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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/

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Suggestions: newsletter, IRC and name changes?
by MJ Ray 30 Jun '02

30 Jun '02

OK, this is actually a companion email to one going out in tonight's ALUG announce about the hosting changes, but here it is first, thanks to the way these things are scheduled. Newsletter: Please write or forward more interesting announcements to the newsletter address announce(a)lists.alug.org.uk because I'd like to put out more editions than one every week or so. IRC meetings: OPN is currently having even more problems than before. In addition to the netsplits, the most powerful of its IRC operators sending spam global notices at least twice daily now to raise money for himself. Despite a crushingly bad financial situation, he seems determined to hold onto complete control and incorporate the network as a Texas company. I've said before that I'd like us to move to a UK network, possibly either irc.underground.org.uk or irc.blitzed.org, but other suggestions (eg good chat servers) are welcomed. Name changes: A fully working non-Linux-kernel GNU is supposed to be released in the next six months. Should ALUG change its name (Anglian Local Users of Gnu -- ALUG?) to reflect this? We've always discussed other free software than just Linux anyway, IIRC, but I think 99% of members use GNU software. -- 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/

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Alug in Dutch
by Adam Bower 30 Jun '02

30 Jun '02

hehe, someone from Belgium popped onto irc last night and left us a url pointing to this jem =) http://sunsite.belnet.be/alug/ Adam -- Adam Bower "a funny thing about regret is, that it's better to regret something you have done, than to regret something you haven't done"

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Re: [Alug] Newbie installing Mandrake
by Kelly Ash 29 Jun '02

29 Jun '02

Thanks, will be installing in a few days. Had my old hard drive data transferred "professionally" (LOL) on to a new drive, as I'm going to be using the old one for Linux, and I've found that 1/2 of it's missing!! Bills revenge no doubt. Once again, if anyone thinks of anything else I should know before the big day, I'd appreciate your input. Kelly

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Can you suggest Linux Graphics software?
by Karl at Plus.net 28 Jun '02

28 Jun '02

Hello, I'm a bit of a Linux beginner and would appreciate any helpful suggestions. I have a web page that produces GIF images with variable text on them (produced by PHP4). I need to find some software that I can use to produce a file of instructions that can be sent to a commercial print company to use in typesetting to produce a similar (but vastly higher quality) image for printing. Does anyone know of such a package? (I would also need to be able to programmatically control the software from one of PERL, PHP,or BASH). Thanks Karl Middleton

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Re: [Alug] Mandrake install problems Update
by Ricardo Campos 28 Jun '02

28 Jun '02

> Meanwhile, I mainly want to use the machine for C++ and possibly Perl, > ideally with some kind of user-friendly IDE. I'm sure plenty of people on ALUG have their personal favourite.... > A couple of things. During install I was asked about partitions. I chose > one at random, would that make a difference (there is no other OS on the > machine now)? Basically, probably not. If you were using it as your own mega-whizz computer, then there are things that you could do. e.g have a separate partition for /home, that way if you need to reinstall, or install a different distro, you could keep all your files in /home without having to back them up separately. > Secondly, I set it to go straight to X when I login, so Gnome > comes up straight awawy. How could I get out of that? (Ctrl-alt-bckspc?) Erk, this is where it gets a little tricky... If you have a graphical login screen, you probably have GDM installed, you could configure GDM as root using GDMconfigurator. You could then select Window Maker or whatever as the default window manager to start on login. What it sounds like, though, is that you have the Mandrake thing of logging you in immediately when you boot up. (I never liked that feature). To change that, I would have to hand that over to the rest of ALUG... Mandrake and Redhat use very custom scripts, that are a little tricky to figure out when you're not sitting at that computer. Ricardo Here's 2 screenshots of WindowMaker, btw. http://www.rscampos.net/web_snapshots/wm_tech_creat.jpg http://www.rscampos.net/web_snapshots/WM_blue_Mind.jpg -- Get your free email from www.linuxmail.org Powered by Outblaze

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your 100 meg machine
by tom potts 28 Jun '02

28 Jun '02

16 meg of ram is a bit small for 'modern' linux/x86 as your machine will page a lot (save/get memory from disk) and this can slow it down enough for x86 to think things are broken. But for now try: a)Make sure you've got >64Meg of swap space so that x86 can 'fit' b)try and older version of x86 /linux - I've installed suse5.2 on a 386 with 4 meg of ram and got x86 working though its slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow c)put as much ram in your machine as you can fit - its quite cheap now! Have Fun Tom __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com

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Re: [Alug] Mandrake install problems Update
by Ricardo Campos 28 Jun '02

28 Jun '02

> you really want to set your runlevel to 3, edit /etc/inittab and edit > > id:5:initdefault > > to > > id:3:initdefault: I think Russell still wants to boot into X, just using a lighter window manager rather than Gnome (16MB RAM!). I guess it would be an .xinitrc file change. IIRC, switching to runlevel3 would mean he would have to issue a startx command. -- Get your free email from www.linuxmail.org Powered by Outblaze

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Re: [Alug] Newbie installing Mandrake
by Ricardo Campos 28 Jun '02

28 Jun '02

> First off, does the Linux drive need to be partitioned in any way before the > install? No, Linux installs usually involve a partitioning program. Mandrakes certainly does, and it's quite user friendly. >And secondly, when I am going through the install for Mandrake > will it give me the choice to install on this (second) empty drive? Yes. it will refer to the first drive as "hda", second drive as "hdb". You'll know which one is which, cos one of them will be unpartitioned! > Thanks in advance for any advice you can give for my questions above, and > I'd appreciate any 'pointers' anyone could give that will help me prepare > and get through this install! Don't use the autopartition function in Mandrake. I say that as a 'just in case' scenario. Typically you will only need 2 partitions:- root (/) and swap. Make swap 2x the size of your RAM (as a typical value). If you lack diskspace, 2 partitions is probably safest. Personally, I prefer to partition like this for a home computer:- /usr =large /home =very large /swap = 2x amount of RAM / = large-ish, (about 1.5 gig is plenty) Reasons: most new applications you install are in /usr, most data is in /home. If the worst comes to the worst and you need to reinstall, you can just 'borrow' the /usr and /home partitions, so no data lost. Ricardo -- Get your free email from www.linuxmail.org Powered by Outblaze

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Laptop Mouse
by Ian Thompson-Bell 27 Jun '02

27 Jun '02

I have an oldish laptop PII 286 with 96M RAM on which I have run Mandrake 7.2 for quite a long time. I recently tried to install MD 8.3 but it refused to recognise my PS2 mouse. I tried to install RH 7.3 and it could not find my mouse and invited me to install in text mode, which I did. On reboot kudzu finds a PS2 mouse, installs it but then it does not work. Today I installed RH 5.2 (yes I know it is old) and it found the mouse no problem. Then installed MD 7.2 again and it finds the mouse OK. What has happened in the later distributions that have stopped them detecting something prior versions found with ease? ian

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