• The MailBag
• More 2-Cent Tips
• The Answer Gang
• News Bytes
• The Weekend Mechanic , by Thomas Adam
• Linux User Caricatures , by Franck Alcidi
• Help Dex , by Shane Collinge
• A Trip Down Hypermedia Lane , by Ronnie Holm
• Rapid application development using PyGTK , by Krishnakumar R.
• Qubism , by Jon "Sir Flakey" Harsem
• GUI Programming in C++ using the Qt Library, part 1 , by Gaurav Taneja
• Xlib Programming in C++ , by Rob Tougher
• 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

Linux Gazette, http://www.linuxgazette.net/
This page maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette, gazette@linuxgazette.net

Copyright © 1996-2002 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 (for questions about the Gazette) or The Answer Gang Knowledge Base (for questions about Linux) to see if it has been answered there.

• Sync Netware client with Samba server
• Oriya keyboard for only one program?
• Lexmark Z22 Problem
• X, keybindings, and Kmail
• bigpond pppoe
• Xinerama and large background images
• pivot function for tft in linux

Sync Netware client with Samba server

Is there any way that i can sync or saved my netware user password into the samba password file so that it will allow authorised user to map drives for furture use

Oriya keyboard for only one program?

Hi there

During development of a word processor in Oriya language ** I faced the following problem.

• Oriya is a local language of India

The character coding of oriya lies between 128 to 255. Also the keyboard mapping I need is different from the default keyboard mapping that is US_English.For typing and displaying those oriya character I need changing some kind of keyboard mapping.Could you please suggest any method available in GTK+/Gnome to change the default keyboard mapping ( only inside the application). I tried the same using XChangeKeyboardMapping function. But it changed the keyboard mapping for the entire session throughout all applications.Is there any alternative to it ? Anticipating a response from you.

Regards
Girija

Lexmark Z22 Problem

I just hooked this printer up yesterday. Overall, it prints fine with one exception. At the end of a page, both lights start flashing. I believe this means some sort of paper error, like a jam or something. After each page I have to reset the printer. BUT, this is only 100% reproducible when trying to print 2 or more pages. If printing a single page, sometimes it errors and sometimes it doesn't. This same printer worked fine connected to a MAC. The difference, beyond the obvious, is the MAC was connected via USB and the linux machine is running it in parallel. Any help appreciated since it's pretty annoying to have to print a songle page at a time.

Alan Brady

X, keybindings, and Kmail

First of all, thanks to all the people who write for and maintain Linux Gazette!

Now to my question:

I want to configure the key 'F2' for Kmail so that when I'm composing e-mail and I press the 'F2' key, the phrase 'Kilroy was here' is inserted at the current cursor location. How do I do this?

I'm pretty sure it has something do with Xresources, but I don't know how to set it up.

TIA for any help you can give me on this.

-- Rod

P.s. I'm running Mandrake 8.2, with KDE 2.2.2 if that is at all relevant to the answer to the question.

bigpond pppoe

Hi

I am trying to get my pppoe client to work.I am on the debian distribution version 2.2.18pre 21. I am using the roaringpenguin client. there is a continues failure when i try to log in. The ppp0 interface come up but I can not tell if the system is logged into a ppp server. I typed to turn on the debugging on the pppd but the system writes some garbage and nothing seems to happen. When the system try's to fire up it trys a ppp connection down a serial line, where in the config file the maps the ppp connection to the eth0 interface? How is it possible to to tell if the system is logged into a ppp server? When I run the pppconfig script I cant work out the 4 text parameters the script is after, I only know the user name and password. The PPPd program inherently deals with a serial modem, how do I configure this to use my ethernet card?

My provider is Bigpond in Australia and they use pppoe for authentication.

My user name and password are both in the pap and chap secrets file, is there any need to repeat these in the ppp options file

How can I manually debug a ppp session, can I enter all the ppp config parameters by hand?

a snip of my sysylog is pasted below. Can you help - Im a real newbie!

See attached syslog.txt

Xinerama and large background images

I've searched Google groups and various mailing lists and I've found several people with the same problem as me, but no solutions to this. I'm running XF86 4.1.0.1 on several Debian Woody xinerama 2 monitor boxes (with several different combinations of video cards) and I can't find a way to post a background image centered across both screens with a single image. I can get an image to center on the left monitor and the right monitor has the same section of the graphic showing (the left half) on the right side of the screen.

 -------+--------
 |      |       |
 |    12|     12|
 |      |       |
 -------+--------

This is the behavior with xv, xloadimage, feh, gnome control center, gqview and other image viewers. The odd thing is that for applications that use transparency (gnome-terminal, xchat-gnome), the transparent image is correct, so the transparent right screen has the correct transparent image, but not the correct background image. I can send a screenshot showing this phenomena if you like. Another odd behavior is that small tiled images tile across the middle correctly (both background and transparently). My question is how do I make an image center across both screens correctly like below?

 -------+--------
 |      |       |
 |    12|34     |
 |      |       |
 -------+--------

Thanks, Matthew H. Ray

Hi Matthew!
I once had enlightenment set up as xinerama and managed to get what you want: the image across both screens, and it was even with different resolutions on the screens: 1024x768 and 1280x1024. I managed to get it (IIRC) in the enlightenment background settings menu, by wildly fiddling with the sliders that are up/down and on the sides of the image in the upper part of the control window. But that was enlightenment, dunno how to do it in the other wm's ...
Robos

pivot function for tft in linux

Hello, Has anyone a solution on how to use the pivot functionality for tft-screens under Linux ?

Greetings
Chris de Boer

Greetings, Chris; what's a "pivot functionality?" If you describe it, we might know it. [Ben]

You're not an old-time-enough-Mac guy, I suspect, to recognize the term as generic, Ben: many current generation LCD panels, notably including the Viewsonic's, will pivot on their center axis, becoming vertical.

Even hearing the signal from the panel, much less figuring out how to remap everything to a new screen size, is likely a non trivial problem...

A couple of quick Google searches didn't turn up anything suggestive...

Cheers, Jay R. Ashworth

• Linux User Groups questions --or--
  Marketing question: which Linux User Groups are the biggest?
• Making your Virtual Console Login Automatically issue 69, henderson.html
• LG on CD
• Etiquette Issue 64, The Mailbag

Marketing question: which Linux User Groups are the biggest?

Attn: Mike Orr

Hello, Mike - We exchanged a few e-mails last year re/ Linux news. I'm wondering if you can point me in the right direction. How would I go about determining which US-based Linux user groups are the largest, or the most influential? Registries I'm finding online don't give me an idea of size. Are there, say, 5 or 10 groups that are known within the Linux community as being the "biggies."

Thanks for your insight,
Katherine Gill

[Don Marti]

SVLUG: http://www.svlug.org

NYLUG: http://www.nylug.org

ALE: http://www.ale.org

NTLUG: http://www.ntlug.org

[Mike "Iron" Orr]

[Note to The Answer Gang: I'm forwarding this even though we don't usually answer marketing questions (the querent sends in press releases to News Bytes) because it asks a question I haven't seen covered elsewhere, a question that will be of interest to many readers.]

Fair 'nuff -- Heather

[Mike "Iron" Orr]

Hi, Katherine. I remember your name although I don't remember what we talked about. I don't know of any statistics on user group size. BALUG (http://www.balug.org)in San Francisco and SVLUG (http://www.svlug.org) in the Silicon Valley each used to get four hundred people per meeting as of a few years ago, but I don't know about now. Those two are pretty "influential" in terms of offering services and being activists. (E.g., SVLUG threw the Silicon Valley Tea Party (http://www.svlug.org/events/tea-party-199811.shtml) in honor of the release of Windows 98 [wasn't that nice of them?], and crashed Microsoft's big demo, "respectfully" wearing their penguin T-shirts and passing out Linux CDs.) But really, user groups in general don't influence Linux in any way. What they do is make Linux more accessible to their members.

Not sure where you're hoping to go with the statistics, but I question the value of having them; without setting values on "influence" I wonder who will care about the factoid, and your research efforts might have been spent elsewhere. Nonetheless I'll give it a poke.

As an SVLUG member I can add some comments, mostly general. At some time in the past we had an ongoing list-bourne argument about who was "the largest LUG in the world". Members of two LUGs in entirely different parts of the world started to claim this, approximately simultaneously. Some of the grist included the more detailed question, what kind of members did you want to count? Those who attend almost every meeting and regret when they can't make it? The sum of those who attended any time last year (knowing that "the regulars" are of course duplicates)? Average meeting attendance? Oh but we have these regular installfests too and nobody counts there 'cuz we're busy. Oh but anybody on the general mailing list is really a member -- and boy, do we have a lot of lurkers. Then how did you want to count influence? And influencing who?

As some started to get bitter about it, 'twas noted that a fight on some stupid label certainly wouldn't help the community at large, and both really changed over to "one of the largest". I forget who the other was; they're not in my region and I'm a busy soul, so I don't even recall if they were also in the U.S. Why? Because it wasn't as important as us all getting on with our Linux-y lives. See my past editorial about "the coin of the realm."

In the world of Linux "influence" is not based on size, but on the aggregate effort of individuals. An occasional individual is "big" in the sense of having an extra degree of talent -- and eventually heaps of extra respect, built up slowly over time -- a factor my SF-convention running friends at Baycon (www.baycon.com) call "people points". Just being a plugger and helping as one can can stack them up eventually too, though.

Do you mean "influential" like as in political efforts? Heh. Better to ask the Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org) instead. But they won't know so much about the OS preferred by any individual member, as about the bills that are out there planning to prey on every nerdly soul in the country (and many who aren't as it starts taking toll on ability to use the internet). Oh yes, SVLUG members have been involved in a few rallies here and there. And I'd love to see a notable bloc of senators throw all their weight against the SSSCA because "statistics show" that the amassed geeks of the Silicon Valley are deadset against it. (One of these statistics being California among a limited batch of states that think Microsoft's "settlement" isn't worth a bic pen.) And the DMCA otherwise known as the "only big label companies whose policy about their copyrights is You Sure Better Not are allowed to protect theirs, you multitudes whose policy is My Grandma Recipes Can Belong To Every Mom can go rot." And so on. There are hundreds of poisonous little bills a year and the politicos simply don't even visit the world we actually live in.

Well what the heck. Maybe a "top ten" statistic would actually help. Good luck, and wish us some while you're at it. -- Heather

Thanks, kindly!!

"Make Your Virtual Console Log In Automatically"

As seen at http://linuxgazette.net/issue69/henderson.html

Thanks for writing this exelent article, but i wonder i you can give me any pointers to how to make X-window log in and autostart. I use a debianized laptop, and having to log in every time i start up is quite unnessesary. I know mandrake has this option, but i cant find info on how its set up.

Hoping that if this is not the right place to ask, you could give me feedback as well.

Thanks again
Stian Vading

[K.-H.]

the article is describing how to automatically login for textlogin. You can easily place "startx" in your ~/.profile and so automatically launch X and your standard window-manager.

For using that qlogin you probably will have to switch your debian system from graphic login to text login.

Another possibility: It is possible to run more then one X server at once, you could let it start the normal login screen but at the same time run qlogin to log in automatically and start it's own X server on a different virtual console (like vt . If this happens later then the gdm (or whatever debian is using for graphical login) it will switch there automatically.

[John Karns]

Right you are - I forgot to consider the consequences of a ?dm boot configuration. The 'startx' approach indeed assumes a text-based console boot configuration.

LG on CD

Can i distribute Linux Gazette (all issues as were avaiable) on a CD rom that i was going to design with open source software ?

Vijaya Kittu M

Yes. -- Mike

file://localhost/usr/share/doc/lg/issue64/lg_mail64.html

Hello,

I am not sure if you understand really the meaning of words:

etiquette and vulgar.

The Linux Gazette should conform to the first meaning and so exclude everything from the second meaning. Please refer to etiquette book from the nearest library.

Your public answer should never go to people like this one:

i just came across your website and was looking up bad clusters also.i've seen some of your replies to theses people and you seem pretty cocky. you sound like a total dick, like you dont have the time to just be nice and say geesh im sorry but you have to look elsewhere.

even if you want to personally "punish" him, even if he would be right or wrong.

It would be good behaviour if you simply correct those public pages and ban vulgar words.

Sincerely,
Marko

We censor words like f*ck and c*nt because LG is an all-ages publication. We do not use words like damn ourselves because several readers complained about it several years ago, but we don't think it's necessary to censor it from the occasional readers' mail. Obviously, people can differ over which words belong in the first category and which in the second.

In any case, that issue was published over a year ago and this is the only complaint we've received.

LG has never claimed to be the Emily Post of Linux. Our goal is to provide technical information and to make Linux more fun. Letters are published or not published according to their overall message, not whether they contain certain words. -- Mike

[Thomas Adam, the LG Weekend Mechanic]

I would just like to re-iterate the comments that Mike Orr made in this e-mail by saying that the querent (that's the person that sent that "abuse" e-mail to us) never actually sent an e-mail to us, asking a question that pertained to Linux.

Indeed, many querents that e-mail us, don't actually bother to really check to see who or they are really asking their question to.

Thus, we get a lot of Windows questions that have no relation to the subject matter contained within the Linux Gazette.

I do not consider the replies to peoples' e-mails rude in the least. Yes, harmless banter (Oh...hi Ben does take place, but it is really only because the querent has asked a really stupid question, or it is because of the reasons already discussed.

For example, I could be really picky, and say that the phrase which you used:

"Please refer to etiquette book from the nearest library."

is nonsense. It is grammatically incorrect, since it should read:

"Please refer to ***an**** etiquette book from the nearest library"

but who am I to complain???

Should you have a question relating to Linux, then please send it to the list.

Regards, -- Thomas Adam

It may be noted that we no longer publish all messages that come to us, nor threads with no Linux (or LG related) content even if we do sometimes answer their questions successfully. -- Heather

• 2 Linux Questions
• Artwork Contest

2 Linux Questions

Dear Sir/Madam

I would like to know from you answers of 2 Questions:

Strictly speaking, these are publishing questions, not Linux questions, but I cheerfully answer questions about LG itself anyway. -- Heather

Is 'Linux Gazette' is itself a Jouranal(professional)?

No. It's a web zine produced by volunteers. -- Mike

Linux Gazette is hosted by SSC.com, the internet site of Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc, a professional publishing company which publishes cheat cards, maybe some books, but definitely the standard print magazines Linux Journal and Embedded Linux Journal.

Although mirrored in approx. 47 countries, carried in nearly every major distribution of Linux on the planet, translated to multiple languages monthly, and the license we use allows it, there is not to my knowledge anybody publishing print editions of the Linux Gazette on a regular basis. If you know of such please let us know and we will be glad to give them a place of honor on the mirrors page: http://www.linuxgazette.com/mirrors.html

The staff and columnists of Linux Gazette are unpaid volunteers. Other than that we try to provide a high quality 'zine. We have been published monthly since... (she steps aside to check the Table of Contents) ... Sepetember 96 (not all issues before that were monthly) and there have been a few mid-month special issues.

Some of our staff have attended large shows in a professional capacity as press. You'd have to look back through our editorials for the references.

Linux Gazette is a part of the Linux Documentation Project, a worldwide effort to provide usable documentation for many things one might want to do with Linux. -- Heather

Is 'Linux Knowledge Portal' is a professional Joural?

Hmm, hadn't heard of this one before; Google! reveals: http://www.linux-knowledge-portal.org -- Heather

I hadn't heard of it ... And since we do publish a professional journal (Linux Journal), I asked LJ's Editor, and he hasn't heard of it either.

I did a Google search and discovered that http://www.linux-knowledge-portal.org exists. It used to be the SuSE Linux Knowledge Portal. If you want to know whether it's a professional journal, why don't you ask them? It also depends on what you mean by "professional journal", and why you care.

If you want to send an article, advertisement or press release to Linux Journal, see http://www.linuxjournal.com/contact.php . -- Mike

An interesting looking news site, a little ugly in lynx but definitely usable. Not hosted by SSC so our hosts couldn't say anything to its status. I'm not involved with it myself, so what follows is merely my opinion. I'm good at having opinions on things

It appears to depend heavily on automated retrievals from other sites which produce news in the Linux world, freshmeat and slashdot for instance. It seems professionally maintained to me though this is purely a gut reaction to usability at the site. The "Help" button mentions that it is themeable to your personal tastes if you let the site use cookies. Too bad there's no About section.

The question of whether a newspaper is a real newspaper if they have no investigative reporters and only read AP/Reuters, is a philosophical one beyond the scope of our site. But if you find an answer to that question, I'm sure the same answer applies here.

It is, however, fitting the common definition of "Portal" to a T. -- Heather

I would be grateful for your response.

Regards Touheed

Since I cannot determine your definition of "Journal" and "professional" in this context, I can't tell if either of these answer your question.

If your question is actually, "can I get paid for writing for Linux Gazette" I'm afraid your answer is no. Consider the Linux Journal instead.

If your question is actually, "can I use getting published in Linux Gazette as part of my Curriculum Vitae, resumé or to satisfy a publish-or-perish imperative at my academic institution?" the answer is almost certainly yes. You may want to consider our submission guidelines at: http://www.linuxgazette.net/faq/author.html

Use of a spell checker would be advised. The motto of our 'zine is "Making Linux a little more fun!" and so writing in a style readable by a lot of people is preferred.

As for Linux Knowledge Portal, perhaps you should ask their webmaster.

Hope you found that interesting; not sure if it's useful. -- Heather

Artwork Contest

You still have time to submit artwork for the contest introduced in last month's Back Page.

This page edited and maintained by the Editors of Linux Gazette Copyright © 2002
Published in issue 78 of Linux Gazette May 2002

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

• Tweaking the wily interface
• Clipping URLs
• w3m to access CUPS configuration utility
• Imagem linux_logo.h na Inicializacao do linux
• partial answer to euro-symbol question
• PPP
• Mouse control in X
• Re LG 77: More on NET4
• partition overlap = bad juju
• Re LG 77, wanted #1: private email
• RPMs
• Re LG 77, wanted #5: serial programming: toys.
• Re LG 77, wanted #5: serial programming: a guide.
• subsystem sftp
• some email related problems
• Linux Red Hat 6.2 Unistallation
• Make sure sshd is "always" there for you
• LJWNN tech tips
  • Python recursion limit
  • Ssh2 client to ssh1 server
  • Making executables smaller
  • Headphone volume control
  • subscribe to Linux Journal's Weekly News Notes

Tweaking the wily interface

Well, I found a solution - but that solution is part of a package that's interesting for more reasons than one. AccessControl, a package of useful tweaks designed to help folks with disabilities, had what I needed and more, along with a control panel that pulled it all together (of course, the individual utilities could still be used as stand-alone programs.) It's available at <http://cmos-eng.rehab.uiuc.edu/accessx/>.

Interestingly enough, Dan Linder (the author) says that a similar panel has been incorporated into X11R6.6 - a Very Good Thing, in my opinion. However, for those of us who'd like (or need) a bit more control over our keyboards, mice, display, etc. and are not willing to chase the bleeding edge, this package can be a useful tool in the sometimes confusing "battle of the interfaces".

Clipping URLs

After going back to my tried-and-true "icewm" (KDE was just too bloated for my 366MHz/64MB laptop), I gave a bit of thought to "URL clipping", which - if not over-automated - could be a handy feature indeed. Then, I remembered the "xclip" utility.

See attached clipurl.bash.txt

All that was left was tying "clipurl" to a key sequence in "icewm". To do that, I simply added the following line to my "~/.icewm/keys" file:

key "Alt+Ctrl+u" clipurl

Now, when I select a URL and want to launch it, I press "Alt-Ctrl-u", and - presto! A new Netscape window pops up (if Netscape is already running, it spawns a new one). It also works for files in your home directory, or "clips" that contain the entire path as well as the filename.

One of these days, I might write a little "chooser" for "ftp://", etc. URIs... but so far, it hasn't been a problem.

w3m to access CUPS configuration utility

My tip concerns the CUPS configuration utility that is accessed through the webbrowser at http://localhost:631/

My default browser, galeon, takes awhile to start on my machine. If all I want to do is run the CUPS interface to change a printer parameter, then it's much quicker to call it up with the w3m webbrowser in an xterm. Though text based, w3m even supports inline images. I put a "printer" button on my gnome panel that launches the following command when pressed:

"xterm -title CUPS -bg black -fg white -geometry 110x46+240+50  -fn 7x14 -e w3m http://localhost:631/printers"

Steve Robertson

Imagem linux_logo.h na Inicializacao do linux

Hi,

I'm the editor of the 'Gazeta do Linux', the portuguese version of Linux Gazette. We received the attached email with a question for you from Alfredo Guimaraes Neto.

Cheers, Pedro Medas

Ola,
Gostaria de saber se voces teem um tutorial de como mudar a imagem de inicializacao do linux, aquele pinguinzinho com um copo de cerveja, pois tentei varias vezes e estou com dificuldades, quando mando compilar o kernel, da sempre erro nesse arquivo.

Grato, Alfredo

Hi,

I would like to know if you have a HOWTO to change the boot image of linux, that penguin with a beer cup, I tried several times and I'm having difficulties, when I try to compile the kernel, it reports always the same error.

Greetings,
Alfredo

Thank you Pedro. I have an answer for him. If you would be kind enough to translate it back I think he'd appreciate it. -- Heather

Hi Heather,
Thanks for the answer to the 'Two Centavos Tip'. I will translate it for him.

If you need any more info or help feel free to say so.

bests,
Pedro

Not precisely a HOWTO, but actually useful instructions, are at the Linux Kernel Logo Patch Project: http://www.arnor.net/linuxlogo/download.html

Apparently you are not the only one in the world who is inclined to change the boot logo, but finds it hard to figure out where you would tweak the kernel code to use your own. So these people have a patch that makes it easy for everybody, not just kernel-hackers, to put in a new image.

I think they're looking for help on getting the non-intel platform logos right.

For my own part, I like it, I think I'll be using it soon myself!

partial answer to euro-symbol question

Hi Mailgang,

Concerning the question of Donal Rogers (rogers from clubi.ie) in the Mailbag of LG76 I found the following in: http://users.pandora.be/sim/euro/112/kde/kbdandbdf.html http://www.interface-ag.com/%7Ejsf/europunx_en.html

So: you may start a new xterminal screen with the Euro-enabled font:

xterm -fn -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-120-75-75-C-70-ISO8859-15 &

In this terminal you can use the Euro-symbol (eg. echo -e "\244"). The question I cannot answer is: how do you force all of your applications to use this font (if indeed that is the best solution). But I hope it gives you something to start working with.

-- groeten,
Rene van Leeuwen

PPP

Hi,

Please kindly advise me on PPP.

I'm using RedHat 7.2, somehow I having difficulties in getting the modem setup and recognized.

I compiled the new kernel with PPP add-on: Network Device Support -> (Y) PPP Support -> (Y) PPP Support for async serial ports

1. My external modem was connected to com1, so when I echo > /dev/ttyS0, my TR on modem get lighted.

2. I set; setserial -g /dev/ttyS0, it shows: /dev/ttyS0, UART: 16550A, Port: 0x03f8, IRQ: 4

OK - those numbers look fine, and the above test says that you're definitely on the right port.

I ensured that IRQ 4 is not used by other program by cat /proc/interrupts

3. When I performed; wvdialconf /etc/wvdial.conf, the results show ttyS0 modem was not found.

I tested out on 2 external modems, same problem arise. but of course my both modems (one of them was MERZ 566) were in working condition.

Where did I went wrong?

As far I can tell, you didn't; "wvdialconf" does not guarantee to detect all modems. Try using "minicom" to test it: do the serial port setup (it's pretty self-explanatory) and see if the modem will respond to simple commands like "AT" (it should come back with "OK"), "AT&V" (show the profiles), "ATDT5555555" (dial those numbers), etc. If it responds, just use those values in your "/etc/wvdial.conf", and everything will be fine.

Mouse control in X

xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 3 2 4 5"

If that works for you, you can place the expression (the part between the double quotes) in a ".Xmodmap" file in your home directory - or launch it directly by specifying the entire command line in your "~/.xinitrc" or "~/.xsession" file, depending on how you start your X session.

More on NET4 (from LG 77, 2 cent tips)

Hi,

In the 2 cent tips from LG 77, Chris Gianakopoulos writes:

"It is my belief that Net4, although it may be influenced by other protocol suites, was written from scratch (other han being derived from NET3.)"

I read recently in Linus Torvalds' "Just for Fun" (and again in in Glyn Moody's "Rebel Code") that the TCP/IP implementation in Linux was written from scratch in order to avoid being hassled by AT&T, who owned UNIX at the time. I suppose AT&T was using their legion of lawyers to go after other UNIX implementors for royalties.

Thanks,
Brian Finn

Hi Brian,
That makes sense. I've read somewhere that the book, "The Design of the Unix Operating System" by Maurice Bach, influenced Linus Torvalds with respect to his Linux stuff. The book described the algorithms of System V Release 2. Of course, other stuff influenced him also. Thanks for that info, Brian.

Regards,
Chris G.

partition overlap = bad juju

Hi there Ben,

I am responding to you as you were first on the list of answer people:-

I refer to "ntfs clobbered my ext3fs!!" in Linux Gazette 77 in which the questioner asks about a partition overlap.

I have encountered this twice. Both times it has been with a mixed Windows/Linux drive and using automated partitioning (ie Disk Druid or DiskDrake). Your questioner has exactly this scenario.

Now, I never use automated partitioning and I partition the drive using parted before I start the installation. I use primary partitions where possible and avoid mixed Windows/Linux disk setup.

I have experienced the overlapping partition syndrome and have found it very difficult to overcome. I have not been able to sort it out using fdisk as either Linux or Windows fdisk can not do anything to such corrupted partitions. I have only been able to recover using disk manager software and this was a destructive recovery.

Regards
Frank Brand

Re: [LG 77] help wanted #1 private email

Hi there

I would like to know how to set up my email on my home network with win98 outlook express and Linux.

I would like to set it up so that I can email anybody else in the house on the network and email via the internet when needed.

Thank You
Cheryl

There are a couple of linuxWorld articles describing Nicholas Petreley's setup, which may be suitable for you requirements.

http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2002/0318.ldap1.html
http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2002/0401.ldap2.html

RPMs

Simple question: What is a ".RPM" and how do I use them. I assume they are a type of compression file, but what do I need to use them.

RPMs are RedHat Package manager files. They contain the necessary files for a package, including setup scripts to be run pre- and post-install. They also have a list of dependencies, so they can determine whether you have installed the other packages on which this one depends.

Simple usage

rpm -Uvh pkg.rpm	# install package from pkg.rpm
rpm -Fvh pkg.rpm	# freshen (update) package from pkg.rpm

In both the above examples v is verbose and h is using a hash mark progress indicator.

For examples of other usages see

http://www.getlinuxonline.com/omp/distro/RedHat/rpm.htm

Neil Youngman
P.S. If you're asking questions of this list, please turn off MIME and HTML.

Re: [LG 77] help wanted #5 serial programming

Hi,

Check out www.linuxtoys.com. This site has some great examples of how to read/write form serial ports in linux.

The

Radio Shack DVM with RS-232 <http://www.linuxtoys.com/dvm/dvm.html>;

article was of particular use for me.

Good luck,
G Wozniak

Re: [LG 77] help wanted #5 serial programming

Hi,

check out the Serial Programming Guide for POSIX Compliant Operating Systems at http://www.easysw.com/~mike/serial You can find the answer in chapter 4.

Best regards,
Matthias

subsystem sftp

Why when starting SSH client does a subset of sftp open up in the background by default?

Take a look at the last line of your "/etc/ssh/sshd_config":

Subsystem	sftp	/usr/lib/sftp-server

Also, from "man sshd":

Subsystem
   Configures an external subsystem (e.g., file transfer daemon).
   Arguments should be a subsystem name and a command to execute
   upon subsystem request.  The command sftp-server(8) implements
   the "sftp" file transfer subsystem.  By default no subsystems
   are defined.  Note that this option applies to protocol version 2
   only.

I find the next-to-the-last sentence very interesting... on Solaris, for example, it's defined but commented out. On Debian Linux, it's defined and enabled by default. I suppose you could turn it off by commenting out the line, but I'd make absolutely certain that I didn't have any need for it first.

some email related problems

Hello everybody,

I have emails with a MS-TNEF file and a humor.mp3.scr file as attachments waiting in my inbox. How do I view/listen to these attachments?

You really don't want to open humor.mp3.scr. That's the Badtrans virus! Fortunately, as a linux user you're immune

See http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_99069.htm for more info.

Neil Youngman

As a general point, anything which has two whole three letter extensions (.jpg.pdf, .mp3.scr, and so on) especially when the second is one that may be reasonable to auto-view, you should be immediately suspicious that it's probably a virus. The same goes for MIME types which represent auto-view type files but which do not match the extensions given on the attachment (e.g. audio/wav but the attachment says .jpg).
However, there are 4 or 5 different small utilities that will deal with a true "TNEF" attachment, easily found at freshmeat.net -- Heather

Linux Red Hat 6.2 Unistallation

On Fri, Apr 12, 2002 at 06:02:39AM +0100, Alok Garg wrote:

Hello Sir,
I have 2 HDD of 20 Gig each, on the Primary drive I have WinNT and on the secondary I have Linux RH 6.2 I wanted to uninstall Linux from the system without effecting my data on Win NT. I wanted to move my secondary drive to other machine.

I'm sorry, but that's impossible. Removing Linux from your machine would utterly destroy (beyond any hope of recovery) the data on every WinNT machine in a 60-mile radius of where you are. Note that everybody will know exactly who is responsible: you'll be left in the center of a large charred circle. Even if you removed the HD with Linux and carried it off, as soon as you erased it, your NT would know.

It all happens magically, really.

(HINT: There's no magic. NT may be evil, but it does not watch your Linux drive and explode if anything changes.)

See <http://www.linuxgazette.net/tag/kb.html#uninstall> for tips on uninstalling Linux.

Make sure sshd is "always" there for you

Make sure sshd is "always" there for you.

Using OpenSSH (circa 2.95 or later?) you can configure the sshd to run directly from your /etc/inittab under a "respawn" directive by adding the -D (don't detach) option like so:

# excerpt from /etc/inittab, near end
ss:12345:respawn:/usr/sbin/sshd -D

This will ensure that an ssh daemon process is always kept running even if the system experiences extreme conditions (such as OOM, out of memory, overcommitted memory) or a careless sysadmin's killall which kills the running daemon. So long as init can function it will keep an sshd running (just as it does with your existing getty processes).

This is particularly handy for systems that are co-located and which don't have (reliable) serial port console connections. It just might save that drive across town or that frustrating, time consuming and embarassing call to the colo staff, etc.

Linux Journal Weekly News Notes tech tips

Python recursion limit

If Python's built-in recursion limit keeps your incredibly cool recursive function from working, you can temporarily set a different recursion limit with the sys module.

oldlimit = sys.getrecursionlimit()
sys.setrecursionlimit(len(big_hairy_list))
incredibly_cool_recursive_function(big_hairy_list)
sys.setrecursionlimit(oldlimit)

Ssh2 client to ssh1 server

If you have an account on a system where only your ssh1 key is installed in your authorized_keys file, you can force your ssh connection to use version 1 of the protocol with ssh -1 example.com.

Then you can use scp with the -1 option to transfer your ssh2 key there, so that you can use version 2 to connect from now on. Paranoid sysadmins are turning off version 1 access, so you should be using version 2 everywhere by now to be on the safe side.

Making executables smaller

To make executables smaller, try running strip(1) with the options -R Comment -R Note. This removes "comment" and "note" sections that the compiler and linker may have added during the build process.

(source: MontaVista Software's MontaVista Zone customer support site.)

Headphone volume control

If you're running your headphones straight out of your sound card's "Line out" jack, you might notice there's no volume control. Instead of trashing your ears or firing up a audio mixer every time you need to set the volume, just bind the commands


aumix -v+4 # crank up the volume!

and


aumix -v-4 # turn that crap down!

to two spare function keys. (In Sawfish, this is under the "Bindings" menu in the sawfish-ui program.) Presto--free and easy volume control straight from the keyboard.

There are also nifty little volume control applets for the KDE and GNOME taskbars, but why spend pixels on a common task when you have all those keys just sitting there?

This page edited and maintained by the Editors of Linux Gazette Copyright © 2002
Published in issue 78 of Linux Gazette May 2002

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

Contents:

¶: Greetings From Heather Stern

Serial Console "buddy system"

Watchdog daemon

Future in Linux

Dual boot systems made easy

gigabit unhappy

Adding seldom-used directories to your PATH

Experience Installing SuSE Linux 8.0

Greetings from Heather Stern

Hi Mom!

(I couldn't resist)

Hello everyone and once again welcome to the world of The Answer Gang. We had around 500 messages come through, the peeve of the month seems to be a few people overdosing on their sense of humor, and in case anyone was curious... my printer works fine these days.

I'm sure some people are going through Spring Cleaning. In my case I'm cleaning up my hard drive. I got a much, much bigger one and used my new distro installation as an excuse to perform the reorganization at the same time. This effectively turned an afternoon's task into a couple of days of juggling bits and an occasional adventure throughout the month to correct one or another facet of the installation.

At this point all my virtual hosts work, and I've finally gotten over how much easier elm is than mutt because I'm successfully using hooks to make the silly thing much brighter about what folders to save things to. For my style of folder reading this is perfect! Now all I have to do is whap those "elm2mutt" people for writing a converter that doesn't work if elm is already gone and you only have the aliases left. Sigh.

In fact I'm planning to leap feet first into the new development cycle over at LNX-BBC.org. Nick has this cool new build system and when we're done the thing really will be able to make world on itself, I think.

I'm pleased to see that kernels are settling down to some pretty usable stuff. Soon I'll be able to trust it on ultrasparc and maybe update our production server. Meanwhile, a nice solid 2.2.x kernel for us, yes indeed.

That's one of the things I like best about Linux, actually. Nobody holds a gun to your head and says that you have to use the latest and bleed all over that bleeding edge. If your sound or your pcmcia card just doesn't work right under the new stuff - great, stick with what works. Userland is a seperate thing, you can upgrade it by some fairly small parts most of the time. Of course glibc is a tangled mess, but then, it pretty much always was...

Later this month (Memorial Day weekend, for those of you who follow US holidays) I'll be running the Internet Lounge at Baycon, a science fiction convention. It'll be a nice tribute to how well older systems hold up with Linux under the hood. If you happen to be in Northern California around then, feel welcome to drop on by.

See y'all next month, folks!

Serial Console "buddy system"

Answer By James T. Dennis

Do you have a stack of Linux machines in a server room or at a co-location site? Do they all have serial consoles hooked up to a reliable terminal server? Or, is it that you can't afford to buy one of those cool Cyclades or other terminal servers, or your boss won't let you take up valuable rack space for one?

Depending on your answers to these questions you may qualify to use the unrevolutionary, completely unpatented "serial buddy system" Just take (or make) a few inexpensive null modem cables (n+1 for n machines) and link the systems in a chain (COM1 on System X to COM2 on System X+1 and around to System 0 to form a loop).

Install minicom or ckermit/gkermit, and mgetty, agetty, or uugetty (any getty that's capable of null modem -- serial, operation) and add the appropriate lines to your /etc/inittab, and option to /etc/lilo.conf or your grub configuration files (to pass console= directives to the kernel(s)) and (also optionally) compile your kernel with serial console support.

(The gory details are left for more detailed treatises such as http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Text-Terminal-HOWTO-17.html#term_as_console and .../linux/Documentation/serial-console.txt --- wherever your kernel sources are stored).

The end result of all this is that, when you need to look at the console of any machine, you can use a terminal package (such as minicom, or ckermit/gkermit) on the machine "next to" your target. This is much less flexible and convenient and a bit less robust than using a good terminal server --- but it's better than driving across town to the colo facility just because you're reboot failed, or you have to pass some new option to your (possibly new) kernel, or whatever). It's predicated on the likelihood that you won't manage to munge all of your machines at once.

Pros

Cheap:

you can get null modem cables for less than $5 (U.S) (Better you can make your own RJ45 to DB-9 null modem adapter pairs and use normal ethernet patch cords, in a wide selection of colors to connect them! That keeps the rats nest behind you machines a tad more manageable).

Available:

you probably already have a couple of spare serial ports on that server, anyway (and some of the new kernels even support USB serial console drivers!)

More Available/Robust:

some PC motherboards support serial console right into their CMOS set-up --- so you can change the boot device, etc.

Fairly Robust:

No single point of failure? It's possible (with more advanced fussing) to force the getty's to be quiet. That should allow each of the null modems to be bi-directiional (a login could be initiated from either end by connecting to the line and hitting enter or sending a BREAK) (The trick is to force the getty's to wait for a line signal before issuing and login: prompt --- some of them have this option). Obviously systems with four serial ports can be cross wired for additional redundancy --- though only one port on any system can be the "console" --- serial getty's can be run on the others.

Did I mention CHEAP! This is way cheaper than by a Cyclades and paying the rackspace rent on it, too; and much cheaper than a PC Weasel 2000 (and spending a PCI slot on that!) and even cheaper than a set of KVM cables (not to speak of the KVM switch and rackspace consumption you'd devote to THAT).

BTW: you can also add a modem or two into the mix --- putting them on systems with a extra serial ports (COM3 or even COM2 on some system where you've got the "bi-directional, quiet getty hack" working). This can get you in to do troubleshooting even if you're network connection to the colo goes down. That's especially handy if you happen to have another null modem into your router's console! (As I: "I updated the packet filters on the Cisco and now we're locked out! Ooops!").

[And, if it's saved your butt a few times, but proves to be unbearable for other reasons (see below) it's easy to plug in that terminal server when you get your boss to pony up for it ].

Cons

Kludgy:

You have to remember which machines are neighbored to one another; you have to mark up your rack diagrams with another cryptic detail.

No centralized control, logging, monitoring etc:

There are a lot of advantages to a modern terminal system (in the case of recent Cyclades products --- the are embedded systems running a Linux kernel from flash and supporting ssh for network to serial gateway functions). The "buddy system" is much simpler than all that, but much less "featureful."

Works "well enough":

This approach may deter your boss/manager from letting you get that terminal server and "do it right." C'est la vie!

Watchdog daemon

Answer By James T. Dennis

The Linux kernel supports a class of devices called "watchdog" drivers. These are programmable timers which are wired to a system's reset or power lines. They are common on non-PC servers and workstations and in embedded devices and are increasing included in PC PCI chipsets. There are also PC adapter cards that can function as watchdog timers, some of them are included in adapters with other functions (such as the PC Weasel 2000, or some high precision real-time clocks?) and some of them have electronics to monitor CPU or case temperature, power supply voltages, etc.

These all have one function in common, they can be set to some time interval (60 seconds by default, under Linux) and will count down towards zero. If they ever reach zero they'll strobe the reset line and force the hardware to reboot. Thus the require period "petting" or they'll "bite" you.

The Linux kernel supports a variety of watchdog hardware, and also includes one which is a software emulation of what a watchdog timer does. (Those are a bit less robust since some forms of kernel panic or failure might leave the system wedged and unable to execute the softdog code). (The Linux kernel can be set to reset after a time delay in case of panic --- the default is to dump a message and registers to the the console and wait for a human to read them and reboot. Read the bootparam(7) man pages and search for panic= for details on how to over-ride that).

All of this is of no use unless you also have a daemon or utility that can set the watchdog, monitor the system, and periodically "pet the dog." (Some texts on this topic use the more abusive "kicking" analogy --- but I find that distasteful).

Of course one can write one's own daemon, or even a cron job (if one over-rode the default 60 second value to be a bit longer, to account for possible cron delays). However, it's best to start with one that's already written and reasonably well proven. The Debian project has one that's simply called "watchdog." Although it is a Debian package it can be adapted for use on any Linux distribution.

This particular daemon performs up to 10 internal system tests (most are optional) and it can be configured to execute a custom suite of tests --- your own script or binary which must return a zero exit value on success (and should run in under some liberal time limit). In other words, it's extensible. On failure it can attempt to execute a custom "repair" script or binary, then it can try a soft reboot (with statically compile code -- NOT by calling the normal 'shutdown' or 'reboot' binaries). Failing all of that, it will simply fail to write to the /dev/watchdog which will cause the kernel to fail to "pet the dog" (hardware) or cause the kernel to reboot (softdog).

In (almost) any event a system failure should result in a reboot instead of a hang. That can be good for systems that are remotely located and hard to get reach. Of course Linux is pretty robust and reliable: so it's rare that the watchdog will be needed; and of course it could be that the watchdog will cause some spurious reboots, sometimes --- especially when initially configuring and tuning it. But there are cases where it's worth the risk and effort.

Future in Linux

From Morgan Howe

Answered By Dan Wilder, Michael Gargiullo, Thomas Adam (the LG Weekend Mechanic), Ben Okopnik

LJ,

I'm almost a junior in college now, and I know I want a career in the computer field, but my real love is Linux. I also am really interested in networking and the internet, but there's just so many options its hard to make up my mind. I'm wondering if there is a good paying career for a Linux professional, and if so, what should I do in my last two years of college to prepare myself? I can't decide if I should go with an information systems degree, or just a regular CS degree. If I could just get any information about possible career ideas in the linux field, or even if you could point me in the right direction to find more information I'd greatly appreciate it, and you have my word I'll renew my subscription when it runs out.

Thanks in advance, Morgan Howe

Near as I can tell, the Linux Journal staff decided to send it to us and see if we could answer him better. I hope he, and anyone else out there job seeking these days, finds this useful. -- Heather

[Dan Wilder]

Most everybody ad SSC works full-time in Linux. IBM, HP and other major players are putting lots of money into Linux, and it seems to be holding its own as a web server platform while continuing to creep into the enterprise.

You might try keying "Linux" into a search of dice.com. Lots of spots for network administrators, web designers, driver writers, and others, last time I checked.

Your mileage may vary. A large Redmond company might prefer if there were no such thing as Linux, and though many of us have our opinions, in truth only time will tell.

[Michael Gargiullo]

There are more and more Linux based jobs out there. OK Granted the market isn't great right now, but more and more companies are realizing the benifits of Open Source.

Your school path should be based on what you want to do... Are you looking to write the next killer app or kernel module? If so go with the CS Degree, and learn good coding form.

As for the company in redmond...If you like them the do hire Linux professionals( The don't openly admit this) but a friend of mine who is a Perl genius and a strict Solaris guy just got picked up by them for their "enterprise email server project". Redmond might scream and shout that open source is evil, but they love and use it as well. Just remember, up until a few years ago, all of their web servers were running on *nix boxes. Another example, they have a software version control package, that is based off an open source package (They were even lame about it, all of the comands are the same but have the "ms" prefix).

Sorry I ran off on a tangent... There are jobs out there...

Good Luck Clean Code

-Mike

[Mike "Iron" Orr, LG Editor]

I'm in Seattle. The only places I can think of to search are:

1. The job websites - http://www.monster.com, http://www.dice.com, etc.
2. Your local hi-tech career fair
3. Your local Chamber of Commerce
4. Your local library
5. Something else I was going to mention, but I forgot.

[Thomas Adam, the LG Weekend Mechanic]

(Well, this is the Linux Gazette (LG), not Linux Journal (LJ), but I'll let you off

Linux is becoming more and more popular with businesses these days. Certainly you should have no problem coming into "contact" with it.

...as for your CS degree...

I assume that you're an American. I am English and so cannot really say what your courses are like. I am 19 and am currently at University. I am doing an HND (Higher National Diploma) in Computer Science, which does cover some Unix aspects, if only basic. But it is a good sign that the course leaders here acknowledge the fact that Unix (and indeed Linux) is being used.

Any computer-orientated course should allow you the opportunity of using Linux. There is yet to be a degree here in the UK for Linux. However, software engineering which uses C, does use the Unix environment. So, you might get into Linux that way.

I would recommend going along to a local LUG to find out from the memebers there how they got involved with Linux.

There is information out tbere, especially on the internet.

I did a google/linux search and founf 1,2,9998 hits for Linux orientated jobs.

and you have my word I'll renew my subscription when it runs out.

[Thomas] I get the LJ too -- but don't feel obliged to re-new your subscription, just because I and Dan have helped you.

It has been a pleasure.

Good luck. Let me know how you get on.

[Thomas] I did a google/linux search and founf 1,2,9998 hits for Linux orientated jobs.

[Ben] Is this that New Math I keep hearing about? Thomas, please send me your professors' email addresses. It's remedial classes for you, sir.

[Thomas] Lol, I thought you'd like it Ben. Of course, don't tell the others it's really that secret KGB code that you've been after. I like the cover up of blaming my maths too -- nobody will ever suspect that our plan for world domination is near completion

Ok, seriously now though, I made a typo error.

Sorry, Mr. Okopnik, sir, it shan't happen again.....
--Thomas Adam

Dual boot systems made easy

Answer By Murray Hogg, Dutch

Just a little tip which I've never seen before, but solves alot of the problems invovled in partitioning drives during a Linux install.

Rather than go to the trouble of partitioning the hard-drive on a functional Windows system (is that an oxymoron?) I simply placed it in a hard-drive caddy. When it came to installing Red Hat 7.2 I replaced the drive in the caddy with a second drive I happened to have from an obsolete system. Now, by simply inserting the appropriate hard-drive in the caddy, I can boot into Win98 or Linux with no more effort than it normally takes to use a Linux boot-disk -- assuming, of course, that your system BIOS allows to autoedetect the hard-drive on boot-up.

Just a few comments on the advantage of doing this;

It can be a cheap way of getting into Linux as it's actually cheaper to buy a new hard-drive and caddy for install in a new system than it is to go out and buy an old 486 or Pentium I (or whatever) -- it also takes lot's less desk space!

It has the advantage that the Linux and Windows installs are totally independent -- a crash on one has no chance of effecting the other whatsoever and it circumvents the problem that later versions of Windows have to be the only OS on a system.

The one draw-back is the need to add a second (third?) hard-drive to allow swapping of files between two OS's.

Finally, I'm not a developer or hacker, but I imagine using multiple hard-drives would also be a great way to experiment with new Linux distro's or versions (or even software packages) without risking damage to a known and trusted installation.

Hope someone finds it helpful, regards

Murray Hogg

Hi again,

I just recieved the following warning about the use of hard-drive caddies which I thought ought to be attached to my dual-boot system idea;

Thanks to "Dutch" for the following insights.

You make a few good points in your post. Now from 10 years as a hardware technician I'm going to inject a few cautionary notes.

1) If you are going to use a caddy system, be sure you get a decent one with solid, well designed alignment rails and good heavy duty connection pins. Over time the cheap ones can become mis-alligned and cause bent pins on the internal connectors. Best case the drive won't be recognized, worst case is a short causing damage to your system.

2) Along the same lines, most removable drive setups do not make solid metal-metal connections to conduct heat from the drive into the case where it is dissipated. So any caddy worth buying should have a cooling fan of some sort built into the tray.

3) Make sure to wait (usually a good slow count to 20) until your drives have COMPLETELY spun down before you remove them. Removing a drive that is still spinning is just asking for damage to the bearings, heads, etc.

4) Treat the removed drives with care (like they were delicate glass). I've seen people yank a caddy out of a machine and just drop it on their desk like a book. How long do you think something as delicate as a hard drive can take that kind of abuse?

5) Be extremely careful of static discharge, especally around the connection pins on the back of the caddy. ESD can kill a drive in a caddy very easily since the drive is not attached to any sort of protective ground.

Dutch

"I think therefore I am...usually in a lot of trouble."

gigabit unhappy

From Steven

Answered By Ben Okopnik

Hey All,

We are running Red Hat Linux on a Compaq ML570 with four Xeon processors and one gigabyte of RAM. The server has two NIC cards, one compaq gigabit card and one 3com 100Mbs card. After some help from all of you, I have been able to successfully install and configure both NIC cards. However, I have found that after one hour of use, the gigabit card loses all connectivity, however, the 3com card stays up fine. We have tested this scenario several times, and the gigabit card is definitely dropping connectivity after about an hour. The only way to bring it back is to reboot the box, in which case they both work fine, but only for about an hour, then the gigabit loses connectivity again.

I checked out the Compaq website for a new driver, and there was one available, however, when I tried to build it with the 'make install' command from the created directory which contained the Makefile, I received an error message stating that he Kernel Source was not available. I took a look at the Makefile, and saw it was calling a 'linux' directory in /usr/src/ however, all I have is a 'redhat' directory in /usr/src/. I copied the contents of the 'redhat' directory to a new directory called 'linux' and still I had the same problem.

I am running out of ideas, and was hoping someone out there might have run into this problem before, either with multiple NICS or with Compaq RPMS.

Any info would really help!

Thanks, Staven

[Ben] It sounds like precisely what the error says: the kernel source is not available (and kudos to Compaq for making the error that clear; I've seen some absolutely st00pid error messages.) You're compiling a module (Linux doesn't use "drivers", at least not in the Wind*ws sense); modules get pushed onto the kernel, effectively modifying how the OS itself does Stuff. Therefore, you need to have the source code - module compilation depends on it.

Run "uname -r" to find out what version you're running. Download and install that version's source tree on your system; this will go under "/usr/src" as "kernel-source-<version>". Create a symlink called "linux" under "/usr/src" that points to your newly-installed source tree:

ln -s /usr/src/kernel-source-<version> /usr/src/linux

You should be able to run your "make" from here on.

(Obviously, you should delete your current "/usr/src/linux" before any of this - taking wild guesses of that sort can get you in trouble.)

Adding seldom-used directories to your PATH

Answer (as originally posted on linux-list) by Ted Stern

This content is actually from several messages originally from linux-list, and I have moved around parts for readability. I hope you all don't mind. -- Heather

The question was how to add a path for occasionally-used scripts without having to modify the PATH variable directly. Matlab has a command 'addpath' that does this. He tried to do it with a shell script, but of course that didn't work because it executes in a subprocess, and subprocesses can't modify their parent's environment.

The more people banging on modules the better. I think it would be great if all package maintainers could set up a modulefile to go with their installations.

Here at Cray, we are in the midst of a giant package installation sequence. Given that there are dozens of open/free/GPL software packages around, and our techies like to use them on all the platforms they work on, it has been nightmarish trying to keep up with every single software distribution. So they set up something called "cfengine" (I think) and each package gets its own automatic modulefile. This makes it easy to get access to tools like LaTeX if you need them.

... later he adds ...

I found the name of the package we are using here to install 100's of ports for various platforms:

MPKG

http://staff.e.kth.se/mpkg

It is already integrated with Environment Modules!

Others have posted various ways to do this, but I'd like to point out that they are all re-inventing the wheel.

A method to modify environment variables cleanly was developed over 10 years ago. It is called Environment Modules. It compiles under Linux. It happens to be the method Cray has used for the last 7 years to modify paths for different versions of its compilers and libraries.

You can even get the latest version via anonymous CVS from sourceforge.

See http://modules.sourceforge.net for more details.

Here's an example of how it works.

In your startup file, (I use tcsh) you put a line like

	source /opt/Modules/default/init/tcsh

In a directory filled with "modulefiles", one modulefile named "myghost" might contain some commands like

	setenv        GS_LIB /local/path/to/my/ghostscript/lib
	prepend-path  PATH   /local/path/to/my/ghostscript/bin
	prepend-path  PATH   /local/path/to/my/ghostcript/man

To access your local ghostscript stuff, you could say

	module load myghost

and the environment variables are modified as you would expect them to be.

To remove all trace of your changes, you do

	module unload myghost

and all is as it was before.

The Environment Modules package has been banged on in a variety of production settings at SUN (where it was initially developed), SGI, IBM, HP, etc., so it is fairly robust.

There is also a mailing list (majordomo), with extremely low traffic, mostly just announcements:

	modules-interest@eng.auburn.edu

There are probably other packages to do the same things as Environment Modules, but I doubt that they have as much infiltration into the corporate infrastructure .

Good luck, Ted

gpg fingerprint = 6171 14B3 A323 965B 614D 056F B41C 03AE E404 986C

... Iron also asked Ted ...

[Iron] How do you set your From: address on a per-list basis? Do you do something like "edit headers" in mutt and change it manually for each message? That would be tedious. Or do you have an automated way to do it?

[Ted] Read the full header of an email message, and you will usually see an indication of what the MUA is.

I use Gnus, an extraordinarily powerful email package within Emacs. Of course, I also use the anon CVS version, so I sometimes have a few bugs to deal with . But you can just use the version of Gnus that comes with Emacs if you like.

In my .gnus file, I have a setting as follows:

      (setq gnus-posting-styles
            '(
              ("^nnfolder.*:lists.gnus"
               (From "Ted Stern <stern+gnus@cray.com>"))
              ("^nnfolder.*:lists.fortran"
               (From "Ted Stern <stern+fortran@cray.com>"))
              ("^nnfolder.*:lists.linux"
               (From "Ted Stern <stern+linux@cray.com>"))
              ))

Gnus treats mail like news, so I read folders of mail as if they were groups. Within certain of my groups, the setting above adds the extra "From:" header.

Experience Installing SuSE Linux 8.0

Answer By Edgar Howell

Linux ready for the desktop? -- SuSE seems to think so.

On 13 April I installed SuSE Linux 8.0 (2.4.18-4GB) on a notebook. Ignoring one glitch (a pcmcia module, but notebooks are notorious for difficult installs) and my disinclination towards gui-anything, it was the easiest installation of an operating system I have ever experienced -- other than Coherent and DOS.

Not having a PC available with sufficient resources for recent releases of Linux, the now 2-year-old Toshiba Satellite 2180 CDT became the target. In theory all data on it was backed up to the PC but "just in case" /home and a bit more got tar'd and copied to the PC "for a while". So it wasn't an update but a clean install.

Probably I installed at least 4 times. But then 2 is normal: the first time around suprises don't always get proper responses, the second time is for real. However, there was something about the pcmcia module that hung the install as the system was coming up for the first time. No disk activity but the fan's coming on said the poor AMD was sweating heavily.

Once I believed that -- and by then I had learned that the default office install includes Star Office (which I used to like but would rather replace since it shows its origins too much) -- I chose the standard install without office stuff and before turning it loose removed the pcmcia module from the list of packages to install. After that it was like ho, hum...

The following is my protocol of installation, prompts indented (if the terminology differs from what SuSE actually uses stateside, that's due to my translation from German):

                boot CD 1 - menu
        Installation
                Language
        German
                menu - new/update/start
        new installation
                installation settings
        accept
                start installation?
        yes-install
                root password
        xxx,ppp
                add new user
        yyy,ppp
                monitor
        LCD
        SVGA 800x600@60HZ
                CRT settings
        graphic (settings OK)
                network interfaces and modems not detected
        next
                command line login
        root,ppp
        shutdown -h now

This took barely 24 minutes, most of which involved installing software. And I have omitted what was done to avoid installing the troublesome pcmcia module (which wouldn't be necessary on a PC).

What really blew me away is that under the monitor options "LCD" was right there and as model one could choose "SVGA 800x600@60HZ"! Yeah, I still checked with sax. The horizontal and vertical frequencies were right. Afterwards I spent several hours playing with the notebook. It even powers off when you shutdown!

Of course it was also neat that the partitions were recognized correctly (yeah, I know, a "clean install", but I've always used Partition Magic) and when all was said and done Win98 was still there, although there would have been no tears shed. Interesting was what can only be described as a gui-LILO: boot and you get about 5 or 10 seconds to make a choice on a graphics screen.

I'm not unbiased. I've been with SuSE since their 5.1. This was the first time using yast2, the graphic install, since they no longer have yast1. I wasn't aware of any possibility of driving yast1 with a script but would have much prefered that, to make it easy to do an identical install on several machines. But then my past includes IBM sysgens with decks of cards. What irritates me about gui-installs is the infinity of questions that need to be answered -- every single time. At least until this SuSE release.

Well, on a PC with adequate resources the yast2 install should go really slick. And like it or not that really is the yardstick nowadays and should go well with the desktop crowd.

Until now I have felt that even frustrated Windows users should stick with what they know unless they are seriously interested in how real operating systems function. In my opinion this release definitely is ready for prime time.

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The following articles are in the May/June issue of the E-zine LinuxFocus:

• A LCD control panel for your Linux server
  
• Using a Minolta Dimage 5 camera under Linux
  
• GNUMail.app, the portability evidence
  
• Getting to know XML
  
• Introduction to cryptography
  
• Discover the universe
  
• Trying out KDE3
  
• Replacing a Windows NT/2000 server using Linux and SAMBA
  

An interview at Linux Journal about the Linux movement and Linux Users Groups in India.

Also at Linux Journal, Linux WiFi Router brings in Subscribers for Ghana's Largest ISP.

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