• The MailBag
• More 2-Cent Tips
• The Answer Gang
• News Bytes, by Michael Conry
• HelpDex, by Shane Collinge
• Ecol, by Javier Malonda
• Fonts for the Common Desktop Environment (or: How To Alias Your Fonts), by Graham Jenkins
• Linux-Based Telecom, by Janine M Lodato
• The Sushi Pub at the World Internet Center, by Janine M Lodato
• Perl One-Liner of the Month: Good Enough For Government Work, by Ben Okopnik
• Optimizing GCC, by Justin Piszcz
• Programming the SA1110 Watchdog timer on the Simputer , by Pramode C.E
• Book Review: Unix Storage Management, by Dustin Puryear
• Doing Things in GNU/Linux, by Raj Shekhar, Anirban Biswas, Jason P Barto and John Murray

Linux Gazette Staff and The Answer Gang

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

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

Copyright © 1996-2003 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.

...making Linux just a little more fun!

The Mailbag From The Readers of Linux Gazette

• devfs problem
• traffic shaping for the internal network; tc filter for source addresses?
• PS/2 port still live after shutdown
• Only USB mouse/keyboard recognized by KDE.
• linux statistics

devfs problem

Hello!

I just switched from Gnome 2.0 to KDE 3.1 and I notice that the settings for the devices created by devfsd aren't save between reboots. So I read through the docs and I saw that I have to create some dev-state dir. Well, I already have that dir in /lib and devfsd is set to save the settings (in /etc/devfsd.conf). And if I change the permissions on some devices (/dev/dsp for example), the change is also visible in /lib/dev-state directory. However, after I reboot, the same problem. I don't have permissions. And this is really annoying me.

So any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

P.S. I am using Mandrake 9.0 with the default kernel.

Thanks!

Regards,
Stelian I.

traffic shaping for the internal network; tc filter for source addresses?

Hi!

I've got my home LAN behind a cable modem, masqueraded to the outside world. The masquerading machine runs RedHat 7.3. What I'm trying to achieve is equally share the bandwidth between the machines (about 7) following this algorithm: if only one host is making a connection at a given time, it gets the whole bandwidth; when a second connection from a second masqueraded machine arrives at the gateway, the bandwidth is equally divided between the two machines; if a third machine makes a connection, the bandwidth is split in three equal shares and so on. Now if one of the machines that has already opened a connection, makes a second one, I would want this connection to be allocated inside the machine's share, not as a separate member participating in the bandwidth division. Following this idea, if someone has 4 open downloads, someone else 7 and a third machine only 1, then bandwidth should be divided only by three and not 12.

I've already read about SFQ, qdiscs and tc filter from the 'Advanced routing HOW-TO' but I couldn't find any info on how to shape/police traffic dynamically and based on ip source addresses. I do not want to split the bandwidth into seven slices from the beginning since not everybody is online all the time and this would waste available bandwidth for the others. I'd rather have the traffic shaped depending on how many internal hosts wish to access the internet at a given time.

I'm not really interested in providing differentiated traffic based on content (interactive, bulk, etc.) just a fair sharing of bandwidth, ignorant of how many download managers/ftp's each and everyone is running, and not allowing anyone to suffocate the shared internet connection with his/her requests.

Thank you very much in advance for the time taken to
answer this,

Radu Negut

PS/2 port still live after shutdown

Hi everyone.

When Linux shutsdown with halt -p, my pc will turn off, but Linux won't switch off the power to my PS/2 port. It is turned on when X starts, but when X shuts down, or the PC is shut down, the port remains on - and my Optical Mouse stays on. Light remains glowing, etc.

.... However, Windows 98SE will shut this down properly every time. I have kernel 2.4.20 and have tried enabling ACPI and APM. And of course I have an ATX PSU, and nothing weird enabled either in cmos or jumpered.

I know that some boards just have power going through PS/2 ports after soft shutdown as a feature/bug, but Win98SE manages to shut down this one ok.

If someone knows how to fix this, I would really appreciate your help.

Thanks in advance.
D.Radel.

PS. Sorry for mentioning that other OS in this email.

Only USB mouse/keyboard recognized by KDE.

Greetings.I installed Red Hat Linux 8.0 on my desktop computer. I used my PS/2 keboard and mouse to install the software from CD images downloaded from Red Hat. After software installation completed my computer rebooted to the KDE login screen. My PS/2 keyboard and mouse does not work. Only a USB keyboard and mouse work. When I boot my system into run level 3 my PS/2 keyboard works. How do I configure my system so that I can use my PS/2 mouse and keyboard with KDE?

Any information is appreciated. Thanks.

linux statistics

Hi all,
are there any reputable statistics available on the web comparing linux, *nixes and windows on the enterprise server market? Can somebody give some pointers or links? Any reputable articles would also be welcome. I've been rummaging the web the whole day but couldn't find anything useful.
Thanks.

• What a great service you have done me
• The Ultimate Editor
• editor's comment...
• wordsmithing in Gibberish
• Point of Sale

What a great service you have done me

Dear Mike,

After my first article was published, about thirty people downloaded my console interface library. In the few days since you published my second, over ninety people have come for it. If only ten percent of those try to write an editor like I described, you will have turned my dream into a reality.

When I cycled into the city to log on at the daycentre this morning, I had been in the countryside for a week. I had no idea I had been published because I expected it would be in the March edition. I agreed with your comments about C++ not being the universal language I made it out to be and was going to rewrite it with your suggestions in mind.

Unless the author says he plans to do a revision, I assume the article is finished when I receive it. -- Mike

Now I realise it's gone out and I've seen the response, I don't care how bigotted people think I am

I cannot thank you enough.

Your faithfully, Stephen Bint

We have encouraged Stephen to write or be involved in more articles; you'll see some of the results when they're ready for publication. -- Heather

Thanks for the encouragement. It was good to hear what the article is doing for you. -- Mike

Mike,

Thank you for pointing out that I gave the misleading impression, that C++ is the first language of all Linux users in my article, The Ultimate Editor (LG#87). Obviously Linux users vary widely in their choice of first language.

It would be a boon to the users of any language, especially beginners, to have an editor which is extensible in their own language. C++ users seem to be the only group who do not have one yet.

Stephen Bint

The Ultimate Editor

Dear Editor,

I can not fully understand the article "The Ultimate Editor" in Feb. LG. Having migrated from DOS to Linux without passing MSWindooze I have to ask what is wrong with the Linux text editors such as joe, xedit, gedit, gxedit, xeditplus, kedit, kwrite, kate, vim, gvim, cooledit, any more?, yes I am sure.

I have seen the text editor in Windooze and thought it a joke compared with some of the Linux text editors mentioned.

May be Stephen Bint should try them all first before picking up more cigarette butts in the gutter thus damaging his lungs and consequently his brain.

Regards
Peter Heiss

Well, I can understand the article. I can also disagree with it, but first I have to understand it. The title seems destined to invite flames (perhaps he's asking for a light for those soggy gutter butts).

He doesn't like the Linux text/console editors he's tried. He doesn't bother to lay out the criteria against which he's rating them. Other than that it's simply an announcement of a library which is built over the top of SLang which, of course is built over the top of ncurses.

It would be easy to cast aspersions, even to question my fellow editors on the merits of including this article. However, I'll just let the article speak for itself. I'll ask, why doesn't xemacs support mouse on the console or within some form of xterm (xemacs does support ncurses color, and menus)? How about vim?

Personally I mostly use vim or xemacs in viper (vi emulation) mode. There are about 100 other text editors for Linux and UNIX text mode (and more for X --- nedit being the one I suggest for new users who don't want to learn vi --- or who decide they hate it even after they learn it).

-- Jim Dennis

I hope that Stephen's comment in the previous portion clarifies what he was really thinking. On the cigarette analogy, he has roll-your-own papers in his pocket, of a C++ variety, but needs someone to share loose tobacco. Then everyone sharing this particular vice can enjoy having a smoke together... downwind of folk who already like their text-editors :D Yes, folk who are used to seeing their brand down at the liquor store are likely to think making your own cigarettes is either quaint or nutty. But it's a big world out here, and the open source world is built by folk who like to roll their own... -- Heather

Let's remember that when Stephen complains, he doesn't just whine and expect others to do things his way. Rather, he takes it upon himself to contribute code that does whatever it is he's complaining about. See I Broke the Console Barrier in issue 86. That was the main reason I published The Ultimate Editor, even though I strongly objected to his assumptions that (1) C/C++ are the only worthwhile languages and (2) emacs should be flogged over the head for not using menus and keystrokes à la DOS edit. The first bothered me enough to insert an Editor's note saying there are other issues involved. The second didn't bother me quite as much, so I sent the author a private e-mail listing the C/C++ objections and asked him to consider a follow-up article or Mailbag letter that took them into account. And it worked: we had a great discussion between Stephen and the Editors' list about C/C++ vs scripting languages, and that led to some excellent article ideas.

Also remember that Stephen is homeless, and his Internet access is limited to an hour here, an hour there on public-access terminals. A far cry from simply sitting in front of your computer that happens to be already on. So he is putting a high level of commitment into writing these articles and programs, higher than many people would be willing to do. It's unfortunate that his limited Internet access prevented me from knowing at press time that he had decided on a last-minute revision to tone down the article and make it more balanced, but c'est la vie. -- Iron

editor's comment...

In Linux Gazette ( a most excellent ongoing effort, btw):

On behalf of the staff and the Gang, thanks! -- Heather

http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue87/bint.html

there's an editorial aside:

The Ultimate Editor would be what emacs should have been: an extensible editor with an intuitive mouse-and-menu interface. [Editor's note: emacs was born before mice and pulldown menus were invented.]

AFAIK, nope Or at least, not exactly! This would be better:

Though of course, RMS was at a research institute, so may have known of mice by then

For mouse references, see (amongst many other possibilities):

http://www.digibarn.com/friends/butler-lampson/index.html

or any of the Engelbart stuff. Mice were pretty well known by '72, Emacs dates from '76: TECO (Emacs' predecessor) does however date back almost to the invention of the mouse - I haven't found out exactly when TECO was initiated, around '64 I guess (but see

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/teco/doc/tecolore.txt

if the question is really of interest).

I think, strictly speaking, that the editor macros were by their nature trapped in the environment of the editor they were macros for : TECO. So it isn't precisely right to say that TECO was emacs' predecessor; "parent" or "original environment" maybe, but I don't believe TECO was intended to be a general purpose editor ... much less the incredible power beyond that, that the emacs environment grew into after taking off on its own.

Not all menus are pull-down, nor should a mouse be required to reach pull-down menus... a matter of style and usability. For my own opinion, I feel that emacs does have menus; they just don't always look the part. -- Heather

This is all, I agree, excessively pedantic - I've also offered my services as occasional proofreader

JR

Thanks to everybody who offered to proofread. We now have some twenty voluteers. -- Iron

wordsmithing in Gibberish

Dear Ben,

This is with reference to "Perl One-Liner of the Month: The Case of the Evil Spambots" which was published in th LG#86. I especially enjoyed you defination of Gibberish.

Here is something I found in my fortune files. I am pretty sure wordsmithing in the Marketroid language is done using this procedure. Please keep up the good work of giving underhand blows to the Marketroid.

Cheers Raj Shekhar

Point of Sale

Gene's HTML-only email barely escaped the spam trap, when Mike recognized that it was a followup to Issue 87, Mailbag #2

Folks, while our main publication form is HTML, we have our own style guidelines and pre-processing to do; if you're not submitting a full article, we greatly prefer plain text. -- Heather

There's always the real thing.

ViewTouch is genuine killer app. My life's work resulted in the sales of millions of computers in the 26 years since I first started writing and using POS software. I invented many of the concepts in use today worldwide in retail software, including virtual touchscreen graphics to represent the universe of retail business operations. Much of what we are doing today will become standard in the future. ViewTouch is the original and longest-lived. Thanks for your comments.

Gene Mosher

Hello, Gene - I remember talking to you when I wanted to install VT for a client in Florida a few years back (they backed out of the deal by trying to rip me off, but, erm, I had the root password. We parted ways, and they're still without a POS last I heard. As I'd mentioned, I really like the look and feel of your app; however, good as it is, not being Open Source limits its applicability in the Linux world. If I remember correctly, that was the upshot of our discussion here.

Just for the record, folks - Gene was very friendly and very helpful despite the fact that the client had not yet bought a license from him; given his help, the setup (at least the part that I got done before the blow-up) was nicely painless.

Ben Okopnik

We also got a request for aid finding a POS from a fellow with a pizza parlor; luckily, Linux folk have already dealt with Pizza, although it's worth following the old articles over at LJ and seeing how that project moved along. We're still looking for news or articles from people using or developing open source Point of Sale, and I re-emphasize, we mean physical cash registers, not just e-commerce. E-commerce apps we've got by the boatload, on sale and in "AS IS" condition. -- Heather

• April/May/June schedule

April/May/June schedule

I will be out of town March 18 - April 3 at the Python conference and Webware sprint (and visiting New York, Chicago, and Columbus [Ohio]), Heather will be busy the week before Memorial Day (May 26), and I'll be gone Memorial Day weekend.

This means I'll need to finalize the April issue by March 14, so the article deadline is March 10. I've let the recent authors know.

May's issue will be normal.

For June, the article deadline will be May 19 (a week early).

...making Linux just a little more fun!

More 2¢ Tips! By The Readers of Linux Gazette

• make in future? I'm confused *now*
• H/W detection in Debian ?
• ppp over nullmodem cable - Linux client, win2k RAS server
• kernels? make your own!
• Ipchains vs. Iptables
• a new language
• Key Remapping....
• Palm magic
• Initial thoughts on ratpoison
• rc.local in debian
• recording sounds on linux for windows
• Secure Password Authorization - NTCR ?
• Fwd: Terminating Misbehaving Programs
• Two sound cards

make in future? I'm confused *now*

hai,

I am subbu and I encounterd this problem when i ran

make - filename.

How to fix this problem?Can you help me.

make: *** Warning: File `makefile.machine' has modification time in
the future (2003-01-28 07:07:00 > 2003-01-28 00:09:19)
make: Nothing to be done for `all'.
make: warning:  Clock skew detected.  Your build may be incomplete.

I guess that my real-time clock has set incorrectly. how to correct it.

I appreciate your time.

thanks,
subbu

Ugly HTML had to be beaten up and reformatted. Please send messages to The Answer Gang in text format. -- Heather

[Mike] The message means what it says: 'make' found a file that "was" modified in the future. That may or may not be a problem, and if it is, it may or may not be significant. Do you know by other means whether 'makefile.machine' should have been updated? I.e., did you modify any file related to it?

How did that file get on your machine in the first place? Did you copy or untar it from another computer in a way that would have preserved the foreign timestamp? If so, then the clock on the other computer may be wrong.

To check your own computer's clock, see the 'date' and 'hwclock' commands. 'date' shows and sets Linux's time; 'hwclock' shows and sets the real-time clock. First set Linux's time correctly, then use 'hwclock --utc --systohc' to reset the hardware clock.

If your hardware clock is pretty unreliable (as many are), you can use 'hwclock --adjust' periodically (see "man hwclock"), run ntp or chrony to synchronize your time with an Internet time server, or put the kernel in "eleven-minute mode" where it resets the hardware clock every eleven minutes. (Answer Gang, how do you activate eleven-minute mode anyway?)

[Ben] In the "hwclock" man page:

This mode (we'll call it "11 minute mode") is off until something turns it on. The ntp daemon xntpd is one thing that turns it on. You can turn it off by running anything, including hwclock --hctosys, that sets the System Time the oldfashioned way.

Also, see the "kernel" option under "man ntpd".

H/W detection in Debian ?

In reference to: Issue87, help wanted #1 -- Heather

You could try installing libdetect, and then running /usr/sbin/detect (detect is also used by Mandrake). Aside from that, the only thing I can suggest is filing bugs with Debian.

ppp over nullmodem cable - Linux client, win2k RAS server

In reference to: Issue87, help wanted #2 -- Heather

The problem is the authentication on the Win2K side. Check out http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/apcguide/htm/appdevisv_8.asp Basically, since I assume the RAS server is running etc, you just need to enter this command on NT:

netsh ras set authmode NODCC

Last month Linux Magazine (UK - http://www.linux-magazine.com/issue/26/index_html) ran an article on setting up Direct Cable Connections with NT. I'll send on the details when I find where I left the magazine. You may try searching http://linux-magazin.de since Linux Magazine is a translated version of that.

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Modem-Dialup-NT-HOWTO-9.html

This page may also be of use.

kernels? make your own!

In reference to: Issue87, help wanted #1 -- Heather

Solution: stop using redhat, debian, mandrake kernels, download a fresh kernel from kernel.org and build with that.

The other answer, is to look in you Makefile, and check the line beginning with "EXTRAVERSION=" If you add your own name to that line, and run make, you brand the kernel and modules with that name. Hope that fixes your problem.


"Sean Shannon" <sean@dolphins.org>
Tue, 4 Feb 2003 10:48:20 -0500

The hardest part in compiling a kernel is making the ".config" file. Some things to check:

1. modify the Makefile changing EXTRA VERSION variable (looks like you did this since the 2.4.18custom directory is made)
2. make sure when you configure ( I use make menuconfig) that you select "enable module support"
3. make sure to run "make dep" after "make menuconfig"

[Thomas Adams] Yep -- good idea.

1. Are you sure that "make modules" and "make bzImage" completed successfully?

[Thomas Adams]

Well, I usually do something like:

alias beep='echo -e "\a"'

make modules && for i in $(seq 10); do beep; done &&
make bzImage && for i in $(seq 10); do beep; done

1. here is the install procedure I use (System.map is a symbolic link, RedHat 7.0, I use raid 1 disk device /dev/md0, you'll probably use /dev/hda )

[Thomas Adams] or /dev/sda if s/he has a SCSI

To install the new kernel:

Copy the new kernel and system map to the “boot” directory

cp  /usr/src/linux/arch/i386/boot/bzImage   /boot/vmlinuz-2.2.16-22-custom
cp  /usr/src/linux/System.map  /boot/System.map-2.2.16-22-custom

Edit file: “/etc/lilo.conf”. Add a new “image” section (add everything below )

See attached customkernel.lilo.conf.txt

[Thomas Adams] Often called a "stanza". Be careful though. I'd be more inclined to "label" this as "linux-test" so that it doesn't infringe on the "old" version of the kernel. Remember that up until this point, you're still testing (a trial run) the new kernel.

Activate the change as of next re-boot

/sbin/lilo

Install new System.map

rm  /boot/System.map
ln -s  /boot/System.map-2.2.16-22-custom  /boot/System.map

Reboot the system to build module.dep file

shutdown -r now

[Thomas Adams] Hmmm, deprecated. "Init 6" is a better way.

Reboot the system after the login prompt appears Enter “alt-ctrl-del” key combination

Reboot performed because modules.dep is created on first boot (if not, try running the "depmod" command manually then reboot)

[Thomas Adam] Not necessary. "depmod" is ran through all of the init levels on a modern Linux system......

Good luck. Sean Shannon

[Jim Dennis] Most of this can be automated down to just two lines:

make menuconfig
make clean dep bzImage modules modules_install install

... note the list of multiple targets all on one line. Make install will look for an executable (usually a shell script) named /sbin/installkernel (or even ~/bin/installkernel) and call that with a set of arguments as documented in ... (/usr/src/linux) arch/i386/boot/install.sh

Here's a relevant excerpt:

# Copyright (C) 1995 by Linus Torvalds
# Adapted from code in arch/i386/boot/Makefile by H. Peter Anvin
# "make install" script for i386 architecture
# Arguments:
#   $1 - kernel version
#   $2 - kernel image file
#   $3 - kernel map file
#   $4 - default install path (blank if root directory)
#
# User may have a custom install script

if [ -x ~/bin/installkernel ]; then exec ~/bin/installkernel "$@"; fi
if [ -x /sbin/installkernel ]; then exec /sbin/installkernel "$@"; fi

So this can put the approprite files into the appropriate places and run /sbin/lilo or whatever is necessary on your system.

I like to copy .config into /boot/config-$KERNELVERSION Also, in my case the script as to mount -o remount,rw /boot since I normally keep /boot mounted in read-only mode. The script remounts it back to ro mode after running /sbin/lilo.

For new kernels you can save some time in menuconfig by preceding that make with:

 	cp /boot/config-$RECENTKERNELVERSION ./.config.old
	make oldconfig

... which will set all the new config options to match any corresponding settings in the old config. Then you can focus on the new stuff in menuconfig.

Another useful tweak for some people is to edit ... (/usr/src/linux) .../scripts/Menuconfig and find the single_menu_mode variable:

# Change this to TRUE if you prefer all kernel options listed
# in a single menu rather than the standard menu hierarchy.
#
single_menu_mode=

... for those that don't like to have to expend extra keystrokes popping in and out of subsections of the menuconfig dialogs.

Sadly this particular featuer as changed (at least by 2.5.59) with the inclusion of a new kconfig system (instead of menuconfig).

You can get a collapsible try of menu options in the new system using: make menuconfig MENUCONFIG=single_menu (However, it it starts with all branches collapsed. <grump!>

Ipchains vs. Iptables

In reference to: Issue87, help wanted #6 -- Heather

if you use ipchains, then you should look at masquerading and port-forwarding.

following command

ipmasqadm portfw -a -P tcp -L $4 4662 -R 192.168.1.100 4662

should do the trick.

rgds Patrick De Groote


Bruce Ferrell <bferrell@baywinds.org>
Sat, 22 Feb 2003 17:30:34 -0800

if you're using ipchains you need something like this:

/usr/sbin/ipmasqadm portfw -a -P tcp -L <EXTERNAL ADDRESS> 11900 -R <INTERNAL ADDRESS> 11900

The point is, whether you use a variable or hardwire in an address, you need to specify both sides of the forwarding connection. Also note that the two examples selected a different port to play on, but the principle is the same. I hope that leaving both examples in makes it all clearer to readers. -- Heather


Jim Kielman <jimk@midbc.com>
05 Feb 2003 23:30:27 -0800

I ran into a similar problem with a client that had to have PCAnywhere access to one of the computers on his network. My solution was to use "ipmasqadm portfw" to forward the ports PCAnywhere needed to access. The server is running Debian potato with a stock 2.2.20 kernel. Here is what I use:

ipmasqadm portfw -a -P tcp -L <internet IP> 4162 -R <mldonkey IP> 4162
ipmasqadm portfw -a -P udp -L <internet IP> 4162 -R <mldonkey IP> 4162
ipmasqadm portfw -a -P tcp -L <internet IP> 4161 -R <mldonkey IP> 4161
ipmasqadm portfw -a -P udp -L <internet IP> 4161 -R <mldonkey IP> 4161

internet IP = the IP address of the computer connected to the internet.

mldonkey IP = the IP address of the computer running mldonkey.

I don't know if you need both udp and tcp, but it works for me. Hope this helps.

Regards
Jim Kielman

a new language

In reference to: Issue 86, 2c Tips #3 -- Heather

John Karns:

Cool - thnks for the pointer. I think I'll check it out. I knew that some IDE's exist for Linux, but never really took the time to look at one.

Why look at only one when you can look at over a hundred?

http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/linux-info/applications-ides.html

Note we're pointing to his gathered list of numerous "integrated development ennvironments" - the previous entry pointed to his description answering that (1) yes we have them, lots and lots; and (2) that if you think you're seeking one, you should make sure you are solving the right problem first. -- Heather

Key Remapping....

Is it possible to remap the <tab> key to another key on the keyboard?? One of my co-workers has a broken left pinky and is going insane not being able to use the tab key to complete commands.

I done a fair amount of searching to no avail... any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Mike] Grr, I just read yesterday about somebody turning Scroll Lock into another Escape key, now where was it...?

You can remap any key using the "loadkeys", "showkey" (singular) and "dumpkeys" commands. That's on the console. You have to do additional steps for X. See the Keyboard and Console HOWTO

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Keyboard-and-Console-HOWTO.html

Thanks for the quick reply. Helps a lot.

James

Palm magic

I was desperatly trying to use my palm with the evolution mailer, recompiled everything but the kitchen sink to get Gnome2 and Gnome1.4 capplets and applets totlaly mixed up in the end, it was working, but gnome was broken, so now I'm repairing Gnome2, and then try to write the apropriate spells for my Paml connetion

Halb uses the Sorceror distro, which refers to compiling its scripts and packages as "casting spells". -- Heather

[Ben] I've found the "appropriate spells" for the Palm - for my M-125 with the USB cable, at least - to be "jpilot" and "coldsync". "jpilot" is really well done, except for the selection interface in the "Install" menu (select a file, click "Add". Select next file, click "Add". And so on for, say, 50 files.) "coldsync" works at a lower level - it's great for reinitializing user info, a quick install with or without synching, and generally tweaking Palm comms. As an example, among the files that I carry on the Palm, I have The Moby Shakespeare collection (all of The Bard in one file) and Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", volumes 1-6; both rather large (~5MB). "jpilot" refused to load them (segfaulted). So did my brother's Wind*ws Palm desktop. "coldsync", however, when used with the "slow sync" option, managed it just fine. KDE's palm app, though, is severely broken (to its credit, it mentions that in the initial screens); it hosed my Palm so hard that I had to do a hard reset, and re-init the user (another thing that "jpilot" couldn't handle.)

Yes, well thanks for the info, Jpilot and stuff works like a charm (Palm M105 the small one), but I wanted to Sync my mailadresses in evolution........ wich is based upon gnome 1.4 (c)applets, which are horible to get to play nice with the Gonme2.0 install.

Good to know about the big files though...

Initial thoughts on ratpoison

For those of you who don't know, ratpoison is a light (very light) window manager. (http://ratpoison.sourceforge.net). The basic scheme is to have all apps fullscreen, using screen-like key bindings to switch between windows. I've been using it for about an hour or so now (Hint: Look at the sample.ratpoisonrc in the doc directory. Don't end up hacking the source code to change the prefix key like I did.), and I'm liking it. The best thing, of course, is the tons of screen real estate you get without any window title bars, borders, etc.

If you like doing everything with the keyboard or you want tons of screen real estates, give ratpoison a whirl.

Also see this article on freshmeat: http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/581

rc.local in debian

If you aren't using RHL, simply edit /etc/rc.d/rc.local

Atul

but there is no such file in debian . what file should I edit in debian ?

thanks in advanced.

The Linux Oracle has pondered your question deeply.

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

echo '#!/bin/sh' > /etc/rc.local
chmod 744 /etc/rc.local
RL=`grep ':initdefault:' /etc/inittab | cut -d: -f2`
echo "LO:$RL:once:/etc/rc.local" >> /etc/inittab
killall -HUP init

You owe the Oracle a better understanding of why subverting the SysVInit architecture is fundamentally a bad idea in the first place.

recording sounds on linux for windows

Hi!i'm rayho, i would like to ask how to receive sound from the microphone and then transmit the sound from the linux os to the window os system.Also,I'm not understand where the sound source is stored in which file in the linux os and what hardware and software do i need to do this transmition.Thankyou for your help!!

[Halb] Hi there,

This may sound a bit simple but I would do it like this:

• record your sound with anything that works (grecord or something)
• save as any file format you like (wav, mp3, ogg)
• copy this file over to the windoze box (samba)
• play file on windows (media-player, realplayer,..)

needed Hardware:

• 2 pc with networking cards (rj45, Wlan,..)
• microphone
• loudspeakers (? I looked this one up in dict.leo.org)

needed software:

• Linux (any flavour you like)
• Windoze

On the other hand, you might not want to transport single files, but want to do some kind of Internet audio broadcasting or something. You might want to look into

• http://www.shoutcast.com
• http://www.peercast.org ( p2p radio based on the gnutella protokol, I don't know about the license, but source is available)
• http://streamerp2p.com/streamer.htm ( p2p radio GPLed)

What did you have in mind?

Secure Password Authorization - NTCR ?

Neil Belsky wrote:

Were you ever able to solve this problem?

http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue64/lg_mail64.html#wanted/1

NTCR is another name for NTLM, which is supported by fetchmail.

Fwd: Terminating Misbehaving Programs

I receieved this tip for inclusion in my HOWTO

http://geocities.com/lunatech3007/doing-things-howto.html

However as it a bit advanced for a newbie's howto I did not include it. i am forwarding it to you.

Regards
Raj

[C.R. Bryan III] Subject: Doing Things in GNU/Linux

Good stuff Something I can put on a firewall machine when I put it onsite (since I leave Apache in for a status.cgi page anyway)

In the section "Terminating Misbehaving Programs":

If the afflicted machine is on a network with another Linux machine, or a Windows machine with PuTTY, there are additional steps that can be taken before hitting the Big Red Two-by-Four switch. (My network runs RHL 6.2 on older boxes, old as in P133, so I get practice in this every time Netscape walks into a Java site and freezes.)

1. Shell into the afflicted machine. Use ssh if you've got it, telnet otherwise. If VNC is installed at both ends, maybe you can use that. Just because the local desktop is frozen doesn't always mean that all desktop functioning is frozen. If the machine won't log you in, obviously it's game-over, so at that point you have to reset the box. Often, though, especially on older boxen, it's just X that's either frozen or in a really deep thrashing session, and you can get a shell prompt. Root-to-root ssh is most convenient.
2. Get root on the afflicted box with su.
3. Try to kill off just the program that's freezing things, and try to do it nicely.
    
   a. If you can get X apps to forward, or you can get a VNC window open, you can bring up kpm (the KDE process manager), which, with all the information presented, allows you to pinpoint just the app to kill with a right-click. Try several times to get it to go away, starting with Hangup, then Terminate, then Kill. The more of a chance you give the program to clean up its exit, the less garbage you'll leave lying around in the system.
    
   b. If you know the name of the program that has gotten hung, and only one instance of it is running, use killall. Let's assume for example that it's netscape:
    
   # killall -HUP netscape
   # killall -TERM netscape
   # killall -KILL netscape
    
   Killall does just that, kills off every instance of a program that it finds. That's appropriate for netscape, since it has a session-manager core which is usually the part that's locked up. If you've got a dozen xterms open, and ytree running in half of them, though, killing off every ytree might not be what you want; often, it's the helper-app that ytree launched that's frozen up (lynx, for instance) and you can killall that.
    
   c. Use top and other shell tools to zero in on which process to kill, then use kill. (Here I don't have that much experience: when I need to use top and kill, it's on a firewall without X, where all the running processes fit in an xterm/ssh window, so it's simple to fish out the pid to kill.)
4. If it won't kill, or you can't figure out who to kill, or things just seem hosed at the X level, as long as you can get root on a shell command-line, you can tell it:
    
   # init 3;init 5
    
   ...and that'll do what ctrl-alt-bs would do, restart X to a graphic login. Your underlying filesystem will have cores and DEADJOEs left lying around from the X-level programs that had to abort, but you won't have to fsck everything on a dirty boot.
5. If you think you might have stuck ports and locks from the killed X-level processes, and the machine doesn't have duties that would prevent it, or if X won't come back up, you can do a clean reboot to put things back in order, probably in less time than it'd take to find and free the stuck resources...
    
   # shutdown -r now
    
   That'll take down the X level, giving the X programs a chance to clean up after themselves, then the rest of the machine, and your filesystem will be unmounted and rebooted cleanly.

Bottom line: if you can shell or VNC into the frozen machine, there are things you can do to avoid losing data in the innocent processes you're running in X or corrupting your filesystem. You can even do some of these things from Windows if you have the right tools (telnet, ssh, PuTTY, VNC), as long as you have two or more machines on the same network.

How much of this you think might be appropriate to a newbie-help, I don't know, but that's my experience, anyway

Two sound cards

In reference to: Issue 87, 2c Tips #1 -- Heather

Hello,

Great how you tackled this problem. I have a simple Sounblaster 16 card. This card (with this chipset) appeared to be multichannel.

I play online games on the internet (Tribes2) and we use for communication a voice communication program (Teamspeak2). I also want to hear the sound of the game. Teamspeak2 is able to use a different channel (dsp0/dsp1).

So i adress the gamesound to dev/dsp1 and the voice communication to /dev/dsp0. I couldn't get it working with alsa drivers, but others with different soundcards can. So i used the OSS driver. It works great with only one soundcard.

If a program only wants to adress the default /dev/dsp (dsp0) and you want to let it use /dev/dsp1 you can change the link /dev/dsp --> /dev/dsp1

More information on http://www.teamspeak.org

Linux is a very stable platform for games and there is now a (free) voicecommunication program too.

...making Linux just a little more fun!

The Answer Gang

This column is not ready yet; please check back Tuesday, March 4.

...making Linux just a little more fun!

News Bytes By Michael Conry

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

Selected and formatted by Michael Conry

Submitters, send your News Bytes items in PLAIN TEXT format. Other formats may be rejected without reading. You have been warned! A one- or two-paragraph summary plus URL gets you a better announcement than an entire press release. Submit items to gazette@ssc.com

March 2003 Linux Journal

All articles older than three months are available for public reading at http://www.linuxjournal.com/magazine.php. Recent articles are available on-line for subscribers only at http://interactive.linuxjournal.com/.

Fox News report on the US Congress's tech agenda.

ITworld.com reported that the European Commission has presented a draft directive that punishes copyright infringement for commercial purposes, but spares home music downloaders, irritating music industry lobby groups (from Slashdot). Also reported at The Register.

Washington Post reports that Howard Schmidt, the new cybersecurity czar, is a former Microsoft security chief. (from Slashdot).

The Register reports how US gov reps "defanged" pro open source declaration.

EFF's comments on the "German DMCA" as part of its ongoing effort to avoid the worldwide export of over broad DMCA-type legislation. The German judicial commission is currently holding hearings on draft German legislation to implement the 2001 European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD).

After winning the initial judgement in a trademark suit, the German software firm MobiliX had to give up its name after all to the publishers of a similarly-named comic book character. MobilX.org is now TuxMobil.org. (NewsForge announcement.)

The EFF has announced the release of "Winning (DMCA) Exemptions, The Next Round", a succinct guide to the comment-making process written by Seth Finkelstein, who proposed one of the only two exemptions granted in the last Library of Congress Rule-making.

The Register reports that the DMCA has been invoked in DirecTV hack. 17 have been charged.

Slashdot Interview with Prof. Eben Moglen who has been the FSF's pro bono general counsel since 1993.

The Happypenguin Awards for the 25 Best Linux Games (courtesy NewsVac).

Lindows launches $329 mini PC, ubiquity beckons.

ZDNet UK reports on how KDE's new version has responded to government needs.

NewsForge report: The rise of the $99 'consumer' Linux distribution

A look at installing Bayesian filtering using Bogofilter and Sylpheed Claws.

Doc Searls at Linux Journal writes on the value shifts underpinning the spread of Linux and free software.

PC-To-Phone calls available for GNU/Linux.

Wired reports on getting an iPod to run on linux.

Jay Beale (of Bastille Linux) with an article on computer security, and how to tell if you've been hacked (from NewsVac).

Monthly Monster Machines back in action LinuxLookup.com have announced a monthly feature Monthly Monster Machines. This is a monthly updated spec of budget, workstation, and dream Linux machines.

It has been reported that starting this year, the Swiss State of Geneva will mail all tax forms with a CD which includes OpenOffice and Mozilla. This replaces an Excel sheet.

Recent NewsForge IRC chat with OpenOffice.org publicist/activist Sam Hiser.

Open Source security manual. There is a report on this at NewsForge.

Possible data write corruption problem on Linux.

NewsForge report on the launch of the new Linux in Education portal.

Slashdot highlighted a recent Business Week feature of Linux comprising 9 articles.

Slashdotters respond to an article about the Microsoft Home of Tomorrow by speculating what an AppleHouse, SunHouse and LinuxHouse would look like.

Howto do things in GNU/Linux

Interview with Dennis Ritchie, a founding father of Unix and C.

Some Links from Linux Weekly News:

• South Africa moves positively with regard to Linux in government.
• SCO hires lawyers to comb through Linux to see if it infringes on any of SCO's patents or copyrights; SCO owns the rights on the original UNIX. SCO is being tight-lipped about what it would do if it finds anything. Also reported at OS Opinion.
• Multi-part interview with Guido van Rossum, parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.

For the Chinese readers among you, a Chinese translation of the Peruvian refutation of Microsoft FUD.

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

Game Developers Conference	March 4-8, 2003 San Jose, CA http://www.gdconf.com/
SXSW	March 7-11, 2003 Austin, TX http://www.sxsw.com/interactive
CeBIT	March 12-19, 2003 Hannover, Germany http://www.cebit.de/
City Open Source Community Workshop	March 22, 2003 Thessaloniki, Greece http://www.city.academic.gr/cosc
Software Development Conference & Expo	March 24-28, 2003 Santa Clara, CA http://www.sdexpo.com/
Linux Clusters Institute (LCI) Workshop	March 24-28, 2003 Urbana-Champaign, IL http://www.linuxclustersinstitute.org/
4th USENIX Symposium on Internet Technologies and Systems	March 26-28, 2003 Seattle, WA http://www.usenix.org/events/
PyCon DC 2003	March 26-28, 2003 Washington, DC http://www.python.org/pycon/
Linux on Wall Street Show & Conference	April 7, 2003 New York, NY http://www.linuxonwallstreet.com
AIIM	April 7-9, 2003 New York, NY http://www.advanstar.com/
FOSE	April 8-10, 2003 Washington, DC http://www.fose.com/
MySQL Users Conference & Expo 2003	April 8-10, 2003 San Jose, CA http://www.mysql.com/events/uc2003/
LinuxFest Northwest 2003	April 26, 2003 Bellingham, WA http://www.linuxnorthwest.org/
Real World Linux Conference and Expo	April 28-30, 2003 Toronto, Ontario http://www.realworldlinux.com
USENIX First International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services (MobiSys)	May 5-8, 2003 San Francisco, CA http://www.usenix.org/events/
USENIX Annual Technical Conference	June 9-14, 2003 San Antonio, TX http://www.usenix.org/events/
CeBIT America	June 18-20, 2003 New York, NY http://www.cebit-america.com/
ClusterWorld Conference and Expo	June 24-26, 2003 San Jose, CA http://www.linuxclustersinstitute.org/Linux-HPC-Revolution
O'Reilly Open Source Convention	July 7-11, 2003 Portland, OR http://conferences.oreilly.com/
12th USENIX Security Symposium	August 4-8, 2003 Washington, DC http://www.usenix.org/events/
LinuxWorld Conference & Expo	August 5-7, 2003 San Francisco, CA http://www.linuxworldexpo.com
Linux Lunacy Brought to you by Linux Journal and Geek Cruises!	September 13-20, 2003 Alaska's Inside Passage http://www.geekcruises.com/home/ll3_home.html
Software Development Conference & Expo	September 15-19, 2003 Boston, MA http://www.sdexpo.com
PC Expo	September 16-18, 2003 New York, NY http://www.techxny.com/pcexpo_techxny.cfm
COMDEX Canada	September 16-18, 2003 Toronto, Ontario http://www.comdex.com/canada/
LISA (17th USENIX Systems Administration Conference)	October 26-30, 2003 San Diego, CA http://www.usenix.org/events/lisa03/
HiverCon 2003	November 6-7, 2003 Dublin, Ireland http://www.hivercon.com/
COMDEX Fall	November 17-21, 2003 Las Vegas, NV http://www.comdex.com/fall2003/

IBM and Smallpox

IBM, United Devices and Accelrys have announced a project supporting a global research effort that is focused on the development of new drugs that could potentially combat the smallpox virus post infection. The Smallpox Research Grid Project is powered by an IBM infrastructure, which includes IBM eServer[tm] p690 systems and IBM's Shark Enterprise Storage Server running DB2[r] database software using AIX and Linux.

Opera and the Swedish Chef Go After Microsoft

Opera Software has released a very special Bork edition of its Opera 7 for Windows browser. The Bork edition behaves differently on one Web site: MSN. Users accessing the MSN site http://www.msn.com/ will see the page transformed into the language of the famous Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show: Bork, Bork, Bork! This is retaliation to apparent targeting by MSN of Opera users. Opera browser users were supplied with a different stylesheet to MSIE users, which made the site display in a less appealing way.

Debian

Debian Weekly News reported the announcement of the new archive key for 2003. This is used to sign the Release file for the main, non-US and security archives, and can be used with apt-check-sigs to improve security when using mirrors.

Also from DWN, and of use to many Debian users, is Adrian Bunk's announcement of the backport of OpenOffice.org 1.0.2 to woody. Packages are available online.

Debian powers PRISMIQ MediaPlayer home entertainment gateway device.

Knoppix

IBM developerWorks has published a recent article on Knoppix.

Mandrake

Part 4 of DistroWatch's review of Mandrake 9.1 is online

SuSE

Open For Business has published a review of SuSE Linux 8.1

NewsForge has reviewed SuSE Linux Office Desktop.

Vector

C.O.L.A software news

• The GUI library wxWindoes version 2.4.0 has been released.
• The release of Version 22.4.1 of LILO has been announced.
• teTeX version 2.0 is now available as is Lyx version 1.3.0.

Candy Cruncher

LGP is pleased to announce that Candy Cruncher has arrived from the replicators and is available immediately.

CourseForum 1.3

CourseForum Technologies today introduced CourseForum 1.3, its web-based software for e-learning content creation, sharing and discussion. CourseForum can be hosted on MacOS X, Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP, Linux or other Unixes, while users need only a standard web browser.

ProjectForum 1.3

CourseForum Technologies today introduced ProjectForum 1.3, a web-based software for flexible workgroup collaboration and coordination of projects and teams. ProjectForum can be hosted on MacOS X, Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP, Linux or other Unixes, while users need only a standard web browser. Licenses start at US$199, and a free version is also available.

AquaFold

AquaFold, Inc have announced the latest version of Aqua Data Studio, a universal database tool for building, managing and maintaining enterprise relational databases. Aqua Data Studio includes support for all major database platforms such as Oracle 8i/9i, IBM DB2, Sybase Adaptive Server, Microsoft SQL Server and the open source databases MySQL and PostgreSQL. Developed with the Java programming language, Aqua Data Studio supports all major operating systems, including Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OSX, and Solaris. Screenshots and downloads available online.

...making Linux just a little more fun!

HelpDex By Shane Collinge

These cartoons are scaled down to minimize horizontal scrolling. To see a panel in all its clarity, click on it.

Tux continues his career as an Eminem wannabe.

And other topics...

All HelpDex cartoons are at Shane's web site, www.shanecollinge.com.

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.

...making Linux just a little more fun!

Ecol By Javier Malonda

The Ecol comic strip is written for escomposlinux.org (ECOL), the web site that supports, es.comp.os.linux, the Spanish USENET newsgroup for Linux. The strips are drawn in Spanish and then translated to English by the author. Text commentary on this page is by LG Editor Iron. Your browser has shrunk the images to conform to the horizontal size limit for LG articles. For better picture quality, click on each cartoon to see it full size.

Your Editor couldn't resist getting Javier to do the same cartoon in Esperanto.

These cartoons are copyright Javier Malonda. They may be copied, linked or distributed by any means. However, you may not distribute modifications. If you link to a cartoon, please notify Javier, who would appreciate hearing from you.

...making Linux just a little more fun!

Fonts for the Common Desktop Environment (or: How To Alias Your Fonts) By Graham Jenkins

Yet Another New Desktop Environment?

Actually, it's not. The Common Desktop Environment (CDE) has been around for as long as some of those who will be reading this article. It was jointly developed by IBM, Sun, HP and Novell so as to provide a unified "look and feel" to users of their systems. It was also adopted by other companies (notably Digital Equipment). You can find further details at "IBM AIX: What is CDE?".

[Screenshot: a typical CDE screen]

The early versions of KDE appear to have been based on CDE, and the more recent releases of XFce have a look-and-feel which is very similar to that of CDE. A key difference here is that both KDE and XFce are Open Source developments.

One of the most-used CDE applications is probably its desktop terminal 'dtterm' which was based on 'xterm' with some extra menu-bar capabilities; its look is not unlike that of 'gnome-terminal'. There are also image-viewer, performance-monitoring, mail-reader and other useful tools.

Why Should I Care?

I work in an environment where I am required to access and manage a number of Solaris and HP-UX servers. Most of my work is done at a NetBSD-based Xterminal, managed by a remote Solaris machine so that I have a CDE desktop. There are times it is managed instead by a remote Linux machine so that I have a Gnome desktop. And there are times (too many of them!) when I work from home, using a Linux machine with a locally-managed Gnome desktop.

It matters little where I am working; as soon as I open up a CDE utility such as 'dtterm', my Xserver starts looking for CDE-specific fonts. It seems that a number of vendor-supplied backup and other utilities also make use of these fonts.

In the case of 'dtterm' the end-result is that an attempt to select a different-sized font produces a selection list containing eight fonts, and seven of these can't be found. It is actually possible to get around this by redefining on the Solaris or HP host the names of the fonts which are used for the 'dtterm' application. This can be done at either a system-wide or a user-specific level; either way, it's hardly an elegant solution.

In the case of a splash-screen produced at CDE-login time, the result can be quite dire: the user is unable to read the login prompts or error messages! More recent versions of both Solaris and HP-UX get around this by attempting to append an entry like 'tcp/hpmachine:7100' to the font-path at login time. That's fine unless your site security policy prohibits the activation of font service on your Solaris and HP servers.

Why Not Use Specialised Font Server Machines?

You can designate a couple of machines as font-servers for your site. These can be small dedicated machines, or they can offer other services (such as DHCP, NTP, etc.) as well. That's actually the way that it's done with 'thin' Xterminals from companies like IBM, NCD and HP.

There are several issues. First up, you have to actually install the CDE-fonts on the font-server machines; there may be some copyright issues here if you are installing (for instance) HP CDE fonts on Linux machines.

Something we noticed in practice is that the Xserver software we are using doesn't seem smart enough to do a transparent fail-over in the event of a single server disconnection. So what happens is that a user suddenly finds himself presented with a blank screen.

If you are working from home with a modem connection to the LAN on which your font-servers reside, it can take some time for required fonts to arrive when you start a 'dtterm' application.

Install on Every Xserver?

This is certainly a possibility, and if you can live with the copyright issues, it will solve most of the problems outlined above. But it will require an extra 10Mb of filespace on each system.

There is Another Way!

The good news is that you don't have to lose sleep over the copyright issues. And you don't have to install strange fonts all over your font directories.

All you need do is identify some commonly-available fonts which closely match the CDE-specific fonts, and create one 'fonts.alias' file. Place it in an appropriate directory (e.g. '/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/local'), and run 'mkfontdir' in that directory. Then ensure that the directory name is included in your font-server configuration file (e.g. '/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fs/config'). If your version of Linux (or NetBSD, or FreeBSD ..) doesn't include a term like 'unix/:7100' in its 'XF86Config' (or similar) server configuration file, you should place the name of your selected font directory in that configuration file.

The Intimate Details

Here's what the 'fonts.alias' file looks like. For clarity, I've shown just the first two and the last alias hereunder, and I've broken each line at the whitespace between the alias-name and it's corresponding real font. There wasn't a great deal of science went into the development of this file, although I did use a couple of simple scripts to assemble it. It was just a matter of finding, for each alias, a font having similar characteristics and size.

 ! XFree86-cdefonts-1.0-2
 ! Font Aliases for Common Desktop Environment using XFree86 fonts.
 ! Graham Jenkins <grahjenk@au1.ibm.com> October 2001.
 -dt-application-bold-i-normal-serif-11-80-100-100-m-60-iso8859-1
   "-adobe-courier-bold-o-normal--11-80-100-100-m-60-iso8859-1"
 -dt-application-bold-i-normal-serif-14-100-100-100-m-90-iso8859-1
   "-adobe-courier-bold-o-normal--14-100-100-100-m-90-iso8859-1"
  ...
 "-dt-interface user-medium-r-normal-xxl serif-21-210-72-72-m-140-hp-roman8"
   "-b&h-lucidatypewriter-medium-r-normal-sans-24-240-75-75-m-140-iso8859-1"

Read My Lips

OK, so you've read this far, and you're still asking "Why Should I Care?". My guess is that eighty percent of you have never used CDE and are unlikely to use it in the future.

But what I can guarantee is that most of you are going to run an application one day, and wonder why it's fonts don't display or scale properly. My hope is that when that happens, you'll recall what you've read here - and apply it to the creation of an appropriate 'fonts.alias' file as outlined above.

Graham is a Unix Specialist at IBM Global Services, Australia. He lives in Melbourne and has built and managed many flavors of proprietary and open systems on several hardware platforms.

...making Linux just a little more fun!

Linux-Based Telecom By Janine M Lodato

Because the baby-boom generation will soon be the senior population, the market for voice-activated telephone services will be tremendous. An open-minded company such as IBM or Hewlett-Packard will surely find a way to meet the market demand. What is needed by this aging population is a unified messaging system -- preferably voice-activated -- that lets the user check for caller ID, receive short messages, check for incoming and outgoing e-mail, access address books for both telephone numbers and e-mail addresses, and place telephone calls.

Everything that is now done by typing and text will be more quickly and easily performed with voice recognition. That is, a voice will identify a caller, read short messages aloud, provide e-mail services in both text-to-voice reading of the incoming e-mail and voice-to-text for outgoing e-mail, voice access of address books, and voice-activated placing phone calls (and ending them when you're done). Once the users are able to answer, make and end a call using just their voices, working with the telephone will be a breeze and seniors will not feel isolated and lonely. What a boon to society voice-activated telephone services will be. Whether or not users are at all computer-savvy, e-mail will also be an option applied to the telephone. It is, after all, a form of communication as is the telephone. It is a Linux-based unified communication system.

Of great value to the user would be e-mail and its corresponding address book. As e-mail comes in, messages could be read by way of a text-to-voice method. Also of great value would be a telephone system with its corresponding address book and numbers. Short messaging could be read through text-to-voice technology and short messages can be left using voice-to-text methodology.

One of the most advanced and productive uses of such simple Linux-based communication devices is to search the web without going on-line to a search engine. Instead, one can just send an e-mail to Agora in Japan and do multiple Google searches with a single e-mail. You do not even need a browser. For example, we are interested how Linux has been recently doing in the press in connection with the life sciences and medical applications. Just send a single e-mail to a free service such as Agora at dna.affrc.go.jp. In the body of a single e-mail one can put a number of searches. Of course, one can modify the search terms:

Send http://www.google.com/search?q=Linux+press+2003+life*sciences\&num=50

Send http://www.google.com/search?q=Linux+press+2003+medical*devices\&num=50

Send http://www.google.com/search?q=Linux+press+2003+telemedicine\&num=50

How productive one can get, but do not abuse these fine services since they are for the researchers. Use it when it's nighttime in Japan: after 7pm on the US west coast, after 4pm on the US east coast, and after 11am in western Europe.

Anything that allows independence for the user is bound to be helpful to every aspect of society.

With the attractive price of a Linux-based unified communication device encompassing all the applications mentioned above, users can be connected and productive without the need for an expensive Windows system.

Resources

There's a list of Agora and www4mail servers at http://www.expita.com/servers.html. Two other (less reliable) Agora servers are agora at kamakura.mss.co.jp (Japan) and agora at www.eng.dmu.ac.uk (UK).

Www4mail is a very modern type of server that works similar to Agora. Two servers the author has tested are www4mail at kabissa.org and www4mail at web.bellanet.org. Send an e-mail with the words "SEND HELP" in the body for instructions.

...making Linux just a little more fun!

The Sushi Pub at the World Internet Center By Janine M Lodato

The most important capital of an alliance: people, successfully collaborating via the Internet.

The Center brings hope by connecting Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, corporate executives and technologists, all wanting to forge a start-up company that will make a mark on today's economy using info-tech such as the Internet. From the business opportunities that develop, the beneficiaries of such opportunities are not just the businessmen putting together the deal. In the long run, the beneficiaries may also include people around the world afflicted with physical malfunctions and illnesses.

The Pub allows people to put together start-up firms of varying interests. Small, narrowly-focused companies such as those concentrating on life sciences, soon to be headquartered in Singapore, rely on larger businesses to disseminate their services and capabilities. These larger businesses are called systems integrators.

Visitors to The Center come from as far away as Russia, Australia, Iran, Europe, China, Japan, Chile, Brazil and, of course, from Silicon Valley. California's Silicon Valley is the Mecca of high technology: telecom, multimedia telecom, computers, Internet and e-commerce, attracting countries wanting to ride the high-tech wave of the future because of its potential for financial gain.

Because people forming a team and working well together as a group make for the success of a new company, the elbow-rubbing they do socially at the Pub is an indication of how things will work out in the long run. People make the deal work, not technology, not ideas, not money, but people with those things. If new businesses can speed along medical help for people with all sorts of physical malfunctions, The Center will have achieved a major milestone: lowering the cost of medicine and improving the lives of the needy.

The main theme of The Center is to connect its current and past large corporate sponsors such as Amdocs, Deutsche Telekom, HP, IBM, SAP, Sun with with small high-tech companies and expert individuals in the form of a series of focused think-tanks.

Because my husband, Laszlo Rakoczi, a Hungarian revolutionary who emigrated to the USA after the revolution in Hungary was crushed by the Evil Empire (the Soviet Union), is a member of the Advisory Board of The Center, many small companies seek him out to discuss the potential of collaborative strategic alliance type business arrangements. One such high-tech company recently approaching him is Sensitron.net. Dr. Rajiv Jaluria, founder and CEO, met Laszlo through The Center. Sensitron is a small high-tech firm which built an end-to-end system to connect medical instruments to monitoring stations and databases thus improving the productivity of the medical professionals and increasing the quality of medical care. Of course the question of what type of platform should the application run on came up. Laszlo immediately introduced the idea of embedded Linux based systems for the medical instruments as well as for the PDAs and Tablets for the professionals and even the potential of Linux based servers and databases. Laszlo suggested these since Linux would allow...

• a more reliable end-to-end system
• easier maintenance of the system
• a much lower cost end-to-end system
• application specific, simple, productive GUI for the professionals
• a GUI for the patients with telephone type simplicity so the can connect in telemedicine fashion to the professionals supporting them.

Laszlo could not resist pointing out that the real Evil Empire which is holding down and fighting the real revolution -- the simple and low cost collaboration of all peoples via the Internet, not just the ones who can pay for the high cost of a Windows based PC -- is Microsoft with their monopolistic pressure tactics. One of such evil practices of Microsoft is the campaign under which they embrace a small company like Sensitron, enhance their application of Sensitron, then extinguish the original team. Embrace, enhance, extinguish. The Soviets were never that good and imaginative in their tyrannical approach. Maybe that is the reason they have failed.

As the biotech and IT arenas converge, IT enables life sciences companies to accelerate the development, testing and marketing of their intellectual properties, products and services. Life sciences encompass the fields of biotechnology, medical equipment and pharmaceutical products and services. Such companies include many small, as well as large entities like Pfizer, Chiron, Philips and Agilent.

It is hard to believe such a sophisticated, practical idea could come from people socializing over wine and sushi, but that is indeed the case. Many future start-up companies in the Silicon Valley will have the World Internet Center and its weekly Pub to thank for their conception.

One such important think tank, currently in formation stages looking for corporate sponsors, is an NIH-funded project for the disabled, aging and ailing. This proposed think tank planning to investigate the potential of collaborative telemedicine. For example, due to the shortage of medical professionals, China must use telemedicine to connect the small clinics in 260,000 communities to the 100 large teaching hospitals via VSAT type Internet linkage. NeuSoft of China is putting together such a system and of course they do not want to fall prey to Microsoft's overpriced systems. In fact Linux is the major platform China wants for all their applications supported by the Red Flag project.

Telemed systems of this type apply to a very large group, including disabled, aging and ailing people as well as the professionals supporting them. The sum of these people account for half the population of the world and very few of them can afford the artificially high cost of Windows-based systems. Telemed can lower the cost of medicine, improve the capabilities of the medical professionals and at the same time improve the quality of life of the patients.

Sensitron, with the support of NeuSoft will propose that NIH should provide a grant to their strategic alliance under which a disabled and female investigator will do a clinical study of the potential of significantly improved condition of health via Internet-based collaborative virtual community style involvement. This significant upgrade of self-supported health improvement can be achieved using assistive technologies (AT) connected via the web. However, such AT technologies must be upgraded to allow collaboration between the health service professionals and their patients linked via the virtual community. The AT based virtual community needs functions such as...

• simple and telemed-specific user interface.
• voice based interaction via computer/telephone.
• always-on and always-available systems.

Melbourne, Singapore, Dailan, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Kuala Lampur, Munich, Budapest, Vienna, Lund, Bern, Helsinki, Shenyang, Dublin, London, Stuttgart, Hawaii, Vancouver, Toronto, etc., would all love to come to Silicon Valley in this virtual community manner, through a club equipped with a standard wireless local area network (WLAN), connected to a virtual private network (VPN). This cross-oceanic virtual private network will have kiosk-based unified messaging (UM) between the clubs. This would also including very low-cost voice over the Internet protocol (VoIP) connected in all major APEC, Asian Pacific economic community, cities with the VoIP and UMoIP as well as through carrier allies with IP backbone to 120 of the important cities in USA/Canada as well as many in the EU.

Those of us with neurological dysfunctions such as MS, ALS, ALD, Parkinsons, Alzheimers and myriad more, have a very special personal stake in the networking that goes on over sushi and wine. Life sciences and information technology working together can aid these patients in a very effective way. For example, techniques like neuroprosthetics -- interaction with devices using voice and eye signals -- can develop.

As I sit in the only quiet spot at The Center during its weekly, after-hours social event, I notice the networking that takes place. The Center provides a great opportunity for people to share ideas for business. Everyone from the original architects of the Valley to new entrepreneurs is there. Investors look for good investment opportunities, and start-up companies look for anyone wanting to put money into their new venture. Basically, it's a people-to-people scene and is exciting to observe.

Then there are those who find the allure of the event as a singles bar irresistible. Where else can they find stimulating company, fresh sushi and good wine at such a fair price? Personally, having attended the weekly occasion for so many months now because my husband, Laszlo, is a member of The Center's Advisory Board, I could care less if I ever see sushi again in my life!

By now I have my own circle of friends at this gathering. And I find those wanting to do business with my important husband very courteous and attentive to me. In general, the entire encounter is an "upper" for me, a technology midget among giants.

Nibbling on the cheese set before me, my taste for sushi having long since expired, I fulfill my role as a mouse in the boardroom to the max. I overhear conversations of businessmen from the already-mentioned countries exchanging e-mail addresses to further negotiate via the Internet. The Center has achieved its goal.

I smile a little inward smile, realizing medical researchers around the world have been sharing ideas and breakthroughs on the Internet for years. A medical Manhattan Project has been globalized thanks to the Internet. I know a lot of afflicted people who were ready for medical help yesterday.

What can we do besides raise money to hurry things along? Hope the convergence of biotechnology and IT accelerates treatments for physical malfunctions worldwide and promotes the free exchange of intellectual property among biotechnology companies and research institutions, that's what. And keep that sushi and wine readily available for the Thursday night Pub at the World Internet Center.

...making Linux just a little more fun!

Perl One-Liner of the Month: Good Enough For Government Work By Ben Okopnik

When Woo