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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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gunzip/tars
by Ricardo Campos 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

When you get a file such as file.tar.gz , do you need to do gunzip file.tar.gz tar -xvf file.tar Or can u go straight to: tar -xvzf file.tar.gz I have been doing the latter, but *all* of my compiles have gone wrong. What's the difference between the two? Ricardo _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

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Debian Difficulties
by Earl Brannigan 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

Hi all, Following a few late nights I fianlly have a nice debian 2.2r3 installation. Quite pleased as it goes. However it is not without a number of difficulties so if anyone can offer any input I'd be very grateful. Sorry that these may be quite simple, no doubt I'll find solutions eventually by the usual methods (read alot of stuff, try a few ideas, undo those ideas, try some more.... rejoice at 4:00am that it finally works!!) 1)pppd is happily installed but doesn't work. I'm using wvdial to connect (from my old config file) which seems to work fine. A connection is established then wvdial goes quiet for a few secs (no activity) then it complains that it cannot get a carrier so messages : 'starting pppd and hoping for the best' before giving up. I imagine that for some reason wvdial is not able to hand over to pppd. I also have to be root to get this to work. I have changed the permissions on /dev/modem to allow users rw access but I don't trust this setting.... any ideas on how to enable wvdial/ppp for all users. In the past /dev/modem has always been crw-rw-r-- root root with no problems so there must be something else (elevating privs or something... quite frankly I'd rather not elevate unless the relevant proggie(s) drop privs after initialising modem... 2)I can only run X as root. If i try to run it as a general user I get error "User is not authorised to Run XServer". I have checked the permissions on all of the binaries I know of and they all have lowest order execute bit set (I haven't changed them - that is how they were installed). Is there an X Setting I'm missing? 3) I have libjpeg installed but I cannot display jpeg images. If i attempt to open one in electric eyes - nothing, gimp - nothing, mozilla - the jpeg info (but not the image...). I dunno. 4) Adding menu items to gnome doesn't work. Programs are shown in the menu editor but don't appear in the menus themselves. Most (but not all) gnome/x apps I install from apt-get do not show up in the menus (hence the menu-editor). 5) How do I change my default window-manager (red hat had a useful thing called switchdesk so I never learned where this was defined.. maybe .xsession/ or something. 6) Sound : I have a Creative Soundblaster 128 which I can't seem to get working, again red-hat always made my life easy here with sndconfig. In the absence of that I need to find and load the correct kernel module. Buggered if I know how. Intended to re-use the lines from my old modules.conf - actually its conf.modules but now I find that that is deprecated - and the format has changed and i need to run some utility to add new lines to it (name escapes me at the moment) which means I need to find the module - which I can't.... grrrr. - so : 7) Kernel Compile : thought it would pay to do a kernel compile instead, specifying the modules I need and get around things that way. So, make xconfig was fine, found a useful sound driver among other things, make bzImage dies when compiling boot.c. Error : as86 command not found, the makefile for the relevant directory specifies AS86=as86. I have no program called as86, changing it to 'as' gives another error : as - unknown option -O (which suggests to me that I am missing a binary called as86, does anyone know anything about this or how do i find which package has this binary. I have had no luck finding anything called as86! Is there something debian that I should know ? (Martyn mentioned in a previous mail Any thoughts - any at all - gladly appreciated Cheers Earl

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Bad News again..
by Martyn Drake 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

Hi folks, More doom and gloom. The deal that I thought would happen has fallen through, and to make matters worse, I've been made redundant (thanks Internet Assist - just before my wedding!). Therefore, I will need to start arranging transfer of the domains (anglian.lug.org.uk and alug.org.uk) to whoever can host them. Now, the details for the web site and lists are:- 1) The web site occupies less than 27Mb. It runs a CVS server, but Mark Ray will need to confirm anything else that needs to run. 2) The mailing list is powered by Mailman 2.05 (and the whole thing is less than 8.7Mb). Those are the only requirements I'm aware of, but someone will need to run a DNS server for alug.org.uk as I will no longer have such luxuries at the end of the month. Regards, Martyn

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USB floppy disk drives
by Adam Bower 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

Hello all, Does anybody on the list own a USB floppy disk drive? If you do and you either live in North Norfolk or are coming to the Alug meet on Sunday then please let me know. I am currently struggling to update the Bios on my Vaio with not much success as it was designed to be updated from a USB floppy, my current plan of action has been making a bootable CD with a floppy image on which almost worked but when the Bios update utility ran it demands you have to save a backup of the working Bios which is a little difficult when you just booted from CD! I may have another fight with it later but if anyone has a USB floppy it will save me from going totally mad, or if you have any other suggestions then let me know. Many thanks Adam -- This message is Copyleft - all rights reversed Adam

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Re: [Alug] XSL Formatting Objects Question - Setting Document Defaults
by MJ Ray 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

Steve Fosdick <fozzy(a)pelvoux.demon.co.uk> writes: > I now have FOP installed though I am little disapointed that > the only Java VM it seems to work with is a non-free one, but > it now seems to be working. Is there any JVM which is both current *and* free? -- 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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Java Support in Windows XP
by Earl Brannigan 10 Sep '01

10 Sep '01

Hi all, received this this morning, thought it might interest a couple of you. Remember a few discussions recently about MS no-longer shipping a JVM. Well here is a statement (legit) from Sun.... like it! Cheers Earl PS Sorry its a bit long, but I didn't want to snip it down > -----Original Message----- > From: JDJ [mailto:editor@sys-con.com] > Sent: 09 September 2001 03:23 > To: Java Developer's Journal > Subject: Your Feedback to Scott McNealy, CEO, Sun Microsystems > > > THE PLATFORM OF CHOICE > by Scott McNealy, CEO, Sun Microsystems > > http://www.sys-con.com/java/articler.cfm?id=1155 > http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/010831/01031380.html > > It's becoming more obvious to me every day that Java technology is the > platform of choice -- in more ways than one. > > In the traditional sense of the phrase, it's the answer to the questions > all developers ask themselves: Which platform should I develop to? Which > has the biggest market, the most influence? Which provides me with a means > to demonstrate my skills and creativity? There's a second meaning as well > -- another question to answer: Which platform provides developers, > customers, and users with more choice? > > In this new meaning, "platform of choice" indicates a platform that runs > on multiple operating systems, addresses a wide spectrum of hardware, and > can spawn multiple implementations so users are free to select the one > that works best (yours, of course). > > By either definition, Java technology is still the platform of choice, and > this works to your benefit -- big time. The Java platform addresses > opportunities ranging from the biggest servers available to the desktop to > millions of new client devices -- smart cards, mobile phones, pagers, > PDAs, TV set-top boxes, and automotive systems. (Clearly the definition of > "client" is due for an update, too.) > > Java technology is really hitting its stride now. In six months, more than > six million phones enabled with Java technology have been sold in Japan, > where the three largest wireless providers -- NTT DoCoMo, J-Phone, and > KDDI -- have deployed interactive wireless services. One analyst estimates > that between now and 2005, more than 700 million JVMs will be deployed on > these new devices. > > In the server market, we're seeing unprecedented choice. There are 17 > different applications servers available today that are compatible with > the Java platform. Some are the underpinning of IDEs, but even then IT > professionals can choose the implementation that best suits their needs. > > And if the ISV they choose falls behind,they can replace one app server > with another at a dramatically lower cost. > > More than 400 major corporations are working together through the Java > Community Process to innovate, enhance,and expand Java technology. > Offerings from Sun, IBM, HP, BEA, and Oracle,to name a few, are all built > around the platform of choice. > > The lonely exception, of course, is Microsoft. Unless you've been totally > out of touch since mid-July, you're aware that Microsoft is not shipping a > JVM with Windows XP. The reason? Microsoft has used every excuse from "the > lawsuit settlement required us to do this" to my personal favorite, "We > don't want Windows to have too much code." The real reason, I suspect, is > that Microsoft is anti-choice. > > But at the end of the day, you'll want to know whether this move will > lessen the market for your products and impact your livelihood. Rest > assured that we will provide XP support. > > It will be the latest Java technology, not something old. We'll distribute > it via PC manufacturers, Web sites, ISVs -- whatever it takes to ensure > that your Java apps run anywhere. > > So keep on writing to the platform of real choice, the one that's here > today: the Java platform. > > Scott McNealy is the chief executive officer of Sun Microsystems. > > > *** > > > Add Your Feedback: > http://www.sys-con.com/java/articler.cfm?id=1155 > > Read Reader Feedback: > http://www.sys-con.com/java/articler.cfm?id=1155

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