Apr 19 2001


                    LINUX NEWS
        RESOURCES & LINKS FROM BRAINBUZZ.COM
            Thursday, April 19, 2001


TABLE OF CONTENTS

1) Sean’s Notes

2) Linux News

RedHat Announces 7.1 Release
Tribes 2 and Alpha Centauri for Linux
The Next Step for Linux Advocacy
Integrate Linux Solutions into your Windows Network

3) Linux Resources

gcc or kgcc?
Ethernet Diagnostics
Use GnuPG with Pine
Make SSH do More
Care and Feeding of RPM

4) App o’ the week

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ADVERTISEMENT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FREETECHMAIL.ORG

Tired of looking everywhere for newsletters with the technical information you need? FreeTechMail.org can help. It has the largest network of high quality opt-in newsletters on the Net. FreeTechMail’s search engine enables you to find all the newsletters to keep you at the forefront of the IT industry. Subscribe to your IT newsletters today at:

http://ad.brainbuzz.com/?RC06&AI03

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For information on how to advertise in this newsletter please contact mailto:adsales@BrainBuzz.com or visit http://cramsession.brainbuzz.com/marketing/default.asp


1) Sean’s Notes

I’ve long been wanting to install the latest version of GNU Cash just to see how it’s working. Unfortunately, RPMs of the development series have only been released for RedHat 7, and I’m running 6.1. After ensuring I had a reliable backup, I decided to try the upgrade function.

First, I should say something about this system. It was installed as RedHat 6.1. I then upgraded many of the XFree86 packages from the RedHat 6.2 CD, and also installed Helix- Gnome. It’s also running kernel 2.4.

I opted the first time to try in graphical mode. Accepting the defaults, I figured that I’d add in other packages later. After letting it cook for a while, it was time to boot up the system. And…it hung during the boot sequence.

After booting into single-user mode, I noticed a few things. One was that /usr was full. Next was that modutils had been downgraded from 2.3.21-1 to 2.3.14-3. Finally, most of the packages weren’t upgraded, they were re-installed. So, instead of seeing the latest version when I do an rpm -q, I see both!

I ended up having to uninstall most of the packages on the system, including stuff like fileutils (rm, mv, ls, etc). Once that was done, I was able to do the upgrade.

Due to the downgraded modutils and screwed up start-up scripts, I had to go back into single-user mode. After getting that somewhat in order, I re-booted into multi-user mode. Strangely enough, all my logins timed out. I eventually traced it to /etc/nsswitch.conf trying to use NIS for logins.

Strangely enough, most of the startup scripts were way out of whack. For example, the unmounting of filesystems on a reboot or halt was left out, so after all the processes were killed, the system just hung.

It’s been a few days and I’m still cleaning up little odds and ends (I just got sound working again today). The kickers? RedHat 7.0 still uses XFree86 3.3.6 for my Mach64 card, I had hoped to get the benefit of 4.0. And, GNUCash crashes whenever I try to do a report.

So, some of the morals of this story:

  • Always have a backup

  • Keep data on a separate partition. If you have to ever do a re-install, at least you can take that partition with you

  • If your system deviates from the stock install, be prepared for some trouble

Until next week…

Long live the Penguin,

Sean mailto:swalberg@brainbuzz.com


2) Linux News


RedHat Announces 7.1 Release

Sure enough, I upgrade to 7.0 and they release 7.1! This version features the 2.4 kernel and security improvements, among others. Given the number of patches that came out for 7.0, it probably isn’t a bad idea to upgrade.

http://www.redhat.com/about/presscenter/2001/press_sevenone.html


Tribes 2 and Alpha Centauri for Linux

Loki Games earns their living by porting Windows games to Linux. They’ve just announced the release of two new games. Tribes 2 looks simply amazing in the videos. While you’re at it, check out the list of games ported to date and download a demo or two. Their work so far is impressive.

http://linuxpr.com/releases/3592.html


The Next Step for Linux Advocacy

Linux Advocacy has to be more than just yelling out “Linux is better!” This article takes a realistic view of the situation, and shows some things you can do in your own home.

http://www.osopinion.com/perl/story/8789.html


Integrate Linux Solutions into your Windows Network

So, you know that Linux is a good fit in your company. You know what you need, but you’ve never used Linux before! Not a problem, because this book is made for you. Learn Linux as you implement file and print sharing, put a Linux backend on your Access databases, and more.

http://itresources.brainbuzz.com/tutorials/tutorial.asp?t=S1TU1247


3) Linux Resources


gcc or kgcc?

With RedHat 7.0 you need a separate compiler to build the kernel. Stupid, I know, and I hope it’s fixed soon. Here is the official RedHat word on how to “fix” your downloaded kernel so that it works with your installation.

http://www.redhat.com/support/docs/gotchas/7.0/gotchas-7-7.html


Ethernet Diagnostics

Something as simple as setting the duplex and speed on an Ethernet card should be obvious, but it isn’t. The ether-diag set of utilities is a more universal way of changing the settings on the fly rather than having to look up the module parameters.

http://www.scyld.com/diag/index.html


Use GnuPG with Pine

GNU Privacy Guard is a Free email encryption tool. Integrating it with your favorite email tool may be difficult, though. This article shows how to set it up with PINE. Unlike some other instructions out there, this covers everything from key generation to sample usage.

http://www.linuxsecurity.com/feature_stories/feature_story-83.html


Make SSH do More

The Secure Shell is one of the essential tools in your toolbox. Sure, it secures your logins, but it can do a lot more than that. This article points out some of the handier features of this software, like portforwarding and password-less authentication.

http://www.itworld.com/Comp/2384/LWD010410sshtips/


Care and Feeding of RPM

Kurt Seifried, in his latest “Kurt’s Closet” column, speaks out on some of the dangers behind binary packaging, specifically RPMs. He then goes on to give some thoughtful advice on how to mitigate the risk.

http://securityportal.com/closet/closet20010411.html


4) App o’ the week

If you’re like me, your system is probably littered with software that’s been installed out of a makefile or tarball, rather than being managed by RPM. Putting this software into RPM isn’t always easy, mostly because it’s hard to find out what exactly is installed and how to tweak the makefile. This set of utilities “watches” the process and builds the list of files for you, or even the RPM!

http://mayams.net/~izto/checkinstall-en.html


(C) 2001 BrainBuzz.com. All Rights Reserved.


     This message is from BrainBuzz.com.

You are currently subscribed to the Hottest Linux News and Resources as: sean@ertw.com

To un-subscribe from this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to: mailto:leave-linuxnews-3825955Y@list.cramsession.com


To Subscribe to this newsletter by e-mail: send a blank email message to:

mailto:join-linuxnews@list.brainbuzz.com