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Disappearing messages
by Adam Bower 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

David mentioned earlier that he saw a reply to a message he sent before the message turned up and the same has happended to me several times now today. Is this affecting anyone else? Adam -- This message is Copyleft - all rights reversed Adam

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Re: Microsoft is right Re: [Alug] Microsoft FUD
by MJ Ray 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

David Freeman <david_freeman(a)rocketmail.com> writes: > 2)And how much does it cost to employ a MSCE certified tech to run the > NT servers which need more care than a *nix box? Amen. Sadly it seems to mean the nux admins are losing permanent jobs again, though. Maybe that's just what I'm seeing, or maybe we're about to have a resurgence where they *stop* employing busloads of NT/2k admins to patch that service together and employ nux admins to roll out a stable service. > 4)Lack of availble software, on this one they are right, there is > limited stuff for an epos system to use. But for office/desktop and > server applications there are loads of pkgs avaible for free! I thought EPoS had a few options (some commercial) on Linux now, including those used by some large chains. The details elude me, as it's not something I have much of an interest in just now, so I don't pay much attention to it. > 8)Increased labour costs? now this one could be fair, but I don't see > it as much of a problem, but spending money on lots of licenses for > each user will cost more! Wait until they get sued for the mental anguish of 2k/NT admins ;-) > 9)LIMITED DEVELOPER TOOLS! what bollocks, I have on my machine some of > the best tools on the planet with much nicer Ui and better EOU, GCC > with Vi and GDB is everything I need and more with out spending a > penny. Atleast I don't need to spend out on a new compiler every so > often! I've been doing some UI work again (cue flame from Brett) and I'm quite happy with the results so far, if I do say so myself. Anyone else out there tried ROX, http://rox.sourceforge.net/, yet? At last someone's taking the good ideas from RISCOS. > As for the subject, Microsoft are right on a couple of small points, > but it all comes down to how you massage the facts. Anything is > provable given enough imagination. Nothing is provable except logic. Everything else just gathers empirical evidence until it is disproved. -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] Virus on Linux?
by brodders＠cwcom.net 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

This is useful: http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue65/lg_toc65.html "A Private Home Network" By Jan Stumpel Here, Jan goes though the steps needed to isolate a linbox from the outside world & still be able to use internet. Some other good articles in that issue too. Steve >on Fri, Jun 22, 2001 at 09:18:51AM +0100, Vanisa Surapipith scribbled: >> >> Can virus attact a linux system? People with MSWindows are constantly >> affected and need to update their Norton or McAfee virus scanner. Is there >> a similar thing in linux world? >> > >Yes. <http://www.big.net.au/~silvio/> >However initial infection can be harder because of the multiuser nature of >gnu/linux (and peer review). Worms are far more common. ><http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,5080656,00.html> ><http://www.computeruser.com/news/01/01/23/news13.html> > >If you have a high amount of bandwidth, or your isp provides a service such as >cable, you are likely to get scanned (I do atleast once every two days or so) >whether the scan is for open netbios shares or the latest s'kiddie 0day. > >If you do minimal as root, then you significantly reduce the affect of any >infection. Avoiding inherently buggy programs is another useful thing (eg, >wuftpd, pine, bind, vixie's cron, uw imap, qpopper, sendmail). Running minimal >services exposed to the outside world is a must. > >There are scanners, but an ids might be more useful if you're especially paranoid >about such things (snort! rocks. <http://www.snort.org/>) although there is a >tendancy for turning up false positives. > > > >_______________________________________________ >alug, the Anglian Linux User Group list >Send list replies to alug(a)stu.uea.ac.uk >http://www.anglian.lug.org.uk/ http://rabbit.stu.uea.ac.uk/cgi-bin/listinfo/alug >See the website for instructions on digest or unsub! >

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Insurance Co. charges more if a company uses NT than Open Source
by George Waring 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

See: http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2766275,00.html Offered in counter-point to the M$ claim that was made in "That Word Document." The greater security that M$ claims with their OS is not making much of an impression in the insurance industry. Insurance against the damages caused by hacking bears a 5 to 15% higher premium for Windows NT. George.

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Virus on Linux?
by Vanisa Surapipith 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

Hello, I just join ALUG and have a newly installed Red Hat 7.1 on my PC. I hope to explore it fully but there comes a concern on virus. Can virus attact a linux system? People with MSWindows are constantly affected and need to update their Norton or McAfee virus scanner. Is there a similar thing in linux world? Cheers, Vanisa. &------------------------------------------------------------------------& Ms Vanisa Surapipith (Research Postgraduate) School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia, Norwich, Norfolk /_____T NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom. (x)\/(x) ~~~~~~~~

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Re: [Alug] Virus on Linux?
by MJ Ray 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

Vanisa Surapipith <V.Surapipith(a)uea.ac.uk> writes: > Can virus attact a linux system? People with MSWindows are constantly > affected and need to update their Norton or McAfee virus scanner. Is there > a similar thing in linux world? Viruses could exist on Linux, but they would have trouble infecting other users on the same system, assuming most of your programs are installed as root and you log in as another user. That's why people say you should be very cautious about doing anything other than the bare minimum as root. Worms and intrusions are more common. That's why everyone says to keep up to date with patches and security updates. As your machine was professionally installed, I assume they installed all known security updates? With RedHat, I don't know if there's an automated tool with it, but you can keep safe by reading either the "Security" page of LWN, http://lwn.net/ (out every Thursday), or the regular Security newsletter (out most Saturdays) from http://www.linuxsecurity.com/ -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] Documentation, network cards and printers
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

David Freeman wrote: >Network cards: This was what was stopping me getting my printer to >work, my FA311 is dud, the 3Com card works fine, but only at 10Mbps :o( I ought to be an expert on 3com card configuration by now. Is it a 509? have you tried either using the debian 3c5x9utils or the 3c5x9config dos batch file where you can change the card settings? Or more simply, isn't there a config file hanging round somewhere where you specify whether the card will use 10Mbps or 100 or whatever? Jenny

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RE: Microsoft FUD
by Earl Brannigan 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

Hi all, Had to download that article .... fantastic! (Literally.... pure fantasy). Just a comment, the output from running strings on it is actually visible via the document properties if you have MS WORD -file->properties->custom (I'm writing this at work.) Just for clarity , the line "our latest anti-linux paper" is actually the _EmailSubject property. Huh? Well, that means it was the working title used whenever the document was emailed internally. Thus (presumably) it wasn't meant to remain with the article, ... M$ are quite adept at this 'small oversite' completely destroying their arguments thing, ie. No need to read the article, you can see where its coming from. But it will be intersting to check back in a week or so and see if this line has been removed.... cheers Earl

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Its interesting that M$ now appear to be getting very worried about
by tom potts 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

Seems to have found a good way to stop penguins doing anything useful... Do we need to preach to the converted? 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: Microsoft FUD
by MJ Ray 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

"John Seago" <john.seago(a)btinternet.com> writes: > Railing against the defensive manoeuvres of Microsoft does little for your > stress levels and nothing to defeat their public relations drive. Talking about it inside groups like this releases the stress of having this sort of thing waved in our faces by the pointy haired ones, reminds us just *why* it's flawed and does less damage than talking about it in public. Then we can go out and put together some good pro-Linux material, right? (Hey, where's the stuff for the web site that people said they would do?... hrm, where's the piece I'm supposed to write, too? ;-) ) -- MJR

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Re: Microsoft FUD
by John Seago 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

Having read the comments on the Microsoft 'Press Release', May I make a comment? It appears to me that the way to deal with such matters is, as the Americans put it, 'not to get mad but to get even', the way to combat such propaganda is to counter it in public, not to execrate it in private. Promotion of an operating system with which you are all so obviously involved will do more good than venting your ire to each other. I finally took the plunge having read many of the 'Linux' web sites and installed a linux operating system on my computer. At the same time I managed to convince my daughter's boyfriend to do so on his. Each time you gather a new convert you are making another ally for the Free source/Open source movement which will, in time, I am sure become the prevailing operating system. Railing against the defensive manoeuvres of Microsoft does little for your stress levels and nothing to defeat their public relations drive. John Seago

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Re: [Alug] Microsoft FUD
by MJ Ray 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

David Freeman <david_freeman(a)rocketmail.com> writes: > The point is people will beleive him, why should they listen to a group > of geeks? What linux lacks is the marketing machine which can put out > the reverse FUD on MS and thus balance things? I've been quite impressed with the recent xinit and DNUK efforts, but they're still focusing on preaching to the choir in order to sell more of their machines. Hopefully one or both will start in the mainstream Real Soon Now. > [...] Will the mac > with linux/BSD/OS X be able to compete finally on the open market? No. > Apple have got the Ease of use thing down to an art, linux and the FS > communitee have power and reliability down to a tee, so why not mix > both together and we could then really rock the planet? Apple make some quite fundamental user interface errors in the more recent versions of their interface (it's a long time since 1984). I think that looking at all interfaces which have gone before and mixing bits up, picking the best from each, but focusing on simplicity, is the way to heaven. It's what I'm trying to do, anyway. I'll let you know if I succeed... ;-) -- MJR

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Re: Microsoft is right Re: [Alug] Microsoft FUD
by MJ Ray 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

Adam Bower <abower(a)thebowery.co.uk> writes: > I find it very amusing, to think that a few years ago M$ had their head in > the sand and issued statements along the lines of "Linux is for niche > markets" and "specialist applications" now they have to resort to lies. First they ignore you, etc. I like that phrase this week, don't I? -- MJR

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Re: [Alug] Microsoft FUD
by MJ Ray 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

Steve Fosdick <fozzy(a)pelvoux.demon.co.uk> writes: > Yes, there is more than one GUI toolkit, as it GNOME/KDE, and > though applications written for one toolkit are hard to port to the > other, each environment can run applications written for the other > one by installing the necessary libraries. Interesting. Isn't there also more than one interface library to the Windows toolkit? Is that significantly different from having a few different widget libraries? I only seem to use three with any regularity, anyway: GTK, Xaw and Tk. -- MJR

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pppd problem
by A Glover 22 Jun '01

22 Jun '01

Hi, (Im new to the list too!) After over a year away from Linux I decided to install it again, unfortunatly Ive forgotten how to fix small problems. The current one and im having no success finding an answer for is disconnecting straight away with pppd. Distribution is Debian, using the script pon.

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Microsoft FUD
by Adam Bower 21 Jun '01

21 Jun '01

Apologies if you have already seen this, but I had to post this link. This could be the document with the worst use of grammer (not that mine is great but then hey I'm not an advertising exec) and the greatest FUD (Fear Uncertainty Doubt) from Microsoft ever. Its interesting that M$ now appear to be getting very worried about Linux, where a few years ago they only called it a niche market that would never be serious competitor. http://www.microsoft.com/business/downloads/retail/linux_in_retail_and_hosp… oh yeah if you run strings against the doc you see these classic lines at the bottom :-) Our latest anti-linux paper.. timbel(a)microsoft.com Tim Belvin Microsoft Word Document MSWordDoc Word.Document.8 Adam -- This message is Copyleft - all rights reversed Adam

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Re: [Alug] New Member
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 21 Jun '01

21 Jun '01

Neill newman wrote: >I don't want to sound all high and mighty (because I'm not!), but imho >Mandrake is probably the best for beginners. Once they are up to speed >they can then explore other offerings... There are bound to be several re-installations...I started with Red Hat 6.2, installed EVERYTHING available not knowing which packages i would need, reinstalled a few times, played with it for 6 months, and then installed debian, with an absolute minimum. I probably wouldn't have liked to begin with debian - the install gave me some grief with various bits and pieces that i wouldn't have understood if i'd begun with it. Nutter wrote: >oh i also have bad spelling due to the fact im sydlxeci Oh, David and I got excited thinking there was another Ian M Banks fan in our midst ;-) I'm officially no longer the alug newbie now, then.....does this mean i don't have to bring buns and biscuits to the next meeting and make the tea???

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Re: [Alug] Microsoft FUD
by Jenny_Hopkins＠toby-churchill.com 21 Jun '01

21 Jun '01

In reply to Adam's link: Whoever wrote that sounds like a petulant child and bullshitter of the first degree, wonder what he got paid to spout that one out? (I'd have done it for a few grand less....) Seriously, that does have a desperate tone to it. D'you think Bill sees his profit margin decreasing to just the few hundred billion? Just remember, all, - Linux is NOT FREE, your system can be hacked into by ANYONE due to the open source software, and there are NO DRIVERS for ANY of it so it WON'T WORK. The trouble is, of course, that there are a lot of people out there who will read that and believe it. When I first installed linux, the attitude from my peers (and the now infamous windows network administrator..) was "what do you want to go back to that old command-line shit again for? There aren't any applications written for linux, and no drivers...."; an opinion based on articles such as these rather than any known facts. (The same people are now beginning to say they fancy having a look round linux in slightly more impressed tones, you'll be glad to hear). We need a good hacker to hack up a link on that ms page to The Truth. Jen

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Re: [Alug] Hello im new =)
by NuTTeR =) 21 Jun '01

21 Jun '01

>Allegro as in lisp? >Can't spell? You'll fit in on IRC ;-) >Greetings from North End. >-- >MJR No allegro as in the C games programming lib. Its multi platform windowz, QNX, DOS, BEos, MAC and Linux witch is good coz that way there are loadz of games the can just be ported with little trouble... well unless they decided to use some platform specific stuff(DirecX). Try www.allegro.cc its not the official site but has loads of games listed (most with code =). Ye IRC'z ok but i gota use mirc =( coz i dont have my linux machine connected. lol don't think the rest of my family would like an old version of linux the next time they try to do some work on it. hhhmm that's a point is there any linux programs that can make MS word readable files? i think i have been told about one be4... just cant remember much about it =( Dennis -- _______________________________________________ Get your free email from http://www.graffiti.net Powered by Outblaze

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New Member
by John Seago 21 Jun '01

21 Jun '01

I understand that an introduction is usual. I would seem to be somewhat out of the usual run of your membership, in that that my only experience of computers is that of using one to write papers for publication, letters and articles, (and their associated filing) and the maintenance of records of my finances. I only came to the use of a computer as some of the periodicals I wrote for stated requesting their copy on floppy disk or by Email, I have had experience of Email which is best counted in days rather than weeks. It is my experience of Email and the propensity for windows to shut down when dialling in that has caused me to seek to install and learn to use Linux which is reputed to be more stable. My level of expertise extends to being able to work the keyboard and the various on/off switches, but I am prepared to learn. It appears to me that I would make an ideal test-bed for the use of the various forms of Linux as if you can get me to be able to use it with some facility then it should be suitable for more general use. I have already managed to convince my prospective son-in-law of its value and he has it installed on his computer, we look forward to learning together. John Seago

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Printer trouble still
by David Freeman 21 Jun '01

21 Jun '01

HELP, Fozzy and adam got my printer working at the weekend but now it wont work properly. Fozzy what did you do to get it to work? It gives the same error it gave before "Connection refused: jobs queued, Can't start Daemon" Thanks D __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

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Hello im new =)
by NuTTeR =) 21 Jun '01

21 Jun '01

Well the subject says it all realy :) im new to linux started with a slackware distrib a few mounths ago(kernal 1.12) but recently got a copy of an new'ish redhat 5.1... well not that new but at least itll compile nmap and allegro so im happy. Well im just a computing student at kings lynn with an interest in linux and computing in genral(i do have a *life* out side of computing as well...). oh i also have bad spelling due to the fact im sydlxeci ;) ill have to try your irc room some time. Dennis -- _______________________________________________ Get your free email from http://www.graffiti.net Powered by Outblaze

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Re: [Alug] Hello im new =)
by MJ Ray 21 Jun '01

21 Jun '01

David Freeman <david_freeman(a)rocketmail.com> writes: > > student at kings lynn with an interest in linux and computing in > > genral(i do have a *life* out side of computing as well...). [...] > I'm sure that if you give someone your address they can send you a > Debian CD. Actually, King's Lynn, so I can drop one through the door in a few days (less than a week, surely) if you send me the address off-list. -- MJR

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BBC computer looking for home...
by Neil Sedger 20 Jun '01

20 Jun '01

I was going to trash it, but with this talk about a BBC web browser... free to whoever can be bothered to pick it up (Norwich Golden Triangle). BBC Master, one of them cubular 14" monitors, disk drive... Neil

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Hello im new =)
by NuTTeR =) 20 Jun '01

20 Jun '01

Well the subject says it all realy :) im new to linux started with a slackware distrib a few mounths ago(kernal 1.12) but recently got a copy of an new'ish redhat 5.1... well not that new but at least itll compile nmap and allegro so im happy. Well im just a computing student at kings lynn with an interest in linux and computing in genral(i do have a *life* out side of computing as well...). oh i also have bad spelling due to the fact im sydlxeci ;) ill have to try your irc room some time. Dennis -- _______________________________________________ Get your free email from http://www.graffiti.net Powered by Outblaze

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