October 2001 - WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

Lancaster MA Linux activities POSTPONED
by Andy Stewart 26 Oct '01

26 Oct '01

HI gang, There were a few people who had volunteered to come with me to Lancaster MA to do some Linux work this Saturday, October 27th. Well, I just got word that this will not happen this weekend, through no fault of our own. Warren's granddaughter will be born this weekend, hence, he's a little busy, and he asked us if we could come on another day (yet to be determined). (Warren is the director of the council on aging in Lancaster). I apologize for any inconvenience that this late notice might cause. I just found out myself. My thanks to those of you who were prepared to volunteer your time. -- Andy Stewart Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA, USA http://www.wlug.org

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oh crud, ext3 has screwed my /home directory!
by Wesley Allen 25 Oct '01

25 Oct '01

OK, I'm an idiot. I should have realized the the "no fault possible" upgrade to ext3 was too good to be true. Perhaps I read a bit too much this time and figured, "Hey, it's only adding a journaling file, right? What can possibly go wrong.?" Well, I followed the directions, but I'm tired and I ran the wrong command. I erased my /home directory! Oh excrement, I was just working on a web site for a client, it looked really nice, and now it's ALL GONE. Well, I haven't written to the partition yet, so the inodes are still there, right? How do I recover data? Most of it is not a problem, but I had 2 projects that I really want to get back. From now on I will do two things: 1. NEVER attempt that "cool thing I've been wanting to check out" when I'm exhausted and haven't slept in a while. 2. BACK-UP! Just please help!

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Speaking of bad things happening to file systems...
by Stephen C. Daukas 25 Oct '01

25 Oct '01

This is a story about a ZIP drive, Windows 2000 Pro, and how I think Linux might save the day. So, if you have any good ideas before I go down this path, please let me know! So, this all started when I tried to install a Zip drive on my wife's laptop (IBM A20m) running Win2k Pro. I was doing this so she could back-up her important files (e.g., Quicken) before we began installing additional software and RedHat Linux. The Zip drive screwed the OS - couldn't boot after the install program said to reboot. Windows! Next, I tried the various Windows mechanisms for trying to recover and repair the OS. No luck - things got a bit worse (but I won't bore you with the details). I even went so far as to call IBM's support center to see if they had a way of restoring to defaults in a non-destructive way. No Luck. In fact, the support engineer I spoke with told me he tried to get a ZIP drive going on his system running Win2k Pro and after working with Iomega for 3 hours - he gave up. My wife says its OK to wipe the disk and start over, but I know better (esp. after 16 years of marriage)! So I had a bright idea (well, an idea anyway). If I had partition magic, I could partition the disk, install Windows 2000 on the new partition, get all of her important files across the network to one of my other PCs, then wipe the disk and start over. BUT, I don't have partition magic (sigh). Then it hit me - why couldn't I do this with Linux? I want to have Linux and Win2k on the laptop when I'm done anyway, so why not partition the hard drive and then go from there? So, because I don't want to take any chances with my wife's files, here are some overly cautious questions: 1. During the install of RedHat 7.1, I assume I can re-partition non-destructively and end up with a bad Win2k and a good RedHat when I'm done. Does the RedHat install try to test to see if there is another OS or does it just let me re-partition at will? (Never installed Linux with Windows before.) 2. If I install RedHat 7.1 in the second newly created partition, can I read the files from the 2000 partition? IBM tells me they always go FAT16 with their distributions, but its a large disk so it might be FAT32. 3. If there is a problem with reading the Win2k file system, or if you think going this route is a bad idea, is there a way to run just the partitioning portion of the RedHat install to make a partition that I can install Win2k into? The goal here is to get files off of the existing Win2k file system and then to wipe the machine and start over... Thanks in Advance! Steve Stephen C. Daukas stephen(a)daukas.com (508) 845-9809 - Home (508) 845-5015 - Fax (508) 612-2149 - Mobile

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Volunteers sought for Lancaster, MA project
by Andy Stewart 23 Oct '01

23 Oct '01

HI gang, I am seeking a couple of volunteers to help out with our Linux project in Lancaster, MA. I have one confirmed volunteer plus myself. I think 2-3 more people would probably be enough. Here's what we'll be doing as far as I know: 1) Installing CUPS 2) Installing 2(?) printers 2.5) possibly a scanner plus SANE 3) Insuring this all works from all Linux machines 4) Installing SAMBA 5) Insuring access to printers from 1(?) Windows machine 6) Possibly tweaking an old ISA NIC The date is this Saturday, October 27th, around 11 AM - 3 PM (if it takes that long). Let's see how many of those bullet items we can accomplish. Please RSVP to me so that a) I know who's coming, and b) I can insure we don't have too many people. The physical space at the Lancaster location isn't conducive to a large crowd. I'll send you directions after you RSVP. Thanks in advance! -- Andy Stewart Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA, USA http://www.wlug.org

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suse rpms
by Baris Hasdemir 21 Oct '01

21 Oct '01

hi all, I am trying to install php module for suse 7.2 (personal ed.) but rpm shows that there are libraries to install before mod_php4-core and mod_php4. I ask two things: 1 - is there an easy way to determine which suse package includes, for example, libpdf.so.0 2 - is there an easy way to determine which path at ftp.suse.com includes that suse package? thanks, baris

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Kevin Sullivan presentation
by Andy Stewart 16 Oct '01

16 Oct '01

HI everybody, As part of our cooperation with other user's groups (especially those that are part of Boston User Groups, as are we), I'm forwarding this to you. Kevin Sullivan, president of C3 group, will be giving a talk entitled "E-Mail: The Backdoor to your Network". This talk is not e-mail system specific, but about e-mail systems and vulnerabilities in general. Read more about it in the forwarded message below. If you have questions, please send them to Brad Dinerman, who's e-mail appears below. ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: User group chairs: request for announcement Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 13:39:24 -0400 From: "Bradley J. Dinerman" <BDinerman(a)BostonUserGroups.com> To: <Members(a)BostonUserGroups.com> To all user group chairs: I'd like to ask your assistance. My group, the Boston Area Exchange Server User Group, is planning a special presentation at our November meeting (11/29). The topic will be "E-Mail: The Backdoor To Your Network," and will be given by Kevin Sullivan, president of C3 Group. [Some of you may remember that Kevin gave a key security presentation to the October TechNet expo last year. It was extremely well received.] Please note that this presentation is not Exchange Server specific. It addresses e-mail systems and vulnerabilities in general, regardless of platform! I am declaring this meeting "special" because of the importance of the topic, as well as the fact that I am promoting it to multiple user groups. In particular, I'd like to ask if you could announce this meeting to your user groups, either by e-mail or at your upcoming meeting. The details that I provided in my own group's October newsletter are below my signature. You can feel free to copy the content, or to summarize accordingly. Please let me know if you are willing to announce this to your group (or not). Thank you, Brad Dinerman Chair, Boston Area Exchange Server User Group Director and Webmaster, BostonUserGroups, Inc. __________________________________________________________________ SPECIAL NOVEMBER MEETING This is a *must-attend* event, and will be publicized to a large number of user groups. Kevin Sullivan, president and security specialist extraordinaire of C3 Group, will present on a topic that is probably near and dear to most of our hearts: "E-Mail: The Backdoor To Your Network." The presentation will be interesting for both the non-technical as well as the overly-technical. Kevin writes: "Recent experience with the rapidly spreading and highly destructive Nimda and SirCam worms has demonstrated the ease with which a harmful "payload" can slip in to many otherwise secure networks via Email. I will open by having a sacrificial laptop with IE 5.5 SP1 and Outlook 2K SP1. I will connect to a server and receive my e-mail messages, then watch as my poor computer becomes infected with as many different viruses and worms as I can cram in before it dies. Then we will follow the process (on another system) of how the attack got from the (possibly) clueless sender to the clueless recipient. We will review how the mail travels from your desktop to the recipient - through local, corporate, and Internet servers. We will pay particular attention to attachments - how they are attached, transmitted, and delivered (and we will break the silence surrounding MIME). Finally, we will look at some specific examples of vulnerabilities and how they can be reduced." OK, so in addition to being an incredibly timely and popular topic, what else is different? Because it will be highly publicized to the user group community and we will be expecting a higher than usual turnout, registration will be required for this meeting. You can pre-register at http://www.ExchangeServerBoston.com/Registration. In addition, I will be asking for the first time ever, for a nominal fee for the meeting. It is only a paltry $2, but will help to cover some of the base operating expenses for this and other meetings, including our membership to Boston User Groups, Inc. [Those who register at the door will have to shell out a whopping 50% more, $3] I've already asked a number of vendors for raffle contributions for this meeting, and many of them have happily obliged. As usual, pizza/beverages will be free of charge, and will be sponsored this month by SilverSword Solutions (http://www.SilverSword.com). ------------------------------------------------------- -- Andy Stewart Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA, USA http://www.wlug.org

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REMINDER: WLUG Meeting Thursday October 11th
by Andy Stewart 14 Oct '01

14 Oct '01

HI everybody, This is a reminder about the upcoming WLUG meeting to be held in Kinnicutt Hall at WPI on Thursday, October 11th at 7:00 PM. On the agenda: 1) A discussion of whether or not WLUG should join the Boston User Groups organization. Check out http://www.bostonusergroups.com for more information. These folks have legally incorporated as an organization to act as an umbrella group for all sorts of computer user groups in / around Boston, southern NH, northern RI, and as far west as Worcester. We have been invited to join, and I recommend that we do so. The initial cost to the group would be $50, which we can easily afford. More on this at the meeting...... 2) Outcome of the most recently held install fest at WPI last week 3) Technical Q/A 4) I'll have 6 or 8 copies of StarOffice 6.0 beta available on CD 5) The last of the giveaways! (I'll get more at the Annual Linux Showcase in Oakland next month). 6) Other topics of interest? If you have a burning desire to address the group, let me know. 7) Update on Lancaster and plan our next trip to that site. FYI: As many of you know, I have been contributing to an open source project called gimp-print. My contribution is as the writer of the users guide. Well, the users guide has been officially released for the first time! Check out http://sourceforge.net/projects/gimp-print for a really great set of printer drivers (my stuff is in version 4.1.99-b3). Feel free to fire documentation barbs my way. :-) Afterwards, I'm sure we'll take our monthly pilgrimage to the Boynton Restaurant for pizza and beers. All are invited! -- Andy Stewart Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA, USA http://www.wlug.org

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Free Registration to Annual Linux Conference: November 5-10, 2001
by Theo Van Dinter 13 Oct '01

13 Oct '01

I got this from the USENIX group (http://www.usenix.org/), thought you folks might be interested. :) ----- Forwarded message ----- Dear USENIX members and past conference attendees: We know that many of you may be reluctant to travel because of the recent turn in world events and the economic downturn. To encourage your attendance at ALS '01, USENIX and the Atlanta Linux Showcase, Inc. are now offering FREE technical session registrations to those wishing to attend. The 5th Annual Linux Showcase and Conference November 5-10, 2001 Oakland Marriott City Center - Oakland, California http://www.linuxshowcase.org We are making this extraordinary offer because we believe the networking opportunities and high-caliber technical content at ALS '01 provide an important service to the general open source community and to our membership. This year's ALS program features invited talks by: - Thomas Sterling, CalTech & NASA JPL on Petaflops Computing with Linux - Don Becker, Scyld Computing, Inc. on Home Beowulf Systems - Tony Iams, D.H. Brown Associates on A competitive assessment of Linux in the Enterprise - Helen Greiner, i-Robot on the state of Robotic Today - Don Marti, on Embedded Linux Success Stories The invited talks track also reflects several political issues currently facing the open source community such as DMCA, SSSCA, copyrights, and software patents. These are important issues which we feel should not be put off for discussion at a later time. In addition to the above, ALS '01 also provides practical, professional-level education through over 12 TUTORIALS (which will charge a fee) including: -Inside the Linux Kernel -Exploring the Potential of LDAP -Configuring and Administering Samba Servers -Linux Systems Administration -Unix/Linux Network Administration -Building and Using a Personal Beowulf We also offer workshops on: KDE Applications, GTK+/GNOME Development and XFree86 CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS Thursday, November 8 Join USENIX as we celebrate the 10th Birthday Party for Linux! The reception will be followed by the famous Linux BOF with Linus Torvalds, Jon "maddog" Hall, Ted Ts'o, Bryan Andregg, and a few hundred of your peers. The Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) is hosting a hothouse. OSDL's new Scalable Test Platform (STP) will be open to developers for testing kernel patches on OSDL's 1-way to 16-way servers. Members of the lab's expert staff will be on hand to discuss datacenter Linux requirements such as scaling, clustering and hardening. Bring your patches to see if they can take the heat of some serious testing! With exceptional content, speakers and tutorials, ALS '01 remains the only truly technical conference for the open source community, providing an important forum for discussion, both political and technical - - and bringing the community together to have some fun! For the complete conference schedule and to register visit: http://www.linuxshowcase.org We look forward to seeing you in Oakland next month. - The USENIX Association Staff =============================================================== 5th Annual Linux Showcase & Conference (ALS 2001) is sponsored by USENIX, the Advanced Computing Systems Association, and the Atlanta Linux Showcase, in cooperation with Linux International. =============================================================== ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Randomly Generated Tagline: Two-hundred-thirty-nine pounds?! I'm a blimp! Why are all the good things so tasty? -- Homer Simpson Brush With Greatness

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Scanner
by John Murphy 12 Oct '01

12 Oct '01

Looking for suggestion on a scanner for Suse. One with at least 42 bit or higher in the $100 to $200 dollar range. Have gone through the hardware databases but most home/office mid-range scanners listed are pretty old. Possible the listing hasn't been updated in a while. I've gone through the Sane site and Suse. If you have good 42bit or higher scanner working through Sane and Gimp love to hear about it. Trying to save myself from buying the wrong one making me move back to windows, save me!! John -- Contentment is not the fulfillment of what you want, but the realization of how much you already have.

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anyone happy with DSL in Worcester?
by Matt Pease 12 Oct '01

12 Oct '01

Hi all - I'm new to the area.. living near the WPI campus. Is anyone here happy with their DSL service? Right now I've got DSL service from Earthlink. Man, they suck. The thing goes out for a week at a time & all they do is ask me to power cycle my modem & then say its a Verizon problem & I must wait for Verizon to fix it. This time I'm getting 400ms pings & terrible bandwidth (50kbps... and not as smooth as a modem) Anyone know if going with a different DSL provider would improve things? I'm not sure who Earthlink uses locally, but they always say its a Verizon problem. Speakeasy uses Covad. Perhaps I should switch? Thank you - Matt

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