Linux-Misc Digest #520, Volume #21 Mon, 23 Aug 99 21:13:07 EDT
Contents:
Re: How to customize menus in Gnome or KDE? (Brad Behm)
Re: win95 backup on Linux (Michael McConnell)
Re: WordPerfect 8 (Rod Smith)
Re: menuconfig boot issue #1 (Trent Gamblin)
Re: What is the reasoning behind "stay away from root"? (Collin W. Hitchcock)
Re: Gnome File Manager (Tom Shannon)
Traffic accounting on multiple IP (Emmanuel CHILAUD)
Re: Can I switch from OS/2 to Linux and be happy? (Mathew A. Hennessy)
Serial Port Spiking (Kristjan Varnik)
Re: menuconfig boot issue (#2) (Trent Gamblin)
Re: What is the reasoning behind "stay away from root"? (Cameron L. Spitzer)
Samba...almost there... (AD)
POSIX, Re: Comparison needed: *BSD vs. Linux (Cameron L. Spitzer)
Re: Troll (was: why not C++?) (Stephan Houben)
Re: Alert: AMD K6-2 350 Mhz processor (Jerry Gardner)
Re: Bash scripting (Peter Greenwood)
http://www.searchmp3s.cjb.net (MP3.COM)
Re: anyone certified? (Jerry Gardner)
Re: Random Lockups and Freezes (Jero)
Re: Quick Emacs Question (Dave McCracken)
Re: What is the reasoning behind "stay away from root"? (Bruce Stephens)
Star office and Java (Jim)
multiprocessor linux scalability (Nicholas Strugnell)
Weird serial port problem (Peter Greenwood)
Re: What is the reasoning behind "stay away from root"? (Hexdump)
Re: Bash scripting (Dave Brown)
Re: What is the reasoning behind "stay away from root"? (Don Jerman)
Re: Weird serial port problem (Peter Greenwood)
Re: WWW e-mail interface? ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: TARing to a backup disk (Dave Brown)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Brad Behm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.questions
Subject: Re: How to customize menus in Gnome or KDE?
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 19:22:20 GMT
And in Gnome, you can get a nice graphical menu editor by going to your main menu
and going to Settings>Menu Editor.
Hope that helps
Brad Behm
Carl Fink wrote:
> On Sun, 22 Aug 1999 12:47:44 -0500 K. Eggleston <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >Adding, removing, organizing applications in the Windows Start Menu is
> >easy. From what I gather, however, Gnome and KDE work nothing like this.
> >How does one work with the application menus in these to set them up how
> >they want?
>
> Well, in KDE you right-click on the "K" menu and choose "Properties".
> --
> Carl Fink [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> "This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy."
> -Martin Luther on Copernicus' theory that the Earth orbits the sun
------------------------------
From: Michael McConnell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: win95 backup on Linux
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 20:37:57 +0100
On Mon, 23 Aug 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Can I backup and restore entire win95 system (/dosc )on a linux
> partition from within Linux. Thanks !
A method I employ:
cat /dev/zero > /dos/bigfile ; sync ; rm -f /dos/bigfile ; \
mount -o remount,ro /dos ; cat /dev/hda1 | gzip -9 > /path/to/hda1img.gz
One compressed snapshot of the disc. :)
The bigfile write simply zeros all the free space so it can be compressed
almost into oblivion :)
-- Michael "Soruk" McConnell
Eridani Star System -- The Most Up-to-Date Red Hat Linux CDROMs Available
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.amush.cx/linux/ Fax: +44-8701-600807
Eridani: Your PC doesn't need Windows or Gates.
------------------------------
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Rod Smith)
Subject: Re: WordPerfect 8
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 22:59:06 GMT
[Posted and mailed]
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Jeroen Sluyter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Hi Linuxers,
>
> I have a problem with WordPerfect 8. The font just looks awful, I can
> hardly read it. Would someone please tell me how to fix this ?
My WP web page has some information on this:
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~smithrod/wpfonts.html
--
Rod Smith
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~smithrod
Author of _Special Edition Using Corel WordPerfect 8 for Linux_, from Que
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Trent Gamblin)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux.slackware
Subject: Re: menuconfig boot issue #1
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 22:40:02 GMT
* Christopher Michael Collins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Here is one thing I see on my boot screen. How do I
> configure this out, when using the 'menuconfig' application.
Don't set CONFIG_BLK_DEV_IDEDMA.
> PCI_IDE: unknown IDE controller on PCI bus 00 device 80, vid=10b9, DID=5229
> PCI_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
> PCI_IDE: simplex device: DMA disabled
> ide0: PCI_IDE Bus-Master DMA disabled (BIOS)
> PCI_IDE: simplex device: DMA disabled
> ide1: PCI_IDE Bus_Master DMA disabled (BIOS)
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Collin W. Hitchcock)
Subject: Re: What is the reasoning behind "stay away from root"?
Date: 23 Aug 1999 18:15:10 -0400
> A lot of these self-help Linux books, FAQs, and "words from UNIX
> gurus" always stress the importance of "Don't do anything in root!
> You will screw up your system!". But it seems as if almost
> everything that needs to be done, needs to be done as root!
The message is don't do anything as root that you can possibly do as a
regular user. When you are looking at a root prompt you want to be
careful. As root you can erase your entire filesystem with only 9
keystrokes. If you use root all the time for no good reason, you will
eventually get careless and screw something up.
> For example... when you get a new piece of software; tarball
> format. You need to :
>
> ./configure
> make
> make install
>
> (usually)
>
> You need to be root to do that... at least do the last one.
This is one of my pet peeves. make install is supposed to just
install, but it can do anything that it likes -- as root. There's no
reason you should have to trust the integrity of your system to the
author of some little program that you will never run as root.
If this bothers you as much as it does me, try the following:
These steps are performed as a non-root user:
1) Unpack the sources
2) ./configure --prefix=/some/directory/some/where
where /some/directory/some/where is an initially empty directory
writable by the non-root user
3) make
4) make install
Now you can see exactly what is installed and where. Browse the
install tree and make sure you agree with everything. When you are
happy, become root and make some sym-links for executables, libraries,
and man pages. This method also allows easy program removal.
Collin
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tom Shannon)
Subject: Re: Gnome File Manager
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 06:14:59 -04-59
On Sun, 22 Aug 1999 21:14:33 GMT, Jim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>I'm trying to setup an icon to the executable file for Gnome file
>manager but I can't find the right file to link to. Any help is
>appreciated
/usr/bin/gmc or /usr/local/gmc
Tom
--
------------------------------
From: Emmanuel CHILAUD <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Traffic accounting on multiple IP
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 22:31:34 +0200
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Hi all !
I'm using a linux RedHat 5.2 server with IP-aliasing on a class C range
of adresses.
I need to have a traffic report by ip every day or week or month.
Are there any free products for that or did someone developped a such
utility ?
Thanks in advance,
Manu
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mathew A. Hennessy)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.os2.misc,comp.os.os2.apps,alt.os.linux
Subject: Re: Can I switch from OS/2 to Linux and be happy?
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 23:09:37 GMT
In article <9Q2w3.28825$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
<james.arnold@!!!usa.net> wrote:
>In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Richard Steiner) writes:
>>Here in comp.os.os2.misc, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mathew A. Hennessy)
>>spake unto us, saying:
>>
>>>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>>>Richard Steiner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>
>>>>The WPS beats them both, of course.
>>>
>>> Mebbe, but I like to use software written in the last 3 years.. ;)
>>
>>Typical Microsoft-influenced mindset. :-(
>>
>>The functionality of a piece of s/w is not always related to its age,
>>and yet so many people seem to have this driving need to use "new"
>>software rather than "good" software.
>>
>>It boggles my mind.
>
> My thoughts exactly. I would much prefer good, quality
>software rather than the newest, flashiest, bug-ridden bloatware.
sheesh, talk about not catching the joke.... A mite touchy, eh?
;)
Cheers,
- Matt
--
"The day that Microsoft makes something that doesn't suck is the day that they
start making vacuum cleaners."
- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Fool! There is nothing Perl cannot do! NOTHING!" -Bastich
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Kristjan Varnik)
Subject: Serial Port Spiking
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 20:38:14 GMT
I am trying to send a 12V spike out the
serial port so I can overwrite the flash
protection on a web-phone. And eventually
put linux on it :)
I have looked around the web and found
plenty of c code for opening and writing to
serial ports, but nothing on voltages
and raw analog signals.
Any help would be appreciated.
kris
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Trent Gamblin)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux.slackware
Subject: Re: menuconfig boot issue (#2)
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 22:40:03 GMT
* Christopher Michael Collins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> At boot I get this message:
>
> Updating module dependencies for Linux 2.2.10
> /lib/modules/2.2.10/fs/autofs.o: unresolved symbol(s)
> /lib/modules/2.2.10/fs/ntfs.o: unresolved symbol(s)
Somewhere around 2.2.7 fat and various other file systems were
broken intentionally. ntfs may be one of those other file systems.
Type 'depmod -ae' to find out exactly what symbols are unresolved.
It might just be a matter of adding EXPORT_SYMBOL(*) to kernel/ksyms.c
in the kernel source.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Cameron L. Spitzer)
Subject: Re: What is the reasoning behind "stay away from root"?
Date: 23 Aug 1999 22:52:39 GMT
In article <7Ciw3.109$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Mazrim Taim wrote:
>A lot of these self-help Linux books, FAQs, and "words from UNIX gurus"
>always stress the importance of "Don't do anything in root! You will screw
>up your system!". But it seems as if almost everything that needs to be
>done, needs to be done as root!
>
>For example... when you get a new piece of software; tarball format. You
>need to :
>
>./configure
>make
>make install
>
>(usually)
>
>You need to be root to do that... at least do the last one.
Hmm, I do that as the "bin" user. Of course "bin" has to own
/bin, /usr/bin/, /usr/man, and a few other things.
But bin can't use up the last 10% of a file system as root can,
nor mess up critical files in /etc/.
Legend has it that "bin" was Ritchie or Kernighan, and it's good
luck to create an account for them in case they want to log
in and upgrade your system. And "sys" was Pike.
Cameron
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (AD)
Crossposted-To: alt.os.linux
Subject: Samba...almost there...
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 22:55:02 GMT
RH 6.0
I can ping myself and the two Win98 computers, and vice versa.
I can see the shares using smbclient for them as well.
I cannot, however, get that all important icon in NN, (or telnet,
ftp...)
Now what?
BTW, sorry for being stupid, but should you be able to use smbclient
to list shares on the host running samba?
Thanks for any help.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Cameron L. Spitzer)
Subject: POSIX, Re: Comparison needed: *BSD vs. Linux
Date: 23 Aug 1999 22:36:18 GMT
In article <1F1v3.14957$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Christopher Browne wrote:
>On Thu, 19 Aug 1999 22:46:45 +0200, Sasa Babic
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>I am new in non Micro$oft OS area. As I was learning about Linux, I found
>>out about *BSD.
>>
>>I am wondering what are the differences between FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD
>>and Linux. You know, good sides and bad sides. Anyone with some spare
>>time?
One difference I noticed is that Linux is an attempt to comply with
the POSIX specs, in letter and spirit. xBSD is not.
POSIX, as I recall, was an attempt by the US Federal Government (USG) to
define a set of application programming interfaces in a vendor-neutral
way, so they could have competitive bidding on large computer system
acquisitions. The USG was in the unique position that its computer
purchases were so big that major vendors (Unisys, IBM, Digital) would
design and build large systems (or commission their original equipment
manufacturers (Altos, Convergent, Arete, Sequent...) to do it) just to
bid on a single request for quote.
POSIX was later taken over by the IEEE.
Cameron
------------------------------
From: Stephan Houben <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.os.linux.development.system
Subject: Re: Troll (was: why not C++?)
Date: 18 Aug 1999 09:48:15 +0200
Timo Tossavainen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Graffiti wrote:
>
> > Oh god. The return of the LISP machines.... *shudder*
> > They weren't *bad*, but look at where they are now. See my point?
> > (Or rather, don't see it? :-)
>
> Well, I think the lisp machines had specialized chips to evaluate lisp and were
> quite proprietary. I think a modern open Lisp OS would be a good idea.
I disagree. It's a bad idea to have a Lisp OS, a C++ OS, a Java OS,
and basically any X OS where X is a programming language. Why?
Because a general purpose OS should *never* force a particular
programming language upon its users. No language is perfect.
Every language sucks, if confronted with the "right" (i.e. the wrong)
application area.
IIRC there was a C compiler for some Lisp machines. It implemented
pointers with "cons"-cells. A greater abstraction inversion the world
has never seen.
Note that Linux is not a C OS. It is a general-purpose OS whose kernel
happens to be written in C. If they hadn't told me this, I would never know.
I still don''t care. As long as the StephanTalk compiler does its job,
I don't care in which language the OS is written.
Greetings,
Stephan
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jerry Gardner)
Crossposted-To: redhat.general,comp.os.linux.x,redhat.x.general
Subject: Re: Alert: AMD K6-2 350 Mhz processor
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 23:25:41 GMT
BOn Sat, 21 Aug 1999 23:31:13 +0100, Rob Mason wrote:
>
>Has anyone else experienced a system freeze with this processor on RH6.0
>???
I don't run Redhat, but I have been running Debian Linux 2.0 on my AMD
K6-2 350 MHz system for 6 months now (24/7) without the slightest hint
of a problem. My motherboard is an Asus P5A and I'm running kernel 2.2.3.
Are you using the proper speed memory (PC-100)? Are you overclocking
the processor? Is your motherboard of good quality?
--
Jerry Gardner | "Bill Clinton has all the steely resolve
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | of a kamakaze pilot on his 37th mission."
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Greenwood)
Subject: Re: Bash scripting
Date: 23 Aug 1999 23:24:43 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Tom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>I'm a recovering VB weenie and would like to know why the following doesn't
>work...
>
>$i=0
>until false
>do
> i=$((i+1))
> if $((i>10))
> then
> echo break ;
> break
> fi
> echo $i;
>done
The line "if $((i>10))" is the problem. The $(( <expression> )) construct
evaluates <expression> and substitutes the result in the line. After this,
the line reads "if 1", "if 2" or whatever. Since none of these numbers is
a valid command, the result (of attempting to run them) is always false.
You should use instead "if test $i -gt 10". See "man bash".
Incidentally, the initial assignment should be "i=0" not "$i=0".
--
Peter Greenwood [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Email advertisements received at this site are subject to a handling charge
of TWENTY-FIVE POUNDS STERLING. By sending such material you agree to be
bound by this condition.
------------------------------
From: MP3.COM <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: http://www.searchmp3s.cjb.net
Date: 23 Aug 1999 15:52:19 -0700
Hey everyone !!!
New MP3 SEARCH webpage on the NET !! Wait NO LONGER !!!
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ROLLING STONES - "NEVER SEEN SOMETHING LIKE THIS BEFORE, JUST PERFECT!"
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jerry Gardner)
Subject: Re: anyone certified?
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 23:25:42 GMT
On Sat, 21 Aug 1999 14:10:24 -0400, Lye Nooks wrote:
>If there's anybody who's certified, how difficult was it (like comparing
>with MSCE)?
I'm not certified, but I am certifiable. Does that count?
--
Jerry Gardner | "Bill Clinton has all the steely resolve
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | of a kamakaze pilot on his 37th mission."
------------------------------
From: Jero <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup,comp.os.linux.x
Subject: Re: Random Lockups and Freezes
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 21:28:19 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Mike Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I have been having an interrmitent lockup problem with my Linux
> system. Randomly the whole machine will lock. Nothing I can do will
> free it. There is no response from the keyboard at all so I can't get
> to another console or kill X. The mouse completely stops. The only
> thing to get it back is a complete hard system reset. Not a good
thing
> to do.
I have been having the same problem on my system with RH6.0. I used to
run RH5.2 with no problem at all (I had exactly the same hardware
config) but I was using the standard RH5.2 version of XFree86 (not
3.3.3?).
Anyway, I have been told that the hangs were caused by the kernel being
compiled with the i686 instruction set while the X rpms are compiled
with the _i386_ instruction set. I'm not sure how much stock I put in
that but I am going to give it a try anyway. I'll tell you how I get on.
However I think changing some of the options is more likely to help.
There is one called something like "option noaccel" or something which
turns off all hardware acceleration - it may help.
Tell me if you find anything.
Cheers
Jero
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
------------------------------
From: Dave McCracken <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Quick Emacs Question
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 22:30:59 GMT
severe wrote:
>
> This is a quick 'display-time- question about emacs...
>
> As things stand (Redhat 6.0, emacs 20.3) 'display time' works fine on the
> console, but make emacs hang every time in X.
>
> Can anyone suggest a way of setting up my .emacs so that 'display-time'
is
> automatically started on the console, but *NOT* in X?
I presume you want to issue the 'display time' in your .emacs file.
I don't use 'display time', but I have a bunch of stuff I want to
happen differently when emac is run under X11. The test I have is:
(if window-system
(X11 stuff)
(Console stuff)
)
I presume this will work for you as well.
Dave McCracken
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
================== Posted via CNET Linux Help ==================
http://www.searchlinux.com
------------------------------
From: Bruce Stephens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What is the reasoning behind "stay away from root"?
Date: 23 Aug 1999 23:30:17 +0100
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Collin W. Hitchcock) writes:
> The message is don't do anything as root that you can possibly do as a
> regular user. When you are looking at a root prompt you want to be
> careful. As root you can erase your entire filesystem with only 9
> keystrokes. If you use root all the time for no good reason, you will
> eventually get careless and screw something up.
Sounds like a competition! Who can do the most damage as root with
less than 9 keystrokes? (No cheating allowed---you have to use
conventional programs and things, no prepared scripts or aliases.)
> This is one of my pet peeves. make install is supposed to just
> install, but it can do anything that it likes -- as root. There's
> no reason you should have to trust the integrity of your system to
> the author of some little program that you will never run as root.
Well, there's always "make -n install".
> If this bothers you as much as it does me, try the following:
>
> These steps are performed as a non-root user:
>
> 1) Unpack the sources
> 2) ./configure --prefix=/some/directory/some/where
>
> where /some/directory/some/where is an initially empty directory
> writable by the non-root user
>
> 3) make
> 4) make install
>
> Now you can see exactly what is installed and where. Browse the
> install tree and make sure you agree with everything. When you are
> happy, become root and make some sym-links for executables,
> libraries, and man pages. This method also allows easy program
> removal.
One could even imagine automating this. Oh wait! Someone's done it:
<URL:http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/stow.html>. (Admittedly, stow
seems slightly bit-rotted, and occasionally coredumps on me, but it
works OK, and I'm sure a Perl hacker could restore it to health
quickly.)
------------------------------
From: Jim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Star office and Java
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 23:35:18 GMT
When I install Star Office 5.1, I get a message saying that Star
Office can't find a java runtime environment, so java support won't be
enabled. I'm not having any problems running java programs, so I assume
there is something I need to know about Star Office configuration. Any
help is appreciated.
Jim McIntyre
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia
------------------------------
From: Nicholas Strugnell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: multiprocessor linux scalability
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 18:17:37 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Hi folks,
I here a lot about linux 2.2 only scaling to 4 processors because of the
use of a global kernel spin lock. However, I run scientific C codes
written using POSIX threads that run symmetric worker threads in
userspace. There is no interthread communication and each thread lasts a
long time - typically several minutes.
This means that my threads spend very little time in kernel mode - they
are mainly number crunching.
My question is - how scalable is linux for this kind of work? Would I see
linear scale ups?
I know the code is scaleable as I see linear scale up on the machines I
currently use: 2x proc SGI O200, 4x proc SGI 0200, 64x proc SGI 02K all
under IRIX 6.5.
Cheers,
Nick
Dept. of Geography | Phone (Office): +1 (617) 353-8031
Boston University | Phone (Home): +1 (617) 247-6292
675 Commonwealth Avenue | Fax: +1 (617) 353-8399
Boston, MA 02215-1401, USA | WWW: http://crsa.bu.edu/~nstrug/
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Greenwood)
Subject: Weird serial port problem
Date: 23 Aug 1999 23:55:51 GMT
For some reason, the first serial port doesn't work properly. I have the
mouse attached to it, and whenever I flip from X to a text console and
back, or log out and back in, the mouse stops working. To get it back, it
is necessary to run some other program that opens /dev/ttyS0.
/dev/cua0 doesn't work at all.
I don't have gpm running, although when I did it had a similar problem.
I have a workaround - a program, run from Xsession (I use xdm), that just
opens and closes the port - but I'd appreciate any ideas about why this
should be happening.
--
Peter Greenwood [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Email advertisements received at this site are subject to a handling charge
of TWENTY-FIVE POUNDS STERLING. By sending such material you agree to be
bound by this condition.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Hexdump)
Subject: Re: What is the reasoning behind "stay away from root"?
Date: 23 Aug 1999 21:01:39 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Mon, 23 Aug 1999 16:58:24 -0400, Mazrim Taim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>A lot of these self-help Linux books, FAQs, and "words from UNIX gurus"
>always stress the importance of "Don't do anything in root! You will screw
>up your system!". But it seems as if almost everything that needs to be
>done, needs to be done as root!
>
>For example... when you get a new piece of software; tarball format. You
>need to :
>
>./configure
>make
>make install
>
>(usually)
>
>You need to be root to do that... at least do the last one. And so many
>configuration options require root. Not to mention shutting down your
>comptuer at the end of your computing session!
>
>So why stress the paranoia buildup against using root? I can't go through a
>single DAY without needing to do some root-actions. So that's why I'm root
>all the time.
>
>
>
Basically, because the system assumes that root always knows what it is
doing. For example, "rm * -rf" would be really bad if typed by root.
HTH,
JC
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dave Brown)
Subject: Re: Bash scripting
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: 23 Aug 99 23:40:30 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Tom wrote:
>I'm a recovering VB weenie and would like to know why the following doesn't
>work...
>
>$i=0
>until false
>do
> i=$((i+1))
> if $((i>10))
> then
> echo break ;
> break
> fi
> echo $i;
>done
>
>It increments I just fine, it just never ends....
Try taking the $ off the ((i>10)). "if" works on
a return code generated by the test. Replacing the
test with a value must not have the same effect.
(I presume the value $((i>10)) is zero while i is
less that 11, and changes to 1 when i exceeds 10,
but "if" doesn't care.)
--
Dave Brown Austin, TX
------------------------------
From: Don Jerman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: What is the reasoning behind "stay away from root"?
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 19:47:24 -0400
"Collin W. Hitchcock" wrote:
> > A lot of these self-help Linux books, FAQs, and "words from UNIX
> > gurus" always stress the importance of "Don't do anything in root!
> > You will screw up your system!". But it seems as if almost
> > everything that needs to be done, needs to be done as root!
>
> The message is don't do anything as root that you can possibly do as a
> regular user. When you are looking at a root prompt you want to be
> careful. As root you can erase your entire filesystem with only 9
> keystrokes. If you use root all the time for no good reason, you will
> eventually get careless and screw something up.
For the paranoid, there's another reason. If you're connected to a
network, and habitually run as root, sooner or later you'll open up a web
browser, and run some signed java applet (as root) which can issue those
9 keystrokes, or whatever other keystrokes it likes... I admit it's not
as easy to do as it is with Windows, but being a Lowly User is safer if
you're dialled up. OTOH, I frequently leave a superuser xterm running...
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Greenwood)
Subject: Re: Weird serial port problem
Date: 24 Aug 1999 00:09:17 GMT
In article <7psn27$ior$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Greenwood) writes:
>For some reason, the first serial port doesn't work properly.
PS - RedHat 5.1, kernels 2.0.35 and 2.0.36
--
Peter Greenwood [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Email advertisements received at this site are subject to a handling charge
of TWENTY-FIVE POUNDS STERLING. By sending such material you agree to be
bound by this condition.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Crossposted-To: comp.os.linux.setup
Subject: Re: WWW e-mail interface?
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 00:02:15 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>
> Danny O'Brien wrote:
>
> > Is there a way to set up a Linux mail server so that e-mail can be
> > accessed remotely via the Web? i.e., at the office, mail gets
forwarded to
> > whatever client we're running on the desktops, but on the road, we
can hit
> > a Web site and check our mail.
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> You can use MailMan. I think you can get it at http://www.cgi-
resources.com.
> Don't use any other Perl scripts there as they are often insecure.
Also look
> into WebMail from http://www.ihub.com. It costs money, but we are
very happy
> with it here at UTK.
>
> Toby
>
hi Toby,
If you look again, you'll notice he was asking about LINUX.
WebMail is for Windows NT/95
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dave Brown)
Subject: Re: TARing to a backup disk
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: 24 Aug 99 00:07:01 GMT
In article <7ps9di$aia$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Al Nios wrote:
>I have a tape backup at /dev/st0 - I performed a backup using the tar
>program, and the output was saved properly to the device. When I try to TAR
>another directory, it seems that the first tar file on the tape backup disk
>is erased? Is that how it's suppose to work? DO I have to append the first
>tar files when adding new backups to the tape drive?
>...
If you don't rewind the tape between archives, it should start the next
record at the end of the first record. If the tape does get rewound, then
to get to the second "file", you have to use a tape control program to
move the tape to the interrecord gap between the archives. See the "mt"
man page.
--
Dave Brown Austin, TX
------------------------------
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