main July 2002

main@lists.alug.org.uk

61 participants
144 discussions

Media/LUG Contact
by Martyn Drake 01 Jul '02

01 Jul '02

Hi folks, These days I'm just too busy to deal with any incoming mail from my details appearing in the Linux magazines and on the main www.lug.org.uk web site. Would anybody mind taking over from me on these duties for welcoming and pointing new members in the right direction? I'll update the info for Lug.org.uk, Linux Format and Linux Magazine when we've got the new contact arranged. Thanks, Martyn -- Martyn Drake | Email : martyn-d(a)moving-picture.com Systems Administrator | Web : http://www.moving-picture.com The Moving Picture Company | Phone : +44 (0)20 7494 7853

5 7

Weekly IRC reminder
by Neill Newman 01 Jul '02

01 Jul '02

This is the automated ALUG IRC meeting reminder sent to remind you that there is an IRC meeting tonight (Monday) at 8.00pm. The meeting takes place on the irc server irc.openprojects.net in the #alug channel, you can take a look at www.openprojects.net to get more info on the openprojects network. Most IRC clients should allow you to get there with the commands "/server uk.openprojects.net" or "/server eu.openprojects.net" and "/join #alug". Popular IRC clients include tkirc, bitchx, xchat and EPIC on Unix, and Mirc under windows. Here are some links to help you get started with irc. Unix http://www.xchat.org/ http://freshmeat.net/ http://www.epicsol.org/ Windows http://www.mirc.com (loads of help with irc for newbies!)

3 2

Free to a good home
by Paul 01 Jul '02

01 Jul '02

Hi Folks One ATX motherboard to take a Slot 1 Pentium (233MHz-500MHz), free to a good home. No CPU, memory or warranty. Regards, Paul.

2 1

Today's cool toy -- distcc
by MJ Ray 01 Jul '02

01 Jul '02

Describing itself as "napster for C programmers", this handy little tool from Martin Pool allows you to use the CPU power of all the compatible hosts on your local network. Unlike some similar tools, it doesn't require them all to have the same filesystems or configuration. distcc works by running a small daemon called distccd that listens on port 4200 of each host. You probably want to be careful with that because it allows anyone with a client to run any command. I strongly suggest that you run it as a totally unprivileged user that owns no files (eg make a new normal user called "distcc"), only run it when you're actually going to use it, restrict it to hosts that you control with iptables and so on. Generally, be a bit paranoid about it. The reason to use it is performance. On small compiles, it only shows itself marginally. Using distcc to build itself across two hosts here shows an improvement from 42.24 seconds to 24.78 seconds. Of course, there's normally a lot more than a straight compile to building a package. Building a simple debian package of distcc, including running configure and making the archive, shows only a slight improvement from 50.54 seconds to 45.37 seconds[1]. Still, it'll be worth having on larger projects. Apart from security, the other drawbacks (besides security) are that the network usage can go through the roof for large compiles (so, as for security, you probably don't want to do this on public systems on a public network) and that usage is currently restricted to gcc. It is a fairly young program, though, so who knows where this might go? Getting started with distcc is fairly easy. You just download the code from http://distcc.samba.org/ and compile it. It's not a very big compile, which is fortunate, because you can't use it to compile itself before you've compiled it for the first time... after that, you might find yourself wanting to use it for every compile! [1] -- No, that doesn't make sense. I don't understand either. OK, the above is uploaded as http://www.alug.org.uk/contrib/?DistCc under the TipsTripsAndWorkarounds category, so feel free to improve it. If you want to ask me more questions, post to the list. -- MJR ,---------------------------------------------------- | Q. Do you need a net-based application developing, | or advice and training about web technology? | A. I suggest you try http://www.luminas.co.uk/

1 0

Jump to page:

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

1999

1998

1997

main July 2002