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

New Tips:

2 Cent Tricks & Tips - Mounting a zip drive

Well, this topic has been covered a number of times, but one minor nit from your "Mounting a zip disk" in issue #47 - the printed tip reads:

1) Compile in IDE Floppy support in the kernel - there is no need for scsi emulation unless you want auto-eject support. Also remember to compile in support for the filesystems you wish to have on your zip disks.

Under Debian potato, kernel 2.2.13, eject version 2.0.2, I am able to eject the zip disk from the ATAPI zip drive without using ide-scsi emulation. I've been able to eject it this way at least since 2.2.5 or so, I believe, thou I'm not sure quite when I found this out. I didn't have the zip when I ran 2.0.x kernels, so ide-scsi might've been needed there, but not anymore, it seems.

David

atapi zip drive comment

Hello and how are you? I just wanted to say thanks for the help with my linux problems and make one small comment. In the documentation on the atapi zip drive I think that alot of newbies might find it helpful if you added how to format a zip disk for the dos filesystem.

/sbin/mkdosfs  ..........

Toshiba Cyber 9525 video chipset

Re: (LG 43, mailbag...)

From: ANTONIO SORIA (mpenas@sego.es)

to buy a Toshiba Satellite S4030CDS which comes with the Trident Cyber 9525 video card...

...a good resource is www.741systems.com/linux/2595XDVD-install.html

Sorting the lines in a file

I have unsubscribed that address, run "uniq" on the mailing list to remove any other duplicates, and unsubscribed all other addresses with

Just in case you forgot (we all do sometimes), uniq presupposes that the stream it is processing is already sorted. `Sort -u' will screen out duplicates, too.

Winmotherboard

You've heard of Winmodems, now there are Winmotherboards.

I bought a Shuttle Spacewalker HOT-591P to upgrade an existing system. I put a Pentium in it, tweaked the speed switches until it came up, attached the hard drives, turned it on again, and set the hard drive size. I got an error message:

No [active partition] found DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

This is the first time I have seen a motherboard *require* that relic of the DOS age, the bootable partition.

Unlike the Winmodem, there is a way around this. Run cfdisk and set one of the partitions on hda as the active partition.

phma

Followup to Running UNIX At Home

From: Javier López Pérez <jlopezpe@idecnet.com>:

Hello Mr. Reid:

In your article "Running UNIX At Home" in LinuxGazette #47 you wrote:

None of my cron jobs, like updating locate's database and trimming the log files, were being done since the computer was hardly ever on in the wee hours of the morning, the time chosen by the distributions (Slackware, then Red Hat 3.0.3, then 5.1) for housecleaning.

Like most home users, I have also stumbled across cron not running the programs it should because of my computer being off. Although the script you provide looks great, I was wondering if you know that there already are, to my knowledge, two programs that resolve this very same issue: anacron and hc-cron (sorry, I have not an URL to give, but I bet that a search to http://freshmeat.net would be useful.)

In the same article you also mention that to change runlevels you stop/start starter scripts by hand [...]

You can do this in a more convenient manner by using /sbin/telinit, giving it the runlevel you want to change to. To change from any runlevel to runlevel 3 you would just type (as root, of course): /sbin/telinit 3 and that is all. As far as I know, all your programs will be SIGTERM or SIGKILL by doing this, while starter scripts will be called to start/stop services as needed.

I hope this information is of any help to you. I also deeply hope not to have made any big mistake in what I have said.

Best wishes.

Rob Reid responds:

----- Forwarded message from Howard Shaw <howard@tyroldata.com> -----

First, with regard to your cron problems, you might consider using hc-cron. Here is Freshmeat's description of it...

hc-cron will remember the time when it was shut down and catch up jobs that have occurred during down time when it is started again.

----- Forwarded message from Duckie <duckie@node0911.a2000.nl> -----

Debian installation offers "profiles" nowadays. The "Personal workstation" profile includes anacron.

That's great, but groundskeeper will make sure that the commands are run at *convienient times for the users* as closely to the specified intervals as machine uptime permits. In other words, it uses batch and the others don't.

You have a very good point here. I filed it as a wishlist item for anacron on Debian's bugtracking system, from where it'll be forwarded to whoever maintains the program itself.

Thanks,
Arjan Drieman

----- Forwarded message from Howard Shaw <howard@tyroldata.com> -----

Second, with regard to your runlevel usage, while you can write scripts for starting your networking mechanisms, and there are valid reasons for doing so, you can also change your runlevel without rebooting by executing, as root, 'init X' where x is the runlevel. So you can start at runlevel 4, then use init 3 to drop to runlevel 3 and start those scripts, then use either init 0 to shutdown, or init 6 to restart your system.

This was the other thing people wrote to remind me: use init (or sysinit) to switch runlevels without rebooting. It's very useful; in going from 4 (no internet) to 3 (internet) it stops and restarts some services that look like they could have been left alone, but it does the job in a one line command!

Thanks for everyone's feedback.

FYI: PS/2 Port Problem In 2.2 Kernel

In the past few months I have attempted to install RedHat 6.0 Caldera 2.2 and Caldera 2.3 on my Compaq Presario 5630 Pentium Computer.

What I discovered is that regardless of which distro, or which mouse I use, any attempt to install with a mouse attached to the ps/2 port always fails with a "frozen" machine.

Caldera support and the Caldera Knowledge base has finally acknowledged that this problem is "real", and that they are looking into it.

ANSWER: Filename extensions for web program listings ...

I'm enjoying reading this issue of LG on my Palm Vx after downloading your text version then using a small conversion util to format into PDB format.

The Linux Gazette Editor wrote:

Do you mean PDF? If so, which program do you use?

Jeff clarified:

I meant *.pdb :) format using the attached 'txt2pdbdoc' utility. GNU ZDoc, Aportisdoc, and other utilities convert quick and hotsync quick for a nice 'mobile Linux-related Library'! ;-)

[txt2pdbdoc is at http://homepage.mac.com/pauljlucas/software.html. -Ed.]

To make things easier, I made a symbolic link from txt2pdbdoc to 2pdb, so I can just type

$ 2pdb {filename.you.want.2.show.on.pda} {filename.original}
{outputfilename.pdb}

Tips in the following section are answers to questions printed in the Mail Bag column of previous issues.

ANSWER: Terminal emulators

If what you want is a telnet program for windows that's better than Microsoft's, check http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Network/1027/ Kevterm is a very simple vt100 emulating telnet client. It's biggest features are that it's small, and it works. I'm personally a big fan of low feature count, but fully working software, and Kevterm is that in spades. It does everything I need

It's not very fancy, but I've found it to be very useful over time.

From: Richard Cohen <vmlinuz@vmlinuz.org>:

http://tucows.mirror.ac.uk/term95.html (or the same page at any more local TUCOWS mirror) contains a list of telnet clients for Win95/98, including some freeware and lots of shareware. I seem to remember having heard good things in the past about Tera Term Pro (which is free and has a SSH plug-in available, if you care about that).

From: Jonathan Hutchins <hutchins@kc.net>:

Look for a program called "TerraTerm" on your favorite shareware site. There are modules for SSH connections available.

Good terminal emulators can cost $250 per workstation, and can eat up a lot of resources for graphic and keyboard mapping (IBM's Personal Communications Suite, Reflections). TerraTerm will do 95% of what you want with a reasonable footprint similar to Microsoft's Telnet.

From: Pierre Abbat <phma@oltronics.net>:

I have a linux shell from my Win98 machine via a terminal login. I am presently using telnet to do this, however this causes profound graphical errors, no color, and other problems. I am looking for a better terminal. Any suggestions?

Try TeraTerm. I got mine from srp.stanford.edu; it's a doctored version that supports SRP authentication, though it doesn't encrypt as the SRP telnet for Linux does. TeraTerm does colors, but the keyboard isn't perfect, and I have to use u and d in less instead of pgup and pgdn.

phma

From: Charles Hethcoat <CHETHCOA@oss.oceaneering.com>:

If you are looking for a better telnet for a Windows machine, you might check out Tera Term Pro:

teranishi@rikaxp.riken.go.jp

It is much nicer than the plain jane Telnet that comes with Windows.

I am aware of no totally free X servers that run under Windows. If you will settle for a nonfree but cheap Windows X server, try the MicroImages X server 2.0 (or latest) from www.microimages.com. It's pretty plain, but works fine for connecting to Linux X clients. And it's pretty inexpensive,= too.

Charles Hethcoat

ANSWER: LS120

Ghlenn Willard (ghlenn@presidency.com):

I would like to know exactly what I need to input into the /etc/fstab concerning having OpenLinux 2.2 to see the LS120 drive. My system has the 1.44 floppy drive at fd0, hard drive at hda and hda1, and the cdrom at hdc. I tried the approach Caldera suggested for the owner of OpenLinux 1.3, it didn't work or I messed up, which is possible since I am still a greenhorn at this.

I have two HDs, hda and hdc (IDE Primary 1, IDE Secondary 1), a CD-ROM, hdb, (IDE Primary 2), and an LS120 as hdd (IDE Secondary 2), and it works well with this /etc/fstab:

/dev/hdb    /cdrom    iso9660    ro,noauto,user    0    0

#  This is for "DOS"-formatted disks - gets mounted with  mount /B
/dev/hdd    /B              vfat          noauto,posix,user    0    0

# This is for ext2-formatted disks - gets mounted with  mount /E
/dev/hdd    /E               ext2         noauto,user   0    0

Needless to say: the mounting points /B and /E must exist - beforehand.

ANSWER: Lilo gone

My wife ran Norton antivirus and detected that the MBR was changed. She checked the 'Repair' box. Now my LILO is gone. How do I install it back into the MBR?

From: Tomislav Filipcic <tojo@softhome.net>:

This can be fixed easily. Get a boot floppy (or get a friend to make one for you) and use it boot linux. When you get to the prompt just type "lilo" and the MBR will be fixed.

From: Zon Hisham Bin Zainal Abidin <zon@mad.scientist.com>:

Thank you everybody for helping me out with the LILO issue.

Think I am gonna luv this Linux thingy. And the amount of support that I have received...it's just fascinating. Keep up with the good work to help newbies like me...so that I am able to help newer newbies in the future.

The latest problem that I face at the moment is the task of removing the largest virus partition on my PC...that is the DOS partition :)

ANSWER: Dialling up my ISP (Freeserve)

Hi there,

To connect to Freeserve using RedHat, follow the instructions in the freeserve HOWTO:

http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/ig206/freeserve/

and

http://www.scottish.lug.org.uk/freeserve.html

-Cheers, Max.

From: Steve Phipps <steve@sjp1.freeserve.co.uk>:

I use Freeserve with Red Hat Linux and find that it works perfectly well.

I have no idea what the problem is in your case, so I'll go through my configuration in detail. Hopefully this will enable you to find the fault - you can always copy my setup if all else fails!

First of all, ensure that the file /etc/hosts.allow contains the line

ALL: LOCAL

, that /etc/hosts.deny contains the line

ALL: ALL

, that /etc/resolv.conf conatins the lines

search .
nameserver 195.92.195.94

(the number is the IP address of Freeserve's nameserver) and that
/etc/hosts contains the line

127.0.0.1   localhost

Next you need a chat script, which should be placed in the file
/etc/ppp/chatscript. Mine, which is fairly basic, is as follows:

# Set abort conditions
ABORT 'NO CARRIER'
ABORT BUSY
ABORT 'NO DIALTONE'

# Set a nice long timeout because Freeserve can be a bit slow
TIMEOUT 120

# Reset modem
'' ATZ

# Dial (0845) 079 6699
SAY 'Dialling Freeserve...\n'
OK ATDT08450796699

# Log in to remote machine
CONNECT ''
SAY 'Connection established, logging in...\n'
ogin: 
word: 

# Log in complete
SAY 'Log in successful...\n'

Obviously, replace and with the appropriate values for your account. See man chat if you want to write your own script.

Finally, you need to initiate PPP. I have a file called dialup in my home directory which simply contains the command

exec pppd connect 'chat -v -f /etc/ppp/chatscript' -detach crtscts \
  modem defaultroute /dev/ttyS1 38400

See man pppd if you want to know what's going on here. To connect to the Internet, make sure that you're in your home directory and enter

source dialup

(you'll have to su first). You should now be connected! Once you're finished, just hit Ctrl-c to terminate the connection.

This should be enough to connect to Freeserve from a stand-alone terminal. I'm assuming that PPP is installed on your machine and that your modem is connected to the second serial port (/dev/ttyS1, or COM2 under DOS).

If this still doesn't work, look in /var/log/messages. That should tell you why the connection failed.

Good luck!

ANSWER: At-command error message

On Tue, 28 Sep 1999 03:51:36 +0000, Ben wrote regarding "AT-command error message ":

Whenever I try to run "at" I get an error message, like so:

    root@benzz:> at 10:15 command
    Only UTC Timezone is supported. Last token seen: command
    Garbled time
    

This is actual output. My system _is_ on UTC timezone,

I think that the reference to "UTC" in the error message is to the command line, not what your system clock is running.

AFAIK, at uses *local* time unless you specify "UTC", and seems not to accept any other time zones. It seems in your example to be trying to interpret "command" as a time zone.

the at man-page didn't help a bit.

I suggest that you read the man page again.

If you don't know what "standard input" is, this could be the problem.

From the man page: "at and batch read commands from standard input or a specified file which are to be executed at a later time, using /bin/sh."

Someone suggested that I should write a file:

echo command> file at 10:15 cat < file

This is almost correct. Any of

         echo command > file ; at 10:15 cat < file
         echo command > file && at 10:15 cat < file
or
         echo command > file
         at 10:15 cat < file

but that wouldn't help, as "at" is still in there, and it's "at" making trouble.

Not exactly, it's misuse of "at" that is making the trouble.

All "at" expects on its command line is the time and in your example it is trying to interpret what follows the time as part of the time.

The examples above avoid this, but they are kludgey.

If you wish to run the *same* command from "at", then make it a shell script and use the "-f" option, eg:

        at -f my-script noon

        at noon < my-script

Otherwise, just use a pipe:

        echo command | at noon

Granted, this is non-intuitive, but it is the way "at" has worked for over 20 yrs.

Does anybody know what I'm doing wrong? Or just another way to schedule tasks? I'm getting desperate now...

There is also another way to schedule tasks. "at" is for once-only tasks. "cron" is for periodic tasks and works a whole different way.

Hope this helps,
== Buz :)

From: Ben <benvh@wish.net>:

All "at" expects on its command line is the time and in your example it is trying to interpret what follows the time as part of the time.

This was the exact piece of information I was looking for. I didn't realize "at" is interactive, and if anyone would have told me before, or if this information was obvious from the man-page, I would have had my brain around the concept of 'standard input' a lot sooner.

Thanks again, Buz.

From: Buz:

This was the exact piece of information I was looking for.

Good, but the following indicates you still don't quite get it.

I didn't realize "at" is interactive,

It isn't, exactly, though it can be used that way. It is mostly intended to be used as the end of a pipeline. and if anyone would have told me before,

That's why I stuck in my 2 cents.

or if this information was obvious from the man-page,

It is (or should be), but only if you are already familiar with the concept and workings of Standard Input.

I would have had my brain around the concept of 'standard input' a lot sooner.

As I mentioned above, you still don't seem to grok it in fullness. It is intimately related to concepts like "pipes", "pipelines", "filters", and "redirection".

M$-DOS had these concepts, to but they don't work as well there as in Un*x, DOS not being multi-tasking. Hardly anyone used them or even knew about them.

Now that I think about it, have not seen a good discussion of these for a long time. (10 yrs or more?). Seems I might have to write one, but don't want to put it in the body of this mail.

You might go to "UnixHelp for Users" at unixhelp.ed.ac.uk (please use one of their many mirrors). This site provides the best intro to using Un*x that I have seen online, but far from the best possible. In particular, their glossary leaves much to be desired.

Or the Unix Version 7 Manuals at plan9.bell-labs.com/7thEdMan/index.html. This will take some work to make readable, but you will learn quite a bit in just making it readable. The documents here were all written by the *original* Unix gurus at AT&T about 1979. Not everything here is still relevant, but most is. I plan to eventually have all this online as HTML, but probably not till next year sometime.

There are several HardCopy (book) resources available, but this email is getting far too long.

[...]

You should try "man stdio" and then "man stdin" for a complete and correct (if not terribly clear) description of the meaning and purpose of "standard input", etc from the program's point of view. This is written for "C" programmers, but most of it applies for any language.

I shall continue working on getting a good, clear definition that is independent of OS and programming language.

You might also try the section on "Text_IO" in the Ada definition, the same concepts apply.

ANSWER: Connecting a Linux PC to an ADSL modem

Take a look at some of the Firewall/Router/IPForwarding HOWTO's.

Basically what you need is to connect one PC running Linux to the ADSL connection, then connect the other PC's to an ethernet segment that also includes the connected PC. Run IPChains/IPMasq on the connected station, and you have a firewalled router that connects your private LAN to the internet using seamless TCP/IP.

ANSWER: Is SMP worth it?

I haven't seen any benchmarks for Linux SMP, but generally you not only need the SMP kernel, you need code that is optimized for the number of processors you are running.

The rule of thumb I know is from the NT universe, building and selling servers, and that is that a second CPU results in about a 40% gain in throughput. Be sure to compare the cost of a second CPU and the dual socket motherboard against a 40% faster CPU (or maybe an Alpha?).

You don't indicate how long these modeling sessions run, but if they're reall clock hogs you might consider something like a Beowulf array using less-than-state-of-the-art CPU's.

ANSWER: Lexmark printer drivers, and Zoom modem

Don't know about your Zoom modem - presumably you know enough to avoid Winmodems and Plug-and-Pray devices. Could be that something like a NIC is grabbing the port - Linux brings up the NIC before the serial port, so where in DOS you get a modem but the NIC fails, in Linux you get the NIC but no modem.

As far as your Lexmark goes, 1) Hassle IBM to provide drivers, and 2) Set it to emulate an HP printer and use the driver for that.

ANSWER: Linux classes

My question to all of you in the industry is this: What parts of Linux, and the networking of same, are most important to you? Should there be more concentration in TCP/IP fundamentals (which I have included), specific Linux/*ix-based programs ( KDE, Gnome, Apache), or which? What is it that you most desire in an entry-level (or not-so-entry-level) employee candidate?

I think you should leave the TCP/IP stuff for a Networking class - it's pretty independent of LINUX, and spending a lot of time on it would shortchange the Linux specific material.

I think there are two basic categories to Linux - First, setting a system up, getting it running correctly and getting software installed for whatever end-use is in mind. Second, ongoing administration - program updates, troubleshooting, setting changes, maintaining things from routing tables to firewall patches.

I would look at the Microsoft "Installing and Configuring" classes for the first level. Start with planning: hardware selection and compatibility, selecting network topology and protocol, determining what services will run, etc. Work with such indefinates as how to configure Xwindows for something like the Asus SP97-V which isn't correctly supported by the install scripts. Work on building install scripts for the various distribs like Linux and Caldera that allow you to build your own. Mention common wierdnesses - like the fact that Linux brings up Network cards first, then serial ports, which is the opposite of DOS and means that in a conflict it will be the serial port instead of the NIC that fails.

Ongoing admin can be anything from finding module and library dependencies to compiling custom kernels. How to keep the patches and updates current without scrambling the system with multiple installations of common libraries. Strategies for testing updates before rolling them out to production.

The first class would be most of what someone would need to maintain a single-user workstation or a home router/server. Some topics wold cross over - installing and updating new Xwindows software would be of concern to the person setting up a new system and adding productivity software, to the individual maintaining a single-user workstation, and to the system administrator rolling out a new WordPerfect to a 100 user office. Probably the basics would be covered in the first class, and the strategies for a large rollout in the second.

Anyway, there's what I think. Let us know what you end up with.

ANSWER: Diamond A50

The Diamond A50 will work with a little configuration. You need to modify /etc/X11/XF86Config. Go to the "Graphics Device" section. You'll see a stanza that starts with " Device configured by Xconfigurator" Underneath the "Boardname" line add the following 3 line:

option "no_bitblt"
option "no_imageblt"
option "sw_cursor"

the video ram line will probably be commented. Remove the # in front of it, save & exit the file.

startx

Have fun

ANSWER: Telnet Trouble

Jim, The user shouldn't need to disable TCP wrappers. I have left both messages in full for my explanation.

--Sat, 25 Sep 1999 01:28:37 -0700 From: Jim Dennis (jimd@starshine.org)

Dear Jim

Your email did help me to solve the problem with the telnet in linux. It works fine now. Thanks a million..... I have a small doubt. Let me explain...... My network has a NT server, LINUX server and 20 windows 95 clients. I followed your instructions and added the address of all the clients into the /etc/hosts file on the LINUX machine and voila the telnet worked immediately. But the NT server was the one who was running a DHCP server and dynamically allocating the addresses to the clients. The clients were configured to use DHCP and were not statically given and ip addresses. I managed to see the current DHCP allocation for each client and add those address into the /etc/hosts file on the LINUX server but my doubt is what happens when the DHCP address for the client changes? Then again we'll have to change the address in the /etc/hosts file right? This seems silly. Is there anyway to make the LINUX hosts file to automatically pick up the DHCP address from the NT server? Also another important thing is I am still unable to ping from the NT server to the LINUX server using the name. It works only with the IP address. Is there any way to make the NT DHCP to recognize the LINUX server?

Well, either you shouldn't use dynamic addressing (DHCP) or you should use dynamic DNS. You could also disable TCP Wrappers (edit your /etc/inetd.conf to change lines like:

telnet  stream  tcp nowait  root/usr/sbin/tcpd  in.telnetd

... to look more like:

telnet  stream  tcp nowait  root/usr/sbin/in.telnetd in.telnetd

There's no need to do this. hosts.allow and hosts.deny allow network/netmask specifications. So lets say our user's DHCP assigns from the simple class C 192.168.0.1 - 192.168.0.255. In hosts.allow we can then put:

in.telnetd: 192.168.0.

-- OR --

in.telnetd: 192.168.0.0/255.255.255.0

you can also allow/deny based on host or domain name:

in.telnetd: .domain.com

Then you won't need mappings in /etc/hosts for the current DHCP assigned address. You may want to do dynamic DNS if you need the hostnames of the windows workstations. Then point the linux box's resolv.conf at your NT server with the DNS mappings. Or, better still, make the linux box your DHCP server/DNS server and use BIND 8's dynamic DNS features.

Windows also has a HOSTS file with a format identical to /etc/hosts in the windows or winnt directory. You'll find the entry for localhost already in it. You can add the linux box's IP there for name resolution.

(and comment out all of the services you don't need while you're at it).

Definitely a good idea.

ANSWER: DHCP and Dynamic DNS

Jim Dennis says:

"But the NT server was the one who was running a DHCP server and dynamically allocating the addresses to the clients. The clients were configured to use DHCP and were not statically given and ip addresses. I managed to see the current DHCP allocation for each client and add those address into the /etc/hosts file on the LINUX server but my doubt is what happens when the DHCP address for the client changes? Then again we'll have to change the address in the /etc/hosts file right? This seems silly. Is there anyway to make the LINUX hosts file to automatically pick up the DHCP address from the NT server?

Also another important thing is I am still unable to ping from the NT server to the LINUX server using the name. It works only with the IP address. Is there any way to make the NT DHCP to recognize the LINUX server? "

Microsoft's answer to this problem is to run the Windows Internet Name Service - WINS. This provides NetBIOS name resolution to dynamic addresses as assigned by WindowsNT DHCP. The WindowsNT DNS system will also allow you to provide Internet Name resolution for dynamic addresses. Since you're mostly running WIndows95 clients, these clients can be pointed to the WINS server via the variables on the DHCP server, and will be able to resove addresses for TELNET and other services. (Be sure to take advantage of the WINS node-type configuration in DHCP too - it reduces broadcast traffic for name resolution.) If you need non-Windows applications or clients to resolve names, you'll need the DNS system as well.

Another solution is to go into the DHCP configuration and make each IP Address assignment a "reserved" address - reserved for the MAC address of a given machine. That way, you have the advantages of centralised administration of Internet paramaters such as Gateway and DNS servers without having the IP addresses change unless you tell them to.

Finally, the Microsoft implementation of the LMHOSTS and HOSTS files allows using an "INCLUDE" statement to link to a central address file (on the server, for instance). This lets you use these files instead of WINS and DNS (respectively), but maintain the tables in a single, central file.

ANSWER: i740 AGP

Hakon Andersson wrote:

I wish to run my i740 AGP under Linux. I am a Linux newbie though. I was wondering if you could tell me, or direct me onto some resources on how to setup my i740, or which server to install during installation. I am installing Redhat5

I currently have an i740 AGP system running under Linux. The problem is that, back when Red Hat version 5 came out, Intel was refusing to release information about that video chipset. There was a binary-only X Server, but it was poor. Since then, Intel apparently opened up its NDA (with Red Hat's urging, if I recall), and the source code for that X Server was released. Since then, the source code has been cleaned up, and incorporated into the standard SVGA server for XFree86.

The i740 works very well with the XFree86 SVGA server, but only in versions 3.3.4 and later. Red Hat 5 has a much earlier version, but it probably can be upgraded with a little effort. You're probably better off just using a more recent distribution, such as Red Hat 6.1.

Best of Luck, -Gleef

ANSWER: 3-button mouse on X Window System

Angelo:

I use Red Hat 5.1, so your subdirectories may be a little different, but here is a solution:

1. Log in as "root" so you can modify the configuration files for XWindows. (As an alternative, you could log in as a regular user and use the "su" command to get root access.)

2. Edit the file called "XF86Config" in the "/etc/X11" directory. This is a regular text file that has all your X settings for mouse, keyboard, monitor, and video card.

3. Find the "Pointer Section" which is about on line 125 (out of 383 lines in my copy of the file).

4. Find the line that says, "# Emulate3Buttons", and remove the "#" sign. The "#" indicates a comment and removing it turns the comment into a command.

5. Save and exit and log back in as a regular user (never play around as "root" -- it's too dangerous).

I think that will fix xstart for you! Good luck!

Alan Wormser Austin, TX

From: <rsmith@xs4all.nl>:

Dear Angelo,

In Linux Gazette nr. 47, you write:

Can anybody help me with this simple (I guess) problem? My three-button mouse works very fine on the console, but it doesn't when I "startx". What's going on? How can I solve this problem and start using the middle mouse button under X? Any suggestion will be appreciated.

What's going on is that your gpm (console mouse daemon) is probably set up differently from ths X Window System.

Look for the file XF86Config (probably in /etc/X11/)

Look for the "Pointer" section, and change the protocol from Microsoft to MouseSystems, as shown below:

Section "Pointer"
#    Protocol   "Microsoft"
    Protocol  "MouseSystems"
    Device    "/dev/mouse"
EndSection

That should do the trick.

From: Gerard Beekmans <glb@dds.nl>:

Can anybody help me with this simple (I guess) problem? My three-button mouse works very fine on the console, but it doesn't when I "startx". What's going on? How can I solve this problem and start using the middle mouse button under X? Any suggestion will be appreciated.

Start by opening your XF86Config file. It's under one of these places (under normal circumstances):
/etc/XF86Config
<XRoot>/lib/X11/XF86Config.hostname
<XRoot>/lib/X11/XF86Config

Look for the section "Pointer"

See if you have these (similair) lines:
Emulate3Buttons
Emulate3Timeout 50

If you have them, comment them out (by putting #'s in front of them) If you don't have them, you can try adding them.

Exit X and restart it (and cross your fingers ;)

If this doesn't work, could you tell me what kind of mouse (brand and connection like serial mouse or ps/2 mouse) you're using? And can you send me your XF86Config file too.

From: Joachim Noffke <Joachim.Noffke@t-online.de>:

The mouse configurations for the console and for X are independent from each other. You probably have configured X with a different mouse type that doesn't support three buttons. If your mouse works on the text console, try using the same settings for X.

To do this, check your "gpm" command in /etc/rc.d/rc.local (for Slackware, filename may vary depending on your distribution) to find out which mouse type is being used there (argument "-t"). Reconfigure the mouse under X accordingly (i.e. rerun XF86Setup, xf86config, or whatever you're using).

ANSWER: Dual PIII Xeon performance

Dear Nick,

In issue 47 of the Linux Gazette, you wrote

I do some intensive (multi-week runs) ocean modeling on my Dell 610 w/ a PIII 500 Mhz Xeon. I am having a hard time finding out whether a second PIII will improve the speed of a single process, or only for multi-processes. Either way would help, but it would be nice to know before laying out the $.

A second processor cannot really enhance the speed of a single process, other than distributing all the processes on your PC over two processsors. Remember that Linux is a multiuser/multitasking systems. At any time several processes are waiting for processor time.

If your application is capable of running multiple instances of itself, working together on the same data-set, you would see the largest speed increase.

Remember that you need a kernel compiled for SMP to be able to use 5the second processor. AFAIK, an SMP-able kernel doesn't work with a single processor.

Other things you could try to make your process run faster are:

• killing unnecessary daemons (e.g. inetd, sendmail and lpd) when you don't need them.
• give the process a higher priority (negative nice value) using "nice". Mind you, the superuser has to do this.

ANSWER: epson 800 printer driver

Dear Linda,

In the Linux Gazette nr. 47, you wrote:

We need to install above and need a driver installer disk, can you help. e:mail us or please call 01752 788099, we are desperate.

Linux doesn't have printer drivers as such. Printing services aren't part of the Linux kernel.

Most Linux users use Ghostscript (a postscript interpreter) as a way to use their printer as a postscript printer. The Epson Stylus 800 is supported by Ghostscript 5.5. Most modern distributions have this.

Install Ghostscript, adapt your /etc/printcap so that all programs that print via the printing daemon can access them.

Read the Printing-HOWTO.

ANSWER: KDE slower than windoze?

Dear Sandra,

In Linux Gazette nr. 47 you wrote:

I've just installed linux on my Acer Notebook 370 and I thought everthing works fine. But when I'm running KDE it takes e.g. about 5 minutes to open Netscape!!! Is anybody out there who knows what's wrong with my installation???

How much memory does your notebook have? I'd say you would need at least 16 MB to get a somewhat usable X environment, but 32 or 64 MB would be better. It sounds like your system is swapping a lot to get Netscape to load.

I would recommend you switch from KDE to a less memory intensive Window Manager (try fvwm1). Netscape itself is also quite big, although older versions (3.x) are smaller then new ones.

ANSWER: My Windows partition hasd full access for root only

I have 2 questions: I have partitioned my HD in 4 partitions. 1.1 - Win98 (Filesystem is FAT-Win95)
2.Linux Swap
3.Linux OS
4.Personal Data (Filesystem is FAT-Win95)
Questions 1.
Both the FAT-Win95 Filesystem Partitoins get mounted properly in Linux but the problem is that only root has read/write/execute permission. The other users only have read/execute permissions.How can I have it set up so that everyone had r/w/x permission to the mounted filesystems (and all the subdirectories within them)

Here's a solution. When you mount the partition, use this command:

mount -t vfat -o umask=000 partition mountpoint

You might use a slightly differnet command (aside the -o umask=000 option). The thing is: you need to put -o umask=000 somewhere. This command makes all files/directories mode 777 (r/w/x) for everybody (owner, group and other).

This doesn't add attributes which aren't originally present. Normally when root mounts, the write-attribute is removed from every file when you mount it (since root has usually umask 022 - group and other don't get write permissions when new files are created. If you use umask in a mount command every file that is on that filesystem will be treated like it has just been created (to put it simple)). If a file is marked read-only by Windows, the mount program will see that and will treat it like that aswell. Therefore you can't write to files that are already read-only, unless you're root.

Question 2.
If I access any file from the FAT-WIN95 filesystem and make a change to it within Linux, when I boot in windows, that file is marked as "read only". Any idea why this is happening and how I can stop this from happening?

I've never seen this happen on my system. I usually don't even use the umask=000 setting (since i hardly access the win95 partition at all. If i have to do it, i just do it as root). My only guess is that your root's umask has the first digit set to 2. If you type 'umask' at your prompt you should see '022'. But I don't think this is the case here. Check it anyway just to be sure :)

Perhaps this umask=000 setting answers your 2nd question. Again, since it doesn't happen here I can't test it either i'm afraid.

Maybe the two are related. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

You're most welcome. Hope all goes well. If you have more questions, feel free to ask ;)

From: Joachim Noffke <Joachim.Noffke@t-online.de>:

If your FAT partitions are mounted automatically at boot time, all files on them will belong to root. To change the permissions for other users, edit your /etc/fstab file: in the two lines corresponding to your FAT partitions (the ones which contain "vfat" or "msdos" in the third column), add the mount option "umask=0" to the fourth column. This should solve at least problem #1.

ANSWER: Tryin' to install a Diamond SupraExpress 56i V PRO

I have a problem with my new modem. I tried to install it under Red-Hat 5.2 but it doesn't work. My modem is an internal Diamond Supra Express 56i V PRO and under W98 the default configuration is irq 12 an I/O port 0x3e8. Under W98 it works perfectly and i don't think this is a "winmodem"(isn't it?). Windows "says" that under DOS it must be configured with: COM 3, irq 4 and I/O port 0x3e8 (/dev/ttyS2 isn't it?) I just want to know if this is a winModem or not and how can I install it.

First we have to make sure wether it's a winmodem or not.

How do you configure the modem? Do you need to change jumpers on the modemcard itself to change IRQ's and the like? If so, then chances are high that it is not a winmodem.

Here's a second check.

When you boot the computer, you get the BIOS tests output. It also contains a list with comports it had found. If that lists the comport of your modem, then you are sure that your modem is not a winmodem.

I advise to put your modem on COM4 (IRQ3 I/O 2E8) since that works best and in case you have a serial mouse it won't interfere with it (if you have a serial mouse on COM1 and a modem on COM3, they both have the same IRQ and that is a possible problem hazard). If you, however, have a PS/2 mouse, then you can safely leave it on com3.

And yes, COM3 is /dev/ttyS2 under Linux.

Have you tried minicom under Linux? It's a program similair to Hyperterminal from Windows. You can use the program to send AT-commands (modem commands) to a serial port and in that way you can determine if the modem is responding or not.

Good luck.

ANSWER: Linneighbourhood

this is the rpm info extracted with the rpm -qip command

Name        : gnomba                       Relocations: (not relocateable)
Version     : 0.3                          Vendor: (none)
Release     : 1                            Build Date: Thu Jul 2911:10:45 1999
Install date: (not installed)              Build Host:otherland.darkcorner.net
Group       : Utilities/Network            Source RPM:gnomba-0.3-1.src.rpm
Size        : 64461                        License: GPL
Summary     : Gnome Samba Browser
Description :
gnomba is a GUI network browser using the smb protocol.  It allows users
to browse workgroups, machines, and shares in a "Network Neighborhood."

i havn't installed this nor tested this

if you find time pl send me the comments about this rpm

raj

ANSWER: Compiling your own Linux distro.

Hi,

I recently came across this on the web.

The ROCK Linux Homepage: linux.rock-projects.com

----- snip README ------

ROCK Linux is built by a few shell scripts. These scripts can download all necessary sourcecode from the internet, compile the packages with optimizations for your choice of processor, build the package files and (optionally) create a CD-ROM image.

ROCK Linux is a small distribution, but it's not a "mini distribution". It comes with over 200 packages including X11 and the GNOME Desktop.

----- snip README ------

These scripts is about 1.3MB in size.

HTH

ANSWER: SiS

Your November column had some advice for a newbie struggling with an SiS video assembly. I offer the folowing:

For S.u.S.E. Go to their site http://www.suse.com/ for drivers. I did this with S.u.S.E. Linux 6.1. The drivers work, but can be installed only with S.u.S.E. SaX. The other installation programs will not work. The XF86Config file written is NOT compatible with xf86config, but is required to get SiS up. My SiS 530 on-board setup is limited to 16-bit color depth. Windows on the same computer has 32-bit color depth.

For Red Hat 6.0, Open Linux 2.0, and Slackware 3.6 There are drivers at http://www.sis.com.tw/. There are also instructions. I have not tried them, so you are on your own. Have fun.

Regards, William L. Jones, P.E. wljones@hex.net

ANSWER: RedHat Business Model

One part of my research is where I am analysing the business model of Linux (from Redhat) . However I fear by going to Redhat's website the information about it's product may be biased and I may not be able to get an all rounded opinion.

Get your basic info from RedHat, state your thesis on line (newsgroups?) and ask people to refute it. RedHat's pretty above-board, and most people don't have too much argument about their policies.

This page written and maintained by the Editor of the Linux Gazette.
Copyright © 1999, gazette@ssc.com
Published in Issue 48 of Linux Gazette, December 1999