On 22-Aug-98 Scorpion wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Just so you know, this is [EMAIL PROTECTED] I just got a new address
> to put my mailing lists on, to keep it separte from my regular mail.
Filtering your mail would probably be a better solution. You can keep your mail
organized without the trouble of maintaining separate accounts.
> A few weeks ago, my Grandma gave me a Scanner for my birthday (my 17th
> birthday is still 1 1/2 months away!). I would like to know what program to
> use under Linux for scanning. Also, are there any of those programs that
> convert scanned text into a .txt file?
Sorry, can't help you here.
> Does anyone know of a good .mpg/.mov/.qt/.avi player (with sound) for Linux?
XAnim. It can play mpg, mov, avi as well as a few other format. I'm not sure if
it can handle qt as I'm not familiar with the format. On my version of XAnim,
the mpg support is incomplete and do not have sound. This may have been changed
in recent version. Look in http://freshmeat.net/ for XAnim as well as other
media players.
> You know how the BASH prompt looks different on different distributions? Is
> the format saved in a file somewhere? I want my Slackware prompt to look
> like
> the Redhat prompt.
This is set in the variables PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4. Check the bash man page for
details. You'll only need to modify PS1 and PS2 to get what you need. PS3 is
only used when using the 'select' command. I do not know what PS4 is for,
anyone care to explain?
These variables can be set in /etc/profile, ~/.profile, or ~/.bash_profile look
around to determine the actual location. If you modify /etc/profile, the
changes will affect all users.
If the prompt on your Redhat is set using the bashprompt package, get the that
instead. It'll make your work easier.
> And last, an off topic question. I found some bad sectors on my swap
> partition. I don't have enough money yet to get a new hard drive. How safe
> is it to use my hard drive?
Not at all. You should disable your swap partition immediately.
Bad sectors on a partition with a file system can be marked, making the
partition safe for use (There's an article on this in Linux Journal Jan 97).
But on a swap partition, you will have to partition out the bad sectors.
The following steps describe how to partition out the bad sectors. If you do
not fully understand any of the steps, or if you are simply uncomfortable with
implementing such changes. Contact me with more information and I'll either try
to walk you through it, or I'll provide you with some other not-so-desirable
alternatives.
- First, disable the affected swap partition. Running swapoff -a should disable
all swap.
- Run "fdisk /dev/hd?" where /dev/hd? is the affected _drive_. Once you're at
the fdisk prompt, type 'p' to print (print as in print to screen) out the
partition table. Note down the number of blocks in the affected partition.
- Run badblocks to scan the partition for defects. I would strongly recommend
that you read the man page first. The syntax would be "badblocks -w /dev/hd??
blockcount" where hd?? is the affected _partition_ and blockcount is the number
of blocks in the partition. Read the caution before doing anything.
Caution!: Be careful here, fdisk uses the disk as the parameter but badblocks
uses the partition. The -w option will destroy all data on the partition. This
will not be a problem for a swap partition that isn't in use, but if you screw
up the parameter for the device or block count, you may end up destroying data
on other partitions. Read the man page to reverify everything for yourself. You
might want to use the "-o" option to save the output of badblocks to a file.
- Read the output of badblocks and modify your swap partition to avoid the
damaged blocks. eg. If your swap extends from block 829 to block 899, and the
damaged blocks ranges from 889 to 898, modify your swap partition to extend
from block 829 to block 888. This will leave the damaged blocks as well as one
good block (899) out of your swap partition. You will end up with a smaller
swap than what you have now, and the amount of lost hard disk space will depend
on the amount of damaged blocks, as well the location of these damaged blocks.
Cort
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
