Re: Window Maker/WPrefs and NFS on potato
Hi, fcntl() locks don't work over NFS, unfortunately (well, I'm told they sort of work in 2.2 kernels, but I wouldn't count on it). Even if they work over NFS they may not work with other networked file systems or on non-Linux systems. So the fix is actually complicated, libPropList needs to use a different type of locking. You might want to ask the libPropList author about it. Havoc
Re: Window Maker/WPrefs and NFS on potato
On Sat, 13 Nov 1999, Noah L. Meyerhans wrote: I understand that fcntl locks don't work over NFS, but apparently fcntl used to set errno to ENOLCK if you tried it, while now it sets it to EACCESS. That's apparently why the same code worked fine on slink. libPropList will work fine if it's not able to establish the lock, and it does check for that situation. But the change in libc's behavior broke the checks that libProbList uses. So I don't see how it can be libProbList's problem. Why did the libc behavior change? Who should be contacted regarding libc development questions like this? It may not be libc, it may be the kernel (it's a system call). The X/Open standard and the man page have nothing to say about this issue. Neither ENOLCK nor EACCESS make any sense for this situation, really. You could mail the glibc or kernel maintainers about it... however, I'm sure the NFS behavior is non-portable in any case, so libPropList is broken even if it happens to work on glibc/Linux or some versions of glibc/Linux. Which is probably what they will tell you... Havoc
Re: To the Debian Project, IMHO
Hi, As someone who's written lots of code toward making free Unices easier to use, let me just say that I think this supposed conflict between power and ease of use is total nonsense. Even if a tool is for power users, it can be pleasant for those users to learn and use or it can have an atrocious interface from hell. Atrocious interface from hell does not equate to powerful, just annoying. For example, look at info or dselect - regardless of whether you personally like them, the many people that _don't_ like them don't like them because the keystrokes are really stupid and the general flow through the programs doesn't make sense. However, this has _zero_ to do with the power of the tools. On a programming level, command-line tools are often written in such a way that adding a GUI frontend is difficult and requires changes to the command-line stuff. But this is not a fundamental conflict, just poor planning when writing the command line tool. Co-existence is very possible, and taking a position on one side or the other is just pointless. Havoc
Re: gnome-apt
On Mon, 9 Aug 1999, Jason Gunthorpe wrote: On Mon, 9 Aug 1999, Havoc Pennington wrote: the kind of thing that would cause a compile failure. It was just a change in library semantics. So gnome-apt wasn't checking for all the proper circumstances. Was there? Hmm.. Yeah the pkgAcquire::Run can return cancelled. I think I made that change actually, but I could have sworn I updated gnome-apt to reflect it; I don't know how I didn't. Blah. I wish egcs would warn about using an enum as a bool... Havoc
Re: gnome-apt
On Mon, 9 Aug 1999, Guilherme Soares Zahn wrote: Well... unfortunately I must tell you that from some time to now I've been having just the same problem with gnome-apt... It does the whole dowload of the ?.deb?s, and then just beeps and goes back to the initial window... Sure enough... I've fixed it in CVS. Also have another change or two that will go in soon, so we'll make a new release. The problem was that libapt-pkg changed out from underneath gnome-apt, but the change wasn't the kind of thing that would cause a compile failure. It was just a change in library semantics. So gnome-apt wasn't checking for all the proper circumstances. It seems there's some new library feature to handle media swapping, I don't see how that works yet so gnome-apt will somewhat ungracefully bail out if media swapping is needed... BTW the beep is normal, it beeps so you know it's done downloading... I guess it seems a bit lame for small or nonexistent downloads. Thanks for the report. Also, a qustion... couldn't gnome-apt (and apt-get) be set to resume downloading automatically until the doanload is finished (like wget does?) This is a libapt-pkg issue so I'll hand off to Jason - gnome-apt doesn't do anything to determine this. Havoc
Re: gnome-apt
On Sun, 8 Aug 1999, Bernhard Rieder wrote: Where do I get a working version gnome-apt ? Since about one month when selecting Complete run apt prints Start Stop to the console but does not do anything. It shows the progress window for about half a second so I can read nothing. Strange. This is all under the control of libapt-pkg which is also used by apt-get, so it should work if apt-get does. (Indeed, it sounds like it's working but thinks it has nothing to download or install.) What happens if you try to do the same actions with apt-get? - apt-get install foo is equivalent to marking a package for install, then Complete Run - apt-get dist-upgrade is equivalent to Smart Mark Upgrades then Complete Run Havoc
Re: gnome-apt
On Sun, 8 Aug 1999, Bernhard Rieder wrote: Update doesn't work either. In short words: apt-get works perfectly but nothing works with gnome-apt :( It only shows the progress-window for about half a second but does nothing. I use potato and run an update every day. My /etc/apt/sources.list seems to be correct since it works with apt. Any Ideas? To be honest I have no clue at all. I haven't rebuilt from scratch with the latest libapt-pkg in a while, so I'll try that today and if I have a revelation will let you know. Remember, gnome-apt is alpha software. :-) (though I would like it to work...) Havoc
Re: idiot's question on Xlib programming
On Tue, 3 Aug 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I use gcc -I/usr/X11R6/include/X11 xhi.c to complie it and get the following message: /tmp/cca002281.o: In function `main': /tmp/cca002281.o(.text+0x9): undefined reference to `XOpenDisplay' /tmp/cca002281.o(.text+0x45): undefined reference to `XCloseDisplay' What's the problem? Please reply to [EMAIL PROTECTED] because I will leave the list in a minute. You have to link with Xlib, try adding the '-lX11' flag to your compile line. You may find Gtk or some other high-level toolkit less frustrating; Xlib is hard even if you have a lot of Unix programming experience. Havoc
Re: Why is Windows faster ?
Basically, X has an additional layer of abstraction; apps aren't talking directly to the hardware or even using a relatively low-level interface; instead they have to talk to X via a special protocol. This means that X applications can be run over the network (network transparent). Another contributing factor is that many XFree86 servers aren't optimized as well as the corresponding Windows drivers, but they are improving over time. XFree86 has some new technologies that should begin to address this problem, such as better acceleration. Havoc
Re: Using gnome-apt as non-root
On Sat, 26 Jun 1999, Stuart Ballard wrote: 1) Is there a way to run programs as root from X, respecting such things as the current GTK theme; OR No, the theme is a per-user setting, so it won't apply to you while you're root. You could set the theme for the root user though. 2) Is there a way to enable a regular user to run apt/dpkg/gnome-apt? No, installing packages requires root permissions. gnome-apt might let you do package selections as a regular user eventually, but you'll always have to be root to actually install. Havoc
Re: Using gnome-apt as non-root
On Sun, 27 Jun 1999, Leen Besselink wrote: Maybe it's a reason to change it's behavour, maybe we could have it ask for a password and do sudo in the background or something, when installing. yeah, it will be fixed eventually. We might need to wait for Debian to have PAM. Patches gladly accepted, too. :-) Havoc
Re: gnome-xml for Slink?
On Sat, 26 Jun 1999, Steve George wrote: interface.c:28: gtk-xmhtml/gtk-xmhtml.h: No such file or directory make[2]: *** [interface.o] Error 1 Which I think means that I am missing gnome-xml. Problem is I can't find it on the ftp site, only a cvs module. There is a libxml-dev in the Debian section of the GNOME site, I have this. Anyone have this package/src or know what 'obvious' thing I am missing please?!? That's not gnome-xml, it's gtkxmhtml. So you probably want to get that package. Havoc
Re: How to set default resolution in XF86?
On Sat, 26 Jun 1999, Tracy Nelson wrote: Whenever I start X, it comes up with a default resolution of (I think) 640x480. I normally run at 1280x1024, which means I have to hit CTRLALTKP+ two or three times to select the correct resolution. Is there any way I can specify that as the default resolution? Is it a matter of just resequencing some lines in my XF86Config file? Yup, just rearrange the modes in your Screen section. Make sure you choose the screen section that corresponds to the server you're using, and the SubSection Display that corresponds to the bit depth you're using. e.g. I have: SubSection Display Depth16 Modes1152x864 1024x768 800x600 640x480 EndSubSection So 1152x864 is the default. I'd also like to use a resolution of 1152x870, but that resolution wasn't provided under xf86config. Is there some way I can calculate the vertical and horizontal frequencies for this resolution and add them to my XF86Config file? 1280x1024 is a little much for my .31DP monitor... That's a bit tricky. I think there's an X howto that goes into more detail. The lame way to do it: make sure your monitor's hsync and vsync are correct in XF86Config so that X will reject any invalid modelines that might break your monitor. Then add 1152x870, using 1280x1024 as a starting point, and start tweaking the numbers until you get one that will at least come up on the screen. It will probably be off-center and flickery, so use 'xvidtune' to correct that, then copy the new numbers from xvidtune to your modeline. You should be able to see that two of the numbers in the modeline correspond to the resolution, so start by changing those, then change the other numbers to be related to the resolution in the same way that the numbers in another modeline are. Clearly there's a real way to do this using formulas, check the X howto. Havoc
Re: apt-get didn't automatically install dependency
On Sun, 13 Jun 1999, Kristopher Johnson wrote: I thought that apt-get was supposed to automatically install dependency packages--is this true? Does this problem indicate a bug in apt-get, or a bug in the karpski package definition? Should I report this to someone? It's a bug in the karpski package - looks like it's already reported: http://bugs.debian.org/karpski Havoc
Re: BE MORE SIMPLE!!!!
First of all, calm down. Debian is produced by volunteers, on their own time. It's not a company and no one is being paid. So if you aren't willing to work on the web site, at least be polite! On Tue, 8 Jun 1999, John Hall wrote: Webmaster at Debian, How in the world do I download Debian? I've been at your site for 30 MINUTES and have gone to every distribution link on it, but there's no singular link that actually downloads ALL 2250 files of Debian, and WHO in the world is going to down load TWO THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY FILES one at a time!! You don't have to do that. :-) From www.debian.org, click Release Information under Getting Started (you might need to scroll down a bit). From that page, click Install Manual for Intel x86. Alternatively, on the left-hand side of the page, click Download FTP. Scroll down a bit and click Instructions for Installing Debian. Alternatively, on the left-hand index, click Installation Instructions then Install Manual for Intel x86. If you prefer, you can purchase a CD with a nice book describing the install process from Linux Press; it's called the Debian User's Guide or something like that. A similar book will be out from MacMillan in the near future. You can also get CDs from various vendors; the web site may have links to them. There are also non-Debian options, such as Red Hat's box set, which comes with install manual and phone support. Havoc
Re: Abiword space-bar weirdness
On Wed, 9 Jun 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I've just installed abiword 0.5.5-1 It works OK till I use one of the pull-down menus (for example the font point size menu). Therefater every time I hit the space bar, that menu appears again! This is fixed in newer versions, which will hopefully be packaged soon. Havoc
Re: KDE's delay time.
On Tue, 8 Jun 1999, Hans van den Boogert wrote: I find that after clicking on buttons in the control panel there is a considerable delay before KDE comes up with the application or menu. I doesn't matter that much, but I was wondering if this is because of my system, or a general quirk of KDE. Other wm's don't have this problem. -- Hans Apparently both the KDE and Gnome control panels launch each panel as a separate process. So it takes a while for these to fire up unless you have a really fast machine. Havoc
Re: GNOME problems
On Sat, 5 Jun 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 1. Some programs take up more than the screen, and I can't see all of the program. How can I fix this? I've gone through XF86config and XF86setup, using 800x600, and saying I didn't want virtual desktops. It depends on the window manager - most have some way to get the resize decorations on the screen, and then you can resize the window. Basically these are application bugs though, and you should file a bug report if there isn't one already. 2. My GNOME Panel seems to be missing. Reading through the documentation, I noticed that the panel on it was much different than mine. I don't have the foot for my main button, instead I have a little debian button. Nor do I have the pager. Did I miss something in my install? Sounds a bit like you're seeing the icewm panel, not the Gnome panel. Try running panel by hand from an xterm, and see if you get something different. When using icewm with Gnome, many people like to turn off icewm's panel. I think the icewm docs in /usr/doc/icewm may tell you how to do this; there might be an icewm configuration program too. 3. I currently have 3 window managers installed: Enlightenment, Ice WM, and WM. Yet when I use the GNOME Control Panel, I can't seem to switch between them. It always says Enlightenment is my current window manager, and I don't know how to switch to another...i've tried everything in the Control Panel. Are there files that I need to edit to change this? If so, what are they? Are you using gnome-session to start Gnome? If not, the window manager control panel won't be able to change your window manager, instead you'll need to edit ~/.xsession by hand. Havoc
Re: Mozilla is..errm..slow?
On Thu, 3 Jun 1999, Christian Dysthe wrote: I installed Mozilla today on my potato system. It was very slow. I don't know how to say this, but if this is how it is supposed to perform it is no better than it's dad Netscape. In fact, it is worse. I really hope it is my system, but then again, why would only Moxilla be slow like that? Mozilla is alpha software. It's standard development practice to optimize last; the slowness is probably caused by a few small, relatively easy-to-fix problems but they just haven't gotten around to fixing them yet. You really can't tell how far along a software project is from the user-visible parts. Just wait for the released version. Havoc
Re: c++ docs
The standard string streams stuff isn't supported yet in egcs, I don't think. To find out if something is supported, see if it's there. For docs, read Stroustrup. :-) There's also: http://www.sgi.com/Technology/STL/ which is helpful. Havoc
Re: Netscape Issues
On Sat, 29 May 1999, Kent West wrote: Is there something wrong with my Netscape, with my system, with the way I'm doing things, or what? Sounds like bugs in Netscape - not much you can do about it except report them to Netscape. The next generation of Netscape will be free software so you'll be able to productively file a bug report on the Debian bug tracker and someone might even fix it. :-) Havoc
Re: C function manpages
On Tue, 25 May 1999, Alec Smith wrote: On Solaris and other systems I could execute a command such as 'man getc' for example to look up info on the C getc() function. On Debian I haven't been able to do this without getting the 'no manual entry' message. Which package might I install to get the same (or similar) functionality as Solaris? 'manpages-dev' I think. Havoc
Re: OFFTOPIC: How about a /dev/clipboard ?
On Tue, 25 May 1999, Jim Foltz wrote: There are times when I need to cut and paste the output from a command line program into a graphical program. The problem occurs when the output is more than one screen long. I just thought it would be quite nice to be able to redirect the output into /dev/clipboard, then switch to the graphical program and use the mouse to paste it from /dev/clipboard to where I need it. Is there a mechanism already in place to handle this? You could just redirect the command output to a file, then open the file in an editor like Emacs (in X mode), select it there and paste it into the graphical program. For example: $ mycommand file 21 Where 21 sends error messages to the file also; omit that part if you only want normal output in the file. There's also such a thing as a FIFO (first-in first-out), you use it like this: $ mkfifo foo $ echo Hello World foo Then in another console or xterm: $ cat foo Hello World But I don't think that's quite what you want. (Note that a second 'cat foo' won't say Hello World, because the FIFO is like a pipe, it doesn't save the data.) HTH, Havoc
Re: programming X
Assuming you have the X devel package as others have suggested, you may also need to tell the compiler where to find the headers: -I/usr/X11R6/include #include X11/Xlib.h should then work. Xlib is beastly and nasty, so if you aren't very familiar with C (especially if you're easily frsturated) it's probably a bad place to start. Gtk would be better, or even better, simple command-line programs. Gtk is more fun, but a small command line program is probably more sensible. :-) HTH, Havoc
Re: Emacs and the ALT key.
On Wed, 12 May 1999, Allen B. Riddell wrote: the ALT key (on my PC keyboard) doesn't seem to work in emacs.. It works in netscape -- and aside from that, I have absolutely no problems at all with anything... Probably the Windows key (if you have one) is bound to the Meta keysym, which is what Emacs is looking for; I don't think Emacs uses the Alt keysym at all by default. If you don't have a Windows key, you need to move Meta to some other key of your choice. (Many people have the physical Alt key send both Alt and Meta keysyms, which is technically wrong but works nice in practice, since few apps use both keysyms. However, XEmacs insists on complaining about it every time you start up.) That said, I'm not sure how to do this without Xmodmap. Perhaps it will help to know what you're trying to achieve though. :-) Havoc
Re: Smooth, Fast Mouse Motion
On Tue, 11 May 1999, Jerry Gardner wrote: I've been trying for several months now to get smooth, fast mouse pointer motion in X without luck. I've tried various 'xset m' settings, and I can either get smooth, slow mouse motion, or fast, jerky motion, but not fast, smooth motion. There is some sort of SampleRate parameter you can set for certain types of mice in XF86Config; you might look into that. I do not like acceleration; I want smooth linear motion. Is there any way to achieve this in X? The same machine and the same mouse give me exactly what I want in Windows NT, but Windows NT is not what I'd rather run. Hopefully you don't schoose your OS on this basis. :-) Havoc
Re: Life at 4 bogomips
On Sun, 9 May 1999, George Bonser wrote: Well I got the old 386 put back together, figured I would use it for a firewall. 386SX33 with 10MB of RAM. Man, what an example to show what OS bloat has done! I used to install Win31 on it, even installed OS/2 Warp on it. Now it is running Debian and MAN is it S-L-O-W. I would suggest one of the several super-minimal distributions out there, like the Linux Router Project - those really make more sense for something like this. Havoc
Re: What is the good tool to debug for segmentation error
On Fri, 7 May 1999, Min Xu wrote: I tried that. It gives me: ... Core was generated by `a.out'. Program terminated with signal 11, Segmentation fault. Reading symbols from /lib/libm.so.6...done. Reading symbols from /lib/libc.so.6...done. Reading symbols from /lib/ld-linux.so.2...done. #0 0x4000a0dd in fixup () (gdb) where #0 0x4000a0dd in fixup () #1 0x4000a310 in () (gdb) The function fixup() is not in the hoc program. Then where it comes? Either libm.so.6, libc.so.6, or ld-linux.so.2. Looking at that, your program never even got off the ground. Most likely it is using binary incompatible libraries or the executable is corrupted or something like that. Doesn't look like a programming error to me (but it could be, it's just a guess). I would try make clean and rebuilding the software from scratch, to be sure some kind of build error isn't breaking things. Havoc
Re: bash functions
On Fri, 7 May 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
While doing some reading, I came across a section regarding adding functions
to .bash_profile like this
tarc () { tar -cvzf $1.tar.gz $1 }
but whenever I try to source the .bash_profile I get syntax error, unexpected
EOF messages.
Just move the close brace down to the next line and it works for me.
Havoc
Re: gshutdown
On Thu, 6 May 1999, Robert Kerr wrote: I'm using gnome with enlightenment, and I'd like to add the gshutdown to my panel. I've added it successfully, changed gshutdown to setuid root, You should know that this is a *huge* security hole. You're welcome to have such a hole if your system doesn't need to be secure of course, but you should know you have it. only the superuser can shutdown the system. I've changed /sbin/shutdown to setuid root also. Can anyone shed some light? Yeah, gshutdown checks to see if you're root and it shouldn't. I wrote gshutdown, but someone else added this patch; I don't think it's correct. I'll fix it upstream and it will be fixed in some future version. For now you have to be root. If you file a bug against the Debian package, the Debian maintainer may see fit to apply a Debian-specific patch in a shorter timeframe. In the future, the correct way to set it up will be to either have the right to run /sbin/shutdown, or use a graphical su utility such as 'gsu' (which exists but isn't in the default Gnome build due to security concerns). gshutdown really shouldn't be suid root. Thanks for reminding me about this. Havoc
Re: What is the good tool to debug for segmentation error
On Thu, 6 May 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I tried several utils to debug one C program ( hoc from Software Tools ) which gives me segmentation error but got no clue from them. gdb is the tool, but you will need source code and a binary with debugging symbols to get anywhere. gdb comes with a reasonable manual. Havoc
Re: X server crash.
On Wed, 5 May 1999, Fu-Dong Chiou wrote: Thanks for all that responds to my questions. I believe the reason why X server crashes on my system is a minor configuration problem. Here's the error message. I'd appreciate it if anyone can direct me to fix this problem. Thanks in advance! ... Fatal server error: No valid modes found. Just like it says: you have no valid modes. Fortunately for you it's not crashing, just exiting with an informative error message. :-) It could be because you put in the wrong values for your card/monitor (hsync/vsync/etc.) or it could be that you need to add some new modes. Most likely the former. I'm not sure how laptops work here so maybe the debian-laptop people will know. Unfortunately I can't tell you what values to use; it just depends on the card, etc. You're using the 'generic' chipset driver, which means X isn't grokking your hardware, which means even if you get this going it's gonna be pretty slow and low quality. If you can find an appropriate card-specific driver, it may well be able to figure out the hardware better and find a usable mode. If you haven't tried using xf86config, give it a whirl; go through slowly and answer all the questions accurately and it should work. (I missed the start of the thread, so disregard if you already tried that...) Havoc
Re: X eating all my memory!!
On Sun, 2 May 1999, Brian Servis wrote: This is crazy! Why is X taking so much memory? This is the result of ps axmw trimmed to show only X and netscape(4.5glibc2). The machine has only been up just under 2 days. Remember that applications can allocate server-side resources, such as pixmaps. Pixmaps are pretty big. So if an app is buggy and doesn't deallocate these things the X process can get largish. Not to say the X server isn't at fault, but it's more likely to be a buggy application. Havoc
Re: Switching windows managers
On Mon, 3 May 1999, Christian Dysthe wrote: I was wondering if there is any software available that makes it easy to switch window managers without having to edit too many ini files. You just have to edit ~/.xsession, change exec foowm to exec barwm. If you get Gnome 1.0 though, it will let you change window managers from the Control Center. Gnome 1.0 should be released for slink very soon, and is already on its way to potato. To use Gnome, put exec gnome-session in your ~/.xsession instead of a window manager. (After installing the Gnome packages of course.) Havoc
Re: X, netscape
You almost certainly broke something. Netscape works fine on several different systems here. In fact it works great because of the magic wrapper scripts Debian installs. I suggest reading: http://www.debian.org/~hp/tutorial/debian-tutorial.html/ch-docs.html#s-docs-support then asking again. In particular, include the *exact error messages* and the dpkg --status output for relevant packages (e.g. Netscape). Without these details all we can say is works for us. Havoc
Re: Debian, laptops, and X
On Sun, 25 Apr 1999, Will Lowe wrote: I'm looking at buying a pair of laptops which will need to dual-boot Windows and Debian. I'm not concerned that they be Pentium IV 600 Ghz machines or be huge number-crunchers, but I would like them to run X enough that I can use emacs and font-lock mode, netscape (with something more that 256 colors) ... the standard stuff. 1) Are there laptops which aren't compatible with linux and Debian? 2) I understand that laptop video chipsets are wacky. Which ones work? 3) Are there other compatability issues I should be watching for? I've never touched anything with a PCMCIA card in it ... http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-laptop/ has tons o' info. You just need to check the PCMCIA drivers list before getting a PCMCIA card - some of them (notably Linksys) even say Linux compatible on the box though. I love my little Panasonic CF-M32 subnotebook. It works great, except for the sound card but that's pretty typical on desktops too. Using the XFree Neomagic X server which is available on www.xfree86.org (copy the server binary over the one in the latest Debian package, until the latest X gets into the official package). Use the tecra boot disks to install. The advantage to this little Panasonic is that it seems to be replaced by a newer CF-M33 so it's only about $850 on the street. Kicks much ass. Small keyboard though. :-) Havoc
Panasonic CF-M32 install
Hi, I just got one of these; it's a cute little subnotebook. Naturally I want to put Debian on it. Problem is that the 2.1 rescue disk doesn't quite work. The boot screen comes up, I press return, it loads the kernel off the disk; then when I'd normally expect the kernel messages to start scrolling by, it spontaneously reboots. I found notes from one guy on the internet saying that he got Red Hat 5.2 onto this thing, so in principle it should probably work. - anyone done this? what were the magic boot parameters? - how can I try to figure out which hardware is confusing it? - how hard is it to create a rescue disk with a different kernel, maybe a newer kernel would work better? - other suggestions? Thanks, Havoc
Re: Panasonic CF-M32 install
Of course, I'm a moron and this is one of the few questions in the FAQ. Thanks, Havoc
Re: Should I be worried about this?
Nope, that just means one of the list subscribers has a full mailbox. They'll probably get removed from the list automatically after a certain number of messages bounce (if the list is configured to do that). Havoc
Re: too big packages?
On Sat, 10 Apr 1999, virtanen wrote: in a dos-machine to make them smaller and 'unzip' them in the debian-machine? Debian packages are already compressed, so you can't really make them significantly smaller via compression. What about dividing deb-packages into smaller pieces? Which kind of software can handle this from a dos-machine into the debian-machine? I think maybe pkzip can. I'm not sure though. If you have another Unix computer, you can break files into chunks with 'split,' then reassemble them with 'cat'. Look at the man pages for those utilities. Another option is to write a CD on a friend's CD-writer, or borrow a Zip drive. Havoc
Re: Linus Torvalds at the Pearly Gates
On Thu, 1 Apr 1999, Jonathan Hayward wrote: 1: XFree86 was downgraded from 3.3.3 to 3.3.2.1. 3.3.3 supports my video Apt will not downgrade any package, I don't believe. You mean that the X package overwrote your manually installed copy. (Not to nitpick, just trying to clarify so we are all on the same page.) 2: /dev/eth0 no longer exists, and I cannot locate anything in the documentation telling how to regenerate that or some equivalent device. MAKEDEV, for instance, did not recognize eth0 as a parameter. eth0 is not a /dev/ file, it's a network interface. It is brought up by scripts in /etc/init.d, specifically /etc/init.d/network. However, you must have support for your ethernet card in the kernel... Have a look at the ethernet HOWTO. This is really frustrating... I can see a plausible reason for the first to have happened (specifically, since I did not install 3.3.3 through dpkg, it thought that the files were its own), but that blindness can and should be avoidable. This is considered user error. If you want to install unpackaged software, you have to use /opt or /usr/local or the like. There is no way for Apt or dpkg to handle any random thing you install, so they don't try. Instead you are guaranteed that Debian packages will not alter /opt or /usr/local. Apt's internals require strict control over all dependencies; that's why it refuses to run if you have broken dependencies. One mechanism I can think of OTOH would be for the database to keep checksums of the files for earlier versions, so that it can at least ask before clobbering something which does work and replacing it with something which doesn't work. 90% of the time this would just be annoying (not to mention it would slow things down and fill disk space), and Debian has other means of handling it, see below... If this behavior isn't changed, there should at least be an emphatically worded warning so that people don't lose their files. Can't argue with that, documentation could be enhanced. However, you can get what you want without losing the power of Apt and dpkg. Checksums are kept for config files, which roughly means files you are allowed to change. So you can always change these safely. If you want to change any other file, you have to run dpkg-divert to redirect the packaged copy. You can find documentation on config files in the developer's corner on the web site, and dpkg-divert --help is helpful. In this particular case: you can get the latest video card support by simply replacing XF86_SVGA (or your server) with a newer binary available from www.xfree86.org. You can then dpkg-divert the package's version of the server binary, or simply remember not to upgrade X. I think the dpkg-divert command would be: dpkg-divert --add /usr/X11R6/bin/XF86_SVGA Later, when you upgrade your X package to one that supports your card, you will want to dpkg-divert --remove the same file. There are also newer unofficial X packages floating around somewhere, but I don't remember the URL. HTH, Havoc
Re: [OffTopic] OSS word processor projects?
On Wed, 31 Mar 1999, Ed Cogburn wrote: I know about PW (Pathetic Writer which is part of SIAG) and AbiWord (a GTK project), but I'm curious to know if there are any other WP projects in existence out there, especially if one of the goals is being able to read and write MS Word files. AbiWord has that goal and is likely to achieve it in a relatively short timeframe, I'm sure the others have it too but the authors probably don't ahve the time/expertise to implement it. (Though, since AbiWord is GPL, if it manages it the others may follow in short order by borrowing the code.) Other projects include: gwp (Gnome Word Processor) go (Another Gnome Word Processor) Maxwell (was a commercial product, now GPL) KWord (KDE word processor) In the meantime you can sort of read word files with the 'catdoc' program which is in Debian... Havoc
Re: Latest Versions of Gnome
On Sat, 27 Mar 1999, Rootguru wrote: ...where are they? I haven't seen a new gnome .deb since 1.0.1. Have a look at http://www.debian.org/~jules/gnome-stage-2, but be aware that these packages are not yet in the distribution for a reason (they will be moved once they're better tested). You can add this to sources.list to get them with Apt: deb http://www.debian.org/~jules/gnome-stage-2 unstable main They are probably as good as the RPMs though, just not as good as the typical Debian package. More importantly, if I wanted to just download the tarballs and do the install by hand, what's the best way to do it so that it conforms to what the .debs have installed so far (i.e., matching paths, etc.). Has anyone tried converting the latest rpms to debs with alien? Probably a bad idea. :-) Havoc
Re: X11
When Linux boots up xdm is automatically started (which is fine). The GUI login screen appears. When I login in as root or any other user X11 seems to try to start but then flickers and returns to the login screen. If any one knows how to correct this I would be grateful. In the directory of the user you are trying to log in as, you'll find a file called .xsession-errors, which may have some helpful info on the problem. Also have a look at /var/log/xdm.log. Havoc
Re: installing a piece of debian software onto a non-debian linux system
On Tue, 23 Mar 1999, Colin Rowat wrote: I'm using DsTool 2.0 for linux on a university system (running redhat, I think). As debian is carrying a 2.0.3 DsTool I'm wondering how easy it is to download that and use it on the non-debian system here. The .deb suffix slightly frightens me from this point of view. The .deb version may or may not work even if you extract the software. The best thing to do is get the original .tar.gz source file and compile it yourself. You can get the .tar.gz from the page describing the package on the Debian web site. (probably also you could find it by searching on freshmeat.net.) Havoc
Re: is this normal ? (on my debian)
On Sat, 20 Mar 1999, mao jud wrote: i was wondering, when i type free, system tells me its using 83MB of mem, but when i do a ps -auxf ... my memory usage doesnt even reach half that. there was even one time when it even reached to as high as 120 MB ... is this normal or can someone pls help and explain things to me ? Linux is using memory for disk buffers and other sorts of caching. Once the system has been up for a while it will probably use quite a bit of memory all the time; there's no point in looking at the total figures really. Memory will be freed up as needed, since applications have priority. Havoc
Re: help with GNOME
On Sun, 21 Mar 1999, John Finlay wrote: I upgraded my debian installation from 2.0 to 2.1 using dselect and ftp. I figured I'd try GNOME so I installed most everything I could figure out that was GNOME related. (I find this installation process really clumsy and error prone. Is there any way to indicate that I want to install all of GNOME and have dselect do it? Will APT provide this higher level install process?) No, we don't really have a way to say install all the Gnome stuff, which kind of sucks. If you get gnome-panel, gnome-session, gnome-control-center, gnome-core, gnome-utils, gnome-terminal, gmc, then that is pretty close. I tried to figure out how to use GNOME after installing but there's no manpage info (are manpages defunct in debian and/or linux in general?). The GNU project provides Texinfo instead and Gnome provides DocBook (converted to HTML). I started the gnome-session under fvwm95 and got a help browser which gave some really basic info about some apps and startup but precious little on the rest of the system including the gnome panel, gnome control, gnome session editor, etc. Is the help browser just really out of date? You may well have an old Gnome. The new one is in a special staging area, there is a link to it in this week's Debian Weekly News on www.debian.org. However things will be more stable if you wait for it to show up in the real distribution. I finally went to the GNOME.org site to retrieve the user guide (Is this included in the debian installation somewhere? I didn't find anything like it.) I'm not sure whether it's packaged but it should be. So now my question is how come the debian gnome control, etc does appear to have the functionality indicated in the GNOME User Guide? Is this maybe a product of doing an upgrade instead of a clean install of 2.1? Are there other packages I need to install to get the full functionality? If so where can I get the list of required and features provided? I think you have an old one. Does GNOME just not work weel on debian and should I just go with RedHat instead? (I get the feeling that GNOME integration with RedHat is much better) No, not even remotely. The Red Hat packages are all screwed up, RPMs weaknesses really show with something complex like Gnome. If you use Apt, Gnome should work very well and you won't have to fool with all the library dependencies as the Red Hat people do. However, Debian's quality requires more development time, so the new Gnome isn't in the main distribution yet. See the staging area link. Red Hat has hired some people to work on Gnome but until the next version of Red Hat comes out there won't be any official Gnome packages from them. I've been using fvwm95 which seems much more useful and full featured than GNOME. Gnome is not a replacement for fvwm95, it isn't a window manager. It is a file manager, and a panel which duplicates some window manager functionality. It's also a framework for developers to build nice applications with consistent look and feel, and there are lots of Gnome applications. The file manager (gmc) works better with a Gnome compliant window manager though; examples are wmaker-gnome, icewm-gnome, and enlightenment. These may also be in the staging area. I have to assume given the excitement about GNOME that I am missing the information to get a functional and featureful GNOME setup in place. Can anyone provide a pointer to such info? I would suggest the Gnome mailing list archives (gnome-list) or subscribe to that list; also the Gnome User's Guide which may not be packaged but is on the web site as you saw. It should correspond to the new Gnome in the staging area. Havoc
Re: segmentation errors in APT-GET
On Fri, 12 Mar 1999, Antonio Rodriguez wrote: I wanted to upgrade to slink but there were some broken packages (including for some reason libc6) which I opted to fix with apt-get -f install and now Oops. You broke your system at some point. This means all bets are off. Does anyone know what Segmentation fault means? It means the program tried to access memory that it wasn't allowed to. A mismatch of libraries you have and libraries used to compile the program can cause this. (Or does it mean that I am hosed after having messed with the lib libraries) There's a good chance of that. It may be possible to fix your libc and so on, but you're going to be living on the edge. However it's sort of odd that Apt segfaults because of a broken libc but other programs are fine - so the problem could be elsewhere, or simply a bug in Apt. On the other hand it could be an issue with your libstdc++ and libc not liking one another, since most programs don't use libstdc++ and Apt does. I'm not sure what the best course of action is. You could always reinstall and resolve never to use --force options :-) but there is probably a better way. Havoc
Re: Gnome 1.0 debs?
On Wed, 10 Mar 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ya know, I don't want to offend any of the developers or anything, but I'm curious about something... Why is it that Debian is always the last to get packages for any given product? When KDE came out, rpms were right around the corner. This seems to be an ongoing trend... Is it just because the Debian group is so quality concious? It is. There are always rpms sooner, but those rpms are invariably broken in minor ways, and since there are no official rpms and you don't know what the system they were built on was like, there's no guarantee they will work at all. Often dependencies are wrong and the like, and RPM's dependency tracking isn't as good to begin with. The Debian packages are maintained officially and strictly quality controlled by Debian policy and the lintian script. Also all the Gtk/Gnome/Imlib etc. packages are being prepared together in a staging area to be sure they work together properly. It's worth the wait, in short. Havoc
Re: Debian/RedHat at our university
On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Bernhard Dobbels wrote: I would like my uni to distribute Debian in stead of RedHat and for this, i would like some people to give reasons for this. It is a potential of 30.000 users, so i find this quite important. I wil bundle the answers and send them to the chairman of the linux-commitee. Am i right if i say that the uni can just rsync the cd-images, write them and sell them to the students for the price of writing the disks? Correct. Here is my list of reasons to use Debian: - Package system manages dependencies and upgrades without breaking anything. Single command line downloads and installs any package, or upgrades to latest security fixes, or upgrades to latest Debian. - Nearly all software is packaged offciciallyand quality controlled. Most RPMs are broken or incorrectly packaged or designed for a distribution other than the one you have; it's easy to break your system with these. Even the official Red hat RPMs don't have the quality of Debian packages; consider that Debian maintainers usually use the software themselves. - Mailing list help is better - Distribution is more stable in general than any other. - All the software in the 'main' section is guaranteed to be distributable and usable for any purpose; no other distribution makes this guarantee. That means you have to read the license for every package and be sure you can include it on your CD. With Debian, just use the official CD and you're safe. - Small touches: backspace/delete work right in most apps, for example. There are tons of little things like this that Debian gets right. Havoc
Re: Debian and Redhat - are most linux users missing the point?
On Sun, 28 Feb 1999, P Asokan wrote: If I want to write an install program, whom do I get in touch? I do know C fairly well and I would give this a crack. Will someone point me to areas of study, persons to contact? There is already a big plan for this, you might start with: http://www.debian.org/~hp/gnome-apt.html which is the Gnome frontend for the thing, and be sure to follow the link to Wichert's Apt UI design which also considers the terminal frontend. You can see code by checking it out of CVS, apt and gnome-apt modules, as explained on that page. If you are really interested I would start by reviewing and understanding the source for apt-get, which is in apt/cmdline/apt-get.cc in CVS. There is a start on the non-Gnome frontend in the apt module as well. Havoc
Re: Debian and Redhat - are most linux users missing the point?
On Sat, 27 Feb 1999, Frankie wrote: On the basis that linux is soundly based on ideology and a belief that the internet should remain free, debian may well be the best distribution, and on that basis, redhat the worst. Just for perspective: Red Hat is by far the best commercial distribution from this point of view. They GPL all or almost all of the stuff they develop - admin tools, RPM itself. They are paying 6 guys to work on Gtk, Gnome, and Enlightenment. The CEO of the company and other important people there have specifically said that their business model involves writing free software and contributing to the community. There is relatively little non-free software with the distribution, and most of it is clearly labelled as such. They took a stand against KDE (back when that was necessary/appropriate). Contrast with Caldera and SuSE: they bundle all sorts of non-free software, generally do not release their code as free, and deliberately obfuscate which bundled software is free and which is not. They both did the wrong thing with KDE (and similar lower-profile cases), and neither has made any public statements supportive of free software. So I wouldn't target Red Hat. They may include a few semi-free programs like qmail or mysql in their distribution, but other than that they have been model corporate citizens and everything we can ask for in a commercial free software support vendor. Havoc
Re: Debian and Redhat - are most linux users missing the point?
On Sat, 27 Feb 1999, Nathan O. Siemers wrote: I strongly agree. I have personal convictions that debian is the higher quality dist, but I cannot reccomend it to the corporation I work for simply because of the install process and dselect issues. The install is actually quite easy in the 2.1 release. Here is what you do when you see the dselect screen: - Choose apt access method - Do the update (get list of available packages) (automatic). - Leave the package selections as they are; don't even fool with the select screen. (no effort here, this is the usual hard part) - Install (automatic). - Quit. So it's all just pressing return, except for answering a couple of questions when you choose the access method. Then, apt-get install any other packages that you want. If you're installing more than one machine it's easy to just make a list of these. Or you can use gnome-apt to install more packages. Long-term maintenance is much *easier* than Red Hat because you can simply apt-get upgrade to get any security fixes, and if you want package foo just apt-get install foo and it will magically be found on the internet and installed. apt-get will also refuse to break the system; this is a good thing. Many Red Hat systems end up every bit as broken as many Windows systems. Havoc
Re: APT - Uninstall Leftovers
On Thu, 25 Feb 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I'm having problems with apt and it's removal of packages. I tried to install xrn (the x news reader) and it installed cnews and inews removing my leafnode. I then had it reinstall leafnode, since it was properly configured and working. Of course this removed what I had just installed. This is because Apt knows all, and you are a mere user. ;-) It knows that xrn requires cnews/inews, and cnews/inews conflict with leafnode. Thus you want an impossible situation, and it will not give it to you because you are wrong. Always remember that Apt is God and you will be fine. ;-) Havoc
Re: GUI stuff
On Thu, 18 Feb 1999, Kirk Hogenson wrote: good. Someone (in fact, it is the same person who wrote QtC (Roberto Alsina, who I quoted above)) is starting wxQt, a wrapper around Qt for the wxWindows library. This would allow developers to sit on the fence in the gnome-kde wars -- compiling their programs into the native toolkit of each. What's really needed for that is wxGnome and wxKDE, which don't exist; there's a reasonably large difference between a vanilla Gtk app and a full-blown Gnome-o-rific app. I hope the wxGtk guy will expand to Gnome once Gnome is 1.0, and hopefully Roberto will provide KDE support in wxQt. BTW another reason C++ is hard to wrap is that the Gtk object system and Gtk in general is designed especially for wrapping. It has introspection/reflection much like Java, you can get at the internals, replace the internals with custom internals, replace virtual functions, etc. Unlike most OO languages, C++ (by design) does not provide any runtime information about objects. So if you use the C++ object system unenhanced, you don't end up with a very wrappable system. Qt just isn't designed with it in mind. Gtk is. I don't think this is related to C vs. C++ as many have said; it's just a matter of what the library was designed to do. The only C/C++ relationship is that Gtk had to implement its own object system which encouraged features like this. The proof is, there are a dozen or more languages with Gtk support, many of them interpreted languages. Havoc
Re: QT1.42 Errors....
On Wed, 17 Feb 1999, Brant Wells wrote: I'm trying to write some QT apps, just really toying around with C++, but when I try to compile ANY of the QT apps, using the command line: g++ -I/usr/local/qt/include -L/usr/X11R6 -lqt filename.CC I get an error message about a whole bunch of undefined references... Post the exact error message. First rule of asking for help. Then people will readily recognize which library the missing symbols are in. Havoc
Re: dselect and downloading kernel
On Mon, 15 Feb 1999, ktb wrote: Is there an easier way to do what I'm trying to do? This is my first attempt at compiling a kernel. I thought I would go ahead and try 2.2.1 instead of the one I have 2.0.34. It was my understanding that dselect would download, place the new kernel in the right directory and take care of some linkage issues. Anyway if this can't be done I think I'll just stick to the kernel I have for the time being. dselect only understands Debian packages, I don't think ftp.kernel.org has any Debian packages. So it's just getting thoroughly confused by what you're doing. You need to download one of the Debian kernel-source packages from ftp.debian.org or a mirror. Havoc
Re: is there a trick to removing emacs?
On Mon, 15 Feb 1999, Pollywog wrote: I want to remove all the emacs stuff and use vim as my editor. Can I safely remove emacs without doing something special first? You can safely remove any Debian package, just type dpkg --remove emacs20 (or the name of whichever Emacs flavor you've installed). If the removal is unsafe, dpkg will refuse to perform it and tell you what's wrong. Then you'll want to address the problem. (Do NOT use the --force options to dpkg, that overrides the safety and will hose things.) Havoc
Re: GUI stuff
On Tue, 16 Feb 1999, David Webster wrote: I am wanting to start some GUI development but I am having a hard time figuring out just what the GUI development is? I see that the GTK libaraires are the base C++ GUI class libraries, but I also see stuff like Gnome and qt* and Glib, and other stuff. Is there any online documentation that sorts all this stuff out? What are the compliments in the Linux/X11 world to MFC/IOCL in the Win32 world? What about resource editors and stuff like that??? Here is my take on things, somewhat different from other answers perhaps. I am a Gnome developer and wrote some of the Gnome library stuff (just so you know my biases). Gtk+ is an object-oriented library written in C. It is a widget set, which means it lets you create windows, text entries, scroll bars, etc. See http://www.gtk.org. It's written in C, but works great with C++; I use it all the time. If you prefer there are several C++ wrappers though, which let you subclass widgets, etc. There are also wrappers in a dozen other languages. glib is a C utility library which deals with some code portability concerns and fleshes out the C standard library with some data structures and the like. Gtk uses it, as do many Gtk programs. Gnome has two faces. From the developer's point of view it is an application development framework. It adds a lot of useful widgets to Gtk, adds some convenience functions, adds some things like configuration file loading/saving, adds CORBA (analagous to DCOM), adds image file loading, etc. This is all in the 'gnome-libs' package. The other face of Gnome is a desktop environment and set of applications built using the developer's framework. However, if you use the framework your users are not forced to use Gnome; gnome-apt, for example, runs just fine without any of the desktop stuff installed. (The desktop environment includes a file manager like Windows Explorer, a start-menu type thing, etc.) If you are going to write a new GUI application you should use Gnome, IMO. Here are the reasons: - Gnome is nicer than the alternatives, unless you have special needs (like a cross-platform toolkit). - Gnome is 100% free; this means you can write applications with it using the license of your choice, and paying no license fee. - Partially as a consequence of the above, Gnome is likely to be the future standard environment, and well-supported - Debian and Red Hat are both supporting Gnome as the standard desktop (to the extent that anything can be standard in the free software world; really this just means default). - This means Debian and Red Hat users will have Gnome installed already, so they'll be able to compile your app easily. - Gnome is supported by 250+ developers; most other kits are supported by a few people. Stuff gets fixed fast, and there is a lot of stuff. Some people advocate using only Gtk and not Gnome. If your app is at all substantial, this is a poor idea IMO (and I have written several apps). It is short-term attractive because you don't have to learn and compile the Gnome libraries. But once Gnome hits 1.0, expected this month, this advantage disappears. Gnome offers a standard look-and-feel and a *lot* of programming conveniences. It's a significant enhancement to plain Gtk. Again, unless you have special needs such as cross-platform development, it's probably a poor idea to use a toolkit other than Gtk. Gtk appears to be an emerging standard (finally), and you'll end up with an ugly legacy dependency using other kits. And if you're using Gtk, it only makes sense to use Gnome too. To be fair, Qt and KDE are likely to continue to be popular for a good long while and they may even be the most popular at the moment (hard to say). Qt is cross-platform and commercially supported. However, you will have to pay to use Qt for a proprietary application. And it is my guess (only a guess) that Gtk will be longer-lasting and more popular on a 2-to-5-year timescale. But you should make your own judgment on that after you do some research. Havoc
Re: Gnome and dependencies
On Wed, 10 Feb 1999, Bob Nielsen wrote: I also show libglib1.1.5, libglib1.1.6, libglib1.1.9, libglib1.1.11, libglib1.1.12 and libglib1.1.13 as well as libgtk1, libgtk1.1.12, libgtk1.1.13, libgtk1.1.14 and libgtk1.1.15 as being available. Are these all independent libraries or are they different versions of the same library? Did the numbering system get changed without being reflected in the dependency lists of some other packages (such as gnome-admin, gmc, etc.)? They are a zillion incompatible versions of the same library; it's the alpha/development branch of glib/Gtk and changes often. So packages have to depend on a specific one, and when a new one comes out they have to be recompiled to work with it. This is a disadvantage of packaging alpha software. Things will settle down when Gtk hits 1.2 (this month, one assumes). Havoc
Re: Debian locks up after short time
On Thu, 11 Feb 1999, Mike Archer wrote: Hello everyone. I have a newly setup Debian Linux box running only Debian. My problem is that anytime i let debian sit for more than a minute or two, the system totally locks up. the keyboard doesn't respond at all, not even NumLock or anything. I know that the screen is supposed to go blank after a while, but it doesn't even do that. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas about what could be causing this problem. Maybe it's a hardware thing, i'm not really sure. Thanks I had this happen due to bad memory chips. There is a little program called memtest (I think it's packaged) which can look for this. It's 90% likely to be hardware, often Windows/DOS become randomly unstable due to hardware bugs but don't really crash, while Linux will just die. (probably better than random data corruption...) Havoc
Re: Why WordPerfect won't run....
On Wed, 6 Jan 1999, Brant Wells wrote: My WP8 installed correctly, but I am unable to execute it for some reason... If I start an X-Term session, I get a command not found error... :( The following works for me: $ cd whereveryouinstalledit/wpbin $ ./xwp (or just: $ wherever/wpbin/xwp ) Havoc
Re: About Gnome Panel and KDE applications
On Fri, 1 Jan 1999, Paulo Henrique Baptista de Oliveira wrote: I installed gnome-panel and gnome-session in my home computer (a mix of hamm and slink) and the panel has n menus with all the applications of KDE. Very ugly. Anyone know how to fix this? In the new Gnome .99 (which isn't packaged) there's a menu editor (gmenu). Don't know about .30. Havoc
Re: Binary-cat Console Junkedness... [(Sort of) OFF-TOPIC]
On Wed, 30 Dec 1998, Ryan King wrote: Why does a VC go bonkies when you cat a binary file from it? Terminals can be modified in various ways by sending them special command sequences (control characters). You can tell the terminal to use boldface, change size, and lots of more arcane things. Most programs do this in a controlled way. When you cat a binary file, it often happens to contain some random control sequences that don't make any sense, so the terminal ends up in a broken state. The problem isn't limited to virtual consoles, it happens to all terminals, including xterm, etc. Havoc
Re: _very_ reproducable WP8 X client lib error.
On Mon, 28 Dec 1998, Stan Brown wrote: This bug is 100% reproducable. Sugestions? Email Corel. It's almost certainly a WordPerfect bug, and since WordPerfect is not free software there's nothing anyone else can do about it. Havoc
Re: Does apt replace dselect?
On Sun, 20 Dec 1998, Mitch Blevins wrote: Mark Phillips wrote: Hi, I was under the impression that apt would replace dselect and provide a more user friendly package manager. But so far I've just heard about apt-get which sounds like just a script for installing debian packages directly from the net. Could someone enlighten me on the true role and status of apt? apt-get is way more than a script - Apt is mostly a library. The library has lots of very sophisticated features, including stuff to download packages, order them for installation, keep up with dependencies, automatically compute which packages you need to upgrade, etc. It's a very complex and powerful piece of code. apt-get is a simple frontend which gives you access to the library from the command line. If you are chomping at the bit for the dselect replacement, you can view (and try) the gnome-apt frontend at http://www.debian.org/~hp/gnome-apt.html Thanks for the plug. :-) Gnome Apt should build with the current Gtk and Gnome tarballs by the way, you should not need to use CVS except to get Apt and Gnome-Apt. (If this isn't true send me the compile error and I'll make it true.) Once Jim gets those tarballs packaged up, you'll be able to use the .debs to compile. If I can add to the plug: I need an icon for the program, an icon for Replaces in the package tree view, and someone to package the program once all its dependencies are packaged. If anyone doesn't have enough to do. :-) I actually use gnome-apt by the way; it has some missing features, but if you get your /etc/apt/source.list set up manually, I think it's already a useful program. Havoc
Re: Does apt replace dselect?
On Sun, 20 Dec 1998, Mitch Blevins wrote: I would love to package this as soon as dependencies are packaged. When do you suppose that will be? (I'll be on vacation from 12/23-1/3) Hey, great! I don't really know - I think Jim is working on the Gnome stuff (it's a huge job), I don't know what the status is on a libapt-pkg package. I'd think sometime in January it could all be ready to go though, when you get back from vacation. Havoc
Re: What does this mean with dselect
On Mon, 21 Dec 1998, Patrick Colbeck wrote: Checking system integrity...ok The following packages have been kept back gobjc smail g++ egcc doc-linux-html wxhelp doc-linux-text I believe it means that there are newer versions of these packages, but for whatever reason Apt is not going to upgrade them. It could be that you asked not to upgrade them, or that there's some dependency conflict which prevents upgrading. Havoc
Re: Beginning C
On Sat, 19 Dec 1998, Chris Frost wrote: I'd like to start learning C (I know a bit of latex and enough basic/newtonscript to do simple math stuff, but that's about it) and was wondering what a good book would be to serve as in intro to programming c on linux (and as an intro to programming in general). Kernighan Ritchie will teach you C syntax but syntax is really not the main thing you want to learn IMHO. i.e. learn programming, not C. C is merely incidental. The classic text used in many CS 101 courses is Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. I'm sure any decent intro to programming text would be OK though. The key is to learn about data structures, algorithms, types, abstraction and so on. C can be terrible without proper guidance because it has no built-in syntax to make these things natural. It is a very low-level language and encourages bad habits and beginner mistakes. I would recommend the Gtk+ and glib source code; this is nice code that shows how to use C well, and it will give you data structure routines to play with. It is also fun and interesting, since windows on the screen are always niftier than text-mode hello world programs. I think Beginning Linux Programming (Wrox Press) and Linux Application Development (Addison-Wesley) are both nice books about Unix programming with a Linux focus, but they assume you already have some C under your belt. Of course, part of learning to program on Linux is learning Emacs or vi, and religiously defending your choice; and you'll probably need to know something about make. Havoc
Re: dselect uses
On Wed, 16 Dec 1998, Tom wrote: If dselect is replaced in the install process could dselect still be used as a way to give users information about what applications are on the system? It's being replaced with a new program or programs. The GNOME Apt frontend is coming along well: http://www.debian.org/~hp/gnome-apt.html Eventually there might be a text-mode and/or non-Gnome-X version too. Havoc
Re: KDE 1.0.....
On Sat, 12 Dec 1998, Rich Hartman wrote: Is KDE 1.0 available anywhere in *.deb format - does anyone know if debian is going to continue releasing KDE? I have the old KDE installed, and it's a little buggy - if debian is vetoing them, maybe I should think about switching to Gnome? But is that anywhere near ready for prime-time? To answer only half your question, GNOME is very close. The 1.0 feature freeze is on Tuesday, and the final 1.0 release will happen within a month if all goes well. Havoc
Re: Piping unpipable output.
On Thu, 10 Dec 1998, Christian Lavoie wrote: I need to write down the output (actually, I need the error message) that the startx command gives me. (The nice 'startx err' doesn't work...) Try: startx err 21 That should be the correct magic incantation. :-) Havoc
Re: latex.....
On Tue, 8 Dec 1998, Shao Zhang wrote: Can someone please tell me how to write a tab in latex. Tabbing in LaTeX is almost always the wrong thing to do. LaTeX handles all whitespace for you if you use the correct semantic commands, and the results are very nice. Tabs are for typewriters. :-) But if you insist, type 'info latex2e' and read the section on the 'tabbing' environment. It can be handy for tables and stuff. (If you just want space, \hspace may be more appropriate. I recommend writing a custom semantic command with \newcommand instead of hardcoding a spacing, if you anticipate using the space more than once.) Havoc
Re: Latex - let me make clear
On Tue, 8 Dec 1998, Shao Zhang wrote:
Name: Shao Zhang
Address:Debian, org
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Health: Excellent
and so on
Ok, so how do I write this in Latex?
You're fighting LaTeX by deciding on a layout in advance. This will be
painful. :-) (though you can do this in any of the environments discussed
so far, tabbing or tabular.) If you really want a particular layout,
StarOffice will prove easier; LaTeX is not made for this.
Using latex, it is probably easier to either use some of the resume.sty
files floating around the net - don't ask me where to get them, but I have
seen them.
For my resume, I made up some m4 macros, then implemented html and LaTeX
versions of them, and wrote the resume with the macros. This allowed me to
generate both print and HTML output.
I'll attach my (hacky and kind of lame) latex macros, perhaps they will
give you some ideas (ignore the m4 stuff, just extract the latex):
Havoc
m4_define(R_HEADER, `
\documentclass[10pt]{article}
%\title{TITLEHERE}
%\date{DATEHERE}
\author{Havoc Pennington}
\setlength{\textwidth}{6.3in}
\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{0in}
\setlength{\evensidemargin}{0in}
\setlength{\textheight}{9in}
%\setlength{\parindent}{.3in}
\setlength{\topmargin}{0in}
% So anti-LaTeX in spirit
\newcommand{\letterhead}[0]{\noindent \begin{minipage}{6.5in} \noindent
{\bf Havoc Pennington }\smallskip
\hrule
\begin{flushright}
\addvspace{-.9em}
{\small 5548 South Blackstone Avenue,\ Chicago, IL 60637 \\
\addvspace{-.05em}
[EMAIL PROTECTED] \ \ (773) 324--3896\ \ \
http://pobox.com/\~{}hp \\ }
\end{flushright}
\end{minipage}
\medskip}
% should be an environment, really.
\newcommand{\rsectionStart}[1]{\subsection*{#1}}
\newcommand{\rsectionEnd}[0]{}
% arguments are title, dates, location
\newcommand{\experience}[3]{\item {\bf #1}: {#2} \newline #3
\smallskip \newline}
\newcommand{\ritem}[1]{\item #1}
% From the C++ FAQ
\def\CC{{C\nolinebreak[4]\hspace{-.05em}\raisebox{.5ex}{\tiny\bf ++}}}
% \def\CC{C\raise.22ex\hbox{{\footnotesize +}}\raise.22ex\hbox{\footnotesize +}}
% \def\CC{{C\hspace{-.05em}\raisebox{.4ex}{\tiny\bf ++}}}
\begin{document}
\letterhead
' )
m4_define(R_BEGIN_SECTION, `\rsectionStart{$1} \begin{itemize}')
m4_define(R_END_SECTION, `\end{itemize} \rsectionEnd')
m4_define(R_ITEM, `\ritem{$1}')
m4_define(R_BOLD, `{\bf $1}')
m4_define(R_FOOTER, `\end{document}')
m4_dnl arguments are title, date, location, text
m4_define(R_EXPERIENCE, `\experience{$1}{$2}{$3} $4')
m4_define(R_LATEX, `\LaTeX')
m4_define(R_CC, `\CC\ ')
Re: Ports
On Tue, 8 Dec 1998, Rino Mardo wrote: Almost all new PCs nowadays come with a PS/2 connector for the mouse. For your attempt, use the device/port /dev/psaux. This is the PS/2 equivalent in Linux. This is if your mouse plugs into the little round socket. If it goes in the trapezoid socket, try /dev/ttyS0 and /dev/ttyS1 and one of them will probably work. Havoc
Re: Latex - let me make clear
On Wed, 9 Dec 1998, Richard Lyon wrote: Huh... Latex can do what Shao wants without too much fuss. Tabbing environment seems like fuss to me, compared to normal latex. It's just the wrong way to look at latex; even if this is relatively easy, it's a bad approach in general. You might as well use a word processor because they are better at this approach to formatting. Havoc
Re: Gnome Panel.
On Sun, 6 Dec 1998, Evan Van Dyke wrote: I just downloaded and installed the new Gnome debs from slink, and tried to run gnome-session, but the Gnome Panel applet loads, but doesn't finish drawing itself. it eats up however much processor time is availiable, but even after sitting for 15+ minutes hasn't done more than paint the area of the screen it uses grey. This happens when I run the panel applet directly as well. Does anyone have an idea what's going on and how to fix it? thanks. Some crufty old bug - those Gnome .deb's are pretty dated now. Rather than spending a lot of time on it, I'd suggest either compiling Gnome yourself from CVS (see www.gnome.org) or waiting a couple of weeks for a new set of .debs. We'll be code-freezing Dec 15 with a release to follow within a month, if all goes well. I don't know if Jim will package at freeze-time or only the final release. Havoc
Re: Understanding /root, /usr, /var and so on
On Thu, 3 Dec 1998, Michael Wahl wrote: Please help me for the right understanding: the /root contains only the kernel and the device drivers, the /home is the working area / space for the user (with space for store of their own data?), the /usr is the main area comparable to WINDOWS PROGRAMMS, /var for printer, mail, newsgroups. Im right? Hi, I'm a little slow since there are already several answers, but there's a lengthy discussion of this topic in the tutorial, http://www.debian.org/~hp/debian-tutorial.html/ HTH, Havoc
Re: Should be installing Linux soon. Questions.
On Wed, 2 Dec 1998, Jeff Browning wrote: 1. Could someone please explain X-Windows to me. What are desktop environments, window managers, etc.? Check out the tutorial on this - http://www.debian.org/~hp/debian-tutorial.html/ it should give you at least a partial answer. 3. I currently have two networked computers. Both with Windoze 98. I am only going to install Linux on one of them. Is there any way that I could network them so when I install Linux, I can FTP Netscape, KDE, Star Office, etc. from the Windoze computer to the Linux one? Should be no problem. Install the Samba package. (I've never used it, so don't ask me how, but it provides Windows file sharing.) Linux should come up on your network neighborhood or whatever it's called. Havoc
Re: Hello World doesn't work
On Fri, 27 Nov 1998, Kent West wrote: main() A long shot, but technically the above is illegal; you have to do: int main(int argc, char* argv[]) then return something from main, or call exit(). maybe the lack of a return or exit call from main prevents the io buffers from getting flushed? More likely, it's a bug somewhere else, either in what you're doing or in some piece of the system... Havoc
Re: Hello World doesn't work
On Sat, 28 Nov 1998, M.C. Vernon wrote: int main(void) is also correct, and until ANSI C90 comes out, main() will do. You're right, I'm a dork, or at least my memory is foggy :-) then return something from main, or call exit(). maybe the lack of a return or exit call from main prevents the io buffers from getting flushed? the lack of stdio.h is probably more important... That should only affect compilation; it should theoretically make no difference at all at runtime, C pretty much treats all functions the same (function prototypes are not strictly required...). Ole's fflush(stdout) suggestion will test the io buffers theory... Havoc
Re: Dialout within X
On Sat, 28 Nov 1998, Kenneth K. Ho wrote: I have just installed hamm distribution (kernel 2.0.34) onto my system, and X won't let me dial out. Even worse, to dial in, I have to reboot the system! There are no error messages, just that the modem won't respond (tested it myself). X has nothing to do with dialing... what do you mean? Sysinfo: i486 with GVC 14.4 modem on ttyS3 Is it a plug-and-play modem? Those cause this kind of problem... you'll need to fool with isapnptools, or just get a real modem... Havoc
Re: Debian GNU/Linux question
On Mon, 2 Nov 1998, cyberjackz wrote: Will a AMD K6-2/266 3D Now Chip work with this product?? Yes, it should. (Debian isn't a product tho in the traditional sense, it's a totally free volunteer effort. So you might as well try it and see if it works.) Havoc
Re: XEmacs C/Java mode configuration
On Mon, 2 Nov 1998, Thomas Apel wrote:
if (x)
{
x = 0;
}
How can I change this? I think I searched the whole options menu but
didn't find anything. Are there any docs where I could have read about
this?
M-x info m xemacs RET
should be helpful. (well, I don't use XEmacs, but this would work in plain
Emacs...)
Plain Emacs has a section called Changing Indentation Style, which
includes this:
`M-x c-set-style RET STYLE RET'
Select predefined indentation style STYLE. Type `?' when entering
STYLE to see a list of supported styles; to find out what a style
looks like, select it and reindent some C code.
`C-c C-o SYMBOL RET OFFSET RET'
Set the indentation offset for syntactic symbol SYMBOL
(`c-set-offset'). The second argument OFFSET specifies the new
indentation offset.
Havoc
Re: C++ header for 'push_back'
On Fri, 30 Oct 1998, Bob Bernstein wrote:
reverse(s.begin(), s.end());
s.push_back('\n');
cout s;
}
The compile complains that:
/home/bernie/cpp/stl.cpp: In function `int main()':
/home/bernie/cpp/stl.cpp:17: no matching function for call to
`basic_stringchar,string_char_traitschar,__default_alloc_templatetrue,0
I assume the rest of the error message says ::push_back(char)?
All the methods for string are in the basic_string class declaration; if
push_back() isn't there, there is no push_back() implementation for
string. Conveniently C++ requires the entire class to be declared in one
place, so it's easy to see if a method exists.
Stroustrup (page 593, 3rd edition) says string does not have push_back().
Try:
s += '\n';
instead.
You can see the basic_string class in /usr/include/g++/std/bastring.h;
string is a typedef (typedef basic_string char string) which is in the
string header. basic_string can also use wide characters (like Unicode,
I guess), that's why it's a template.
Havoc
Re: Removing ^M in files--in bulk?
There's a dos2unix command, looks like it's in the 'sysutils' package; just 'dos2unix *' if they're all in the same directory; if they're in different places you can do an appropriate find, like: dos2unix `find -name *.cc` or something like that. You might want to read the dos2unix man page, I'm just assuming it works like this. On Tue, 20 Oct 1998 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: All of them have this control character (^M) at the end of each line, as seen in vi (which I know v. little about except very basic I/O). These need to be removed before the files can be compiled. I am really hoping there is a way to do this in bulk ... using sed or something similar?? I am v. new to Linux, so have no grip yet on the more powerful utilities and/or syntax. (Nor am I a programmer.) Is there a way to do this?? Thanks!
Re: Debian KDE philosophy
On Fri, 9 Oct 1998 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Independently of the KDE issue, there's a question I've wondered about for some time. Has the GPL ever been tested in court (i.e. has there ever been a case that turned on it)? No, I've never heard of that. It's been successfully used to get people to release code though: NeXT, for example, had to be forced into releasing their gcc modifications. So apparently some high-priced lawyers didn't think they'd win in court. It was also written with the aid of lawyers, unlike many free licenses. So it's probably safe to say that at least the core parts of it would hold up in court. Havoc
Re: Emacs keybinding of Ctrl-[
On 2 Oct 1998, Andy Spiegl wrote: And there is no way to separate ESC and C-[ ? I mean, who uses C-[ to get an ESC?? Text terminals do. But there's a way around it - from the Emacs manual's discussion of keybindings (which you may find interesting, btw): TAB, RET, BS, LFD, ESC and DEL started out as names for certain ASCII control characters, used so often that they have special keys of their own. Later, users found it convenient to distinguish in Emacs between these keys and the same control characters typed with the CTRL key. Emacs distinguishes these two kinds of input, when used with the X Window System. It treats the special keys as function keys named `tab', `return', `backspace', `linefeed', `escape', and `delete'. These function keys translate automatically into the corresponding ASCII characters *if* they have no bindings of their own. As a result, neither users nor Lisp programs need to pay attention to the distinction unless they care to. If you do not want to distinguish between (for example) TAB and `C-i', make just one binding, for the ASCII character TAB (octal code 011). If you do want to distinguish, make one binding for this ASCII character, and another for the function key `tab'. With an ordinary ASCII terminal, there is no way to distinguish between TAB and `C-i' (and likewise for other such pairs), because the terminal sends the same character in both cases. Can I use xmodmap to get udiaresis etc. with Hyper-[ ? That way I wouldn't even have to bother with setting up emacs and would have the keys in all applications. I tried: keycode 0x1C = Hyper_L add Mod4 = Hyper_L keycode 0x56 = bracketleft braceleft udiaeresis Udiaeresis But that didn't work. :-( Xmodmap is cryptic. I've had good luck with Xkeycaps, since it's otherwise impossible to remember the syntax. I'm sure someone else can give you a quick formula. Another poster had a better suggestion - apparently Emacs already has an international mode. I'd suggest reading about that in the Emacs manual and the Xmodmap man page, and thinking about your options (Xkeycaps will let you look at foreign keymappings, too, I think - so you could copy from that). There are probably three or four ways to do this. Havoc
Re: Emacs keybinding of Ctrl-[
On 2 Oct 1998, Andy Spiegl wrote: Hi, I am working with an US-keyboard, but typing German texts in XEmacs. So I tried to teach XEmacs (v19.11) to give me the umlauts if I press the corresponding keys together with CTRL. This works fine for all keys except for u-umlaut which would end up being on CTRL-[ : C-[ is the same as ESC, I think. So that's your problem. Maybe if you redefine ESC, but you probably don't want to do that. Do you have an alt or meta or compose key you could use? You could use Xmodmap to remap right alt or right control to Hyper or Compose or some other key not found on US keyboards. Then you could use that for your Emacs bindings. You'd have to work out the details but I bet you could make it work. Then your regular Emacs bindings will be unaffected, since you could use left alt and control for those. HTH, Havoc
Re: accessing Win95-hours50-to-load filesystems
On Sun, 6 Sep 1998, spOOL wrote: I have mounted my dos partition in Debian and can see all of the files but can't use any of them. I should be able to use Wordview to view Word docsright. Someone said that I need to have fat/vfat compiled into the kernel.how do I do this?? I'll let someone else explain how to compile the kernel... Also, what would be the X equivilant of a win95: shortcut folder There are no X equivalents of these. These functions belong to the filesystem; X is simply a window/graphics system. In the filesystem, the equivalent to these would be symlinks (shortcut) and directories (folder). You can read about this in the Debian tutorial: http://www.debian.org/~hp/debian-tutorial.html X provides no default interface to the filesystem, so you have to use the shell from an xterm. However, there are X file managers which do provide a filesystem interface. Examples of X file managers include TkDesk (in its own package) and kfm (in the KDE packages). A non-X file manager is mc, also in its own package. scandisk fdisk does this, but it's run automatically when the computer starts. So there's no reason to worry about doing it manually. I would like to customize X more but can't figure out exactly how. Is it all done from the xterm that it opens when I start. Kind of depends on your window manager. WindowMaker (wmaker package) provides some nice graphical configuration. Be sure to also install wmaker-data to get pretty icons. BTW, where is the file that I edit to change things such as my default window manager and background color??? Check out the tutorial again, it has a section on changing your window manager by editing the file ~/.xsession. To change the background color, try the command 'xsetroot -solid blue' or whatever you like; put it in your .xsession. WindowMaker also allows you to set the background from a nice menu; if you do that you won't want to use xsetroot. Havoc
Re: GTK-- development
On Thu, 3 Sep 1998 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have been looking at gnome, and programming in GTK. I would like to try GTK--, but the GTK-- devel package is dependant on the gtk1.0 devel package, which conflicts with the gtk1.1 devel package, which gnome wants. If that makes any sense :) The gtk-- web page says that it works with gtk1.1. What is the proper way to deal with this? Gtk-- works with gtk 1.1 if it's compiled that way, but the Debian package apparently isn't. You can maybe install the Debian Gtk 1.1 package and then compile Gtk-- yourself. Compiling yourself is handy with Gtk and friends anyway, because the docs often need to be supplemented by the source code. However, I doubt the Gtk-- 1.1 support will just happen to be in sync with the particular 1.1 Debian has packaged. Remember that 1.1 is the ever-changing-interface development branch. So if you want to go the compilation route I'd suggest you purge all the Gtk 1.1 packages (and 1.0 -dev packages) and start from scratch with glib out of Gnome CVS. See www.gnome.org. You want the glib, gtk+, gtk-- modules. (my email address is actually [EMAIL PROTECTED]) So put it on your mail! :-) Havoc
Re: Gnome/GTK
On Thu, 3 Sep 1998, Geoffrey L. Brimhall wrote: 1. I happened to have both 1.0.5 and 1.1.x installed on my system. This is the first part that really confused building with gnome because they require the 1.1.x now, but for some reason my /usr/lib/libgtk.so and libgtk.so.1 pointed to libgtk.so.1.0.5 and not to libgtk-1.1.so. So first I had to re-link libgtk.so to point to the 1.1.x versions of the gtk. There were many other libraries which also had this problem (glib, gdk). This is the wrong solution, basically you broke it. :-) libgtk-1.1 and libgtk are separate libraries with different names. They should both be installed, and the symlinks to 1.1 should all contain -1.1. 2. /usr/bin/gtk-config was configured to report that I was running 1.0.5 binaries and not 1.1.x. I had to update this file. gtk-config should probably be in the -dev package (I don't know if it is). You should have only *one* -dev package, 1.0 or 1.1. You can have both non-dev packages. However, what I don't understand is not having the above two problems fixed if main/devel/libgtk1.1-dev_1.1.1-1.deb is installed, because this should imply a person is wanting to do gtk development with the latest stuff. 1.1-dev should probably conflict with the stable -dev. (I assume it does, I don't know.) If it doesn't conflict I assume both packages contain /usr/include/gtk/gtk* and I don't know how that works out. Of course 1.1-dev is more or less useless. If a project is tracking the development version, it will probably only work with the very latest CVS version and this package will be too old. If you want to do development you should either use stable 1.0 or CVS. Havoc
Re: Gnome/GTK
On Sun, 30 Aug 1998, Phillip Neumann wrote: *** The test program failed to compile or link. See the file config.log for the *** exact error that occured. Try doing this. If you don't understand config.log send a copy to the list (gnome-list@gnome.org is probably a better choice than debian-user though). Remember that Gnome is development software and is not ready for end users. So don't expect miracles... Havoc
Re: debian book
On Fri, 28 Aug 1998, Zheng Wang wrote: Is there a published book about debian linux, or online material? Thanks. There is an unfinished one at http://www.debian.org/~hp/debian-tutorial.html/ Havoc
Re: Trying to get started in the Linux world
On Fri, 28 Aug 1998, George Bonser wrote: I would suggest simply creating a swap partition of about 128MB and put the rest as one partition to start with. Play with Linux for about 6 months, then look to see how much space you are using in /var and /usr then back the system up, repartition according to the ratios noted above and then restore. This is a good suggestion, because it can vary a lot. For example my /var is practically empty (maybe 20 megs) and always has been. It fits fine on a 128M partition with the rest of /; then I have /usr, /home, /tmp, and /cvs. /cvs is just another /tmp partition with a new name; these can be handy. Mine is just to hold a bunch of source trees; our university server has /scratch so students have a place to manipulate large quota-exceeding files. /tmp is cluttered with system files and occasionally gets cron-jobbed so you need a separate directory for this kind of thing. From the start though I'd put /home on a separate partition because you can then reinstall without losing your data and personal configuration. For my single-user system this is the one essential partition. It absolutely depends on how you use your computer. There's no right way. Havoc
Re: Gnome
On Fri, 21 Aug 1998, phillip Neumann wrote: Yesterday i upgrade my old version of gnome (0.25) to the 0.27 version. Now i cannot put any of this `application-icons '(such as cdplayer, ppp-dialer, ...). What is happened? Hi, Basically the applets are broken in 0.27. Hopefully there will be a new version soon which fixes it. Remember that Gnome is 0.27 and not 1.0 for a reason. :-) Havoc
xterm-debian
Hi, I just upgraded to 2.0, I was running an old pre-2.0. Now when I ssh to a remote server I get complaints about the lack of a terminfo entry for xterm-debian. Isn't there a way to add a terminfo entry in my remote home directory? How? Or is there a better solution? Thanks, Havoc Pennington http://pobox.com/~hp
Re: Silly Question... VERY simple :)
On Thu, 13 Aug 1998, Michael Beattie wrote: Perfect, but I have not got the appropriate package installed, and I cant seem to find it.. call me stupid, blind whatever... where can the C manpages / info pages be found. When I used DO$ to program, DJGPP had info pages on all sorts of things.. surely there is an equivalent? I just cant find the package :) Well, the 'strcpy' man page is in the manpages-dev package, that sounds like it might be what you want. The gcc docs ought to come with the gcc package. Havoc Pennington http://pobox.com/~hp
Re: Silly Question... VERY simple :)
On Wed, 12 Aug 1998, Michael Beattie wrote: Where is the documentation for C ? i.e. language help? I have a hard time remembering syntax and stuff.. :) You're best off just buying The C Programming Language (ANSI edition). It isn't very expensive and the hardcopy is handy. There may be some free stuff on the web though, try www.infoseek.com. Havoc Pennington http://pobox.com/~hp
Re: Silly Question... VERY simple :)
On Wed, 12 Aug 1998, M.C. Vernon wrote: Hmm. I prefer Schildt's C the complete reference. Haven't tried it myself, but on comp.lang.c.moderated they are always calling him Shit and generally degrading the guy. So I was discouraged from doing so. ;-) KR is a very concise if occasionally not-so-thorough reference. C is a fairly small and simple language. Is there any compiler-specific documentation (esp wrt to graphics and low-level hardware/system stuff)? There is documentation on gcc/egcs, yes, 'info gcc' should pull it up. Graphics and hardware would mostly be a kernel or X issue, not the compiler. You could look at the kernel console code and some X server code, and the specs for the hardware you want to program. Havoc Pennington http://pobox.com/~hp
