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<H2>March 2002, Issue 76 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
Published by <I>Linux Journal</I></H2> 

<A HREF=../index.html>Front Page</A> &nbsp;|&nbsp;
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<!-- H1><font color="#BB0000">Table of Contents:</font></H1 -->




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<UL>
	<LI>  <a HREF="lg_mail.html">The MailBag</A> 
	<LI>  <a HREF="lg_tips.html">More 2-Cent Tips</A> 
	<LI>  <a HREF="lg_answer.html">The Answer Gang</A> 
	<LI>  <a HREF="lg_bytes.html">News Bytes</A> 
	<LI>  <a HREF="alcidi.html">Linux User Caricatures</A> , <EM>by Franck Alcidi</EM>
	<LI>  <a HREF="fillil.html">Fil &amp; Lil</A> , <EM>by ESC Technologies</EM>
	<LI>  <a HREF="marinov.html">Taming The Linux Keyboard (My Programming Adventures in Writing a Console Application for Linux)</A> , <EM>by Petar Marinov</EM>
	<LI>  <a HREF="orr.html">The Foolish Things We Do With Our Computers</A> , <EM>by Mike "Iron" Orr</EM>
	<LI>  <a HREF="qubism.html">Qubism and HelpDex</A> , <EM>by Jon "Sir Flakey" Harsem and Shane Collinge</EM>
	<LI>  <a HREF="rogers.html">The Standard C Library for Linux, part 7: String Handling</A> , <EM>by James M Rogers</EM>
	<LI>  <a HREF="spiel.html">Writing Documentation, Part IV: Texinfo</A> , <EM>by Christoph Spiel</EM>
	<LI>  <a HREF="vermeer.html">Poetry Requiem</A> , <EM>by Martin Vermeer</EM>
	<LI>  <a HREF="whitmarsh.html">Implementing a Bridging Firewall</A> , <EM>by David Whitmarsh</EM>
	<LI>  <a HREF="lg_backpage.html">The Back Page</A> 
</UL>

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<H3 ALIGN="center"><EM>Linux Gazette</EM> Staff and The Answer Gang</H3>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<STRONG>Editor:</STRONG> Michael Orr<BR>
<STRONG>Technical Editor:</STRONG> Heather Stern<BR>
<STRONG>Senior Contributing Editor:</STRONG> Jim Dennis<BR>
<STRONG>Contributing Editors:</STRONG>
Ben Okopnik, Dan Wilder, Don Marti
</BLOCKQUOTE>

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This page maintained by the Editor of <I>Linux Gazette</I>,
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<P> 
<H5>Copyright &copy; 1996-2002 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.</H5>
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<center>
<H1><A NAME="wanted"><IMG ALIGN=MIDDLE ALT="" SRC="../gx/mailbox.gif">
The Mailbag</A></H1> <BR>
<!-- BEGIN wanted -->

</center>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<center><H3><font color="maroon">HELP WANTED : Article Ideas</font></H3></center>
<P>
<P> Send tech-support questions, Tips, answers and article ideas to The Answer Gang
&lt;<A HREF="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com"
	>linux-questions-only@ssc.com</A>&gt;.  Other mail (including
questions or comments about the <EM>Gazette</EM> itself) should go to
&lt;<A HREF="mailto:gazette@ssc.com">gazette@ssc.com</A>&gt;.  All material
sent to either of these addresses will be considered for publication in the
next issue.  <EM>Please send answers to the original querent too, so that s/he
can get the answer without waiting for the next issue.</EM>

<P> 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
<em>ever</em> be answered, especially if not related to Linux.

<P> <STRONG>Before asking a question, please check the
<A HREF="../lg_faq.html"><I>Linux Gazette</I> FAQ</A> (for questions about the
Gazette) or <A HREF="../tag-kb.html">The Answer Gang Knowledge Base</A> (for
questions about Linux) to see if it has been
answered there.</STRONG>

<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->

<!-- BEGIN HELP WANTED : Article Ideas -->

<UL>
<!-- index_text begins -->
<li><A HREF="#wanted/1"
	><strong>LG 73, 2c Tips #12, USB Modems.</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#wanted/2"
	><strong>xt (xtraceroute)</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#wanted/3"
	><strong>Euro symbol available?</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#wanted/4"
	><strong>DHCP & MAC Addresses question</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#wanted/5"
	><strong>Convex</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#wanted/6"
	><strong>Boot problem on software raid</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#wanted/7"
	><strong>System crash on RH 7.2 - could be related to N.P.Strickland's problem</strong></a>
<!-- index_text ends -->
</UL>
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<P> <A NAME="wanted/1"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">LG 73, 2c Tips #12, USB Modems.</FONT></H3>
Sun, 20 Jan 2002 11:36:35 -0600
<BR>tomkrieger (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?cc=tomkrieger@yahoo.com&subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%20help%20wanted%20%231%20USB%20Modems">tomkrieger from yahoo.com</a>)

<P>
I am writing reguarding the Alcatel Speed Touch USB modem, under Linux,
particularly Mandrake Linux 8.1.
</P>
<P>
I have been trying to get this modem to work for about a month now.  It
seems I almost have it, at least compared to where I was a couple of
weeks ago.  I have been following the HowTo's, I've found on the
internet.  They seem to differ slightly from web page to web page, but I
believe I finally got the kernel and the drivers set up to work, but I
think I might have some setting messed up somewhere, or maybe a module
not loaded or something.  I was hoping you might be able to help me find
where I'm having a problem.  The message I get when I try to connect
with br2684ctl -b -c 0 -a 0.0.35 is something like
</P>

<blockquote><pre>RFC1483/2684 bridge : Created nas0 interface
</pre></blockquote>
<P>
(something like that)
</P>

<blockquote><pre>RFC1483/2684 bridge : Connecting to ATM 0.0.35 Encapsulation LLC
</pre></blockquote>
<P>
(again it says something like this)
</P>

<blockquote><pre>RFC1483/2684 bridge : fatal : failed to connect on socket
</pre></blockquote>
<P>
(here's the error message I get exactly as given to me)
</P>
<P>
Is there anything you might be able to tell me from the informatoin
given, what I should be looking at to correct my problem?  If you need
anymore info please let me know what it is and I will get it right to
you.
</P>
<P>
Thanks
<br>Tom
</P>

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<P> <A NAME="wanted/2"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">xt (xtraceroute)</FONT></H3>
Sun, 20 Jan 2002 11:01:32 -0800
<BR>Mike Orr (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?cc=rory@ssc.com&subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%20help%20wanted%20%232%20xtraceroute"><i>LG</i> Editor</a>)


<P>
There's a program in <A HREF="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</A> unstable called xt (xtraceroute).
It's supposed to plot the traceroute path on a picture of the
earth.  However, it doesn't seem to have enough location
coordinates in its database to do anything.  Has anybody used
this program?  Did you have to enter your own coordinates for
all the hosts you traceroute from and to?
</P>


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<P> <A NAME="wanted/3"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Euro symbol available?</FONT></H3>
Sat, 2 Feb 2002 17:05:10 -0000
<BR>Donal Rogers (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?cc=rogers@clubi.ie&subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%20help%20wanted%20%233%20Euro">rogers from clubi.ie</a>)

<P>
Hi guys,
I don't know how much this will matter to the non-Europeans in the audience,
but how am I going to get the Euro symbol to appear in my favourite
applications? I have just installed <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">Red Hat</A> 7.2 on my laptop, and would like
to indicate my preferred currency symbol in a spreadsheet or word processor
document. The only mention I can find in previous issues of LG (wonderful
publication - keep up the great work!), apart from a <A HREF="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</A> Euro-HOWTO, is
the usual "just my .02 Euro". Does anyone have any ideas?
</P>
<P>
Regards,
<br>Donal.
</P>



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<P> <A NAME="wanted/4"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">DHCP & MAC Addresses question</FONT></H3>
Thu, 7 Feb 2002 13:54:04 -0800
<BR>Dave Wulkan (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?cc=dwulkan@earthlink.net&subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%20help%20wanted%20%234%20DHCP">dwulkan from earthlink.net</a>)

<P>
Hi,
</P>
<P>
I've read where DHCP can return a fixed IP for specified MAC hardware
addresses.  My question is can DHCP be limited to return either fixed or
dynamic IP to only a list of MAC hardware addresses?  This would be a
security enhancement as only specified machines could get access to the
server?
</P>
<P>
Dave Wulkan
</P>

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<P> <A NAME="wanted/5"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Convex</FONT></H3>
Wed, 6 Feb 2002 02:44:22 +0100
<BR>Robos (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?cc=robos@geekmail.de&subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%20help%20wanted%20%235%20Convex">robos from geekmail.de</a>)

<P>
Hi Gang!
Some time ago a friend of mine took me to a guy that - via some
strange ways - had gotten hold of some convex computers (2
refrigerator-sized boxes). They were struggeling to get them to boot
again (I think they called the OS spp-ux os something similar) and
maybe in the end getting them to boot linux (hey, not totally OT). So,
short question: does somebody of you know these beasts? If yes, I can
figure out more about'em, otherwise forget them (saw something like a
VAXbar some time ago, maybe that'll be their new purpose real soon 
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=";-)" 
		height="24" width="20" align="middle">.
</P>
<P>
TIA
<br>Robos
</P>


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<P> <A NAME="wanted/6"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Boot problem on software raid</FONT></H3>
Thu, 14 Feb 2002 09:17:28 -0500
<BR>Joe St.Clair (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?cc=ksimach@ksimachine.com&subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%20help%20wanted%20%236%20software%20raid">ksimach from ksimachine.com</a>)

<P>
I am running RedHat 7.2 and using ext3 file system with software raid,
using 2 20gig drives.  The raid drive(s) are my boot drive.  The 2
drives are identical and are used something like this <TT>/dev/hda1</TT> = ext3,
<TT>/dev/hdb1</TT> = ext3.  I made everything between the 2 drives the same.  The
mirrored drive is <TT>/dev/hda1</TT> and <TT>/dev/hda2</TT> = <TT>/dev/md0.</TT>  The system has
been running very well.
</P>
<P>
I recently did a kernel upgrade.  The upgrade went ok and will boot and
run from a floppy drive with no problems.  But if I attempt to boot from
the hard drive(s) drive it will only boot the old kernel.  I have
updated the grub.conf and have even attempted to enter the commands for
booting from the command line.  The grub menu never shows the commands
entered into the grub.conf file and I receive a error "Can't find files"
if I attempt to enter the command line.
</P>
<P>
I have attempted to find what I need to change/fix but have not found
the information needed to update grub while booting from a raid/ext3
file system.
</P>
<P>
Anyone have any ideas?
</P>
<P>
Thanks,
<br>Joseph St.Clair
</P>


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<P> <A NAME="wanted/7"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">System crash on RH 7.2 - could be related to N.P.Strickland's problem</FONT></H3>
Tue, 29 Jan 2002 14:10:15 +1100
<BR>icalla (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?cc=icalla@bigpond.net.au&subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%20help%20wanted%20%237%20lockups%20after%20upgrade">icalla from bigpond.net.au</a>)


<P>
Hi Gang,
</P>
<P>
I recently upgraded from RedHat 6.2 to 7.2. Since then I have
experienced a number of incidents where the system simply froze up
solid. It would not respond to keyboard input or mouse clicks. Screen
was not being updated at all. The only way out was the Reset button.
This sounds similar to the problems reported by N.P.Strickland
(<A HREF="../issue74/tag/9.html"
	>http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue74/tag/9.html</A>), but I can relate my
incidents to some things which infer that the solutions suggested to
that post will not resolve my situation.
</P>
<P>
Firstly, this has only started happening since I upgraded. I never
experienced anything similar on RH 6.2 (or 5.2 fot that matter). The
hardware is unchanged, so I believe it must be caused by software, not
hardware.
</P>
<P>
Secondly, I am pretty confident that it is related somehow to sound. I
can bring on a freeze by running a number of multimedia programs (e.g.
XMMS, gtv). They appear to work fine for, say, 30 seconds, then Zap! the
system freezes up solid.
</P>
<P>
Can anyone shed any more light?
</P>
<P>
Thanks
<br>Ian Callahan
</P>


<!-- end 7 -->
<a name="mailbag"></a>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<center><H3><font color="maroon">GENERAL MAIL</font></H3></center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->

<!-- BEGIN GENERAL MAIL -->

<UL>
<!-- index_text begins -->
<li><A HREF="#mailbag/1"
	><strong>Windows Telnet Client for Linux</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#mailbag/2"
	><strong>installing software from source</strong></a>
<!-- index_text ends -->
</UL>
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<P> <A NAME="mailbag/1"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Windows Telnet Client for Linux</FONT></H3>
Wed, 23 Jan 2002 14:49:23 -0800
<BR>Mike Orr (<a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%20mailbag%20%231%20cybercoffee%20shop"><i>LG</i> Editor</a>)
<br>replying to Jay Ashworth (The Answer Gang)

<P><STRONG><FONT COLOR="#000066"><EM>
Not if you're at the only cybercafe in town and they don't let you
install software there,
</EM></FONT></STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Educate, advocate.
</STRONG></P>
<P>
The only reason I'd be in a cybercafe is if I'm in a strange town and there
are no other Internet options.  So I don't have much opportunity to find the
most receptive staff members and spring a World Domination campaign on them.
</P>
<P><STRONG>
There <EM>has</EM> to be at least one geek there...
</STRONG></P>
<P>
You must have forgotten the smiley. 
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" 
		height="24" width="20" align="middle">  That must be a joke, because in most
of the cybercafes I've been in, the staff know a lot about espresso and chai,
but very little about their own computers.  The only two exceptions were the
Speakeasy in Seattle and CoffeeNet in San Francisco, neither of which
exist any more.
</P>



<!-- end 1 -->
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<P> <A NAME="mailbag/2"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">installing software from source</FONT></H3>
Tue, 29 Jan 2002 22:01:01 -0500
<BR>Adam York (<a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%20mailbag%20%232%20make%20install">Anonymous</a>)

<P>
Ben,
</P>
<P>
Since I'm a relative linux newbie and software installation has been
learning process, I appreciatee your article on installing from source.
One question though.  After downloading and uncompressing the source,
installation seems to be pretty much a three step process.
</P>
<Pre>
./configure
make
make install
</Pre>
<P>
My question is this: should I become root in this process and if so at
what stage?  I'm thinking that I should become root after "make." and
not before.
</P>
<P>
Anyway I appreciated the article especially the part about analyzing a
failed install.  It would have taken me a while to figure that out on my
own.
</P>
<P>
Thanks,
<br>Adam York
</P>



<!-- end 2 -->
<a name="gaz"></a>
<P> <hr> <P>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<center><H3><font color="maroon">GAZETTE MATTERS</font></H3></center>
<P> <HR> <P>
<!--====================================================================-->

<!-- BEGIN GAZETTE MATTERS -->

<UL>
<!-- index_text begins -->
<li><A HREF="#gaz/1"
	><strong>TAG members</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#gaz/2"
	><strong>Confidential disclaimers</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#gaz/3"
	><strong>HOWTO subscribe to <i>Linux Gazette</i></strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#gaz/4"
	><strong>All your wonderful tips...</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#gaz/5"
	></a>feedback --or--
<br><A HREF="#gaz/5"
	><strong>Why we stay plain when we could look Really Cool</strong></a>

<!-- index_text ends -->
</UL>
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="gaz/1"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">TAG members</FONT></H3>
Wed, 20 Feb 2002 14:26:40 -0800
<BR>Mike Orr (<a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2075%5D%20gazette%20matters%20%231%20welcome%20gang"><i>LG</i> Editor</a>)
<BR>linux-questions-only (linux-questions-only@ssc.com)

<P>
By the way, TAG now has thirty members, an increase of about eight from a couple
months ago.  Welcome, new Gang members, and thanks for your contributions.
</P>
<P>
If you haven't sent in your TAG bio yet or you need to revise it, send it to
<A HREF="mailto:gazette@ssc.com"
	>gazette@ssc.com</A>.  See
</P>
<P><a href="tag/bios.html">"Meet The Answer Gang"</a>
to read about your peers and see some example bios.
</P>

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
	[28-Feb: Somehow it doubled in eight days.  There are now
	sixty TAG members.  -Iron.]
	</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

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<P> <A NAME="gaz/2"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Confidential disclaimers</FONT></H3>
Fri, 25 Jan 2002 10:56:08 -0800
<BR>Mike Orr (<a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2075%5D%20gazette%20matters%20%232"><i>LG</i> Editor</a>)

<P><STRONG>
In the section on confidentiality disclaimers in the TAG faq, can
we provide some examples of what we need the querent to say?
</STRONG></P>
<P>
Provided, in
<a href="tag/ask-the-gang.html#privacy">"Ask The Gang"</a> -- Heather
</P>

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<P> <A NAME="gaz/3"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">HOWTO subscribe to <em>Linux Gazette</em></FONT></H3>
Sun, 20 Jan 2002 09:20:05 -0800
<BR>multiple readers (<a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2075%5D%20gazette%20matters%20%233%20subscribe">shown below</a>)

<P>
We've had a number of questions on this topic lately...
</P>

<!-- sig -->
<p><em>D Johnson</em></p>

<P><STRONG>
I always enjoy reading the Gazette offline (maybe even at the beach on my
notebook).  Have you ever considered providing it in pdf format.  Would save
me the trouble of converting it myself.  Imagine lotsa others do too.
Keep up the good work.
</STRONG></P>

<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">Thanks for the support.
 -- Mike</font></blockquote>
<HR width="10%" align="center">
<!-- sig -->
<p><em>P Reddy</em></p>

<P><STRONG>
i am a student from india , i want to know wether there is a mailing news
letter available, if yes how to subscribe.
please reply at...
</STRONG></P>
<HR width="10%" align="center">
<!-- sig -->
<p><em>Martin Willem</em></p>

<P><STRONG>
I'm making the jump into the linux world. Do you offer the GAZETTE in hard
copy form?
</STRONG></P>
<HR width="10%" align="center">
<blockquote><font color="#000066">To all these people and everyone else out there wondering: ...
</font></blockquote>
<P><DL><DT>
There is no subscription.  Read it online:
<DD><A HREF=".."
	>http://www.linuxgazette.com</A>
</DL></P>
<P>
Paper?
</P>
<blockquote>
It's under an open license.  Anybody has the right to publish
it that way.  <EM>We</EM> can't afford to do all that for free though.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
If anybody chooses to convert it to paper form <EM>regularly</EM> ...
and maintain that as a longterm service ... could you please
let us know?  We could add you to the Mirrors page 
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" 
		height="24" width="20" align="middle">
</blockquote>
<P>
Other electronic formats?
See <A HREF="../faq.html#formats_no"
	>http://www.linuxgazette.com/faq.html#formats_no</A>
</P>
<blockquote>
You can be <EM>notified</EM> that the new one has been posted each month, by
subscribing to the announce list (it does <EM>not</EM> contain the articles):
<A HREF="http://www.ssc.com/mailman/listinfo/lg-announce"
	>http://www.ssc.com/mailman/listinfo/lg-announce</A>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
You might be able to use services (elsewhere!) which let you know websites
have changed (by emailing you the changed page) to give you the table of
contents ONLY, by telling them to keep an eye on:
<A HREF="../current/"
	>http://www.linuxgazette.com/current/</A>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
One example of such an external service is Sitescooper - PDA users can get
the document this way, as can others who install the Sitescooper scripts:
<A HREF="http://scoops.sitescooper.org"
	>http://scoops.sitescooper.org</A>
</blockquote>

<p>So much work to get it so I was hoping...</p>
<blockquote>
Our webzine is quite large so it's well worth your time to find an <EM>LG</EM>
mirror site that's closer to your home in cyberspace:
<A HREF="../mirrors.html"
	>http://www.linuxgazette.com/mirrors.html</A>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
You can also download the FTP files, or find it in the <A HREF="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</A> distribution.
Read more about all this at the Linux Gazette FAQ:
<A HREF="../faq.html"
	>http://www.linuxgazette.com/faq.html</A>
</blockquote>
<HR width="10%" align="center">
<blockquote><font color="#000066">However Martin had more to ask so we 
answered that too
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" 
		height="24" width="20" align="middle">
 -- Heather</font></blockquote>
<P><STRONG>
Do you offer recommendations on the most successful ways to jump
from microsoft to LINUX? Any help that can save me pain would be greatly
appreciated i.e. hardware, linux flavor, good books for the beginner to read
before/during the move to lynux!
</STRONG></P>
<P>
That's a very general question, so I can offer only a general answer.
Look in The Answer Gang Knowledge Base:
<A HREF="../lg-kb.html"
	>http://www.linuxgazette.com/lg-kb.html</A>
especially under the sections "Linux Distributions", "Before you install Linux",
"Installing Linux", etc.  Also see the section "Linux tech support questions"
question "How can I get help on Linux?", which has a list of books and a link
to the <A HREF="http://www.linuxdoc.org/">Linux Documentation Project</A> (LDP) (Linux Documentation Project), which should be your first stop.
</P>
<P>
-- Mike
</P>

<!-- end 3 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="gaz/4"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">All your wonderful tips...</FONT></H3>
Sun, 23 Dec 2001 00:57:55 -0500
<BR>Robos (<a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2075%5D%20gazette%20matters%20%234">robos from muon.de</a>)

<!-- sig -->

<P><STRONG>
Hi Gang!
Just had some time and took a look into the howto section at
linuxdoc.org and found the Tips-HOWTO.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Nice thingies in there, although the last editing seems to be ages
ago.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Soooo, since LG is already present in there and you have such
wonderful ideas, scripts and perl-thingies (Ben?), after you have
discussed them here in the list and optimized them one could post it
to the maintainer of the Tips-HOWTO for inclusion.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
What do you think? Thats a place a newbie finds rather easier than
this mailing-list, don't you think?
Just a suggestion.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
CU Robos
</STRONG></P>
<P>
&lt;grin&gt; Good idea, Robos. Instead of the Tips-HOWTO, however, the areas
you're asking about are a subset of the LG Knowledge Base that
Chris Gianakopoulos and I have been working on for the past month plus;
see &lt;<A HREF="../kb-faq.html&gt"
	>http://www.linuxgazette.com/kb-faq.html&gt</A>;. Better yet, wait 
a week or
so and see the new version - Chris has been doing a sterling job of adding
the stuff from the previous issues of LG while I'm banging away on
modifying the overall KB-FAQ, TAG-FAQ, etc. The difference between the last
month and the one that's coming up is going to be a large one - there are
many, many more articles/issues incorporated into it than there were the
last time - and it's really turning into a great resource. -- Ben
</P>


<!-- end 4 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="gaz/5"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/envelope.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Why we stay plain when we could look Really Cool</FONT></H3>
Fri, 18 Jan 2002 15:21:53 +1100
<BR>Leon Czechowicz (<a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2075%5D%20gazette%20matters%20%235">Leon.Czechowicz from anu.edu.au</a>)

<!-- sig -->

<!-- ::
Why we stay plain when we could look Really Cool
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
:: -->
<P>
Hey!
</P>
<P>
Nice to see your online mag - content seems good!
</P>
<P>
...pity I was about as excited about the presentation of your "mag" as I
am about brussel sprouts!
</P>
<P>
Check out <A HREF="http://www.onlamp.com"
	>http://www.onlamp.com</A> for an example of what to make it look
like - I know in essence its the same, but I'd love to see some Linux
heads make something that actually looks good!  (ie stop acting like
text crazed command line geeks and get with us poxy graphical idiots,
who have been web building with Macromedia products and the like)
</P>
<P>
Yes that means you will actually have to stop using Lynx and start using
Mozilla to check the visual integrity of your code!
</P>
<P>
I'm not really bagging, just sick of not being excited when I hit a
linux site.
</P>
<P>
cheers,
L
</P>

<blockquote><font color="#000066">Oh my.  This resulted in a lively discussion defending
	<a href="#brussel">Brussel sprouts</a>,
 our decision process in making the webzine
	<a href="#style">rather more plain than all-dancing-and-glitzy</a>,
 some comments about
	<a href="#check">the browsers we actually use</a>,
 thoughts on
	<a href="#flash">Macromedia Flash</a>,
 a certain amount of
	<a href="#grump">curmudgeonly eyebrow raising</a>,
 cheerful
	<a href="#thanks">thanks</a>
for the kudos that were present, and
	<a href="#goforit">encouragement</a>
to take on the glitzy task himself.  Pleasantly he took it
	<a href="#goodsport">all in good stride</a>
and will probably join the Answer Gang 
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" 
		height="24" width="20" align="middle">
 -- Heather</font></blockquote>
<HR width="10%" align="center">
<h4><a name="thanks">KUDOS</a>
</h4>
<P><STRONG>
Nice to see your online mag - content seems good!
</STRONG></P>

<blockquote><font color="#000066">Thanks, always happy to hear it.
 -- Heather</font></blockquote>

<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">Thanks for writing in.  If you like the content, well, that's our goal.
 -- Mike</font></blockquote>
<HR width="10%" align="center">
<h4>
<a name="brussel"
>BRUSSEL SPROUTS</a>
</h4>
<P><STRONG>
...pity I was about as excited about the presentation of your "mag" as I
am about brussel sprouts!
</STRONG></P>

<blockquote><font color="#000066">I <EM>like</EM> brussel sprouts, when prepared properly and covered with butter 
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" 
		height="24" width="20" align="middle">
Oh, you mean the boiled-grey kind, perhaps ...
 -- Heather</font></blockquote>

<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">I can force myself to eat brussel sprouts and broccoli.  But I
draw the line at cauliflower.
 -- Mike</font></blockquote>

<blockquote><font color="#1F1F1F">I'll trade you: you can have my brussel sprouts, and I'll have the
cauliflower. It's good to have friends. 
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" 
		height="24" width="20" align="middle">
 -- Ben</font></blockquote>
<HR width="10%" align="center">
<h4>
<a name="grump"
>CURMUDGEONS, THAT'S US</a>
</h4>
<P><STRONG>
...pity I was about as excited about the presentation of your "mag" as I
am about brussel sprouts!
</STRONG></P>

<font color="#003F00">
<blockquote>
The Answer Guy, enjoying yet another
Python book (in this case New Riders' "Python Web Programming" -- slow since
it aims at non-programmers, but quite good nontheless) at a local coffee shop, 
was heard to mutter:
</blockquote>
<blockquote><blockquote>"Bon Apetit mon ami, enjoy your sprouts"
</blockquote></blockquote>
<blockquote>before taking another sip of his latte. -- Jim</blockquote>
</font>

<blockquote><font color="#1F1F1F">Hey, nice layout on your e-mail!
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#1F1F1F">...too bad the content had me yawning.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#1F1F1F">So you've got your MacroWhozits, ShockWhatsits, and RealWhatchamacallits
running. Booo-ring. I can get more and better flash and glitter at the
99-cent store. Incidentally, I find the layout of the site that you've
mentioned just as garbaged up as that of Slashdot - it requires a 21"
screen just to see properly, and the "noisiness" of unrelated multi-column
layout, with 2-3 words per column (hey, you've got to make room for all
those ads - right?) is something that I find really unpleasant to read.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#1F1F1F">Look. Our strength is that we are accessible to _everyone._ Not everybody
in the world has a cable modem, or even a fast phone connection; a number
of our readers are still using 33.6 modems attached to their 486s, and a
fair number of them are still paying for content "by the byte". I'm using a
CDPD modem (I live on a sailboat) to connect, myself. Should we all be
denied access, or should it be made more difficult or expensive because our
layout doesn't reflect somebody's idea of the Latest And Greatest fashion
in web pages? Please, let's not even go there.
 -- Ben</font></blockquote>
<P><STRONG>
I'm not really bagging, just sick of not being excited when I hit a
linux site.
</STRONG></P>

<blockquote><font color="#1F1F1F">&lt;snort&gt; I'll make you a deal: we'll tell you how to dress and how to
present yourself in general (anybody here have some orange lipstick and a
flourescent pink purse?), and you'll be welcome to present us with your
idea of an "up-to-date" site that excites you. That sound good to you?
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#1F1F1F">Thought so.
 -- Ben</font></blockquote>
<HR width="10%" align="center">
<h4>
<a name="style"
>ALL GLITZ, WE'RE NOT</a>
</h4>
<P><STRONG>
Check out <A HREF="http://www.onlamp.com"
	>http://www.onlamp.com</A> for an example of what to make it look
like -
</STRONG></P>

<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">It looks nice.
 -- Mike</font></blockquote>

<blockquote><font color="#000066">(For the readers: ONlamp is an O'Reilly Network site.)
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#000066">Are you <EM>with</EM> O'Reilly?  They are a big publishing house and hire people
to maintain their websites.  We are a batch of volunteers scattered all
over the world.  But we're flattered that you chose to compare us with them.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#000066">(it turns out, no, he's not;  he just feels their site looks cool.)
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#000066">To be fair, though, I tried to visit that site with Netscape.  I only got
an ad -- no content!  Ouchie!
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#000066">Luckily we only put these itty bitty graphics at the side and logos on top.
Since we don't do animated banners you can't get hit with the won't-finish
bug in some browsers either 
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" 
		height="24" width="20" align="middle">
 -- Heather</font></blockquote>
<P><STRONG>
I know in essence its the same, but I'd love to see some Linux
heads make something that actually looks good!
</STRONG></P>

<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">Go to 
<a href="http://www.linux.com/">linux.com</a>.  Or better yet, 
put up your own demonstration site.  Then
send us a link to it and an announcement about what it contains, and we'll
put an item for it in News Bytes.  Maybe all that will encourage other Linux
sites to get more pizzazz.
 -- Mike</font></blockquote>
<P><STRONG>
(ie stop acting like text crazed command line geeks and get with us poxy
graphical idiots, who have been web building with Macromedia products and the
like)
</STRONG></P>

<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">Linux Gazette is slow to adopt new visual technology, kind of like the Amish.
We prefer to wait a few years and see which technologies would actually be a
long-term benefit to all our users.  It's an unusual kind of zine; I don't know
of any others like it.  Most people read it from mirrors in 47 countries,
through the Linux Documentation Project, download the FTP files, read it on a
CD-ROM, download the articles to their palm pilot, etc.
So anything dynamic is out because it would cut off a significant portion of
the readership.  We also don't want to impose any special software requirements
on the mirrors.  Two concessions to dynamism: the search engine and talkbacks
on the main site.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">We're also mindful of bandwidth restraints: many readers and mirrors live in
countries where they pay by the minute for Internet access, so I try to keep
each issue down to less than a megabyte or two (compressed).
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">We also have to piece together the whole thing into an all-in-one version (the
entire issue on one page), because that's how LG started and many readers prefer
to print it that way.  This rules out differing stylesheets per article, or
anything special the article needs in the HTML header.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">Most of the editors subscribe to the "good website design" philosophy, meaning
content is king.  If you can't say it in text, it isn't worth saying.  Obviously
we don't go all the way on that, because we have been publishing several cartoon
series.  But still, all decorations are evaluated in terms of how essential they
are to the content.  If readers like the text, they'll be back.  if they won't
read it unless it has bells and whistles all around it, well, we don't want them
anyway.  There are plenty of sites that are highly graphical (and can't be
navigated unless you have Flash and Javascript enabled), and LG doesn't wish to
compete in that department.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">By the way, Your Editor has a strong adversion to "left column" and
"right column" sidebars (tables), and will resist them as long as he can.
Let the article text flow freely across the entire width of the browser,
outside a table, and in the default font.  Persumably, the reader has
adjusted his default font to his preference.
 -- Mike</font></blockquote>

<blockquote><font color="#1F1F1F">A-men to that! And a-women, too. I don't long for uniformity on the Web,
but if more people paid attention to those basics, more information would
be more easily accessible. Sing that song!
 -- Ben</font></blockquote>

<blockquote><font color="#000066">Not to rag too hard back, but:
<ol>
<li> Tell O'Reilly to get that wart zapped.  The last time I saw this
           was LWN having some problems with an ad provider whose "pull
           through" would bomb out that way about 1 time in 10.  I'm not
           sure if they fired the ad provider, or just made 'em fix it,
           but I know it's tricky to chase down problems that are hard to
           reproduce.
<li> We can't shoot at bugs without a target symbol over the varmint.
	   In other words "it's ugly" isn't enough of a problem description.
	   Try again.
</ol>
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#000066">Since we live in a world of choice, try a few of the following on for size:
Dillo, Chimera, Amaya, Opera, Arachne, links (not the same as lynx), w3m,
Browsex, ViewML, mnemonic, Zen, konqueror.  If you find a copy of Grail
let me know as its homesite died ages ago and I haven't found packages since.
Maybe it was under a non-free license??
 -- Heather</font></blockquote>

<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">Grail (a Python web browser) is now at 
<A HREF="http://grail.sourceforge.net"
	>http://grail.sourceforge.net</A> .  The
last version was April 1999.  It died because its sponsoring organization
(CNRI?) stopped putting developer resources into it.  They did that because
they realized its features and speed were never going to compete with recent
versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">With Grail died the ability to run Python applets in a browser, but that's OK
because there never were any Python applets except a few demos.  But now there's
Jython, which is an implementation of Python in Java, so you can do almost the
same thing.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">However, there was a good thing from the Grail legacy.  The parts to build a
browser, parse URLs, parse HTML files, etc, and everything else a browser needs
to do, got put in the standard Python distribution as modules, so you can use
them in other programs.
 -- Mike</font></blockquote>

<blockquote><font color="#000066">Visit some students at your local
blind school, ask them if their speech readers do our site alright... and
have your local PDA pick up the current Linux Gazette packet from Sitescooper.
I'm <EM>not</EM> going to suggest that you telnet to port 80 and handle your own
client side of the HTTP connection, but you can do that if it makes you
feel like a completist :D
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#000066">We try not to change the templates too often 
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" 
		height="24" width="20" align="middle">
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#000066">Variety may be the spice of life but aiming generic rather than in any one
direction means less work to have readable results without heavy testing.
(We <EM>do</EM> try to test for broken hotlinks, and sorta glance around for typos,
but those sometimes escape us too.) As we're all unpaid volunteers, and not
very many of us, making the best use of our time is important too.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#000066">We're modeled more after the community green sheet (e.g. Campbell Reporter
gets a picture here and there, but mostly it's plain ink on rag paper)
than a large city newspaper (with its Home and Garden section, coupons in
the food section, comics section bigger than some articles, classified ads
fatter than all other sections but the sports, etc) or a 90 page glossy
magazine on clay-laden paper with dye sublimation ink.  On the flip side
we don't charge $7.95 on newsstands and have a two to three month lead time
for articles, either.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#000066">There's a great little article at "This website optimized for --- arguing
with customers" (<A HREF="http://www.htmlhelp.com/feature/art2.htm"
	>http://www.htmlhelp.com/feature/art2.htm</A>).  Like it says,
we're not going to tell people to get rid of whatever they already have just
to read anything here.
 -- Heather</font></blockquote>

<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">OnRamp gets brownie points
for using the default font in the center column, but loses points for having
the left sidebar.  At least the center column isn't too narrow.  And at
least--thankfully--they don't split the articles into pages, unlike, say,
Salon (<A HREF="http://salon.com"
	>http://salon.com</A>), where you have to wait for a download cycle
between each page.
 -- Mike</font></blockquote>
<HR width="10%" align="center">
<h4>
<a name="check"
>JUST CHECKING...</a>
</h4>
<P><STRONG>
Yes that means you will actually have to stop using Lynx and start using
Mozilla to check the visual integrity of your code!
</STRONG></P>

<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">Actually, I do most of my work in Netscape 4.  I occasionally use
Konqueror 2.2.1 for comparision, but I get sick of the 3-5 seconds of
extra overhead on every
click.  At home I use Galeon.  For local documentation or when I'm going to a
known-text page, I use links, or lynx if it requires https:.  I don't know what
the other editors use.
 -- Mike</font></blockquote>

<blockquote><font color="#000066">Funny you should mention that, I was able to read your site with lynx
when Netscape failed abysmally -- since noting yourself as a GUI fan, I
figured to hit it with a graphical browser first...
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#000066">My <EM>portion</EM> of the Gazette is always checked with both lynx (2.8.3dev9 with
SSL patches, yeah I know it's ancient, but I'm happy with my color settings)
and netscape (4.77 normally).  They each correct for different varieties of
HTML misbehavior, and that allows me to fix glitches generated by my
preprocessing script, which tortures about 400 slices of mail into something
resembling pieces of a webzine.  I <EM>sometimes</EM> test with konqueror, NS6,
or Browsex.  We've been advised that Opera's rendering of the Front Page
only (ironically, the only one where we tried to get fancy with layout)
is a mite strange... of course, that's commercial software, and the effect
doesn't really stop reading, but we dunno any way to convince it to do
the table-heuristic we wanted.  Oh well.
 -- Heather</font></blockquote>

<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">That vertical black line is gone.  It was a 1-pixel black .gif inside a table
cell, which was supposed to expand into a vertical black bar.  However, it
used WIDTH="2%", which made it stretch wide on some browsers.  So I changed it
to a fixed width.  However, Opera continued to expand it while the other
browsers stopped.  Now it's gone.  Good riddance.
 -- Mike</font></blockquote>

<blockquote><font color="#000066">What version of Mozilla are you using, what bug/wart did you encounter,
and does it also afflict Netscape 6, Galeon, or other mozilla derivatives?
 -- Heather</font></blockquote>

<blockquote><font color="#1F1F1F">Argh. Leon, could you send your stuff in plain text, and wrap
it at less than 80 (preferably, around 72) columns? That's
considered good e-mail manners.
 -- Ben</font></blockquote>
<P><STRONG>
Argh indeed - I am forced by the hand of Bill Gates - my headers will
inform you my work machine is a W2K with Outlook - I couldn't be polite
with my text if I tried. As far as it's concerned I AM sending plain
text!!!!!!!!  I am moving jobs soon, but staying on the same campus - I
will then rebel and use Linux for my desktop....AND BILL WILL
WEEP!!!!!!!!!!!! (HeeHeeHeeee...)
</STRONG></P>
<P>
Seems like there's a way to tell even Outlook to be civil, at least
in this respect.
</P>
<P>
Unfortunately this way eludes me ... could somebody here more versed
than I in the Dark Arts speak up?
-- Dan
</P>

<blockquote><font color="#1F1F1F">&lt;laugh&gt; Cool. Mike Orr, our editor here, has mentioned that we have the
procedure for smacking Outlook down to decent behavior written down
somewhere;
 -- Ben</font></blockquote>
<P>
Chris G here, from the Dark Arts group of people.  I supplied detailed
instructions on how to set up Outlook Express to send in plain text mode
when sending email.  In it was included the fact that the MUA should not
reply in the same format as the original message.  That was in issue 65,
"Setup of Microsoft Outlook Express 5 for Sending of Clear Text":
<A HREF="../issue65/tag/8.html"
	>http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue65/tag/8.html</A>
</P>
<P>
Hopefully, that will work for Leon.
-- Chris G
</P>
<blockquote><font color="#1F1F1F">
A friend of
mine sent me the following step-by-step guide (he works in a mixed
environment, and needs to twiddle his settings back and forth):
</font></blockquote>

<TABLE WIDTH="95%" BORDER="1" BGCOLOR="#FFFFCC"><TR><TD>
<p align="center">...............</p>
<P>
How to send plain text email using Outlook in 3 clicks or less
By Samuel Kopel
</P>
<P>
This will work in Outlook(not sure about express)
</P>
<P>
Start a new message
</P>
<P>
On the menu bar select 'Format/Plain Text'
</P>
<P>
Click [YES] to the message "Warning: Changing the formatting of this
message from HTML to plain text requires removing all the current
formatting, including any pictures you may have included. Are you sure you
want to do this?"
</P>
<P>
If you want to change your default to text (recommended if the majority of
your email does not go to other Outlook users) you need to change the
options settings.
</P>
<P>
From the menu:
'Tools/Options'
Select the [Mail Format] tab and change to "plain text"
</P><p align="center">...............</p>
</TD></TR></TABLE>
<HR width="10%" align="center">
<h4>
<a name="flash"
>MACROMEDIA FLASH</a>
</h4>
<P>
Macromedia Flash, Javascript and fancy graphics would be possible since
they are self-contained (i.e., don't require particular software on the
web server).  However, they would have problems on non-major browsers,
and LG readers have a wide variety of browsers, and are more likely
than the general public to run experimental browsers on principle.
Also, some readers have older computers, and buying a new computer would
cost several months' salary.  Last year I got a letter from a reader in
Africa asking if there is an e-mail version of LG (there isn't),
because his school cannot afford to read it on the web.
--Mike
</P>

<blockquote><font color="#000066">Macromedia Shockwave isn't readable on Linux (unless something new has
happened that I don't know about).  Flash is ok but broken in some
contexts, unusable entirely in others, and we don't want the site unusable
to anyone.  There are so many versions of Javascript nee' ECMAscript I
stopped counting -- and Java is getting there.  People read us worldwide
including on PDAs and in libaries and coffee shops.  (ok, the coffee shops
probably can handle the cool stuff.  We've gotten lots of questions about
coffee shops running Linux.)  Also on "that slow old thing" and a cheap
dialup link while preparing the spiffy new box to run Linux. (Even though
they <EM>can</EM> render the graphics, maybe it's so bad they even turn off image
loading in the GUI.)  Etc.
 -- Heather</font></blockquote>

<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">I forgot to mention.  If you have a small Flash movie on a Linux theme, we
may be able to put it in as an article.  Or if you'd like to write an article
about building Flash movies on Linux or something like that, we could also
publish it.
 -- Mike</font></blockquote>
<HR width="10%" align="center">
<h4>
<a name="goforit"
>YOU CAN DO IT</a>
</h4>
<P><STRONG>
I'm not really bagging, just sick of not being excited when I hit a
linux site.
</STRONG></P>

<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">Linux is a do-it-yourself thing.  Go forth and build the ultimate
Linux web site.
 -- Mike</font></blockquote>

<blockquote><font color="#000066">Feel free to actually do a cool new layout
and have that be the format
for your new mirror of us.  We'd happily list you in our mirrors database,
and publish the script you use to tweak it if you like, so other mirrors
can do things your way too.  Sharing resources is good.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#000066">That's the beauty of stuff under free 
licenses ... you can tweak your
copy and you aren't breaking any laws whatsoever.
</font></blockquote>

<blockquote><font color="#000066">If you have good tricks for having your 
GUI cake
and eating text too, it'd make an excellent article for the Gazette (a linux
focus in it would put it on topic), and Mike Orr 
(<A HREF="mailto:gazette@ssc.com"
	>gazette@ssc.com</A>) would be
glad to accept your submission.  If <EM>that</EM> excites you about us, read our
author guidelines in the Linux Gazette FAQ, and we look forward to seeing it!
 -- Heather</font></blockquote>
<P><STRONG>
cheers,
L
</STRONG></P>

<blockquote><font color="#000066">Have a good weekend, hope your Linux is being more fun than our layout for ya.
 -- Heather</font></blockquote>
<HR width="10%" align="center">
<h4>
<a name="goodsport"
>ALL IN GOOD STRIDE</a>
</h4>
<P><STRONG>
Ben,
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Don't take it so personal - the Editor explained everything very nicely,
I'm sorry if I offended - I am a graphical ponse, it's not my fault I
was born that way!!!!!!!
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
L
</STRONG></P>

<blockquote><font color="#1F1F1F">&lt;grin&gt; No worries, Leon - you didn't offend me. I got a little grumpy at
you telling us how we've got to do something without knowing our
requirements, but that's all; no offense involved.
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#1F1F1F">For myself, I like graphical stuff when done in appropriate amounts
relevant to the material at hand. Today, there are <EM>way</EM> too many web pages
that use graphics gratuitously, without any sense behind them - and I must
say that the page you pointed to does not fit that category, although it
has other problems (at least from my perspective.)
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#1F1F1F">So, here's an idea for you; an opportunity to possibly convert a few folks
into "graphical ponses", if you will. Go with what Mike suggested: write an
article about Web page design; include some links to demonstrate each of
your points. Who knows?... it might become a graphical ponse revolution. 
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" 
		height="24" width="20" align="middle">
 -- Ben</font></blockquote>
<HR width="10%" align="center"><P><STRONG>
Heather,
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
You write too much - I can't even type that fast and you want me to read
all that!????
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
As I said I like the content - I'm sold an that - I also said I'm new to
Linux, thus may only be bagging what I don't understand....yet!
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
All points on bandwidth, mirroring etc etc are taken - OK!!!!!
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I still hate Brussel sprouts with butter - I'd rather eat the tub of
butter.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Geez, I know not now to stir whith what ain't broken....
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Oh and to clarify - I Certainly Don't Work For O'Reilly!! (And I'm not
such a fan of Flash myself - but don't tell my boss!)
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I am glad to have stimulated some conversation though
</STRONG></P>
<HR width="10%" align="center"><P><STRONG>
Mike,
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Thanks for an in depth reply : This shows me your commitment to uphold
all that is good and right in the computing world, and your reasons for
doing it.  Good on ya! - I can take much of what you have said about the
web and put it into practice - thanks - all points noted.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I am pleased that you did in fact reply - you would be surprised how
many people would take a comment like my and ignore it - so thanks
again.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I am what your world would call a Linux Newbie so your feedback and
explanations are essential to my development, and I suspect yours.  I am
looking forward to building new sites, I do have some commercial
Intranets on the build, and in use, none of which I can advertise -
interestingly enough, I am using mySQL, PHP on guess what: <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">Red Hat</A> Linux
7.2.  They work a dream, and are - FULL of lovely graphics, but tied to
100Mbps LANs, so I can afford the bandwidth!  Call me a cheat!
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Oh and thanks for the cauliflower laugh.
</STRONG></P>

<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">You want some more cauliflower? 
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" 
		height="24" width="20" align="middle">
 -- Mike</font></blockquote>
<P><STRONG>
Keep up the good work, I will be a regular visitor for the CONTENT!
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
cheers,
L
</STRONG></P>

<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">Leon, given your responsiveness (most important), verbosity and funny
comebacks, have you ever considered a career in The Answer Gang?  Would you
feel comfortable answering questions about Linux?
</font></blockquote>
<blockquote><font color="#001F3F">If so, see The Answer Gang FAQ, <A HREF="../tag-faq.html"
	>http://www.linuxgazette.com/tag-faq.html</A>
 -- Mike</font></blockquote>
<P><STRONG>
I gave it some thought Mike - I dont know if I can match up to the class
of company - I have little Linux experience (love the 'Iron Orr' bit)
When I move jobs next week, (and desktop machines! yay to the end of
W2K) I'll have to set up some Linux servers, with RAID and  big network
transfer speeds for up to 20 Mac OSX clients running video editing
software - Utilising the network drives as a data bank, so clients can
log onto any machine to edit and be presented with up to 10GB of storage
space for the hungry video stuff.
</STRONG></P>
<P>
Only 10GB?  What are they editing; news packages?  
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":-)" 
		height="24" width="20" align="middle">
-- jra
</P>
<P><STRONG>
After that I'll be in a position to answer some questions on Linux!
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
(If anyone has some pointers on the above problem please jump in - or
even if it is possible! specially Mac OSX Vs Linux issues.)
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
'till then Ciao!
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Leon Czechowicz
</STRONG></P>
<P>
The problem is <EM>sustained throughput</EM>.  TTBOMK, <EM>nothing</EM> is fast
enough at the network filer level at the moment to do anything much
faster than DV (3.5MB/s).  To beat that, you need, I think, to go to
NAS, or something similar: shared <EM>drives</EM>, rather than shared
filesystems.
</P>
<P>
Perhaps things have speeded up a bit... but be prepared to go to either
100Mbs Ether with dedicated adapters, or Gigabit shared... and
something more towards token than ether is not out of line.
</P>
<P>
Either that, or nasty buffering on the mount client.
</P>
<P>
Investigate Cinelerra, too.
</P>
<P>
Cheers,
-- jra
</P>

<!-- end 5 -->
<P> <hr> </p>
<!-- *** BEGIN copyright *** -->
<H5 align="center">This page edited and maintained by the Editors
	of <I>Linux Gazette</I> 
<a href="http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html"
	>Copyright &copy;</a> 2002
<BR>Published in issue 76 of <I>Linux Gazette</I> March 2002</H5>
<H6 ALIGN="center">HTML script maintained by
	<A HREF="mailto:star@starshine.org">Heather Stern</a> of
	Starshine Technical Services,
	<A HREF="http://www.starshine.org/">http://www.starshine.org/</A> 
</H6>
<!-- *** END copyright *** -->
<center>
<H1><A NAME="tips"><IMG ALIGN=MIDDLE ALT="" SRC="../gx/twocent.jpg">
More 2&cent; Tips!</A></H1> <BR>
<!-- BEGIN tips -->

Send Linux Tips and Tricks to <A HREF="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com">linux-questions-only@ssc.com</A></center>
</center>
<UL>
<!-- index_text begins -->
<li><A HREF="#tips/1"
	><strong>ques</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#tips/2"
	><strong>File cache...</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#tips/3"
	><strong>Answer for "getting volume label from CD".</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#tips/4"
	><strong>Compiling from source</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#tips/5"
	><strong>Automate dialing?</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#tips/6"
	><strong>Redhat 7.2 Linux firewall-Howto</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#tips/7"
	><strong>File System problem</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#tips/8"
	><strong>Quick C function lookup</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#tips/9"
	><strong>GNU</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#tips/10"
	><strong>Is there a way to check if a dial up ppp connection is REALLY up?</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#tips/11"
	><strong>large file support detection</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#tips/12"
	><strong>Linux with win2000</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#tips/13"
	><strong>Basic Newbie Question</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#tips/14"
	><strong>O'Reilly posters</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#tips/15"
	><strong>printing</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#tips/16"
	><strong>Linux rocks!</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#tips/17"
	><strong>Setting up telnet in a Linux server.</strong></a>
<li><i>Linux Journal</i>'s Weekly News Notes <a href="#tips/lj">Tech Tips</a>
	<ul>
<li><A HREF="#lj/1"
	><strong>ssh -n</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#lj/2"
	><strong>The simplest way to process a web form</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#lj/3"
	><strong>How to switch between several network profiles on your laptop</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#lj/4"
	><strong>Speeding up commands like "route" and "netstat"</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#lj/5"
	><strong>Very important topic: keeping your "fortune" file indexed</strong></a>
<li><A HREF="#lj/6"
	><strong>Limiting the files "locate" shows</strong></a>
	<li>
	<A HREF="http://noframes.linuxjournal.com/subscribe/lja-sub.html"
		>subscribe to <I>Linux Journal's</I> Weekly News Notes</A>
	</ul>
<!-- index_text ends -->
</UL>
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="tips/1"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">ques</FONT></H3>
<p>Fri, 1 Feb 2002 11:32:44 -0800
<BR>Dan Wilder (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%202c%20Tips%20%231%20big%20disks">The Answer Gang</a>)
<BR>asked by piyush moghe
</p>


<P><STRONG>
respected sir
<br>i have a problem with linux instalation on 20Gb or
more capacity disks,i had installed on p3,20gb hd,64
mb ram.i make 2 1Gb partition as linux native &amp; one
200 mb as swap the instalation goes on smoothly but at
the end it gives error that first partition not lies
in 1024 cylinders what i can do to solve this problem
</STRONG></P>
<P>
Actually we're several guys, and one or more gals.  If you
respect us, that's nice, but not essential.
</P>
<P>
Upgrade to current LILO.  Most new distributions should
contain a LILO able to overcome the 1024 cylinder limit,
and so a newer distribution might be the easiest way
to do it.
</P>
<P>
Or, re-partition the disk so that its first partition, about 16Mb,
is mounted at <TT>/boot</TT>, second partition is swap, and the third partition
containing the remainder of the disk is mounted as <TT>/</TT>, the root
partition.  The installation scripts on the distribution will
probably give you an opportunity to specify how you want
the hard drive partitioned, and that's where you do this.
</P>
<P>
Make sure your kernel boot image (usuall vmlinuz) is located
in <TT>/boot</TT>, and is referenced from <TT>/etc/lilo.conf</TT> as such.
You may have to move things around and rerun lilo after
the installation stuff completes.
</P>
<P>
Let us know how you are doing.
</P>


<!-- end 1 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="tips/2"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">File cache...</FONT></H3>
<p>Thu, 14 Feb 2002 22:25:24 -0800
<BR>Dan Wilder (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%202c%20Tips%20%232%202.4%20file%20cache">dan from ssc.com</a>)
<BR>asked by Matthew Koundakjian 
</P>
<P><STRONG>
Is there a way to control in a 2.4.x kernel how large the file cache can grow?
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
File cache always seems to take as much as it can and we <EM>really</EM> would
prefer to keep it low.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
The main user is routinely running tasks upwards of 1.5GB at time and there
are times when the system thrashes and thrashes.
</STRONG></P>
<Pre><STRONG>
3:55pm  up 2 days, 23:36, 19 users,  load average: 0.60, 0.72, 0.75

162 processes: 160 sleeping, 2 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU0 states: 76.0% user,  0.0% system,  0.0% nice, 23.0% idle
CPU1 states: 31.0% user, 13.0% system,  0.0% nice, 55.0% idle
Mem:  2059412K av, 2053732K used,    5680K free,       0K shrd,   41576K buff
Swap: 3072112K av,  703596K used, 2368516K free                 1236900K cached
</STRONG></Pre>
<blockquote>
<P>
Big file cache is not necessarily A Bad Thing.  As long as it
unloads fast when demand grows.
</P>
<P>
I'd look to other problems first.
</P>
<ol>
<li> Are you running 2.4.17 or something older and buggier?  If not
2.4.17, upgrade now.

<li>
Are you running an AMD Duron or Athlon + AGP video?  If so,
you'll need a kernel boot parameter to cut cache page size,
there's an interference between the way the kernel handles
DMA and the way AMD handles AGP, leading to sporadic random
cache corruption.
<li>
 You're 700M into swap.  That's never a Good Idea.  Unless what's
swapped out is more or less permanently swapped out.  If so
why are you running it?  If possible, get another gig of
memory.  The slowest memory is much faster than the fastest
hard drive.
</ol>
</blockquote>

<P><STRONG>
Hello Dan...
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Thanks so much.  Yes, we're running an older kernel ... mostly, 2.4.6 ...
I'll fix that.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
As far as the swap, originally, we had no swap, but because the file cache
is so "hungry", I threw in swap as a brute force means because processes
were dying from lack of memory...
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
As it is, we run a computational fluid dynamics code that periodically dies
with no more than "broken pipe" as the error diagnostic, which, if I had to
make a W.A.G., I would assume a process died.  Before, it was a LOT
worse... It was ugly when something like portmap would croak.  So, lacking
any coherent solution and having unhappy users, I threw some swap in and it
seemed to help with stability tremendously.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
But most recently, with one user process running, allocating about 1.7G,
the system was apparently thrashing horribly... very unresponsive and with
a system load on the order of 10.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
As far as the swap versus file cache, it would seem to be silly to have a
file cache that's so large that swap starts coming into play.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Bye,
<br>Matt
</STRONG></P>

<!-- end 2 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="tips/3"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Answer for "getting volume label from CD".</FONT></H3>
<p>Thu, 24 Jan 2002 16:09:19 -0700
<BR>Sean Reifschneider (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%202c%20Tips%20%233%20cd%20label">jafo from tummy.com</a>)

<P>
The URL:
</P>
<P><BLOCKQuote>
<A HREF="../issue72/tag/2.html"
	>http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue72/tag/2.html</A>
</BLOCKQuote></P>
<P>
asks the question "How do I get the volume label from a data CD", and then
the three guys go on to not provide a very good answer...
</P>
<P>
If you would like to add the following, it may be useful to other readers.
</P>
<P>
There are two problems in identifying CDs -- one is identifying a data CD,
the other is identifying an audio CD.  Mr. Bray is asking specifically
about data, but it's also possible to determine a fairly unique ID for
audio CDs as well.
</P>
<P>
Data CDs are easy -- a 32-byte string is written in the ISO at offset
32808.  Some systems have a program called "volname" (part of the eject
package), which can pull this data out.  Otherwise, "dd" can be used:
</P>
<P><CODE>
dd if=/dev/cdrom bs=1 skip=32808 count=32
</CODE></P>
<P>
This is the volume label specified via the "-V" argument to "mkisofs" when
creating the CD image.
</P>
<P>
For audio CDs, it's (unfortunately) not as easy.  The CD Digital Audio
standard does not include a location for storing CD or track identification
information.  The answer for this that I've heard is that they felt it was
too hard a problem to solve initially.
</P>
<P>
While it may seem easy to add a few strings on the CD, it becomes harder
when you have to deal with an international market -- how do you make it so
that Japanese tracks can be identified, for example.  Remember, this was
back in the &lt;gasp&gt; '80s, when Unicode wasn't common.
</P>
<P>
So, the way people go about identifying audio CDs is by generating a
signature.  This signature consists of information about the length of
tracks, number of tracks, and various other information.  You can then
condense this information down into a single value.
</P>
<P>
This value can then be used to submit and request more specific data about
a disc or track.
</P>
<P>
Thanks to the LinuxDoc CDROM-HOWTO for the dd command to pull this data off
the CD.
</P>
<P>
Sean
</P>

<!-- end 3 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="tips/4"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Compiling from source</FONT></H3>
<p>Fri, 1 Feb 2002 09:03:21 -0800
<BR>John Davies (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%202c%20Tips%20%234%20install%20from%20source">johnny5_tc from yahoo.co.uk</a>)
</p>

<P><STRONG>
Hi,
I've just read your informative article on installing
from source in this months Linux Gazette.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
You mention that it would be good if make files has
and uninstall target and that most don't. Well, if you
have a look at Checkinstall
(<A HREF="http://asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall-en.html"
	>http://asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall-en.html</A>)
it allows you to uninstall programs built from source.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
What it does is to replace the "make install" command
with checkinstall. It makes a note of which files were
installed and allows you to uninstall the program
using the package management tools on your machine (in
my case dpkg). It also creates a .deb (or .rpm) so you
can install it on another machine.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I've played with it for a few days now and it is
extremely useful.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Regards
John
</STRONG></P>
<P>
John,
</P>
<P>
Thanks for that tip.  I'm a moderately long-time member of
The Answer Gang, and had not heard of checkinstall before.
I often build from source, and had until now resorted to
clumsy and time-consuming expedients to manage uninstalls.
</P>
<P>
"checkinstall" is just what we need here at SSC, host of
The Answer Gang's mailing list server and The Linux Gazette's
web site.
</P>

<blockquote><font color="#1F1F1F">This is pretty much the reason that I forwarded this to TAG. I've had seven
or eight e-mails telling me me about "buildpkg", "rpm", etc.; under Debian,
I'm familiar with "alien" - but none of these deal with the real issue of
"remembering" what the "make" did. They just convert the tarball (which
often cannot be done due to layout, etc.) into RPMs or DEBs, etc. This tool
- although I have not yet had the time to check it out - sounds like a very
nice possibility, and I'm going to be looking into it.
 -- Ben</font></blockquote>
<P>
Well thanks, Ben, for forwarding it.
</P>
<P>
It sounds like this tool does something like what I've been doing by hand.
After building a package, I often
</P>

<blockquote><pre>  su root
  script
  make install
  ^D
</pre></blockquote>
<P>
(that's "CTRL-D", an EOT character, to log out of script)
then edit the resulting "typescript" file to build a roster of what
was installed, which I then save in an "ssc" subdirectory of the build
directory, against a day when I wish to know what was installed.
</P>
<P>
You're absolutely right about alien et al.  They work from a tarball,
.deb, .rpm, etc.
</P>
<P>
However, most stock GNU packages don't even build an install tarball.
They just install directly, leaving a cryptic trail of what they
installed in the output from the "make install".  Without analyzing
that output you don't even get a tarball to "alien".
</P>
<P>
There are exceptions.  <A HREF="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</A>-modified source trees build the
.deb packages directly, which can then be installed.  <A HREF="http://www.slackware.org/">Slackware</A>-modified
source trees build a tarball directly.  No doubt <A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">Red Hat</A> et al has
something similar ... brainfade prevents me from saying at the moment ...
</P>
<P>
All too often I find I must go directly to the original release of
some package, rather than using the distribution's source, either
because the package is not available under the appropriate distribution,
or because the distribution's package doesn't do it for us.  Wrong
or broken version, etc etc etc.
</P>
<P>
If this checkinstall does what it looks like it might do, it solves
that problem of "what do you do if you've only the original source code".
-- Dan
</P>

<!-- end 4 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="tips/5"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Automate dialing?</FONT></H3>
<p>Wed, 20 Feb 2002 18:26:42 -0500
<BR>Ben Okopnik (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%202c%20Tips%20%235%20autodial%20ISP">The Answer Gang</a>)
<BR>asked by gagandgupta 

<P><STRONG>
I want to write a program that on getting some sort of
trigger will automatically connect to the internet by
dialling the ISP's telephone number. After it has
established connection it should store the IP address
assigned to it by the ISP in a file.
</STRONG></P>
<P>
Two major hints that, together, should give you the solution:
</P>
<ol>
<li> Search the Net for "linux" and "dial-on-demand". The standard answer to
this used to be "Diald", but nowadays it's built into pppd, so reading the
man page may be an even better solution.

<li> Read "<TT>/etc/ppp/ip-up</TT>", paying special attention to "PPP_REMOTE".
</ol>
<P>
That's it. There's no deep science to it.
</P>



<!-- end 5 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="tips/6"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Redhat 7.2 Linux firewall-Howto</FONT></H3>
<p>Tue, 5 Feb 2002 22:01:56 -0800
<BR>Dan Wilder (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%202c%20Tips%20%236%20firewall">The Answer Gang</a>)
<br>asked by Franco Fernandes
</p>

<P><STRONG>
Hi!
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Can anyone tell me from where can i get the Redhat 7.2 Linux firewall-Howto
download
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Thanks &amp; Regards
<br>Franco.F
</STRONG></P>
<P>
I don't know about a Redhat 7.2 firewall howto ... if there is
such, I'd expect to find it by searching www.redhat.com.
</P>
<P>
A generic Linux howto, now ...
</P>
<P>
<A HREF="http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Firewall-HOWTO.html"
	>http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Firewall-HOWTO.html</A>
</P>
<P>
There's a lot of other great stuff in that same directory.
-- Dan
</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
Not the question you were asking - but if you want to get a basic
iptables firewall in place you could want to look at firestarter or
something similar
-- Mike E
</BLOCKQUOTE>

<!-- end 6 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="tips/7"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">File System problem</FONT></H3>
Fri, 8 Feb 2002 11:53:32 +0000 (GMT)
<BR>Thomas Adam (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%202c%20Tips%20%237">The <i>LG</i> Weekend Mechanic</a>)
<BR>asked by Ben Wood
</p>

</P>
<P><STRONG><BLOCKQuote>
i require help fixing my linux hard drive, it is a
ext2 file system and
during startup it fails to pass the file system
check, it says
"Directory inode 38381, block 0, offset 0: directorty corrupted"
how do i fix it, can it be fixed?
</BLOCKQuote></STRONG></P>
<P>
You can do the following.....
</P>
<ul>
<li> Assuming that you are using Lilo as your linux
loader, then at the prompt type:

<blockquote><pre>linux init=/bin/bash root=/dev/hdxx ro
</pre></blockquote>

where "<TT>/dev/hdaxx</TT>" is the device file which points to
the root of your Linux partition (i.e. mounted "<TT>/</TT>")
(or change "linux" to the name of the stanza within
"<TT>/etc/lilo.conf</TT>" that will load Linux).

<br>
This will then put you into a single user mode, with
all the partitions mounted as read-only.

<br>
Then at the prompt, type:

<blockquote><pre>fsck -f /
</pre></blockquote>

and this should fix any errors on the drive.

<br>
Usually, any inode data is stored within the
"<TT>/Lost+Found</TT>" directory.
</ul>
<p>
If you need any help, let me (us) know.
<br>Kind Regards,
<br>Thomas Adam
</P>

<!-- end 7 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="tips/8"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Quick C function lookup</FONT></H3>
<p>Thu, 24 Jan 2002 22:24:21 -0500
<BR>Ben Okopnik (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%202c%20Tips%20%238">The Answer Gang</a>)
</p>

<P>
In your ".bashrc" file, add the following line:
</P>

<blockquote><pre>alias chlp="info --file libc.info.gz --node \"Function Index\" --index-search $1"
</pre></blockquote>
<P>
The next time you log in (or even open another xterm or console), you'll
have this as an alias. Call it this way:
</P>

<blockquote><pre>chlp setuid
</pre></blockquote>
<P>
to have it drill down to where the "setuid" function is defined in the
documentation. For those of you that use "vi", you can also redefine your
"man page lookup" key:
</P>

<blockquote><pre>set kp=chlp
</pre></blockquote>
<P>
Put your cursor on a function name and press 'K'; Magic Will Happen. 
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" 
		height="24" width="20" align="middle">
</P>

<!-- end 8 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="tips/9"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">GNU</FONT></H3>
<p>Thu, 21 Feb 2002 18:25:10 -0500
<BR>Jay R. Ashworth, Chris Gianakopoulos (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%202c%20Tips%20%239%20GNU">The Answer Gang</a>)
<br>asked by
Rafel Burrial 
</P>
<P><STRONG>
What in the hell does GNU mean?
</STRONG></P>
<P>
It's this uncommon African animal, also called a white bearded
wildebeest.
-- Jay
</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
In hell, it's the ...
-- Ben
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE><em>
I </EM>really<EM> think Ben needs to stop talking about dark things like that...
Poor Chris, who specializes in our cross-MSwin questions, got bit by a
nasty mailerdevil for that one.  Just in case, I didn't print it
<img src="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" height="24" width="20" alt=":D">
-- Heather
</em></BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
I think if you go to (D'oh!) <A HREF="http://www.gnu.org">www.gnu.org</A>, and look at the <EM>first</EM> page
-- and I might point out that this is the <EM>first</EM> hit on Google for
'gnu' <EM>and the answer is in the frigging page title</EM> -- you'll probably
find the answer to your question.
-- Jay
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
GNU's not Unix like Unix is not Multics!!!!! !!
Ho! Ho! Ho!  &lt;laugh from down there in h*ll&gt;
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
A day late, because I've had no mail for the last 24 hours!!
-- Chris
</BLOCKQUOTE>

<!-- end 9 -->
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<P> <A NAME="tips/10"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Is there a way to check if a dial up ppp connection is REALLY up?</FONT></H3>
<p>Tue, 29 Jan 2002 08:54:08 -0500
<BR>Chuck &amp; Crystal Shepherd (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%202c%20Tips%20%2310%20ISP%20up">cc_shep from yahoo.com</a>)
<BR>with points from Ben and John K. of The Answer Gang
</p>

<P><STRONG>
I have a linux box (RH 7.1) set up to serve as mail and internet server for
my two other home computers.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
It is set up to dial on demand. Therefore ifconfig shows ppp0 up and
running all the time (when it is working properly)
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I would like to be able to check the status of the modem without lifting
the telephone from it's cradle.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I have checked into using the lock file which can be written by pppd but
this is not very reliable when if pppd goes down unexpectantly it does not
always clean up after itself.
</STRONG></P>
<P>
I haven't done anything with "diald" in a couple of years, but doesn't it
use SLIP to do its dirty work (i.e., the PPP link you request is actually
to a local VT; "diald" feeds your PPP daemon lots of baloney and sweet talk
while it actually makes the connection behind its back)? If so, then you
could always check if the 'sl0' interface is up without tripping off the
dial-up.
-- Ben
</P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
The querent doesn't specifically mention 'diald', which does use the slip
interface as part of its mechanism.  The newer versions of pppd also
support dial on demand, and uses a different type of mechanism.
Unfortunately, I can't be too specific, as I've never set it up.  I would
guess that you could simply check to see if ppp0 (assuming only one
dial-up connection active at a time) is up, much the same way as was
suggested for diald.  Actually IIRC, in the case of diald, (which AFAIK,
is no longer actively supported) the slip interface goes away when the ppp
link gets established; so simply checking for a ppp interface would work
for diald as well.
-- John Karns
</BLOCKQUOTE>
<P><STRONG>
I am a big LG fan. Thanks for all the tips and advise.
</STRONG></P>
<P>
&lt;smile&gt; We do what we can. Good luck - let us know how it goes!
-- Ben
</P>
<P><STRONG>
Thanks for your response.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I think I have got my solution by using lsof <TT>/dev/ttyS1</TT>
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
(ttyS1 is my serial port)
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
It does not seem to initiate a connection and does not seem to interrupt an existing connection.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Thanks for your help!
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Chuck
</STRONG></P>

<!-- end 10 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="tips/11"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">large file support detection</FONT></H3>
<p>Mon, 21 Jan 2002 22:37:22 -0500
<BR>Robos (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%202c%20Tips%20%2311%20large%20files">robos from geekmail.de</a>)
<BR>and Ben from The Answer Gang
</p>


<!-- sig -->


<!-- sig -->

<P>
On Tue, Jan 22, 2002 at 01:35:56AM +0100, Robos wrote:
</P>
<P><STRONG>
Hi Gang!
Maybe I already told you about my little program to copy dvd's to
harddisk, called vobcopy (look on freshmeat). In the next release I
want to incorporate large file support (lfs - no, not linux from
scratch 
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=";-)" 
		height="24" width="20" align="middle">. I found Jim Dennis' answer in the 67 issue and read
around various places (info libc, the suse-page, the large file summit
papers) but I am still unable to <EM>detect</EM> if the usersystem has support
for large files. We (another person joined me and did most of the lfs
stuff) found out about the -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE
-D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE (the last one being redundant if not even close
to being wrong in my opinion) and off_t. But we are not sure if this
works correctly on both systems (supporting/not supporting). I would
think its better to know if the users system has support or not and compile
accordingly.
My approach would be somthing along the lines of look whats defined in
&lt;linux/*file.h&gt; and what the file system is the file gets written
to. But kinda ugly and probably wrong. Does one of you happen to know
how to figure it out?
</STRONG></P>
<P>
Check for the presence of "ftello64" (declared in &lt;stdio.h&gt
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=";)" 
		height="24" width="20" align="middle">. From "info
libc -&gt; I/O on streams -&gt; File Positioning":
</P>

<TABLE WIDTH="95%" BORDER="1" BGCOLOR="#FFFFCC"><TR><TD>
<p align="center">...............</p>
<P>
- Function: off64_t ftello64 (FILE *STREAM)
</P>
<P>
This function is similar to `ftello' with the only difference that
the return value is of type `off64_t'.  This also requires that the
stream STREAM was opened using either `fopen64', `freopen64', or
`tmpfile64' since otherwise the underlying file operations to
position the file pointer beyond the 2^31 bytes limit might fail.
</P>
<P>
If the sources are compiled with `_FILE_OFFSET_BITS == 64' on a 32
bits machine this function is available under the name `ftello'
and so transparently replaces the old interface.
</P><p align="center">...............</p>
</TD></TR></TABLE>
<P>
"ftello" is the 'fixed' version of "ftell", but can be found on systems
with or without LFS. From the above, it looks like "ftello64" would only
exist on systems with LFS, where "ftello" would be an alias for it. I've
got to hand it to the GNU folks: cute trick.
</P>



<!-- end 11 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="tips/12"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Re: [LG 75] 2c Tips #5 Linux with win2000</FONT></H3>
<p>Fri, 22 Feb 2002 15:26:13 +0530
<BR>sanjay sharma (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%202c%20Tips%20%2312%20w2k%20after%20linux">sanjayjisuno from hotmail.com</a>)
</p>


<P>
this related with redhat linux
</P>
<ol>
<li> if you have free space in your harddisk for windows 2000 partition
then

<ul>
<li>first install win2000 on your system after installation
<li>
boot your pc with redhat linux7.2 cdrom and type on prompt "linux rescue"
enter
<li>
check on which partition no. windows 2000 install you can check this by
typing
<blockquote><pre>fdisk /dev/hda
</pre></blockquote>
press enter
<br>
then type "p " press enter
<br>
now you know your windows partition no.
<li>
mount the partition by typing

<blockquote><pre>mount -t vfat /dev/hda(windows partition no.)  /hdd
</pre></blockquote>

press enter

<br>
it will mount your windows partition at <TT>/hdd</TT> directory

<li>
as you installed linux first so your linux partition must be hda1 or
check your linux partition

<br>
run command

<blockquote><pre>dd if=/dev/hda(linux partition no.) of=/hdd/bootlin bs=512 count=1
</pre></blockquote>

press enter

<br>this command show you the message

<blockquote><pre>1 record in
1 record out
</pre></blockquote>
<li>
now type "exit" press enter

<li>
now edit the boot.ini in windows partition

<br>
add one line under the heading Oprating system
</P>

<blockquote><pre>c:\bootlin=3D"Redhat Linux "
</pre></blockquote>

save it and you are done

<li>
reboot the system
</ul>

<li>
if there is no free space
<br>
use partition magic to make some free space for windows 2000 and use the
same steps

</ol>

<!-- end 12 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="tips/13"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Basic Newbie Question</FONT></H3>
<p>Thu, 21 Feb 2002 22:11:03 -0500
<BR>Faber Fedor (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%202c%20Tips%20%2313%20user%20not%20all%20powerful">The Answer Gang</a>)
<br>asked by Steven Bruce
</p>

<P><STRONG>
I've just installed RH 7.2 on a sony vaio, and was quite surprised by the
ease with which it went on (Far cry from RH5.5). Anyway, I created the
suggested user so that I wouldn't be logging in as Root all the time,
however, the user I created can not create, delete, copy, etc, files in
ROOT, or USR, or even HOME.
</STRONG></P>
<P>
Of course you can't!  This isn't That Other Operating System. 
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":-)" 
		height="24" width="20" align="middle">
</P>
<P><STRONG>
I am assuming I have to login as ROOT and join
the user to the administrators group, or some such group which will allow
the user the appropriate permissions, but I am not sure. Is thre something I
am missing or something I should be doing different?
</STRONG></P>
<P>
You're missing something. 
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":-)" 
		height="24" width="20" align="middle">  In Linux (and unix in general) users
<em>don't</em> have the right to willy-nilly create files and run any old
program.  Would you like it if user jane had the rights to delete files
in you home directory?  Of course not!
</P>
<P>
Linux has rather strict rules about what you, a normal user can do.  The
root user, OTOH, can do <EM>anything</EM>.  This is a very dangerous thing if
you're not careful.  Let's say you wanted to delete all the files in
your home directory (you're allowed to do that, they're <EM>your</EM> files).
That would be done with the command
</P>
<P><CODE>
rm -rf /home/steve
</CODE></P>
<P>
If you accidentally typed it as
</P>
<P><CODE>
rm -rf / home/steve
</CODE></P>
<P>
You would get some error about not having permissions, etc.  And
depending where you were in the directory, ypou might or might not wipe
out your home directory.
</P>
<P>
However, if you were logged in as root and type the accidental line, you
would, literally, wipe out every file on the hard drive.
</P>
<P>
You might want to add the normal user to various groups, but you should
proabbly read up on Linux and permissions and all that.  Start by reading
the Dos/Windows User to Linux User HOWTO
( <A HREF="http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/DOS-Win-to-Linux-HOWTO-4.html"
	>http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/DOS-Win-to-Linux-HOWTO-4.html</A> ) to get
an idea on what's going on.
</P>
<P>
Reading the HOWTOs in general is a good idea (maybe not all at once,
mind you).  You can find all of them and more at www.linuxdoc.org
</P>
<P><STRONG>
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
</STRONG></P>
<P>
A little appreciation is just fine, thank you. 
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":-)" 
		height="24" width="20" align="middle">
</P>
<HR width="10%" align="center"><P>
Regards,
<br>Faber
</P>


<!-- end 13 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="tips/14"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Re: [LG 75] 2c Tips #15 posters</FONT></H3>
<p>Thu, 31 Jan 2002 15:22:52 -0500
<BR>Boyer, Charles (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%202c%20Tips%20%2314%20posters">Charles.Boyer from tycoelectronics.com</a>)
</p>

<P>
Probably old news...but just in case:
</P>
<P><BLOCKQuote>
<A HREF="http://linux.oreilly.com/news/linuxanatomy_0101.html"
	>http://linux.oreilly.com/news/linuxanatomy_0101.html</A>
</BLOCKQuote></P>
<P>
backPosters are available free with a $50 purchase at the following O'Reilly
conferences and tradeshows:
</P>
<P>
O'Reilly Conferences:
</p>
<ul>
<li>	 <A HREF="http://conferences.oreilly.com/p2p/"
	>http://conferences.oreilly.com/p2p/</A> The O'Reilly P2P Conference,
San Francisco


<li>	<A HREF="http://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon2001/"
	>http://conferences.oreilly.com/oscon2001/</A> O'Reilly Open Source
Software Convention, San Diego
</ul>
<P>
Tradeshows:
</P>
<ul>
<li><A HREF="http://events.oreilly.com/#lwny"
	>http://events.oreilly.com/#lwny</A> LinuxWorld, New York
</P>
<P>
<li><A HREF="http://events.oreilly.com/#usenix"
	>http://events.oreilly.com/#usenix</A> Usenix, Boston
<li>
<A HREF="http://events.oreilly.com/#lwsf"
	>http://events.oreilly.com/#lwsf</A> LinuxWorld, San Francisco
<li><A HREF="http://events.oreilly.com/#alxt"
	>http://events.oreilly.com/#alx</A> Annual Linux Showcase, Oakland
</ul>
<P>
Cheers.
</P>

<!-- end 14 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="tips/15"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">printing</FONT></H3>
<p>Thu, 31 Jan 2002 22:11:58 -0600
<BR>Jack Berger (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%202c%20Tips%20%2315%20printing">jhb from mapp.org</a>)
</p>


<P>
You mention that you are having problems w/your epson printer.
</P>
<P>
I'm not too familiar w/printer defs in things like ghostscript or gimp, but my
printing w/an hp 970 improved by orders of magnitude for all applications when I
installed turbo print. Colors come out good, speed is improved. Just works nice.
</P>
<P>
-jhb-
</P>


<!-- end 15 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="tips/16"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Linux rocks!</FONT></H3>
Thu, 21 Feb 2002 23:21:00 -0500
<BR>Ben Okopnik (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%202c%20Tips%20%2316%20USB%20sync">The Answer Gang</a>)


<P>
Today, the curiosity bug bit me again, so I poked my nose into the Linux
Visor USB mailing list, and - lo and behold - there it was. Seems that the
new version of "coldsync", at least the beta, now handles the m125! I
downloaded it, configured it, compiled it, made a config file - and...
ta-daa! Palm USB synchronization, under Linux.
</P>
<P>
Life is good. 
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" ALT=":)" 
		height="24" width="20" align="middle">
</P>


<!-- end 16 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="tips/17"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Setting up telnet in a Linux server.</FONT></H3>
<p>Thu, 24 Jan 2002 18:43:04 -0800
<BR>Dan Wilder (<a href="mailto:linux-questions-only@ssc.com?subject=%20Re%3A%20%5BLG%2076%5D%202c%20Tips%20%2317%20telnet%20no%20use%20ssh">The Answer Gang</a>)
<br>asked by Subroto Sengupta 
</P>

<P><STRONG>
Hello Sir,
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
I would like to know how to set up a Linux 7.1 server and configure it 
properly to be able to telnet into it from a Windows client machine.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
A reply would be greatly appreciated.
</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>
Sincerely,
<br>Subroto.
</STRONG></P>
<P>
Well, that's a whole lot of questions.
</P>
<P>
There's no "Linux 7.1".  The Linux kernel's current versions
are 2.5.2 (pretty wild), 2.4.17 (conditionally stable), and
2.2.20 (quite stable).  (labels mine).
</P>
<P>
Linux is distributed by several vendors, who label their own
distribution with a version number.  You may be thinking about
<A HREF="http://www.redhat.com/">Red Hat</A> Linux 7.1.  Don't.  Get Red Hat Linux 7.2 or 6.2.
Other vendors (<A HREF="http://www.debian.org/">Debian</A>, Mandrake, <A HREF="http://www.slackware.org/">Slackware</A>, <A HREF="http://www.suse.com/">SuSE</A>, <A HREF="http://www.caldera.com/">Caldera</A>,
to name just a few) each use their own numbering schemes,
which have not much to do with those of the others.
</P>
<P>
How to set up a server?  Best advice I can give is "follow
the vendor's directions, and ask questions here when you
get lost".
</P>
<P>
Telnet?  Only on a protected network, I hope!  Telnet exchanges
a password in the clear, OK if just your immediate family is
watching the 'net, not so good if the password traverses six ISPs
and a few chunks of the backbone.
</P>
<P>
That said, during install, select the telnet package.  Sometimes
that's part of some other package, sometimes not.  Consult the
vendor documentation and help.
</P>
<P>
On exposed networks, use the ssh (secure shell) package on Linux,
and get "putty" secure shell client for Windows.  It's much
better than windows telnet, and it'll even telnet, if you must.
</P>
<P>
<A HREF="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html"
	>http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html</A>
</P>
<P>
or search google.com for "putty.exe".
</P>
<P>
--
Dan Wilder
</P>

<!-- sig -->


<!-- end 17 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="tips/lj"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy"><i>Linux Journal</i>'s Weekly News Notes Tech Tips</FONT></H3>
</P>

<!-- begin ljwnn -->
<P> <A NAME="lj/1"><HR WIDTH="75%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">ssh -n</FONT></H3>

<P>
Use ssh -n to run an X program from one computer on another.
For example,
</P>

<blockquote><pre>ssh -n frodo gimp &amp;
</pre></blockquote>
<P>
will run the GIMP on the host frodo, but display locally.
</P>
<P>
Using ssh for this is much easier and more secure than setting it up
in X manually.
</P>
<P>
The -n option means prevent reading of stdin.  Many times you don't need
this, but if your application hangs waiting for input or does something
else strange, try it.
</P>

<!-- end 1 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="lj/2"><HR WIDTH="40%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">The simplest way to process a web form</FONT></H3>

<P>
You can put a simple form on your web site even if you don't have CGI
privileges. Just use &lt;form method=GET action="result.html"&gt; where
result.html is a "thank you for filling out the form" page.
</P>
<P>
You can then get the values people filled in from the web server
access log.
</P>

<!-- end 2 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="lj/3"><HR WIDTH="40%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">How to switch between several network profiles on your laptop</FONT></H3>

<P>
Use the scheme option to cardctl to manage multiple network schemes on
one laptop. The scheme is passed in as the first part of the device
address in the PCMCIA wireless.opts script. Make two entries in
wireless.opts:
</P>

<blockquote><pre>ssc,*,*,*)
    INFO="SSC WiFi Net"
    ESSID="wifi.ssc.com"
    ;;

dana,*,*,*)
    INFO="live.com network at Dana St. Roasting Co."
    ESSID="LIVE.COM"
    ;;
</pre></blockquote>
<P>
To switch between them, do
</P>

<blockquote><pre>sudo cardctl scheme ssc
</pre></blockquote>
<P>
or
</P>

<blockquote><pre>sudo cardctl scheme dana
</pre></blockquote>
<P>
For more info, see the PCMCIA HOWTO. You can change all the settings,
including WEP key, mode and other options. For more information on
free wireless access and coffee in Mountain View, California, see Dana
Street:
<A HREF="http://www.live.com/danastreet"
	>http://www.live.com/danastreet</A>, a <TT>LIVE.COM</TT> Neighborhood Network.
</P>
<P>
Rob Flickenger explains how to set up shell scripts to switch schemes
with less typing in his new book, Building Wireless Community Networks
(O'Reilly, 2002).
</P>

<!-- end 3 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="lj/4"><HR WIDTH="40%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Speeding up commands like "route" and "netstat"</FONT></H3>

<P>
If "route" takes a long time to run because you have no route to your
nameserver, do "route -n" to skip the DNS lookup and use IP addresses
only.
</P>
<P>
This works with "netstat", "ping" and "traceroute" too.
</P>

<!-- end 4 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="lj/5"><HR WIDTH="40%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Very important topic: keeping your "fortune" file indexed</FONT></H3>

<P>
You can keep your fortune file indexed and up-to-date on multiple
servers with make. Here's an example Makefile to handle common
fortune-related tasks:
</P>

<blockquote><pre># List all the fortune files you maintain here.  (I just have them
# all in one big file)
FORTUNES = dmarti

# For every fortune file, the datfile is the same name but with .dat
# on the end
DATFILES = $(FORTUNES:=.dat)

# Make a copy of the fortunes file to the zork.net  collection
# (http://zork.net/fortunes/)  Since it's the first target, this
# target and its dependencies will run if you just type "make"
tozork : $(DATFILES)
        scp $(FORTUNES) $(DATFILES) zork.net:/usr/local/etc/fortunes
        touch tozork

# This target makes each .dat file from the appropriate fortune
# file, if it has changed.
%.dat : %
        strfile $&lt;

# Get rid of all the .dat files (not really needed, but it's traditional
# to have "make clean" do _something_)
clean :
        rm -f $(DATFILES)

# There is no file named "clean", but always build this target.
.PHONY : clean
</pre></blockquote>
<P>
For more information, see "man strfile" and "info make". Now that you know
how to manage fortunes by editing only one file and typing make, why
not put your favorite sayings on your web site as a fortune file
others can also use? (The old fortunes that come with most
distributions have come up way too often for us.)
</P>

<!-- end 5 -->
<!--     .~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.~~.     -->
<P> <A NAME="lj/6"><HR WIDTH="40%" ALIGN="center"></A> <P>
<H3><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/lil2cent.gif">
<FONT COLOR="navy">Limiting the files "locate" shows</FONT></H3>

<P>
"locate" is a wonderful command for quickly finding files on your system.
Unfortunately, sometimes it produces so many hits that it takes too long
to find the forest among the trees.
Distributions and programs often have lots of files, making locate
seem useless. To refine your search, type:
</P>

<blockquote><pre>loc ()   {
        locate "$1" | egrep -v 'bmp|html|whatever'
         }
</pre></blockquote>
<P>
or put it in your .bashrc, and you won't receive any entries that contain
</P>

<!-- end 6 -->
<!-- end ljwnn -->


<P> <hr> </p>
<!-- *** BEGIN copyright *** -->
<H5 align="center">This page edited and maintained by the Editors
	of <I>Linux Gazette</I> 
<a href="http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html"
	>Copyright &copy;</a> 2002
<BR>Published in issue 76 of <I>Linux Gazette</I> March 2002</H5>
<H6 ALIGN="center">HTML script maintained by
	<A HREF="mailto:star@starshine.org">Heather Stern</a> of
	Starshine Technical Services,
	<A HREF="http://www.starshine.org/">http://www.starshine.org/</A> 
</H6>
<!-- *** END copyright *** -->

<H4 ALIGN="center">
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>

<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--===================================================================-->

<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">The Answer Gang</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:tag@ssc.com"></a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>  

<!-- END header -->




<P> The Answer Gang column isn't ready yet.  Check back tomorrow.




<!-- *** BEGIN bio *** -->

<!-- *** END bio *** -->

<!-- *** BEGIN copyright *** -->
<P> <hr> <!-- P --> 
<H5 ALIGN=center>

Copyright &copy; 2002, .<BR>
Copying license <A HREF="../copying.html">http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html</A><BR> 
Published in Issue 76 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, March 2002</H5>
<!-- *** END copyright *** -->

<H4 ALIGN="center">"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"</H4>
<HR>

<center>
<table cellpadding=7><tr><td>
<IMG SRC="../gx/bytes.gif" border=1  ALT="News Bytes">
</td><td>
<H3>Contents:</H3>
<ul>
<li><a HREF="#leg">Legislation and More Legislation</a>
<li><a HREF="#links">Linux Links</a>
<li><a HREF="#conferences">Conferences and Events</a>
<li><a HREF="#general">News in General</a>
<li><a HREF="#distro">Distro News</A>
<li><a HREF="#commercial">Software and Product News</a>
</ul>
</td></tr></table>

<STRONG>Selected and formatted by  <A HREF="mailto:michael.conry@softhome.net">Michael Conry</A></STRONG>
</center>


<P> Submitters, send your News Bytes items in 
<FONT SIZE="+2"><STRONG>PLAIN TEXT</STRONG></FONT>
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.


<P> <hr> <P> 
<!-- =================================================================== -->

<H3><IMG ALT=" "   SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<font color="green">
March 2002 <I>Linux Journal</I>
</font>
</H3>

<IMG ALT="[issue 95 cover image]"   SRC="misc/bytes/lj-cover95.png" WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=268 
ALIGN="left" HSPACE="20">

The March issue of <A HREF="http://www.linuxjournal.com/"><I>Linux
Journal</I></A> is on newsstands now.
This issue focuses on web scripting.  Click 
<A HREF="http://www.linuxjournal.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=NS-lj-issues/issue95&file=index">here</A>
to view the table of contents, or 
<A HREF="http://www.linuxjournal.com/subscribe/">here</A> 
to subscribe.

<P>
<FONT COLOR="green">All articles through December 2001 are available for
public reading at 
<A HREF="http://www.linuxjournal.com/magazine.php">http://www.linuxjournal.com/magazine.php</A></FONT>.  
Recent articles are available on-line for subscribers only at 
<A HREF="http://interactive.linuxjournal.com">http://interactive.linuxjournal.com/</A>.  

<BR CLEAR="all">



<!-- =================================================================== -->

<a name="leg"></a>
<p><hr><p>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<center><H3><font color="green">Legislation and More Legislation</font></H3></center>

<P> <hr> <P> 
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" "   SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">DMCA
</FONT>
</H3> 
At risk of sounding like a broke record, there are a couple of links we
would like to bring to your attention regarding the DMCA (Digital
Millennium Copyright Act), the law used to imprison Dmitry Sklyarov.
<a href="http://www.eff.org/">
The Electronic Frontier Foundation</a>
has produced an extensive
<a href="http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Sklyarov/us_v_sklyarov_faq.html">
FAQ</a>
about the Dmitry Sklyarov & ElcomSoft Prosecution.  The information is
of course relevant to a wider range of circumstances than this particular
case, and details the DMCA, fair use, eBooks and the EFF's role in the
case.  This is a good resource for anyone who wants to get the whole crazy
story straight (if that is even possible!).
<P> 
A recent story on 
<a href="http://slashdot.org/">
Slashdot</a>
highlighted how bad this law really is.  Apparently it turns out that
<a href="http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/14/1745238&mode=nested">
serial cables might be illegal</a>.
The story submitter, Colin McMillen, related how US Customs rejected entry
of a PC-Sega Dreamcast serial cable into the US, even though the cable had
a legitimate academic use.
<P> <hr> <P> 
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" "   SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Copyright
</FONT>
</H3> 
The New York Times has
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/19/national/19CND-RIGHTS.html">
reported</a> [registration required] on a  
<a href="http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/eldredvreno/">
legal challenge</a>
to the Copyright Term Extensions Act 1998, which extended copyrights
another 20 years.  The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear the challenge,
which is being brought by a coalition of interested parties (publishers,
etc.,) who depend on using material in the public domain.  It will be
interesting to see how this challenge progresses, as the original law was
the result of extensive lobbying by powerful players in the media industry,
notably Disney who would lose control of Mickey Mouse in 2003 under the
original law which gave 75 year protection.  The challenge is being backed
by at least one lawyer most readers will be familiar with: Lawrence Lessig.
Various 
<a href="http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/eldredvreno/">
news and information resources</a> are available on the 
<a href="http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/">
Openlaw</a>
website.
<p>
<hr noshade width="20%">
<p>
In related news, Slashdot
<a href="http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/19/1916245&mode=nested">
reported</a>
that Canada is to hold 
<a href="http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/rp01100e.html">
public hearings</a>
on digital copyright. There are
<a href="http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/rp00833e.html">
various locations and dates</a>,
and it would be great if people from Canada with an interest in the Free
Software movement were able to make their points of view heard at these
meetings.


<a name="links"></a>
<p><hr><p>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<center><H3><font color="green">Linux Links</font></H3></center>
<p><hr><p>

<p>
<IMG ALT="Linux Focus" SRC="../gx/linuxfocus.jpg" WIDTH="143" HEIGHT="45">
<BR CLEAR="all">
The following articles are in the March issue of the E-zine 
<A HREF="http://www.linuxfocus.org/">LinuxFocus</A>:
<ul>
<li>
    <a href="http://linuxfocus.org/English/March2002/article177.shtml">
    Samba configuration</a>
</li>
<li>
    <a href="http://linuxfocus.org/English/March2002/article229.shtml">
    GCC - the root of all</a>
</li>
<li>
    <a href="http://linuxfocus.org/English/March2002/article230.shtml">
    IOS, another REBOLution</a>
</li>
<li>
    <a href="http://linuxfocus.org/English/March2002/article231.shtml">
    Programming the AVR Microcontroller with GCC</a>
</li>
<li>
    <a href="http://linuxfocus.org/English/March2002/article232.shtml">
    Bookreview: The qmail Handbook</a>
</li>
<li>
    <a href="http://linuxfocus.org/English/March2002/article233.shtml">
    Introduction to Ncurses</a>
</li>
<li>
    <a href="http://linuxfocus.org/English/March2002/article235.shtml">
    Setting up a Squid-Proxy Server</a>
</li>
<li>
    <a href="http://linuxfocus.org/English/March2002/article237.shtml">
    Game Review - Barrel Patrol 3D</a>
</li>
<li>
    <a href="http://linuxfocus.org/English/March2002/article238.shtml">
    Playing around with Dingbats and The Gimp</a>
</li>
</ul>


<p>
<a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/">
The Register</a>
have featured the following stories which might interest you:
<ul>
<li>
    First of all, we must mention that those living on the western side of
    the Atlantic 
    <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/31/24195.html">
    now have</a>
    their very own version of The Register,
    <a href="http://www.theregus.com/">
    http://www.theregus.com/</a>, which is co-published with
    <a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/">
    Tom's Hardware Guide</a>.
    The new site has mostly the same content as the original
    Register, minus esoteric UK stories, plus esoteric North America
    stories.
</li>
<li>
    Sun is to 
    <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/24192.html">
    charge</a>
    for StarOffice on Linux and Windows, but not on Solaris.  [The Register]
    LWN <A HREF="http://lwn.net/2002/0228/">speculates</A> why, but notes that
    all hope is not lost: StarOffice is "
    based on <a href="http://www.openoffice.org/">OpenOffice</a>,
    which, thanks to Sun, <i>is</i> free software.
</li>
<li>
    Barlow lambasts DMCA, 
    <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/24186.html">
    citing example</a>
    of Grateful Dead.
</li>
<li>
    Walmart to sell 
    <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/24165.html">
    OS-free PCs</a>.
</li>
<li>
    BSD 
    <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/24060.html">
    `3 times as popular as desktop Linux'</a>
    thanks to Mac OS X of course.
</li>
</ul>

<p>
The 
<a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/">O'Reilly</a>
stable of websites have published various articles which might be useful or
interesting to you:
<ul>
<li>
    <a href="http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2002/02/21/FreeBSD_Basics.html">
    Finding things</a>
    in the UNIX environment, and more.
</li>
<li>
    <a href="http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2002/02/21/sysperf.html">
    Performance analysis</a> and system tuning.
</li>
<li>
    <a href="http://onlamp.com/pub/a/bsd/2002/02/14/Big_Scary_Daemons.html">
    Understanding NFS</a>
</li>
<li>
    <a href="http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2002/01/31/make_intro.html">
    Introduction to make</a> and a guide to
    <a href="http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2002/02/14/makefiles.html">
    advanced Makefiles</a>, by Jennifer Vesperman
</li>
<li>
    Also by Jennifer Vesperman, an
    <a href="http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2002/01/03/cvs_intro.html">
    introduction to CVS</a> and a guide to
    <a href="http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2002/01/17/cvsadmin.html">
    CVS administration</a>.
</li>
<li>
    <a href="http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2001/12/14/rootkit.html">
    Understanding rootkits</a> and 
    <a href="http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2002/02/07/rootkits.html">
    Scanning for rootkits</a>.
</li>
</ul>

<p>The 
<a href="http://dillo.sourceforge.net/">
Dillo</a> web browser.  Still pretty basic, no  frames or style sheets, but
it is VERY FAST!  This is worth supporting.

<P>
Mike Orr's Linux Journal
<a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=5854">
report</a>
from the Tenth International Python Conference.
<P>
Slashdot
<a href="http://slashdot.org/articles/02/02/27/1627214.shtml?tid=106">
story</a>
on CodeWeavers CrossOver plugin 1.1 which plays Windows Media 6.4 under
Linux.
<P>
The
<a href="http://www.linuxbios.org/">
LinuxBIOS project</a>.


<p>
<a href="http://www.unixreview.com/">
UnixReview.com</a>
have taken 
<a href="http://www.unixreview.com/documents/s=2424/uni1014152480113/0202i.htm">
a look at three Linux firewall products</a>:
SuSE Firewall on CD, Mandrake Single Network Firewall and Coyote Linux.
<p>
LinuxSecurity.com has a guide to
<a href="http://www.linuxsecurity.com/feature_stories/feature_story-91.html">
configuring Postfix</a>.
<p>
Newsforge 
<a href="http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/02/06/0220236&mode=nocomment">
reports on</a>
Fluxbox, an evolved version of the Blackbox window manager.
<p>
IBM
<a href="http://www-105.ibm.com/developerworks/education.nsf/linux-onlinecourse-bytitle/F86D74C7B3B4E65486256B2900073A2E?open&l=3">
article</a>
on clustering with MOSIX.
<p>
Linuxtoday with a
<a href="http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2002-02-01-013-26-PR-DV">
Boston Consulting Group report</a>
on the mind of the average Open Source community member.
<p>
<a href="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='6,341,372'.WKU.&OS=PN/6,341,372&RS=PN/6,341,372">
US-Patent on perfect machine translation</a>. 
Quoting a little from a post by Hartmut Pilch to the European Patent Office
mailing list:
<blockquote>
"The description is very voluminous and explains a whole new cosmology,
comprising insights about Buddhism illumination, androids, perpetuum
mobiles, subject-object dichotomy and much more.  Based on this
cosmology, a solution to the above-claimed problem seems to become
possible.  At least it should be difficult for an examiner to refute
that it does.  He could ask the inventor to provide a working
reference implementation, but that is not adequate, because only a
key idea of a huge complex system is claimed."
</blockquote>
<p>
Some more patents links
<ul>
<li>
The Register reports that 
<a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/24157.html">
EU thumbs nose at US</a>
with software patent proposals.       
</li>
<li>
New Scientist reports that British Telecom has
<a href="http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991905">
taken to the courts</a> to enforce its patent on hyperlinking.
</li>
<li>
The French Socialist Party (PSF) 
<a href="http://www.parti-socialiste.fr/tic/ps-tic_2002.php">
opposes software patents</a> [french].  Urges resistance to US pressure.
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.law.nyu.edu/benklery/IP&Organization.pdf">
Intellectual Property and the Organization of Information
Production</a> [pdf]
by Yochai Benkler.
</li>
<li>
</li>
Touch&eacute; to LWN:
<A HREF="http://lwn.net/2002/0228/commerce.php3">EU lets Microsoft write its Patent Directive.</A>
</ul>

<P> <A HREF="http://www.wotsit.org/">Wotsit.org</A> ("What's it?")
is a reference site for information on various file formats.


<a name="conferences"></a>
<p><hr><p>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<center><H3><font color="green">Upcoming conferences and events</font></H3></center>
<p><hr><p>

<P> Listings courtesy <EM>Linux Journal</EM>.  See <EM>LJ</EM>'s
<A HREF="http://www.linuxjournal.com/events.php">Events</A> page for the
latest goings-on.

<!-- *** BEGIN events table [this line needed by Linux Gazette events.py *** -->

<table cellpadding=5 border=0 width=100%>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>COMDEX (Key3Media)</b><BR>
	<td valign=top>March 5-7, 2002<BR>Chicago, IL<BR>
        <a href="http://www.key3media.com/comdex/chicago2002/" target="_blank">
	http://www.key3media.com/comdex/chicago2002/</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>BioIT World Conference & Expo (IDG)</b><BR>
        <td valign=top>March 12-14, 2002<BR>Boston, MA<BR>
        <a href="http://www.bioitworld.com/" target="_blank">
	http://www.bioitworld.com/</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>Embedded Systems Conference (CMP)</b><BR>
        <td valign=top>March 12-16, 2002<BR>San Francisco, CA<BR>	
        <a href="http://www.esconline.com/sf/" target="_blank">
	http://www.esconline.com/sf/</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>CeBIT (Hannover Fairs)</b><BR>
        <td valign=top>March 14-22, 2002<BR>Hannover, Germany<BR>
        <a href="http://www.cebit.de/" target="_blank">
        http://www.cebit.de/</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>COMDEX (Key3Media)</b><BR>	
        <td valign=top>March 19-21, 2002<BR>Vancouver, BC<BR>		
        <a href="http://www.key3media.com/comdex/vancouver2002/" target="_blank">
	http://www.key3media.com/comdex/vancouver2002/</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>FOSE</b><BR>
        <td valign=top>March 19-21, 2002<BR>Washington, DC<BR>
        <a href="http://www.fose.com/" target="_blank">
        http://www.fose.com/</A><BR>	

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>Game Developers Conference (CMP)</b><BR>	
        <td valign=top>March 19-23, 2002<BR>San Jose, CA<BR>
        <a href="http://www.gdconf.com/" target="_blank">
	http://www.gdconf.com/</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>LinuxWorld Conference & Expo Singapore (IDG)</b><BR>	
        <td valign=top>March 20-22, 2002<BR>Singapore<BR>					
        <a href="http://www.idgexpoasia.com/" target="_blank">
	http://www.idgexpoasia.com/</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>Software Solutions / eBusiness World</b><BR>
        <td valign=top>March 26-27, 2002<BR>Toronto, Canada<BR>
        <a href="http://www.softmatch.com/soln20.htm#ssebw" target="_blank">
	http://www.softmatch.com/soln20.htm#ssebw</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>SANS 2002 (SANS Institute)</b><BR>	
        <td valign=top>April 7-9, 2002<BR>Orlando, FL<BR>
        <a href="http://www.sans.org/newlook/home.htm" target="_blank">
	http://www.sans.org/newlook/home.htm</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>LinuxWorld Conference & Expo Malaysia (IDG)</b><BR>
        <td valign=top>April 9-11, 2002<BR>Malaysia<BR>
        <A HREF="http://www.idgexpoasia.com/" TARGET="_blank">
	http://www.idgexpoasia.com/</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>LinuxWorld Conference & Expo Dublin (IDG)</b><BR>
        <td valign=top>April 9-11, 2002<BR>Dublin, Ireland<BR>
        <BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>Internet World Spring (Penton)</b><BR>	
        <td valign=top>April 22-24, 2002<BR>Los Angeles, CA<BR>
        <a href="http://www.internetworld.com/events/spring2002/" target="_blank">
	http://www.internetworld.com/events/spring2002/</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference (O'Reilly)</b><BR>
        <td valign=top>April 22-25, 2002<BR>Santa Clara, CA<BR>
        <a href="http://conferences.oreillynet.com/etcon2002/" target="_blank">
	http://conferences.oreillynet.com/etcon2002/</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>Software Development Conference & Expo, West (CMP)</b><BR>	
        <td valign=top>April 22-26, 2002<BR>San Jose, CA<BR>
        <a href="http://www.sdexpo.com/" target="_blank">
	http://www.sdexpo.com/</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>Networld + Interop (Key3Media)</b><BR>	
        <td valign=top>May 7-9, 2002<BR>Las Vegas, NV<BR>
        <a href="http://www.key3media.com/" target="_blank">
	http://www.key3media.com/</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>Strictly e-Business Solutions Expo (Cygnus Expositions)</b><BR>	
        <td valign=top>May 8-9, 2002<BR>Minneapolis, MN<BR>
        <a href="http://www.strictlyebusiness.net/strictlyebusiness/index.po?" target="_blank">
	http://www.strictlyebusiness.net/strictlyebusiness/index.po?</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>Embedded Systems Conference (CMP)</b><BR>	
        <td valign=top>June 3-6, 2002<BR>Chicago, IL<BR>
        <a href="http://www.esconline.com/chicago/" target=_"blank">
	http://www.esconline.com/chicago/</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>USENIX Annual (USENIX)</b><BR>	
        <td valign=top>June 9-14, 2002<BR>Monterey, CA<BR>
        <a href="http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix02/" target="_blank">
	http://www.usenix.org/events/usenix02/</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>PC Expo (CMP)</b><BR>	
        <td valign=top>June 25-27, 2002<BR>New York, NY<BR>
        <a href="http://www.techxny.com/" target="_blank">
	http://www.techxny.com/</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>O'Reilly Open Source Convention (O'Reilly)</b><BR>
        <td valign=top>July 22-26, 2002<BR>San Diego, CA<BR>
        <a href="http://conferences.oreilly.com/" target="_blank">
        http://conferences.oreilly.com/</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>USENIX Securty Symposium (USENIX)</b><BR>	
        <td valign=top>August 5-9, 2002<BR>San Francisco, CA<BR>
        <a href="http://www.usenix.org/events/sec02/" target="_blank">
	http://www.usenix.org/events/sec02/</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>LinuxWorld Conference & Expo (IDG)</b><BR>
        <td valign=top>August 12-15, 2002<BR>San Francisco, CA<BR>
	<a href="http://www.linuxworldexpo.com" target="_blank">
	http://www.linuxworldexpo.com</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>LinuxWorld Conference & Expo Australia (IDG)</b><BR>
        <td valign=top>August 14 - 16, 2002<BR>Australia<BR>
        <a href="http://www.idgexpoasia.com/" target="_blank">
	http://www.idgexpoasia.com/</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>Communications Design Conference (CMP)</b><BR>
        <td valign=top>September 23-26, 2002<BR>San Jose, California<BR>
        <a href="http://www.commdesignconference.com/" target="_blank">
	http://www.commdesignconference.com/</A><BR>

<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

<tr><td valign=top>
        <b>Software Development Conference & Expo, East (CMP)</b><BR>
        <td valign=top>November 18-22, 2002<BR>Boston, MA<BR>
        <a href="http://www.sdexpo.com/" target="_blank">
        http://www.sdexpo.com/</A><BR>
	
<tr><td colspan=2><HR size=5 width=100% noshade align=center></td></tr>

</table>
<!-- *** END events table [this line needed by Linux Gazette events.py *** -->


<a name="general"></a>
<p><hr><p>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<center><H3><font color="green">News in General</font></H3></center>
<p><hr><p>

<H3><IMG ALT=" "   SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Linux, Microsoft and the Bundestag
</FONT>
</H3> 
A group of German citizens concerned that Germany should both exploit
the advantages of free software, and avoid some of the perils of
proprietary software have been lobbying for the introduction of free
software into the German parliament, the Bundestag.
The
<a href="http://www.bundestux.de/english.html">
www.bundestux.de</a> (English and Deutsch) calmly makes the case for free
software in the Bundestag (and indeed in all government), and provides the
opportunity to submit your contact details in support of the sentiments.
<p>
The Register 
<a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23964.html">
reported</a>
that this civil activity was received with hostility by Microsoft Germany,
who felt they were unjustly being labelled as:
"undemocratic and a hindrance to democracy".
The consultants report released later on basically 
<a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/24048.html">
divided the spoils</a> [The Register] between Microsoft (recommended for
desktops) and free software (recommended in server/groupware roles).
Microsoft's poor email client security was noted, but was not sufficient to
tip the balance.

<P> <hr> <P> 
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" "   SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">W3C Climbdown
</FONT>
</H3> 

<a href="http://lwn.net/">
Linux Weekly News</a>
has
<a href="http://lwn.net/2002/0131/">
reported</a>
that the W3C appears to have backed down on the issue of incorporating
royalty governed technology into its standards.  This is a significant
victory for people speaking out on issues that upset them.  LWN also notes
that there is
<a href="http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpolicy-comment/2002Jan/0151.html">
another comment period</a>
leading up to the final review, for those who still have something to say
or contribute.
<p>
<hr noshade width="20%"> 
<p>
Also on the topic of open standards,
The Register
<a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23908.html">
reported</a>
on the 
<a href="http://www.freestandards.org/">
Free Standards Group</a>,
which has currently completed two standards, the
<a href="http://www.linuxbase.org/">
Linux Standard Base</a> (broadly covering system layout)
and the
<a href="http://www.li18nux.org/">
Li18nux</a> standard (covering internationalization).  Happily, this
initiative seems to have widespread support, and should be a significant
boon to the whole Free Software movement.
<P> <hr> <P> 
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" "   SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Linux Weekly News
</FONT>
</H3> 

<P> 
<a href="http://www.lwn.net/">
Linux Weekly News</a> (LWN) is becoming independent again.  Tucows, which had
acquired it, has spun it off.  "As of the beginning of February, LWN
will operate, once again, as an independent publication of Eklektix,
Inc., which will be owned by the current LWN staff. All of our financial
issues remain, and they have only gotten more pressing over time, but we
will have more freedom in how we try to address those issues." LG has long
been a supporter of LWN (after all, we get some of our best links from them!),
and we were 
<A HREF="../issue72/lg_bytes72.html#general">saddened in November</A> to hear
of their difficulties.  We wish the LWN staff the very best of luck.


<a name="distro"></a>
<p><hr><p>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<center><H3><font color="green">Distro News</font></H3></center>

<P> <hr> <P> 
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" "   SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">General
</FONT>
</H3> 

<P> 
Distro News is based on the information sent to us by the
publishers/authors of Linux distributions.  This does not necessarily give
a broad view of the Linux scene.  One excellent resource for anyone
interested in choosing a distribution or just in the state of the business
is
<a href="http://www.distrowatch.com/">
DistroWatch.com</a>
which has profiles and comparisons of almost every distribution under the
sun.  Another resource is the distribution section of
<a href="http://www.lwn.net/">
Linux Weekly News</a>
(for example, 
<a href="http://lwn.net/2002/0221/dists.php3">
here</a>)
which covers news regarding new distribution releases, changes/updates to
existing distros, and distribution releases.

<P> <hr> <P> 
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" "   SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Bluecat
</FONT>
</H3> 
<P>
<a href="http://www.lynuxworks.com">
LynuxWorks</a>
have announced BlueCat 4.0 Linux and VisualLynux Integrated Development
Environment (IDE) support
for the for the new ARM920T processor. Developers will now be able to
develop embedded Linux software applications for the ARM920T
processor, which features high-performance and low-power characteristics
for handheld devices, network computers, smart phones and other
processor-intensive applications. 
LynuxWorks' BlueCat 4.0 Linux distribution is based
on the 2.4 Linux kernel. With VisualLynux, developers have access to an
integrated and tested cross development environment to facilitate
development. VisualLynux is an extension of
Microsoft Visual Studio, developed for Windows-hosted development, with
the added benefit of all the commands and standard GNU tools needed to
streamline the design and creation of applications targeted to run on
BlueCat Linux. 
<P> <hr> <P> 
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" "   SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Debian
</FONT>
</H3> 
<a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly">
Debian Weekly News</a>
<a href="http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2002/8/">
reported</a> that a new revision (r6) of Potato is 
<a href="http://master.debian.org/~joey/2.2r6/">
in preparation</a>, and is expected to arrive early March.  Looking to the
next release, it seems Woody is beginning to 
<a href="http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce-0202/msg00012.html">
take shape</a>
for its ultimate release.  Unofficial Woody CD's have been available for a
while, but recently Ho-seok Lee has released a
<a href="http://www.debian.or.kr/~alee/cdimages/">
mini CD image</a> suitable for 3.5" mini CD's.
<P> <hr> <P> 
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" "   SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">SuSE
</FONT>
</H3> 
<a href="http://www.suse.de/en/">
SuSE</a>
has announced the implementation of mySAP.com on "SuSE Linux Enterprise
Server". Since the beginning of this year, SuSE Linux has been utilising
SAP's enterprise resource planning tool on Compaq hardware for the
company's business operations.  SuSE has also announced the availability of
"SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 7 for iSeries and pSeries"
<a name="commercial"></a>
<p><hr><p>
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<center><H3><font color="green">Software and Product News</font></H3></center>
<P> <hr> <P> 
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" "   SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Graphics Muse Tools CD V1.0.0 for GIMP 1.2
</FONT>
</H3> 
<P> In response to the growing demand for off the shelf products for desktop
Linux systems, the Graphics Muse is now offering 
<a href="http://www.graphics-muse.org/gfxmuse/gfxmuse.html">
The Graphics Muse Tools CD</a>,
an easy to install package of plug-ins, scripts, and data for use with the
latest version of GIMP.  The Graphics Muse Tools CD V1.0.0, a suite of
Plug-Ins, scripts and data designed specifically for use with GIMP 1.2 and
Red Hat 7.x was released on Feb 7, 2002.
This release includes 4 original plug-ins and 84 plug-ins and Perl
scripts from the GIMP Registry, all compiled for use on Red Hat 7.x.
This includes 16 programs that had not previously been ported to GIMP 1.2.
Additionally, the CD includes over 125 new brushes and 125 new patterns.
<P> The Graphics Muse Tools CD is available for Red Hat Linux 7.x systems and
can be purchased for $12, plus shipping and any applicable sales tax, from
the Graphics Muse Tools 
<a href="http://www.graphics-muse.org/gfxmuse/gfxmuse.html">
CD web site</a>. (Should also work on SuSE 7.2 and Mandrake 8.1)
<P> <hr> <P> 
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" "   SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">CryptoHeaven
</FONT>
</H3> 
<p>
<a href="http://www.cryptoheaven.com/">
CryptoHeaven</a> offer a set of tools and services aimed at bringing
encryption technologies to a wider audience.  The tools deal with such
tasks as encrypting/signing emails, secure instant messaging and chatting,
online encrypted file storage, key management, etc., with the emphasis on
ease of use.  Available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X.  Free download, with
charges for some services, consult website for details.
<P> <hr> <P> 
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" "   SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">OmniCluster SlotServer
</FONT>
</H3> 

<a href="http://www.omnicluster.com">
OmniCluster Technologies</a>
is an IBM spin-off that has created a plug-n-play server blade products
that fit within the PCI expansion slots of existing hardware.
Since SlotServers are built on an industry standard PCI architecture
and are compatible with virtually all operating environments -- including
Windows 2000, Windows NT, RedHat Linux and FreeBSD.
Users can run applications tuned for an operating system, regardless of the
host server's operating system. For example, users can run a Linux-based
firewall within a Windows-based host, on an isolated server.
SlotServers range in cost from $499 - $1,199.



<P> <hr> <P> 
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" "   SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Zend Studio 2.0
</FONT>
</H3> 
<P> 
<a href="http://www.zend.com">
Zend Technologies</a> have released
<a href="http://www.zend.com/store/products/zend-studio.php">
Zend Studio 2.0</a>:
an environment for developing, debugging, and deploying PHP applications in
one integrated package.  Zend Studio 2.0 is intended to allow people with
intermediate computer skills to develop, de-bug and deploy PHP-based
applications ranging from e-commerce to Web hosting.
<P> <hr> <P> 
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" "   SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">New Release of Motif
</FONT>
</H3> 
<P> 
In cooperation with The Open Group, 
<a href="http://www.ics.com">
ICS</a>
have just released an update to the
Motif GUI toolkit.
Open Motif 2.2 includes 10 new user interface controls and universal tooltip
support.  A roadmap has also been defined that defines availability
for additional functionality including anti-aliased fonts, improved imaging
support (png, jpg, etc.) and canvases.
<P>More details are available at
<a href="http://www.motifzone.net">
www.motifzone.net</a>.
<P> <hr> <P> 
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" "   SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Fake
</FONT>
</H3> 
<P> 
<a href="http://www.vergenet.net/linux/fake/">
Fake</a> 
is a utility, released by
<a href="http://www.vergenet.net/">
Verge Systems</a>,
that enables an IP address to be taken over by bringing up a second
interface on the host machine and using arp spoofing.  This can be used to
switch in backup servers on a LAN  during periods of both unscheduled and
scheduled down time.
<P> <hr> <P> 
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" "   SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">QuickHelp and  QuickUML Linux
</FONT>
</H3> 
<P>
<a href="http://www.excelsoftware.com">
Excel Software</a>
have announced the availability of two  new packages for Linux.
<a href="http://www.excelsoftware.com/quickhelplinux.html">
QuickHelp</a>
is a development tool for quickly creating and distributing online help for
Linux applications with support for the Linux KDE and GNOME desktops.
QuickHelp consists of a QuickHelp Builder for creating help systems and a
QuickHelp Viewer for deploying them to end-users. The help information
resides in a single XML file distributed with the QuickHelp Viewer. 
<p>
<a href="http://www.excelsoftware.com/quickumllinuxnews100.html">
QuickUML for Linux</a>
is an object-oriented design tool that provides extensive integration and
ease-of-use for a core set of UML models.  An entire project is accessible
through a tabbed window with smooth integration between use cases, class
models, object models, dictionary and code.  The project is saved as an XML
file that is compatible with QuickUML Windows so design work can be shared
between platforms.
<P> <hr> <P> 
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" "   SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">Team ASA Releases Dual Gigabit Ethernet NPWR Linux
Engine with 733 MHz XScale CPU
</FONT>
</H3> 


<P> 
<a href="http://www.TeamASA.com">
Team ASA</a>
have today announced the latest 
release in the NPWR single board networking computer series.
NPWR, a first single board networking computer (SBNC) designed for 
manufacturers and OEMs in the Network Attached Storage (NAS), RAID, 
and Personal Server marketplaces, is now available with dual Gigabit 
Ethernet ports.
The NPWR is powered by the Intel XScale processor and the standard 
configuration includes a 160 Mbytes per second  (LVD) SCSI port, 8 
Mbytes of FLASH ROM, 128 Mbytes of SDRAM and Dual Gigabit Ethernet 
ports.
<P> <hr> <P> 
<!-- =================================================================== -->
<H3><IMG ALT=" "   SRC="../gx/bolt.gif">
<FONT COLOR="green">VariCAD
</FONT>
</H3> 
<P> 
<a href="http://www.varicad.com">
VariCAD</a>
have announced the recent release of its MCAD - VariCAD 8.1. This 
CAD package features many tools for 3D modelling and 2D drafting:
libraries of mechanical parts, surface development (unbending),
calculations of standard mechanical components, tools for working with
non-graphical information (BOM), and more.  VariCAD 8.1 can also import and
export common CAD file types such as DWG, DXF, and IGES. 
<!-- *** BEGIN copyright *** -->
<P> <hr> <P> 
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright &copy; 2002, Michael Conry and 
the Editors of <A HREF="mailto:gazette@ssc.com"><I>Linux Gazette</I></A>.<BR>
Copying license <A HREF="../copying.html">http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html</A><BR>
Published in Issue 76 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, March 2002</H5>
<!-- *** END copyright *** -->


<H4 ALIGN="center">
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>

<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--===================================================================-->

<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Linux User Caricatures</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:francka1@dingoblue.net.au">Franck Alcidi</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>  

<!-- END header -->




<IMG ALT="[cartoon]" SRC="misc/alcidi/color_mickey_and_tux.jpg"
	WIDTH="500" HEIGHT="386">
	
<P> My previous LG cartoons: 
<A HREF="../issue72/alcidi.html">issue72</A>
<A HREF="../issue73/alcidi.html">issue73</A>


<P> You can view my other artwork and sketches on my
<A HREF="http://www.ozemail.com.au/~geisha/projects.html">projects page</A>.

<!-- *** BEGIN bio *** -->
<SPACER TYPE="vertical" SIZE="30">
<P> 
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Franck Alcidi</H4>
<EM>Franck is an artist in Australia.  His home page ("Ausmosis") is
<A HREF="http://www.ozemail.com.au/~geisha/projects.html">http://www.ozemail.com.au/~geisha/projects.html</A>.
</EM>

<!-- *** END bio *** -->

<!-- *** BEGIN copyright *** -->
<P> <hr> <!-- P --> 
<H5 ALIGN=center>

Copyright &copy; 2002, Franck Alcidi.<BR>
Copying license <A HREF="../copying.html">http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html</A><BR> 
Published in Issue 76 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, March 2002</H5>
<!-- *** END copyright *** -->


<H4 ALIGN="center">
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>

<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--===================================================================-->

<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Fil &amp; Lil</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:webmaster@whatisnew.com">ESC Technologies</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>  

<!-- END header -->




<IMG ALT="[cartoon]" SRC="misc/fillil/fillil2002january4.png" 
	WIDTH="610" HEIGHT="250">
<BR CLEAR="all">

<IMG ALT="[cartoon]" SRC="misc/fillil/fillil2002january7.png" 
	WIDTH="610" HEIGHT="250">
<BR CLEAR="all">

<IMG ALT="[cartoon]" SRC="misc/fillil/fillil2002january10.png" 
	WIDTH="625" HEIGHT="250">
<BR CLEAR="all">

<IMG ALT="[cartoon]" SRC="misc/fillil/fillil2002january12.png" 
	WIDTH="625" HEIGHT="250">
<BR CLEAR="all">

<IMG ALT="[cartoon]" SRC="misc/fillil/fillil2002january13.png" 
	WIDTH="625" HEIGHT="250">
<BR CLEAR="all">

<IMG ALT="[cartoon]" SRC="misc/fillil/fillil2002january14.png" 
	WIDTH="625" HEIGHT="250">
<BR CLEAR="all">

<IMG ALT="[cartoon]" SRC="misc/fillil/fillil2002january15.png" 
	WIDTH="625" HEIGHT="250">
<BR CLEAR="all">

<IMG ALT="[cartoon]" SRC="misc/fillil/fillil2002january18.png" 
	WIDTH="625" HEIGHT="250">
<BR CLEAR="all">

<IMG ALT="[cartoon]" SRC="misc/fillil/fillil2002january22.png" 
	WIDTH="625" HEIGHT="250">
<BR CLEAR="all">

<P> Fil and Lil's Linux Gazette debut was in 
<A HREF="../issue74/fillil.html">January</A>.
All their cartoons are on the
<A HREF="http://www.whatisnew.com/">What Is New</A> page.

<!-- *** BEGIN bio *** -->

<!-- *** END bio *** -->

<!-- *** BEGIN copyright *** -->
<P> <hr> <!-- P --> 
<H5 ALIGN=center>

Copyright &copy; 2002, ESC Technologies.<BR>
Copying license <A HREF="../copying.html">http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html</A><BR> 
Published in Issue 76 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, March 2002</H5>
<!-- *** END copyright *** -->


<H4 ALIGN="center">
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>

<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--===================================================================-->

<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Taming The Linux Keyboard (My Programming Adventures in Writing a Console Application for Linux)</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:mar22@usa.net">Petar Marinov</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>  

<!-- END header -->




It was about a year ago when I ventured into the idea of porting my 
Windows-based console editor to Linux. Naturally, I targeted the text 
console. The editor was designed in a way to facilitate the porting to 
any other text console environment. I have isolated all the 
keyboard input and text output functions in two files, which I planned to 
rewrite whenever a new platform comes to my way. I've supplied two 
different versions of these files for Windows console and plain DOS 
which, I presumed then, validated my initial idea that porting should 
be a simple task.

<p>
My only knowledge about Linux then comprised the GNU compiler package 
obtained by spending a year with its DJGPP port to DOS. While I knew 
how to write, compile, and debug programs in Linux, my knowledge for 
the console was limited to functions like printf() and getch(). As I 
knew how prominent is the role of the text console in Unix, I supposed 
that programming console applications should be really advanced and on 
a par or even better to this in DOS and Windows.

<p>
I pulled the anchor and once underway, I started to gather necessary 
information. Getting the advantage of having the sources of everything, 
I tried to find the good tides by downloading two applications that had 
console oriented text interfaces.

<p>
First it was the ubiquitous MC (Midnight Commander). This program was 
the straw, which everyone that comes from Windows or DOS into the UNIX 
land grabs gasping for a breath in the ocean of the unknown.

<p>
Second it was the TurboVision port to Linux. TurboVision is a popular 
windowing framework for DOS designed in Borland. The company was 
amicable enough to release the sources in public domain and shortly 
after having them in 32-bit DJGPP I found out that there is a Linux 
version as well. This pretty much showed me that there is a resolution 
to my problems. To further milk the ship metaphor, this blew good winds 
in my sails.

<p>
Something has spoiled the nice experience of using MC.  There is 
something rotten in Denmark, as one of the Great used to say. Why ESC 
... is not ESC? In MC when you press ESC it does nothing until you 
press it again and then the two-ESC combination does the action 
supposed for the single ESC. Helloooo, why is that? Read on, to learn 
what dictates the rules here.

<p>
In DOS we had ANSI.SYS. You use printf() with a sequence (starting with 
ESC and hitherto called an ESC-sequence) of funky characters to move 
the cursor, change the color etc, following the needs of the full-text 
screen applications. It was considered primitive and unproductive to 
use ANSI.SYS, and besides fancy ASCII art, nothing serious engaged in 
using this methodology. Advanced libraries offered direct access to the 
video memory which greatly improved the user experience in working with 
console applications. I remember looking in dismay the sources of 
tpcrt.pas of the TurboPower package, where tight assembler code tried 
to squeeze whatever the graphic (maybe we should say "text") card had 
to offer.

<p>
It turned out that what was considered a very primitive way to do full 
screen applications in DOS, is the road to go in UNIX! I needed 
sometime to collect myself after learning one of those basic facts of 
life. Back on my feet
I tried to devise a scheme for taming the beast; I thought that as I 
learn the ESC-sequences and write the functions it would be a dream 
come true.
After some further research I discovered that there is no single 
standard for these ESC sequences! There are different terminals that 
support different set of operations and that one needs to have a whole 
database to properly operate all possible terminals. Why does everything 
grow so complex? I still tremble remembering the waves of the 
aftershock by all the discoveries I made in a single day.

<p>
"Curses" is the king. Long live the king! It turns out that somebody 
has already developed this database and all the functions I need in a 
library originally called "curses". In Linux it is "ncurses". Everyone 
uses it.

<p>
Screen access functions are almost intuitive enough for everyone to 
start immediately utilizing them. "Ncurses" takes care to update only 
the portions of the screen that actually changed, which is a nice 
performance improvement when you use your program in a telnet session 
or any other remote mode to minimize the amount of the transferred data.

<p>
One simple problem I faced was the fact that DOS and Windows color 
attributes do not directly map to "ncurses" color attributes. The 
problem is aggravated by the fact that in "ncurses" I have only 64 
pairs of color and background available. How will I map my 127 possible 
color/background attributes to just 64?! Well, a short analysis 
revealed that my program uses only about 25 distinctive attributes, 
which allows me to fit them nicely in the 64 attributes map that 
"ncurses" uses. It works like that, I have an array of attributes -- my 
pallete. I first go and count how many unique attributes I have. Then 
for each unique attribute, that I dissolve to color and background, I 
create correspondent entry in the "ncurses" color palette. The index of 
this entry (consider it as an ID) is stored in a  secondary array of 
256 bytes (the whole range of Windows and DOS). When I then pass to my 
display function an attribute from my palette it is used as an index in 
this secondary array to extract the correspondent attribute ID that is 
generated by "ncurses". So as long as I do not go beyond 64 unique 
attributes, my program will be happy and will use the good old 256 
attribute values. This allows me to have a single color palette for all 
the platforms that I currently support, where for DOS and Windows it is 
used natively, it is dynamically remapped in Linux.

<p>
The TurboVision port used a direct screen access when running in a text 
mode linux terminal. Temporarily I considered this option, it is still 
possible to add this to my modules, but later I thought that the small 
performance gain simply doesn't worth the effort.

<p>
I had a bad hunch about the keyboard. First just by looking in the key 
definitions in ncurses headers, I noticed that this library basically 
lacks the infrastructure to define rich key combinations. The terminal 
ships all the "extended" keys via ESC sequences which, I don't know 
why, prevents you from getting single ESC as an ESC and you are always 
required to press ESC twice for your program to receive it once. Plus 
you have only a certain number of key codes, which I presume are 
derived from an ancient crippled terminal, and nothing creative 
happened to the definitions since then. Compare this to Windows, and 
even in DOS, where you can have an ASCII translation of a key, then you 
can have the keys as position codes and you can always have the shift 
state of the keyboard. In Windows you are delivered, via a standard 
API, different events as key pressed and key released. It sounds 
natural, isn't it? Well, because it is so natural, UNIX faithful to its 
orthodox approach to these matters defines everything in an extremely 
crippled model. Working this way is maybe good for improving your 
mental stamina, but believe me, is totally unproductive if you would 
like to achieve something fast.

<p>
Then I was unable to make ncurses operate with a 0 timeout when reading 
a key. Add to this the double ESC syndrome, the total lack of any roads 
to extend this, and in a while you look as an abandoned donkey in a 
desert with a water for just couple of hours. I always have a bottle of 
Evian within reach, I needed no more evidences that while "ncurses" 
support for the display is adequate, its keyboard support beyond some 
very basic functionality is totally irrelevant to my needs. I started 
to think how to maintain the whole keyboard business with my own code.

<p>
The keyboard is a file -- stdin. I never thought I will use stdin in a 
full screen program but, as you can suspect, this is the way to go in 
Unix. The stdin file transports everything in ASCII codes and keys like 
the arrows form a sequence that starts with ESC. At first the 
impression is that if ESC is a start of sequence then the key ESC 
itself should be ESC-caped as well. That is the way "ncurses" go. 
That's why in MC we need to press ESC twice.

<p>
Beside delivering all the ASCII codes and the ESC sequences, the 
keyboard module needs to supply a kbhit() function. In the 
documentation "ncurses" promises that its getch() function can work 
with a 0 timeout, thus never blocking when there is no key in the 
buffer. Maybe a plan like mine starts to form in your mind, I will use 
getch() with 0 timeout, then I will have a small sleep(xxx) and this 
loop will exit whenever a key is pressed. This sounds good in theory, 
but "ncurses" is short on delivering on this specific feature. Its 
maybe something that I didn't do right, or I used old version, or maybe 
it is something else, I may eventually even look at the sources of the 
"ncurses". I didn't want to go that deep, the whole keyboard model 
looked totally outdated, fixing a small flaw in "ncurses" wouldn't have 
helped me, I thought.

<p>
I need basically this: 1. kbhit(). I need to check for a key and exit. 
2. I need to be able to read something like Ctrl+Shift+Left_Arrow. 3. I 
need to exit with a timeout if for sometime a key is not pressed.

<p>
For anything of this to happen one needs to put the keyboard stdin file 
in a row mode. By default you enter lines of text, which are send to 
your program only after the user presses Enter. So to be able to read a 
single character you need to switch to a row mode. The stdin file may 
not only serve a keyboard but may get characters via a serial cable, 
yes, only 3 wires should be enough to manipulate a whole machine. For a 
serial connection to operate properly you need to maintain flow 
control. This could be done by adding 2 additional wires for each of 
the talking sides to request "stop sending me characters" and when the 
buffer is empty to ask "now start dumping again". But adding 2 wires 
may prove expensive and even complex, and this shuttle in the space, 
who knows, something may happen if we introduce this extra level of 
hardware complexity. What one can not do with the hardware makes up 
with the software, a host of characters (in fact 31) is wasted to not 
only maintain the flow control but to switch modes of echoing, the 
canonicality (whew, this is a word, a?!) etc. As you may already know 
these 31 characters are the control characters that populate the lower 
district of the ASCII table. While this sounded as a good idea 20 years 
ago now pressing Ctrl+S to suspend the output on the screen looks 
arcane to me, and I need to use Ctrl+S to save the current file. It 
smells like the keyboard needs some extra massaging to fit into the 
shape I need. So the setup function easily grows beyond the lines of a 
single screen, after some hours of reading documentation and 
experimentation I managed to come up with something that actually 
works. I felt proud, and in this era of people doing space tourism I 
felt that I have my small shred of achievements to show.

<p>
Kbhit() proved to be relatively easy. To wait for a characters 
on a file (or socket), use select(). If you apply this to stdin then 
select() will unblock when someone presses a key. If the timeouts are 
tuned to 0, then it will exit immediately with a failure or success 
code indicating that a key is ready to be read.

<p>
The ReadKey() function has a 2-tier structure (complex isn't it, sounds 
like something that is multi-tire). At the first level I use select() to 
block for incoming characters. When select() unblocks I issue a single 
read() function and try to extract as much as possible. Whatever I 
manage to suck from stdin I store in a fifo queue. On the second level 
the characters are extracted one by one and a string sequence is 
compiled that is matched against an exhaustive list of ESC sequences. 
We have a definite success if we find a matching string. We have a 
definite success if we have a single ESC followed by a time-out. Then 
it is just an ESC, simple! Some code takes place to close the extra 
cases where nothing matches and it is not an ESC etc. All this is 
supplied by a function that extracts the Shift state of the keyboard. 
You may guess that this is a hack that only works in Linux text 
terminals. I learned this from the source code of MC. The downside is 
that this doesn't work outside bare-bones text Linux terminals. Try to 
work in a X terminal and you are dead, no shift key status and no means 
to ever extract it.

<p>
Linux keyboard gives one more advantage in front of any other Unix 
keyboard (that I know of), you may define your own ESC sequences. So, 
if you need for example Ctrl+Shift+F3 you can define this with a new 
ESC sequence and by using the "loadkey" utility to download it into the 
kernel. The changes are immediate and non-permanent. If you reboot you 
need to reexecute the same command with the same definition. I liked 
this, so I added all the key combinations that I used, and were 
undefined in Linux and defined in Windows.

<p>Actually by having the 
function to extract the shift-state, the possible key-combinations one 
needs to explicitly define is greatly decreased. As for example if we 
have Shift+F3 defined, we can get the Control key state and then we have 
Ctrl+Shift+F3. Which without the shift-state function should be defined 
as a new key sequence with "loadkey". A problem surfaces here, which
although subtle, should be well noted. If the extraction of the key
from the keybuffer does not coincide with the time we extract the shift
state we create a big mess. With a great probability (the computers
nowadays a fast enough) we can expect for this not to happen, but hey,
as this is just a probability so mathematicions say the odds are that
sometimes it may actually happen. Example follow. If in my editor F3 is "close
all files and discard changes" and Ctrl+Shift+F3 is assigned to be
"next file", I beg for trouble here. Imagine that F3 is in the buffer
and you can not get the shift state at the same time you will get just
F3 and not "Ctrl+Shift+F3".

<p>
Having stdin as keyboard input has one great advantage, I should admit. 
The editor is subject to a total automation by just supplying an input 
file, provided that you put there the ESC sequences to activate various 
extended keys if necessary.

<p>To scold the enthusiasm in your eyes I should note that ... ostensibly,
full automation is possible, but to a certain extent ... maybe you have
already figured this out, right ... you can not supply the shift states in a
text file. Well, that's life, you can not have your cake and eat it too!

<p>
In Windows a console application works equally well in text mode and in 
a graphical console window. While my module works perfectly well in a 
text linux console ($TERM="linux"), its keyboard support is totaly 
inadequate when started from within X window terminal. All this is 
corollary of the fact that the most common denominator of the UNIX 
keyboards is "unsigned char" and the extended keys use predefined ESC 
sequences that didn't evolve for the last 20 (or more) years. So I'll 
keep working in making my modules X aware. Whenever the program senses 
that it is started from within X terminal it will open a new window 
where all the text output will be emulated with a fixed width font and the 
keyboard will be processed to the best possible extent that X server 
offers.

<p>Eventually what I initially planed proved 
to be doable. It was quite an effort and that is why the victory was 
so sweet.

<p>
<a href="/misc/marinov/demo.tar.gz">demo.tar.gz</a> contains the whole story expresed in C language.

<p>
You may find this article at the "zepp" discussion group,
<a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/zepp/message/347">here</a>. I will be glad
to respond to questions or any opinions regarding this article posted in the
discussion group. Generally, the discussions are usually about software
development, comments on hardware, programming languages. Anything
related to 42 will find benign soil. You are welcome to join.





<!-- *** BEGIN bio *** -->
<SPACER TYPE="vertical" SIZE="30">
<P> 
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Petar Marinov</H4>
<EM>I come originally from Rousse, Bulgaria. Now I live in San Francisco
and work in Foster City (California). I program mainly embedded systems. I
started using Linux in 1998. My work is mainly done on Windows because of
Visual C, but it is deployed on Linux platform.</EM>

<!-- *** END bio *** -->

<!-- *** BEGIN copyright *** -->
<P> <hr> <!-- P --> 
<H5 ALIGN=center>

Copyright &copy; 2002, Petar Marinov.<BR>
Copying license <A HREF="../copying.html">http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html</A><BR> 
Published in Issue 76 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, March 2002</H5>
<!-- *** END copyright *** -->


<H4 ALIGN="center">
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>

<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--===================================================================-->

<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">The Foolish Things We Do With Our Computers</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:gazette@ssc.com">Mike "Iron" Orr</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>  

<!-- END header -->



<H2>Horror Story</H2>

By <A HREF="mailto:CraigR@servex.com.au">Craig Reeson</A>

<P> Here's a quick horror story for you.
 I was recently admin-ing one of my Linux servers. This server is the
company print server.
What had happened was a user was connected to a legacy system via a
terminal program.  Somewhere along the line there was a screwup and his
system starting dumping lots of extraneous data to the nearest printer. The
user tried to power-cycle the printer to no avail. Thankfully, they came to
me next to try and resolve the problem.

<P> Anyway, I ssh'd into the Linux box, changed to the 'spool/' directory and
did an 'ls' of the appropriate folder. After noting that there were a few
hundred print jobs waiting in the print queue I decided it was best if I
just deleted them all...

<P> Here is where the proverbial hit the spinning thing!

<P> ...I decided to 'rm -rf *' all the files. The problem is I did it from the
'spool/' directory rather than the proper printer directory. This had the
effect of deleting everything in my system spool directory!

<P> After realising my error I tried to fix it. First thing was trying "unrm".
This did not work as I could not read from the filesystem without errors.
Next I tried using a boot floppy and trying 'unrm' again. But no that would
not work because I could not get the RAID array to be recognised!!! Tried a
few other options until I gave up and decided it was time for an "upgrade".

<P> Problem solved after 3 hours    :)




<H2></H2>

By <A HREF="mailto:craigshelley@yahoo.com">Craig Shelley</A>

<P> After buying an all-on-board style PC and installing linux, I wanted to 
try out a dual-headed configuration. This was mainly because I found 
myself with a spare graphics card and monitor. I plugged in the new 
graphics card, and realised that the super complex modular BIOS system 
was automatically disabling interrupts from the on-board graphics 
system. According to the manual, it was impossible to turn off this 
'feature'. Then I had an idea!

<P> The idea was that if the new graphics card could be disabled while 
booting, the BIOS may ignore it. Then, I could re-enable the card for 
normal use.

<P> After studying the PCI bus pinout and specs, I decided to disconnect the 
reset line from the graphics card using a sharp screwdriver to destroy 
the track. I then re-connected the reset line through a switch, and then 
down to the ground connection. (Reset is Active Low)

<P> Using the switch I could disable the card, but it then became 
impossible to re-enable it because the PC could not reset it when it 
wanted to. I then decided to connect a resistor across the broken track 
so that the card could also be reset by the PC, and my switch would not 
affect anything else.

<P> The switch was neatly mounted on the metal back plate of the card, and 
can be switched when required.

<P> Using the switch, I put the card into reset mode, booted the PC, then 
turned the card back on, and found myself with two working monitors ;-) ;-)

<P> Also, have you ever wondered how to get out of the situation where X 
does not return VGA text mode? Adding one of these switches to your card 
solves this problem.



<HR NOSHADE WIDTH="80%%"> <!--*********************** -->




<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
	[If you have a story about something foolish or ingenious you
	did to your computer, send it to
	<A HREF="mailto:gazette@ssc.com">gazette@ssc.com</A>-Iron.]
	</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>





<!-- *** BEGIN bio *** -->
<SPACER TYPE="vertical" SIZE="30">
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Mike Orr</H4>
<EM>Mike ("Iron") is the Editor of <I>Linux Gazette</I>.  You can read what he has
to say in the Back Page column in this issue.  He has been a Linux enthusiast
since 1991 and a Debian user since 1995.  He is SSC's web technical
coordinator, which means he gets to write a lot of Python scripts.
Non-computer interests include Ska/Oi! music and the international language
Esperanto.  The nickname Iron was given to him in college--short for Iron Orr,
hahaha.</EM>

<!-- *** END bio *** -->

<!-- *** BEGIN copyright *** -->
<P> <hr> <!-- P --> 
<H5 ALIGN=center>

Copyright &copy; 2002, Mike "Iron" Orr.<BR>
Copying license <A HREF="../copying.html">http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html</A><BR> 
Published in Issue 76 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, March 2002</H5>
<!-- *** END copyright *** -->


<H4 ALIGN="center">
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>

<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--===================================================================-->

<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Qubism and HelpDex</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:sirflakey@core.org.au">Jon "Sir Flakey" Harsem</a>
and 
<a href="mailto:shane_collinge@yahoo.com">Shane Collinge</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>  

<!-- END header -->


<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
        [I'm putting these two cartoons on the same page because the
	cartoonists are borrowing ideas from each other, and because
	there are few HelpDex cartoons available at the current time.  -Iron.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>


<P>

<IMG ALT="[cartoon]" SRC="misc/qubism/qb-luxojr-s.jpg" 
	WIDTH="600" HEIGHT="240">
<BR CLEAR="all">

<IMG ALT="[cartoon]" SRC="misc/qubism/qb-rocketjump-s.jpg" 
	WIDTH="600" HEIGHT="240">
<BR CLEAR="all">

<IMG ALT="[cartoon]" SRC="misc/qubism/hdrivein.jpg" 
	WIDTH="600" HEIGHT="240">
<BR CLEAR="all">

<IMG ALT="[cartoon]" SRC="misc/qubism/qb-viisback.jpg" 
	WIDTH="600" HEIGHT="240">
<BR CLEAR="all">

<P> Previous cartoons about Vi-agra, the evil vi paperclip, are in
issues 
<A HREF="../issue54/collinge.html">54</A>,
<A HREF="../issue55/collinge.html">55</A>,
<A HREF="../issue66/collinge.html">66</A>, and
<A HREF="../issue67/collinge.html">67</A>.

<P> All Qubism cartoons are 
<A HREF="http://www.core.org.au/modules.php?name=Cartoons">here</A>
at the CORE web site.

<!-- *** BEGIN bio *** -->
<SPACER TYPE="vertical" SIZE="30">
<P> 
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Jon "SirFlakey" Harsem</H4>
<EM>Jon is the and creator of the Qubism cartoon strip and current
Editor-in-Chief of the 
<A HREF="http://www.core.org.au/">CORE</A> News Site.  
Somewhere along the early stages of
his life he picked up a pencil and started drawing on the wallpaper.  Now
his cartoons appear 5 days a week on-line, go figure. He confesses to
owning a Mac but swears it is for "personal use".</EM>

<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Shane Collinge</H4>
<EM>Part computer programmer, part cartoonist, part Mars Bar. At night, he runs
around in a pair of colorful tights fighting criminals. During the day... well,
he just runs around.  He eats when he's hungry and sleeps when he's sleepy.</EM>


<!-- *** END bio *** -->

<!-- *** BEGIN copyright *** -->
<P> <hr> <!-- P --> 
<H5 ALIGN=center>

Qubism copyright &copy; 2002, Jon "Sir Flakey" Harsem.<BR>
HelpDex copyright &copy; 2002, Shane Collinge<BR>
HelpDex cartoons may be be published
electronically, but
may not be used in a public print publication without permission from the 
author.<BR>
Copying license <A HREF="../copying.html">http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html</A><BR> 
Published in Issue 76 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, March 2002</H5>
<!-- *** END copyright *** -->


<H4 ALIGN="center">
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>

<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--===================================================================-->

<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">The Standard C Library for Linux, part 7: String Handling</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:buckrogers@users.sourceforge.net">James M Rogers</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>  

<!-- END header -->




<EM>I finally have time (after a few years) to give back a little more to
the Linux community with the next in my series of articles on the Standard
C Library.&nbsp; I hope that you enjoy.</EM> </p>
       
<p>The <A HREF="../issue41/rogers.html">last article</A> was on &lt;assert.h&gt; 
diagnostics for programmers.&nbsp; 
  This article is on &lt;string.h&gt; string handling.&nbsp;&nbsp; C is not 
  much better at handling strings than machine code, so machine language programmers 
  will feel quite at home in this section.&nbsp; There are many limitations 
  and problems with string.h that will be addressed in the appropriate function 
  descriptions. </p>
       
<p>I am assuming a knowledge of C programming on the part of the reader.&nbsp; 
  There is no guarantee of accuracy in any of this information nor suitability 
  for any purpose. </p>
       
<p>The example is <a href="misc/rogers/rogers_example07.c">
    rogers_example07.c</a> .&nbsp; This is a basic example that will demonstrate
  each of the string functions.&nbsp; If you compile it and run it you will
  be able to see the output. &nbsp; Compare the output to the code and enjoy. 
  </p>
       
<p>As always, if you see an error in my documentation please tell me and I
will correct myself in a later document.&nbsp; See corrections at end of
  the document to review corrections to the previous articles. </p>
       
<p><b>WARNING:</b>&nbsp; Copying strings in C is the most dangerous part of
programming in C.&nbsp; C itself doesn't perform bounds checking, so it is
very easy to overwrite the end of a string and actually overwrite other variables
or even to crash the program.&nbsp; Crackers use this weakness in C and inexpert
coding practices to perform controlled overflows to force programs into giving
them a shell to the account that the program is running under.&nbsp; This
is usually root for most servers. </p>
       
<p>C doesn't really have strings.&nbsp; I know that is a strange thing to
  say in a document talking about string handling in C, but it is true.&nbsp; 
  What C does have is an array of characters.&nbsp; To make space for a string 
  you can ask the compiler to reserve room for that string.&nbsp; The most 
 common way is with a simple character array: </p>
       
<p><tt>char string[17];</tt> </p>
       
<p>This reserves room for 16 characters and an end-of-string marker. </p>
       
<p><tt>strcpy ( string, "This is a string" );</tt> </p>
       
<p>Will work to copy the static string "This is a string" into the space that
we allocated.&nbsp; The static string is composed of 16 characters followed
  by the ASCII nil character.&nbsp; So there is plenty of room in the variable
  called string to hold the static string.&nbsp; Nil is typically represented
  with the number zero or with the character '\0' or with the character '\000'. 
  </p>
       
<p>Surprisingly the following will sometimes work as well, even though there 
  are more then 17 characters copied into the char array: </p>
       
<p><tt>strcpy ( string, "This is a long string" );</tt> </p>
       
<p>There is never any bounds checking when you are copying strings.&nbsp; 
  So even though you went past the end of string and wrote to memory in an 
 unexpected way, most of the time you can get away with it.&nbsp; Of course 
 your program can also unexpectedly crash at anytime as well, sometimes in 
 a place far away from the place where you made your error.&nbsp; Crackers 
 can get a shell from the computer by overwriting the end of a buffer in such
 a way that the program executes a shell.&nbsp; This is one of the reasons 
 that you should really not use strcpy.&nbsp; Use strncpy instead: </p>
       
<p><tt>#define&nbsp; MAX_STRING_LENGTH&nbsp; 17</tt> <br>
    <tt>char string[MAX_STRING_LENGTH];</tt> <br>
    <tt>strncpy ( string, "This is a long string", MAX_STRING_LENGTH );</tt>
    <br>
    <tt>string[MAX_STRING_LENGTH-1] = '\000';</tt> </p>
       
<p>The reason that I used a macro for the string length is that I am using 
  this length in many places in my program, if I ever decide to change the 
 size of the variable string I would have to find everywhere where I used 
the number 17 and fix each one.&nbsp; Sometimes you may use the same number 
in different places to mean different things.&nbsp; So even if you only use 
a literal number in a few places using a macro can make the meaning of that 
 number really stand out and it makes it trivial to change the size of the 
 string buffer in this case. </p>
       
<p>The reason that I put the last line there is that if the literal string 
  is longer than the string that we are copying into then the end-of-string 
  marker isn't put into place.&nbsp; If you don't set the final character 
to null, most of the time you will be fine, but every once in a while your 
program will crash and you will wonder why. </p>
       
<p>There is also a third way to define a string and that is with malloc, realloc
and calloc.&nbsp; These functions work by requesting the memory that you
need at runtime.&nbsp; This is the most complicated but also the most flexible
and powerful. </p>
       
<p><tt>#define STATIC_STRING "This is a long string that will be copied into
  a location during runtime"</tt> </p>
       
<p><tt>char *string;</tt> <br>
    <tt>int string_length;</tt> </p>
       
<p><tt>string_length = strlen(STATIC_STRING);</tt> </p>
       
<p><tt>if (!(string = (char *) malloc ( string_length ))){</tt> <br>
    <tt>&nbsp;&nbsp; /* no memory left, die */</tt> <br>
    <tt>&nbsp;&nbsp; exit (1);</tt> <br>
    <tt>}</tt> </p>
       
<p><tt>strncpy( string,&nbsp; STATIC_STRING, string_length);</tt> <br>
    <tt>string[string_length] = '\000';</tt> </p>
       
<p><tt>/* do something with the string */</tt> </p>
       
<p><tt>free(string);</tt> </p>
       
<p> </p>
    One of the dangers of this method is that you have to clean up after
yourself,   using the free function. &nbsp;If you don't free everything when
you are  done with then you will be leaking memory and eventually your program
will  crash.<br>
       
<hr noshade>     
<p>The &lt;string.h&gt; library has numerous problems. </p>
       
<p>The biggest problem is that the library was never designed to be complete 
  and consistent.&nbsp; &lt;string.h&gt; really is a collection of functions 
  written by various people, assembled into a library and given to the world. 
  &nbsp; And now we are stuck with it. </p>
       
<p>Most of the functions can return a NULL or a pointer to a string.&nbsp; 
If a function <EM>can</EM> return a NULL, you should always check the return
value after calling it, and take appropriate action if it is NULL.&nbsp; If you 
attempt to treat a NULL return value as a pointer to a string, you will quickly 
crash your program. </p>
       
<p> </p>
       
<hr noshade>     
<p>I have arbitrarily grouped the functions into sections according to task,
to show the slight differences between similar functions.  One could also
group by string functions vs memory functions, but that seemed less useful.
</p>
       
<p> </p>
       
<hr noshade>     
<p><b><font size="+1">Copying</font></b> </p>
       
<ul>
      <tt>#include &lt;string.h&gt;</tt>             
  <p><tt>void *memcpy(void *dest, const void *src, size_t n);</tt> <br>
      <tt>void *memmove(void *dest, const void *src, size_t n);</tt> <br>
      <tt>char *strncpy(char *dest, const char *src, size_t n);</tt> <br>
      <tt>char *strcpy(char *dest, const char *src);</tt> <br>
    &nbsp;</p>
       
</ul>
     <tt>void *dest</tt> is a pointer to the array which will receive the 
copy.   <br>
    <tt>char *dest</tt> is a pointer to the string which will receive the 
copy.   <br>
    <tt>const void *src</tt>&nbsp; is a pointer to the array from which the 
 copy will be made. <br>
    <tt>const char *src</tt> is a pointer to the string from which the copy 
 will be made. <br>
    <tt>size_t n </tt>is the number of characters to be copied.     
<p>These functions all return a pointer to dest.&nbsp; Which is strange, because
you already have a pointer to dest. </p>
       
<p><b>memcpy</b> copies n characters from the location pointed at by src to
the location pointed at by dest.&nbsp; Don't copy areas that overlap or your
program will crash. </p>
       
<p><b>memmove</b> also copies n characters from the location pointed at by
  src to the location pointed at by dest.&nbsp; But it first copies the characters
  to a temporary location then into the final location, so this is the function
  to use if you are copying overlapping areas of memory. </p>
       
<p><b>strncpy</b> copies no more than n characters from the location pointed 
  at by src to the location pointed at by dest.&nbsp; This function will stop
 at the first null character, which may be at any location less than or equal
 to n. If n characters are copied and no null is found, no null is written.&nbsp;
 This is a great way to leave the end of a string open.&nbsp; You should
always  explictly write zero to the end of the string. </p>
       
<p><b>strcpy</b> copies the string pointed at by src to the location pointed 
  at by dest, including the ending null character.&nbsp; <b>Warning! Never
  use this function for data that comes from the real world !!!&nbsp;</b>
&nbsp;   The biggest danger of using this function is that if there is no
null character   you will happily go copying through memory until you randomly
find a null   or you access memory that doesn't belong to your process and
the process  is killed with a SEGV (segfault) signal.&nbsp; Programs can capture this signal
and shutdown,   but at this point you are so hosed that it is best just to
let the program   core dump. </p>
       
<p>I have already given a few examples of how to use strcpy and strncpy.&nbsp; 
  memcpy and memmove are used exactly like strncpy, but they can copy arbitrary
  blocks of bytes, not just strings. </p>
       
<p> </p>
       
<hr noshade>     
<p><b><font size="+1">Concatenation</font></b> </p>
       
<ul>
      <tt>#include &lt;string.h&gt;</tt>             
  <p><tt>char *strcat(char *dest, const char *src);</tt> <br>
      <tt>char *strncat(char *dest, const char *src, size_t n);</tt></p>
       
</ul>
     <tt>char *dest&nbsp;</tt> is a pointer to the string which will receive 
 the copy. <br>
    <tt>const char *src</tt>&nbsp; is a pointer to the string from which
the   copy will be made. <br>
    <tt>size_t n</tt>&nbsp; is the number of characters to be copied. <br>
    &nbsp;     
<p><b>strcat</b> appends the source string, including the final '\0', onto 
  the end of the destination string. It overwrites the trailing '\0' on the 
  end of the destination string. </p>
       
<p><b>strncat</b> does the same, except it will only copy at most n characters 
  from destination and it will append a '\0'. </p>
       
<p>Both <b>strcat </b>and <b>strncat</b> return a pointer to the destination 
  string. &nbsp;Again, there is no bounds checking on the resulting string,
  so make sure that the string you create isn't too long to fit in the memory
  you have allocated for it. </p>
       
<p> </p>
       
<hr noshade>     
<p><b><font size="+1">Comparison</font></b> </p>
       
<ul>
      <tt>#include &lt;string.h&gt;</tt>             
  <p><tt>int memcmp(const void *s1, const void *s2, size_t n);</tt> <br>
      <tt>int strcmp(const char *s1, const char *s2);</tt> <br>
      <tt>int strncmp(const char *s1, const char *s2, size_t n);</tt> <br>
      <tt>int strcoll(const char *s1, const char *s2);</tt> <br>
      <tt>size_t strxfrm(const char *s1, const char *s2, size_t n);</tt></p>
       
</ul>
     <tt>const char *s1</tt> is a pointer to the first string. <br>
    <tt>const void *s1</tt>&nbsp; is a pointer to the first memory array. 
<br>
    <tt>const char *s2</tt>&nbsp; is a pointer to the second string. <br>
    <tt>const void *s2</tt>&nbsp; is a pointer to the second memory array.
 <br>
    <tt>size_t n</tt>&nbsp; is the number of characters to be copied.   
 
<p><b>memcmp</b> compares the number of bytes given by n.&nbsp; If&nbsp; s1
is less than s2, return a value less than zero.&nbsp; If s1 is equal to s2,
return zero.&nbsp; If s1 is greater than s2, return a value greater than
  zero.&nbsp; The comparison is based on the byte values of the ASCII characters
  in the memory array. </p>
       
<p><b>strcmp</b> compares the two strings s1 and s2.&nbsp; A string is a
null terminated array of characters.&nbsp; If&nbsp; s1 is less than s2, return
  a value less than zero.&nbsp; If s1 is equal to s2, return zero.&nbsp;
If   s1 is greater than s2, return a value greater than zero.&nbsp; The comparison 
  is based on the byte values of the ASCII characters in the two strings. 
</p>
       
<p><b>strncmp</b> is very similar to memcmp, except that it compares the two
strings, up to the length given by n.&nbsp; If a string is shorter than n,
than the memory locations following n are not compared.&nbsp; If&nbsp; s1
is less than s2, return a value less than zero.&nbsp; If s1 is equal to s2,
return zero.&nbsp; If s1 is greater than s2, return a value greater than
  zero. </p>
       
<p><b>strcoll</b> compares the two strings s1 and s2.&nbsp;&nbsp; If&nbsp; 
  s1 is less than s2, return a value less than zero.&nbsp; If s1 is equal 
to s2, return zero.&nbsp; If s1 is greater than s2, return a value greater 
than zero.&nbsp; The comparison is based on the locale that is set with the 
setlocale() function in the &lt;locale.h&gt; library.&nbsp; I will cover this
library in a later article. </p>
       
<p><b>strxfrm</b> transforms string s2 based on the locale category LC_COLLATE.&nbsp; 
  It then copies n bytes into string s1.&nbsp; Finally it returns the number 
  of characters actually placed into string s1.&nbsp; If y &gt;= n then there 
  was an error. </p>
       
<p> </p>
       
<hr noshade>     
<p><b><font size="+1">Search</font></b> </p>
       
<ul>
      <tt>#include &lt;string.h&gt;</tt>             
  <p><tt>void *memchr(const void *s, int c, size_t n);</tt> <br>
      <tt>char *strchr(const char *s, int c);</tt> <br>
      <tt>size_t *strcspn(const char *s, const char *reject);</tt> <br>
      <tt>size_t *strspn(const char *s, const char *accept);</tt> <br>
      <tt>char *strpbrk(const char *s, const char *accept);</tt> <br>
      <tt>char *strchr(const char *s, int c);</tt> <br>
      <tt>char *strrchr(const char *s, int c);</tt> <br>
      <tt>char *strstr(const char *s, const char *substring);</tt> <br>
      <tt>char *strtok(char *s, const char *delim);</tt></p>
       
</ul>
     const void *s is the pointer to the array to be searched.<br>
    int c is the character to search for.<br>
    char *dest&nbsp; is a pointer to the array which will receive the copy. 
 <br>
    const char *src&nbsp; is a pointer to the array from which the copy will
  be made. <br>
    size_t n&nbsp; is the number of characters to be copied.     
<p><b>memchr</b> will search the memory array pointed to by s for character 
  c, up to n characters, returning a pointer to the first location, or NULL 
  if the character is not found in the memory array. </p>
       
<p><b>strcspn</b> returns the length of the beginning of the string s that 
  contains no characters in the reject string. </p>
       
<p><b>strspn</b> returns the length of the beginning of the string s that 
  contains only characters in the accept string. </p>
       
<p><b>strpbrk</b> returns a pointer to the location of the first character 
  in string s that matches any character in the accept string.&nbsp; Or a 
NULL if c is not found in string s. </p>
       
<p><b>strchr</b> will search the string pointed to by s for character c, returning
a pointer to the first location, or NULL if the character is not found in
the string. </p>
       
<p><b>strrchr</b> returns a pointer to the location of the last character 
  in string s that matches the character represented by integer c.&nbsp; Or
 a NULL of c is not found in s. </p>
       
<p><b>strstr</b> returns a pointer to the location of string substring in
  string s, or a NULL if the substring is not found in s. </p>
       
<p>The <b>strtok</b> man page says that there are a lot of problems with this
function and says to never use the function.&nbsp; <b>strtok </b>takes a
string and divides it up into tokens.&nbsp; The first call to the function 
  has string s as its first argument and returns the first token.&nbsp; After 
  the first call the function is called with NULL as the first argument and 
  the function continues to return each token in turn until a NULL is returned 
  when there are no more tokens.&nbsp; The delimiter can be changed with each
 call, or can be kept the same through all the calls.&nbsp; The limitations 
  of this function are many;&nbsp; the function modifies the original string 
  s, the value of the delimiter isn't retained between calls and the function 
  won't work with constant strings. </p>
       
<p> </p>
       
<hr noshade>     
<p><b><font size="+1">Miscellaneous</font></b> </p>
       
<ul>
      <tt>#include &lt;string.h&gt;</tt>             
  <p><tt>void *memset(void *s, int c, size_t n);</tt> <br>
      <tt>char *strerror(int errnum);</tt> <br>
      <tt>size_t *strlen(const char *s);</tt> <br>
    &nbsp;</p>
       
</ul>
     void *s <br>
    int c <br>
    size_t n <br>
    int errnum <br>
    const char *s     
<p><b>memset</b> fills memory array s of size n with the integer value in
  c and returns a pointer to memory array s. </p>
       
<p><b>strerror</b> returns a pointer to the string that describes the errornum 
  passed as an argument, or an unknown error string if the errnum isn't known.&nbsp; 
  This works with various other error related functions in the &lt;stdio.h&gt; 
  and &lt;error.h&gt; libraries that a future article will have to cover in
  great depth. </p>
       
<p><b>strlen</b> returns the number of characters in string s, not including 
  the '\0' string terminator. </p>
       
<p> </p>
       
<hr noshade>     
<p><b><font size="+1">Non-Portable Functions</font></b> </p>
       
<p>The GNU string library has many that the Standard C Library doesn't.&nbsp; 
  The descriptions are taken out of the man pages cut and paste.&nbsp; If 
you want your code to work on any Unix box then don't use these functions.&nbsp; 
  However, they are a good guide for implementing a function in your own code
 that is portable. </p>
       
<p><tt>int strcasecmp(const char *s1, const char *s2);</tt> </p>
       
<p><b>strcasecmp</b> compares the two strings s1&nbsp; and s2,&nbsp; ignoring&nbsp; 
  the&nbsp; case of the characters.&nbsp; It returns an integer less than, 
 equal to, or greater than zero if s1 is found,&nbsp; respectively,&nbsp; 
to&nbsp; be&nbsp; less&nbsp; than, to match, or be greater than s2. </p>
       
<p><tt>int strncasecmp(const char *s1, const char *s2, size_t n);</tt> </p>
       
<p><b>strncasecmp</b> is similar, except it only compares the first n characters 
  of s1. </p>
       
<p><b>strcasecmp </b>and&nbsp; <b>strncasecmp</b> return an integer less than,
equal to, or greater than&nbsp; zero&nbsp; if&nbsp; s1 (or&nbsp; the first
n bytes thereof) is found, respectively, to be less than, to match, or be
greater than s2. </p>
       
<p><tt>char *strdup(const char *s);</tt> </p>
       
<p>I have implemented this function all on my own without knowing about this
  function!&nbsp; I learn something new about Linux everyday. </p>
       
<p><b>strdup</b> returns a pointer to a new string which is a duplicate of
  the string s.&nbsp; Memory for the&nbsp; new string&nbsp; is&nbsp; obtained 
  with malloc(3), and can be freed with free(3). </p>
       
<p><b>strdup</b> returns a pointer to the&nbsp; duplicated string, or NULL 
  if insufficient memory was available. </p>
       
<p><tt>char *strfry(char *string);</tt> </p>
       
<p><b>strfry</b> randomizes the contents of string by using rand(3) to randomly
  swap characters in&nbsp; the&nbsp; string. The result is an anagram of
string.   </p>
       
<p><b>strfry</b> returns a pointer to the randomized string. </p>
       
<p><tt>char *strsep(char **stringp, const char *delim);</tt> </p>
       
<p><b>strsep</b>&nbsp; returns&nbsp; the&nbsp; next token from the string 
  stringp which is delimited by delim.&nbsp; The token&nbsp; is terminated 
 with a `\0' character and stringp is updated to point past the token.&nbsp; 
 Similar to the strtok() function, but is non-portable. </p>
       
<p><b>strsep</b> returns a pointer to the&nbsp; token,&nbsp; or NULL if delim
  is not found in stringp. </p>
       
<p><tt>char *index(const char *s, int c);</tt> </p>
       
<p><b>index</b> returns a pointer to the first occurrence of the character 
  c in the string s.&nbsp; We should probably just use the strchr() function, 
  it performs the same function in a portable manner. </p>
       
<p><tt>char *rindex(const char *s, int c);</tt> </p>
       
<p><b>rindex</b> returns a pointer to the last occurrence of the character 
  c in the string s.&nbsp; The terminating '\0' character is considered to 
 be a part of the strings.&nbsp; Please use the Standard C Library function 
 strrchr(), it performs the exact same function, in a portable manner. </p>
       
<p><b>index</b> and <b>rindex</b> return a pointer to the matched character 
  or NULL if the character is not found. </p>
       
<p> </p>
       
<hr noshade>     
<h3> Corrections to previous articles:</h3>
     That's right!&nbsp; I have <b>finally </b>gotten around to publishing&nbsp; 
  all the accumulated corrections to my previous articles.&nbsp; Just look 
 at all the mistakes that I have made!&nbsp;&nbsp; My thanks to those who 
took the time to e-mail me after noticing a mistake in my articles. <br>
    &nbsp;     
<p><b>Subject:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Standard C Library for Linux,
  Part Three"</b> <br>
    &nbsp; Date:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Wed, 12 Aug 1998 11:27:08 
  +0200 <br>
    &nbsp; From:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Lars Hesdorf &lt;hesdorf@ibm.net&gt; 
  </p>
       
<p>Hej James M. Rogers </p>
       
<p>You wrote somewhere in 
<A HREF="../issue32/rogers.html">The Standard C Library for Linux, Part Three</A> </p>
       
<p>"putchar writes a character to standard out.&nbsp; putchar(x) is the same
  as <br>
    fputc(x, STDIN)" </p>
       
<p>You probably meant "...fputc(x, STDOUT) </p>
       
<p>Lars Hesdorf <br>
    HESDORF@IBM.NET </p>
       
<p>Reply: </p>
       
<p>&nbsp; Actually I think that I even got the capitalization wrong, I believe
  that it should be "fputc(x, <b>stdout</b>)"&nbsp; The example program is
 correct because I compiled and tested that for correctness. <br>
    &nbsp; </p>
       
<p><b>Subject:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Standard
C Library for Linux, Part Two</b> <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Date:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
  Wed, 04 Aug 1999 21:00:59 +1000 <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; From:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
  32000151 &lt;32000151@snetmp.cpg.com.au&gt; <br>
    &nbsp;Organization:&nbsp;&nbsp; Student of Computer Power Institute <br>
    &nbsp; </p>
       
<p>Dear Sir, </p>
       
<p>in <A HREF="../issue31/rogers1.html">The Standard C Library for Linux, 
Part Two</A> you wrote </p>
       
<p>"&nbsp;&nbsp; char *fgets(char *s, int n, FILE *stream); </p>
       
<p>char *s the string that will hold the result. <br>
    int n the maximum number of characters to read. <br>
    FILE *stream is an already existing stream. <br>
    . <br>
    . <br>
    . </p>
       
<p>fgets reads at most n characters from the stream into the string. </p>
       
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; char s[1024]; <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; FILE *stream; <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; if((stream = fopen ("filename", "r")) != (FILE *)0)
 { <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; while((fgets(s, 1023, stream)) !=
 (char  *)0 ) { <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &lt;process each line&gt; 
  <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; } <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; } else { <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &lt;do fopen error handling&gt; 
  <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; } " </p>
       
<p>but fgets() actually reads up to n-1 characters, so it always has room 
  <br>
    for the \0 (if n is set to the array size). </p>
       
<p>Tim McCormack <br>
    32000151@bran.snetmp.cpg.com.au </p>
       
<p><b>Reply:</b> <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp; Thanks, I am going to have to make sure that I used this 
function  correctly in my example program. <br>
    &nbsp; </p>
       
<p><b>&nbsp; Subject:&nbsp; snprintf in Article C Library for Linux?</b> <br>
    &nbsp; Date:&nbsp; Tue, 01 Sep 1998 17:53:19 +0200 <br>
    &nbsp; From: Renaud Hebert &lt;hebert@bcv01y01.vz.cit.alcatel.fr&gt;
</p>
       
<p>I didn't know snprintf, but I think that it is a clever thing to <br>
    do to avoid overflowing the string buffer (much better than the evil
<br>
    sprintf). </p>
       
<p>But that the first time I see it in a C library, so is-it a Linux only 
  <br>
    function or is-it a "new" standard function which wasn't included in
<br>
    HP-UX for example. </p>
       
<p>Maybe you could distinguish in your article, the standard library <br>
    function and those Linux only. </p>
       
<p>Anyway this snprintf function is "A good Thing" TM. </p>
       
<p>Thanks for your articles, they are very well-written and very <br>
    informative. <br>
    -- <br>
    __________________________________________________________________ <br>
    Renaud HEBERT&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
  CR2A-DI <br>
    Software Developer </p>
       
<p><b>Reply:</b> <br>
    &nbsp; I think that it is a GNU only thing.&nbsp; So you may want to
avoid   using the snprintf function unless you only want your programs to
work in   a GNU environment.&nbsp; I found a bunch of very useful GNU only
string functions  and will taking your advice on pointing out those functions
that are only  found in Linux. <br>
    &nbsp; </p>
       
<p><b>Subject:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Standard 
  C Programming Library Part 3</b> <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Date:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
  Sun, 20 Sep 1998 09:52:29 -0400 <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; From:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
  Laurin Killian &lt;lek@uconect.net&gt; <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp; Organization:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
  Streamlined Development <br>
    &nbsp; </p>
       
<p>Since you ask for corrections.... <br>
    There are a couple of typos in your 
<A HREF="../issue32/rogers.html">examples</A>: </p>
       
<p>------------you wrote: <br>
    float x=99.1234; <br>
    sprintf(string, "%d", x) <br>
    ------------should be... <br>
    sprintf(string, "%f", x); <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
  ^ <br>
    ------------you wrote: <br>
    float x=99.1234; <br>
    returnValue=sprintf(string, 4, "%d", x) <br>
    ------------should be... <br>
    returnValue=snprintf(string, 5, "%f", x); <br>
    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
  ^&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
  ^&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ^ <br>
    (to get the desired result of "99.1" - you need space for the null char) 
 </p>
       
<p>All the "scanf" type functions should have ampersands (&amp;): <br>
    scanf("%f%2d%d", &amp;float1, &amp;int1, &amp;int2); </p>
       
<p>Hope this helps <br>
    -Laurin </p>
       
<p><b>Reply:</b> <br>
    &nbsp; Helps a lot, thank you! <br>
    &nbsp; </p>
       
<p><b>Subject:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; character handling program</b>
     <br>
    &nbsp; Date:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Mon, 15 Mar 1999 13:31:41 
  +0100 <br>
    &nbsp; From:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; jorgen.tegner@sundsdefibrator.com 
  </p>
       
<p>Hi, </p>
       
<p>your code in Linux gazette is missing the setlocale() function call at
  the <br>
    beginning. That&acute;s why you don&acute;t get any <br>
    useful results for characters above 127 as programs start out in the
C  locale  by <br>
    default. Also, isalpha(), toupper() <br>
    and tolower() are not restricted to the A-Za-z range. </p>
       
<p>Regards, <br>
    J&ouml;rgen Tegn&eacute;r </p>
       
<p><b>Reply:</b> <br>
    &nbsp; Absolutely right, I am saving setlocale() for when I cover &lt;locale.h&gt;.&nbsp; 
  :) </p>
       
<p> </p>
       
<hr noshade>     
<h4> Bibilography:</h4>
     <i>The ANSI C Programming Language, Second Edition</i>, Brian W. Kernighan, 
  Dennis M. Ritchie, Printice Hall Software Series, 1988     
<p><i>The Standard C Library</i>, P. J. Plauger, Printice Hall P T R, 1992 
  </p>
       
<p><i>The Standard C Library, Parts 1, 2, and 3</i>, Chuck Allison, <i>C/C++ 
  Users Journal</i>, January, February, March 1995 </p>
       
<p>STRING(3), BSD MANPAGE, <i>Linux Programmer's Manual</i> <br>
    &nbsp;</p>
       
<hr noshade>&nbsp;    
<center>    <i> 
<h4>Previous "The Standard C Library for Linux" Articles</h4>
    </i></center>
 <i>   <a href="../issue24/rogers.html">The Standard
 C Library for Linux, stdio.h, January 1998</a><br>
    <a href="../issue31/rogers1.html">The Standard
 C Library for Linux, stdio.h, August 1998</a><br>
    <a href="../issue32/rogers.html">The Standard
 C Library for Linux, stdio.h, September 1998</a><br>
    <a href="../issue38/rogers.html">The Standard
 C Library for Linux, ctype.h, March 1999</a><br>
    <a href="../issue39/rogers.html">The Standard
 C Library for Linux, stdlib.h, April 1999</a><br>
    <a href="../issue41/rogers.html">The Standard
 C Library for Linux, assert.h, May 1999</a><br>
    </i> <br>


<!-- *** BEGIN bio *** -->
<SPACER TYPE="vertical" SIZE="30">
<P> 
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">James Rogers</H4>
<EM>James Rogers is a systems programmer specializing in the area of Cloverleaf
HL7 routers.  He is also currently working on an open source library of HL7
routines.  He hopes to use this library to write an open source HL7
interface engine.</EM>


<!-- *** END bio *** -->

<!-- *** BEGIN copyright *** -->
<P> <hr> <!-- P --> 
<H5 ALIGN=center>

Copyright &copy; 2002, James M Rogers.<BR>
Copying license <A HREF="../copying.html">http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html</A><BR> 
Published in Issue 76 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, March 2002</H5>
<!-- *** END copyright *** -->


<H4 ALIGN="center">
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>

<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--===================================================================-->

<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Writing Documentation, Part IV: Texinfo</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:cspiel@hammersmith-consulting.com">Christoph Spiel</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>  

<!-- END header -->




<a name="texinfo"></a>

<p>Texinfo is the documentation system preferred by GNU projects.</p>

<p>The major design goal of the Texinfo format is to produce high quality
printed output as well as online browsable output from the same source
(<em>.texi</em>) file. Texinfo obtains the basis for a high quality hardcopy
with a trick: it builds on plain TeX and adapts it by reading the
file&nbsp;<em>texinfo.tex</em> (Your system might have more than one copy of
this file. Check that you are really using a recent version (2002-01-04.07 as
of this writing)). <em>texinfo.tex</em> does all the necessary formatting
setup. It extends TeX to recognize hyper-references and all the gizmos that is
needed for online documentation. Rendered for online viewing, Texinfo source
yields Info (<em>.info</em>) files.</p>

<h3><a name="info what's that">Info? What's that?</a></h3>

<p>Info is an ASCII file format suitable for browsing hyperlinked documents.
It is intended to be portable to all platforms which run GNU applications.
Info focuses on textual data; this is, all Info files are viewable from a text
console. High resolution graphics are available only in printed output. Thus,
Info is the GNU counterpart of HTML minus some graphical extras. However, <a
href="#item_texi2html"><code>texi2html(1)</code></a> transforms Texinfo
sources (<em>.texi</em>) directly into HTML; see the section on <a href= 
"#browsers">Browsers</a>.</p>

<h3><a name="document structure">Document Structure</a></h3>

<p>Since Texinfo is based on TeX (see my second article in this series, 
"<a href= 
"../issue74/spiel.html">LaTeX with latex2html</a>"),
we expect to see again a header-body division. Also, the support for 
hyperlinks calls for additional structuring that we will meet in the form of
so-called nodes.</p>

<h4><a name="overall structure">Overall Structure</a></h4>

<p>Every Texinfo document starts by reading <em>texinfo.tex</em> with the
plain TeX command&nbsp;<code>\input</code>. This is about the only place where
plain TeX leaks into Texinfo. The part of the file from the inclusion of
<em>texinfo.tex</em> up to the so called Top node -- more on nodes later -- is
the document's header. The Top node opens up the body of the document, which
extends to the closing command&nbsp;<code>@bye</code>.</p>

<p>All Texinfo commands are introduced with an ``<code>@</code>''-character.
The at-character is followed by one or more letters. Only a few commands require
curly braces to group together their arguments. We have already encountered
the end-of-document command&nbsp;<code>@bye</code>. The following example of a
minimal Texinfo file introduces the comment command, which is <code>@c</code>.
Texinfo comments extend to the end of the line in which they are given.</p>

<blockquote><code>\input texinfo<br>
<br>
<br>
@c === header ===<br>
...<br>
<br>
<br>
@c === body ===<br>
<br>
@c --- Top Node ---<br>
...<br>
<br>
@c --- Sub Nodes ---<br>
...<br>
<br>
<br>
@bye</code></blockquote>

<h4><a name="header">Header</a></h4>

<p>The header of a Texinfo file is optional, but it appears in all documents.
It at least contains the name of the online-reading output file, and the title
used in the printed output.</p>

<p>The output filename is set with the command <code>@setfilename</code>
<em>output-filename</em>. I recommend adding the extension <em>.info</em> to
<em>output-filename</em>, because files without an extension are harder to access
with common shell tools--just think of <code>ls *.info</code>! The argument of
<code>@setfilename</code> reaches right to the end of the line, thus you
cannot add a comment after setting the output filename. Bummer!</p>

<p>Set the document title with
<code>@settitle</code>&nbsp;<em>document-title</em>. Again, the argument
stretches until the end of the line. The title -- as defined by
<code>@settitle</code> -- is used for page headers or footers in the printed
output. It has nothing to do with the document title used on the title page
(if a title page exists at all).</p>

<p>Thus, a simple header looks like this:</p>

<pre>
    @setfilename example.info
    @settitle Texinfo Example
</pre>

<p>Other useful commands in the header are:</p>

<ul>
<li>@afourpaper and @afourwide 

<p>By default Texinfo assumes a paper size of 8.5"&nbsp;by&nbsp;11". Outside
Northern America, paper sizes are chosen according to DIN (DIN is the
abbreviation for ``Deutsche Industrie Norm'', ``German Industry Standard'' in
English). The commands&nbsp;<code>@afourpaper</code> and
<code>@afourwide</code> adjust the printable area for sheets of size
DIN&nbsp;A4, where <code>@afourwide</code> selects a somewhat larger printable
area; it does not switch to landscape.</p>

<p><em>Tip:</em> It is a good plan to inspect the paper size settings of any
foreign Texinfo document before you send it to the printer.</p>
</li>

<li>@setchapternewpage on | off | odd 

<dl>
<dt><strong><a name="item_on">on</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>Start a new page for each chapter. Format page headers and footers for
single-sided printing. This is the default setting.</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_off">off</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>Do not start a new page for a new chapter; just insert some white space
before the new chapter. Format page headers and footers for single-sided
printing.</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_odd">odd</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>Start new chapters on odd-numbered pages. Format page headers and footers
for double-sided (``recto verso'') printing.</dd>
</dl>

<p>Note that no <code>@setchapternewpage&nbsp;even</code>&nbsp;command is
defined.</p>
</li>

<li>@paragraphindent asis | <em>number</em> 

<dl>
<dt><strong><a name="item_asis">asis</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>Do not change indentation</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_number"><em>number</em></a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>Indent the first line of each paragraph by <em>number</em>&nbsp;spaces,
where <em>number</em> can be zero.</dd>
</dl>
</li>
</ul>

<p>Tip: All GNU development projects ship with documentation in Texinfo
format. If you want to print the documentation on your local output device, it
is a good plan to modify the header of the Texinfo files to match your paper
size (Letter, A4) and printing equipment (duplex unit, and so on).</p>

<h4><a name="body">Body</a></h4>

<p>The body of a Texinfo document is a mixture of sectioning commands for
printing (the TeX part: chapters, sections, sub-sections, and so on) and
grouping commands for online viewing (the Info part: nodes). In theory both
parts can impose different structures on the document, however this would
seriously confuse readers -- probably not what you want when writing technical
documentation.</p>

<p>I will present a simplified way of writing the body, where the structure of
the online version and of the printed version closely go together. This saves
the writer the headaches of manually setting up the structure for the online
version at the price of sacrificing some additional navigation possibilities.
The simplified way requires pairing the Info structure information with that
of the printed version.</p>

<p>The Info structure is defined with
<code>@node</code>&nbsp;<em>node-name</em>&nbsp;commands, whereas the printed
structure is given -- among others -- with the
commands&nbsp;<code>@chapter</code>&nbsp;<em>chapter-title</em>,
<code>@section</code> <em>section-title</em>, and
<code>@subsection</code>&nbsp;<em>subsection-title</em>. The
<code>@node</code>&nbsp;command always goes first. So we get, for example,</p>

<pre>
    @node Introduction
    @chapter Introduction
</pre>

<p>or</p>

<pre>
    @node Iterative-Processes
    @section Iterative Processes
</pre>

<p>or</p>

<pre>
    @node Numerical Stability
    @subsection Numerical Stability of Iterative Algorithms
</pre>

<p>The argument to <code>@node</code>, assigns the
name&nbsp;<em>node-name</em> to the node. The name consists of one or more
words. Spaces are perfectly valid in <em>node-name</em>, but
periods&nbsp;``<code>.</code>'', commas&nbsp;``<code>,</code>'',
colons&nbsp;``<code>:</code>'', and apostrophes&nbsp;``<code>'</code>'' are
not. It is also better to avoid commands (anything starting with
``<code>@</code>'') in a node name. Case of node-names is significant. Within
a Texinfo document each node must have a unique name. By convention, node
names are capitalized just as chapter or section titles are.</p>

<p>A node either contains only data (this is, text, tables, images, and
cross-references), or a node defines a navigation menu. I call the former a
Terminal&nbsp;Nodes and the latter a Menu&nbsp;Nodes.</p>

<dl>
<dt><strong><a name="item_Terminal_Node">Terminal Node</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>The structure of a Terminal&nbsp;Node is 

<blockquote><code>@node</code> <var>node-name</var><br>
<code>@section</code> <var>section-title</var><br>
<br>
<var>text-for-node-and-chapter</var></blockquote>

<p>where I use <code>@section</code> as an example for a sectioning
command.</p>

<p>Terminal&nbsp;Nodes are the ``meat'' of a document. They hold all the
visible information. <em>text-for-node-and-chapter</em> usually consists of
one or more paragraphs, tables, and so on.</p>
</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_Menu_Node">Menu Node</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>Menu nodes provide decentralized tables of contents, this is meta
information, from which you can jump to any of the topics referred to in the
menu. 

<p>The structure of a Menu&nbsp;Node is the same as for a Terminal&nbsp;Node,
with the exception that a Menu&nbsp;Node is ended by the definition of a
navigation menu. The navigation menu only goes into the Info version, never
into the printed one.</p>

<blockquote><code>@node</code> <var>node-name</var><br>
<code>@chapter</code> <var>chapter-title</var><br>
<br>
<var>optional-introductory-text-for-node-and-chapter</var><br>
<br>
<code>@menu</code><br>
 <code>*</code> <var>Node name of first section</var><code>::</code>
<var>Synopsis of first section</var><br>
<code>*</code> <var>Node name of second section</var><code>::</code>
<var>Synopsis of second section</var><br>
...<br>
<code>*</code> <var>Node name of last section</var><code>::</code>
<var>Synopsis of last section</var><br>
<code>@end menu</code></blockquote>

<p>A navigation menu is bracketed by</p>

<blockquote><code>@menu</code><br>
<br>
<code>@end menu</code></blockquote>

<p>where every line in between makes up one menu entry. Each menu entry starts
with an asterisk&nbsp;``<code>*</code>'' followed by the name of the node it
points to (the target node's name). It is ended by two colons
``<code>::</code>'' and an optional short description of the target:</p>

<p><code>*</code> <em>Target Node Name</em><code>::</code> <em>Optional
description of target node</em></p>
</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_Top_Node">Top Node</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>One menu node in every Texinfo document plays a special role: the master
menu node from which the rest of the document is accessed. This root node is
called <code>Top</code>&nbsp;node; we define it with the pair 

<blockquote><code>@node Top</code><br>
<code>@top</code> <var>name-of-top-node</var></blockquote>

<p>As the Top node will appear first whenever the online version is browsed
(unless you explicitly specify a node to start browsing with), you want to
have some introductory text to go with it. This introduction often is not
suited for the printed version. The printed version shows no menus at all,
remember? Thus, we want to exclude the introductory text from the printed
version, which is done with the <a href=
"#conditional_translation">conditional translation</a> command pair
<code>@ifinfo</code> and <code>@end ifinfo</code>. A simple Top node then
looks like this:</p>

<blockquote><code>@ifinfo</code><br>
<code>@node</code> Top<br>
<code>@top</code> Example<br>
This is an example Texinfo document.<br>
<br>
<code>@end ifinfo</code><br>
<br>
<code>@menu</code><br>
<code>*</code> Name of first chapter<code>::</code> Synopsis of first
chapter<br>
<code>*</code> Name of second chapter<code>::</code> Synopsis of second
chapter<br>
<code>*</code> Name of third chapter<code>::</code> Synopsis of third
chapter<br>
<code>@end menu</code></blockquote>
</dd>
</dl>

<p>Now we are ready to write a complete Texinfo document.</p>

<pre>
    \input texinfo
</pre>

<pre>
    @setfilename example.info
    @settitle Texinfo Example
</pre>

<pre>
    @ifinfo
    @node Top
    @top Example
</pre>

<pre>
    This is an example Texinfo document.
    @end ifinfo
</pre>

<pre>
    @menu
    * Introduction::                 Definitions, Measures, Complexity
    * Evaluation of Polynomials::    Study of a common operation
    @end menu
</pre>

<pre>
    @node Introduction
    @chapter Introduction
</pre>

<pre>
    In this chapter I define the concepts that will be used throughout the
    rest of the document.  Moreover, measures of efficiencies as well as
    bounds of complexity will be introduced.
</pre>

<pre>
    @menu
    * Definitions::               Fundamental stuff
    * Measures of Efficiency::    How to measure efficiency
    * Bounds of Complexity::      Typical bounds of complexity
    @end menu
</pre>

<pre>
    @node Definitions
    @section Definitions
</pre>

<pre>
    ...
</pre>

<pre>
    @node Measures of Efficiency
    @section Measures of Efficiency
</pre>

<pre>
    ...
</pre>

<pre>
    @node Bounds of Complexity
    @section Bounds of Complexity
</pre>

<pre>
    ...
</pre>

<pre>
    @node Evaluation of Polynomials
    @chapter Evaluation of Polynomials
</pre>

<pre>
    ...
</pre>

<pre>
    @bye
</pre>

<h3><a name="syntax">Syntax</a></h3>

<p>As we have already seen, Texinfo commands start with an at-sign
``<code>@</code>''. The at-sign is either followed by a single non-letter
character or one or more characters. Some commands of the first group
include</p>

<dl>
<dt><strong><a name="item_%40%40"><code>@@</code></a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>Insert a literal at-sign&nbsp;(``<code>@</code>'').</dd>

<dt><strong><a name=
"item_%40%22character"><code>@"</code><em>character</em></a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>Typeset the umlaut equivalent of <em>character</em>, where
<em>character</em> is a single ASCII character like, for example, ``a''. The
same holds for accented (<code>@'</code><em>character</em>), circumflexed
(<code>@^</code><em>character</em>), or cedilla decorated
(<code>@,</code><em>character</em>) characters. See node
``Inserting&nbsp;Accents'' in the Texinfo documentation for details.</dd>
</dl>

<p>and some in the latter group are</p>

<dl>
<dt><strong><a name="item_%40contents">@contents</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>Insert the table of contents where @contents occurs.</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_%40page">@page</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>Start a new page.</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_%40findex_function%2Dname">@findex
<em>function-name</em></a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>Generate an index entry for <em>function-name</em> in the index of all
functions.</dd>
</dl>

<p>Depending on the command, no argument, one argument, or more than one
argument may be required. Some commands require their arguments to be enclosed
on curly braces, like cross references,
<code>@xref{</code><em>node-name</em><code>,</code>
<em>cross-reference-name</em><code>,</code>
<em>title-or-topic</em><code>}</code>. We have seen commands which take rest
of the line as their arguments (for example <code>@setfilename</code>).</p>

<h3><a name="sectioning">Sectioning</a></h3>

<p>As with TeX, we just type text, separating paragraphs with blank lines.
Paragraphs will be filled or even justified depending on the used translation
tools.</p>

<p>Section&nbsp;<a>Body</a> has introduced the main sectioning commands.
<code>@node</code> groups the input together in chunks for online reading. An
accompanying TeX-like sectioning command does the same for the printed output.
In particular Texinfo offers the following sectioning commands:
<code>chapter</code>, <code>section</code>, <code>subsection</code>, and
<code>subsubsection</code>.</p>

<p>Please remember that -- for a simplified node management -- each
<code>@node</code> must be followed by one of the sectioning commands for the
printed version.</p>

<h3><a name="title page">Title Page</a></h3>

<p>Making a decent title page is easy. The
<code>@titlepage</code>&nbsp;command with its sub-commands
<code>@title</code>, <code>@subtitle</code> (optional), and
<code>@author</code> completely takes care of the layout. If you want the
material after the title to go on an odd page add a page
break&nbsp;<a><code>@page</code></a> right before
<code>@end&nbsp;titlepage</code>.</p>

<p>Example:</p>

<pre>
    @titlepage
    @title A Texinfo Example Document
    @subtitle Playing With the Texinfo Format
    @author Joanne H. Acker
    @page @c -- force odd page
    @end titlepage
</pre>

<h3><a name="conditional_translation">Conditional Translation</a></h3>

<p>In the section on the <a href="#item_Top_Node">Top Node</a>, we encountered the
condition translation
command&nbsp;<code>@ifinfo</code>/<code>@end&nbsp;info</code>. Conditional
translation means directing parts of a document to one translator only, or, in
the negated form <code>@ifnotinfo</code>/<code>@end notinfo</code>, excluding
one translator (makeinfo in our example) from processing a chunk of the
document.</p>

<p>The opening (<code>@if</code><em>format</em>) and closing sequence
(<code>@end</code> <em>format</em>) should appear on lines by themselves.</p>

<p>Three conditionals are available in positive and negative form for
diverting data to or away from Info, TeX and HTML.</p>

<pre>
    @iftex
    ...
    @end tex
</pre>

<pre>
    @ifinfo
    ...
    @end info
</pre>

<pre>
    @ifhtml
    ...
    @end html
</pre>

<pre>
    @ifnottex
    ...
    @end nottex
</pre>

<pre>
    @ifnotinfo
    ...
    @end notinfo
</pre>

<pre>
    @ifnothtml
    ...
    @end nothtml
</pre>

<h3><a name="lists">Lists</a></h3>

<p>Texinfo features the fundamental types of lists, which any author expects:
itemized and enumerated lists. Description lists are written in terms of
tables.</p>

<p>All lists nest.</p>

<p>Command&nbsp;<code>@item</code> starts an entry in a list or table. The
entry can comprise several paragraphs or further lists. Did I tell you that
all lists nest? They do!</p>

<dl>
<dt><strong><a name="item_Itemized_Lists">Itemized Lists</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>
<blockquote><code>@itemize</code> <var>glyph</var><br>
<code>@item</code> <var>Text for first item</var><br>
<code>@item</code> <var>Text for second item</var><br>
...<br>
<code>@item</code> <var>Text for last item</var><br>
<code>@end itemize</code></blockquote>

<p>Symbol&nbsp;<em>glyph</em> will be put in front of every item. Useful
values for <em>glyph</em> are <code>@bullet</code>, <code>@minus</code>, and
<code>*</code>.</p>
</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_Enumerated_Lists">Enumerated Lists</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>
<blockquote><code>@enumerate</code> <var>counter-selector</var><br>
<code>@item</code> <var>Text for first item</var><br>
<code>@item</code> <var>Text for second item</var><br>
...<br>
<code>@item</code> <var>Text for last item</var><br>
<code>@end enumerate</code></blockquote>

<p><em>counter-selector</em> selects the type of counter (numeral or letter)
and the starting value. If <em>counter-selector</em> is omitted, the list will
be decorated with Arabic numerals starting at one.</p>

<p>A positive integer value for <em>counter-selector</em> starts the list at
the given value. This is useful when continuing a list. An uppercase or
lowercase letter for <em>counter-selector</em> selects letters for the
enumeration; again, the list starts with the given letter.</p>

<p>Texinfo cannot render enumerate lists with Roman numerals.</p>
</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_Description_Lists">Description
Lists</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>I have mentioned that Texinfo does not offer native description lists, but
emulates typesetting them with two-column tables. So, we get the following
syntax for description lists: 

<blockquote><code>@table</code> <var>format-selector</var><br>
<code>@item</code> <var>First term</var><br>
<var>Description for first item</var><br>
<code>@item</code> <var>Second term</var><br>
<var>Description for second item</var><br>
...<br>
<code>@item</code> <var>Last term</var><br>
<var>Description for last item</var><br>
<code>@end table</code></blockquote>

<p><em>format-selector</em> determines how the terms are typeset. For no added
markup, this is, plain description lists, use <code>@asis</code> as
<em>format-selector</em>. If you have code, sample input or output, variables,
or keystrokes as terms, use <code>@code</code>, <code>@samp</code>,
<code>@var</code>, or <code>@kbd</code> respectively. See
section&nbsp;<a>Inline&nbsp;Markup</a> for how to markup specific items.</p>

<p>Within a table, the argument to <code>@item</code> is all the text from
<code>@item</code> to the end of the line. Note that this is different from
itemized and enumerated lists! Thus, the term in a "description list" can only
be a single line. The text after the <code>@item</code>-line up to the next
<code>@item</code> or the end of the table becomes the term's description. The
description can be several paragraphs long and it can contain other lists, and
so on.</p>

<p>Sometimes we need additional terms on separate lines. Because
<code>@item</code> puts its argument on a single lines, another command is
required: <code>@itemx</code> places an additional term right below an
existing term. <code>@itemx</code> is only valid directly after an
<code>@item</code>&nbsp;command or <code>@itemx</code>&nbsp;command.</p>
</dd>
</dl>

<h3><a name="crossreferences">Cross-References</a></h3>

<p>Texinfo supports a variety of cross reference types: with or without
additional text, within the same file, across different Texinfo files, and to
the outside world.</p>

<p>Nodes are the primary targets of cross references.
<code>@anchor{</code><em>anchor-name</em><code>}</code> marks additional
targets. Command <code>@anchor</code> does not produce any output. The names
of anchors must not conflict with node names.</p>

<dl>
<dt><strong><a name="item_%40xref">@xref</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>Insert a decorated cross reference. @xref formats the decoration for the
start of a sentence. 

<p>Example usage:</p>

<pre>
    ... is the basis for several multi-point
    methods.  @xref{Multi-point Methods}.  We
    study the single point method ...
</pre>
</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_%40pxref">@pxref</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>@pxref behaves like @xref, but it is meant to be used inside parenthesis. 

<p>Example usage:</p>

<pre>
    The algorithm fails at higher order
    roots (@pxref{Higher Order Root}) and
    ill-conditioned roots of order one.
</pre>
</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_%40ref">@ref</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>Inserts an undecorated cross reference. Otherwise it behaves like
@xref.</dd>
</dl>

<p>Until now we have only used the one-argument form of the cross referencing
commands. However, they accept up to five parameters. Here is how the output
changes with the number of parameters. I demonstrate the flexible usage with
@xref.</p>

<dl>
<dt><strong><a name="item_One_Argument">One Argument</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd><code>@xref{</code><em>target-name</em><code>}</code> 

<p>produces</p>

<p><code>*Note</code> <em>target-name</em><code>::</code></p>

<p>in the Info version and</p>

<p><code>See Section</code> <em>target-section</em>
<code>[</code><em>target-name</em><code>],</code> <code>page</code>
<em>target-page</em></p>

<p>in the printed version, where <em>target-section</em> and
<em>target-page</em> are the section number and the page number where the
target lives in the printed version.</p>
</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_Two_Arguments">Two Arguments</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd><code>@xref{</code><em>target-name</em><code>,</code>
<em>cross-reference-name</em><code>}</code> 

<p>produces:</p>

<p><code>*Note</code> <em>cross-reference-name</em><code>:</code>
<em>target-name</em></p>

<p>and</p>

<p><code>See Section</code> <em>target-section</em>
<code>[</code><em>target-name</em><code>],</code> <code>page</code>
<em>target-page</em></p>
</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_Three_Arguments">Three Arguments</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd><code>@xref{</code><em>target-name</em><code>,</code>
<em>cross-reference-name</em><code>,</code>
<em>title-or-topic</em><code>}</code> 

<p>produces:</p>

<p><code>*Note</code> <em>cross-reference-name</em><code>:</code>
<em>target-name</em></p>

<p>and</p>

<p><code>See Section</code> <em>target-section</em>
<code>[</code><em>title-or-topic</em><code>],</code> <code>page</code>
<em>target-page</em></p>
</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_Five_Arguments">Five Arguments</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd><code>@xref{</code><em>target-name</em><code>,</code>
<em>cross-reference-name</em><code>,</code>
<em>title-or-topic</em><code>,</code> <em>info-file-name</em><code>,</code>
<em>printed-manual-title</em><code>}</code> 

<p>produces:</p>

<p><code>*Note</code> <em>cross-reference-name</em><code>:</code>
<code>(</code><em>info-file-name</em><code>)</code><em>target-name</em></p>

<p>and</p>

<p><code>See section</code>
<code>"</code><em>title-or-topic</em><code>"</code> <code>in</code>
<em>printed-manual-title</em></p>
</dd>
</dl>

<h3><a name="inline markup">Inline Markup</a></h3>

<p>Texinfo defines a whole bunch of commands to markup special parts of text
as being code, input from the user, a filename, and so on.</p>

<ul>
<li><code>@emph{</code><em>text-in-italics</em><code>}</code> 

<p>Render <em>text-in-italics</em> in italics. Info approximates italicization
with underscores that bracket <em>text-in-italics</em>.</p>

<p>Example:</p>

<pre>
    Use tex(1), @emph{not} latex(1) to process
    your Texinfo files.
</pre>
</li>

<li><code>@strong{</code><em>bold-text</em><code>}</code> 

<p>Render <em>bold-text</em> in boldface. Info approximates boldface with
asterisks that bracket <em>bold-text</em>.</p>

<p>Example:</p>

<pre>
    Info files @strong{cannot} contain high
    resolution graphics.
</pre>
</li>

<li><code>@file{</code><em>filename</em><code>}</code> 

<p>Make <em>filename</em> stand out by surrounding it with single quotes, like
<code>`filename'</code>. The printer version typesets <em>filename</em> in
typewriter font.</p>

<p>Example:</p>

<pre>
    Ensure the latest version of
    @file{texinfo.tex} is installed on your Linux box.
</pre>
</li>

<li><code>@url{</code><em>universal-resource-locator</em><code>}</code> 

<p>Identify a universal resource locator (URL). The online version will show
angle brackets around <em>universal-resource-locator</em>. The printed version
does not add angle brackets, but typesets <em>universal-resource-locator</em>
in typewriter font.</p>

<p>Example:</p>

<pre>
    More information on Texinfo can be
    found at @url{<a href="http://texinfo.org/">http://texinfo.org/</a>}.
</pre>
</li>

<li><code>@code{</code><em>program-code</em><code>}</code> 

<p>Mark up short pieces of program code.</p>

<pre>
    Prefer the two-argument form of
    @code{bless}, this is, always write
    @code{bless $objref, $class}.
</pre>
</li>

<li><code>@samp{</code><em>literal-text</em><code>}</code> 

<p>Mark up literal characters, literal text, symbol names, and so on.</p>

<pre>
    Angle brackets (@samp{&lt;}, @samp{&gt;}) are the
    main delimiters used in HTML.
</pre>
</li>

<li><code>@var{</code><em>replaceable-item</em><code>}</code> 

<p>Mark up meta-syntactic variables, the famous <code>foo</code> and
<code>bar</code>.</p>

<pre>
    The Perl command @code{bless} is best called
    with two arguments, like @code{bless
    @var{object_reference}, @var{classname}}.
</pre>
</li>

<li><code>@kbd{</code><em>keystrokes</em><code>}</code> 

<p>Mark up a single keystroke or a series of keystrokes.</p>

<pre>
    Within emacs, type @kbd{C-h i} to start the
    built-in Info browser, or type @kbd{M-x
    info}.
</pre>
</li>

<li><code>@command{</code><em>command-name</em><code>}</code> 

<p>Mark up a command name.</p>

<pre>
    The two most important shell commands are
    @command{ls} and @command{cd}.
</pre>
</li>

<li><code>@option{</code><em>option-name</em><code>}</code> 

<p>Mark up an option name. Use <code>@option</code> in running text like</p>

<pre>
    Option @option{--html} forces
    @command{makeinfo} to generate HTML output
    instead of Info.
</pre>

<p><code>@option</code> is not suited for marking up a command's synopsis. To
mark up a synopsis use the <code>@example</code>-environment. Say</p>

<pre>
    @example
        makeinfo --html --output=@var{output-filename} @var{input-filename}
    @end example
</pre>

<p>and refer to the options in the running text with
<code>@option{--html}</code> and <code>@option{--output}</code>, as well as to
the arguments <code>@var{output-filename}</code> and
<code>@var{input-filename}</code>.</p>
</li>
</ul>

<h3><a name="tools">Tools</a></h3>

<dl>
<dt><strong><a name="item_makeinfo">makeinfo</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>makeinfo transforms Texinfo files&nbsp;(<em>.texi</em>) into 

<ol>
<li>Info 

<p>By default, makeinfo generates Info files with the filename selected by
<code>@setfilename</code>. Option&nbsp;<code>--no-split</code> prevents
makeinfo from breaking the output in chunks (approximately 50KB in size).</p>

<p>Processing a Texinfo file with makeinfo also thoroughly validates the input
file.</p>
</li>

<li>Plain ASCII 

<p>Option&nbsp;<code>--no-headers</code> makes makeinfo generate plain ASCII
files. Plain ASCII is a useful format for proofreading the online version and
also for applying spelling checkers like, for example, diction(1).</p>
</li>
</ol>
</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_texi2html">texi2html</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>As you might have guessed from the command's name, texi2html transforms
Texinfo into HTML. Option&nbsp;<code>-monolithic</code> forces the output of a
single file. Option&nbsp;<code>-split</code> on the other hand forces one file
per node. 

<p>texi2html by default converts <code>@iftex</code>&nbsp;sections and not
<code>@ifinfo</code> ones. You can reverse this behavior with the
<code>-expandinfo</code>&nbsp;option.</p>

<p>Note that all of texi2html's options start with a single dash.</p>
</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_texi2dvi">texi2dvi</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>Produce a device independent file&nbsp;<em>.dvi</em> form Texinfo source.
To get Postscript, apply <code>dvips(1)</code> to the <em>.dvi</em>&nbsp;file.
I have found the options <code>--clean</code> and <code>--quiet</code> useful.
The first removes all intermediate files, leaving only the final
<em>.dvi</em>&nbsp;file. The second suppresses all non-essential messages
(``No gnews is good gnews!'').</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_texi2pdf">texi2pdf</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>texi2pdf makes a Portable Document File&nbsp;(<em>.pdf</em>) from Texinfo
source in one shot. It accepts the same options as texi2dvi does. However, I
found, it definitely wants to see option&nbsp;<code>--pdf</code> or it stops,
crying for a <em>.dvi</em>&nbsp;file even if this very file exists. Argh! So,
my typical calls are 

<pre>
    texi2pdf --quiet --clean --pdf foobar.texi
</pre>
</dd>
</dl>

<h3><a name="browsers">Browsers</a></h3>

<p>Texinfo differs from all the document preparation systems that we have had
a look at so far, for Texinfo can be translated in an online viewing format
different from HTML, namely: Info. Having an online viewing format, we need
browsers to actually view it!</p>

<dl>
<dt><strong><a name="item_info">info</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>
<p><code>info</code>, the mother of all Info browsers, is a simple but
efficient browser for <a href="misc/spiel/info-screenshot.png">viewing Info
files</a> at a console.</p>

<p>To view the Info pages of <em>topic</em>, use</p>

<pre>
    info topic
</pre>

<p>To browse Info file&nbsp;<em>info-file</em>, add
<code>--file=</code><em>info-file</em> to the invocation of info, where
<em>info-file</em> contains the complete path to the Info file.</p>

<p>If you would like to start browsing at specific
node&nbsp;<em>node-name</em>, add <code>--node=</code><em>node-name</em>.</p>

<p>My favorite mistake is mixing up <em>topic</em> with <em>info-file</em>,
this is saying</p>

<pre>
    info ./cache-profiler.info
</pre>

<p>when I really mean</p>

<pre>
    info --file=./cache-profiler.info
</pre>
</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_pinfo">pinfo</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>
<p>pinfo is a <code>curses(3)</code> based Info browser with
<code>lynx(1)</code> like navigation. pinfo does a <a href= 
"misc/spiel/pinfo-screenshot.png">nice job colorizing</a> Info pages.</p>
</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_emacs">emacs</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>
<p>Emacs version 21.x features an improved Info browsing mode as proves this
<a href="misc/spiel/emacs-screenshot.png">screen shot</a>.</p>

<blockquote><em>I know, it's only Emacs Info, but I like it, like it! Yes, I
do!</em></blockquote>

<p>You browse the installed Info documents (`<code>C-h i</code>', <a href= 
"#item_info"><code>info</code></a>). Or you load an Info file into Emacs and
turn the buffer an Info-browser with <code>Info-on-current-buffer</code> (note
the capital "I"). If you dislike switching between the Info buffer and you
working buffers, open the file to browse in another frame (`<code>C-x 5
f</code>', <code>find-file-other-frame</code>). To open a new frame with an
Info browser in it, switch to the <code>*info*</code>&nbsp;buffer in your
current emacs and issue <code>view-buffer-other-frame</code>.</p>

<p>For additional browsing pleasure, try
<code>Info-speedbar-browser</code>.</p>
</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_xinfo">xinfo</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>xinfo is an ancient Info browser for the use under X11. It does not do any
colorization. What bothers me most about xinfo -- to the degree that I refuse to
use this browser -- is the separation of navigation hot spots and display.
This means you have to click in the topmost pane to navigate a menu shown in
the second pane. Clicking directly on the menu item in the second pane has no
effect. 

<p>Here is a <a href="misc/spiel/xinfo-screenshot.png">screen shot</a>.</p>
</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_tkinfo">tkinfo</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>
<p>My favorite X-based Info browser! It has all the nice features of
<code>info(1)</code>, starts up fast and has a <a href= 
"misc/spiel/tkinfo-screenshot.png">compact layout</a>.</p>
</dd>

<dt><strong><a name=
"item_gnome%2Dhelp%2Dbrowser">gnome-help-browser</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>
<p>If you are a Gnome user, you probably know the
<code>gnome-help-browser(1x)</code>. It <a href=
"misc/spiel/ghb-screenshot.png">displays Info pages</a>, too.</p>
</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_kdehelp">kdehelp</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>
<p>Same for KDE users... You probably know <code>kdehelp(1x)</code>. Amongst
various other formats it also <a href=
"misc/spiel/kdehelp-screenshot.png">displays Info pages</a>.</p>

<p>kdehelp is easily convinced to browse a specific Info file:</p>

<pre>
    kdehelp ./cache-profiler.info
</pre>

<p>Thumbs up!</p>

<p><CODE>konqueror</CODE> also displays info files (at least konqueror 2.2.2);
just type "info:" in the Location: bar.</p>  
</dd>
</dl>

<H4>Overview of Common Info Browsers</H4>

<center>
<table border="1" summary="Overview of important features of some common Info 
browsers.">
<caption align="left">Overview of Common Info Browsers. Multi-format browser
accept other formats than Info. X11-based browsers require X11 to run.
<code>info</code>-like navigation duplicates the navigation commands of
<code>info(1)</code>.</caption>

<tr>
<th scope="col">Application</th>
<th scope="col">Multi-format</th>
<th scope="col">X11-based</th>
<th scope="col"><code>info</code> Navigation</th>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>info</code></td>
<td align="center">no</td>
<td align="center">no</td>
<td align="center">yes</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>pinfo</code></td>
<td align="center">no</td>
<td align="center">no</td>
<td align="center">no</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>emacs</code></td>
<td align="center">no</td>
<td align="center">no</td>
<td align="center">yes</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>xinfo</code></td>
<td align="center">no</td>
<td align="center">yes</td>
<td align="center">yes</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>tkinfo</code></td>
<td align="center">no</td>
<td align="center">yes</td>
<td align="center">yes</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>gnome-help-browser</code></td>
<td align="center">yes</td>
<td align="center">yes</td>
<td align="center">no</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>kdehelp</code></td>
<td align="center">yes</td>
<td align="center">yes</td>
<td align="center">no</td>
</tr>
</table>
</center>

<h2><a name="pros and cons">Pros and Cons</a></h2>

<dl>
<dt><strong><a name="item_Pros">Pros</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>
<ul>
<li>Texinfo format: user definable macros (not shown in this article)</li>

<li>TeX output: perfect typesetting, fantastic hardcopy quality</li>

<li>Info format: alternative to ubiquitous HTML</li>

<li>Info browsers: uniform, fast and easy navigation</li>
</ul>
</dd>

<dt><strong><a name="item_Cons">Cons</a></strong><br>
</dt>

<dd>
<ul>
<li>Texinfo source format: 

<ul>
<li>4-argument nodes difficult to maintain without emacs(1). (In this article,
I have not shown the 4-argument form, but introduced the simplified 1-argument
form of nodes.)</li>

<li>1-argument nodes plus sectioning commands more difficult than
necessary</li>
</ul>
</li>

<li>Info format: Info is rendered statically, this is, browsers do not refill
paragraphs if the line width in a browser is different from the linewidth when
the Info page was generated. HTML browsers usually handle this automatic
refilling.</li>
</ul>
</dd>
</dl>

<h2><a name="further reading">Further Reading</a></h2>

<p>The home page of Texinfo, with lots of references and all that,
is located at <a
href="http://texinfo.org/">http://texinfo.org/</a></p>

<p>Available converters for Texinfo are listed at <a href= 
"http://www.fido.de/kama/texinfo/texinfo-en.html">http://www.fido.de/kama/texinfo/texinfo-en.html</a></p>





<!-- *** BEGIN bio *** -->
<SPACER TYPE="vertical" SIZE="30">
<P> 
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Christoph Spiel</H4>
<EM>Chris runs an Open Source Software consulting company in Upper Bavaria, Germany.
Despite being trained as a physicist -- he holds a PhD in physics from Munich
University of Technology -- his main interests revolve around numerics,
heterogenous programming environments, and software engineering.  He can be
reached at 
<A
HREF="mailto:cspiel@hammersmith-consulting.com">cspiel@hammersmith-consulting.com</A>.</EM>

<!-- *** END bio *** -->

<!-- *** BEGIN copyright *** -->
<P> <hr> <!-- P --> 
<H5 ALIGN=center>

Copyright &copy; 2002, Christoph Spiel.<BR>
Copying license <A HREF="../copying.html">http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html</A><BR> 
Published in Issue 76 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, March 2002</H5>
<!-- *** END copyright *** -->


<H4 ALIGN="center">
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>

<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--===================================================================-->

<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Poetry Requiem</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:mv@liisa.pp.fi">Martin Vermeer</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>  

<!-- END header -->

<BLOCKQUOTE>
	<H3>Business Model, Failed</H3>

	Today, poetry went into receivership.<br>
	Which is why this poem doesn't rhyme,<br>
	so the creditors won't notice.
</BLOCKQUOTE>

<P> Linux, like poetry, is not contingent upon the existence of successful
business models. It cannot actually go bankrupt. Its success is 
unrelated to business success.

<P> Previous LG articles by Martin (both allegorical stories):
<UL>
<LI><A HREF="../issue28/vermeer2.html">A Tale in Writing</A>
<LI><A HREF="../issue32/vermeer.html">It Takes a Toll</A>
</UL>





<!-- *** BEGIN bio *** -->
<SPACER TYPE="vertical" SIZE="30">
<P>
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">Martin Vermeer</H4>
<EM>Martin is a European citizen born in The Netherlands in 1953 
and living with his wife in Helsinki, Finland, since 1981.  He is
professor of Geodesy at the Department of Surveying, Helsinki University of Technology.
His first UNIX experience was in 1984 with OS-9, running on a Dragon
MC6809E home computer (64k memory, 720k disk!). He is a relative newcomer
to Linux, installing RH4.0 February 1997 on his home PC and, encouraged,
only a week later on his job PC. Now he runs Red Hat 6.2 exclusively at both home and work.
Special Linux interests: LyX and Tcl/Tk.</EM>


<!-- *** END bio *** -->

<!-- *** BEGIN copyright *** -->
<P> <hr> <!-- P --> 
<H5 ALIGN=center>

Copyright &copy; 2002, Martin Vermeer.<BR>
Copying license <A HREF="../copying.html">http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html</A><BR> 
Published in Issue 76 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, March 2002</H5>
<!-- *** END copyright *** -->


<H4 ALIGN="center">
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>

<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--===================================================================-->

<center>
<H1><font color="maroon">Implementing a Bridging Firewall</font></H1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:david.whitmarsh@sparkle-consultancy.co.uk">David Whitmarsh</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>  

<!-- END header -->




What is the difference between a bridging firewall and a conventional firewall?
Usually a firewall also acts as a router: systems on the inside are configured
to see the firewall as a gateway to the network outside, and routers outside
are configured to see the firewall as the gateway to the protected network. A
bridge is piece of equipment that connects two (or more) network segments
together and passes packets back and forth without the rest of the network
being aware of its existence.  In other words, a router connects two networks
together and translates between them; a bridge is like a patch cable,
connecting two portions of one network together.  A bridging firewall acts as a
bridge but also filters the packets it passes, while remaining unseen by either
side.<p>

Why might you want to so such a thing? A couple of reasons spring to mind:<p>

<ul>
<li>You can plug in a firewall without changing any of your existing network software configuration.
<li>You may want to protect part of a network where you do not have control of the external routing into your network.
</ul>

<h2>My Problem</h2>

In my office I had a shiny new ADSL connection from Demon Internet
with an assigned 16 address subnet (less base, broadcast and router IP
= 13 IP addresses). Because of the vagaries of the UK commercial and
regulatory environment, the line and router were installed and owned by
British Telecom plc. and there was no facility to configure the router
to use an internal gateway.  This left me two choices:

<ul>
<li>Connect every host directly to the ADSL router and set up iptables separately for each one.
<li>Use a firewall with ip masquerading to present a single ip address to the outside world.
</ul>

The first was untenable.  Multiplying the number of iptable configurations
multiplied the chances of error and the administration overhead.
The second had its own drawbacks. While most things can be set up to
work quite happily with IP masquerading, there are exceptions, including
some technologies that I wished to explore, such as VPNs. A bridging
firewall would solve this problem. The firewall could stand between the
ADSL router and the rest of the router and protect the network without
reconfiguring the router. The one remaining obstacle was that the bridging
code in the standard Linux kernel completely bypasses iptables, so you
can have a box which is either a bridge, or a firewall, but not both.

<h2>The Solution</h2>

Fortunately, there is a <a href="http://bridge.sourceforge.net">project</a>
to implement bridging in conjunction with iptables, so that any packets
transmitted across the bridge can be subject to iptables rules. The
result is a firewall that can be totally transparent to the network,
requiring no special routing. As far as the Internet is concerned, the
firewall does not exist, except that certain connections are blocked. The
bridge software is a kernel patch to allow the existing bridge code to
work inside iptables. Conveniently, the developers have made available
a Redhat 7.2 kernel rpm with the patch installed. Less conveniently,
documentation on how to use it is minimal, so I thought to document this
implementation as an aid to anyone else following the same path.<p>

<h2>Bridging and Routing - how it works</h2>

Briefly. the linux bridge implementation works by tying together two
or more network interfaces. By monitoring activity on all the attached
network segments the bridge code learns which MAC addresses are accessible
from each interface and uses this information to decide which packets to
send out on each interface. The interfaces attached to the bridge to not
normally have an IP address associated with them, but the entire bridge
is configured as a single interface to the firewall.

<img src="misc/whitmarsh/flows.png" alt="packet flows within the firewall"><p>

<h2>Network topology</h2>

My allocated static IP addresses are in the range xxx.xxx.xxx.48-63,
i.e. a subnet mask of 255.255.255.240. I decided to split this range
into two network segments,xx.xxx.xxx.48-56 would be used outside the
firewall, and this includes the IP address of the ADSL router itself
(xxx.xxx.xxx.49). xxx.xxx.xxx.57-62 would be the secure section behind
the firewall. Note that these are not truly subnets as they are linked
by a bridge rather than a router.<p>

<img src="misc/whitmarsh/network.png" alt="network topology"><p>

<h2>Firewall Rules</h2>

The <a href="misc/whitmarsh/rc.firewall.sh.txt">sample firewall script</a>
is broadly similar to a conventional firewall setup (cribbed from 
<a href="http://www.boingworld.com/workshops/linux/iptables-tutorial/iptables-tutorial/iptables-tutorial.html">
Oskar Andreasson's iptables tutorial</a>. The basic firewall policy is:

<ol>
<li>Block packets from unlikely IP addresses
<li>Allow any outgoing connections from behind the firewall
<li>Allow packets in that belong to established connections
<li>Allow connections to specified ports and hosts from outside
</ol>

<h3>Variable definitions</h3>

For clarity and maintainability it is a good idea to keep interface names
and IP addresses as variables. The values used for these examples are:<p>

<pre>
BR_IP="xxx.xxx.xxx.57"
BR_IFACE=br0

LAN_BCAST_ADDRESS="xxx.xxx.xxx.63"
INTERNAL_ADDRESS_RANGE="xxx.xxx.xxx.56/29"

INET_IFACE="eth1"
LAN_IFACE="eth0"

LO_IFACE="lo"
LO_IP="127.0.0.1"
</pre>

"xxx.xxx.xxx" represents the first three bytes of the network IP
addresses. $INTERNAL_ADDRESS_RANGE is the secure network segment.<p>

<h3>Setting up the bridge</h3>

We have to do a some less conventional things to set up the bridge. First
we shut down our two interfaces and remove any IP address from them.<p>

<pre>
ifdown $INET_IFACE
ifdown $LAN_IFACE
ifconfig $INET_IFACE 0.0.0.0
ifconfig $LAN_IFACE 0.0.0.0
</pre>

If you just executed these commands from a telnet connection (or ssh
as you are so security conscious), get up and cross the room to your
firewall's console.<p>

Next we create a bridge and assign the Ethernet interfaces to it.<p>
<pre>
brctl addbr $BR_IFACE

brctl addif $BR_IFACE $INET_IFACE
brctl addif $BR_IFACE $LAN_IFACE
</pre>

You can now bring up the bridge as an internal interface if you wish:

<pre>
ifconfig $BR_IFACE $BR_IP
</pre>

<h3>Blocking spoofs</h3>

We can block spoofed packets in the mangle PREROUTING chain. By blocking
here we can catch both INPUT and FORWARDED packets at the same time. We
use mangle PREROUTING rather than nat PREROUTING because only the first
packet of each stream is checked in the nat table.<p>

This line ensures that only packets with valid internal addresses are
accepted on the internal interface.<p>

<pre>
$IPTABLES -t mangle -A PREROUTING -i $LAN_IFACE -s $INTERNAL_ADDRESS_RANGE -j ACCEPT
</pre>

And this prevents packets with internal addresses being accepted on the
external interface:<p>

<pre>
$IPTABLES -t mangle -A PREROUTING -i $INET_IFACE ! -s $INTERNAL_ADDRESS_RANGE -j ACCEPT
</pre>

<h3>Accessing the firewall from the internal network</h3>

You may choose to leave your firewall completely invisible to the network,
or you may wish for convenience to allow connections from within.  
These commands will allow all connections to the firewall from the
internal network only. You may wish to be more selective depending on
your level of trust of your network systems and users.<p>

<pre>
$IPTABLES -A INPUT -p ALL -i $BR_IFACE -s $INTERNAL_ADDRESS_RANGE -d $LAN_BCAST_ADDRESS -j ACCEPT
$IPTABLES -A INPUT -p ALL -i $BR_IFACE -s $INTERNAL_ADDRESS_RANGE -d $BR_IP -j ACCEPT
</pre>

Remember that we have already eliminated packets that claim to be from
$INTERNAL_ADDRESS_RANGE that appear on the wrong interface.<p>

<h2>More information</h2>

<a href="http://bridge.soureforge.net">The kernel patch</a> without which all your iptables rules are in vain.<br>
Oskar Andreasson's <a href="http://www.boingworld.com/workshops/linux/iptables-tutorial/iptables-tutorial/iptables-tutorial.html">iptables tutorial</a> is recommended reading.<br>
Try <a href="http://netfilter.samba.org/unreliable-guides/">Rusty's Remarkably Unreliable Guides</a>
for background on packet filtering and networking.<br>
<p>
<a href="http://www.sparkle-cc.co.uk/index.html" target=_parent>Sparkle Home Page</a>
(the author's company)
<p>

<h2>Acknowledgments</h2>

Thanks to <a href="mailto:buytenh@gnu.org">Lennert Buytenhek</a> for a
really useful patch, and also for reviewing this article.<p>


<!-- *** BEGIN bio *** -->
<SPACER TYPE="vertical" SIZE="30">
<P> 
<H4><IMG ALIGN=BOTTOM ALT="" SRC="../gx/note.gif">David Whitmarsh</H4>
<EM>David is an independent consultant working mostly for
financial institutions in the City of London through his company, 
<a href="http://www.sparkle-cc.co.uk/index.html" target=_parent>Sparkle Computer Co Ltd</a>.  With four young children,
spare time is a precious commodity, so the daily commute from Sussex is
his main opportunity for tinkering with Linux and open source software
on his laptop.</EM>


<!-- *** END bio *** -->

<!-- *** BEGIN copyright *** -->
<P> <hr> <!-- P --> 
<H5 ALIGN=center>

Copyright &copy; 2002, David Whitmarsh.<BR>
Copying license <A HREF="../copying.html">http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html</A><BR> 
Published in Issue 76 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, March 2002</H5>
<!-- *** END copyright *** -->


<H4 ALIGN="center">
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
</H4>

<P> <hr> <P> 

<H1><font color="maroon">The Back Page</font></H1>

<ul>
<li><a HREF="#wacko">Wacko Topic of the Month</a>
<li><a HREF="#nottag">Not The Answer Gang</a>
<li><a HREF="#spam">World of Spam</a>
</ul>

<a name="wacko"></a>
<P> <hr> <P> 
<!--====================================================================-->

<center><H3><font color="maroon">Wacko Topic of the Month</font></H3></center>

<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--======================================================================-->
<P>
<H3 ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="green">Coal port</FONT></H3>

<p align="right"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><strong>Contributed By Thomas Adam
</strong></FONT></p>


My main PC is a 166 pentium with 32MB ram. This beast
also has a "coal" port at the back so that if the
speed starts to dwindle, then you can "stoke" her up.
<IMG ALT=":)" SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" WIDTH="20" HEIGHT="24">








<a name="nottag"></a>
<P> <hr> <P> 
<!--====================================================================-->

<center><H3><font color="maroon">Not The Answer Gang</font></H3></center>


<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--======================================================================-->
<P>
<H3 ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="green">Hacking</FONT></H3>

<p align="right"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><strong>Answered By Jay Ashworth, Iron</A>
</strong></FONT></p>


<STRONG>
hi my name is phill and i am new to hacking i have done a few hacks with
some trojan programs but nothing big and i dont no were to start if you would
be willing to help me with some skills on how to hack that dbe great
i really wanna get some advanced hacking skillsGet more from the Web.  FREE
REE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
</STRONG>

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Jay]

<P>
Anyone wanna take a swing?


<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
I held back because I know Dan Wilder and Ben Okopnik will soon be posting
volumuous pieces of Helpful Advice, and Heather will chime later in with an extra
special spin, maybe with a supermarket analogy or something to surprise us.

<P> What do you have to say, Jay?

	<BLOCKQUOTE>
	<P>
	<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
		HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
		> [Jay]

	Given that I have to *work* with a new trainee consultant who sounds
	like this, I don't think it's safe for my blood pressure to say
	anything.  I work for a living; I suppose I ought to pay the script
	kiddies for improving my revenue, but the whole thing sorta galls my
	sister.
	<P>
	</BLOCKQUOTE>

<P> Our last published piece on hacking I could find was:
<A HREF="http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue71/lg_backpage71.html#nottag">http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue71/lg_backpage71.html#nottag</A>
("Help me crack my school")
But I'm sure there were more in 2001 somewhere, either in The Answer Gang
column or on the Back Page.

<P> I do wonder why a hacker-wannabe is using MSN for a mail service....

	<BLOCKQUOTE>
	The prosecution *rests*.

	<P> He's not a "hacker" wannabe.  He's a "cracker" wannabe.
	Or, if you prefer, a juvenile delinquent.
	</BLOCKQUOTE>

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
Diving into dry pools head-first is a good start, particularly from the
high board - it's been known to cure incipient crackers. Sure, some - well,
most - end up looking like a squashed bug, but you've got to admit, it's
much better than the alternative. Be sure to try it today!

<P> For advanced hacking skills, take a look at Eric S. Raymond's "How To Become A
Hacker", at 
<A HREF="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html">http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html</A>. That takes you
all the way from beginner to advanced... not what you meant? Oh, right, I
forgot; when the cracker maggots invade your brain, language skills are the
first thing to go. &lt;shrug&gt; I guess you'll never be able to explain what you
really want, now. I understand that progression of the disease is difficult to
reverse, deterioration is rapid, and the prognosis is NOT positive.

<P> A friend of mine's got a 10th floor apartment, and the pool might even have
been emptied for the winter. Want me to ask? Really, it wouldn't take long
at all...

<P> Regarding MSN, Good news!!! I've got a *great* cracking opportunity coming up for you;
you'll need to break into MSN and establish a new account. See, you'll
*have* to do this because I'm about to report your criminal activities to
MSN - including your confession of having already "done a few hacks with
some trojan programs", so that even their admin people can have a laugh at
your terminally moronic behavior. All they have to do is look at the
headers in your e-mail (didn't know about those, did you?), compare them
with the copy that will still be on their servers (missed that one too,
huh?), and TOSs your ass so hard that you'll bounce.

<P> You know, if you ask the folks at your local TV or radio station, they
might let you climb their tower - you could get a coupla hundred feet up
that way - and you could always drag up a bathtub. Seriously, give it a
shot: it can't hurt. Well, actually it would, but it's the kind of thing
you're supposed to say...


<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Jay]

<P>
Now, *see*?  I *knew* Ben would come up with something lyrical.

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
I've got to give MSN their due: they actually have humans assigned to
dealing with this stuff, and when these folks LART one, they let you know:
"Hi, my name is X, and I'm the one assigned to this case. I've examined the
information you've sent us, and terminated our former customer on that
basis. Thank you for...", etc. They also seem to pay attention to the info
that you send them in the complaint letter. My "spamkill" file contains
quite a few from them.





<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--======================================================================-->
<P>
<H3 ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="green">More Tux trivia</FONT></H3>

<p align="right"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><strong>Answered By Iron, Heather Stern,
Rachel Rawlings
</strong></FONT></p>

<H4>This is a follow-up to an important issue we 
<A HREF="../issue74/lg_backpage.html#nottag">reported</A> in January, namely:</H4>
<STRONG>
When I gave her a stuffed Tux as a present,
my Girlfriend asked me, what it's sex is?
</STRONG>

<H4>At the time, I commented:</H4>
<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
Four out of five sexist computer nerds surveyed agree Tux is male.

<H4>Now we have some updated commentary:</H4>

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Heather]

That might refer to Linus' original comment that penguins are happy 
because they have just stuffed themselves full of herring or have been 
hanging out with lady penguins. We only <EM>know</EM> that Tux is stuffed full 
of herring, but we can assume Tux hangs out with lady penguins. 


<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Rachel]

<P>
Which actually doesn't get say definitively whether Tux is male. Tux 
could hang out with lady penguins cf. Marlena Dietrich, or be a 
high-class drag king. 
<IMG ALT=":&gt;" SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" WIDTH="20" HEIGHT="24">

<P> However, speaking as a dyke with a largish stuffed animal collection 
(one of whom is a female Peter Rabbit named Katja), my Tux is male. Other 
users' Tuxen may vary according to the needs of the user, much like 
their kernel configurations.

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
Interesting.  I wonder if Eric Raymond's enhanced kernel configurator
will have a question for which sex your kernel should be built as.





<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--======================================================================-->
<P>
<H3 ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="green">More on Ben's reputation</FONT></H3>

<p align="right"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><strong>Answered By Ben Okopnik, Iron, Faber Fedor</A>
</strong></FONT></p>


<STRONG>
<CITE>Ben writes:</CITE><BR>
You're always
welcome to control "further correspondence from Mr. Ben Okopnik" _in your
mailbox_ via your 'Del' key... 
</STRONG>

<BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>

Why, that's mighty fine of you, Ben.  You must be getting soft in your old age.
You can't wear those dark menacing LG sunglasses anymore.

</BLOCKQUOTE>

<STRONG>
I'm neither a friend of yours or a paid
consultant for you. 
</STRONG>

<BLOCKQUOTE>
Now that sounds right proper curdgemeonly (sp).  OK, you can keep the glasses.
</BLOCKQUOTE>

<STRONG>
if you have either a thick head or a thin
skin, 
</STRONG>

<BLOCKQUOTE>
And we'll get you a pirate eye patch to go with it.  Hey, you can use that on your
sea voyages too!  Do you need a flag with a skull and crossbones too or do you already
have that?  Or maybe your flag is getting a bit tattered....

<P> By the way, guess what came in the spam today.  Just perfect for Ben.
<PRE>
Subject: Your metals sunglasses

One of the world largest Sunglasses company is clearing stock.
Get a pair of Sexy Metals Sunglasses model 2002 for free
while stock last.
</PRE> 
</BLOCKQUOTE>


<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
&lt;Splort&gt; You... you... &lt;Daffy Duck mode&gt; You're dethhhhhhpicable. &lt;/DDm&gt;

<P> Besides, you probably wouldn't want "Metals sunglasses"; I understand that
Metal gets mean after a few drinks, and he *really* gets upset about people
that take his sunglasses. Just a warning to the wise.

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
Another spam came through too.
<PRE>
From: &lt;RipoffArtist@spamhaven.com&gt;
Subject: Spy Ear Blowout Sale

Oh yeah! What a great way to identify spies; they'll be the ones with their
ears blown out. 

- "Excuse me, sir..."
- "What? what? I can't hear you." 
- "ARREST THAT MAN!!!"
</PRE>

Of course, Ben knows a lot about how spies operate...

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
&lt;Glare&gt; Your time vill come, Comrade. Ve haff long memories.


<H4>In another thread...</H4>

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Faber]

<P>
I hate to do this, but I have to agree with Ben...again! <grumble>

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
Why, Faber! I'm cut to the quick by your implications; I'm shocked -
simply shocked, I tell you - by this. &lt;sniffle&gt; 
Eh, just admit it; I'm always right. 

<H4>In another thread...</H4>

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
a) Make the script SUID root (!!! use with caution - this is a *bad* idea
unless you know exactly what you're doing !!!):

<PRE>
chmod 4755 mswin
</PRE>

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Dan]

<P>
Ben, which OS are you running that one on ?!?
Last I heard, Linux didn't accomodate setuid scripts.

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
Dan's too polite.  I told him to ask Ben what drugs he's on.

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
Oh, the same as usual. I think it's the mix, though: I just tried using a
little more plutonium and a little less crack, and that's _clearly_ not the
way to go.

<P> (Boy, the FBI is going to be all *over* this one. The only thing that's
missing is a reference to sex and death... ah, there we go. See y'all in
about 20 years.)

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
You can join Don Marti, future political prisoner.



<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Karl-Heinz]

<P>
You should maybe consider some strong encryption like rot13 to keep the 
AFN, SOV and PVN computers occupied ;-)

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
Shhhay! Isthay isway away IGBAY ecretsay!

<P> Now *there's* a Denial of Service attack that'll take'em right down. My
diabolical plan for World Domination is proceeding apace...


<H4>In another thread...</H4>

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
I wanted to change "side comments from Ben Okopnik and Heather Stern" to
"with snide comments from Ben Okopnik and Heather Stern", but I refrained.

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
My God, Mike. The incredible amount of self-restraint that must have
taken... oh, the feeling of sacrifice... I'm stunned that you managed to
overcome such a temptation. Worse yet, you could have always pretended to
be innocent and blamed it on a simple misspelling.

<P> Want a pair of these dark glasses? &lt;innocently&gt; Just asking.

<P> Heather can put it in her todo list for next month, to sneak the
"for snide comments in" quote when nobody's looking.  Which means
you'll have to be extra snide over the next month to give her
material.  Do you think you can handle that?

<P> Besides, I can't possibly imagine how you came by that impression. /Moi/,
*snide?* Huh. The very _idea._

<P> If someone *deserves* to be smacked down, however... &lt;rubbing hands
gleefully&gt;







<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--======================================================================-->
<P>
<H3 ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="green">Debian and World Domination</FONT></H3>

<p align="right"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><strong>Answered By Iron, Jay Ashworth, Ben Okopnik, Heather Stern</A>
</strong></FONT></p>


<STRONG>
<CITE>Jim Dennis writes:</CITE><BR>
This is very reliable when you're Debian system is tracking
"stable".   Reasonably robust and reliable when tracking "testing".
Occasionally *very* broken when tracking "unstable."
</STRONG>

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
Especially when a package depends on itself!  This happens a few times a year
in Unstable.

<P>
<STRONG>
(Note that many agitators and activists *do* have "Linux world
domination" as their goal, 
</STRONG>

<P>
But many who support World Domination aren't really activist about it.

<P>
<STRONG>
but there isn't much overlap between the core
developers in free software, and the agitators and activists).
</STRONG>

<P>
<IMG ALT=":)" SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" WIDTH="20" HEIGHT="24">
<IMG ALT=":)" SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" WIDTH="20" HEIGHT="24">
As in sports.  There's not a lot of overlap between the hockey players
who score the most goals and the players hired to pick fights.

<H4>Then in another thread...</H4>

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Jay]

<P>
Defense in Depth, my revered senior partner.

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
&lt;gasp&gt; Jay has called me "senior" and "revered"! *NOW* I shall rule! 

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
I don't even have to say anything...

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
"Hello, Central? What's holding up that assassination team? Oh, Seattle
traffic. OK. I'll give them fifteen more minutes..."


<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
Tell Mr Okopnik he'd better give us two hours.


<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Heather]

<P>
We're all whippersnappers at some point, Ben, your turn will come. 
&lt;wicked grin&gt;

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
Why, you young... oh. Never mind.

<P> I'll be turning 40 in a couple of months, so I'm practicing.


<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Jay]

<P>
I want him to drop and give me 20, myself.

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
"Hello, US Air Force? Do you happen to have 20 of those bunker-busters
left? Here are some coordinates in Florida..."

<P> I got done "dropping and doing 20" almost 20 years ago, Jay. Although I've
just started working out again, so that's maybe a reasonable equivalent.


<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--======================================================================-->
<P>
<H3 ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="green">Esperanto</FONT></H3>

<p align="right"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><strong>Answered By Iron, Ben Okopnik, Jay Ashworth</A>
</strong></FONT></p>

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
	[I'm working on an Esperanto translation of parts of LG.  It'll be another month
or so till it's up. -Iron.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE> 

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Jay]

<P>
Heh. "Dubitando ad veritatem venimus" ("We arrive at the truth by being
sceptical"). 

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
Malfidante ni trovas la veron.  (Untrusting, we find the truth.)<BR>
Malfidante ni malkasxas la veron.  (Untrusting, we discover [=unhide] the truth.)<BR>
Per skeptikemo ni atingas la veron.  (By our tendency to be skeptical, we achieve the
                                                                            truth.)

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
&lt;LOL&gt; Well, *that* didn't take long. Do we need a modified version of
<A HREF="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/Godwin's-Law.html">Godwin's Law</A> 
here, or what?

<P> (For the humor-impaired: Just kidding. I really like Mike's little
Esperanto bits... I also like twitting him about it.

<H4>And in another thread...</H4>

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
To support other languages, various 8-bit charsets were introduced.  The
ISO-8859-x series ("man iso_8859_1") is the most common on UNIX.  -1 (aka
LATIN-1) covers Western Europe (Germanic/Romance languages), -2 (aka LATIN-2)
covers Eastern Europe (Slavic languages), -3 (aka LATIN-3) covers miscellaneous
Europe (and Esperanto :).

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
&lt;narrowed eyes behind the dark glasses&gt; You thought I'd miss that, didn't
you? The Revolution Never Sleeps.

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
No, I knew you'd never miss that.  You had extensive training, comrade.



<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--======================================================================-->
<P>
<H3 ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="green">$3 words and <EM>Trainspotting</EM></FONT></H3>

<p align="right"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><strong>Answered By Jay Ashworth, Iron, Ben Okopnik, Dan Wilder</A>
</strong></FONT></p>

<STRONG>
What's the opposite of "concur"?  ;-)
</STRONG>

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
Since "concur" means "agree", the opposite is "disagree".

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Jay]

<P>
Yeah, but that's only a 49-cent word.  I prefer the buck-2.98 ones.
<IMG ALT=":)" SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" WIDTH="20" HEIGHT="24">

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
Down with $3 words!  It's ridiculous that children compete in spelling
bees over words that ordinary people would never use and don't know exist.  
Just because it's *possible* to derive a fancy Latin word for an ordinary
English word doesn't automatically make it an English word.  It's academickese,
not English.  There's probably a simple English word or circumlocution that
covers the same terrain perfectly adequately, so why not use it?  There's
nothing to be gained by using words Joe Sixpack can't understand, except for
the "few" technical terms that are absolutely necessary for a given field.


<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Jay]

<P>
I disagree, almost entirely.
It depends, of course, on what your *objective* is, and there are many
objectives in writing: you might be trying to impress people, to inform
them, to persuade them... 
Each of these jobs requires a different set of tools, just as there
is no one answer to the question "what kind of computer should I buy"
other than "well, what are you going to *do* with it?"

<P> Certainly, it's possible to use words which are fancier-than-thou, and
lose your audience in the process.  But that possibility isn't by any
means justification for not being literate and -- dare I say it --
lyrical in your writing.

<P> But, contrary to many people's belief, I think that people want to read
elegant writing, even if it occasionally makes them need to look up a
word that they can't glark from context.  


<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
True, there is language-for-communication and language-as-art.  I would
argue that academic/techical writing is supposedly language-for-communication, 
thus, its tendency to fanciness hinders its basic purpose.  

<P> An urgent example in US society is the language of laws.  Nobody but lawyers
can understand then, and even lawyers don't agree on what the DMCA means.  How
are people supposed to obey laws they can't understand and don't have time to
read?  How can they evaluate whether the law is just?  How can they avoid being
hoodwinked?

<P> Personal writing-as-art is a personal thing.  I just don't like the way
it can hinder communication, especially works that end up being read by others
than the author intended.  For instance, when non-English speakers read Gazette
articles.  That's why try to keep LG as straightforward as possible.  I'd love
to clean up the spelling/grammar mistakes if I had the time, but I don't have
50 extra hours per month, so I just do the ones that seriously impede
communication.

<P> I read <EM>Trainspotting</EM> and think, the Scottish phonetic style offends my sense
of clarity, but the author's goal is to convey this style of thought/viewpoint
as much as it is to convey content, so I can accept it.  

<P> I read <EM>Star Wars</EM> and think, why does the author have to write in such a
convoluted manner?  It adds nothing to the story except to make it "hip".  

<P> I read <EM>Ratz Are Nice (PSP)</EM> and think, why does the author have to write in
such a slangy style? "They go weekend hunting looking for ruffboichail'z. They
wontz to be quickened... I Edison basically loseout 3 wayz."  Actually, I
never got past the first chapter.  I don't have time to sound out what he's
trying to say, much less guess what dialect they're speaking.  God forbid a
non-English speaker should take an interest in the book.  
I prefer a writing style readable by as wide an audience as possible.

<BLOCKQUOTE>
But, contrary to many people's belief, I think that people want to read
elegant writing, even if it occasionally makes them need to look up a
word that they can't glark from context.  
</BLOCKQUOTE>

Funny, you say this, but I find your writing perfectly clear and void of
$3 words.  (Oops, I said "void of" rather than "doesn't have".)


<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Jay]

<P>
I haven't read <EM>Trainspotting</EM>; I'll assume it's half way to James Joyce.

<P>
I'm not gonna get a bite on "glark", eh?
<IMG ALT=":)" SRC="../gx/dennis/smily.gif" WIDTH="20" HEIGHT="24">


<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
<EM>Trainspotting</EM> quotes:

<BLOCKQUOTE>
        "That's no the f*****g point," ah sais, but withoot conviction.
        "Aye.  The point is ah'm really f*****g suffering here, n ma
        so-called mate's draggin his feet deliberately, lovin every
        f****n minute ay it!" His eyes seem the size ay fitba's n look
        hostile, yet pleadin at the same time; poignant testimonies tae
        ma supposed betrayal.

        <P> At the Fit ay the Walk thir wir nai taxis.  They only
        congregated here when ye didnae need them.
                
        <P> "See whit yuv done now, ya big-moothed c**t.  Next time one ay
        us ur walkin home oan oor Jack Jones, wi git hassle fi these wee
        radges."  Ah wisnae chuffed at Sick Boy.
        "Yir no feart ay they wee f****n saps ur ye?"
        This c**t's really gittin ma f****n goat.  "Aye!  Aye ah f****n
        am, if ah'm oan ma tod n ah git set oan by a f****n squad ay
        shell-suits!  Ye think ah'm Jean-Claude Van F****n Damme?
        F****n doss c**t, so ye are Simon."  Ah called him 'Simon'
        rather than 'Si' or 'Sick Boy' tae emphasise the seriousness ay
        what ah wis sayin.
</BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, the book switches between Scots and English pretty much at
random.  There are entire passages in English, and recent words like
"taxis" and "dealer" that have no Scots equivalent are just thrown in
unchanged, looking out of place because they're not spelled
phonetically.

<P> Of course, Scottish literature is pretty scarce and underrepresented,
and Irving Welsh is one of the few authors filling the gap.


<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
I'm fairly close to the middle of this one, but with somewhat of a lean in
Jay's direction: there are times - especially when writing for a techie
audience - when the more spendy variety of verbal pyrotechnics (remember to
always and ever eschew needless and unnecessary word usage!) is called
for... but the reason is the one that Mike mentions: writing to a given
audience.


<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
Believe it or not, I *am* a fan of writing differently depending on 
your audience.  I'm just pointing out that sometimes one's audience
ends up being bigger than anticipated, and the assumptions one made
about the audience no longer hold true.

<P> PS. Just in case it's unclear, I'm *not* complaining about anything
anybody's written on TAG.  This is just a problem I've seen other places.



<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Dan]

<P>
Oh darn.  Guess I hafta go get out the old thesaurus more often.

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
Should be familiar territory by now, Dan; ISTR that you were raised on the
stuff. Or was that brontosaurus? Either way, should be pretty tasty with
just a touch of lemon and Hollandaise sauce...

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Dan]

<P>
Customarily prepared by briefly grilling steaks rubbed with wild onion 
directly on top of a hardwood twig fire.  Also great as thesaurus tartare.




<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--======================================================================-->
<P>
<H3 ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="green">Boring documentation</FONT></H3>

<p align="right"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><strong>Answered By John Karns</A>
</strong></FONT></p>


<STRONG>
Anybody please tell me about installation of linux with win2000.
I already installed linux 7 on my pc.
now i want that without format my system i install win2000 on my pc.

<P> any body pls give me any utility. don't tell me FAQ.
this is boring for me. if anybody wants help me out than pls provide me
utility.
</STRONG>

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [John]

<P>
If you find reading FAQ's boring, I don't think you're going to like Linux
too much.


<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--======================================================================-->
<P>
<H3 ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="green">University admissions</FONT></H3>

<p align="right"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><strong>Answered By Dan Wilder</A>
</strong></FONT></p>


<STRONG>
dear sir, i am living in pakistan. a newely institution namely biztek
affliation with girne american university north cuprus in turkey has opened in
pakistan . they said that they r also affliated with u because they r giving
degree of girne american university .  sir plz tell me that r u affliated with
girne american university ? . and u can take transfer from biztek in pakistan
to ur university and also tell me the process to take transfer in ur university
.is my cradit hours transfer to ur university.  reply me soon.
</STRONG>

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Dan]

<P>
We are affilitated with no university.  None.  Nil.
Nor college, high school, research institute, preschool.
Not even a skateboard park.  Nor basketball stadium,
automotive repair garage, not even a pizza parlor.



<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--======================================================================-->
<P>
<H3 ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="green">Tennis rackets</FONT></H3>

<p align="right"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><strong>Answered By Ben Okopnik, Iron</A>
</strong></FONT></p>


<STRONG>
<CITE>Chris Gianakopoulos writes:</CITE><BR>
I got this information by looking at sendlib.c in the Mutt source code.  I
am sorry.  I really shouldn't have posted this question.  I WAS lazy, and
now I feel bad.
</STRONG>

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
Oh... bosh. Chris, you often launch interesting questions, and digging
down to the bottom of those can be fun. Now quit smacking yourself; you're
wearing out that nice new tennis racket.


<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
Next time, Ben, buy him the plastic racket, not the metal one.  He'll be less
likely to hurt himself that way.  

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Chris]

<P>
I could wear a helmet for extra protection too.  That will help during
intense software debug sessions when I keep hitting my head against the
wall.




<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--======================================================================-->
<P>
<H3 ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="green">Tea</FONT></H3>

<p align="right"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><strong>Answered By Heather Stern, Iron, Ben Okopnik</A>
</strong></FONT></p>


<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Heather]

<P>
Well, the deli counter is that way, but it doesn't serve beer or milk or 
tea much less mango lassi or jumbo smoothies.  Only coffee and soda pop.  
Oh well.


<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Iron]

<P>
And Rory called my Jasmine tea yesterday "fou-fou".  Can you believe it?

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
Well, *yeah*. I keep telling you to get rid of the little plastic umbrella
and the maraschino cherries - they really _do not_ go with jasmine tea -
but would you listen?...



<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--======================================================================-->
<P>
<H3 ALIGN="center"><FONT COLOR="green">Iron</FONT></H3>

<p align="right"><FONT COLOR="#000000"><strong>Answered By Ben Okopnik, Jay Ashworth</A>
</strong></FONT></p>


<STRONG>
What flags would you use with " tcpdump " in order to
view the Ethernet source and destination addresses of
three packets with no time stamp data added ?
</STRONG>

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
There's always the "--view-the-Ethernet-source-and-destination-addresses-
of-three-packets-with-no-time-stamp-data-added" switch (one of the standard
GNU long options.) Be sure to type it out every time, too; cut-and-paste
won't work, since the "cut_and_paste_detect()" function will just reject
it.

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Jay]

<P>
<PRE>
tcpdump: command line switch too long.
</PRE>

What do I do now, Unca Ben?

<P>
<IMG SRC="../gx/dennis/bbub.gif" ALT="(!)"
	HEIGHT="28" WIDTH="50" BORDER="0"
	> [Ben]

<P>
You probably mistyped it. Try it fifteen or twenty more times. If that
fails, try

<PRE>
tcpdump --irony
</PRE>

(Hint: does not mean "kinda like iron". :)








<a name="spam"></a>
<P> <hr> <P> 
<!--====================================================================-->

<center><H3><font color="maroon">World of Spam</font></H3></center>

<P> <HR> <P> 
<!--======================================================================-->
<P>



Dear Future Millionaire:<BR>

I'll make you a promise. READ THIS E-MAIL TO THE END! - follow what it says to
the letter - and you will not worry whether a RECESSION is coming or not, who
is President, or whether you keep your current job or not.... 

<P> ===WHEN YOU PLACE YOUR ORDER, MAKE SURE =====YOU ORDER EACH OF THE 5
REPORTS! ==You will need all 5 reports so that you can save them on your
computer and resell them. YOUR TOTAL COST $5 X 5 = $25.00.

<P> Within a few days you will receive, via e-mail, each of the 5 reports from
these 5 different individuals. Save them on your computer so they will be
accessible for you to send to the 1,000's of people who will order them from
you.


<HR NOSHADE WIDTH="80%"> <!--*********************** -->

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Analysis by Chris Gianacopoulos
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
  
The NON-detectable KISS has arrived!!!

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
I wonder if it'll be non-detectable like a computer virus.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE> 

These fantastic new lip products are waterproof 
 will not smear off, kiss off, or rub off. 

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Almost like a clown face!
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Lip-gloss products will not come off until you 
TAKE them Off.  Look like a movie star all day long.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Oh no!  If I look like a movie star, then, people will know who I am.  There
goes my private life.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

<HR NOSHADE WIDTH="80%"> <!--*********************** -->

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Analysis by Ben Okopnik
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
  
From: &lt;RipoffArtist@spamhaven.com&gt;<BR>
Subject: Spy Ear Blowout Sale

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Oh yeah! What a great way to identify spies; they'll be the ones with their
ears blown out. 

 - "Excuse me, sir..."
 - "What? what? I can't hear you." 
 - "ARREST THAT MAN!!!"
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>
 
Try the HOTTEST and NEWEST
thing on the market, the discreet ISPY007 SPY EAR Mini Hearing
Enhancer.
It will let you hear up to 20 feet away with crystal clear reception!

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Can we test that? Go ahead and put that thing in your ear, and listen
closely:
***AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!***

<P> Oh, oops. Look at that; your poor eyeballs. Are they supposed to protrude
like that? Say, that ear looks blown out, too. Are you *sure* you're not a
spy? Quick, somebody - ARREST THAT MAN!
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>


<HR NOSHADE WIDTH="80%"> <!--*********************** -->


Put the Internet to Work for You!
It's easy to turn the internet into your own 24/7 business and earn an
executive's salary!

<HR NOSHADE WIDTH="80%"> <!--*********************** -->

You can make a fortune on Ebay and other auctions sites provided your armed
with the RIGHT information.  Get your hands on the closely guarded secrets the
pro's use everyday! 

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
	[Nice grammar there, "your".  -Iron.]
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>


<HR NOSHADE WIDTH="80%"> <!--*********************** -->

XXXXX Publications Co. is broadening its publishing scope by releasing the
first in its series of books designed to cover .NET, Microsoft's new
programming platform, arguably the most important Microsoft innovation since
the introduction of Windows itself. .NET fuses desktop and network-based
development and provides programmers with a unified, language-neutral
framework. It also makes many existing developer skills obsolete and a
transition to .NET inevitable.

<HR NOSHADE WIDTH="80%"> <!--*********************** -->

Get Background Information on anyone!
NOTHING can be hidden from you when you have the power of NetDetective!

You can investigate - Wife, Husband, Boss, Babysitter, Boyfriend, Girlfriend. Do it today!

<HR NOSHADE WIDTH="80%"> <!--*********************** -->

From:  IncreaseSalesToday@bigcashtoday.com

<P> Dear linux-questions-only@ssc.com,
   
<CENTER>
                 Would you like to send an Email Advertisement to<BR>
                   OVER 12,000,000 PEOPLE DAILY for FREE?
</CENTER>
                  
<P> Do you have a product or service to sell?
Do you want an extra 100 orders per week?

<P> NOTE: (If you do not already have a product or service to sell, we can 
supply you with one).

<HR NOSHADE WIDTH="80%"> <!--*********************** -->

Is your spouse cheating online?  
Are your kids talking to dangerous people on instant messenger?
FIND OUT NOW with Big Brother<br>instant software
 download.

<P> Big Brother will hide on your computer and secretly record all instant messages,
chat, email, web sites and more! Once you install it, it becomes completely
 invisible.  Then, after the computer is used, you just enter a secret 
key-sequence, and you can see everything that happened!

<HR NOSHADE WIDTH="80%"> <!--*********************** -->

Compressed air cost about 1.25 paise per Cu. Ft. Using air amplifying blow guns 
and blow nozzles you can save upto 80% compressed air. That is why pay back period 
is in hours.

<P>
***************************************************<BR>
Since India has no anti-spamming law, we follow the US Unsolicited Electronic 
Mail Act of 2000, which states that mail cannot be considered Spam if it contains 
contact / removal information, which this mail does. If you want to be removed 
from the mailing list then you must reply to this mail with "Remove" in the subject 
line and e-mail for faster response and action.<BR>
********************************************


<HR NOSHADE WIDTH="80%"> <!--*********************** -->

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
	[
Here's an evil spam.  Not only does it pretend to be a WinXP patch
(making you think it's an official Service Pack), but why is it
base64 if it claims to be an *.htm file?
	-Iron.]
	</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Subject: A  WinXP patch

<PRE>
Content-Type: application/octet-stream;
	name=NOMODEM.HTM
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64

PEhUTUw+DQoJPEhFQUQ+DQoJCTxsaW5rIHJlbD1zdHlsZXNoZWV0IHR5cGU9InRleHQvY3Nz
IiBocmVmPSIuLlxzZXR1cFxtc29ic2hlbC5jc3MiPg0KCQk8TUVUQSBodHRwLWVxdWl2PSJD
</PRE>


<HR NOSHADE WIDTH="80%"> <!--*********************** -->

Can't get email out to the masses without losing your ISP??? Don't know how to
get sales for your product???  Can't get traffic to your
site???

<P> I have plenty of fresh verified email names and can get you results. 
You simply furnish your message and I do the rest. I guarantee you 100%
delivery. It can even be done in full color at no extra cost.

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
	[I wonder how he manages to show full-color messages on pine.  -Iron.]
	</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>



<HR NOSHADE WIDTH="80%"> <!--*********************** -->

We are looking to buy:

Submersible piling hammers for use offshore.
Pile sizes are from 24" to 56". Depth 70-100 meter

<HR NOSHADE WIDTH="80%"> <!--*********************** -->

I am Mrs. Monica Martins, the
wife of late Brigadier Arnold Martins of Angola. I am
writing to you from South Africa.
Your firm was introduced to me by a career diplomat
who I consulted in my search for a reliable individual
/company  who can assist my son in transferring a
reasonable sum of money abroad to a company or private
account. I on behalf of my late husband and my only
son Frank decided to solicit for your assistance to
transfer the sum of US$12.6 M (twelve million six
hundred thousand united states dollars) deposited by
my late husband in a private security company in South
Africa. 

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
	[A paltry $12.5 million?  I'm sure there'll be a better deal later
	in my inbox.  -Iron.]
	</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

<HR NOSHADE WIDTH="80%"> <!--*********************** -->

We'd  visited your website: info.xxxxx.net. After thorough research, we found
that your web site has not registered on any popular search engines and
directories.

<P> This will definitely be the choke point of raising reputation and business
development deeply of your company. 
We fully believe that with our service, visitors of your web
site will increase significantly.

<P> At present, there are about 500,000 search
engines in the whole world, but fortunately XXXXX is the rare breed that
can help you register your website with the famous search engine companies.

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
	[I admire the quality of your "thorough research".  Especially since
	<STRONG>Linux Gazette</STRONG> is on plenty of search engines.  -Iron.]
	</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

<HR NOSHADE WIDTH="80%"> <!--*********************** -->

Is there pornography on your computer? Are you sure? 
FREE PC Check. 

<P> Clean it off now !


<HR NOSHADE WIDTH="80%"> <!--*********************** -->

                            (( This is not SPAM ))





<HR> <!-- ************************************************************** -->

<P> Happy Linuxing!

<P> Mike ("Iron") Orr<br>
Editor, <A HREF="http://www.linuxgazette.com/"><i>Linux Gazette</i></A>, <A
HREF="mailto:gazette@ssc.com">gazette@ssc.com</a>
<BR CLEAR="all">

<!-- *** END Not Linux *** -->

<!-- *** BEGIN copyright *** -->
<P> <hr> <P> 
<H5 ALIGN=center>
Copyright &copy; 2002, the Editors of <I>Linux Gazette</I>.<BR>
Copying license <A HREF="../copying.html">http://www.linuxgazette.com/copying.html</A><BR>
Published in Issue 76 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, March 2002</H5>
<!-- *** END copyright *** -->


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