March 2002 - WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

docs / latex /?
by Bill Mills-Curran 15 Mar '02

15 Mar '02

I need to generate some documents that look decent on the web and also print well. Some of the documents are forms for people to fill in, and, for the most part, the people are pretty unsophisticated. They may even just print the form and fill it in by hand. Some years ago, I was a heavy Latex user, but it's been a while... I've heard rumors that it now has a WYSIWYG interface. Is this true? At any rate, I'm looking for recommendations of something that can produce decent html (most word processors generate abysmal html) and decent printable stuff. (It would be very cool if I could produce the pdf "fill in the blanks" document.) Right now, I'm painfully generating the html in xemacs (very clean html) and then postscript and non-editable pdf from that. I've heard that docbook is good, but that it has a high learning curve. Suggestions? TIA, Bill

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I'm possessed -- sound stuff
by Bill Mills-Curran 14 Mar '02

14 Mar '02

This is very weird... My linux box has just started making sounds -- stuff like little sound card samples. It has done about 6 sounds in the past 30 minutes. The only action I have taken since logging in this morning is to look at some web pages. I've "finger-ed" and "last-ed", but there is no evidence of co-workers getting cute with me. I did see one thing in the system log: Mar 13 08:13:21 pent584 kernel: ad1816: Analog Devices AD1816A detected Mar 13 08:13:21 pent584 kernel: ad1816: ISAPnP reports 'Analog Devices AD1816A' at i/o 0x500, irq 5, dma 1, 3 Mar 13 08:13:21 pent584 kernel: ad1816: AD1816 sounddriver Copyright (C) 1998 by Thorsten Knabe Mar 13 08:13:21 pent584 kernel: ad1816: io=0x500, irq=5, dma=1, dma2=3, clockfre q=33000, options=0 isadmabug=0 Mar 13 08:13:21 pent584 modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-service-0- 3 Mar 13 08:38:25 pent584 kernel: ad1816: Analog Devices AD1816A detected Mar 13 08:38:25 pent584 kernel: ad1816: ISAPnP reports 'Analog Devices AD1816A' at i/o 0x500, irq 5, dma 1, 3 Mar 13 08:38:25 pent584 kernel: ad1816: AD1816 sounddriver Copyright (C) 1998 by Thorsten Knabe Mar 13 08:38:25 pent584 kernel: ad1816: io=0x500, irq=5, dma=1, dma2=3, clockfre q=33000, options=0 isadmabug=0 Mar 13 08:38:25 pent584 modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module sound-service-0- 3 These messages appear only one other time in my system logs. Oh, one other thing... I did mount an NT share on my box yesterday. (I don't suspect this, but might as well tell everything.) Any ideas? Thanks, Bill

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Re: Wlug digest, Vol 1 #267 - 4 msgs
by Pierce C. Barnard 12 Mar '02

12 Mar '02

At 12:01 PM 3/11/2002 -0500, you wrote: >Send Wlug mailing list submissions to > wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > >To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug >or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > wlug-request(a)mail.wlug.org > >You can reach the person managing the list at > wlug-admin(a)mail.wlug.org > >When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific >than "Re: Contents of Wlug digest..." > > >Today's Topics: > > 1. Question (Pierce C. Barnard) > 2. Re: Question (Andy Stewart) > 3. Re: Chart generation tools (John Stoffel) > 4. Re: Chart generation tools (Charles R. Anderson) > >--__--__-- > >Message: 1 >Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2002 21:09:58 -0500 >To: wlug(a)mail.wlug.org >From: "Pierce C. Barnard" <pcbarnard(a)earthlink.net> >Subject: [Wlug] Question >Reply-To: wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > >Hi, I recently purchased SuSE V7.3 and when I shut it down, it hangs while >shutting down all of the system processes. How can I fix this problem with >the shut down proceedure? > > >--__--__-- > >Message: 2 >charset="iso-8859-1" >From: Andy Stewart <andystewart(a)attbi.com> >Organization: Worcester Linux Users' Group >To: wlug(a)mail.wlug.org >Subject: Re: [Wlug] Question >Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2002 21:34:17 -0500 >Reply-To: wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > >On Sunday 10 March 2002 09:09 pm, you wrote: > > Hi, I recently purchased SuSE V7.3 and when I shut it down, it hangs > > while shutting down all of the system processes. How can I fix this > > problem with the shut down proceedure? > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wlug mailing list > > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > >Hi Pierce, > >I am a SuSE user. I would like to help, but I believe that I need more >information in order to give you an accurate answer. > >Exactly which command are you using to shutdown the system? Can you send >along a snippet of the last few lines of output on the terminal before it >hangs? Does it always hang in the same place? With this type of >information, I believe that the problem can be diagnosed. > >See ya later, > >Andy > >-- >Andy Stewart >Founder >Worcester Linux Users' Group >Worcester, MA, USA >http://www.wlug.org Hello Andy, the error occurs when I log out of KDE. Then at the Linux desktop login window, I select shutdown, and then SuSE is shutting down, it hangs at the point where the drive shares are umounted and then inet says that the system will be halted immediately. It is at this point that SuSE will say that runtime level 0 has been reached, that it has stopped completely. At this point, the system is still running and I can not turn it off, except by turning the power off. What do you think is causing this to happen? and I will be at the WLUG meeting on this Wednesday. Thank you.

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REMINDER: Upcoming WLUG meeting
by Andy Stewart 12 Mar '02

12 Mar '02

Hi everybody, This is a friendly reminder about the upcoming WLUG meeting to be held on Wednesday, March 13th at 7 PM. Please note: the meeting room is DIFFERENT this month. We will be located in Perreault Hall in Fuller Labs (the same place as the January meeting). Directions can be found on the WLUG website. There is an opening for a speaker at this meeting, so if you have something you'd like to present to the group, bring it along and I'll turn over the floor to you. I received a couple of raffle items from the folks at http://theKompany.com. I will have available a copy of Quanta Gold as well as a copy of Power Plant. You can read more about these software packages at theKompany's website. I was told by a company representative that if we wanted to arrange a group purchase of software that we would receive a discount. Please contact me directly if this is of interest to you. After the meeting, we'll make our monthly pilgrimage to the Boynton Restaurant for pizza and beers, and more Linux talk. See ya later, Andy -- Andy Stewart Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA, USA http://www.wlug.org

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Chart generation tools
by John Stoffel 11 Mar '02

11 Mar '02

Guys, Does anyone have any recommendations for data plotting or charting tools under linux/solaris? I'm aware of gnuplot, xmgr (ACE/gr), grace (ACE/gr descendant) but none of them is really what I want. I'm trying to take a bunch of data from my backups and graph the output nicely. I'd like to have both: - stacked plots (show the totals, with breakdowns by groups). - pie charts for individual days - line charts for trend analysis And of course all of this should be easy to do from the Unix command line and/or control/data files. I currently have a script which uses gnuplot to graph the data, but it's not the nicest. I'm looking into using 'grace', but it's not well documented and it's really pushed more to scientific visualization. I'll try to put what I have up on the web at some point, so you can see what I'm trying to do... but if you've ever used Legato Networker, I've got a tool called 'nss' (http://jfs.ecotarium.org/sources/nss) which generates reports on backups. I'm now trying to take the logged data from that and provide some nice trend analysis graphs as well. Thanks, John John Stoffel - Senior Unix Systems Administrator - Lucent Technologies stoffel(a)lucent.com - http://www.lucent.com - 978-399-0479

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Question
by Pierce C. Barnard 11 Mar '02

11 Mar '02

Hi, I recently purchased SuSE V7.3 and when I shut it down, it hangs while shutting down all of the system processes. How can I fix this problem with the shut down proceedure?

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itch to scratch...
by Keller, Tim 09 Mar '02

09 Mar '02

I'd like to figure out a way to "assassinate" processes that get stuck in the "waiting IO" state when I know there's no way they'll ever come out of that state. I just had to reboot my linux workstation to resolve such an issue. I had an file system containing mp3's mounted via smbfs. Unknown to me, this connection had become stale, so when I started up xmms, it hung and immediately went into the dreaded "waiting IO" state, while holding onto my sound hardware. I did a df and had that stuck as well, along with the bash shell I spawned it from. I think I'd like to write a "SIGMURDER" signal that would tell the kernel to just through its tables and forcibly unallocate all the resources a particular process is holding, close all its handles, etc. So before I even contemplate this endeavor, is their away to already do this? Thanks, Tim.

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RE: [Wlug] itch to scratch...
by Evans, Robert 08 Mar '02

08 Mar '02

Potential difficulties with this idea: - There may be insufficient information about state of the process for the kernel to free up some resources. It might require code in drivers to assist. - Locks or mutexes held by the process should not be freed unless the resource the lock is protecting is in a consistent state. This gets very application specific. Robert N. Evans Software Engineer S T R A T U S T E C H N O L O G I E S 111 Powdermill Road, Maynard, MA 01754-3409 U.S.A. * Tel. 978-461-7680 / * Fax. 978-461-3610 robert.evans(a)stratus.com Amateur Radio Call: N1BE -----Original Message----- From: Keller, Tim [mailto:Tim.Keller@stratus.com] Sent: Friday, March 08, 2002 9:39 AM To: 'wlug(a)wlug.org' Subject: [Wlug] itch to scratch... I'd like to figure out a way to "assassinate" processes that get stuck in the "waiting IO" state when I know there's no way they'll ever come out of that state. I just had to reboot my linux workstation to resolve such an issue. I had an file system containing mp3's mounted via smbfs. Unknown to me, this connection had become stale, so when I started up xmms, it hung and immediately went into the dreaded "waiting IO" state, while holding onto my sound hardware. I did a df and had that stuck as well, along with the bash shell I spawned it from. I think I'd like to write a "SIGMURDER" signal that would tell the kernel to just through its tables and forcibly unallocate all the resources a particular process is holding, close all its handles, etc. So before I even contemplate this endeavor, is their away to already do this? Thanks, Tim. _______________________________________________

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Re: [Wlug] can't connect with ftp, says connection time out
by Peter Gutowski 08 Mar '02

08 Mar '02

Bob, You haven't given us much to go on, but here's a shot: I'm assuming that this is the first time you've tried this. If so then you might not have configured inetd or xinetd to start the the ftp service when it detects an incoming ftp connection. My system ( Redhat 7.1 Intel) uses xinetd and the config files are in the directory /etc/xinetd; there's one for each service. Try to identify the file that corresponds to your ftp service. Again mine is named 'wu-ftpd' and it's a short file. Open the file with a text editor and look for a line that says 'disable = yes' and change the yes to a no, or delete the line completely. This done, you'll need to restart xinetd (or inetd). On my system I'd enter the command /etc/rc.d/init.d/xinetd restart to accomplish this. Perhaps that'll get you over the hump on this one. But there are other possibilities as well. If this doesn't work, please take a look at your log files, they can provide you (and us!) with valuable clues as to the nature of the problem. It's not uncommon for posters to include short, pertinent portions of a log file for us to see. Another strong possibility is that a packet filter is coming into play and that you incoming ftp request is just being ignored. That's handled by 'ipchains' or 'iptables' and is typically setup at startup time. It that appears to be the case, read the init.d script and see where it's looking for its configuration file, then check *that* file for any special handling of 'ftp' ports 21 and 20. The strongest likelyhood is that both of the above things need to be done. But, be warned about FTP in general: unless you're using it off the internet, historically it's been the source of many breakins and cannot be considered secure by nomal users as login and password are passed in cleartext over the internet. Consider using ssh and scp (components of OpenSSH) instead -- there's client software available for non-linux OSs too. -Peter On 3/7/2002 11:23 PM, babine <babinefamily(a)charter.net> wrote: > >When I try to ftp to my server, i get a connection time out. Why >is it happening? > > Bob

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can't connect with ftp, says connection time out
by babine 08 Mar '02

08 Mar '02

When I try to ftp to my server, i get a connection time out. Why is it happening? Bob

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