# The Mailbag

### HELP WANTED : Article Ideas

Send tech-support questions, Tips, answers and article ideas to The Answer Gang <linux-questions-only@ssc.com>. Other mail (including questions or comments about the Gazette itself) should go to <gazette@ssc.com>. All material sent to either of these addresses will be considered for publication in the next issue. Please send answers to the original querent too, so that s/he can get the answer without waiting for the next issue.

Unanswered questions might appear here. Questions with answers--or answers only--appear in The Answer Gang, 2-Cent Tips, or here, depending on their content. There is no guarantee that questions will ever be answered, especially if not related to Linux.

Before asking a question, please check the Linux Gazette FAQ (for questions about the Gazette) or The Answer Gang Knowledge Base (for questions about Linux) to see if it has been answered there.

- LG 73, 2c Tips #12, USB Modems.
- xt (xtraceroute)
- Euro symbol available?
- DHCP & MAC Addresses question
- Convex
- Boot problem on software raid
- System crash on RH 7.2 - could be related to N.P.Strickland's problem

### LG 73, 2c Tips #12, USB Modems.

Sun, 20 Jan 2002 11:36:35 -0600
tomkrieger (tomkrieger from yahoo.com)

I am writing reguarding the Alcatel Speed Touch USB modem, under Linux, particularly Mandrake Linux 8.1.

I have been trying to get this modem to work for about a month now. It seems I almost have it, at least compared to where I was a couple of weeks ago. I have been following the HowTo's, I've found on the internet. They seem to differ slightly from web page to web page, but I believe I finally got the kernel and the drivers set up to work, but I think I might have some setting messed up somewhere, or maybe a module not loaded or something. I was hoping you might be able to help me find where I'm having a problem. The message I get when I try to connect with br2684ctl -b -c 0 -a 0.0.35 is something like

>     RFC1483/2684 bridge : Created nas0 interface

(something like that)

>     RFC1483/2684 bridge : Connecting to ATM 0.0.35 Encapsulation LLC

(again it says something like this)

>     RFC1483/2684 bridge : fatal : failed to connect on socket

(here's the error message I get exactly as given to me)

Is there anything you might be able to tell me from the informatoin given, what I should be looking at to correct my problem? If you need anymore info please let me know what it is and I will get it right to you.

Thanks
Tom

### xt (xtraceroute)

Sun, 20 Jan 2002 11:01:32 -0800
Mike Orr (LG Editor)

There's a program in Debian unstable called xt (xtraceroute). It's supposed to plot the traceroute path on a picture of the earth. However, it doesn't seem to have enough location coordinates in its database to do anything. Has anybody used this program? Did you have to enter your own coordinates for all the hosts you traceroute from and to?

### Euro symbol available?

Sat, 2 Feb 2002 17:05:10 -0000
Donal Rogers (rogers from clubi.ie)

Hi guys, I don't know how much this will matter to the non-Europeans in the audience, but how am I going to get the Euro symbol to appear in my favourite applications? I have just installed Red Hat 7.2 on my laptop, and would like to indicate my preferred currency symbol in a spreadsheet or word processor document. The only mention I can find in previous issues of LG (wonderful publication - keep up the great work!), apart from a Debian Euro-HOWTO, is the usual "just my .02 Euro". Does anyone have any ideas?

Regards,
Donal.

### DHCP & MAC Addresses question

Thu, 7 Feb 2002 13:54:04 -0800
Dave Wulkan (dwulkan from earthlink.net)

Hi,

I've read where DHCP can return a fixed IP for specified MAC hardware addresses. My question is can DHCP be limited to return either fixed or dynamic IP to only a list of MAC hardware addresses? This would be a security enhancement as only specified machines could get access to the server?

Dave Wulkan

### Convex

Wed, 6 Feb 2002 02:44:22 +0100
Robos (robos from geekmail.de)

Hi Gang! Some time ago a friend of mine took me to a guy that - via some strange ways - had gotten hold of some convex computers (2 refrigerator-sized boxes). They were struggeling to get them to boot again (I think they called the OS spp-ux os something similar) and maybe in the end getting them to boot linux (hey, not totally OT). So, short question: does somebody of you know these beasts? If yes, I can figure out more about'em, otherwise forget them (saw something like a VAXbar some time ago, maybe that'll be their new purpose real soon .

TIA
Robos

### Boot problem on software raid

Thu, 14 Feb 2002 09:17:28 -0500
Joe St.Clair (ksimach from ksimachine.com)

I am running RedHat 7.2 and using ext3 file system with software raid, using 2 20gig drives. The raid drive(s) are my boot drive. The 2 drives are identical and are used something like this `/dev/hda1` = ext3, `/dev/hdb1` = ext3. I made everything between the 2 drives the same. The mirrored drive is `/dev/hda1` and `/dev/hda2` = `/dev/md0.` The system has been running very well.

I recently did a kernel upgrade. The upgrade went ok and will boot and run from a floppy drive with no problems. But if I attempt to boot from the hard drive(s) drive it will only boot the old kernel. I have updated the grub.conf and have even attempted to enter the commands for booting from the command line. The grub menu never shows the commands entered into the grub.conf file and I receive a error "Can't find files" if I attempt to enter the command line.

I have attempted to find what I need to change/fix but have not found the information needed to update grub while booting from a raid/ext3 file system.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
Joseph St.Clair

### System crash on RH 7.2 - could be related to N.P.Strickland's problem

Tue, 29 Jan 2002 14:10:15 +1100
icalla (icalla from bigpond.net.au)

Hi Gang,

I recently upgraded from RedHat 6.2 to 7.2. Since then I have experienced a number of incidents where the system simply froze up solid. It would not respond to keyboard input or mouse clicks. Screen was not being updated at all. The only way out was the Reset button. This sounds similar to the problems reported by N.P.Strickland (http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue74/tag/9.html), but I can relate my incidents to some things which infer that the solutions suggested to that post will not resolve my situation.

Firstly, this has only started happening since I upgraded. I never experienced anything similar on RH 6.2 (or 5.2 fot that matter). The hardware is unchanged, so I believe it must be caused by software, not hardware.

Secondly, I am pretty confident that it is related somehow to sound. I can bring on a freeze by running a number of multimedia programs (e.g. XMMS, gtv). They appear to work fine for, say, 30 seconds, then Zap! the system freezes up solid.

Can anyone shed any more light?

Thanks
Ian Callahan

### GENERAL MAIL

- Windows Telnet Client for Linux
- installing software from source

### Windows Telnet Client for Linux

Wed, 23 Jan 2002 14:49:23 -0800
Mike Orr (LG Editor)
replying to Jay Ashworth (The Answer Gang)

Not if you're at the only cybercafe in town and they don't let you install software there,

Educate, advocate.

The only reason I'd be in a cybercafe is if I'm in a strange town and there are no other Internet options. So I don't have much opportunity to find the most receptive staff members and spring a World Domination campaign on them.

There has to be at least one geek there...

You must have forgotten the smiley. That must be a joke, because in most of the cybercafes I've been in, the staff know a lot about espresso and chai, but very little about their own computers. The only two exceptions were the Speakeasy in Seattle and CoffeeNet in San Francisco, neither of which exist any more.

### installing software from source

Tue, 29 Jan 2002 22:01:01 -0500
Adam York (Anonymous)

Ben,

Since I'm a relative linux newbie and software installation has been learning process, I appreciatee your article on installing from source. One question though. After downloading and uncompressing the source, installation seems to be pretty much a three step process.

    ./configure
    make
    make install

My question is this: should I become root in this process and if so at what stage? I'm thinking that I should become root after "make." and not before.

Anyway I appreciated the article especially the part about analyzing a failed install. It would have taken me a while to figure that out on my own.

Thanks,
Adam York

### GAZETTE MATTERS

- TAG members
- Confidential disclaimers
- HOWTO subscribe to Linux Gazette
- All your wonderful tips...
- feedback --or--
  Why we stay plain when we could look Really Cool

### TAG members

Wed, 20 Feb 2002 14:26:40 -0800
Mike Orr (LG Editor)
linux-questions-only (linux-questions-only@ssc.com)

By the way, TAG now has thirty members, an increase of about eight from a couple months ago. Welcome, new Gang members, and thanks for your contributions.

If you haven't sent in your TAG bio yet or you need to revise it, send it to gazette@ssc.com. See

"Meet The Answer Gang" to read about your peers and see some example bios.

> [28-Feb: Somehow it doubled in eight days. There are now sixty TAG members. -Iron.]

### Confidential disclaimers

Fri, 25 Jan 2002 10:56:08 -0800
Mike Orr (LG Editor)

In the section on confidentiality disclaimers in the TAG faq, can we provide some examples of what we need the querent to say?

Provided, in "Ask The Gang" -- Heather

### HOWTO subscribe to Linux Gazette

Sun, 20 Jan 2002 09:20:05 -0800
multiple readers (shown below)

We've had a number of questions on this topic lately...

D Johnson

I always enjoy reading the Gazette offline (maybe even at the beach on my notebook). Have you ever considered providing it in pdf format. Would save me the trouble of converting it myself. Imagine lotsa others do too. Keep up the good work.

> Thanks for the support. -- Mike

P Reddy

i am a student from india , i want to know wether there is a mailing news letter available, if yes how to subscribe. please reply at...

Martin Willem

I'm making the jump into the linux world. Do you offer the GAZETTE in hard copy form?

> To all these people and everyone else out there wondering: ...

There is no subscription. Read it online:
  http://www.linuxgazette.com

Paper?

> It's under an open license. Anybody has the right to publish it that way. We can't afford to do all that for free though.

> If anybody chooses to convert it to paper form regularly ... and maintain that as a longterm service ... could you please let us know? We could add you to the Mirrors page

Other electronic formats? See http://www.linuxgazette.com/faq.html#formats_no

> You can be notified that the new one has been posted each month, by subscribing to the announce list (it does not contain the articles): http://www.ssc.com/mailman/listinfo/lg-announce

> You might be able to use services (elsewhere!) which let you know websites have changed (by emailing you the changed page) to give you the table of contents ONLY, by telling them to keep an eye on: http://www.linuxgazette.com/current/

> One example of such an external service is Sitescooper - PDA users can get the document this way, as can others who install the Sitescooper scripts: http://scoops.sitescooper.org

So much work to get it so I was hoping...

> Our webzine is quite large so it's well worth your time to find an LG mirror site that's closer to your home in cyberspace: http://www.linuxgazette.com/mirrors.html

> You can also download the FTP files, or find it in the Debian distribution. Read more about all this at the Linux Gazette FAQ: http://www.linuxgazette.com/faq.html

> However Martin had more to ask so we answered that too -- Heather

Do you offer recommendations on the most successful ways to jump from microsoft to LINUX? Any help that can save me pain would be greatly appreciated i.e. hardware, linux flavor, good books for the beginner to read before/during the move to lynux!

That's a very general question, so I can offer only a general answer. Look in The Answer Gang Knowledge Base: http://www.linuxgazette.com/tag/kb.html especially under the sections "Linux Distributions", "Before you install Linux", "Installing Linux", etc. Also see the section "Linux tech support questions" question "How can I get help on Linux?", which has a list of books and a link to the Linux Documentation Project (LDP) (Linux Documentation Project), which should be your first stop.

-- Mike

### All your wonderful tips...

Sun, 23 Dec 2001 00:57:55 -0500
Robos (robos from muon.de)

Hi Gang! Just had some time and took a look into the howto section at linuxdoc.org and found the Tips-HOWTO.

Nice thingies in there, although the last editing seems to be ages ago.

Soooo, since LG is already present in there and you have such wonderful ideas, scripts and perl-thingies (Ben?), after you have discussed them here in the list and optimized them one could post it to the maintainer of the Tips-HOWTO for inclusion.

What do you think? Thats a place a newbie finds rather easier than this mailing-list, don't you think? Just a suggestion.

CU Robos

<grin> Good idea, Robos. Instead of the Tips-HOWTO, however, the areas you're asking about are a subset of the LG Knowledge Base that Chris Gianakopoulos and I have been working on for the past month plus; see <http://www.linuxgazette.com/kb-faq.html>;. Better yet, wait a week or so and see the new version - Chris has been doing a sterling job of adding the stuff from the previous issues of LG while I'm banging away on modifying the overall KB-FAQ, TAG-FAQ, etc. The difference between the last month and the one that's coming up is going to be a large one - there are many, many more articles/issues incorporated into it than there were the last time - and it's really turning into a great resource. -- Ben

### Why we stay plain when we could look Really Cool

Fri, 18 Jan 2002 15:21:53 +1100
Leon Czechowicz (Leon.Czechowicz from anu.edu.au)

Hey!

Nice to see your online mag - content seems good!

...pity I was about as excited about the presentation of your "mag" as I am about brussel sprouts!

Check out http://www.onlamp.com for an example of what to make it look like - I know in essence its the same, but I'd love to see some Linux heads make something that actually looks good! (ie stop acting like text crazed command line geeks and get with us poxy graphical idiots, who have been web building with Macromedia products and the like)

Yes that means you will actually have to stop using Lynx and start using Mozilla to check the visual integrity of your code!

I'm not really bagging, just sick of not being excited when I hit a linux site.

cheers, L

> Oh my. This resulted in a lively discussion defending Brussel sprouts, our decision process in making the webzine rather more plain than all-dancing-and-glitzy, some comments about the browsers we actually use, thoughts on Macromedia Flash, a certain amount of curmudgeonly eyebrow raising, cheerful thanks for the kudos that were present, and encouragement to take on the glitzy task himself. Pleasantly he took it all in good stride and will probably join the Answer Gang -- Heather

#### KUDOS

Nice to see your online mag - content seems good!

> Thanks, always happy to hear it. -- Heather

> Thanks for writing in. If you like the content, well, that's our goal. -- Mike

#### BRUSSEL SPROUTS

...pity I was about as excited about the presentation of your "mag" as I am about brussel sprouts!

> I like brussel sprouts, when prepared properly and covered with butter Oh, you mean the boiled-grey kind, perhaps ... -- Heather

> I can force myself to eat brussel sprouts and broccoli. But I draw the line at cauliflower. -- Mike

> I'll trade you: you can have my brussel sprouts, and I'll have the cauliflower. It's good to have friends. -- Ben

#### CURMUDGEONS, THAT'S US

...pity I was about as excited about the presentation of your "mag" as I am about brussel sprouts!

> The Answer Guy, enjoying yet another Python book (in this case New Riders' "Python Web Programming" -- slow since it aims at non-programmers, but quite good nontheless) at a local coffee shop, was heard to mutter:

> > "Bon Apetit mon ami, enjoy your sprouts"

> before taking another sip of his latte. -- Jim

> Hey, nice layout on your e-mail!

> ...too bad the content had me yawning.

> So you've got your MacroWhozits, ShockWhatsits, and RealWhatchamacallits running. Booo-ring. I can get more and better flash and glitter at the 99-cent store. Incidentally, I find the layout of the site that you've mentioned just as garbaged up as that of Slashdot - it requires a 21" screen just to see properly, and the "noisiness" of unrelated multi-column layout, with 2-3 words per column (hey, you've got to make room for all those ads - right?) is something that I find really unpleasant to read.

> Look. Our strength is that we are accessible to _everyone._ Not everybody in the world has a cable modem, or even a fast phone connection; a number of our readers are still using 33.6 modems attached to their 486s, and a fair number of them are still paying for content "by the byte". I'm using a CDPD modem (I live on a sailboat) to connect, myself. Should we all be denied access, or should it be made more difficult or expensive because our layout doesn't reflect somebody's idea of the Latest And Greatest fashion in web pages? Please, let's not even go there. -- Ben

I'm not really bagging, just sick of not being excited when I hit a linux site.

> <snort> I'll make you a deal: we'll tell you how to dress and how to present yourself in general (anybody here have some orange lipstick and a flourescent pink purse?), and you'll be welcome to present us with your idea of an "up-to-date" site that excites you. That sound good to you?

> Thought so. -- Ben

#### ALL GLITZ, WE'RE NOT

Check out http://www.onlamp.com for an example of what to make it look like -

> It looks nice. -- Mike

> (For the readers: ONlamp is an O'Reilly Network site.)

> Are you with O'Reilly? They are a big publishing house and hire people to maintain their websites. We are a batch of volunteers scattered all over the world. But we're flattered that you chose to compare us with them.

> (it turns out, no, he's not; he just feels their site looks cool.)

> To be fair, though, I tried to visit that site with Netscape. I only got an ad -- no content! Ouchie!

> Luckily we only put these itty bitty graphics at the side and logos on top. Since we don't do animated banners you can't get hit with the won't-finish bug in some browsers either -- Heather

I know in essence its the same, but I'd love to see some Linux heads make something that actually looks good!

> Go to linux.com. Or better yet, put up your own demonstration site. Then send us a link to it and an announcement about what it contains, and we'll put an item for it in News Bytes. Maybe all that will encourage other Linux sites to get more pizzazz. -- Mike

(ie stop acting like text crazed command line geeks and get with us poxy graphical idiots, who have been web building with Macromedia products and the like)

> Linux Gazette is slow to adopt new visual technology, kind of like the Amish. We prefer to wait a few years and see which technologies would actually be a long-term benefit to all our users. It's an unusual kind of zine; I don't know of any others like it. Most people read it from mirrors in 47 countries, through the Linux Documentation Project, download the FTP files, read it on a CD-ROM, download the articles to their palm pilot, etc. So anything dynamic is out because it would cut off a significant portion of the readership. We also don't want to impose any special software requirements on the mirrors. Two concessions to dynamism: the search engine and talkbacks on the main site.

> We're also mindful of bandwidth restraints: many readers and mirrors live in countries where they pay by the minute for Internet access, so I try to keep each issue down to less than a megabyte or two (compressed).

> We also have to piece together the whole thing into an all-in-one version (the entire issue on one page), because that's how LG started and many readers prefer to print it that way. This rules out differing stylesheets per article, or anything special the article needs in the HTML header.

> Most of the editors subscribe to the "good website design" philosophy, meaning content is king. If you can't say it in text, it isn't worth saying. Obviously we don't go all the way on that, because we have been publishing several cartoon series. But still, all decorations are evaluated in terms of how essential they are to the content. If readers like the text, they'll be back. if they won't read it unless it has bells and whistles all around it, well, we don't want them anyway. There are plenty of sites that are highly graphical (and can't be navigated unless you have Flash and Javascript enabled), and LG doesn't wish to compete in that department.

> By the way, Your Editor has a strong adversion to "left column" and "right column" sidebars (tables), and will resist them as long as he can. Let the article text flow freely across the entire width of the browser, outside a table, and in the default font. Persumably, the reader has adjusted his default font to his preference. -- Mike

> A-men to that! And a-women, too. I don't long for uniformity on the Web, but if more people paid attention to those basics, more information would be more easily accessible. Sing that song! -- Ben

> Not to rag too hard back, but:
> 1. Tell O'Reilly to get that wart zapped. The last time I saw this was LWN having some problems with an ad provider whose "pull through" would bomb out that way about 1 time in 10. I'm not sure if they fired the ad provider, or just made 'em fix it, but I know it's tricky to chase down problems that are hard to reproduce.
> 2. We can't shoot at bugs without a target symbol over the varmint. In other words "it's ugly" isn't enough of a problem description. Try again.

> Since we live in a world of choice, try a few of the following on for size: Dillo, Chimera, Amaya, Opera, Arachne, links (not the same as lynx), w3m, Browsex, ViewML, mnemonic, Zen, konqueror. If you find a copy of Grail let me know as its homesite died ages ago and I haven't found packages since. Maybe it was under a non-free license?? -- Heather

> Grail (a Python web browser) is now at http://grail.sourceforge.net . The last version was April 1999. It died because its sponsoring organization (CNRI?) stopped putting developer resources into it. They did that because they realized its features and speed were never going to compete with recent versions of Netscape and Internet Explorer.

> With Grail died the ability to run Python applets in a browser, but that's OK because there never were any Python applets except a few demos. But now there's Jython, which is an implementation of Python in Java, so you can do almost the same thing.

> However, there was a good thing from the Grail legacy. The parts to build a browser, parse URLs, parse HTML files, etc, and everything else a browser needs to do, got put in the standard Python distribution as modules, so you can use them in other programs. -- Mike

> Visit some students at your local blind school, ask them if their speech readers do our site alright... and have your local PDA pick up the current Linux Gazette packet from Sitescooper. I'm not going to suggest that you telnet to port 80 and handle your own client side of the HTTP connection, but you can do that if it makes you feel like a completist :D

> We try not to change the templates too often

> Variety may be the spice of life but aiming generic rather than in any one direction means less work to have readable results without heavy testing. (We do try to test for broken hotlinks, and sorta glance around for typos, but those sometimes escape us too.) As we're all unpaid volunteers, and not very many of us, making the best use of our time is important too.

> We're modeled more after the community green sheet (e.g. Campbell Reporter gets a picture here and there, but mostly it's plain ink on rag paper) than a large city newspaper (with its Home and Garden section, coupons in the food section, comics section bigger than some articles, classified ads fatter than all other sections but the sports, etc) or a 90 page glossy magazine on clay-laden paper with dye sublimation ink. On the flip side we don't charge $7.95 on newsstands and have a two to three month lead time for articles, either.

> There's a great little article at "This website optimized for --- arguing with customers" (http://www.htmlhelp.com/feature/art2.htm). Like it says, we're not going to tell people to get rid of whatever they already have just to read anything here. -- Heather

> OnRamp gets brownie points for using the default font in the center column, but loses points for having the left sidebar. At least the center column isn't too narrow. And at least--thankfully--they don't split the articles into pages, unlike, say, Salon (http://salon.com), where you have to wait for a download cycle between each page. -- Mike

#### JUST CHECKING...

Yes that means you will actually have to stop using Lynx and start using Mozilla to check the visual integrity of your code!

> Actually, I do most of my work in Netscape 4. I occasionally use Konqueror 2.2.1 for comparision, but I get sick of the 3-5 seconds of extra overhead on every click. At home I use Galeon. For local documentation or when I'm going to a known-text page, I use links, or lynx if it requires https:. I don't know what the other editors use. -- Mike

> Funny you should mention that, I was able to read your site with lynx when Netscape failed abysmally -- since noting yourself as a GUI fan, I figured to hit it with a graphical browser first...

> My portion of the Gazette is always checked with both lynx (2.8.3dev9 with SSL patches, yeah I know it's ancient, but I'm happy with my color settings) and netscape (4.77 normally). They each correct for different varieties of HTML misbehavior, and that allows me to fix glitches generated by my preprocessing script, which tortures about 400 slices of mail into something resembling pieces of a webzine. I sometimes test with konqueror, NS6, or Browsex. We've been advised that Opera's rendering of the Front Page only (ironically, the only one where we tried to get fancy with layout) is a mite strange... of course, that's commercial software, and the effect doesn't really stop reading, but we dunno any way to convince it to do the table-heuristic we wanted. Oh well. -- Heather

> That vertical black line is gone. It was a 1-pixel black .gif inside a table cell, which was supposed to expand into a vertical black bar. However, it used WIDTH="2%", which made it stretch wide on some browsers. So I changed it to a fixed width. However, Opera continued to expand it while the other browsers stopped. Now it's gone. Good riddance. -- Mike

> What version of Mozilla are you using, what bug/wart did you encounter, and does it also afflict Netscape 6, Galeon, or other mozilla derivatives? -- Heather

> Argh. Leon, could you send your stuff in plain text, and wrap it at less than 80 (preferably, around 72) columns? That's considered good e-mail manners. -- Ben

Argh indeed - I am forced by the hand of Bill Gates - my headers will inform you my work machine is a W2K with Outlook - I couldn't be polite with my text if I tried. As far as it's concerned I AM sending plain text!!!!!!!! I am moving jobs soon, but staying on the same campus - I will then rebel and use Linux for my desktop....AND BILL WILL WEEP!!!!!!!!!!!! (HeeHeeHeeee...)

Seems like there's a way to tell even Outlook to be civil, at least in this respect.

Unfortunately this way eludes me ... could somebody here more versed than I in the Dark Arts speak up? -- Dan

> <laugh> Cool. Mike Orr, our editor here, has mentioned that we have the procedure for smacking Outlook down to decent behavior written down somewhere; -- Ben

Chris G here, from the Dark Arts group of people. I supplied detailed instructions on how to set up Outlook Express to send in plain text mode when sending email. In it was included the fact that the MUA should not reply in the same format as the original message. That was in issue 65, "Setup of Microsoft Outlook Express 5 for Sending of Clear Text": http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue65/tag/8.html

Hopefully, that will work for Leon. -- Chris G

> A friend of mine sent me the following step-by-step guide (he works in a mixed environment, and needs to twiddle his settings back and forth):

...............

How to send plain text email using Outlook in 3 clicks or less By Samuel Kopel

This will work in Outlook(not sure about express)

Start a new message

On the menu bar select 'Format/Plain Text'

Click [YES] to the message "Warning: Changing the formatting of this message from HTML to plain text requires removing all the current formatting, including any pictures you may have included. Are you sure you want to do this?"

If you want to change your default to text (recommended if the majority of your email does not go to other Outlook users) you need to change the options settings.

From the menu: 'Tools/Options' Select the [Mail Format] tab and change to "plain text"

...............

#### MACROMEDIA FLASH

Macromedia Flash, Javascript and fancy graphics would be possible since they are self-contained (i.e., don't require particular software on the web server). However, they would have problems on non-major browsers, and LG readers have a wide variety of browsers, and are more likely than the general public to run experimental browsers on principle. Also, some readers have older computers, and buying a new computer would cost several months' salary. Last year I got a letter from a reader in Africa asking if there is an e-mail version of LG (there isn't), because his school cannot afford to read it on the web. --Mike

> Macromedia Shockwave isn't readable on Linux (unless something new has happened that I don't know about). Flash is ok but broken in some contexts, unusable entirely in others, and we don't want the site unusable to anyone. There are so many versions of Javascript nee' ECMAscript I stopped counting -- and Java is getting there. People read us worldwide including on PDAs and in libaries and coffee shops. (ok, the coffee shops probably can handle the cool stuff. We've gotten lots of questions about coffee shops running Linux.) Also on "that slow old thing" and a cheap dialup link while preparing the spiffy new box to run Linux. (Even though they can render the graphics, maybe it's so bad they even turn off image loading in the GUI.) Etc. -- Heather

> I forgot to mention. If you have a small Flash movie on a Linux theme, we may be able to put it in as an article. Or if you'd like to write an article about building Flash movies on Linux or something like that, we could also publish it. -- Mike

#### YOU CAN DO IT

I'm not really bagging, just sick of not being excited when I hit a linux site.

> Linux is a do-it-yourself thing. Go forth and build the ultimate Linux web site. -- Mike

> Feel free to actually do a cool new layout and have that be the format for your new mirror of us. We'd happily list you in our mirrors database, and publish the script you use to tweak it if you like, so other mirrors can do things your way too. Sharing resources is good.

> That's the beauty of stuff under free licenses ... you can tweak your copy and you aren't breaking any laws whatsoever.

> If you have good tricks for having your GUI cake and eating text too, it'd make an excellent article for the Gazette (a linux focus in it would put it on topic), and Mike Orr (gazette@ssc.com) would be glad to accept your submission. If that excites you about us, read our author guidelines in the Linux Gazette FAQ, and we look forward to seeing it! -- Heather

cheers, L

> Have a good weekend, hope your Linux is being more fun than our layout for ya. -- Heather

#### ALL IN GOOD STRIDE

Ben,

Don't take it so personal - the Editor explained everything very nicely, I'm sorry if I offended - I am a graphical ponse, it's not my fault I was born that way!!!!!!!

L

> <grin> No worries, Leon - you didn't offend me. I got a little grumpy at you telling us how we've got to do something without knowing our requirements, but that's all; no offense involved.

> For myself, I like graphical stuff when done in appropriate amounts relevant to the material at hand. Today, there are way too many web pages that use graphics gratuitously, without any sense behind them - and I must say that the page you pointed to does not fit that category, although it has other problems (at least from my perspective.)

> So, here's an idea for you; an opportunity to possibly convert a few folks into "graphical ponses", if you will. Go with what Mike suggested: write an article about Web page design; include some links to demonstrate each of your points. Who knows?... it might become a graphical ponse revolution. -- Ben

Heather,

You write too much - I can't even type that fast and you want me to read all that!????

As I said I like the content - I'm sold an that - I also said I'm new to Linux, thus may only be bagging what I don't understand....yet!

All points on bandwidth, mirroring etc etc are taken - OK!!!!!

I still hate Brussel sprouts with butter - I'd rather eat the tub of butter.

Geez, I know not now to stir whith what ain't broken....

Oh and to clarify - I Certainly Don't Work For O'Reilly!! (And I'm not such a fan of Flash myself - but don't tell my boss!)

I am glad to have stimulated some conversation though

Mike,

Thanks for an in depth reply : This shows me your commitment to uphold all that is good and right in the computing world, and your reasons for doing it. Good on ya! - I can take much of what you have said about the web and put it into practice - thanks - all points noted.

I am pleased that you did in fact reply - you would be surprised how many people would take a comment like my and ignore it - so thanks again.

I am what your world would call a Linux Newbie so your feedback and explanations are essential to my development, and I suspect yours. I am looking forward to building new sites, I do have some commercial Intranets on the build, and in use, none of which I can advertise - interestingly enough, I am using mySQL, PHP on guess what: Red Hat Linux 7.2. They work a dream, and are - FULL of lovely graphics, but tied to 100Mbps LANs, so I can afford the bandwidth! Call me a cheat!

Oh and thanks for the cauliflower laugh.

> You want some more cauliflower? -- Mike

Keep up the good work, I will be a regular visitor for the CONTENT!

cheers, L

> Leon, given your responsiveness (most important), verbosity and funny comebacks, have you ever considered a career in The Answer Gang? Would you feel comfortable answering questions about Linux?

> If so, see The Answer Gang FAQ, http://www.linuxgazette.com/tag/members-faq.html -- Mike

I gave it some thought Mike - I dont know if I can match up to the class of company - I have little Linux experience (love the 'Iron Orr' bit) When I move jobs next week, (and desktop machines! yay to the end of W2K) I'll have to set up some Linux servers, with RAID and big network transfer speeds for up to 20 Mac OSX clients running video editing software - Utilising the network drives as a data bank, so clients can log onto any machine to edit and be presented with up to 10GB of storage space for the hungry video stuff.

Only 10GB? What are they editing; news packages? -- jra

After that I'll be in a position to answer some questions on Linux!

(If anyone has some pointers on the above problem please jump in - or even if it is possible! specially Mac OSX Vs Linux issues.)

'till then Ciao!

Leon Czechowicz

The problem is sustained throughput. TTBOMK, nothing is fast enough at the network filer level at the moment to do anything much faster than DV (3.5MB/s). To beat that, you need, I think, to go to NAS, or something similar: shared drives, rather than shared filesystems.

Perhaps things have speeded up a bit... but be prepared to go to either 100Mbs Ether with dedicated adapters, or Gigabit shared... and something more towards token than ether is not out of line.

Either that, or nasty buffering on the mount client.

Investigate Cinelerra, too.

Cheers, -- jra

##### This page edited and maintained by the Editors of Linux Gazette Copyright © 2002
Published in issue 76 of Linux Gazette March 2002

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