"Linux Gazette...making Linux just a little more fun!"

X and DPMS mode

I like putting my monitor to sleep when I leave the computer. It uses DPMS time out after 15 minutes, but sometimes doing it manually is nice. The problem with doing it manually is that you can easily "un-trigger" DPMS by accidentally hitting the mouse. In an xterm I use this trick

sleep 1; xset dpms force standby

For a fancier setup I have an icon on my KDE desktop that runs <A HREF=misc/tips/standby.tcl.txt>this tcl/tk script</A> that counts down from 5 and then enters dpms standby mode.

Film scaanners

Another section in the Linux driver gap just got filled: until recently, the only film scanners Linux supported (via SANE) were two of Nikon's units: one is low-powered and expensive, and the other is top-of-the-line and *extremely* expensive. :) So, I chose an affordable Mintolta scanner, and had to run it under Windows.

I was unimpressed with the scanning software that came with the unit. As it happens, Hamrick Software (www.hamrick.com) makes a shareware package called VueScan that does a much better job than Minolta's software. I bought it, and then sent Ed Hamrick an email saying how easy I thought it would be to port the package to Linux. He didn't seem interested, but then a month later, I happened back by his site, and there the Linux version was! I've been playing with it for the last few months, and it works every bit as beautifully as the Windows version.

VueScan is a bit like 4Front's OSS sound drivers: closed source, and payware ($40 for all versions), but high-quality and indispensible if you can't find equivalent free drivers. The $40 actually buys you a different package, called VuePrint, which I guess is an image catalog and printing program, but I've never actually used it. VueScan sort of comes along for the price, almost like an extra, but that's the only piece I'm interested in. VuePrint hasn't been ported to Linux anyway.

The package is also noteworthy in that Ed Hamrick really cranks out the code: new versions sometimes appear weekly!

Please give this guy some publicity. He really deserves it.

2 cent tip: Automagic updating of RPMs

If you have a permanent connection to the Internet, and are running a linux system based on RPM packages, here's a tip on how to make sure these are always updated. The following presumes that you run RedHat, but it can be easily adapted to suit other RPM based distributions.

USE AT OWN RISK! This tip will impose changes on your system, and if anything goes wrong, don't say I didn't warn you. I will not be responsible.

The following commands are to be issued as superuser (root). Change to superuser mode by running

su -

and entering the superuser password.

First, you find an nfs server that exports the redhat-updates directory. I use ftp.nvg.ntnu.no, which is stationed in Norway. Mount up this server on your local file system, by adding this (or something similar) to /etc/fstab:

ftp.nvg.ntnu.no:/pub/ftp/pub/linux/redhat-updates /mnt/updates nfs defaults 0 0

(all in one line). Then, make sure that the directory exists by issuing the command

mkdir /mnt/updates

and mount it up with

mount /mnt/updates

which should yield no error messages. Hopefully.

Now we should be well connected. Check this by changing to the appropriate directory for your system upgrades, e.g.:

cd /mnt/updates/6.1/i386
ls

You ought to see a lot of .rpm files. The rpm program has one nifty parameter, namely --freshen. Let's try it out.

rpm --freshen *.rpm

After a bit of waiting, your system should now be updated to the very latest security patches and soforth.

Next, you want to schedule some sort of automagic running of the above line. Let's try crontab. Say you want to run this update once a day, perhaps in the middle of the night. updatedb usually runs at 4 am, so why not run this command at 3 am? run crontab -e, and insert the following line: (not the one starting with #, that's just a comment).

# Min Hr Day Month Wday Command 
  0   3  *   *     *    rpm --freshen /mnt/updates/6.1/i386/*.rpm 

Save the file, and exit. Crontab will now be updated.

That oughta be it. Please don't mail me with questions like "Where is the nearest nfs server carrying redhat in <insert your home country here>". I really don't know. Actually, I only know of ftp.nvg.ntnu.no.

Good luck.

File deletion

Dear Linux Gazette,

The following (bash) ; shell script; is useful for deleting files containing nasty characters, such as *, +, (, embedded spaces, etc. If you like it, you may publish it in your 'tips' section or wherever else you find appropriate.

Mendel

Tips in the following section are answers to questions printed in the Mail Bag column of previous issues.

ANSWER: Mailbag answer: Linux Communications

From: Chuck Newman <[email protected]> Is there a Linux based communications program similar to pcAnywhere or Carbon Copy? I need remote PC control. Don't need to transfer files.

Check out VNC at http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/index.html. It will allow you to control a Windows PC from an X session, or vice-versa, or control either one from a java-capable web browser.

ANSWER: Re: Hmmm.... don't know how to categorize this..

You asked in Linux Gazette on how to run stuff after you log out

Take a look at screen: http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/

It is a great package that does exactly what you are looking for (and more)

regards

john

ANSWER: Re: leaving processes running [was: Hmmm.... don't know how to categorize this..]

>I usually log into my machine with SSH from home (no concole access) >and I was wondering if there is a way to have processes still running >after I log out. For instance an ftp-session loading an ISO, etc..

You'll probably get a bucketful of responses, but the general way to do this (from the shell) is:

nohup command >& command.out &

("nohup" means "no hang-up" and is what allows the process to keep running after you log out, and the "&" puts it in the background.) Here, "command" should be whatever command you want to leave running. I've redirected all of its output to the file "command.out"; you can omit this and any output will be redirected by default to "nohup.out", or use "/dev/null" to discard the output.

You can't (directly) use this for something like ftp that requires interaction. One option would be to write an "expect" script (man expect) to script an ftp session. A better way, however, would be to download something like the GNU wget program (http://sunsite.auc.dk/wget/) which lets you fetch a URL directly from the command-line without any extra interaction, and is useful both for scripting and for use with nohup. (I hope that wget will become a standard part of Linux distros.)

Cordially, Steven G. Johnson

ANSWER: Re: Looking for the Korn shell

> Hi, I recently obtained Redhat V6.0 and I found out to my dismay, that it >does not have the Korn shell with it. Does anybody know where I can find a >copy of it? Thanks.

You want "pdksh," the Public Domain Korn Shell. (Note that the GNU bash shell has many of the Korn shell's features, too.) See:

http://www.cs.mun.ca/~michael/pdksh/

Cordially, Steven G. Johnson

ANSWER: Re: Telnet 110 fails

I have 6-7 pcs in the office on LAN. I am on RH6.0 and the rest on W98. I am trying to configure my pc as the email server for this small LAN. I have managed to correctly setup DNS. A remote PC can resolve the DNS server correctly. Then I went into Linuxconf and setup the Email server portion. My Linux PC by the way is named svr and the domain is cma.com We are using Netscape as the email client. I entered svr.cma.com as the Incoming and Outgoing mail servers. Netscape client can sent email but were unable to receive (email) with the message: "Netscape's network connection was refused by the server svr.cma.com The server may not be accepting connections or may be busy. Try connecting again later." I did a telnet svr.cma.com 110 with a "Unable to connect to remote host" message. But a telnet svr.cma.com 25 is ok. That explaint why sending is OK but not receiving rite? How do I fix this?

The problem you're having is a system lacking a POP3 server. You can easily fix this by downloading a POP3 server and install it.

You can find some at http://idirect.linuxberg.com/conhtml/ser_mail.html

Gerard Beekmans

ANSWER: Re: HELP with LT Win Modem and SB 16 Sound Blaster wanted!

I am a new Linux Red Hat 6.0 user. I cannot connect to the Internet (still using Winows 98). My LT Win Modem connected to com3 is not working under Linux. (Someone wrote that trying to config Win modems for Linux is waste of time, is it true?) Connection: 8, parity - none, stopbit - 1. I told the 'modemtool' to use to use the serial port to which my modem is connected. I removed the word 'lock' in /etc/ppp/options file. I get 'modem is busy' in kppp configuration program or 'mode is locked' errors in other programs. I also have a problem with SB 16 sound blaster. 'sndconfig' program doesn't help! I am looking for anybody who can help me to make my modem and sound blaster working with Linux. Please help!!!

It's true; Winmodems don't work under Linux. Winmodems are specially designed to work with Microsoft Windows and are not supported in Linux. The only way to get a modem to work is to buy a non-winmodem.

Could you specify your sound blaster problem?

Gerard Beekmans

ANSWER: Telnet not working on recent RedHat/Mandrake

Sir,

I've seen a spurt of letters in "The Answer Guy" and elsewhere about telnet not working with recent versions of RedHat and Mandrake. I would like to point out that the rpm packages have been split into two, one for the telnet client and one for the server. When I installed Mandrake 6.1 the client package was installed but the server package wasn't. I guess this was done to improve security. When someone has problems with telneting into a 6.x RH/Mandrake linux box, they should make sure the server package is installed! I also would like to point out that you cannot telnet into a stock RedHat/Mandrake box as root.

ANSWER: Re: slowwwww ftp and partition problem

I have encountered two problems with linux (Mandrake 6.1) that I haven't figured out how to overcome. The first problem is the logon speed for ftp. I have 3 desktops and a laptop that I have networked with 100 Mbps ethernet. 2 of the 3 desktops are dual booted with OS/2 and linux, the remaining desktop and the laptop are linux only. If I try to connect to ftpd on linux with an ftp client on either OS/2 or linux, there is an approximately 3-5 minute wait before a logon prompt is returned. This is clearly not running properly! I can use a linux client to an OS/2 ftpd, and promptly get the logon prompt. I've tried "renice" at both -20 and +20 using KDE's task manager. What do I need to do to speed this up? The second problem is: I have one machine with an 8 Gb drive partitioned into a 2Gb,6Gb, and 128k swap. Mandrake 6.1 is installed on the 2Gb partition, hda1. The 6Gb partition, hda3, is an ext2 partition. After linux boots, the 6Gb partition is mounted to /mnt/hda3. The problem that I've encountered is that when copying files to /mnt/hda3, it is the first partition that fills up, not the second. What's happening here? I was using kdisk to monitor the disk size when mirroring another site to /mnt/hda3, and it wasn't the correct partition that enlarged. After this occurred, totally filling the smaller partition, I could no longer umount the partition, either, getting a message "device is busy." Any help to solve either of these problems??

Your first problem; do you get the long waits on a particulair linux box or on all?

For the second; are you sure that the 6GB partition is mounted to /mnt/hda3 ? if not and you copy files to /mnt/hda3, it just copies files to the 2GB partition since /mnt/hda3 is just a directory on the 2GB disk.

if you run 'mount' you get a list with currently mounted file systems (that is; if the mandrake bootscripts are proper so that mtab gets updated as soon as the root partition is mounted in read-write mode. Every time something gets mounted, /etc/mtab is updated, but that wont' happen on a read-only system. So /etc/mtab could contain old information).

To make sure that the partition is actually mounted, try this command: mount -o remount,rw /dev/hda3 /mnt/hda3

Try to copy the files again and see if things go ok this time. If so, then something goes wrong when your system tries to mount the partition to /mnt/hda3. If so, contact me again and we'll walk through your bootscripts to find the problem.

Gerard Beekmans

ANSWER: Linux Communications

Is there a Linux based communications program similar to pcAnywhere or Carbon Copy? I need remote PC control. Don't need to transfer files.

I don't know any names of such software, but I think I've seen it around somewhere. But I'm not 100% sure.

But why don't you telnet to that linux machine? Then you have all the control you need; it'll be like you're at the keyboard at that machine. That's what you want right?

You can configure the linux machine to accept dial-up so you can dialinto that machine and start a PPP session and then telnet into it.

Gerard Beekmans

ANSWER: help please

please can you help me im new to remote booting i have got the hardware one network card with a boot rom and one with out so im fine on the hardware side but how do i configure linux for remote booting i am new to linux so i really have not got the foggiest.

I figure the mini HOWTO Remote-Boot might be a good place to start.

If you have HOWTO's installed on your system, try looking in there (the mini HOWTO's are often placed in /usr/doc/HOWTO/mini).

If not, then you can always find them at http://www.linuxdoc.org/ (the Linux Documentation Project's site - the 'guys' who maintain all the HOWTOs).

Gerard Beekmans

ANSWER: X-windows application for communicating over /dev/ttyS1 (COM2)

Does anyone know where I can find a utility (with source code) that uses an xterm window for communicating with a remote asynchronous device over /dev/ttyS1? Thanks!!

What you do in an Xterm is the same as you do on a console when you don't have the X Window System ; run console programs.

So whatever you run in an xterm you can run without X too. So the bottom line is; what kind of device is it? And how do you want to reach it? Dial into it? If you have to dial into it, you can use the minicom program.

If not, then i need to know more about the hardware before i can give suggestions.

Gerard Beekmans

ANSWER: Re: Linux memory woes

Hi, I've just installed Red Hat 6.0 and it's not detecting all of my memory. I tried typing linux memdM at the LILO prompt as recommended but then the boot-up fails. As it is it only detects 14M or so of my 64M. I had a look in my bios, and I noticed a line saying that there is a memory hole at 15M. I'm guessing that this is causing Linux to not see memory above this, but I don't know why this "hole" is there. I had a look in my motherboard manual (PC Chips M577) but it didn't mention anything useful. This hole doesn't seem to upset Windows; is there anything I can do to get Linux to work too? I also tried swapping my DIMMs around, thinking that if the hole was due to a bad DIMM it might move up to 47M (?) but it doesn't. I've been searching about the web for some insight but I've had no luck so far. Can you help?

Did you disable the memory hole in your BIOS? This memory hole option is *only* meant for PC's with 16 MB of *less* memory. If you have more than 16MB, you should disable this option. If you use the memory hole option, the BIOS gives 15MB to your system available and reserves the memory between 15 and 16MB for other purposes (I forgot what it was for since it's a long time ago I've used it). Also Windows will only see 15 MB (or 14MB after you substracted the 640MB conventional memory and a little bit that's reserved for other purposes).

So do disable it and try Linux again. Trust me, you don't need the memory option at all in your system.

Gerard Beekmans

ANSWER: Re: Looking for the Korn shell

Hi, I recently obtained Redhat V6.0 and I found out to my dismay, that it does not have the Korn shell with it. Does anybody know where I can find a copy of it? Thanks.

You can find it at http://www.kornshell.com/

Gerard Beekmans

< writes:

Yes it does - pdksh. It also has the zsh, which is an expanded version of the Korn shell. They are also available at http://rpmfind.net

ANSWER: Re: Question

I hope this is the right address to right to with a Linux question. I have a lot of Joliet format CD's made with DirectCD in Windows. Linux can read the CD's, but on files with long names (Over 20 characters or so) the filesize is dramatically misreported. 6-7 meg files are listed as 2-3 meg files. Linux can't see it all, and this of course means the file is pretty much corrupt and of no use in Linux. The CD's are readable fine in Windows, but not Linux. I've searched high and low and can find no answer to this problem. I hope you can help.

Perhaps upgrading your kernel might work. The kernel contains drivers for reading file systems like the Joliet format. You can find new kernel sources at ftp://ftp.kernel.org/

Since that above site is very busy most of the times, try ftp://ftp.<country>.kernel.org/ (like ftp.ca.kernel.org in my case for Canada).

Gerard Beekmans

ANSWER: Re: Linux command questions

fsck /usr: What does this command do? What is its NT equivalent. What is this command: cat /etc/passwd; and what is it's NT equivalent?

fsck /usr checks the file system that is mounted under the /usr directory. The MS DOS/Windows equivalent to fsck is scandisk

cat /etc/passwd writes the contents of the /etc/passwd file to standard output. You don't *have* to specify /etc/passwd, you can use any text file you wish (you can 'cat' binary files too but that doesn't has much use).

The MS DOS equivalent to cat is uhm there is no standard program that does this. The closest thing in DOS is 'edit' which is a text editor, so that is more a very very light equivalent to programs like Vim, Emacs, Pico, Ed, etc.

[The DOS counterpart to cat is "type". -Ed.]

fsck /usr checks the partition mounted at /usr for errors and attempts to corect them. Similar to scandisk in Windows.

> What is this command: cat /etc/passwd; and what is > it's NT equivalent?

cat /etc/passwd displays the contents of the file /etc/passwd (the password database file) on the screen. The NT equivalent of 'cat' is 'type' but it's not as straightforward to view the contents of the password database (the SAM). A tool that will let you do this is l0phtcrack - http://www.l0pht.com

ANSWER:

Anatoli,

Winmodems are not supported by the Linux kernel. Think of them as dumb modems - Windows does all of the processing for them, unlike a normal modem which understands Haynes commands.

Fortunately, all is not lost! Check out:

http://www.linuxvoodoo.org/drivers/cards/modems/

They are working on a "Linmodem" driver that may eventually help solve your problem! By far the best solution however is to buy a proper modem!

As for your sound card... a SB16 should work under Linux fine. Have you checked out the Sound-HOWTO (I think you'll find in in /usr/doc/HOWTO on your RedHat box, if you installed the documentation).

Daz

ANSWER:

Chuck,

Try VNC (http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/).

VNC runs on a variety of platforms - I use it regularly to access my Windows PC at work from my Linux box at home! Works well!

Daz

ANSWER: Re: Neighbour table overflow (fwd)

Hi Marcus,

That did the trick. THANKS!!

I did not have file "/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup-lo" but had file "/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-lo"

It was corrupt and had only

  BOOTPROTO=none

  DEVICE=lo
  IPADDR7.0.0.1
  NETMASK%5.0.0.0
  NETWORK7.0.0.0
  BROADCAST7.255.255.255
  ONBOOT=yes
  BOOTPROTO=none

ANSWER: Re: Linux memory woes

The "memory hole" does not mean there is anything wrong with your physical memory. It is a BIOS setting that reserves the memory between 15 and 16 MB for use by some (especially ISA) expansion cards. Since this is a relic from the 80286 era, you probably don't need it if your hardware is not too old. Try disabling it in the BIOS.

Booting with the "mem=..." parameter is necessary only if you have *more* than 64 MB. The first 64 MB should always be found automatically.

ANSWER: Re: Configure X to work with Intel 810 chipset

Precision Insight has written an X server available at ftp://ftp.precisioninsight.com/pub/precisio/XFCom/

Their code will be included in the next version of XFree86, 3.3.6.

--Winston
Gihan Dias < writes:

I had the same problem. Intel provides X support for this "card". Get the drivers from:

http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/intel810/linuxsoftware.htm

This definitely works since I'm sending this message using it! (on a Compaq Desqpro EP)

Now if someone can tall me how to get the sound working with this chipset....

Gihan
Harshawardhan S. Gadgil < writes:

hi there just see this adjoining XF86Config File which i changed for my sis card. This is for redhat 6.1. for 6.1 version the display maliciously flickers and shows only black boxes in place of text. Any help is most welcome. as a result only 8bit color can be used which gives looks very poor in comparision to the quality of 16-bit crisp display.

For redhat 6.0 version even 16 bit and 24 bit color works perfectly.

HSG.

RYAN < writes:

i am try to install Redhat 6.1 and i setup X-windows only 16colcos but i see intel website has release about 810 linux driver i am try to do it but it always 16 colors so who can help me

SCANIA LU

Joel Hewitt < writes:

writes:

I just bought a new computer. It has an "on-board" video card, Intel 810 chipset, or somewhat like that. I couldn't configure X to work with this type of card. First, I let Linux probed, it failed. Then I looked at the list, of course, it wasn't there. Then I tried an unlisted card and configured it as a general svga, it still failed. What to do now?

I am in the same boat as you, I found this on Intel's web site about some drivers they have for X and 810. I haven't tried them yet (as I am still at work), but if you get it going let me know, or I will let you know it Intel's software makes it work. http://support.intel.com/support/graphics/intel810/linuxsoftware.htm I have gotten my computer to work in 640x480 in 16 colors. And as you can imagine it lookes terrible.

Joel

ANSWER: nohup

I usually log into my machine with SSH from home (no concole access) and I was wondering if there is a way to have processes still running after I log out. For instance an ftp-session loading an ISO, etc..

nohup command-string &

'nohup' tells the program to ignore the hangup signal which is sent when you disconnect.

ANSWER: POP3

We are using Netscape as the email client. I entered svr.cma.com as the Incoming and Outgoing mail servers. Netscape client can sent email but were unable to receive (email) with the message: "Netscape's network connection was refused by the server svr.cma.com The server may not be accepting connections or may be busy. Try connecting again later."

I did a telnet svr.cma.com 110 with a "Unable to connect to remote host" message. But a telnet svr.cma.com 25 is ok. That explaint why sending is OK but not receiving rite?

How do I fix this?

Open /etc/inetd.conf, find the line that has pop-3, and uncomment it (remove the #). Then use /etc/rc.d/init.d/inet restart

ANSWER: Linux Remote Control

Is there a Linux based communications program similar to pcAnywhere or Carbon Copy? I need remote PC control. Don't need to transfer files

Are you trying to control a remote linux box? Console or gui? For console, just telnet, or better from a security POV, use ssh (http://www.openssh.org) If you want to remotely run graphical apps, X has this capability built in. Just telnet to the remote machine, and use

export DISPLAY=local_IP:0.0

setenv DISPLAY local_IP:0.0

xhost remote_IP

If you want to control a remote windows or linux box, use VNC (http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/)

ANSWER: Authenticating Linux in an NT Domain

I want to get linux to authenticate to my NT network.

Use PAM_SMB - http://www.csn.ul.ie/~airlied/ If you use a RedHat system, you can find an RPM at http://rpmfind.net

ANSWER: DOS/Linux connection

I bought an ethernet card for my 386, and connected the in-board ethernet card on the SPARC with the ethernetcard on the 386. The cable is twisted-pair, since only two computers are to be connected.

I'm assuming the cable is terminated. If not, get yourself two 50 ohm terminators (as well as t-pieces). This could be why they aren't seeing each other.

If I turn on both computers, I can start a testing program for the ethernet card on the 386. It will wait for any external signal. When booting the SPARC (the 386 sensing for any action), the SPARC checks for 'eth0' but finds no other computer on the other side.

It won't just automatically check - try pinging the IP of the DOS machine.

Questions: (1) how can I let my 386 tell to the SPARC he is there? (2) How can I make the 386 accessible (that is: the parallel printer port) from the SPARC?

(1) ping. (2) Use the 'net share' command to share the printer, and use Samba on the Linux box. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/samba/chapter/book/ch07_02.html contains information on using windows printers from Linux via samba, it shouldn't be too difficult to adapt this for dos.

ANSWER: Re: Setup network printer

I have RedHat 6.1 installed, but need to figure out how to use the network printer. The network printer is shared on a NT domain which is available to use if I login in NT. Any tip is welcome.

Check out http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/samba/chapter/book/ch07_02.html

ANSWER: Re: Linux Gazette MailBag LG #47

I hope you were not flooded with mails about this subject. But, if it is not too late, I would play my 1/50 Euro in your mailbox.

<!DOCTYPE MSML PROPRIETARY "-//MS//HTML 5.0//US" "C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM">
Please, readers, e-mail your questions and comments in
<BLINK>TEXT</BLINK>
 format, not HTML.

Just kidding ;) But your document does not parse correctly because <BLINK> is not allowed by the HTML 3.2 DTD. *duck*

And if your mailer splits long lines by putting an "=" at the end of the line and moving the last character or two to the next line, please try to turn that feature off. Also some mailers turn punctuation and foreign characters into "?" and "&eaacute;" and the like. I can't reformat those, since I don't know what the original character was! -Ed

You can pipe the mail through:

perl -pe 's/=\n//;1 while s/=([\dA-F]{2})/chr hex $1/e'

See latin1(7). These magic numbers are the ascii value of the letter they represent. This form of encoding is called quoted-printable and it is used to transfer 8bit emails over (old) 7bit smtp mailers. The mail must contain a header saying "Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable" (see RFC 1521). This seems to go missing which is not neccessarily your fault.

Ingo

[Thanks. the script works like a charm. -Ed.]

P.S.: The signature is for your practice ;)

--
=22=49=27=6D=20=6E=6F=74=20=61=20=67=6F=64=2C=20=49=20=77=61=73=20=6D=69=
=73=71=75=6F=74=65=64=2E=22=0A=
=09=2D=2D=20=4C=69=73=74=65=72=2C=20=52=65=64=20=44=77=61=72=66

ANSWER: Re:Hmmm.... don't know how to categorize this..

From: Mika Numminen <[email protected]> I usually log into my machine with SSH from home (no concole access) and I was wondering if there is a way to have processes still running after I log out. For instance an ftp-session loading an ISO, etc..

hi,

You could use a program called 'screen'. All your processes keep running. You can detach from screen, go to home, and re-attach to it, Voila! all your process are there running!

cheers -Sas

ANSWER: Re: Telnet 110 fails

You need to run pop or imap servers on the RH6.0 machine. Then only it can act as a mail server. Search for pop/imap servers at http://www.freshmeat.net/

happy setting up...
-Sas

ANSWER: No Ethernet connection

The first thing you need to do is check for a link light, if it is on, you have connectivity. If it is not on, you may be running a straight through twisted pair Ethernet cable. If you are connecting two Ethernet cards together with out a hub what you need is a crossover Ethernet cable. Here is a simple diagram [of how the wires on one end of the cable should be connected to the other end to form a crossover cable].

RJ45    RJ45
1----------3
2----------6
3----------1
4----------4
5----------5
6----------2
7----------7
8----------8                        

ANSWER: connecting SPARC and 386 for printing purposes

Douwe,

Concerning your question on how to use a 386 as a printer server for a SPARCstation 10/20 in Issue 48 of the Linux Gazette:

AFAIK, DOS doesn't come with lots of networking stuff. Why don't you install Linux on the 386? Then you can use ifconfig to configure the network interface, and lpd (Line Printer Daemon) for printing.

As an alternative, there are printers with a serial interface, or even models with their own ethernet interface.

HTH, Roland

ANSWER: Running MS applications on Linux?

Richard,

Concerning your question to run MS software on Linux, there are several alternatives:

There is a pretty good DOS emulator available, dosemu (www.dosemu.org)

For windows software, there is also a windows emulation library/environment called WINE (www.winehq.com). On the website you'll find a list of programs that will or will not work with it.

Both of the above programs are free (GPL).

An alternative would be to install windows in a virtual environment using the commercial vmware emulator (www.vmware.com).

ANSWER: help with LT Win Modem and SB 16 Sound Blaster wanted

I cannot connect to the Internet (still using Winows 98). My LT Win Modem connected to com3 is not working under Linux. (Someone wrote that trying to config Win modems for Linux is waste of time, is it true?)

Essentially, yes. Winmodems are not really modems. There are missing some signal processing hardware, the functionality of which has been replaced by the necessary software driver. Of course, these drivers only exist for .... You've guessed it :)

There are some efforts to make Linux drivers (search the 'net for "linmodems", I don't have an URL handy), but only for winmodems with a particular chipset.

My advice would be to buy a real modem. If you want to be sure that it works with linux, get an external modem.

I also have a problem with SB 16 sound blaster. 'sndconfig' program doesn't help!

Recent soundblaster 16's can be configured with DIP-switches or PnP. You use a switch to choose between manual setting or PnP-mode. Read the documentation on the CD that comes with the card (It's a PDF file). Check if the card is set to manual configuration an then try sndconfig again.

I'm not familiar with sndconfig, but you can always recompile the kernel so that the sound driver has the right address, IRQ and DMA channels, or use the appropriate values as arguments to the insmod(1) command.

ANSWER: Installing RH6.0

I am trying to install RH 6.0 on a Thinkpad 760ED, unfortunately the cdrom (Teac 44E) does not appear on the supported cdrom drives, does anyone have any ideas other than buying an external (supported) cdrom drive.

Is the CD-ROM not on a "supported" list, or have you tried to install and it doesn't work?

In the first case, don't worry. Most CD-ROM's are ATAPI devices these days, and should work without a problem.

In the second case, does the laptop have a network card? in that case you can try installing over a network.

More information about Linux on laptops can be found at he web-page: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-laptop/

There are even pages specifically for the Thinkpad 760: http://www.muc.de/~hm/linux/thinkpad.html

Or for Thinkpad's in general: http://peipa.essex.ac.uk/tp-linux/tp-linux.html

There are also several mailing-lists:

<linux-thinkpad>: see (mailing list home on instructions on how to subscribe and for an archive.

<[email protected]>: send mail to <[email protected]> with the following command in the body of your email message: subscribe linux-laptop YOUR-EMAIL ADDRESS (unfortunatly no html-archive known.

<[email protected]>: To subscribe or unsubscribe, send mail to <[email protected]>. In the body, simply type subscribe your_email_address@your_isp.com. (unfortunatly no html-archive known)

Obviously also all standard linux news groups such as comp.os.linux.advocacy, comp.os.linux.announce, comp.os.linux.answers, comp.os.linux.development.apps, comp.os.linux.development.system comp.os.linux.hardware, comp.os.linux.misc, comp.os.linux.setup and comp.os.linux.x are good information sources.

ANSWER: Setup network printer

I have RedHat 6.1 installed, but need to figure out how to use the network printer. The network printer is shared on a NT domain which is available to use if I login in NT. Any tip is welcome.

This page written and maintained by the Editor of the Linux Gazette. Copyright © 2000,
Published in Issue 49 of Linux Gazette, January 2000