News Bytes #9

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### GNU ID Utilities

A new release of the GNU id utilities is available at ftp://ftp.gnu.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/id-utils-3.2.tar.gz

GNU id-utils is a package of simple, fast, high-capacity, language-independent identifier database tools. Actually, the term ``identifier'' is too limiting -- ID Utils stores tokens, be they program identifiers of any form, literal numbers, or words of human-readable text. Database queries can be issued from the command-line, or from within emacs, serving as an augmented tags facility.

Release 3.2 fixes a nasty bug in eid (a.k.a., "lid -R edit"), which should only be a problem for users of non-emacs editors (e.g., vi). This release also fixes as well as some minor portability problems. If you use emacs and had no trouble compiling 3.1, there's no reason for you to pick up this release.

Additional information: gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu

### InfoMagic Workgroup Server

The InfoMagic Workgroup Server provides high-performance file and printing services to PC and Macintosh clients using the Linux operating system. It is the first Linux distribution designed specifically for servers. Based on networking software created by the Internet community and already in use at hundreds of companies, universities and organizations worldwide, the InfoMagic Workgroup Server provides simple graphical tools for system administration and set-up. A Unix novice can set up a sophisticated server environment in a couple of hours.

Additional information: Orders@InfoMagic.com,
http://www.infomagic.com/

### Linuxconf 1.6

I am proud to announce the release of linuxconf 1.6. This release incorporates many enhancements and features. The last official release was 1.3. Since, a major user interface rework has been done and many smaller features were added. Release 1.4 and 1.5 were only released on the linuxconf mailing list.

It has been uploaded to sunsite in the pub/Linux/Incmoning directory and should move to /pub/Linux/System/admin/linuxconf-1.6.src.tar.gz. Binaries for both elf and a.out systems are provided at the same place.

The major enhancement is the http mode. With this, you can now operate linuxconf using any web browser supporting forms. This makes administration of large linux networks a wonderful experience. You can navigate in linuxconf and even set bookmarks in your browser. Ultimatly one can build his corporate administration page with link to different part of linuxconf on different linux servers or workstation.

Additional information: jack@solucorp.qc.ca

### Red Hat Rembrandt II

Red Hat Linux - 3.0.4 (Rembrandt II) BETA now available on both the Intel and Sparc!

The Rembrandt beta releases of Red Hat Linux include the following nifty features:

> Modular kernel (2.0.10) One kernel (one boot disk) for all hardware Increased hardware support over 3.0.3 New, simpler installation PAM - Pluggable Authentication Modules More comprehensive X configuration New network configuration tool New version of RPM - 2.2.3 Dependencies Libc 5.3.12

The Rembrandt II release fixes many bugs, and adds a few features. Among the improvements over Rembrandt are:

> config file handling DOS partitions IDE drives c-h flashing asterisk System.map interface cleanups /net /.automount updatedb dip, inn, fvwm95, ypbind, ftpuser module parameters package selection

The Red Hat Linux Rembrandt II is available from:

ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/rembrandt

Additional information: rembrandt-list@redhat.com,
http://www.redhat.com/redhat/rembrandt

### SDK Software

URL CHANGE from The Boy With The Thorn In His Side

The free Linux software which I release under the name "SDK Software" (morepkgtools - supplements Slackware's pkgtool; tidylinks - searches for and tidies dangling and messy symbolic links; LNET-Config - configuration script for the LNET TCP/IP (KA9Q-like) program) has moved from AOL to:

http://www.kalika.demon.co.uk/sdk-software/index.html

Revised versions of the software, with the correct URLs in the manual pages etc., will be released shortly.

If you have my AOL site bookmarked please change your records.

FREE SOFTWARE ANNOUNCEMENT:

http://www.kalika.demon.co.uk/sdk-software/index.html#man2html

http://www.kalika.demon.co.uk/sdk-software/myprogs/unix/man2html

Version 0.15 of this very modest Bourne-shell script is now available. The script is a CGI-bin interface to "man", converting UNIX (Linux) manual pages into fully-legal HTML on the fly.

Sample output can be viewed at: http://www.kalika.demon.co.uk/sdk-software/index.html#manpages

Additional information: steve@kalika.demon.co.uk

### Taper

This is to announce the latest release of taper - version 6.7.4

Taper is a user friendly, full featured tape backup solution for Linux. Multiple features are supported including most recent restore, incremental backups, archive verification and archive management. With triple buffering, and internal compression, backup performance is quite good.

Taper supports ftape, zftape, scsi, floppies, regular files and removable media such as the IOMEGA ZIP drives.

In addition, taper also supports IDE tape drives in ALPHA stage.

PLEASE NOTE:
I am going away for 2.5 months from this week and will be unreachable via e-mail therefore, there will be no support for this version until I return mid-late October.

Additional information: yusuf@nagree.u-net.com

### TranSend

Advanced Network Products, Inc. announces the alpha release of TranSend. TranSend, a "middleware" product, is an efficient, reliable and platform- independent mechanism that provides communications between your applications.

TranSend is a development toolkit that allows rapid construction of real-time client/server and distributed applications. TranSend is the perfect foundation for all of your network development needs, including:

- Real-time client/server and distributed applications
- High performance data distribution systems
- Cross-platform connectivity
- Fault-tolerant systems

Additional information: anpi@advanced-net.com http://www.advanced-net.com/examples.html

### Web-traversing Robot

The VWbot Web-traversing robot is now available as shareware. It was developed on Linux and hasn't been tested on anything else, but it ought to run on most Unix. It uses Perl4 and libwww-perl-0.40

The core program may be customised to perform different functions, such as keeping track of document modifications, operating as a restricted-domain search engine, or as a free-running agent configured for tasks such as lexical analysis. The robot adheres to the original Robot Exclusion Protocol and includes code to implement the newer ROBOTS META tag.

Additional information: robots@vancouver-webpages.com,
http://vancouver-webpages.com/VWbot/

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