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Re: [Alug] XSL Formatting Objects Question - Setting Document Defaults
by MJ Ray 15 Sep '01

15 Sep '01

Neill Newman <neill(a)entora.co.uk> writes: > > problems, for there are many: Java still doesn't have closures, > > continuations, first-class procedures... > This may be true, but how many of us know what those mean, how many of > us care ;) Now who's the person with the CS degree? What's wrong with this picture? ;-) Alexis Lee <alexis(a)turton.com> writes: > The advantage of a huge standard library is it keeps things standardised. > Instead of a zillion vendors each doing their own thing to look up, you > just need to flip thru the API. You still have the manual open when programming, the same as for extension libraries. Of course, you abstract away the platform-specifics if you can, no matter what language, so I guess that's a little work done for you. Depends how good the abstraction in the standard API is (eg *argh* Polygon and co-ordinate pairs... now what happens when not working in 2d?) > [...] I quoted Scheme instead of Prolog primarily to bait you, and > secondarily because I thought more people might have heard of it. > If Scheme is nothing like either L or P I will go and hide under a rock. Normally a plonking offence, but Scheme is a lot tidier than Lisp in that a lot of the old stuff that's there for compatibility is gone, as well as some Lisp features not being in the core of Scheme. The standards are 50 pages for Scheme and 1500 pages for Common Lisp... guess which is generally faster to run ;-) > Off the list, Mark, are there any instances where a task can only be done > using closures, or using a closure enhances efficiency? [...] It's just a quick one, so I'll put it in here. Closures make caching easy, eg (pseudocode gratis): (define cachedretr ; want more scheme? http://www.schemers.org/ (let ((cache '())) ; oooh, a variable initialised to be an empty list (lambda (id) ; the variable is in-scope in here but nowhere else ; get data and add it to the cache if it's not there and fresh ; return data from cache ))) cache is something more than a per-function private variable, I think. > And what the heck are continuations and first-class procedures? Continuations are the future of a program at a given point. Procedures being first-class means being able to treat them as any other variable. Both features can be used for very neat tricks. No, it's not an everyday thing, but they're useful to have in the toolbox. Anyway, I suspect Scheme is on at least as many Linux boxes as Java... -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Re: [Alug] CS students vs Engineers
by MJ Ray 15 Sep '01

15 Sep '01

Adam Bower <abower(a)thebowery.co.uk> writes: > I am not an authority on this either and could someone please correct > me if I am wrong but I think people should only be using the > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk address as the uea one is no longer supported? Indeed. I found out yesterday that stu.uea.ac.uk will cease to be before the end of the year. UEA's computing service has changed its position on a number of issues, so removing the need for it. > Anyway on with my reply :) No. Please reply twice. The reply to main should just say that you are replying to social and people should follow the discussion over there. This is now wildly off-topic for main. -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Re: [Alug] Intro & Linux CD question
by MJ Ray 15 Sep '01

15 Sep '01

First up, welcome to the group. Maybe we'll see you at Syleham on Sunday? I think the Debian talks are postponed until UEA, when we should be able to sink our claws into a Debian developer too. "Edenyard" <mail(a)edenyard.co.uk> writes: > My problem is that I can get neither the new Slack or Debian to > install. Booting from CD, they both get to a stage early on where the PC > locks up solidly with the CD and HDD lights on permanently. I can swithc > consoles (Alt-F2 etc.) and one of the consoles sometimes says 'hdc > interrupt lost'. [...] Well, it sounds like a hardware problem, or at least the boot kernel being incompatible with your hardware. The debian CDs should each have different kernels on and I think it might be worth your while trying the one with the "compact" or "idepci" kernels to see if that gets you any further. I've not seen this error before, I'm afraid. > So my question really is: has anyone else ever had this problem and, > if so, was it fixable? Or should I just stump up for a proper boxed set > of Slack 7.1 from a reliable vendor? Who is a reliable vendor? Is Debian > also available as a boxed set? Debian is available as a boxed set, but the extra money goes as a donation to their holding company, rather than buying support, I believe. You could try a debian derivative such as Progeny (anyone tried this recently?) Good suppliers include cheeplinux and Linux Emporium. Both offer a speedy service and decent discs. -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Intro & Linux CD question
by Edenyard 15 Sep '01

15 Sep '01

Dear List, "Introduce yourself", the subscription notice said - so here goes: I'm relatively new to Linux, having started dabbling about three months ago with an old Slack 3.5 set that was lying around. I became interested in Linux because I'm a dyed-in-the-wool DOS man. We don't allow windoze stuff on the premises here. Because my work is in semiconductors, I need to be able to read .PDF files (data sheets, etc.) and such support as there is for DOS in that format is woefully behind the times - hence Linux! I'm located in east Suffolk as a one-and-a-half-man band control systems design company. Here's my (first) question: I got on well with the Slack 3.5 that I mentioned earlier but was frustrated that I seemingly couldn't add newer programmes (e.g., acroread) to it. Someone gave me Redhat 7.1 to try and I got on better with adding 'extras', but it seemed so bloated and slow (I'm using a P166, 64Mb RAM & SVGA). Since I liked the feel of Slack 3.5, I decided to get a set of newer Slack CDs and ended up with a 3-CD Slack 7.1 set. I got those, and also a 3-CD Debian 2.2r3 set from an outfit called Crazy Penguin, by following a link from the UK Linux Groups page (where I also found ALUG, incidentally). My problem is that I can get neither the new Slack or Debian to install. Booting from CD, they both get to a stage early on where the PC locks up solidly with the CD and HDD lights on permanently. I can swithc consoles (Alt-F2 etc.) and one of the consoles sometimes says 'hdc interrupt lost'. I've tried copying the relevant files to a DOS HD partition and installing from there. The process gets a bit further than with booting from CD but it seems that when it needs BIG files from the CD, it hangs up. I tried making some floppies with Slack 7.1 using RAWRITE.EXE under DOS, but RAWRITE caused a QEMM exception. I wondered whether the CDs may be perhaps unreadable, so I tried copying everything from the CD to a DOS HD on my work machine using Xtree and it all copied without any errors. Thinking that my Linux PC was dying, I moved to yet another machine but that gave me the same results. I went back and tried re-installing the old Slack 3.5 and that went through like clockwork. So I tried re-installing Redhat 7.1 and that installed properly, too, so I'm fairly sure that all my hardware is up to scratch. The old Slack 3.5 RAWRITE.EXE works properly, too. The only common clue to the new Slack 7 and Debian failures is that they both came from this Crazy Penguin outfit and look like they're home-made CDs (titles written untidily by hand across disk top surface). So my question really is: has anyone else ever had this problem and, if so, was it fixable? Or should I just stump up for a proper boxed set of Slack 7.1 from a reliable vendor? Who is a reliable vendor? Is Debian also available as a boxed set? Any clues/help would be very greatly appreciated. Sorry that my first message has been so LONG!! All the best, Gerald Pye mail(a)edenyard.co.uk

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bt in surrey
by Chris Brown 15 Sep '01

15 Sep '01

I have just relocated to Surrey and have spent the last 4 days scratching my head over the port not connected error under windows ( no problem under Linux ! ) . I even resorted to Fdisk and a clean install....... twice! Lucky I still recieve the ALUG list or the Modem was heading for the skip ! Have just rung BT and they are looking into it ( as if they have not heard of the problem already ). Maybe I shall be brave and go for a clean Suse install and just skip the W2k Cd...... Chris Brown

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Test Please delete
by oms101＠freeuk.com 14 Sep '01

14 Sep '01

This is a test to see if I am still A subscribed to this list B) now only getting one copy of each email not two Soryy for the incovenience Owen Date: 14-Sep-01 Time: 17:40:37

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Re Students vs Engineers
by tom potts 13 Sep '01

13 Sep '01

One of the problems is you're not timed at university. I was one of the 'Oh God Its Easter!' crowd and found it amusing that some people worked 16hrs a day for three years to obtain 3% higher marks (the difference between a 1st and a 2:ii my year). Unfortunately these people get good jobs and never forget to hate us that have fun! However I do remember I could miss more lectures in a week than an English student had in a term. But remember genius may be 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration but that inspiration invariably comes when your not perspiring. Laziness IS the mother of invention Tom ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie

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Re: [Alug] Re: CS students vs Engineers
by MJ Ray 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

This is another discussion that would be better off moving to social, I guess. -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Re: [Alug] Re: CS students vs Engineers
by Ricardo Campos 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

>I don't agree with that, a friend got a 3rd, and I consider him way >above me in most things (yeah that's you bing ;) >In my opinion, just because someone has a degree dosen't mean they have >more experience/knowledge than somebody else. Some of the most >knowledgeable people I know didn't go to uni. I agree! I did well at university, but it only means that I am smart enough to pretend to be smart- by thinking in a way predefined as 'correct' by my professors, most of which could tell you almost everything about a certain chemical reaction or whatever, but couldn't remember to do up their flies, and let themselves dangle out. As for grades... they don't really matter too much either, you can do absoloutely bugger all work and still do well, you just have to be cunning. Look at all the f*ckwits on graduate schemes for big companies- surely they are reason enough to take academic results with a ton of salt?! Wouldn't it be better to choose employees very specifically on their personal merits and abilities- these things you can't tell by looking on paper. A lazy but smart person can do well, and a hard-working but 'not as a bright' person can do well also. Which would you rather have? They are not simply the same in the workplace, whereas under our normal examination techniques they are. Besides which, you only begin to ACTUALLY learn about real-life AFTER uni, and this includes vocational skills. Of course, this is all coming from an academically brilliant but exceptionally lazy person who can't even tell his *rse from his elbow... Kinda shooting myself in the foot, methinks. ;P Well, I'm not looking for a job... yet... ;D _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Anyone interested in playing Wireless LANs on Sunday ?
by Peter Onion 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

I have a few (3) Lucent orinoco IEEE802.11b pcmcia cards and one SMC 2602W (SMC2632W in a PCI-PCMCIA bridge card) which I can bring along if others are interested in playing wireless lans. The SMC card will run as a acess point using the wlan drivers. I have had it working here so I'll make sure I bring any required drivers etc with me. Peter Onion.

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Re: [Alug] Debian CDs and Alien
by Ricardo Campos 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

Damn this IE business! Unfortunately, I sometimes cannot read parts of webpages... this includes my hotmails, but it's intermittent. So *NOW* I see you're away on sunday. I can mail you the CD's if you want, but in that case I *would* like something in return. :p -Ricardo _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Re: [Alug] Debian CDs and Alien
by Ricardo Campos 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

>Or of course we can run a kind of Sneaker net, in that someone near >Norwich (this includes me) can take the CDs from Ricardo and pass them on >to Alexis when they are in Norwich. I'm in Norwich, although I'm pretty busy at the mo. But I don't really mind dropping it off if you're in central norwich (I live off Dereham rd.) Ricardo _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Re: [Alug] Debian CDs and Alien
by Ricardo Campos 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

If you're at the lug meet on sunday, you can have Progeny for free! :) (well, you can cover all 60p of the costs for the two CD's!!) I have a CD burner and an always-on internet conn at work! ;) Ricardo, "Surely this monstrous hybrid comes not from a mother's womb but from an Ephialtes, an Incubus, or some other horrendous demon, as though spawned in a putrid and venemous fungus, son of Fauns and Nymphs, more Devil than man." -Athanasius Kircher, Mundus Subtarraneus, Amsterdam, 1665, pp.279-280 Coming soon: http://www.rscampos.net/blog.html _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Debian CDs and Alien
by Alexis Lee 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

Having nuked my Mandrake the other day trying to install Debian from floppy (bah humbug cfdisk), I'm impatient to get _something_ working. I could get Progeny, and hence a nice installer, for £10 plus postage. Or I could get the first official non-US for just postage, or all 6 official non-US for £10. Not being so bothered about source I won't read anyway, I'm cool on the last option, but it does have two extra CDs of 'stuff'. Anyone got opinions of which of these is the best bang for buck? Is the Progeny installer worth the CD it's burnt on? Do the extra 2 CDs have worth while stuff on them? If I can get away with it, it'd be neat to get the single CD and use alien to install lots of packages from my Mandrake CDs. How good is alien? It sounds quite promising actually, but do packages built with it update all the right dbs? Oh and of course, if anyone is willing to post or pop round CDs to Norwich, I'd be grateful. Can't make this meeting 'cause I'm in Holland, and I want something done before the next one so I can start setting up OpenGL again. Alexis -- "You got what everyone gets. A lifetime." - Death (Sandman by Neil Gaiman) "I respect faith, but doubt is what gives you an education" - Wilson Mizner "It doesn't matter who you vote for. The government always gets in."

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Re: [Alug] XSL Formatting Objects Question - Setting Document Defaults
by MJ Ray 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

Alexis Lee <alexis(a)turton.com> writes: > But then, it would be much neater to have a Cache object. What is a Cache object? Yes, that's a philosophical question ;-) > Depends whether you count the JRE included in browsers. And whether Guile > is Scheme or not- I think Gnome uses Guile for something, so that would up > numbers a lot. Yep, Guile is Scheme. And how many current browsers include JREs? Isn't that a dying trend? Java is surely a language which has had its day in the sun... now to see how it weathers a winter. > Incidentally Mark, as a reward for getting this far I'll admonish you to > make the URLs on your homepage relative. They're all at cloaked still. Huh? My personal site is entertainingly broken at the moment (try it in moz), but I don't recall there being any non-relative internal URLs on it, as that's a pet hate of mine. -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Re: The Economics of Reproduction
by John Seago 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

The following site may be of some relevance/Interest to the abovementioned article: http://freenet.sourceforge.net/ Or perhaps I miss the point of the article, I apologise if I am preaching to the converted. John

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Re: [Alug] Re: Debian Difficulties
by MJ Ray 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

"Earl Brannigan" <earl.brannigan(a)lindenhouse.co.uk> writes: > 2)Still can't get X to work for anyone other than root, despite hours of > info reading (X is very well documented but still not very easy to follow. I > now know that there are a number of files that need setting up in the users > directory, but its a bit of a scary one. I'll post something when I have a > resolution. Shouldn't need any files in the user dir if you set the /etc/X11 files up correctly. Some of them, like Xsession.options, have their own debian man pages. Quite what the problem could be, I can't think. > 4)I had been having some probs with apt-get / dselect and found that having > the update cdrom (Linux Expo 2001) referenced in /etc/apt/sources.list was > causing dselect to 'suggest' upgrading all sorts. I don't like dselect. console-apt/capt works far better for me. > The only weak points with dpkg and dselect though is finding a package that > supplies a file dpkg -S file ? > Observations on a week in debian land : > 1)Debian is not for the beginner nor the faint hearted. Maybe not. People are working on it, though. > 2)Debian does not pretend to be for the beginner or the faint hearted. It desires to be. > 3)Debian likes to scare the faint hearted and make beginners suffer. Nonsense! Beginners are reluctant to report bugs, though. > 5)My back aches, my neck aches, my eyes are tired, I need sleep. Your hands are aching and your knees are raw? -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Debian talk Sunday
by Adam Bower 12 Sep '01

12 Sep '01

Hi all, I am very sorry but I don't think that the Debian talk I was planning to give will take place this Sunday. The main reason being that I have been rather ill since a few days after coming back from Belgium, some others who were there have also reported the same so it is not just open source software we share :-) I do hope that I recover enough to get the talk together but I find that unlikely at the moment. I will of course make sure that the talk happens at the next meeting after Syleham though. If you still want me to do things to your computer involving Debian though I would be very happy to do so :-) Thanks Adam PS I managed to hack a Bios update for my Vaio so I no longer need a USB floppy drive... -- This message is Copyleft - all rights reversed Adam

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Mandrake 8
by John Seago 11 Sep '01

11 Sep '01

Having managed to thoroughly cock up both the software and hardware on my computer, to the extent that Chris, had to dismantle it put the hard drive into his and then heal its wounds, the reconstructed box is now working with windows on the first disk. Trying to reinstall Mandrake 8, I found that it would go as far as the point where it needs to access the CD and then get stuck, Chris's diagnosis is that Mandrake can only see a CD Drive that is a secondary slave instead of as it is now set up the secondary master. Has anyone any suggestions, or come across this problem before? I do have disks for Red Hat, but on my machine, when trying to install at 'lowres' the screen displays black text on nearly black background, and is thus unreadable. The more exciting disks, Slackware 8, Debian, Progeny, are beyond my capabilities and being saved for the long winter learning process. John Seago

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sundays meeting- lift sought
by Michelle Louise Oelschig 11 Sep '01

11 Sep '01

Hello There Have recently joined this mailing list... am resident in Ipswich near Christchurch Park, and would like to attend sunday's meeting, but lack transport and am totally unfamiliar with the area having recently moved here from South Africa. If anyone reading this lives in the Ipswich area and could offer me a lift, i would be grateful. Many Thanks, Mici Oelschig ____ "Beyond the door Strange cruel beautiful years are waiting for you..." -Johnny Clegg

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Announce digest, Vol 1 #3 - 5 msgs
by announce-request＠lists.alug.org.uk 11 Sep '01

11 Sep '01

Send Announce mailing list submissions to announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/announce or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to announce-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk You can reach the person managing the list at announce-admin(a)lists.alug.org.uk When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Announce digest..." *** Please send replies to main(a)lists.alug.org.uk, not announce... *** oMMMoMo Mo MMMMMMMoMo " "o"o"o"o oMMMoMoM oMMMMMM"MMM" " " " " " "o"o "oMMMoMMM " oMo"M"oo MM" " MoMoMMMMMMM oM " " "oMMM " " MoMMMMMoMoMoooo Mo MMM MoMoMMMMMoMMMMM o" MoM " MoMM "MMo"oMoMMMoM"" MM " MMMMo MMMMMoMMMMMM" oM " MoMMM MMMoMMMo"MM Mo" "MMoMo ooMMMMMMMoMo" oMo oMoMMM " "oMoMMMoMoMo MoM oMoMMM MMMMMMMMMoMMM "oM oMoMMM "M"M"MMoMMMo" " o "oo " MMMM" MMMMMoMoM o" " "oM " " " "o MMMoMMMo"o M " oM " " MMMMMMMoMo o" "oMoMoooMo" " o " " MMoMMMoMoMo " "o"o MM"""""""oM oM " "MMo oMMMMMoMMMoMo " """ """ " o"MMMMoMMMoMMMo"MMo"o" o o o oo MMMMMMoMMMoMMMoMoMo MMMMM MMMo oMMM MMMo MMoMMM oMoMMMoMMMoMMMoMMMo"o oMMMMM MMMo oMMM "MMo MMM "MM MMMMMMMoMMMMMMMoMMMM" " " MMo"MMo MMMo oMM" MMMo oMM" """ " MoMMMoMMMoMMMo" " " MMMoMMMo MMMo oMM" MMMo oMM"oMoMo " "MMoMMMoMMM " " MMMMMMMo MMMo oMM" MMMo oMM" "MM oMMMoMoMoMMMoMMMoMo" " oMM" "oMM" "MMMMM" "MMMMM" MMMoMM" ooMMMMMMMoMMMMMMMoMMMoMo "M" " " " " " """ """ "oM """oMM" " " "MMoMMMoMMMoMM" " " " " " " " alug-announce : The Newsletter of the Anglian Linux User Group Today's Topics: 1. Apologies for the last newsletter (MJ Ray) 2. Realtime and Embedded Linux shows (MJ Ray) 3. The economics of free reproduction (MJ Ray) 4. [cedric.gauthier(a)soissons-technopole.org] [uklugs] European Free Software Contest (MJ Ray) 5. UK leafletting campaign, Saturday 15th (MJ Ray) --__--__-- Message: 1 To: announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk From: MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> Organization: Cat-killingly bad Date: 02 Sep 2001 19:57:27 +0100 Subject: [Alug Announce] Apologies for the last newsletter Sorry about the slight error in the last edition which saw it go out as two single-article messages. The new list server works in a different way and it tricked me. I now (hopefully) return you to your normal service. --__--__-- Message: 2 To: announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk From: MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> Organization: Cat-killingly bad Date: 08 Sep 2001 10:09:45 +0100 Subject: [Alug Announce] Realtime and Embedded Linux shows Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2001 15:52:12 +0200 From: Astrid Schoofs <astrids(a)aexpo.com> Subject: Realtime and Embedded Linux shows Dear Sir, Please find out our show schedule for our Real Time Computing & Embedded Linux Expo's and Conferences. You are free to registrate as a visitor!! At www.aexpo.com or www.rtcgroup.com under SOLUTIONS you will find all the shows, seminars and conferences. The fist show is in LONDON, October 9th 2001. Thank you for forwarding this to your members, kind regards, Astrid Schoofs Sales & Marketing Manager ACTIVE Exhibitions Europe PO Box 2114 5300 CC Zaltbommel The Netherlands Phone: +31.418.577700 Direct Phone: +31.418.577713 Fax: +31.418.577720 E-mail: astrids(a)aexpo.com Internet: http://www.aexpo.com/ --__--__-- Message: 3 To: announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk From: MJ Ray <markj(a)cloaked.freeserve.co.uk> Organization: Cat-killingly bad Date: 10 Sep 2001 01:32:58 +0100 Subject: [Alug Announce] The economics of free reproduction

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Re: Debian Difficulties
by Earl Brannigan 11 Sep '01

11 Sep '01

Hi all first of all thanks to all who posted replies on this. Thought I'd post a brief overview of my current situ : 1)wvdial/ppp now works well, except for one small problem - my modem driver displays an error when it is loaded to say that it is built for kernel 2.2.18 while I am running 2.2.19pre3. This would be an obvious problem were it not that I compiled it myself the night before last using the kernel-headers package I have installed (perhaps I have mis-installed??? - must check!!!). Anyways, apart from that there are no probs. Getting this to work involved using the dialout group with a little messing with privs to ensure only dialout users and root may access the modem, ppp and wvidial and associated scripts/configfiles. I'm just going to audit this setup a bit - if anyone would like a listing of what I did I'll be glad to send it. 2)Still can't get X to work for anyone other than root, despite hours of info reading (X is very well documented but still not very easy to follow. I now know that there are a number of files that need setting up in the users directory, but its a bit of a scary one. I'll post something when I have a resolution. Meanwhile, if anyone is willing to send me their ~/.X* files of a bog-standard user to use/study as a base I would greatly appreciate it, I'm running XFree86-3.x.(I would rather not use the root ones that I have in case I inadvertantly create an X session ready to yield root privs to any tom/dick/harry who knows how). 3)I now have a full kernel build environment setup. Not realising the existence of make-kpkg I was off on good old make. Have to say that make-kpkg is the biz. - whaddya mean RTFM !!? I *know* how to build a kernel...!!!!..... int BuryHead(TSand _sand, THead _head){ return (_sand += _head); } ;o) 4)I had been having some probs with apt-get / dselect and found that having the update cdrom (Linux Expo 2001) referenced in /etc/apt/sources.list was causing dselect to 'suggest' upgrading all sorts. dselect specifies a keystroke shift-D which never seemed to fix it - any time I went to install there would always be a long list of packages to remove, even though I hadn't specified them. Commenting out the lines referring to the update cdrom then doing apt-get update did fix things however. Now if I want something off the update cdrom I uncomment the relevant line in sources.list, apt-get update, then apt-get install <package> and all is well. The only caveat is that when I run dselect with the lines commented out anything that I have installed from the update cdrom is listed in the obsolete section.... The point is I suppose that when installing the base debian system from the installer its best to keep the update cdrom out of the way until you are happy with the base, then let dpkg see the update cdrom if you want to. The only weak points with dpkg and dselect though is finding a package that supplies a file (a la : rpm -qa --provides <file>). I'm sure that if it can do this its in the docs but I haven't found it yet. Observations on a week in debian land : 1)Debian is not for the beginner nor the faint hearted. 2)Debian does not pretend to be for the beginner or the faint hearted. 3)Debian likes to scare the faint hearted and make beginners suffer. 4)I Have been suffering a little but I am not scared just yet. 5)My back aches, my neck aches, my eyes are tired, I need sleep. 6)Debian Rocks - anything that can keep me away from the TV/Guitar/Pub for 4 Nights in a row - despite annoying the hell out of me and keeping me awake until some ungodly hours drinking coffee and eating dodgy biscuits has got to be good. Cheers all, sorry 'bout the essay. Earl

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Re: [Alug] XSL Formatting Objects Question - Setting Document Defaults
by MJ Ray 11 Sep '01

11 Sep '01

Alexis Lee <alexis(a)turton.com> writes: > And what the heck are continuations and first-class procedures? news:<nm9d74ztbvn.fsf(a)kindness.mit.edu> might be interesting -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Re: [Alug] XSL Formatting Objects Question - Setting Document Defaults
by MJ Ray 11 Sep '01

11 Sep '01

<pontification> Steve Fosdick <fozzy(a)pelvoux.demon.co.uk> writes: > 2. Including much more useful functionality in the standard > library (such as a GUI toolkit) which means that many more things > are done in a standard way. I actually see this as a *disadvantage*. What I like in a language is a small, compact, memorable, consistent, very standard core -- not the acres of libraries which make up the current standard Java. I'm still plodding through texts... as soon as I think I know roughly what's available, someone seems to invent more ;-) Neill Newman <neill(a)entora.co.uk> writes: > yes, Bill Joy (the main guy who wrote Java, or oak as it was origionally > called) didn't like the way in which OO was bolted on to C to form part > of C++. C++ -- tying legs onto a dog and calling it an octopus. Now where's that quote from? > I believe he also took on board the concept of garbage collection, > memory management, and a clean OO design from smalltalk and other > languages. Is Java really a "clean OO design from smalltalk"? Is there a non-trivial superclass which is an ancestor of everything? int? > I would not entirely agree that the Java API is as extensive as C/C++ or > other languages. There are some things that are very very dificult to > achieve using Java, and what seems like a simple task in one language > /can/ be very dificult in Java if it is not part of the API. An advantage of starting with a ball of mud is that no matter how much mud you add to it, you still have a ball of mud. If you start with a diamond and add mud, you have a muddy diamond. (Paraphrasing from a programming textbook I once read.) Alexis Lee <alexis(a)turton.com> writes: > C++ is a decent language if you know what you're doing. Think of it as a > stallion, compared to Java's compliant mare. Sometimes you need to wrastle, > but it always has the power. Oh, and while it will never refuse a jump, it > might get both your necks broken when you fu. Nice image. Sorry, I just wanted to quote that. > [...] This gives performance near equal to C, and (wild unfounded > guess) probably much better than any loose-typed or > philosophy-designed language like PHP or Scheme. "I think PHP could become the BASIC of the next Years" -- Thies, PHP maintainer. You actually slight Scheme very badly here, you know. Yes, you'd expect me to say that, but even so! Putting it with PHP? I read the report today showing a scheme webserver outperforming a PHP one by 2:1... lies, damn lies and benchmarks perhaps, but PHP is really not in the same ball-park. Also, you can get strictly-typed optimised schemes. Or schemes implemented in Java (Kawa, BRL, Silk). Careful what you say when you don't know ;-) These Java programmers of Scheme are probably trying to counteract the problems, for there are many: Java still doesn't have closures, continuations, first-class procedures... </pontification> -- MJR Thesis watch: 27% This is my personal web site =-> http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ http://www.alug.org.uk/ <-- This is the LUG I go to I work for this clever internet developer ==> http://www.luminas.co.uk/

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Re: [Alug] gunzip/tars
by Ricardo Campos 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

Oops! Sorry, a case of RTFM!!!!!! Ricardo, "Surely this monstrous hybrid comes not from a mother's womb but from an Ephialtes, an Incubus, or some other horrendous demon, as though spawned in a putrid and venemous fungus, son of Fauns and Nymphs, more Devil than man." -Athanasius Kircher, Mundus Subtarraneus, Amsterdam, 1665, pp.279-280 _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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