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Mailbag

This month's answers created by:

[ Amit Saha, Ben Okopnik, Brian Bilbrey, Faber Fedor, Kapil Hari Paranjape, Karl-Heinz Herrmann, Neil Youngman, Raj Shekhar, Ramon van Alteren, Rick Moen, Suramya Tomar, Mike Orr (Sluggo), Steve Brown, Thomas Adam, Vignesh M ]
...and you, our readers!

Gazette Matters


Still no Woomert Foonly?

Benjamin A. Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
Thu, 21 Dec 2006 18:55:17 -0600

On Wed, Nov 22, 2006 at 08:17:28PM +0000, Bradley Chapman wrote:

> I just went back and reread all of the adventures of Woomert Foonly
> again, and found myself still lamenting the lack of new stories about
> this Hard-Nosed Detective and his sidekick Frank Ooblick.
> 
> Are there really no more fantastically mundane Linux problems that can
> be solved with a bit of obfuscated Perl?

Well, OK then. Since you guys aren't going to stop bugging me, fine - I'll write it already!

[grin] Bradley, thanks to your prodding, as well as reminders from other folks, I've just written a Woomert&Frink story - all but the ending, which is coming apace (I just sorta ran down, after typing 400+ lines all in one go.) Might even go out this month; handy, that, since we're a bit short on content.

And so it did... http://linuxgazette.net/134/okopnik.html - Kat

-- 
* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *

Still Searching


opening VA FullON 2230

Tyler Spivey [tspivey at pcdesk.net]
Fri, 15 Dec 2006 02:31:25 -0800

Hi. I'm looking for a quick solution to getting at the hds of this beast, and am asking wherever I can. Being blind, this precludes looking at photos, or I probably would have had it. I succeeded in removing the large back panel with the thumbscrews, but according to an article I read somewhere, I have to remove the cd-rom/floppy and the front grill. Any tips for doing that? I can't figure out how it goes in, let alone how to get it out.

Thanks,

Tyler


reverse SQUID inquiry

Genner R. Cerna [genner at adzu.edu.ph]
Wed, 13 Dec 2006 14:49:07 +0800

can you help me? this my reverse squid configuration, can you help me tweak my squid.conf to optimal performance...

squid.conf below:

# ========== Logs ==========
cache_access_log /var/log/squid/access.log
cache_log /var/log/squid/cache.log
log_icp_queries off
cache_store_log none
cache_effective_user squid
cache_effective_group squid
client_db off
 
# ========== Accelerated Virtual Host and Port ==========
http_port localhost:80 vhost vport
icp_port 0
 
# ========== Cache Peer IP ==========
cache_peer localhost parent 81 0 no-digest originserver default
 
# ========== Caching ==========
cache_mem 128 MB
cache_replacement_policy heap GDSF
memory_replacement_policy heap GDSF
 
#========Cache object size======
maximum_object_size 1 MB
minimum_object_size 0 KB
maximum_object_size_in_memory 512 KB
 
#=======Cache directory size=======
cache_dir ufs /var/spool/squid 20480 256 256
 
#=======Other settings==========
pipeline_prefetch on
vary_ignore_expire on
 
# ========== ACL ==========
acl all src 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0
acl manager proto cache_object
acl localhost src 127.0.0.1/255.255.255.255
acl accel_hosts dst localhost
 
http_access allow accel_hosts
http_access allow manager localhost
http_access deny manager
http_access deny all
 
#=========Refresh Pattern ==========
refresh_pattern ^http://.*\.gif$ 1440 50% 20160 reload-into-ims
refresh_pattern ^http://.*\.asis$ 1440 50% 20160
refresh_pattern -i \.html$ 10080 60% 40320
refresh_pattern -i \.png$ 10080 100% 40320 reload-into-ims
refresh_pattern -i \.jpg$ 10080 100% 40320 reload-into-ims
refresh_pattern -i \.jpeg$ 10080 100% 43200 reload-into-ims
refresh_pattern -i \.bmp$ 10080 100% 40320 reload-into-ims
refresh_pattern -i \.gif$ 10080 100% 40320 reload-into-ims
refresh_pattern -i \.ico$ 10080 100% 40320 reload-into-ims
refresh_pattern -i \.swf$ 10080 100% 40320 reload-into-ims
refresh_pattern -i \.flv$ 10080 100% 40320 reload-into-ims
refresh_pattern -i \.txt$ 1440 100% 20160 reload-into-ims
refresh_pattern ^http:// 1 100% 20160 reload-into-ims ignore-reload
refresh_pattern -i \.css$ 1440 60% 20160
refresh_pattern ^ftp:// 240 50% 20160
refresh_pattern ^gopher:// 240 40% 20160
refresh_pattern . 0 100% 20160 reload-into-ims
 
 
----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.

egroupware address-book with ldap ?

J.Bakshi [j.bakshi at icmail.net]
Wed, 29 Nov 2006 20:27:18 +0530

Could any one suggest how to run egroupware address-book with ldap ? thanks


Issue with NFS mount

Britto I [brittocan at gmail.com]
Wed, 6 Dec 2006 12:03:42 +0530

Hi Folks:

In machine A

  /dev/sda6           /workarea
  
  /dev/sdb5          /workarea/module1/mydata/projectdata
 
 
ls /workarea
 
 module1 module2 module3
  
 
ls /workarea/module1/mydata
 
  mails  reports  projectdata
  
So other than projectdata everything is on /dev/sda6

Now in machine B

I want the same directory stucture ,entire /workarea to be seen including "projectdata"

Since "/workarea/module1/mydata/projectdata" is a separate hardisk I need to export it separately.

I couldnt mount it on the same place as A in B

Thanks & regards, Britto


Linux on AMD sempron

Amit Saha [amitsaha.in at gmail.com]
Sun, 17 Dec 2006 11:29:38 +0530

Hi all!

I recently installed FC5 and FC6 on a newly acquired AMD 2800+ Sempron processor(64-bit). There are a few things i would like to get cleared

1. While the packages were being copied, I noticed the i386 extension packages being copied. Isnt i386 supposed to mean intel 80386?

2. The FC5 and FC6 that i installed on my 64-bit AMD was also installed on my 32-bit celeron. That means i am using 32bit OS on my 64-bit machine right? Will i gain performance by using FC5 for 64-bit?

Which is the best distro to use on AMD sempron 2800+ ?

-- 
Amit Kumar Saha
GSM :+91 9903140286
http://amitsaha.in.googlepages.com
**Linux is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who its friends
are.**

Our Mailbag


Samba Question

Martin Hooper [martinjh at blueyonder.co.uk]
Thu, 30 Nov 2006 07:37:09 +0000

Is it possible to connect from Windows to a Samba share without requiring a password and user?

It's getting on my nerves having to input a password all the time!

Configuration file at http://martinjh.myby.co.uk/smb.conf

[ Thread continues here (2 messages/1.48kB) ]


sudo in nis

baskar baskar [baskarkpm at yahoo.co.in]
Tue, 28 Nov 2006 16:22:25 +0000 (GMT)

i have configured nis with solaris and linux boxes

i have done automount with sudo

it works in all solaris boxes in linux boxes it displays cannot execute binary file

is there any other way to do sudo in nis

send any documents with sudo in nis.

thanks in advance

Regards

Baskar.N

[ Thread continues here (5 messages/4.60kB) ]


Is "PING" the right tool to measure packet losses in WAN interface ?

Ramanathan Muthaiah [rus.cahimb at gmail.com]
Fri, 22 Dec 2006 06:09:23 +0530

Gang,

Recently, there were some discussions at my workplace regd packet losses in WAN interface. And then, one folk in IT dept came up with output of "ping" command to highlight that there are no packet losses.

Am sure, this is not the correct way to measure packet losses.

I feel, they should be monitored over a period of time at the gateway router and the traffic in this router should be analysed for dropped packets / timeouts.

Is this true ?

NOTE: Am not working in the IT dept but one of the affected parties.

/Ram

[ Thread continues here (8 messages/23.04kB) ]


DVD-RAM to DVD?

Neil Youngman [ny at youngman.org.uk]
Sun, 26 Nov 2006 20:55:39 +0000

I've got some video recorded on DVD-RAM and I've spent much of today trying to figure out how to get from DVD-RAM to a regular DVD, playable in a DVD player. I started out thinking this was going to be simple. Just a case of copying from one DVD to another.

It's become clear that it's far from simple. The format used for recording to DVD-RAM is not the same as the format used for regular DVDs. I could shell out $100+ for Windows software that might (or might not) do what I need, but I'm not happy with that concept.

I have spent a lot of the afternoon on Google and come up with next to nothing of use. Do the gang have any pointers to information, software (preferably Linux software) and other resources that will help me get video from DVD -RAM to DVD.

Neil Youngman

[ Thread continues here (6 messages/7.30kB) ]


Hubs/Repeaters/Routers

Suzanne Pilon [suzanne_pilon2002 at yahoo.com]
Tue, 12 Dec 2006 10:35:46 -0800 (PST)

I've taken the liberty of giving this thread a proper subject, rather than "(no subject)". Anyone reading this who doesn't know already, it really is better to have an informative subject line! - Kat

I'm doing an article on 'Hubs vs repeaters' and 'Hubs vs Routers'. Could you send me some articles or where I can get this information? I will greatly appreciate it.

Suzanne Pilon

suzanne_pilon2002@yahoo.com

[ Thread continues here (5 messages/5.30kB) ]


recursively touching files...

Amos Elberg [amos.elberg at gmail.com]
Wed, 29 Nov 2006 21:39:02 -0500

Hi. I attempted to run your script at http://linuxgazette.net/issue66/tag/2.html on a directory on a USB drive, ext3 partition, on a gentoo box with a 2.4 kernel. The result (it seems to be from your script, but maybe I'm wrong) is that many of the subdirectories linux now thinks are not, in fact, directories, and for many others, it gives an "Input/Output Error" on ls. Any suggestions?

[ Thread continues here (3 messages/2.93kB) ]


can connect to ssh from with in intranet, but not via internet

raj [raj at technofina.com]
Wed, 29 Nov 2006 15:20:39 -0500

Hi,

My Name is Raj and i work as a technical recruiter in a software consulting firm.

At our office we have a Red hat Linux based system at our office which we use to train students on java/j2ee, the problem is that students are able to access the linux server(using ssh) from within the office intranet, but not via internet from their homes. They get a pop up from the ssh client saying that "the host x.x.x.x is unreachable. the host may be down, or there may be a problem with the network connection. some times the problem is caused by a misconfigured firewall"

The students are able to ping the server(we have a static IP assigned to us by the ISP) from their homes. I need your help in resolving the above problem.BTW the server is behind two switches, the first witch is connected to the DSL modem provided by the ISP ,and i have set the required port forwarding settings

Thanks in advance

Thanks,

Raj

Technical Recruiter

[ Thread continues here (7 messages/8.64kB) ]


[elinks-users] elinks friendly wiki

Thomas Adam [thomas.adam22 at gmail.com]
Tue, 5 Dec 2006 23:30:09 +0000

[Bcc'ed tag@lists.linuxgazette.net for inclusion into LG at some point.]

On Tue, Dec 05, 2006 at 11:21:52PM +0100, Jonas Fonseca wrote:

> On 12/4/06, Michael Thompson <miket@ilm.com> wrote:
> >does such a thing exist?
> 
> I've never personally used ELinks to edit a wiki, however
> I have heard about various problems related to the poor
> caching and encoding support of ELinks. Maybe you can
> share a bit more about any problems you have encountered?

I am assuming more that Michael meant one that displays properly in ELinks. Of course, this is related to the limited CSS capabilities that ELinks currently has, but it's not all doom and gloom depending on the wiki engine ELinks is looking at.

In my experience, Wikipedia, and other sites which use Wikimedia are the worst if only because they're very CSS-intensive -- and don't really give much, if any, consideration for people who use text-based browers or even screen-readers. If you look at the preferences page for, say, wikipedia, the best skin to choose I have found is "Classic". This reduces the rather long list of options at the end of the document (the "sidebar that wikipedia has which displays to the left-hand side in Firefox). Of course, the default theme wikipedia has displays fine -- it's just that ELinks renders the CSS part without positioning at the end of the document.

Moinmoin, OTOH, is perhaps the better wiki engine that's ELinks friendly. If you look here:

http://fvwmwiki.bu-web.de

You'll note that the main options are at the top of the page instead (because ordinarily they'd appear horizontally across the page in some other browser). Since MoinMoin hides any user preferences in a separate page, and doesn't list all sorts of weirder options for you to choose from in some sort of sidebar like wikimedia does, visually, it's much nicer, IMO.

Again, along similar lines is the all-perl wiki engine "UseMod" which is very Elinks friendly, since it's a very simple wiki engine:

http://www.hantslug.org.uk

... is such an example.

Now, you're probably going to ask what you can do in order to try and improve the look of wikipedia, aren't you? ;) The truth is there isn't a lot you can do unless you decide to script replacement operations via either Lua, Guile, Perl or Ruby. Since I've done a tiny bit of work in ELinks with Ruby that'd be my first choice. Not that it matters, of course.

Perhaps the biggest thing which annoys me about wikimedia with ELinks is how wikimedia decides to link images. If you look at this, for instance:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirrel

[ ... ]

[ Thread continues here (2 messages/4.59kB) ]


Headless redirect?

Cheri Roberdes [reneesummers2004 at yahoo.com]
Thu, 30 Nov 2006 19:07:49 -0800 (PST)

I've taken the liberty of renaming this thread to something informative. (The original was entitled, "Hi!".) -- Kat

I'd like to find out if someone used a headless redirect during the installation of the operating software...how would I go about finding that out?

Thank you for any and all help! take care!

~cheri~

Thank You, and Have A Great Day!!

-cheri-

reneesummers2004@yahoo.com

[ Thread continues here (2 messages/1.83kB) ]


get HW and SW inventary

Ramon van Alteren [ramon at vanalteren.nl]
Wed, 29 Nov 2006 10:06:21 +0100

This message is a followup to http://linuxgazette.net/133/misc/lg/Get_HW_and_SW_inventary.html - Kat

ada * wrote:

> thank you all for your answers, everyone of them have been pretty useful.
You're welcome.

> I feel there's one item i did not ask properly. It's the following:
>  
> "Another question I'd like to ask is the best linux distribution to
> work with. I´ll work with virtual machines so high requiriments do not
> represent huge problems."
>  
> what I meant was that which distribution has the easiest way to access
> packages,  or which has packages?
I don't think the question wasn't asked properly. It's a question that none of us can answer. What is easy for you ???

I personally use gentoo. It has several tools to query installed software. Others will use redhat or redhat derivates, they have several tools to query installed packages as well. Again others will use $Distro which has several tools to query installed packages. And then there are a lot of people who use Debian which....... you get my drift.

Important to note is that both redhat and debian have a large group of so-called derivate distributions:

Redhat -> Fedora, Mandrake, Suse, Centos, and more are all based on the
RPM-package system
Debian -> Ubuntu, Knoppix, Freespire/Linspire (or whatever their latest
marketing name is) and more are all based on the apt-package system
You need to think about criteria which make it easy or not easy for you. Other criteria may also be of interest f.e. the amount of people using a given distro and/or it's derivates. Maybe you could design that part of the software to be easily plugable so new package-database query engines could be written fast and easy ?

I believe distro-watch keeps a list of the top-10 most-used distributions. You may want to take a look at those ten and decide based on that.

Depending on your decisions on the above matter you may choose one over the other, from a technical/functional perspective I cannot think of a single distribution that would make sense to recommend you.

Best Regards,

Ramon van Alteren


From Linux to Mac, and back

Mike Orr [sluggoster at gmail.com]
Sat, 2 Dec 2006 23:17:57 -0800

[Please cc me on replies coz I'm not subscribed to TAG.]

In November I said I'd gotten a Mac laptop and switched from Linux. http://linuxgazette.net/132/misc/lg/Nokia_tablet_article.html Well, a funny thing happened on the way to MacWorld. After being pleased as punch that I had a working webcam and could see my buddies in Europe on yahoo messenger, and could plug in multimedia devices and CDs and printers and have them just work immediately, and not have all these "plugin not available" messages in my web browser, other things started getting to me. My non-programmer friend who went from Windows to Mac and just raves about it does not understand any of this, but I miss being able to ...

- right-click windows and make them go to the back - hide the maximize button or make it maximize only vertically - change the window decorations or have the entire window border be a resize control - cut & paste by drag-move-click instead of drag, cmd-X, move, click, cmd-V - install the Gimp by just clicking an entry in the system package manager - find cool free software, which used to exist by the ton for the Mac but now all the worthwhile programs seem to be written for Unix, and you have to use third-party package managers (Fink or DarwinPorts) to install them -- which may or may not work. - compile a program that depends on Tk, even though I have Tk installed. (./configure doesn't recognize it even though it's in the default Mac location) - switch to a second desktop. (Multiple desktops are coming to the next version of Mac OS X, with much fanfare.) - have X apps that are first-class citizens. (Mac X11 is an application, and X apps are subapplications. Focus-follows-mouse works between X applications, but you have to click on an X window to raise it before using it if you're coming from a Mac application.)

Finally I thought, why am I knocking myself out trying to accommodate myself to the Mac when it's so easy on Linux. So I switched to my desktop computer again and installed Kubuntu (from Gentoo). Ahh, nice look-and-feel comes back! Configurability again! Thousands of software titles can be downloaded and installed and removed in a few easy steps!

As I've explored more of KDE as it's preconfigured on Kubuntu, I found that this version it does automatically start a player when you put a CD on, and opens a image directory when you plug a camera in. (Actually, you get a choice of several programs to open these in.) The new Yahoo Messenger for Linux has webcam options, so maybe if I get a USB webcam it will actually work on Linux now (I have a bunch of friends in Europe that I see only every 2-3 years. Hi bro's!) You can even drag n drop from one application (GQview image browser) to another (Firefox upload file dialog) and it pastes the absolute path of the file. That pretty much covers everything I wanted from the Mac.

[ ... ]

[ Thread continues here (10 messages/18.78kB) ]


Grub Disk Error

clarjon1 [clarjon1 at gmail.com]
Mon, 27 Nov 2006 08:43:45 -0500

This is a continuation of a discussion begun last month http://linuxgazette.net/133/misc/lg/Grub_Disk_Error.html - Kat

On 11/24/06, Benjamin A. Okopnik <ben@linuxgazette.net> wrote:

>
> Yep. The first thing to look at - and, of course, the first thing that
> Jonathan should have sent in - is the content of his GRUB configuration
> and the output of 'displaymem' and 'geometry' GRUB commands. However, at
> this point, the advice that he got from Neil should be sufficient to fix
> the problem. If it's not, then it'll be time to come back here, to
> checkpoint #1, and try again.
>

Thanks guys. Neil's suggestion worked (with a little tweaking). Here's what I did to fix it:

grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> find /boot/grub/stage1
grub> setup (hd0)
Now it works.

Ben, you are right, I should have brought in the config files, I'll remember that for next time. Thanks for your help! And to clarify, the error from grub, upon boot, was: Grub Hard Disk Error Not much help. I was able to boot because the LiveCD, which I installed from, has an option to boot hda1. Very useful. Once again, thanks for the help.

[ Thread continues here (15 messages/26.60kB) ]


ip forwarding/ ip masquerading???

CDT IS Administrator Cpl Room [jroom.hq at defenceacademy.mod.uk]
Wed, 13 Dec 2006 13:28:11 -0000

Hi,

I'm totally new to Linux and IT fullstop, so please teach me to suck eggs!! I have been asked to build a Linux (server) firewall it is to sit between a small part of our LAN and the rest of the LAN. The small part of the network is called GB and is on192.*.*.2, it goes straight into the firewall eth0 192.*.*2. Eth1 is 10.*.*.1, now whatever I do I cannot get the GB to see the rest of the network, I have enabled ip forwarding. I've tried a couple of things, 'iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -i eth1 -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE' this came back saying POSTROUTING and -i couldn't be used togeather! When i took -i out I got an error saying 'invalid argument'.

Regards,

John

Email: jroom.hq@da.mod.uk

[ Thread continues here (4 messages/6.96kB) ]


vim?

Peter Knaggs [peter.knaggs at gmail.com]
Wed, 6 Dec 2006 01:30:25 -0800

Greetings!

I guess Emacs users (and all non-vim users) can cheerfully skip this question.

Have you ever noticed when you're typing quickly in "vim" that things sometimes go haywire? I only recently got around to figuring out how to reproduce this "vim" glitch, I guess because I was so used to "vi" that I didn't consciously remember the names of the keys I was pressing.

So anyways, if you open a file with some text in it, then pick a line of reasonable length, and use shift A to append, then press the Esc key to leave append mode, then immediately press shift O to insert a new line above and start typing immediately, bad things happen. It seems that occasionally after pressing shift O that it takes vim almost half a second to catch up, during which I guess it's not yet in insert mode.

Does the same thing happen for you?

And why only for shift O, not for any of the other ways of getting into insert mode?

I didn't find the answer in the vim FAQ. I guess I might have to go to the source code, any hints on where to start looking?

Cheers, Peter.

[ Thread continues here (19 messages/56.73kB) ]


"Best" Linux for AMD 2800++ ( Semptron) and ASUS Motherboard (VIA chipset)

Amit Saha [amitsaha.in at gmail.com]
Tue, 19 Dec 2006 11:26:58 +0530

Hi list! Which distro has best performance on an AMD 2800++ ?I would like to have the sound system working. Currently i have got FC5 and the sound system doesnt seem to work though the card is detected!

Thoughts/ suggestions are required!

-- 
Amit Kumar Saha
GSM :+91 9903140286
http://amitsaha.in.googlepages.com
**Linux is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who its friends are.**

[ Thread continues here (9 messages/9.81kB) ]


Introducing Belltown Media

Rick Moen [rick at linuxmafia.com]
Sun, 17 Dec 2006 13:34:17 -0800

[Microsoft-specific character-encoding has been corrected, throughout.]

http://www.belltownmedia.com/

About to Belltown Media

A privately held company, Belltown Media is the leading Linux authority, publishing the original magazine of the international Linux community: Linux Journal.

http://www.belltownmedia.com/node?from=1

Belltown Media Acquires Linux Journal

Houston, TX -- Dec. 4, 2006 -- Belltown Media, Inc., a privately held Houston, TX-based media corporation today announced the acquisition of the premier Linux publication, Linux Journal. Since its first issue was published in April of 1994 Linux Journal has established a strong position in the industry by catering to the loyal base of the Linux audience.

Well-known as the original magazine of the Linux community, Linux Journal has grown significantly in readership and editorial reputation since its first issue and has come to be recognized worldwide as the premier source for information, news and opinion on issues affecting the Linux community. The 153rd issue of Linux Journal goes on sale December 5, 2006.

Belltown Media was founded by Carlie Fairchild who has worked closely with Linux Journal founder and Linux luminary Phil Hughes for more than ten years. "As Linux Journal grew over the years," said Hughes, "Carlie took on many publisher-related tasks and became increasingly active in the Linux community. I promoted her to associate publisher a few years back where she naturally excelled. That pretty much only left one more possibility for her and that was to run the place. So, she has been. And, well, now it is official." In addition to Fairchild, the majority of the Linux Journal team will continue in their current roles for Linux Journal under Belltown Media.

"This is a great opportunity for Linux Journal and for the industry as a whole," said Fairchild. "We intend to take a hands-on approach, working very closely with community leaders and our base of loyal constituents to ensure that the magazine's content will be relevant and useful, and that Linux Journal will be an enduring resource. We're looking forward to taking LJ to the next level by focusing on this core capability - delivering a highly specialized source of information for Linux enthusiasts."

About Linux Journal

Linux Journal is the premier Linux magazine, dedicated to serving the Linux community and promoting the use of Linux worldwide. A monthly periodical, Linux Journal is entering its thirteenth year of publication. Linux Journal may be purchased at all major bookstores and newsstands and may also be ordered by calling 1-888-66-LINUX or visiting www.LinuxJournal.com.

About Belltown Media

Belltown Media, Inc. is the leading provider of integrated information and media in the open source marketplace. Media offerings span print and online, custom publishing, e-newsletters, and other web-based services. Belltown Media is based in Houston, TX, with offices throughout the United States.

staff - December 4, 2006 - 12:00pm.

[ Thread continues here (2 messages/3.92kB) ]


please recommend books about Linux

JOHN INGRESS [ingress at sbcglobal.net]
Thu, 14 Dec 2006 22:54:53 -0800 (PST)

I'd be interested in reading the best, most BASIC book about Linux and the joys of migrating from Windows XP. Mine is a stand-alone eMachines T1120, about 5 years old, used just for personal idiotics, not for business. XP crashes regularly and often, usually when I click on Minimize, maximize or close. I'll need a stable system if I'm goin' to whup the IRS's butt, which I know can be done. I'll need a quick, easy, and reliable installation. Is that too much to tax...I mean ask?

[ Thread continues here (5 messages/6.46kB) ]


Accessing the Linux Server from Home

raj [raj at technofina.com]
Wed, 29 Nov 2006 14:53:27 -0500

Hi James, My Name is raj and i work as a technical recruiter at technofina Inc, we are a NewYork based Software consulting firm. I work as a unix admin too some times(i suck at it tough). Well comming to the problem, i have a Red hat Linux based system at our office which we use to train students on java/j2ee, the problem is that students are able to access the linux server(using ssh) from the office intranet, but not via internet from their homes. The students are able to ping the server(we have a static IP assigned to us by the ISP). I need your help in resolving the above problem.

Thanks in advance

Thanks,

-- 
Raj
Technical Recruiter
Technofina Inc.
45 West, 34 street.
New York 10001, NY.
E-Mail: raj@technofina.com
Phone : 212-629-7483.
Fax : 646-219-2466

[ Thread continues here (7 messages/13.70kB) ]


USB Drive Bad Sectors

Thomas Adam [thomas.adam22 at gmail.com]
Sun, 26 Nov 2006 09:56:40 +0000

This is a continuation of a discussion from last month: http://linuxgazette.net/133/misc/lg/USB_Drive_Bad_Sectors.html - Kat

On Fri, Oct 27, 2006 at 05:04:01PM -0400, Brandon M. Reynolds wrote:

> My problem is that I get file system corruption and "bad sectors" some
> times, presumably due to an unclean shut down.  I am using an ext2

That depends, based on the error you're getting. If they're actually bad sectors that's typically indicative of a much more serious hardware issue. If, however, running fsck on it repeatedly doesn't help, then it really is screwed.

> filesystem with the thinking that a journal would just wear out the
> drive in a certain spot.  Maybe that's not correct -- I am not sure if
> the drive has a wear-leveling algorithm implemented or not.

Of course not -- software cannot determine that. Every piece of hardware has a finite life-span.

> Questions:
> 
> 1. Is ext2 the right choice?  Or would reiserfs be better? Vfat??

How long's a piece of string, and by-the-by what type of fish is that? VFAT would be good for cross-platform. Ext2 is good for read-only mount points. Ext3 is somewhat better thanks to the fact that it's ext2 with a journal bolted on to it. Reiserfs' killer feature is its developer (:P) and works well with lots of smaller, sporadic files.

> 2. Is their a quick way to detect bad sectors?  I tried running e2fsck
> -c but it has been 45 minutes so far!

man badblocks

> sd 5:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x08000002
> sdb: Current: sense key=0x3
>     ASC=0x11 ASCQ=0x0
> end_request: I/O error, dev sdb, sector 598730

It's screwed, Backup whatever you can from it, and bin it. -- Thomas Adam

-- 
"Wanting to feel; to know what is real.  Living is a lie." -- Purpoise
Song, by The Monkees.

[ Thread continues here (4 messages/4.99kB) ]


Monitoring IP usage

Bob van der Poel [bob at mellowood.ca]
Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:48:41 -0700

A fellow asked me the other day "what is your total IP (up and down) per month)?" I figured that since I was using Linux it'd be an easy answer ... well, really I have no idea :)

I do have a little "net-applet" on my desktop which shows the total since the last login (to the desktop, not the computer). Is there a log file tracking this or a daemon I can install?

If it makes a difference I'm running Mandriva 2007.

Thanks.

-- 
Bob van der Poel ** Wynndel, British Columbia, CANADA **
EMAIL: bob@mellowood.ca
WWW:   http://www.mellowood.ca

[ Thread continues here (8 messages/8.58kB) ]


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Published in Issue 134 of Linux Gazette, January 2007

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