October 2003 - WLUG - wlug.mailman3.com

Re: [Wlug] Picking a distro (was: 1st posting: Worcester ISP? Distros? LAC?)

by Matt Higgins

> Thanks for your comments Matt, you make alot of good points, though I > must admit that having a package management system without > dependencies isn't an ideal state of affairs. Of course, having > dependencies which you can't override is also not a good thing > either. :] I may get jeers for promoting BSD on a Linux list but if you want good package management with dependency checks the only way to go these days is *BSD ports tree. My forward facing boxen all run OpenBSD. When I need an update I simply run cvs upd; make; make install. Granted these ports trees are limited in size and you may have trouble getting Gramps to compile but it works. If you have a box ripe for a packet filter or file server you may want to give one the *BSD's a try. > > I originally came from a BSD style init background, which I liked > quite alot, then moved to the SYSV style of /etc/rc#.d/... which I > hated at first. But after thinking it through, it's a much much > better way to do things. It lets you manage application and daemon > startup in a clean and consistent manner, without having to watch out > for other packages nearly as much. I agree that the old way is just that old! I clearly see the utility in using the sysV init its much more flexible, but if you are just running a desktop and starting a small number of services the old way is just fine. Further more Slackware provides support for the new way as well. > > I also remember getting a copy of Slackware way back in 93 or so, but > since I had an Amiga back then, I was never able to play with it and > test it out. I probably missed the boat back then. *grin* Amiga sweet! I always wanted an Amiga, I had a C64 and C128. > > Thanks to all who have contributed, it's been a good discussion. > > John When you do make your decition tell us what you chose and why ? It would be interesting to read. Of course I hope you chose Slackware! > > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > >

Oct. 3, 2003

Re: [Wlug] Picking a distro (was: 1st posting: Worcester ISP? Distros? LAC?)

by John Stoffel

Matt> Slackware is my distro of choice. I am a sysadmin recently turn Matt> developer and find Slackware to be a very complete package. Thanks for your comments Matt, you make alot of good points, though I must admit that having a package management system without dependencies isn't an ideal state of affairs. Of course, having dependencies which you can't override is also not a good thing either. :] I originally came from a BSD style init background, which I liked quite alot, then moved to the SYSV style of /etc/rc#.d/... which I hated at first. But after thinking it through, it's a much much better way to do things. It lets you manage application and daemon startup in a clean and consistent manner, without having to watch out for other packages nearly as much. I also remember getting a copy of Slackware way back in 93 or so, but since I had an Amiga back then, I was never able to play with it and test it out. I probably missed the boat back then. *grin* Thanks to all who have contributed, it's been a good discussion. John

Oct. 3, 2003

RE: [Wlug] Foxtrot cartoon in Worcester T&G

by Karl Hiramoto

http://www.ucomics.com/foxtrot/index.phtml On Fri, 3 Oct 2003, Simoncini, Matthew wrote: > Sorry if you don't accept attachments: > > <<...OLE_Obj...>> > > Matthew > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Keith Wright [mailto:kwright@free-comp-shop.com] > > Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 3:40 PM > > To: Worcester Linux User's Group > > Subject: [Wlug] Foxtrot cartoon in Worcester T&G > > > > > > Or any where else you can find it. > > > > It goes like: > > > > Large blackboard, small boy, stern teacher: > > > > Blackboard: > > #include <stdio.h> > > int main(void) > > { int k; > > for (k=1;k<=500;k++) > > printf("I will not throw paper airplanes in class"); > > return(0); > > } > > > > Boy: Holds chalk. > > > > Teacher: Nice try. > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wlug mailing list > > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug > -- ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø Karl Hiramoto <karl(a)hiramoto.org> Work: 978-425-2090 ext 25 Cell: 508-517-4819 http://karl.hiramoto.org/ AOL IM ID = KarlH420 Yahoo_IM = karl_hiramoto ¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø Q: How can you tell when a Burroughs salesman is lying? A: When his lips move.

Oct. 3, 2003

RE: [Wlug] Foxtrot cartoon in Worcester T&G

by Simoncini, Matthew

Sorry if you don't accept attachments: <<...OLE_Obj...>> Matthew > -----Original Message----- > From: Keith Wright [mailto:kwright@free-comp-shop.com] > Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 3:40 PM > To: Worcester Linux User's Group > Subject: [Wlug] Foxtrot cartoon in Worcester T&G > > > Or any where else you can find it. > > It goes like: > > Large blackboard, small boy, stern teacher: > > Blackboard: > #include <stdio.h> > int main(void) > { int k; > for (k=1;k<=500;k++) > printf("I will not throw paper airplanes in class"); > return(0); > } > > Boy: Holds chalk. > > Teacher: Nice try. > > _______________________________________________ > Wlug mailing list > Wlug(a)mail.wlug.org > http://mail.wlug.org/mailman/listinfo/wlug >

Oct. 3, 2003

Foxtrot cartoon in Worcester T&G

by Keith Wright

Or any where else you can find it. It goes like: Large blackboard, small boy, stern teacher: Blackboard: #include <stdio.h> int main(void) { int k; for (k=1;k<=500;k++) printf("I will not throw paper airplanes in class"); return(0); } Boy: Holds chalk. Teacher: Nice try.

Oct. 3, 2003

Re: Old hardware (Re: [Wlug] Re: Debian question)

by Keith Wright

> From: Karl Hiramoto <karl(a)zoop.org> > > > for the last few years. I've been running a 486SX-25 with 8M RAM and > 100M HD here at my work as a print server. I rescued the box from a > pile of garbage. I'm running slackware 3.6 with a 2.0.39 kernel > though. Just setup samba and lpd to do the printing. The machine has > excellent reliability. > > These old boxes work fine for print servers, routers, firewalls, > > Old machines work great to for automation of real world things. Set a > voltage, read a voltage, set bit, clear bit control applications. You're my kind of guy. This would maybe be better as a reply to someone else, but I'de rather talk to someone who doesn't think 12Mb of RAM is too small to bother with. To those thinking of upgrading old hardware to a newer RedHat: Although I can't find any documentation of the fact anywhere, (the 'hardware requirements' section of the manual talks about disk space but not RAM), I know from hard experience that RH9.0 flatly refuses to install on 32MB and works only after giving you some backtalk on 64MB. It says something like "You lamer, if you won't give me a better machine, I'm going to turn on swapping bfore installing a boot sector, and trash anything you might have had on this disk. Then maybe I'll reboot". Why can't kids these days copy a 12K file in less than 16M? I don't know, but suspect that it has to do with making the install process "easier" by sending a human wave at it. Now nobody can say Overwrite partition table (y/n)? without first installing the X window, GtK, CORBA, Qt, Python, and Perl. -- Keith

Oct. 3, 2003

Re: Old hardware (Re: [Wlug] Re: Debian question)

by gboyce＠badbelly.com

Old boxes are great for low CPU jobs, as long as you don't take it too far. Eventually, even machines that run fine for their purposes can be a drain on resources. I've been trying to get my girlfriend's dad to retire this box for a while now: exponent:~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 cpu : 386 model : unknown vendor_id : unknown stepping : unknown fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : no cpuid : no wp : no flags : bogomips : 4.39 exponent:~$ free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 6 6 0 4 0 2 -/+ buffers: 3 3 Swap: 34 2 32 GCC/Glibc/other utilities and libraries are so old on this thing that cross compiling for it is difficult at best, and building large packages directly on it take forever. These days, you can get low end pentium's for cheap and/or free, so there's no real point in keeping 386/486 machines around except for the geek factor of it. On Fri, 3 Oct 2003, Karl Hiramoto wrote: > for the last few years. I've been running a 486SX-25 with 8M RAM and > 100M HD here at my work as a print server. I rescued the box from a > pile of garbage. I'm running slackware 3.6 with a 2.0.39 kernel > though. Just setup samba and lpd to do the printing. The machine has > excellent reliability. > > These old boxes work fine for print servers, routers, firewalls, > > Old machines work great to for automation of real world things. Set a > voltage, read a voltage, set bit, clear bit control applications. > > here is the box: > #df > Filesystem 1024-blocks Used Available Capacity Mounted on > /dev/hda2 97271 83435 8813 90% / > > # cat /proc/cpuinfo > processor : 0 > cpu : 486 > model : Cx486 > vendor_id : CyrixInstead > stepping : unknown, core/bus clock ratio: unknownx > fdiv_bug : no > hlt_bug : no > f00f_bug : no > fpu : no > fpu_exception : no > cpuid : no > wp : yes > flags : > bogomips : 4.71 > > # free > total used free shared buffers > cached > Mem: 6684 6300 384 4500 1960 > 2200 > -/+ buffers/cache: 2140 4544 > Swap: 16432 536 15896 > > >

Oct. 3, 2003

Re: [Wlug] Picking a distro (was: 1st posting: Worcester ISP? Distros? LAC?)

by Matt Higgins

Slackware is my distro of choice. I am a sysadmin recently turn developer and find Slackware to be a very complete package. Some note able points are that its tgz packages are quite simple. There is no dependency checking built into them which is good for me because I like to build some things and rpm/tgz others and I am not stuck with only using the package manager to install software when I need an update. Slackware also comes with a tool to convert rpms to tgz so you can grab your fav rpms and install them on your Slackware box as tgz's. In production env's I have always exported /usr/local and managed pages with stow. Being a sysadmin the 1st place I go to on any distro is the etc dir. Slackware uses old style bsd rc scripts for startup which are all well documented and easy to read. You can also use the more recent sys V init.d if you chose. Network config is also done through the rc.d init scripts and they are all well documented with examples and comments. I find this much cleaner then the nasty poorly documented /etc/sysconfig/* mess you see with RedHat that requires the use of a set of broken Python scripts to manage it. They also use a nice rc script to manage module loading as well so you will never get screwed when modutils changes its format or reads a new config file which it has done at every major Linux release i.e. 2.2, 2.4 and now 2.6. The installer is dated compared to the likes of many graphical installs but it does the job just fine. It is not nearly as painful as the Debian installer. But no where near as good as RH. The latest version of Slackware 9.1 which I recently installed on my laptop has all the features and support you see in every other major distro with a few extras. 9.1 comes with the 2.4.22, jdk(I am a Java guy), 2.6 kernel ready(this means updated modutils etc..), GNOME 2.4, (not your favorite desktop but it has become much more responsive and less memory intensive with this release), XFce, WindowMaker, etc... You can chose resier or ext2/3 at install and supports xfs and jfs. Latest GTK. No need to update ssh yet! as it ships w/ the latest. So thats my Slackware advertisement. To be fair there are advantages and disadvantage to any distro and if you are out to try something new give Slackware a try. Matt

Oct. 3, 2003

Re: [Wlug] Picking a distro

by Josh Huber

"John Stoffel" <stoffel(a)lucent.com> writes: > I like apt too so far, but searching for packages seems to have been > a bit painful. That is until I learned about the -a flag to > apt-show-versions, but since I haven't read my about the apt-get > philosophy, I've probably just missed something. Your problem is you are not using apt-cache. apt-cache search <keyword> <keyword> ... ...will search package names and descriptions for all available packages. apt-cache show <package> will show the description for any available package, and other information (dependencies, etc) After you've used it a couple times, you'll really like it :) > Josh> Use the bf2.4 installer -- it will install a 2.4 kernel by > Josh> default. > > Hmmm... any examples? Is this part of the 3.0 CDROM image? According to the manual, CD 5 boots the bf2.4 image. Do you have the official cdroms, or your own? You should be able to find a netinst image online as well. (minimal cdrom installer, which expect to install the rest of the system from the internet) Here are netinst images for testing: http://gluck.debian.org/cdimage/testing/netinst/ -- Josh Huber

Oct. 3, 2003

Passwd/shadow problem with RH 7.X

by dibb_jim＠emc.com

I've resurrected a linux box that had RH7.something installed, current kernel is 2.8.18. Anyway, the user accounts (all one of them) I had setup before work fine. I can't for the life of me add a new one though, because the password doesn't seem to be getting handled correctly. When I do 'useradd -g mailer -p test mynewuser', an entry ends up in /etc/shadow that looks like mynewuser:test:...... In other words the cleartext password is in the shadow file. I can't change it or log in. If I specify no password (no -p) it doesn't work either. I've run the pwconv program, nothing seems to help. Any clues? I played with this for two hours and couldn't make any sense of it. I did find an article on line where someone had the same symptoms and pwconv fixed it, but I can't make it work. Thanks. Jim - lurker for years, but hope to contribute more.

Oct. 3, 2003