hard to read, but I think he's asking a different question than Samba answers. Does anyone know how to ask a linux server about the peers out there which are connected to its shares? If he knew an application that does this, then he could read its source...

Note well, that all MSwin style shares involving a Linux box are going to be over TCP/IP, not NETBIOS. Even Microsoft doesn't recommend NETBIOS anymore - it's a noisy protocol, so it scales horribly. -- Heather

does anyone know how one can set quotas in linux for a directory rather than home

Hi! Does anyone know how we can set quota to some directory for eg /info/software to limit say 50mb.I went through the man pages but was unsuccessfull in setting the same.

Pls help

Thanks Franco.F

Quotas are usually by userid, aren't they? The only thing that I can think of is creating a filesystem image of ext2 type, and loopback mounting it at that directory. But using quotas effectively would make a great article... especially if you have some real world examples that get solved. Making enterprise Linux a little more fun? :D -- Heather

• suggestion for "A need for Documentation" article
• Whiptail vs Dialog
• Linux in Africa
• Sklyarov case mischaracterized

suggestion for "A need for Documentation" article

Dear LinuxGazette,

I have been reading your article "A need for Documentation". Very interesting article.

I have made a Linux documentation website project. Why I hear people say we need documentation, there no lots of good documents, etc.? Im trying to advertise my Linux documentation project for lots of time, but no one reply me. I think that I made a really good work in this documentation website. Im trying to tell websites like you, LinuxGazette, to get my documents and give them to the Linux community, but I get no reply from that sites. Maybe the need of documents isnt so urgent.

Please, check my website. I think there are good guides for variety of Linux subjects. I think they can help the Linux community in the search for good documentation in the net. I will really appreciate your interest in my project. Thank you very much.

-- Best Regards, Eran Levy.

"This is Linux country. If you listen carefully, you can hear Windows reboot..."

WebSite: http://levy.dyn.dhs.org

I think that you and Matthias [the article's author] are talking about two different things, although you both support the cause of documentation. You are trying to provide a documentation portal for various types of Linux questions. Matthias is trying to get program developers to document their own projects better. If they do that, it will mean more content to put on your site. -- Mike

Hi Mike, I really appreciate your reply for my E-mail. All the websites that I sent E-mail to them about my Linux project website didnt reply me. I hope that all the Linux sites will read the E-mails as you read. Keep up with your excellent work! I hope for you and for Linux Gazette the best.

Whiptail vs Dialog

In Issue 69 of the LinuxGazette (http://linuxgazette.net/issue69/issue69.html) Heather Stern recommends using Dialog over Whiptail, implying that Whiptail is brain-damaged. Having just started to play with Whiptail (and having never done much scripting, and none with Dialog), I was just wondering if she might expound on this a bit more. I did a google search and a dogpile search for "whiptail versus dialog", and this article was about the only relevant hit I found, so as of now Heather's recommendation is all I have to go on.

Thanks!

Kent

Linux in Africa

Hi,
I saw about the above article on linux gazette and I feel that it is worthy. Though I'am not experienced in projects of that kind, I'am sure I can help in the training. Please if you have any comments or suggestions e-mail me.

reagards
Kamau Gatheru
gatheru@treasury.go.ke

Good luck, Kamau. Let us know if you find anything.

The article Kamau is referring to is a Mailbag letter at

http://linuxgazette.net/issue67/lg_mail67.html#mailbag%2F2

See also GLUE (Groups of Linux Users Everywhere) at http://www.linuxjournal.com/glue . -- Mike

Sklyarov case mischaracterized

There is a bit of common misinformation about the Dmitry Sklyarov DMCA case in the October News Bytes.

It says, "Companies are using [DMCA] to ... jail a foreign programmer for writing (in his home country) a program that is legal in his home country."

Sklyarov was arrested on suspicion of distributing that program in the United States, not for writing it.

The most strenuous supporters of DMCA do not claim it should outlaw writing of software when done outside the US.

-- Bryan Henderson

[Mike] According to the EFF FAQ at http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Sklyarov/us_v_sklyarov_faq.html#ProsecutionQuestions the charges are both that he "trafficked" in the device and "aided and abetted" his company in doing so. We don't know how the prosecutor will word his case, but he could claim that writing code is "aiding and abetting".

He could. But since he hasn't yet, it's really putting words in his mouth to say that Sklyarov was arrested for writing a program. -Bryan

[Mike] No more misleading than to say, as you did, "Sklyarov was arrested on suspicion of distributing that program in the United States." When did he distribute it?

Better to say he was arrested for trafficking. But even if he argues that writing the program alone was aiding and abetting its importation into the US, it's misleading to say he was jailed for writing a program. That's like saying that a person who shot someone to death was jailed for discharging a firearm.

[Mike] So we agree that he was not arrested for selling/soliciting/giving away the program during this trip. So when did he distribute it? The US jurisdictional claim rests on the web site, so they would have to show he was somehow involved with it, or that by his association with the company he was indirectly involved. His only role seems to be writing the program. Thus, why I say he was arrested "for" writing it. I just don't like the overemphasis on distribution/trafficking in some accounts, because it suggests Dmitry had more involvement in that end of things than we have reason to believe.

Dmitry was in the US to give a talk at a conference, not to sell a program.

Right. The other common misconception of the case is that Sklyarov was arrested for something he did on his trip to the US. Again, the authorities have made no such claim.

[Heather] I can read this two different ways. Either you are being sarcastic when you say "Right" and you are declaring the statement that he was here to speak at a conference, to be a misconception... which if so, has at least some fallacy to it, as he was definitely here to present at a conference.

Or, you are agreeing that he was arrested for something he didn't do in the US, which means that your disagreement with our point of view is merely that you believe they had the right (perhaps the duty) to snap him up like that, and we don't.

By the way the analogy would be closer to saying that the designer of a certain variety of bullet shells was being held on charges that bullets are used to murder people, never minding that they are also used to hunt dangerous vermin and for food gathering in rural areas, including the rural areas of other countries where one really does have to hunt for food, and in areas where gun-toting is legally mandated.

Dmitry didn't "murder" anyone's eBook. (Hmm, he might have dissected several, but it is likely provable that he had Rights to the copies in question.) It's still as illegal as ever to clone a readable book, e- or otherwise, without having been granted the right-to-copy. It's legal to own hammers but not to smash unconsenting people's windows with them. I recommend that you read the Copyright act in better detail: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17 There are a number of rights explicitly granted to libraries, which may not be implementable if the DMCA is allowed its broadest scope. That, I'd say, is a bug.

[Mike] The DMCA's supporters would like to see it applied worldwide in any way they can. This can be by claiming US jurisdiction or by getting it written into international treaties and other countries' laws. California has a "long-arm" law under which it claims jurisdiction for any web site which is accessible to a Californian, whether or not the site is located in California. This concept will continue to be pushed and pushed.

Granted, the Department of Justice did not go that far in the Sklyarov case. It merely claimed that because ElcomSoft had a web site in the US selling the product, that was enough for US jurisdiction. Of course ElcomSoft had already shut down the site voluntarily at Adobe's "request" before this brou-ha-ha happened, and there's no allegation that Dmitry was personally involved in that site or that he is an officer or marketing directory for ElcomSoft rather than just a programmer.

So, the DMCA supporters may reluctantly accept that it cannot be applied outside the US, but that doesn't make them stop trying to extend its reach.

I haven't seen this. Statements I've seen by supporters indicate they want it applied the same way a country's laws traditionally are applied vis a vis other countries. I don't see anything new or anything unique to the US. But maybe I haven't been reading radical enough web pages.

Sure, Adobe would like there to be an international law applying to every human being. But that wish is a long way from an actual present claim against Sklyarov, and such a claim reported in LG is the basis of my original letter.

[Heather] I don't know whether to apply quite that level of slippery slope ... a law to every human being ... to Adobe themselves. But I don't feel any qualms about applying it to the people who wrote and voted for the DMCA itself. I believe that what the DMCA supporters want is to be able to sell and restrict every piece of data that might flow past them, until they are more wealthy than the Ferengi clan who has the exclusive concession on Q-tips(tm) cotton swabs.

The present claim may be unfounded; I personally believe it to be worse than that since I think Adobe is biting the hand that would feed them Russian customers. But I think the precedent that speakers can be picked up and singled out for their corporate entities' infractions, to be a quite terrifying one. You see, I don't honestly believe that someone has a plane-bomb with my photograph taped to its nose, or that I am any more likely to be in a building that gets toasted by terrorism, than I am to merely get run over by a car when walking to the supermarket, or struck by lightning the next time I go hiking, or win the local Lotto. But I do expect to speak at events, and someday for those events to be in other countries, who may have even weirder laws, be more abitrary about making them, or have worse treatment of accused people. If I end up in a situation where such a country has half a case, I no longer expect the US to be able to protect me much ... because they've already burned us in that regard. Alan Cox won't be at ALS -- because he's refusing to travel here while this sort of nonsense is considered or even claimed to be the law of our land. This has been called the "chilling effect" in literature that follows censorship cases.

I'm not a lawyer, I'm a frightened human being, and I wrote my own opinion. If you don't like it, tough. It's my free speech and our free press... and I'd very much like to keep it that way. If that means speaking up for the freedom to speak as well as the freedom to say particular things - I'll do it.

Actually, ElcomSoft hired a company located in the US to collect the money. I think the web site in question was that company's. However, the company also has offices, employees, etc. on US soil. That's not insignificant.

[Heather] It makes it even worse. If EIcomSoft's US partner is the offender, it's their top brass that should be standing in court. If EIcomSoft themselves are the offenders, it's their export agents who should be standing there -- but in no case the programmer, because the code's legal and even REQUIRED elsewhere, and reverse engineering itself, by fair means but not foul, is (for the moment at least) legal here.

There's also precedent that "Code is Speech, and to be protected as such." As for whether sanity will prevail, only time will tell.

[Mike] I guess we're just going around in circles now, and the thing to do is wait until the case is presented and see what the lawyers say then...

What we're really down to is the issue of what Sklyarov did vs what he is accused of. I don't even pretend to know the detailed facts of the case, so I won't argue whether he distributed, trafficked, aided, or abetted. I don't know. And you know what? The FBI and US attorney don't either. It takes a trial to answer questions like that.

I just think when one says "was jailed for..." in this pre-sentence context, one is talking about what the person's accused of, not what he did. I don't think Sklyarov is accused of writing a program. But I think there are people, including LG readers, who believe that the FBI would also arrest a person who wrote a copyright-busting program even if it never entered the US. And that isn't true.

[Heather] 'Tis a fact he wrote a program. 'Tis unknown if it entered here; or if it did, that it did anything they can claim as directly damaging; but probable that it was published in the proceedings of his conference. I think that if he is accused of something they manage to make stick, it will be quite a slippery slope, the top point being, he wrote the program, because they know he won't wriggle out of that one. As for what the FBI would or would not do, I don't think am ad hominem argument on their behalf is any more appropriate here than "I have kids and a wife, can I go home now?" would be a good defense for Dmitry in court, and I don't believe that you know what the FBI would or would not do, anyway. I do believe that you trust them with your rights, further than I trust them with mine.

The damage has already been done. I think it will take some very brave judges.

• PDA user request
• LG Mirrors page renovation

PDA user request

Hi,

I know this my be a little much, but seeing as how palmtops are so abundant these days. I was thinking how great it would be ig Linux Gazzette newest issue was available at the same web page monthly so it could be synched as as Avantgo (www.avantgo.com) channel.

There is a link http://www.linuxgazette.com/current that points to the current issue. This was originally requested by somebody with a palmtop, because he said it made it easier to download the latest issue to his palmtop. Does this do what you want?

You can also go to http://MY.FAVORITE.LG.MIRROR.com/current and get the same thing. -- Mike

Yes, thank you.

I don't want to favor one brand of palmtops or one commercial channel site over another. (Is Avantgo commercial?) -- Mike

Also, not trying to be bothersome but if everything but the links to the articles was removed it would better. But if that is too much could you please at least remove this section from the bottom:


TWDT 1 (gzipped text file)
TWDT 2 (HTML file)

are files containing the entire issue: one in text format, one in HTML. They are provided strictly as a way to save the contents as one file for later printing in the format of your choice; there is no guarantee of working links in the HTML version. It would remove about 1Mb from the size or my download when I download the page everything 1 link deep (I only have 16 Mb RAM) also if you were to do that it would make a good Avantgo channel if they will carry it and possibly get some other readers. Thanks.

We get many requests from readers to offer LG in different formats, make the TWDT files better, remove the TWDT files, etc. We can't please everybody. What we have is a compromise that has evolved over the years. I'm not happy with the TWDT files either--it means any time I make a correction I have to change the same thing in three files--but there is so much reader demand for them that we cannot drop them.

Perhaps you can arrange with a mirror to offer a customized version of LG optimized for palmtop reading. The mirror could make a script that downloads the files and removes the TWDT versions, or replaces them with small files that explain that the larger files are available only on normal mirrors. -- Mike

Some of the mirrors seem not to be functioning.

The mirrors page is way out of date. We're moving the entries into a database to make updating easier ... but the project isn't done quite yet. [Update 31-Oct-2001: But it is done now. See the next message.] -- Mike

I just thought it would be nice to be able to keep up a little better (information overload you know).

Thanks for all your suggestions. When readers show enough interest in the Gazette to suggest improvements, it makes us feel like our work is worthwhile. -- Mike

Yes I forgot avantgo is commercial. It is free to use personally, but they charge for providing content (I think). They used to allow users to share custom channels but not currently. Plus they support mainly WindowsCE.

Would you like to be our palmtop researcher? We could put a section on the Mirrors page about LG resources for PDA users. That way it wouldn't matter if they were commercial, because the Mirrors page is supposed to list everything. What we'd need would be solutions for a variety of palmtops.

Are there any articles you might like to write about Linux and palmtops? Or any 2-Cent Tips you can provide on reading LG on your palmtop?

What exactly are these "channels"? Are they just a set of links to the articles in the current issue?

LG has an RSS file now. http://www.linuxgazette.com/lg.rss. This was originally created at Linux Focus' request so we can share current article links. (We put LF's links in News Bytes.) Any site may parse this file and use it to generate links to the current LG articles on their web page. -- Mike

Are there any linux apps that keep you up to date on html content (ie channel subscriptions).

There are programs that moniter a list of webpages and let you know whether any have changed. I haven't used any of them. Look in your distribution. You can also write a program in Python to do this, using the urllib module. -- Mike

[Faber] You mean like plucker (http://plkr.org) ?

I think you'll want to take a look at Sitescooper (http://www.sitescooper.org) - while it's rather Palm specific, I think it uses Plucker under the hood. Of course it's source available and already knows a whole bunch of PDA formats so it can almost certainly be tweaked to other handhelds and PDA-doc formats. Linux Gazette is there already, item 135 in their list last I looked -- Heather

One last thought on the original matter, if the html file TWDT 2 (HTML file) provided at the bottom of the page was named http://www.linuxgazette.com/current/current.html that would work also.

Starting with this issue, I have made TWDT.html a symlink to issue##.html. Give yourself a bookmark of http://www.linuxgazette.com/current/TWDT.html. -- Mike

If anyone wants to do a mirror of LG that is dedicated to keeping it in formats friendly for handhelds -- provide the results on a publicly accessible site, and we'll gladly add you to the mirrors database.

The license that the Linux Gazette is under certainly allows for this sort of transformation. Other sites might give you more of a complaint, but we sure won't! -- Heather

LG Mirrors page renovation

The LG mirrors page has been revamped. 25 new sites have been added, and the HTML has been regularized. All the entries are now in a database, making Your Editor's task easier.

This project originally started in February, with me cutting-and-pasting the data into a text file in mail-header format. This was taking forever, so I got Dan Wilder to write me an awk script. This saved 90% of the typing, although I still had to make lots of manual changes due to the irregularities in the original HTML document (created many moons ago, and added to over time). I wrote a small Python program to load the mail-header file into MySQL, then used mysqldump/mysql to make further changes.

The HTML is generated by a Python script and a Cheetah (http://www.cheetahtemplate.org/) template.

I plan to write an article about all this, but first I want to write a routine to verify the links and delete the ones that are persistently down. In the meantime, the program listing and template are on my web site http://iron.cx/cheetah/index.html#lgmirrors (temporary link).

Thanks to all the mirrors for their patience, especially those like http://www.gazette.linux.ru.net/ (Russian translation), http://linux.osso.org.co/, etc. that submitted their links several times during the transition.

All mirrors, please check your entry and let me know if it's incorrect.

This page edited and maintained by the Editors of Linux Gazette Copyright © 2001
Published in issue 72 of Linux Gazette November 2001

HTML script maintained by Heather Stern of Starshine Technical Services, http://www.starshine.org/

"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"

Contents: Legislation and More Legislation Linux Links Conferences and Events News in General Distro News Software and Product News

Selected and formatted by Michael Conry

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 announcement than an entire press release.

November 2001 Linux Journal

The November issue of Linux Journal is on newsstands now. This issue focuses on Linux Enterprise and presents the results from the annual Readers' Choice Awards. Click here to view the table of contents, or here to subscribe.

All articles through December 1999 are available for public reading at http://www.linuxjournal.com/lj-issues/mags.html. Recent articles are available on-line for subscribers only at http://interactive.linuxjournal.com/.

November/December 2001 Embedded Linux Journal

Issue #6 of Embedded Linux Journal has articles about choosing an embedded distribution, building a minimal glibc, Linux single-board computers, and more. Plus a cool chicks-on-a-motherboard cover.

Click here for the table of contents.

Embedded Linux Journal is available free to qualified subscribers in the USA, Canada and Mexico. Click here to subscribe.

Alan Cox Censors Kernel Changelog In Response To DMCA

In Linux 2.2.20-pre10's changelog, Alan Cox refuses to list the details for some "security fixes", writing, "Details censored in accordance with the US DMCA". Apparently file ownership and permissions might be used to protect a copyright, and highlighting the fixes in a changelog could thus be seen as publishing information on copyright circumvention. There was a thread of discussion leading from this decision on linux-kernel, with some list-members feeling that Alan was overreacting. Others made the very fair point that it was up to Alan whether or not he wanted to take the risk of potentially violating the DMCA. Alan's position is that he has taken legal advice, and that this is the most prudent course of action.

LWN's coverage of this story highlighted the fact that although the changelog is censored, the actual code and patches are not. This was also noted on linux-kernel. Rik van Riel posted a link (on Slashdot and linux-kernel) to http://thefreeworld.net/ where you can get the changelog, along with other information/tools not allowed in the US (this is for non-US visitors). Further comments can be found on Slashdot, where the story popped up, and here on The Register.

An Irish Perspective

"...the Act provides for a court order to be issued requiring a person to disclose the encrypted evidence in a plain-text form. However, section 27 of the Act specifically provides that nothing in the Act shall have the effect of requiring the disclosure of unique data such as codes, passwords, algorithms, private cryptographic keys..."

The UK has taken a less liberal approach, in particular in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. The Irish Government was keen to follow a different route, in the hope that this would encourage inward investment in the electronic commerce and software sectors. The electronic signing by Bill Clinton and Bertie Ahern of a communique on electronic commerce in September 1998 was a high profile publicity stunt to reinforce this image. This, and other pro-business policies, were successful, moving Ireland to the position of second largest exporter of software in the world.

Another significant influence on Irish policy is the European Union. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as some good policies have come from the EU. The Echelon document mentioned earlier states "...e-mails can and should be encrypted by everyone", and is a valuable wake-up call to the importance of security. Bruce Schneier has lauded the EU for taking on board security professionals concerns regarding the new EU Cybercrime Treaty. Additionally, the European Patent office does not grant software patents. A much more disturbing development is the The EU Copyright Directive. Like the DMCA, this is inspired by the World Intellectual Property Organization, and it has some similar provisions. However, European directives are guidelines for national laws, and certainly do not override national constitutions, so there should be a longer road before the EU is fully subject to DMCA style rigour.

On the broader theme of civil liberties and misuse of power, there are valuable lessons to be learned from Ireland's experiences. Ireland's troubled political history has in the past led to some very harsh laws such as the anti-terrorist Offences Against the State Act, repeatedly condemned by Amnesty International. Also, there was significant abuse of 'phone tapping, with both journalists and politicians the victims. Phone tapping has valid security uses, as might some of the measures which has just been enacted enacted in the United States, but it is very easy to misuse. Although the current Taoiseach (Prime Minister) has apologised for the abuse, much harm has already been done. Indeed this controversy has flared up again, as one of the ex-ministers responsible for the wiretaps (and opposed to apologies) is now chairing a government telecoms enquiry.

Anti-Terrorism Bills Compared

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have prepared a chart showing the differences wiretapping/surveillance provisions between current law and various Anti Terrorism bills: The originally proposed Bush Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), the House Judiciary compromise Patriot Act, the Senat-Passed USA Act, and the House Passed USA Act. There are also ACLU comments on each.

At Security Focus, Richard Forno has written on these issues, and on the danger of too-readily sacrificing freedoms. Richard Stallman has also commented on the dangers of erosion of civil liberties, in particular under the USA Act.

On Wednesday 24th October, the USA Patriot Act (HR 3162) was passed by the house of representatives 357-66, and the following day by the Senate, 98-1, with Russ Feingold the only dissenter.

James Love on Lobbying and Hague Conventions

Slashdot had a recent interview with consumer advocate James Love. He has some ideas on getting decision makers' attention which may be of special interest to Linux advocates. In particular, he recommends writing to congressional staffers that are working on the specific issue, rather than just to congress members. Also, he mentions that it is worth writing letters to well-read newspapers (or local newspapers of a Congress member you want to reach).

This tactic could be surprisingly effective. I know for a fact that in government departments in my own country, Ireland, that civil servants are assigned to read the major newspapers and cut out articles that are relevant to their department. Particular attention is given to the letters page, and these clippings are seen by the head civil servants and ministers (i.e. decision/policy makers) in each department.

One other issue, raised by Love, which might be of particular relevance here, is the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgements. This is a subject on which James has commented extensively. The convention in question is a treaty that would implement, among other things, cross-border patent enforcement. "Everyone would be liable for infringement of foreign patents, and the Hague Convention would give exclusive jurisdiction for both validity and infringement in the county of registration." There is an an online introduction to this subject, by James Love. The official website is at: http://www.hcch.net/.

RIAA mischief

Slashdot quotes Wired's allegation that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) tried (and failed) to get inserted into the Anti-Terrorism bill a provision that would allow it to hack into your computer to see if you had any unauthorized MP3s and delete them. It seems they think they had this right all along (!) but are afraid they might get branded as Cyber-Terrorists if they tried it under the new USA-Act! Of course, the biggest concern is collateral damage to your computer, which RIAA wants to shirk responsibility for. This story was also picked up by ArsTechnica. The RIAA later published a rebuttal, which doesn't really contradict much of what was written, but spins differently.

In a similar vein, though perhaps inaccurately, The Register reported on a secret meeting between Senators Fritz Hollings, Ted Stevens, and representatives of RIAA and the big media companies. Interesting reading, but now comes the caveat: "Our source may not be all he or she claimed to be, and serious doubts have been cast on the veracity of the comments attributed to the RIAA's Rosen and co."

But Didn't the Hijackers Already Present Valid ID?

SSSCA update

The following articles are in the November-December issue of the E-zine LinuxFocus:

• Freefont, TrueType and patterns with The Gimp
  
• Gimp: using mask layers
  
• Yellow Pages 3: The Server Side
  
• Avoiding security holes when developing an application - Part 6: CGI scripts
  
• Nessus : another brick in the (security) wall
  
• MOSIXVIEW, a management-GUI for MOSIX-cluster
  
• Atek Super Mini Optical Mouse
  
• A whole new world: A guided tour with Tux through the land of the penguin
  
• How to use your ATEN UC-232A USB adapter with Linux
  

• Linux on Sony Playstation 2, to be released in US soon
• Top 20 Internet vulnerabilities, continuously updated, and covering Windows, Unix, and general security. Lots of common sense as well as tech sense.
• Slashdot has links about Sharp's upcoming Linux PDA.
• Comments from a disgruntled Linux user. A Cautionary commentary on Linux advocates.
• ZDNet has a report on upcoming revamps of MySQL. New features: Version 4.0 (October): Unicode, multitable updates, SSL, etc. Version 4.1 (to be released in December): nested queries, stored procedures, etc.
• OS News have an Interview with Linus.
• Sony uses DMCA to stop AIBO hacking.
• Linux powered humanoid, pics and more details here.
• Story about DirectFB, a framebuffer toolbox that could be an alternative to X-windows.

The Duke of URL have

• A review of SuSE Linux 7.2 Professional, in all its 7 CD and 1 DVD Glory.
• A review of Caldera OpenLinux Workstation 3.1.
• Linux Buyers Guide #13.

CNET have reported that Amazon.com significantly reduced its IT budget by migrating to Linux.

Details, at Cryptome.org, on the "Beale Screamer" anti-DMCA MS Digital Rights Management circumvention. Further information.

Linux Weekly News reported that the W3C is eager to adopt patented technology in standards. More details on LWN and summary here.

Opera (among others) had a bit of a tussle with Microsoft over MSN not allowing connections from non MS browsers. MS backed down.

What good is a Linux client? IBM's Mark Chapman give you the benefit of his own experience as a Linux newbie changing over from Windows.

Virus writers are industrial terrorists says Microsoft, as reported by The Register.

Linux.com have an introduction to using the Snort Intrusion Detection System. Further reading here, courtesy ILUG.

In LWN, Michael Hammel, who used to write LG's _The Graphics Muse_ column, surveys Linux's repitoire of games, both old and new, free and commercial. This is a very quick overview of the kinds of games Linux has, and its support for gaming technology.

IBM is working with Citizen Watch to develop a Linux watch. There's a photo of a prototype showing Tux on the screen.

Listings courtesy Linux Journal. See LJ's Events page for the latest goings-on.

5th Annual Linux Showcase & Conference	November 6-10, 2001 Oakland, CA http://www.linuxshowcase.org/
Strictly e-Business Solutions Expo	November 7-8, 2001 Houston, TX http://www.strictlyebusinessexpo.com
LINUX Business Expo Co-located with COMDEX	November 12-16, 2001 Las Vegas, NV http://www.linuxbusinessexpo.com
15th Systems Administration Conference/LISA 2001	December 2-7, 2001 San Diego, CA http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa2001

W3C and Patents

Linux Weekly News recently reported that W3C has a draft policy which would allow patented technology to be included in web standards. LWN has a good commentary on the issues, which could ultimately endanger the future of free software on the internet. The "Scalable Vector Graphics" (SVG) standard, already adopted by the W3C, includes patented technology from Apple. The W3C is already behaving as if the new policy were in force.

What most disturbed many observers was the under hand way in which the change was apparently being sneaked through. The "consultation period" came to most peoples attention thanks largely to LWN's Adam Warner who posted this message. Following this comments in W3C's comment thread turned sharply against the idea once it became generally known. Included are comments by Linux bigwigs. Many of the most important posts are linked from LWN. Some predict that this could lead to a situation similar to the one following the patent rows surrounding GIF's, and the subsequent development of PNG's. LWN suggests the possibility that in the future, the free software community may have to form another web standards committee to compete with W3C if W3C starts destroying the web with non-open technology that threatens the web's universal viewability.

LWN in Difficulties

Unhappy news, Linux Weekly News is facing the budget shortfalls common to free web news sites. In particular, Tucows is no longer able to continue providing support. As a result, Michael Hammel, LWN "On the Desktop" columnist (and former LG "The Graphics Muse" columnist) is leaving LWN. We wish Michael well.

More disturbing is LWN's prediction that, "Unless we can come up with a way of paying salaries soon, LWN risks dropping off the net entirely." There is a mailing list to discuss LWN's future at http://vena.lwn.net/mailman/listinfo/discussion (now needs registration). This news was also discussed on Slashdot.

Kernel Vulnerability

Linux Making Inroads

Also in Europe, IDG.net have reported that Germany's lower parliament (the Bundestag) is considering switching from Windows to Linux for its 5000 computers. The main reasons are for security, stability and (again) to save money in the face of MS's new upgrade terms. The parliamentary committee will decide late this year or early next year which OS will replace its current version of Windows NT.

Finally, Technews.com have run a Thai story: that Thailand's government will back the idea of using free, Thai-language 'open source' software as a way of reducing spending and software piracy. An official is quoted: "To be independent from foreign software, the country needs to build a knowledge base along with developing human resources and work based on open source software."

Linux NetworX Cluster Aids BioCryst in Medical Development

Linux NetworX, have announced that BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, is now using a Linux NetworX Evolocity cluster to aid in creating pharmaceuticals for the treatment of human disease and illness such as influenza and hepatitis C. Implementing an innovative drug discovery approach, scientists at BioCryst create synthetic small-molecule inhibitors, atom by atom, to bind with specific disease-causing proteins or targets.

BioCryst's new Evolocity cluster includes 32 Pentium III 933 MHz processors, with 16 GB of memory and a 10/100 Ethernet network. Linux NetworX configured the cluster to handle complex computer modelling applications, such as X-ray crystallography and combinatorial chemistry. BioCryst utilizes the Linux NetworX ClusterWorX management software and signed an on-going service agreement as well.

ALS for free: Oakland November 5th-10th

In response to an uncertain political climate and the recent economic downturn, the USENIX Association and the Atlanta Linux Showcase, Inc. jointly announced today that they will offer free registration to everyone wishing to attend technical sessions at next month's Annual Linux Showcase & Conference in Oakland, California. USENIX and ALS are making this unprecedented offer because they believe the networking opportunities and high-calibre technical content at this conference provide an important service to their membership and the general open source community.

"We recognize this may only be a temporary readjustment until the 'brick and mortar' companies start using open source products to a greater degree. Therefore, we feel that it is crucial to provide current technical information to the community at this time," said Jon "maddog" Hall, USENIX Director and ALS Invited Talks Program Chair. "There are also several political issues facing the open source community right now such as DMCA, SSSCA, copyrights, and software patents. The ALS invited talks track reflects this and we felt that we could not put off these important discussions to a later time."

SAIR Linux and GNU

"For the third consecutive show, SAIR Linux and GNU's partnership with IDG was a huge success. As the leading developer of vendor neutral training curriculum and certification materials for open source software, SAIR Linux and GNU offered free Linux review sessions and free certification testing at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo event which took place at San Francisco's Moscone Center. SAIR Linux and GNU served as the official Certification Sponsor for the August 27 thru August 30 event which welcomed more than 18,000 attendees and 180 exhibitors."

For more information on the success of the LinuxWorld Expo, visit http://www.linuxcertification.com/linuxworld/ or http://www.linuxworldexpo.com . You can also access additional information about SAIR Linux and GNU Certification or locate a training center, by visiting www.linuxcertification.com. Additional information about testing can be found at www.2test.com or www.vue.com.

Debian

The Debian HURD iso images are now available from your local ftp.gnu.org mirror. There are 3 iso's available, but you only need the first one to get a system going, so get downloading now!"

The position of Debian Security Secretary has been filled, with the appointment of Matt Zimmerman and Noah Meyerhans to the role.

Details of an updated webalizer package were posted on Debian Changes. It fixes a bug whereby Webalizer stopped working on Oct 5th, 2001.

Red Hat

SuSE

SuSE Linux, have announced SuSE Linux 7.3, in both Professional and Personal editions. Recognising security concerns SuSE Linux 7.3 offers Features include KDE 2.2.1, Linux Kernel 2.4.10 with glibc 2.2.4, an extended range of drivers and improved USB support, with better automatic hardware detection.

SuSE Linux presented the third generation of its e-mail solution at the IT expo SYSTEMS, held in October in Munich. SuSE Linux eMail Server III is a solution for small and medium-size enterprises, dedicated workgroups and government administrations. A new feature is Skyrix which provides calendar and scheduling functionalities for booking appointments, rooms, or other resources.

Gnect

Gnect is a theme-able "four in a row" game for GNOME. Similar to Tetris, but the object is to get four marbles/tiles in a row in any direction within a 7x7 grid. The tiles do not automatically descend, so there's no time limit. You choose the column and the tile drops from the top. License GPL, including the Velena strategy engine.

Loki

Courtesy of Slashdot, comes the news of Loki's upcoming game: Postal Plus. Loki have a press release with more information.

MOSIXVIEW Cluster Management Software

MOSIXVIEW is free for download and is based on the GPL-licence model. For more information, consult http://www.mosixview.com or http://www.waplocater.de/mosixview/. Also, Linux Focus have taken a look at this package.

webMathematica Brings Computation to the Web

Wolfram Research, maker of Mathematica technical computing software, have announced the release of webMathematica. webMathematica is built on Java servlets, making it compatible with any web server, servlet engine, or application server that supports the Servlet 2.0 API or higher. webMathematica is initially available for Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000 and Intel-based Linux platforms. webMathematica enables users to:

• Build custom web sites that provide specialized calculations
• Compute, visualize, and analyze data using a web browser
• Deliver sophisticated courseware and publish interactive books
• Provide active functionality for technical documentation that can be instantly updated from a centralized location
• Integrate computation into existing enterprise infrastructure

PHP Black Book, new from Coriolis

Micro Sharp Technology and Astaro Firewall Partnership

Micro Sharp Technology have announced an agreement with Astaro to market their Firewall software product as part of the Netule line of products. Netule is a robust, thin server appliance solution. The OEM version will allow hardware systems builders to supply a low cost, robust server appliance solution for small and medium sized business.

IMA Internet Exchange Messaging Server 5.1

International Messaging Associates has just released the latest in its top Messaging Solution - Internet Exchange Messaging Server (IEMS) 5.1. Among other features, IEMS 5.1 has enhanced virus and spam detection control and adds an Attachment Removal Filter Module. In an introductory offer, IMA is giving away 15-user licenses for free. IEMS5.1 is interoperable in Linux and Windows and will add support for Solaris and HP-UX by late-October. Government and enterprises planning to shift their messaging platform from Windows to Linux will be able to simply auto-migrate their MS Exchange mailboxes to IEMS. IEMS 5.1 can be downloaded from http://www.ima.com/download/v5eval.html.

Copyright © 2001, Michael Conry and the Editors of Linux Gazette.
Copying license http://www.linuxgazette.net/copying.html
Published in Issue 72 of Linux Gazette, November 2001

Contents:

¶: Greetings From Heather Stern

pppd problem

getting volume label for CD

clock problem

Please need help !!! ext2 problem !!!

determining screen resolution

question on IP forwarding.

Hi Gazette

SCSI

RH7.1 onThinkPad 560X cannot find ttyS00

Greetings from Heather Stern

Hello everyone and welcome once more to The Answer Gang. Last month I was quite stressed out about some overly broad attempts to curtail our freedoms, in case "bad guys" might try to use those freedoms wickedly. There's a thread on the topic in the Mailbag (one reader didn't like how I described Dmitry's case) and the News Bytes section has more legal details to cringe about.

In the mail processing space, my pet peeve of the month goes back to those darn Quoted Printables and HTML attachments. We've gotten some Spanish and Italian letters and those really do need to be that way. (Thanks, we can barely recognize things in those languages, but it's so much easier to give to the translators when it hasn't been mangled.) But all of you english speakers need to tell your web browser to stop doing the double mail thing. It's three or four times the bits, and the HTML is utterly useless to my processing efforts. So do yourself a favor, and spend those recycling electrons on something else.

In the real world space, well, that's it. Space, the final frontier. Do you know that the United Nations had a holiday of their very own declared a few years ago, called "World Space Week" ? You probably didn't. And that would be because the television media loves to beat on one exciting story until it's gone past "exciting" and all the way down to "wouldn't rent the video from the cheapies rack". The paper press likes the AP wires because they don't have to go chase stories, just reformat them a little. Where's the real News out there? Obviously Space isn't news... since there hasn't been another pair of feetprint on the moon since I was too young to know what a TV was.

I asked the Gang, since we're a well scattered bunch, what we do to get real news when we know we're being spoonfed "human interest" timeslices. Believe me, this doesn't just happen to US news - editors in other countries "slant" the stories to satisfy some invisible "market segment" instead of actually serve up the news itself. Mike grumbled that if we got even a few articles translated straight instead of "cleaned up to please western ideas" it would be worth a lot more. The answers were pretty solid: we get enough buzzwords to search on a little, then if possible, we hit the internet for a news site in the country of origin. And we read news sites from more than one country regularly anyway. I say "if possible" because, well, it helps if the site offers its data in a language we can read... Here's some of the favorites:

• Canada: www.globeandmail.com
• Britain: news.bbc.co.uk, the BBC
• Britain: www.the-times.co.uk, the Times
• USA: www.nytimes.com, New York Times Online

Breen adds the valuable comment that we must apply approrpriate filters as we read - consider the source, and what things they will prefer to bias towards. People will express their preferences; the corporate entity in charge of the paper will have its say in peer pressure and even just the headlines they choose. Still, "the problem with too much of the American press is that they apply the filter '> /dev/null' to nearly all foreign news. If I never see the news at all it doesn't matter what the perspective of the publisher is."

So now I'll turn away from the social ill of talking about newsmen instead of coming up with some news, or failing that, something to talk about and get people thinking.

I started getting interested in CAD a while back. Maybe I'll design my own little space capsule, plan that back patio we're going to put some changes in... someday ... or speculate on where the new "Enterprise" keeps the bathroom. Unfortunately for me, CAD tools for Linux come in four categories:

1. Cirvuitboard design. Must be everybody's first project in the second year of college. There are lots of these.
2. Poor excuses for MSwin paintbrush. Obviously started in a jolt cola moment but not finished in a weekend and therefore never finished.
3. Think I'm already a masters degree in drafting, so I understand all their widgets and dots without docs.
4. support tools for 3d modelers, mostly experienced ones.

Now sadly, this means I can't give it the fun "unusability test" romp that I did to word processors a while back. While I'm not an utter babe in the woods* in this space, I'd have to say my skills are... well, rustier than my Spanish, at least I see that once in a while. But circuitry is not even in my scope, if they are trying to be paintbrush I can do better with The Gimp, and for the other two, yes darnit, I'm going to need those docs translated down a notch or two, or find where they stashed the glossary. Category 3 looks like it will suit me best, and by the time I can use it, the 3d stuff will be fun. But for right now, all I wanted was some ways to stick to a grid and drop little "tree" "wall" and "door" icons among my distance marks. Dia is starting to look good; as soon as I can grok its XML symbol language (anybody have a Gimp plugin for these things? xfig conversions? anything?) maybe I'll feed it some really weird stuff and start layout out D&D wizards' halls again.

If you're working on a CAD project out there, I have a hint for you: if it remains easier to do all this on ten-to-the-inch grid paper, I'm not going to be using your stuff. Also, I've not a fear about buying software that does things well, but I'm not an aircraft design shop, you can't be charging me omegabucks** to see if I can plot out my garden better before springtime, and you're not going to get me to pay you to discover I can't figure you out. So for you commercial types, I recommend making the quickstart guides available for taste testing. In fact you should have*** quickstart guides, that put you through putting some sample item or place together. For you free-world coders, get some first year drafting students to try and make sense of that gibberish; anytime they say "huh?" treat it as a bug just as serious as broken menu items. We can only draft when our mechanical pencil actually has lead in it...

Hmm, there's a fellow who mentioned he's got a new documentation site up (mentioned in the mailbag this month); time for me to see what he has lying around in the category!

*I used to help my Dad design scoutships for our Traveller games.

**omegabucks: I just made that up. Lots of dollars including my last one.

*** to be fair some do... so if you don't your competitors are already ahead by one.

pppd problem

From pclouds

Answered By Mike "Iron" Orr, Mike Ellis

Hi people

I try to connect to my isp using pppd:

pppd /dev/ttyS4 connect "chat -V " ATZ OK ATM0 OK ATDT1260 CONNECT" modem
defaultroute crtscts -detach

It saids:

ATZ
OK
ATM0
OK
ATDT1260
CONNECTSerial connection established.
Using interface ppp0
Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyS4
Serial line is looped back.
Connection terminated.

I use modem Motorola SM56. /dev/ttyS4 is a symbolic link to /dev/sm56 (created by the modem). I can connect to that isp using rp3 with no problem. What is "Serial line is looped back"? Help me!

Thanks very much.

[Iron] It means it tried to contact the remote server, but ended up contacting itself instead. I haven't used ppp for years, so I don't remember the solution. Either there's a line crossed in your serial cable (unlikely), or there's some option you add or remove in the config fie. Check the docs for "looped back", "server" and "master".

Maybe one of the other Answer Gang members can reply better.

[Mike E] Good morning!

My guess is that you're seeing the login sequence of your ISP, some of which echo your username back to you. When the PPP daemon starts, it sends some strange characters to your ISP, which dutifully echos them back to you confusing pppd into thinking that it's talking to itself.

The command you quoted will get 'chat' to do the actual dialing, but as soon as your modem has connected to the remote modem, 'chat' will exit and the pppd will expect a PPP connection to be in place. What you need to do is get chat to do a little more work to log you in to your ISP: I'd suggest you try starting pppd using a modified command line, for example:

pppd /dev/ttyS4 connect "chat -V " ATZ OK ATM0 OK ATDT1260 CONNECT ogin
<yourlogin> assword <yourpassword>" modem defaultroute crtscts -detach

(I probably don't need to say this, but just in case, substitute your ISP account name for <yourlogin> and your password for <yourpassword>...)

Notice that I've deliberately used "ogin" and "assword" since it's not certain whether you will see "login" or "Login" and 'chat' is case-sensitive.

It is definitely worth checking with your ISP for their exact login sequence: the one I've shown is a very general one and may well not work exactly as given. I use Demon in the UK and they have an excellent on-line helpdesk - have a look at http://www.demon.net/helpdesk/general/connscp.shtml for an excellent example of how their login sequence works - Demon support protocols other than PPP, so have to query the protocol to use too. Although Demon don't give detailed help for Linux setup, they do provide all the information you need and several newsgroups to help users too. Hopefully your ISP will be similarly helpful...

Incidentally, more and more ISPs are now moving away from "scripted clear text password login" to CHAP or PAP based login sequences. These don't send your password in cleartext, and also re-validate your credentials periodically. However, I have no first-hand experience of these, so over to another Gang member...

Cheers

Thanks for your help. I have resolved this problem. Because i missed user & remotename options, so the PAP authentication was not completed. I guess that ppp on the isp was terminated then, and all messages sent by my pppd was sent back.

getting volume label for CD

From Richard A. Bray

Answered By Karl-Heinz Herrmann, John Karns, Jim Dennis

I'm still trying to figure out how I would find the volume name for a CD. I want to catalog a large collection of CDs, but I need to get the name for my database records.

I created the CDs with the command mkisofs -r -J -D -V "cd-name" -o /data/cd.iso -pad /data/data_dir

I can see the volume name in Mickeysoft Windoze. How do I get it in Linux? I've looked in /proc, tried hdparm and others.

thanks,

-- Richard A. Bray

[K.-H.] So the volume label is burned ok. Linux just doesn't care what the CD is named. Why should it? You tell it where to make the cd content available in the directory structure by giving it the mount point.

If you want to know how it is named you can try using cdrecord -v 127 -toc or something like that. This will work for audio (look in the XYZ.inf files) but I don't know for data CD's.

[John] I believe that many of the Linux audio cd player apps display this info. Workbone is one, IIRC.

[Jim Dennis] Karl's suggestion should work, but if the CD device is IDE, you'll have to load the generic SCSI support first.

clock problem

From tony

Answered By Thomas Adam, Ben Okopnik, Mike Orr, Mike Ellis

I cant't seem to work this one out!!!! On my RedHat 6.1 Linux box, my system time is set to local time and hardware clock is set to UTC. These times appear to be OK.

[Ben] Why not set both to local time? This is one of the things that I idly fiddle with occasionally, and have not seen any bad effects from either method. Yes, the One True Unix Way is for the hardware clock to be set to UTC... but I don't pay it much mind, especially when it gets in my way. Besides, if you've got a dual-boot system, poor lil' Windows gets all confused about UTC anyway.

Whenever I save a file, then do an ls -l, the file time shows UTC.

Everything else, logs, etc. show local time. I am running ntpd, and this keeps the hardware clock OK.

[Ben] Just remember to run

hwclock --adjust

once in a while. That way, after a couple of months, you can even turn off "ntpd" - and your system will keep perfect time (I think that a max deviation of one second in two or three months can be considered "perfect".) See the discussion in the "hwclock" manpage, and read about "/etc/adjtime".

I have a link from /etc/localtime to /usr/share/zoneinfo.

I have looked up numerous web sites about the clock system, but none have helped me. Any pointers in the right direction would be appreciated.

Thanks, Tony Ellem

[Thomas]

Have you tried reading the clock-howto from the LDP <www.linuxdocs.org>???

What happens if you type in the following (as root):

hwclock -W

[Ben] Baldur:~# hwclock -W unrecognized option `-W'

The short options for "hwclock" are "-[rwsavuD]", and the odd "-[AJSF]" for DEC Alphas. What is it that you were trying to do? "hwclock -D" (debug), maybe? I'm afraid that wouldn't be of much use: what the querent needs is a usage methodology rather than a fix for something that's broken.

[Chris G.] Hi Ben, This is not a challenge, but an observation that I have made. I used to set my real time clock to local time, but for some reason, the daylight savings time adjustment did not automatically occur.

I had to set my real time clock to UTC for things to work properly. I use the SuSE 6.4 distribution (2.2.14 kernel), and maybe there exists some sort of constraint with my distribution -- I don't know. Did you ever hear this crazy story before?

Regards, Chris Gianakopoulos

[Ben] Actually, I'm not sure by what mechanism that _is_ supposed to happen automatically - it never did for me whether I was using UTC or local. I just gave up and put it in 'cron'.

[Chris] Hmmm. That makes sense (the cron job).

[Mike Orr] It's supposed to be encoded in the timezone entry. It seems to be a hit or miss thing whether it actually adjusts on the right day-- sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.

BTW, daylight savings time does not apply to UTC. UTC is always sun time. But the Pacific time zone is always the same distance behind UK time, because UK time does move with daylight savings time.

When I was in Russia in 95 or 96, it was right when Russia was changing from the Soviet schedule for daylight savings to the western schedule. The Soviet schedule was a few weeks earlier, because it was early October when it happened.

Let's take a poll Monday and see how many clocks went back and how many didn't...