News Bytes #12

| #### "Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"
| ### Contents: News in General Software Announcements

| ### News in General ### Authors Wanted for Linux Journal Are you interested in Perl, the Internet or Linux? Would you love to see your name in print? Well, then today is your day! Linux Journal is seeking authors for our upcoming issues. We are particularly interested in authors willing to write about Perl, the Web and Linux. We have some general topics we are soliciting articles for listed on our web site at http://www.ssc.com/lj/wanted.html. Please don't let these ideas limit you - if you have a great article idea we'd love to hear about it. For additional information: Gary Moore, Editor Linux Journal, ljeditor@ssc.com http://www.ssc.com/lj/ Debian Linux SSC is also looking for an author to write a chapter on the installation of Debian Linux for the book Linux Installation and Getting Started by Matt Welsh. If you are interested, please send e-mail to ligs@ssc.com. ### Cease Fire! Date: Wed 13 Nov 1996 Bill Machrone, vice president of technology for Ziff-Davis Publishing Co, recently wrote in an article about Linux that Netscape 3.0 and Java were not yet available for Linux. He was wrong. Such things happen. Big deal. Even magazines of the highest quality sometimes print things that are wrong. You tell them about it, and they print a correction in the next issue. That's the way professionals handle things. That's not what some Linux people did, however. Instead, they flamed him, in private and in public. That's stupid. They urged others to also send flames to Machrone, which is worse. Things wouldn't be so bad, but now we have the Internet. The Internet allows just a few idiots completely ruin the reputation of Linux. Please, if you want to advocate Linux, be civil. Lars Wirzenius, Moderator, comp.os.linux.announce Bruce Perens, Project Leader, Debian GNU/Linux Distribution Alan Cox, Linux Networking Project, Linux International Technical Board ### Linux in the News For the latest article about Linux by Bill Machrone, see the November 11 issue of PC Week, "Up Periscope". This is a good article in which he requests feedback from Linux users. "The Linux Software Map": Unix Review, January, 1997, discusses the need for Linux documentation and the Linux Software Map (LSM). From Martin Michlmayr of Linux International we learn: According to a survey among a partial readership of iX, a German magazine devoted to Unix and networking, Linux is used at work by 45% of the readers. Solaris 1 and 2 taken together come second with 36%, followed by HP-UX with 27%. 56% of companies with less than 50 employees use Linux whereas it is used by 38% of firms with more than 1,000 employees. In addition, 60% of the readers use Linux on their computers at home. Linux International, bod@li.org ### Linux Applications and Utilities List Date: 30 Oct 1996 The October 22, 1996 edition of the ***** LINUX APPLICATION AND UTILITIES LIST ***** is now available at it's home site and mirrors. The "Linux Applications and Utilities List" is an organized collection of pointers to the WWW home pages of almost 600 different Linux compatible application programs, system administration tools, utilities, device drivers, games, servers, programming tools, file, disk and desktop managers, Internet applications, and more. The "Linux Applications and Utilities List" and mirrors can be found at: Home Site U.S.A. (IL): URL:http://www.xnet.com/~blatura/linapps.shtml Bill Latura blatura@xnet.com Runtime Systems ### Man Pages to HTML Marc Perkel, marc@ctyme.com, of Computer Tyme Software Lab, http://www.ctype.com/, has written a program to convert Man pages to HTML. Check out this web site with fully indexed man pages: http://www.ctyme.com/linuxdoc.htm This is a popular idea. There is an article coming out in the February issue of Linux Journal by Michael Hamilton, another guy who did this very same type of conversion. Michael's program is called vh-man2html and can be seen at http://www.caldera.com/cgi-bin/man2html. And he tells us of yet another page, http://wsinwp01.win.tue.nl:1234/maninfo.html, where converters can be found. ### Mission Critical Linux Project The "Mission Critical Linux Project" was created to document successful existing Linux systems which have a large load and 24 hour a day use. The survey will last until February 1, 1997. If you could access our web site, please visit one of following: Japan United States Italy The Netherlands United States Romania Japan You can also see brief summary of answers. For additional information: Motoharu Kubo, mkubo@st.rim.or.jp http://www.st.rim.or.jp/~mkubo/ (English page under construction) ### New Linux Resource Sites A couple of new Linux Resources sites: Russ Spooner, russl@rmplc.co.uk http://www.pssltd.co.uk/kontagx/linux/index.html Joe Hohertz, jhohertz@golden.net http://www.golden.net/~jhohertz ### Slovenian HOWTO 1.0 Date: Thu, 07 Nov 1996 The first ever version of Slovenian HOWTO is released. The document addresses Linux localization issues specific to Slovenian users and is written in Slovene. It can be accessed either on its "locus classicus": http://sizif.mf.uni-lj.si/linux/cee/Slovenian-HOWTO.html or the official Linux Documentation Project Site: http://sunsite.unc.edu/mdw/HOWTO/Slovenian-HOWTO.html or any of the numerous mirrors of the latter. For additional information: Primoz Peterlin, peterlin@biofiz.mf.uni-lj.si Institut za biofiziko MF, Lipiceva 2, SLO-1105 Ljubljana, Slovenija, http://sizif.mf.uni-lj.si/~peterlin/

| ### Software Announcements ### Amiga Development Environment Date: Mon, 18 Nov 1996 Tempe, Arizona - Cronus has announced the release of the long awaited Geek Gadgets CD-ROM. Geek Gadgets contains the Amiga Developers Environment (ADE) which is a project conceived and managed by Cronus to produce and support Amiga ports of dozens of the most popular development tools and utilities from the Free Software Foundation, BSD and other sources. This CD contains all the tools necessary to get started programming on the Amiga including advanced C, C++, Fortran and ADA compilers, assembler, linker, EMACS editor, "make", source code control systems (rcs&cvs), text and file utilities, GNU debugger, text formatters (groff & TEX) and more. Geek Gadgets is the perfect companion to the AT Developers CD which contains documentation and utilities but no development tools. Released quarterly, Geek Gadgets provides a quick and cost effective way to obtain the latest ADE for those with slow and/or expensive Internet connections. As a bonus, all the tools can be run directly from the CD-ROM without the need to install any files on your hard drive. Available from your local Amiga dealer or directly from Cronus. SRP $ 24.95 For additional information: Michelle Fish, mic@ninemoons.com ### Objective-C 4.3.4 For Linux Date: 30 Oct 1996 Release "4.3.4" of the Stepstone Objective C compiler is now available from System Essentials Limited for Linux versions 1.2.13 and higher. See: http://www.nai.net/~lerman Both Linux and OSF/1 Objective C 4.3.4 releases include: compiler-chain driver script (objcc) executable of the Objective C compiler (objcc.exe) source of the original Objective C runtime library sources of the ICpak101 Objective C foundation classes man pages for both objcc and objcc.exe tutorial program For additional information: Kenneth Lerman, Kenneth.Lerman@lerman.nai.net Systems Essentials Limited ### C++ Matrix Math Library Date: Sun, 03 Nov 1996 MathTools Ltd. is pleased to announce MAT<LIB>, a Matlab Compatible C++ Matrix Class Library, designed for development of advanced scientific high-level C++ code. Evaluation version of the MAT<LIB> can be downloaded from our home page, http://www.mathtools.com. The library includes over 300 mathematical functions covering Complex math, Binary and unary operators, Powerful indexing capabilities, Signal processing, File I/O, Linear algebra, String operations and Graphics. For additional information: MathTools Ltd., http://www.mathtools.com info@mathtools.com ### FIDOGATE 4.1.1 - Fido-Internet Gateway Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 04:30:07 GMT FIDOGATE 4.1.1, an update to version 4 of the FIDOGATE package is available.
    			   FIDOGATE Version 4
    		        -----------------------
    		        * Fido-Internet Gateway
    			* Fido FTN-FTN Gateway
    			* Fido Mail Processor
    			* Fido File Processor
    			* Fido Areafix/Filefix
    		        -----------------------

    Internet:
    - ---------
        http://www.fido.de/fidogate/
        ftp://ftp.fido.de/pub/fidogate/
        ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/Fido/

        fidogate-4.1.1.tar.gz	657 Kbyte
For additional information: Martin Junius, mj@fido.de ### fxvolume 0.1, a simple xforms volume control. Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 Fxvolume is a simple, no frills volume control designed to sit at the side of your screen and not get in the way. You simply run it, and then ignore it until you need to use it. It controls the level of the master sound device under Linux, using a slider created from the Xforms library. http://www.ee.mu.oz.au/staff/pbd/linux/fxvolume/ Use at your own risk - it has not been widely tested, but seems to work well enough... ;) For additional information: Paul Dwerryhouse, paul@mura.its.unimelb.edu.au University of Melbourne, Australia ### The JAZZ midi sequencer version 2.6 Date: Tue, 05 Nov 1996 Announce: The free JAZZ midi sequencer version 2.6 JAZZ is a full size midi sequencer allowing record/play and many edit functions as quantize, copy, transpose ..., multiple undo; two main windows operating on whole tracks and single events; graphic pitch editing, GS sound editing functions and much more ... JAZZ is copyright (C) by Andreas Voss and Per Sigmond, and is distributed under the terms of the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE (Gnu GPL). Web site: http://rokke.grm.hia.no/per/jazz.html Linux binary distribution: ftp://rokke.grm.hia.no/pub/midi/jazz/linux-bin/ Files: jazz-bin-v26b-xview.tar.gz, jazz-help-v26b-xview.tar.gz Source code distribution: ftp://rokke.grm.hia.no/pub/midi/jazz/ File: jazz-src-v26b.tar.gz For additional information: Andreas Voss. andreas@avix.rhein-neckar.de Per Sigmond, Per.Sigmond@hia.no Ericsson AS, ETO, etopesi@eto.ericsson.se ### util-linux 2.6 Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 util-linux-2.6.tar.gz (source only distribution) Util-linux is a suite of essential utilities for any Linux system. It's primary audience is system integrators (like the people at Red Hat) and DIY Linux hackers. The rest of you will get a digested version of util-linux installed with no risk to your sanity. Util-linux is attempting to be portable, but the only platform it has been tested much on is Linux/Intel. There have however been integrated several patches for Arm, m68k, and Alpha linux versions. The present version is known to compile on at least Linux 1.2/libc 4.7.5 and Linux 2.0.22/Libc 5.3.12 (the Linux versions I run :-). People are encouraged to make _nice_ patches to util-linux and submit them to util-linux@math.uio.no. Util-Linux 2.6 is immediately available from ftp.math.uio.no:/pub/linux/util-linux-2.6 NOTE: Before installing util-linux. READ the README or risk nuking your system. Thank you. For additional information: Nicolai Langfeldt, janl@ifi.uio.no The popular front against MWM ### LyX-0.10.7 - LyX is a WYSIWYG Date: 30 Oct 1996 LyX-0.10.7 has been uploaded to sunsite. It is also available from ftp://ftp.via.ecp.fr/pub/lyx and from my home page: http://www.lehigh.edu/~dlj0/LyriX.html LyX is a WYSIWYG front-end to LaTeX. It is used much like a word-processor, but LaTeX produces the final document. Figures, tables, mathematical formulas, fonts, headers, etc., are all drawn on-screen essentially as they appear on the final document. Figures (postscript) are placed in the document using a simple menu, as are tables. General text formatting is accomplished by high-level menu choices that automatically set fonts, indentation, spacing, etc., according to general LaTeX rules, and display (essentially) these settings on the screen. None of the power of LaTeX is lost, since you can embed any LaTeX command within a LyX document. Primary-site: sunsite.unc.edu /pub/Linux/apps/editors 501577 lyx-0.10.7-ELF-bin.tar.gz (binary release) 612839 lyx-0.10.7.tar.gz (original source) Copying-policy: GPL For additional information: David L. Johnson, dlj0@lehigh.edu Lehigh University, http://www.lehigh.edu/~dlj0/dlj0.html ### MpegTV Player Date: Tue, 05 Nov 1996 Announcing a new release of MpegTV, the real-time software MPEG Player for Linux (x86 ELF) and FreeBSD. A free version of the MpegTV player can be downloaded from the MpegTV web site at: http://www.mpegtv.com/ Main features: Nice GUI with slide-bars and buttons (implemented with Xforms). Plays MPEG-1 SIF bitstreams (352x240 pels) at 30 frames/sec on a P-200. When the CPU resources are not sufficient, player skips some frames to achieve graceful degradation. Can be installed as a Web Browser helper application to play MPEG. For additional information: Tristan Savatier, tristan@mpeg.org http://www.mpeg.org ### SpellCaster ISDN4Linux ISDN Driver Beta Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 This message is to announce the public Beta release of the ISDN4Linux driver for SpellCaster ISA ISDN adapters. This beta program is open to anyone who prefers the bleeding edge and just can't wait for MP support. The beta driver currently supports the SpellCaster DataCommute/BRI and TeleCommute/BRI adapters and will also include support for the DataCommute/PRI adapter before the end of the Beta program. You can download the beta driver from: ftp://ftp.spellcast.com/pub/drivers/isdn4linux You require kernel revision. 2.0. You will also need the isdn4k-utils package also available the above mentioned FTP site or ftp.franken.de For additional information: Erik Petersen, erik@spellcast.com ### Public availability of the second beta of StarOffice 3.1 for Linux Date: 30 Oct 1996 Star Division announces the public availability of the second beta version of its office productivity suite, StarOffice 3.1, for Linux/x86. StarOffice 3.1 consists of: StarWriter 3.1 -- word processor StarCalc 3.1 -- spreadsheet StarDraw 3.1 -- drawing and presentation tool StarImage 3.1 -- image manipulation StarChart 3.1 -- bar-, pie- and other charts StarMath 3.1 -- graphical formula editor You will need an ELF system, X11R6 and Motif 2.0 libraries. This beta version expires at January, 1st, 1997. We will make newer beta versions available by then. The final version will be free of charge for private use. The price for commercial use is not yet decided. StarOffice 3.1 can be downloaded from the directory: ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/staroffice For additional information: Star Division GmbH, http://www.stardivision.de/ Matthias Kalle Dalheimer, mda@stardivision.de Marc Sewtz, mse@stardivision.de ### Wget, a Web Mirroring Tool Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 Wget 1.4.0 [formerly known as Geturl] is an extensive rewrite of Geturl. Wget should now be easier to debug, maintain and most importantly, use. Wget is a freely available network utility to download files from the World Wide Web using HTTP and FTP. It works non-interactively, thus enabling work in the background, after having logged off. Wget works under almost all modern Unix variants and, unlike many other similar utilities, is written entirely in C, thus requiring no additional software (like Perl). As Wget uses the GNU Autoconf, it is easily built on and ported to other Unix's. Installation procedure is described in the INSTALL file. You can get the latest version of wget at: ftp://gnjilux.cc.fer.hr/pub/unix/util/wget/wget.tar.gz For additional information: Hrvoje Niksic, hniksic@srce.hr SRCE Zagreb, Croatia ### Woven Goods for LINUX Version 1.0 Date: Tue, 05 Nov 1996 Woven Goods for LINUX Version 1.0 Version 1.0 of Woven Goods for LINUX is a collection of World-Wide Web (WWW) Applications and Hypertext-based Information about LINUX. It is ready configured for the Slackware Distribution and currently tested with Version 3.1 (ELF). The Power Linux LST Distribution contains this collection as an integral part with some changes. The five Parts of Woven Goods for LINUX are: Part 1 -- World-wide Web Browser from Netscape for X11 and Lynx for ASCII terminals. Part 2 -- LINUX Documents Part 3 -- Apache World-wide Web Server and documentation, Glimpse Search Engine and more. Part 4 -- Hypertext Markup Language Editor asWedit Part 5 -- External Viewers Woven Goods for LINUX is available via anonymous FTP from: ftp://ftp.fokus.gmd.de/pub/Linux/woven The HTML Pages of Woven Goods for LINUX are snap shots of the LINUX Pages at FOKUS - Research Institute of Open Communication Systems and are available from: http://www.fokus.gmd.de/linux For additional information: Lutz Henckel, lutz.henckel@fokus.gmd.de GMD FOKUS, http://www.fokus.gmd.de/usr/hel/ ### xldlas v0.30 now available Date: 30 Oct 1996 Announcing xldlas v0.40 in sunsite's incoming directory: ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/incoming/xldlas-0.40-srcbin.tgz Soon to be moved to: ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/math/xldlas-0.40-srcbin.tgz xldlas is for doing statistics. Based on the xforms library (i.e. looks pretty slick) Point and click interface to statistical summaries, OLS regression, plotting, correlation analysis, etc. Experimental curve fitting routine that uses genetic algorithms with some nice visual feedback. Very handy automatic generating of .tex format log files, including tables and plots. Online help For additional information: Thor Sigvaldason, thor@netcom.ca http://www.a42.com/~thor/xldlas/ http://sunsite.math.klte.hu/mirrors/xldlas/ ##### This page written and maintained by the Editor of Linux Gazette, gazette@ssc.com Copyright © 1996 Specialized Systems Consultants, Inc.