Linux Gazette MailBag LG #30

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## The Mailbag! Write the Gazette at gazette@ssc.com | ### Contents: Help Wanted -- Article Ideas General Mail

### Help Wanted -- Article Ideas

Date: Wed, 03 Jun 1998 11:05:23 +0100
From: Maurizio Ferrari, Maurizio.Ferrari@tin.it
Subject: Photogrammetry tools for Linux?

I am looking for a Linux program to do some close-range photogrammetry. Close range photogrammetry is a technique that enables to reconstruct 3D images from a series of 2D pictures. There are a few powerful (and relatively inexpensive) tools for Windows but none so far for Linux, that I know of. There was something once upon a time called Photo4D. Despite my massive Internet search, any occurrence of Photo4D seems to have been wipe erased from the face of earth. It is listed in SAL but all the links fail.

I don't want to resort to buy and use Windows software for this. Help, anyone?

Maurizio

Date: Sun, 07 Jun 1998 11:36:33 -0500
From: Mike Godwin, mgodwin@socket.net
Subject: Searching (somewhat in vain) for sources on shell scripting

I recently came across an excellent mini-howto on overcoming some of the pitfalls of having a dynamic IP address (ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/unmaintained/mini/Dynamic-IP-Hacks).

Reading this document has refueled my desire to learn shell scripting, sed rules and the like. My search of the Internet for information on these topics has, however, been fruitless.

I would be most grateful if someone could point me to a good shell scripting tutorial or book.

Thanks in advance.

Mike

Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 22:58:11 +0200
From: Himbeergarten Hummel, himbeergarten.hummel@nanet.at
Subject: X Window System on a monochrome notebook

I've a 486dx notebook with a monochrome display what shall I do to make X windows run?

Himbeergarten Hummel

Date: Tue, 09 Jun 1998 13:06:28 PDT
From: Dave Stevens, davestevens@hotmail.com
Subject: kudos

I think the Coldiron article on replacing NT with Linux is the best thing I've seen in the gazette. Congratulations. More such articles are needed. I am especially interested in an article explaining why Linux doesn't come with a "system requirements" box on the package (no package??). Seriously, though, I am a computer dealer and have many times advised people to buy their application software first then buy a computer that will run that package. If I tell my customers to go out and buy a 386 with 16 MB of ram and a half MB video card and a 200 MB hard drive, they will think I am [characterization deleted!] in the head. And maybe they'll be right. How much difference does the underlying hardware make to the user of an X application, and how can I assess (for them) the varying cost effectiveness of a faster processor versus more RAM versus a SCSI disk versus just a bigger IDE disk. Maybe you can commission an article like this. (Don't even THINK of asking me). Someone of your loyal readers must have relevant experience to write up.

Great magazine, keep up the good work. If ever you find yourself in northern BC I will happily buy you a beer.

Dave Stevens

Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 08:49:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: Renato Weiner, reweiner@yahoo.com
Subject: Suggestion for Article

Recently I was looking at the Gazette and I think I have a good suggestion of an article that will be very useful for the Linux community.

I have had some technical difficulties of having two simultaneous versions of Kernels in my system. I mean a stable one and a developing one. I searched the net looking for information of how to co-exist both but it's completely fragmented.

If somebody more experienced could put all this information together, it will certainly help a lot of people from kernels developers to end-users.

Thanks a lot for your patience.
Renato.

Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 10:42:06 +0200
From: Carlo Vinante, vinante@igi.pd.cnr.it
Subject: Printing Problems

I've just updated to Red Hat 5.0, and I cannot print anymore documents using Ghostview, or LyX or whatever. Tests are OK. Have somebody a suggestion ?

Carlo Vinante

Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 15:46:35 +0200 (MET DST)
From: Sara Briganti mat.1510, briganti@CsR.UniBo.IT
Subject: Information

We are 4 Italian students and we're just have a look about ELM's sources. We have a lot of problems about these...
Could you ELM us? Do you know any interesting site about how ELM works? And about sendmail?

Thank you a lot. Bye.

Sara, Elsa, Michele, Livio

Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 22:24:47 +0200
From: Daniele Verzelloni, dverzel@tin.it
Subject: Network configuring

Help me in configuring Red Hat Linux about networking. I've a ISDN Adapter by Asuscom that I use for Internet in Windows95 and I can't configure it! I've even got an Ethernet adapter to go to another computer and in the same way I can't configure it! Thank you and sorry for my bad English, I'm Italian.

Daniele

Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 23:12:30 +0200
From: Eric CANAL, Eric.Canal@supelec.fr
Subject: a question

I've recently bought a CD-ROM recorder I would like to know if it is legal to make a Red Hat CD distribution for my own use. My idea is to copy the FTP distribution on a CD and to install it. I've tried but it tells me that I don't have a Red Hat CD-ROM. Do I miss a particular file?

thanks for your answer and BRAVO for your Gazette :)

a French reader, Eric Canal

> (Better check with Red Hat about legalities. --Editor)

Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 23:54:20 -0700
From: Ruth Milne, rmilne@mail.bulkley.net
Subject: article idea

I have been reading a lot of speculation about whether Linux can ever displace Microsoft on the desktop. In the course of wading through a lot of hype I haven't seen much actual experience reported about an ordinary computer user installing Linux on their PC. I don't mean someone who is already a Linux enthusiast and I don't mean someone with a computer science degree either. Just an ordinary computer user with an IQ bigger than a shoe size, sitting down with a brand new Intel box and a Red Hat 5.1 package, say, and going through the hoops up to the point where X starts up okay and the modem is a working Internet device. This ought to be compared to such a person doing the same operation with a new box and a copy of W98. I think that would make a useful comparison.

Dave Stevens

Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 03:32:11 EDT
From: RangeScale@aol.com
Subject: Need older Linux

Okay, I am pretty new to Linux and am trying to learn it. The main problem is, is that I always have my desktop tied up doing more important things, and also don't have the room on it to hold Linux. My solution is to pull out my old 286 laptop (old but very good) and use that to start learning Linux. My big problem, though, is finding a version that will run on that. I have the Debian 1.3, but min reg. are 386+. Is there a ver. that will run on 286 - and where can I get it?

Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 00:47:14 +0200
From: B.L.Michielsen, BMichielsen@csi.com
Subject: Communication Problem

I have a problem communicating with Compuserve through Seyon since I installed a 16650A serial card on my Dell 486DX2 66MHz running RedHat 4.1 Kernel 2.0.17. and a USRobotics SportsterMessagePlus

modem. Before, I used a 14.4 Hayes compatible modem connected to a serial port with a 16450 IC, in that configuration everything was slow

but OK. I am connecting to a Compuserve server with baud rates to 28.800bps. The characters in the Seyon terminal form unreadable garbage, and I cannot find out how to parameterize the connection to get it right. To complete the information, when I make a ppp connection to a 56kbps server of Compuserve and use Netscape communicator, everything runs perfectly well, so I guess the Seyon problem is not related to kernel parameters but rather to xterm?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Bas L. Michielsen

### General Mail

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 98 12:19:28 -0500
From: cokeydepercin@pmsc.com
Subject: Article on home networking.

I just read a reply to the home networking article by Mr. Gray and I agree that home networking is cheap and easy. I disagree somewhat about the 100baseT. I've just upgraded from 10baseT to 100baseT. The hub was $100USD for an eight port hub with uplink and the cards were $30USD (Dec Tulip chip set). I've heard there may be some cheaper NICs now $20~25USD. My upgrade cost was $250 for 5 machines - 3 Win95, Linux server, multi-boot Linux/win95/NT - the cable was CAT5 to begin with. The additional cost of putting in 100 vs 10 is so slight, about $115 in this case as the cable is the same, that it isn't worth installing 10baseT. The advantage is that 100baseT and a reasonably fast Linux machine allows a Win95 machine to access apps almost as fast (in some cases faster) from the network than from its own drive. Note that I too build from junk as much as possible and the children's machines (the Win95 ones) are very low end Pentium and have old slow small drives than contain only the OS and swap. Everything else is on the server (install once use many!).

There is a caveat to this of course. 100baseT NICs for ISA machines are VERY expensive so if you have ISA machines, your only realistic choice is 10baseT. The one 100baseT ISA NCI I priced (3Com) cost more than all the PCI NICs for my upgrade.

Just my $0.02 or so. Keep up the good work, I really enjoy the magazine.

Cokey

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 15:48:27 +0100
From: Raphael Marvie, raphael.marvie@cs.man.ac.uk
Subject: Comment about LG last review

It took me 3 tries to get the full article about "Replacing NT by Linux" but I finally did it. I am very pleased to see people from the "real-world" as they call themselves to admit that Linux can avoid lot of people using bad softwares. There is only one thing that make me sad, the only people who are going to read this article are Linux users.

Is there any solution to make "real-world" people reading such article? I not talking of a holy war against M$, but I think the worse thing for Linux and other brilliant systems or soft is that the end user never heard of this solution.

The fact that Netscape has moved to Open Source Software was a big advert for the GNU/Linux solutions. I hope we will be able to take advantage of it to say to managers "Hey, we can do every thing you want, and in a better way than it is done yet by Micro$oft and Co. You just have not to think in buying a solution 60,000$ each year for updates but paying someone 60,000$ a year for building you the exact solution you need using Open Source Software. Which means for you having a *personal* *reliable* *IT* solution."

That is the challenge: teach them that a man or a woman is more important than a soft, because this man or this woman can adapt (him|her)self to the need of a firm, and is more important for the end user as a spring of information than a bad-written manual.

Keep on LG, the job you are doing is brilliant.

Linuxly yours, Raphael

Date: Tue, 02 Jun 1998 13:36:06 +0000
From: Andrew Josey, a.josey@opengroup.org
Subject: Web resource - UNIX 98 Spec online

With the recent announcements concerning Linux and conformance to the UNIX 98 specification, I thought it would be useful to send you the URL where the online specification can be browsed, searched and downloaded.

Its at http://www.UNIX-systems.org/go/unix/

Perhaps you could include this as a tip in the next Linux gazette.

best regards, Andrew

Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 12:19:44 +1000 (EST)
From: Con Zymaris, conz@cyber.com.au
Subject: Article ideas...

It would be of general interest, and help the linux/open source community, if people out there were introduced to the concept of advocating that their local University had its Computer Science students' major final year projects written as open-source. For reasons why the students would want to do this, check out: http://www.cyber.com.au/misc/frsbiz/students.htm

Cheers, Con

Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 16:04:12 -0700
From: Travis Clark, hilt@telepath.com
Subject: Simple Suggestion

To further Linux in this world of ours, I think it fitting that Linux Programmers look at two different ways this can be accomplished:

1. Applications - This does not end in Word Processors... Desktop Publishing systems, a simple database system, Accounting Software, the whole nine yards. If we focused on software that companies use at a lower price (or freeware) than Windoze, and comparable or better performance, then Linux would be more acceptable world wide.
2. Games - As much as I hate to admit it, Games are a must in this PC world. There are versions of popular games for linux, but there are no MAJOR companies designing games for Linux. If we can get a Doom/Myst/DeerHunter type game specifically designed for Linux, then Linux will definitely have more interest in the market.

That's my two cents...

Travis Clark

Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 14:50:45 -0400
From: Brian Catlin, Brian_Catlin@BayNetworks.COM
Subject: Suggestions to improve readability

First, I would like to express my appreciation to all the authors for taking time to write excellent articles.

I do, however, have a suggestion or two that will make the accessibility of the zine that much better.

As background, I am one of your readers that prints out the zine, then reads it. It is much easier for my tired old eyes that way, and I also get a nice resource to use when the screen is cluttered with windows of different things for the project I am working on.

With that said, I have a couple problems that can be easily solved.

- The first thing is links in the articles. The usual standard one sees on the net is to put the URL in the body of the article and then link it. This way us off-line readers can fire up a browser later and go directly to the site mentioned without having to find the link in the online version of the article.
- Secondly, and this came up in the latest issue BTW, when giving source code, config or other text-based examples, please keep them as text. Putting backgrounds behind the code makes them hard to read, and if they are in fact graphics, one has to type in the code by hand. A better way is to delineate it with some sort of blocking character string and use the appropriate HTML tag to show it is an example. I tend to use the following to start and stop sections of code:

  #-----------------------------

  (Note: it is a pound sign with a bunch of dashes).

  This will speed loading into browsers online, allow cut and paste operations, and ensure readability for the off-line printout readers. (I know that more people that just I do this!)

Thanks again for a great zine!

Brian

> (Okay, one, I'm guessing you are objecting to the practice of using word instead of the address in the link so the text version only shows the word and drops the address. I can make sure this happens in sections that I do myself, but I really don't have time to do it for every article. I will print your letter and maybe that will give authors a push in the right direction. Second, I use whatever the authors send as listings and most do keep them between <pre></pre> tags without backgrounds. Mr. Coldiron article last month did use backgrounds. His article has been quite popular. Thanks for writing, --Editor)

Published in Linux Gazette Issue 30, July 1998

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