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Haubenschild, Patricia Jung, Jan The world of Linux development often seems, various levels; slowly releasing code to the
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essentially doing their own thing. However, if IBM has now decided to attack the
Design Renate Ettenberger vero-design, you scratch beneath the surface just a little, financial markets with Linux. Venezuela’s
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you’ll find that some major business interests Banco Mercantil with 375 branches is running
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Operations Manager Pam Shore Hewlett-Packard is working with Linux – server farm. So many divisions within these
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12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 3

 NEWS
SuSE provides all-round firewall protection
SuSE Linux has released its new Firewall on a CD,
offering companies linked to the Internet protection
for their data and IT infrastructure in a CD format
which, SuSE believes, businesses will find easier to
install and maintain.
Designed as an application level gateway, the
SuSE Linux Firewall combines the security standards
of a hardware solution with the flexibility of a
Lineo and ADS announce handy
partnership
Embedded systems, real-time and high availability solutions provider Lineo is
collaborating with RISC-based systems developer Applied Data Systems (ADS) to deliver
a development platform for smart handheld devices.
The Lineo Embedix Plus for SHDs platform has been developed for manufacturers
who require a solution to enable rapid production of SHDs, PDAs and other information
appliances. It offers an open standards platform based on Linux and Java and uses Lineo
Embedix SDK to integrate SHD solutions including Insignia’s Jeode Java Virtual Machine
technologies, Trolltech’s Qt/Embedded GUI and Opera Software’s Operal 5 for Linux
Web browser.
The ADS Graphics Client Plus system is the first hardware to run Embedix Plus for
SHDs. Addressing the needs of graphics intensive applications with onboard I/O
requirements, Graphics Client Plus is based on the StrongARM SA1110 processor, with
up to three serial ports, onboard Ethernet, CAN and IrDA, SCMCIA, USB slave, ‘smart’
real-time I/O and integrated flat panel and touch screen support. ■ and the world.”
6 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
software firewall. The SuSE Linux Firewall on CD can
check, monitor, analyse and log ongoing data
transfer. Features of the SuSE Linux Firewall include
its ‘live system’, which enables the operating system
to be booted directly from a CD-ROM instead of
being installed on the hard disk, making it
impossible to manipulate the firewall software.
Meanwhile, the configuration files for the firewall –
such as the ipchains packet filter settings are held
on a write-protected configuration floppy.
Other features of the firewall on a CD solution
include syslog, postfix as mail relay, and SSH
support. The firewall can protect the network
against both external and internal tampering by
enabling administrators to define limits for various
divisions with the company. An http content filter
can recognise and, if required, block certain HTML
pages, while the proxy server, based on the open
source Squid package, speeds up the accessing of
Web pages by saving previously viewed pages and
reloading them on request.
The source code is provided together with the
firewall solution, enabling the solution to be tailored
to specific requirements. A second CD contains the
Firewall Administration System, a set of tools
designed to simplify configuration and
administration of one or more firewalls.
The package consists of two CD-ROMs, a 500-
page manual, and 30 days of installation support. It
is available from the manufacturer or from
authorised SuSE Business Partners priced at
£429.00 plus VAT. ■
Toshiba
chooses Hard Hat
Toshiba has chosen to use MontaVista’s Hard Hat
Linux in the development of embedded products
for the printer, set top box and digital
television markets.
Toshiba and MontaVista have already begun
working together and will mark the launch of their
partnership by porting MontaVista’s Hard Hat
Linux to Toshiba’s TX39 and TX49 embedded
processor families. Toshiba will also name Hard Hat
Linux as one of the standard operating systems for
its TX39 and TX49 processors. Toshiba plans to
release Hard Hat Linux-supported TX39 and TX49
processors from September 2001.
Masafumi Watanabe, Deputy General
Manager, of Toshiba Corporation said, ”We are
working with MontaVista to provide more
comprehensive support for our current and future
customers, not only in Japan but throughout Asia
■

Virus-free
Data security software developer Kaspersky Labs
has released the latest version of its KasperskyT
Anti-Virus for UNIX/Linux operating system.
Registered users of Kaspersky Anti-Virus
Business Optimal and Corporate Suite can
install the latest version for
UNIX/Linux free of charge.
The new version adds
multithreaded
object-scanning
technology that
enables the
antivirus scanner
to simultaneously check
any number of files, with sessions limited only by
the server’s capabilities. The number of active
sessions can be defined in the start-up command
line or in the Kaspersky Anti-Virus configuration file.
The new version also features support for OpenBSD
2.8 and Solaris 8 operating systems, as well as for
the exim email gateway for UNIX and Linux.
As a time saving benefit for administrators, the
solution now enables remote control of the
program for use with a Web interface using a
secure HTTPS connection. Other modifications to
the solution include faster email scanning speeds
and improvements to the antivirus monitor, which
can now intercept file operations and transfer
objects in real time for scanning without the need
for a buffer directory with delayed scanning. ■ international trade principles.
Berkeley squared
Sleepycat Software has announced that its
Berkeley DB version 3.3, together with its
complete source code, is now available for
download from the Sleepycat website.
Version 3.3 includes offers features for high
availability, along with performance
enhancements, and support for Lineo’s Embedix
embedded Linux operating system. Once
embedded in the application, Berkeley DB needs
no separate database server or administration.
Features include concurrency, transactions,
disaster recovery, hot backup, and other
critical services.
Michael Olson, vice president of marketing for
Sleepycat Software, said that new features of the
system were added in response to customer
requests. ”Our customers have been asking for
high availability features for some time now. For
example, in complex systems that must be up and
NEWS
Solaris in the Izodia loop
Business to business e-commerce solution provider
Izodia has added support for Sun Solaris 8TM to its
InTrade 5 ecommerce software platform.
InTrade 5, a unified application for business-to-
business e-commerce chain management, also
supports Windows NT, Windows 2000, and UNIX.
The Solaris release for InTrade 5 will also add
support for Oracle 8iTM databases, and any
standards-based Web Server.
With more than 1,600 documented XML API
calls, the system’s functions can be called by, and
exchange information with external applications.
The InTrade 5 solution is designed to address the
needs of businesses trading internationally and
provides them with support for multiple language,
currency, tax systems, date formatting and
■
operational twenty-four hours a day, seven days a
week, it’s possible to have brief periods of time
when there’s no spare disk space available. It’s
important for key system services, like the
database, to continue operating in those cases.
Release 3.3 of Berkeley DB can survive these kinds
of failures. We’ve also added some new
performance enhancements, like support for
lower isolation levels and faster data retrieval, that
our customers have asked for.”
Berkeley DB runs on most UNIX and Linux
systems, as well as Wind River’s VxWorks, QNX’s
RTOS, and Windows 95/98/NT/2000.
Info
http://www.sleepycat.com
■
12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 7
 NEWS
Conversion by command
Command Prompt has announced the release of the latest version of its Linux-based
DocParse tool for professional technical authors who maintain a large amount of HTML
based documentation.
DocParse can convert an HTML document into a valid DocBook XML/SGML
document. From the XML or SGML format users can convert the document to XHTML,
HTML, RTF(MS Word Format) or print-ready postscript.
DocParse con handle the conversion of multiple documents, lists, and tables and
entities. Currently the tool is only available for x86 Linux. However Command Prompt
plans support for YellowDog Linux (PPC) and MacOS X in the near future.
Info
http://www.commandprompt.com
■ Perl, Python, Tcl/Tk, Embedded SQL in C and
Cyco’s fresh focus
Recently downsized document management
software developer Cyco Software has announced
that the company is to focus on strengthening its
position in the departmental and divisional
CAD/engineering market.
Cyco has decided to discontinue its direct
business activities in the enterprise EDM market.
However the company is to continue to work with
its channel partners and plans to extend its global
distribution network. Martijn Janmaat, chief
executive of Cyco Software, said the strategy would
give the company the opportunity to capitalise on
its strengths and the growth potential in the generic
departmental and divisional CAD/engineering
market while at the same time building business
opportunities in specific market segments with
more specialised solutions.
Cyco plans to launch new versions of its
AutoManager WorkFlow and AutoManager
Meridian products later this year.
Caldera releases new OpenLinux workstation.
The Caldera OpenLinux Workstation 3.1 is released
concurrently with Caldera’s OpenLinux Server and
Open UNIX 8 products. The new version of the
workstation is a self-hosted operating system built
on the Linux 2.4 kernel and aimed at developers
who want to build commercial, Open Source, or
corporate applications for an open standard
environment, including the proposed Linux
Standard Base (LSB), using Java, C and C++.
Drew Spencer, chief technology officer at
Caldera described the new Workstation product as
”an ideal environment for developing on Linux or
developing for Linux-compatible platforms such as
Caldera’s Open UNIX 8”, adding, ”For the
development lifecycle, it provides developers the
8 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
Red Hat’s database
solution
Red Hat has announced its new database solution,
which, says the company, fills a gap in the market
between large, complex and resource-hungry
enterprise databases and smaller, more affordable
databases that lack the sophistication needed for
handling complex Web and
e-business applications.
Red Hat Database is an open source database
solution based on Postgre SQL 7.1 and optimised
with Red Hat Linux 7.1. It supports a range of
programming languages, including C/C++, PHP,
supports core SQL 92 support, ODBC and JDBC
APIs, as well as offering support for object
oriented features, such as large objects, structured
types and user-defined abstract data types (ADT).
The solution is online-backup enabled and is
designed to deliver robust transaction support for
intensive computing environments and has
advanced locking capabilities for maintaining the
integrity of the database over the course of
updates and changes.
Info
www.redhat.com/databasesolution
■
■
necessary tools to build, test and deploy business
applications in a secure, supported, and scalable
server setting while developing in an easy-to-use,
developer-friendly environment.”
The workstation incorporates Sun Microsystems
Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition J2SE Software
Development Kit version 1.3, StarOffice 5.2 and
Forte for Java 2.0, and JBuilder 4 Foundation from
Borland.
Info
http://www.caldera.com/products/workstation
■

A kind of magic
Linux customers looking for an Internet-based
service desk solution may be interested in a new
offering developed by Magic Solutions in
partnership with National Computer
Enterprises (NCE).
The browser based Magic Total Service Desk
(TSD) solution is designed for rapid deployment
and aimed at users running the Oracle database on
a Linux platform.
Magic TSD features remote control capabilities
and enterprise-level support management
integrated with desktop, network and event
management tools. The solution’s functionality
covers business automation, purchasing and
customisation tools. The software is geared to
enabling users to manage their service desk from
any location while serving as a platform for the
development of such Web-based applications as
Family support
Business application development solution
provider Acucorp has announced that it is
providing support for Linux on IBM’s eServer z900
and S/390 on its Acucorp extend 5 solution.
The extend 5 family of solutions enables
software developers to convert their COBOL
applications for use by modern systems. extend 5
is available for a variety of platforms including
Windows 9x/NT/2000, AIX, Solaris, HP/UX,
DG/UX. Features include products and services for
enabling Internet deployment, graphical COBOL
development, data access, distributed computing
and increased programmer productivity.
The new Acucorp solution will enable
software developers to move their ACUCOBOL-GT
to Linux for eServer z900 and S/390 without the
need for costly recompilation.
Dr. Pamela Coker, chief executive of Acucorp
said, ”Acucorp has been supporting Linux for
years, so there was no question that we would
support Linux for z900 and S/390We know that
our worldwide customers, including more than
1,000 ISVs, as well as z900 and S/390 customers
requiring a robust COBOL solution for Linux, will
find substantial value in combining the strength of
Acucorp’s proven technology with the Linux for
S/390 operating system. This unique combination
will provide customers with powerful Linux-based
COBOL applications and data access solutions that
are unparalleled in the industry today.”
Info
http://www.acucorp.com/Services/evalform.html
■
NEWS
purchase requisition tracking, insurance policy
tracking, online employment application and
software defect logging.
Chuck Clements, president of NCE,
commented, ”Now that Magic is running on both
Linux and UNIX, enterprises using these platforms
will benefit from the improved business efficiency
and lowered costs that Magic provides. This is a
great advantage to companies that were
previously unable to merge their solution desk
with their platform.”
Info
www.magicsolutions.com
http://www.nai.com
■
Service included
Caldera has released two new server products designed for enabling the deployment of
Linux applications on both the Linux and UNIX platforms.
Caldera OpenLinux Server and Caldera Open UNIX 8 are geared towards business
needs ranging from those of the low-end server to the high-end data centre.
Open UNIX 8 is a deployment platform for industry standard Intel processor systems.
Evolved from Caldera’s acquisition SCO UNIXware, it incorporates the Linux Kernel
Personality (LKP) technology, enabling users to run Linux applications and UNIX
applications simultaneously.
Aimed at users engaged in building Internet-enabled business solutions, OpenLinux
server is based on the Linux 2.4 kernel has an integrated Linux operating system. The
software comes with default configurations for secure Web, file and print and network
infrastructure servers. Management tools include the Webmin secure browser-based
management capability, Caldera’s Volution agent for simplified configuration and
management of Linux systems, and the Volution Online browser-based decision tool and
update service for the deployment and analysis of software updates.
Caldera chief executive Ransom Love said, ”Caldera’s release of these products
demonstrates our desire to lift the strengths of Linux and incorporate them with the
many well-known strengths of UNIX. With Open UNIX 8 and OpenLinux Server, Caldera
provides the best in UNIX and Linux deployment. The result is cost savings, stability and
an extremely scalable application environment.”
Info
http://www.caldera.com/
■
12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 9
 NEWS
OpenOne delivers
new mail server
OpenOne Corporation has
announced the new version of its
MailOne Internet standards-based
enterprise email server for the Linux
and UNIX operating systems.
MailOne version 3.2 is now
available and adds support for IMAP
standard email clients to its existing
support for POP-based email clients
such as Outlook Express, Internet
Explorer, Netscape Communicator and
Eudora, as well as Microsoft Exchange,
TeamLinks, an X-Windows Motif and LessTif user
agents and command line interface.
MailOne is a re-engineered version of Digital
Equipment Corporation’s MailWorks for UNIX, an
open messaging system, which exchanges
messages using a range of industry standard
messaging protocols including Sendmail and
commercial SMTP/MIME message transports, as
well as the option to handle X.400 protocols.
Info
www.openone.com
■ Cape Clear Software has announced that the beta
RidgeRunning Texas support
Embedded Linux software and tools developer RidgeRun has released its Board Support
Package (BSP) for the Texas Instruments TMS320DSC21 digital signal processor.
The new solution aims to speed up development cycles by enabling embedded
system developers to build an embedded product quickly, start writing applications
before hardware is available, access royalty-free Open Source code, and use DSPs
without the need for expertise in DSP algorithm development.
RidgeRun DSC21 BSP offers a compiler, assembler, debugger, linker, Standard C
library and utility programs for software development. In addition to providing the Open
Source Linux Kernel optimised for the TI TMS320DSC21 processor, the BSP provides
drivers for system-on-chip peripherals including on-screen display, UART, compact flash
and USB. An Appliance Simulator enables developers to build, implement and test
products for hardware which may not be readily available, by enabling them to run their
software on a simulation of the required hardware using the same cross-compile tools
as they would use on the real target.
Info
www.ridgerun.com
■ ■
10 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
Scyld: the next
generation
Scyld Computing has released the latest version of
its next generation cluster operating system
software. Scyld Beowulf Professional Edition is a
scalable solution designed to simplify cluster setup,
integration and administration. The new version
simplifies traditional Beowulf clusters by initiating
and administering operations performed on the
linked cluster nodes through a single master node.
The Single System Image (SSI) design makes the
cluster behave as if it were a single computer.
Donald Becker, Scyld chief technology officer,
said, ”Our mission at Scyld is to create software
that will bring cost effective, easily managed, high-
performance computing to the commercial
marketplace. The new features in this release add
significantly to our existing standard upon which
high performance cluster applications have been
developed. This new release will further stimulate
deployment of turn-key commercial applications”.
■
RAD tool
version of its CapeStudio Web Services Rapid
Application Development (RAD) tool is now
available for download from its website.
The CapeStudio Web services development
environment works with Web Services platform
based on XML, SOAP, WSDL, and Universal
Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI)
industry standards. It can be used to generate
code sutomatically for Java or Visual Basic from
Web Services Description Language (WSDL) files,
which describe the interfaces to Web services. The
solution works with Cape Clear’s CapeConnect
Web Services platform to form Cape’s end-to-end
design-to-deployment solution for Web services.
John Maughan, CapeStudio product manager at
Cape Clear Software commented, ”CapeStudio
brings a new level of ease-of-use to Web Services,
automating much of the code generation and
opening Web Services to a whole new range of
developers and business analysts. Web Services
have succeeded in delivering cross-platform
integration across the Internet, but unless the
development and deployment of Web Services is
made widely accessible its success will be
hampered – CapeStudio provides that access.”
Info
http://www.capeclear.com

SuSE and Heroix solution
Systems management software developer Heroix
has announced a new partnership relationship with
SuSE Linux which will deliver a systems monitoring
management solution for Linux servers.
Under the terms of the partnership, Heroix’s eQ
systems management software has been integrated
into the new release of SuSE Linux 7.2 Professional.
The software enables monitoring of system level
information by carrying out tests on a number of
Interconnectivity
A coalition of high-tech industry leaders have
formed a nonprofit corporation to support the
future development and adoption of AMD’s
HyperTransport I/O Link specification.
The HyperTransport Technology Consortium,
consists of API NetWorks, Apple, Cisco Systems,
NVIDIA, PMC-Sierra, Sun Microsystems,
and Transmeta.
HyperTransport interconnect technology is a
high-speed, high-performance, point-to-point link
for integrated circuits, developed to deliver faster
communication speeds between chips in of high-
performance computer, networking and
communications devices. With a bandwidth of
12.8GB per second, HyperTransport is designed to
work with bus standards such as Peripheral
Component Interconnect (PCI), as well as
emerging technologies like InfiniBand and
10Gb Ethernet.
Gabriele Sartori, president of the
HyperTransport Technology Consortium explained
that the consortium represented the commitment
of its members to develop industry-wide adoption
of HyperTransport technology, and to drive the
technology into the market. He added,
”HyperTransport technology is a popular new chip-
to-chip communications technology that is
endorsed by major industry players. It is designed
to provide a smooth transition from existing
technologies and to support the necessary
scalability and bandwidth for future
product innovations.”
NEWS
key system issues and notifying the user in real time
of potential problem areas.
Frank Puranik, Global Technical Director for
Heroix said, ”The off-the-shelf nature of the
Heroix/SuSE integration will let users easily
implement a monitoring solution that will return
value in a very short period of time. We are very
excited about the Heroix/SuSE integration, and with
Linux being billed as the operating system of the
future it’s imperative that improving availability of
critical systems on the Linux platform is an essential
part of this.”
Dirk Hohndel, chief technology officer for SuSE
Linux AG, said that the integration of Heroix
Monitoring Management Solutions demonstrated
the relevance of Linux for enterprise customers. He
added, ”We are proud to make these
comprehensive tools available to our customers and
support Heroix in its commitment to Linux.” ■
New Perforce SCM now available
Perforce Software has announced that version 2001.1 of its Software Configuration
Management (SCM) solution is now available.
Benefits of the new version include improved support for multiple platforms,
scalability, speed, usability and simpler cross-platform development as well as a choice of
both pessimistic and optimistic locking models, FTP-based check-in/check-out for non-
Perforce users, and improved Python support.
Additionally, the Perforce now supports WebGain’s Visual Cafe 4.2 and Perforce
Windows GUI, p4win, can now be personalised by the user, so, for example a developer
could add personal menu items to interface with other tools and scripts, and customise
views of the Perforce database.
Christopher Seiwald, president and chief technology officer at Perforce Software,
said, ”This release has been built upon customer feedback and so we know that each
and every improvement is relevant to developers. Perforce 2001.1 does exactly what it
should, providing an environment that allows fast effective development across multiple
platforms within teams of two to more than two thousand.”
All Perforce users with a current support and maintenance contract are entitled to be
upgraded to 2001.1 free of charge.
Info
http://www.perforce.com
■
■
12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 11
FEATURE RDIST
Remote Backups with Rsync and Rdist
SECURITY
MIRRORING PATRICIA JUNG
You don't have to use classic data back up methods.
If you're part of a local network or have an Internet
connection, you could use remote back up.
They're the stars of any large
computing centre – the robots
which equip the tape
drives of commercial data
storage facilities. While
there's no shortage of
memory space there, smaller
users are still faced with
probing the mass of data to be
backed up and actually
creating copies.
But there is another principle of
these central data back up systems which you
shouldn't shy away from. There may be a couple of
fat server computers directly attached to the
storage server. If workstations in the next room, at
the other end of the campus or from the client
company in the city centre have to be backed up,
the back up data migrate via LAN, dial-up or
dedicated line into the storage system.
Data vehicles
The key phrase here is remote backup, and
this can be done even when one has a
small LAN or sufficient space on another computer
on the Internet. The only requirement is that there is
server software running on the backup computer
which allows log ons from remote computers.
Nowadays this will be a secure shell server
(sshd). On some machines, you will also still find
Remote-Shell-Daemons rshd, but since this means
the data is transferred unencrypted, this should only
be considered in a well-secured LAN, in which all
users are trustworthy.
To mirror the data (where synchronous copies of
original data are made on separate media) there are
two possible programs: rdist and rsync. The original
rdist is no longer being actively developed, but there
are still projects such as freerdist
54 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
(http://freshmeat.net/projects/freerdist/), which can
at least show last-amended data. And not very
much will change in terms of functionality in future
– which can certainly be an advantage.
In the case of rsync
(http://rsync.samba.org/rsync/) the authors are more
energetic. This program has the advantage that,
where files have changed, it only transfers the
changes. rdist sends the complete file again. If you
want to keep the transfer volume as low as
possible, this is a crucial criterion for
decision-making.
Otherwise it really depends on your individual
taste. Neither has yet been the serious target of GUI
programmers, so you will still have to get to grips
with the syntax, which takes some getting used to.
Since we devoted a long article to rsync in
Answer Girl (Linux Magazine issue 9, p. 84 ff), we
will now cover the alternative product.
Remote distribution
Before you can configure the data mirroring, it is
worthwhile making sure that rdist is installed not
only on the system with the data to be backed up,
but also on the destination system. The rdist client
may not necessarily be installed, but the rdist
daemon rdistd must, because this is called on when
it comes to data comparison.
If rdistd is not on the search path to the destination
account, it is best to note down where it is.
On the computer with the data to be
duplicated, you must take the rdist client by the
hand. In the first instance, this will only know the
Path to the secure shell client ssh and perhaps the
name and path of its configuration file:
/tmp$ rdist -P 'which ssh' -f ~/distfile
If the rdistd cannot be found on the destination
system without precise path specification, there is

still the option -p /path/to/backupcomputers/rdistd.
If there is a file named distfile or Distfile in the
current directory, the -f option can also be left out:
~$ rdist -P /usr/bin/ssh
But this file is not to be sniffed at, since it contains
all the details on what, how and to where it is to be
duplicated. Several entries are possible here, so that
different copy rules can be specified for various
directories. If you like, you can back up the data for
your thesis on a uni account, while love letters
would be better backed up on the second computer
in the home LAN.
Each entry begins with a name for the following
rule and a colon. The former can be anything you
like, but can only be one word without a space.
Then comes the specification of what is to be
copied. This can be directories or just individual files.
If there are several specifications separated by
colons, everything must be enclosed in a pair of
round brackets.
Next comes a stylised arrow, ->, pointing to the
address of the destination computer. If you have a
different username on the other system, this is
written in front, as with an email address. In that
case, a @ separates user name and host name.
Thus, a distfile with the following content ...
private: ( ~/.netscape/bookmarks.html \
~/private \
~/letters ) -> trish@192.168.1.249
thesis: /home/trish/thesis -> lillegroenn.trU
ish.de
... is saying that the directories ~/private and
~/letters together with the Netscape bookmarks
should land in the account of trish on the computer
with the IP address 192.168.1.249, while the
directory /home/trish/thesis with all its sub-
directories, should be shovelled onto the computer
lillegroenn.trish.de.
Destination anywhere?
What's missing now is the Where To on the
destination computers. This is specified with install:
install /mnt/backup;
ensures that the respective data lands under
/mnt/backup on the destination system. If there isn't
one, rdist (to be precise, the rdistd called up by it on
the destination computer) also makes this directory.
What matters here is the semicolon at the
command end.
There are a few commands such as install,
which modify the action of rdist; we shall pick out
two more at this point, which are of general interest
with respect to backups: except_pat excludes files
and directories from the backup which corresponds
to the pattern specified.
except_pat tmp;
RDIST FEATURE
ensures that tmp directories, but also files such as
wtmp or chapter1.tmp are not backed up at the
same time. One can specify several patterns in
round brackets, and regular expressions can be used
to a certain degree. So
except_pat ( \\.tgz\$ [Tt][mM][pP] );
ensures that all files ending in .tgz (\$ stands for the
end of the file name) and all files/directories with
tmp in any combination of upper and lower case
letters are excluded from the backup. Since the dot
is meant, not as a regular expression for any symbol,
but as a dot, there must be a \ in front, and as this,
too, is a special symbol, another backslash is placed
in front of that.
The command
notify pjung@linux-magazine.co.uk;
in turn ensures that pjung@linux-magazine.co.uk
receives an e-mail, in which rdist reports on the
work performed.
Equipped with all these options, distfile then
looks e.g. as in Listing 1. Comments are – as usual
in the shell – preceded by a #.
Doppelgängers
Provided you leave the back up space in peace,
everything is hunky-dory. Nevertheless, now and
then you change one file or another and do not
want the back up to ruthlessly overwrite these
changes. To inspire in rdist a little consideration at
this point for files which are newer on the
destination system than on the source computer,
the quick and easy option -o younger is added to
the rdist call up.
And a contrary approach is also possible: If you
want to ruthlessly destroy everything on the back
up system which does not exist on the original
system, specify the option -o remove on the
command line.
Of course, that does not bring us to the furthest
limit of fine tuning. The rdist man page can become
your constant companion when planning a backup. ■
Listing 1: Example of an rdist distfile
private: ( ~/private ~/letters ) -> trish@192.168.1.249
install /mnt/backup/private;
except_pat tmp;
thesis: /home/trish/thesis -> lillegroenn.trish.de
install ~/backup;
except_pat ( \\.tgz\$ [Tt][mM][pP] );
notify pjung@linux-magazine.co.uk;
# Copy the Netscape bookmarks on the spot
bookmarks: ~/.netscape/bookmarks.html -> lillegroenn.trish.de
install ~/.netscape/bookmarks.html;
12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 55
COVER FEATURE TEST DISTRIBUTIONS

Ten distributions in a lab test

APPLIED
ALCHEMY
PATRICIA JUNG, THOMAS DRILLING, ULRICH WOLF, MIRKO DÖLLE, JAN KLEINERT

Most Linux Magazine The candidates

readers will get SuSE Linux 7.2
http://www.suse.de/uk/
themselves a new Personal Edition
distribution about £29
Professional Edition
once a year. Now's a £49, Update £27
good time to do it as
Red Hat Linux 7.1
all the main http://www.redhat.com
distributions have just Deluxe Edition
£71
come out. Professional Edition
£177

Linux-Mandrake 8.0
http://www.linux-mandrake.com
Power Pack
£56
Pro Suite Edition
£136

Caldera Open Linux

http://www.caldera.com
Workstation 3.1
60/100 $US (without/with support)
Server 3.1
600/800 $US (without/with support)

Progeny Debian 1.0

http://www.progeny.com
£44

14 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001

 TEST DISTRIBUTIONS COVER FEATURE

This is the right moment for a distribution test; on commercial development by the founder
the one hand the 2.4 kernel is still nice and fresh, of Debian, Ian Murdock.
but on the other hand, it has been hanging around The concept of the test follows
long enough to be suitable for productive systems. the idea that when choosing a
Also, Xfree86 4.0 and KDE 2.1 have made their suitable distribution, every user
names as standards. has different preferences.
In February SuSE had already presented its Linux Hence the test is broken down
7.1, based on kernel 2.4.0. But the reviews were into sections called
somewhat mixed (Linux Magazine Issue 9). Now the Installation, Hardware,
German developers have souped up version 7.2. Desktop Compatibility,
The competition is not sleeping. Red Hat Linux Server Compatibility,
7.1, Linux-Mandrake 8.0 and Caldera Open Linux Security and Support, and
have also just come out. The testers did a top-to-toe Documentation. This
examination of all four distributions for each makes it easier to find
Standard and Professional variant. The test field is your own personal
completed by the Debian-derivative Progeny, a requirements. ■

Waiting for Woody

While commercial distributors chuck a new product onto the market several times a year
(which has not always been perfected but may be equipped with all the latest features), the
Debian team takes a more relaxed approach to the matter. Until they are satisfied with a
version, it keeps the testing label.
Although Potato is constantly being updated with security patches, it contains neither a
2.4 kernel, nor XFree 4.0. There are unofficial packets available to adapt a Potato
installation to Kernel 2.4 at http://www.fs.tum.de/~bunk/kernel-24.html. Anyone who really
wants to keep their finger on the pulse must weigh up stability against newness and
upgrade to the successor test version, Woody. It is not yet known when Potato is to be
succeeded by Woody as a stable version. Commercial Debian distributors such as Progeny
therefore offer rebored releases of Version 2.2.
The Debian Project is not lying idle. For the recent LinuxTag meeting, Michael Bramer
produced a release squeezed onto one CD containing the Potato installation system, the
majority of the packets from Woody and also KDE and Gnome from the unstable version
Sid. Kernel 2.4 is also included as an option, as is XFree 4.0.3. Although it is not possible to
offer the range of software on one single CD, which Woody is missing when the current
binary packet size is of five CDs.

This should be a 1/2 page not a

third!

1/3
ad

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 15

 COVER FEATURE DISTRIBUTIONS ON TEST

INSTALLATION Linux has managed to score a good One collection of software intended for the mass
market is now no more complicated to put onto
few points against Windows disk than Windows 2000. But sometimes the devil is
recently because the installation in the detail.

programs of most distributions have

SuSE Linux 7.2 Professional
become markedly easier to use.
Opinion is divided about SuSE's YaST2. As an
installation tool it is now refined, easy to understand
and makes an excellent case for itself. But this does
not mean that it is beyond criticism. Due to the
ruthless sequential processing, installation takes a
very long time. This does guarantee that you can
always go back to the beginning before the actual
partitioning, but then the tool remembers some, but
not all, of the previously made settings, which leads
to some confusion.
Errors in the previous version have largely
disappeared, so the network configuration

Installation
- SuSE Linux 7.2 SuSE Linux 7.2 Red Hat Linux 7.1 Red Hat Linux 7.1
Personal Professional Deluxe Edition Professional Edition
Language English yes yes yes yes
Clarity very good very good usable usable
Automatic Partitioning yes, result relatively usable, yes, result relatively usable, yes / result relatively usable yes / result relatively usable
FAT32 resizing possible 1) FAT32 resizing possible 1) (see text) (see text)
Other FS offered FAT32 ReiserFS LVM, FAT32, ReiserFS,-LVM, FAT with restriction, FAT with restriction,
encryption possible encryption possible Soft-RAID with Ext2 Soft-RAID with Ext2
Number of standard 5/7 5/7 4 / 3 to 8 4 / 3 to 8
profiles / packet groups
Package manager organised hierarchically, organised hierarchically, organised hierarchically, organised hierarchically,
searchby packet name search by packet name search by packet name does search by packet name does
possible possible not work, only for CD 1+2 not work, only for CD 1+2
Hard disk capacity (MB) 1500 1500 1200 1200
Graphics card correctly yes, but 3D-acceleration yes, but 3D-acceleration yes yes
recognised cannot be activated cannot be activated
Large Monitor DB yes yes yes yes
Image Refresh optimal optimal optimal optimal
Image geometry optimal optimal optimal 2) optimal 2)
Boot manager installation automatic and manual, automatic and manual, Win fully automatic, can be fully automatic, can be
Win98 partition recognised 98 partition not recognised adapted to user-defined inst. adapted to user-defined inst.
Boot manager Lilo 21.6 Lilo 21.6 Lilo 21.4 Lilo 21.4
Dial-up Installation Modem, ISDN, ADSL Modem, ISDN, ADSL no no
Provider-DB yes yes no no
Mouse/wheel recognised yes / no yes / no yes / no yes / no
Printer database yes, printer autom. recognised, yes, printer autom. recognised, add-on only, then driver add-on only, then driver
test image printout test image printout DB in Linuxconf DB in Linuxconf
Navigation in wizard serial and forwards / serial and forwards / serial and forwards / serial and forwards /
backwards backwards backwards backwards
Overall impression Consistent, easy to Consistent, easy to Usable, but a few bugs Usable, but a few bugs
of installation understand, clearly described. understand, clearly and language confusion, and language confusion,
Apart from the LVM described. difficult to install additional difficult to install additional
configuration, exemplary. CDs. CDs. (DVD: see Text)
Assessment ++ ++ - -
1) Bug: With automatic partitioning an existing Windows partition must be reduced, although there are deletable partitions.

16 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001

 DISTRIBUTIONS ON TEST COVER FEATURE

functions perfectly, unlike the SuSE-7.1 YaST2.
The bugs which have not been removed
included an insistence on wanting to reduce an
existing Windows partition even when other
partitions have to be deleted to make space.
SuSE offers to encrypt file systems of any kind
whatsoever on installation. You then need a
password for mounting. Logic volumes can also be
defined at the time of installation. A Yast module
for run-time configuration should soon be issued as
an online update.
Gnome fans will not get their money's worth
with a standard installation, but they will from the
extended packet selection. Missing the checkbox
means you will have to install the individual packets
later in YaST2 manually. Only YaST1 offers easy
retro-installation of the Gnome group.
SuSE Linux 7.2 Personal
SuSE Linux in the reduced Personal version offers
the same installation routine as its big sister. LVM
can also be installed, but the target group of the
mass market product will be overtaxed by the
unclear user help and error messages such as "The
entry is invalid. You must enter a value between 1M
and 0MB. e.g. 40M 1 G...".
Red Hat Linux 7.1
Installation of Red Hat 7.1 Deluxe and Professional
edition are the same, because the first eight CDs of
both variants are identical. The installation program
has hardly changed at all compared to
earlier versions.
Automatic partitioning is somewhat misleading.
Contrary to the description "Automatic partitioning
and DELETION OF DATA" only Linux partitions are
removed – except in the case of server installation.
But the help text on the left margin does explain
this peculiarity.
Since version 2.4.1 Reiser-FS has had official
entry to the Linux kernel – but this has not
prompted Red Hat to support this file system. In the
partition program Disk Druid one still has to settle
for the Ext2 or DOS file system, although you can
make a software RAID system. LVM on the other
hand is not offered by Red Hat.

Mandrake Linux 8.0 Mandrake Linux 8.0 Caldera Open Linux Caldera Open Linux Progeny Debian 1.0
Power Pack Pro Suite Workstation 3.1 Server 3.1
yes yes yes yes yes
good good good good usable
yes, result usable, FAT32 yes, result usable, FAT32 no no no
resizing possible resizing possible
no no ReiserFS ReiserFS no

no / yes no / yes 3 / yes 3 / yes 1 / yes

organised hierarchically, organised hierarchically, organised hierarchically organised hierarchically no

full text search possible full text search possible

650 650 1600 1600 800

yes yes yes yes yes:Voodoo3,
no: ATI Mach64
yes yes yes yes no
good good optimal optimal optimal
good good optimal optimal optimal
fully automatic, Win98 fully automatic, Win98 fully automatic, Win98 fully automatic, Win98 manual
partition recognised partition recognised partition recognised partition recognised
Lilo 21.7, Grub 0.5.96.1 Lilo 21.7, Grub 0.5.96.1 Grub Grub Grub 0.5.96.1
Modem, ISDN, ADSL Modem, ISDN, ADSL Modem Modem no
yes yes no no no
yes / no yes / no yes / yes yes / yes yes / no
yes yes yes yes yes

free free serial and forwards / serial and forwards / serial

backwards (restric.) backwards (restric.)
Installation easy, bug in Installation easy, bug in the Installation easy, a few Installation easy, a few Appears inconsistent and
the data communications data communications cosmetic faults cosmetic faults half-finished, graphics
installation installation card not recognised

++ ++ + + -
2) Bug: The selected resolution/colour depth cannot be tested. Instead the first setting appears.

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 17

 COVER FEATURE DISTRIBUTIONS ON TEST
Defective DVD in Red Hat 7.1 Professional
A surprise awaits owners of the first DVD pressing of the Red Hat Linux 7.1
Professional. The XFree86 Basic packet XFree86-4.0.3-5.i386.rpm contains an
incorrect MD5 sum and can only be half installed. But the installation program
does not notice this. When you first start the system the X11 system will not run.
There are substantial libraries and modules missing.
Retro-installation of the packet from CD helps only to a limited extent. But this
means it was not possible for us to start a KDE session via the GDM – the
interprocess communication by means of DCOP server fails. Red Hat promises to
exchange any faulty DVDs.
The installer screen for Mandrake Disk Druid has a slight tendency to
Linux has three areas. Left, the
inconsistencies if you trouble it a second time
worksteps and below, the current
help text. In the middle is the main during installation. When installing a network card
selection workarea it is important to have a functioning connection to
the Net and nameserver. Otherwise, if the IP address
is static, the computer name is not taken on and the
machine later logs on as localhost.localdomain.
The installation of the X-server demands
particular attention. The recognition of graphics
card and monitor functioned very well in our test;
but not the setting of resolution and colour depth.
The installer suggests 1024x768 pixels for 16 bit.
Anyone who alters the settings cannot rely on the
test image. The X-server test is always done with the
standard settings, thus 1024x768 pixels at 16-bit
colour depth.
Linux-Mandrake 8.0
Power Pack/Pro Suite Edition
Both Mandrake versions are identical (apart from the
amount of support provided). The manufacturer
supplies six chock-full CDs, the content of which – at
least in part – is to go onto the hard disk. This runs
satisfyingly smoothly due to the nicely designed
graphical installation assistant DrakeX. The installation
requires, with graphical user interface at least
64MByte RAM, 32MByte for text-based installation.
18 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
DrakeX – the details of which have been
improved compared to the previous version – offers
a choice between two classes of installation,
Recommended and Expert. The Recommended
variant lives up to its name. The context-sensitive
help in the installer is also new. Both types of
installation use automatic hardware recognition as
far as possible. New processors, such as Pentium 4,
Duron and Athlon, are directly supported.
During the installation, the user always knows
where they're up to, because the work step which
has just been performed is displayed in the left
margin. You can also make items which have already
been processed pop up in the left menu frame, so
entries which have already been made are not lost.
Selection of software is easy to understand,
being grouped into Workstation, Server and
Graphical user interface. The pros will surely tend
towards the individual packet selection, which is
also on offer. The latter is somewhat time-
consuming and nerve-racking, but the
manufacturer has distributed the individual RPM
packets so neatly over the CDs that you hardly need
to qualify as a DJ.
In addition to KDE 2.1.1 and Gnome 1.4, you
can select from another nine desktops. To finish off,
X11 is configured. The current release XFree86 4.03
recognises a range of new graphics chips and
activates 3D acceleration.
Both of the current Linux Mandrakes are well-
suited to the desktop and for server application. Even
beginners will cope well with installation. But the
manuals did not blow the testers' socks off. In sum,
this French distribution is certainly a match for SuSE.
It is highly doubtful whether the 30 days extra
support justifies the considerable additional cost of
£80 for the ProSuite, when you consider that the
rest of the equipment is identical. MandrakeSoft is
planning to revise the manuals for the Pro version.
Caldera Open Linux 3.1
workstation and server
Installation of the two new Open Linux variants, as
usual, runs smoothly and without any problems.
Visually, next to nothing has changed by
comparison with the already-dated previous version
2.4. Orgies of CD
changing are
something the
installer need not
fear. Both
versions install
the basic
system from
just one CD.
After that you
can log onto
the system
without
rebooting.
 DISTRIBUTIONS ON TEST COVER FEATURE

The lack of a repartitioning option for an existing

MS Windows system makes it dated. Here, external
tools like Partition Magic or Fips have to be used. If
required, the new Caldera makes ReiserFS partitions,
from which it is also possible to boot, and configures
a SoftRAID system. There is, however, no LVM.
Considering the quantity of data, you should
completely install Open Linux. The variants Minimum,
Recommended and the individual selection of
packets are also available, though in the case of the
latter the curious categorisation of many packets may
give you a crashing headache. In the Open Linux
server for example news and FTP servers are placed in
the WWW category, but the nameserver BIND comes
under Server -> NFS/NIS -> DHCP.
The installer does not offer a search function for
such cleverly hidden RPMs. The Unattended
Installation Mode installation failed on all test
computers due to unsuitable hardware.
The warning from Caldera about problems in
testing the X-server configuration should be taken
seriously, or to be more precise, in returning to
installation mode after a successful test. In the case there are other problems. ReiserFS or encrypted The well thought out Caldera
installation program lets you choose
of a Voodoo3 graphics card the X-server managed Ext2 partitions, which have to be reformatted and
which type of install you require
to get so completely hung that only a reset and used, completely flummox the program. The
restarting the complete installation helped. Since partitioning dialog hangs.
the X configuration comes at an early stage, this is In the case of computers that manage it in the
something to get over. second part of the installation, you will also be
Caldera shines as a good team player in the shown configuration dialogs, which can be called
LAN. DHCP is no problem, and in the workstation up later from the Gnome control centre.
variant even CUPS is configured with the found Once nice feature of the X configuration dialog:
network printers. In ergonomic terms the when selecting a monitor you can make it simple
distribution is highly satisfactory. Clear help texts in and just enter the size in inches – unfortunately 17
the right-hand third of the screen accompany inches is the limit. To install KDE and other packets
the installation. from the second CD, you will definitely have to look
The actual click work is done at the beginning. in the manual. The KO criterion is that at no point in
The installer can then devote themselves to other the entire installation is there the option of
Progeny: Mail and printer are
tasks or enjoy the odd game of Solitaire, while the configuring a keyboard layout which varies from the configured in the installer or in the
installation routines slave away behind the scenes. American style. ■ Gnome control centre

Progeny Debian 1.0

Debian may be very popular for its excellent update
systems and its stability, but we're reluctant to talk
about the installation routine.
Progeny Debian, the commercial distribution of
the Debian founder Ian Murdock, made its debut on
the website claiming to be a distribution based on
Debian 2.2 with "simple graphical installation,
hardware recognition and improved configuration
and management tools". It has to be said that it
does not live up to this claim.
So an ATI-Mach64 graphics card was certainly
recognised by the first, graphical part of the
installation routine. Once this has installed and
booted the basic system, it runs round in circles.
Without a Mach64 server (the card is not supported
by the SVGA server), there is no getting past
this point.
Even if you overlook the fact that the graphical
installer for the basic installation is rudimentary,

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 19

 COVER FEATURE
DESKTOP
COMPATIBILITY
Workstation suitability
Integration of the
config-tools
X-Server Standard tool
Network configuration
Server services recognition
Automount
Logical Volume Manager
Problem-free change
between Gnome/KDE
Menu/Desktop layout
Language support (system)
Antialiasing (X11)
Antialiasing (KDE)
Euro symbol support
Sound
Assessment
22 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
DISTRIBUTIONS ON TEST
Success on the desktop depends on
the delivery of a well-crafted product.
Mandrake and SuSE lead the field –
but Caldera is catching up fast.
SuSE Linux 7.2 Professional
and Personal
No sooner has YaST2 matured than SuSE users, with
the SuSEWizard, get access to a new, at first fairly
poorly equipped and ergonomically unrefined, tool
whose growth and progress you will presumably be
able to observe through the next versions.
Essentially, at present, this can be used to turn the
SuSE configuration of KDE into a standard
KDE configuration.
The new SuSEWizard allows easy choice on how
to start the system. Also new is the euro symbol
support into diverse applications such as the
console, Netscape and Star Office from the key
combination AltGr (right Alt) +4.
SuSE Linux 7.2 SuSE Linux 7.2 Red Hat Linux 7.1 Red Hat Linux 7.1
Personal Professional Deluxe Edition Professional Edition
Integration very good, but Integration very good, but unusable (1) unusable (1)
faulty in operation faulty in operation
SaX2 SaX2 Xf86xfg, Xconfigurator Xf86xfg, Xconfigurator
good good unusable (2) unusable (2)
not automatic no no no
no Automount, no Automount, Automount: yes / icons: Automount: yes / icons:
icons present icons present yes (security loophole) (3) yes (security loophole) (3)
on installation yes no no
Menus of KDE integrated KDE only yes yes
into Gnome, but not vice versa
KDE: good, Gnome: usable KDE: good, Gnome: usable Gnome: poor (fonts too Gnome: poor (fonts too
small) / KDE: good small) / KDE: good
usable usable poor poor
no no no no
yes yes no no
Console, Xterm, KDE, Terminal and Office no no
SOffice, Netscape
Alsa and OSS Alsa and OSS neither RPM package neither RPM package
alsa nor oss found alsa nor oss found
+ + - -
 DISTRIBUTIONS ON TEST COVER FEATURE

Because of the excellent selection of software Red Hat 7.1

and tidied-up KDE configuration, SuSE Linux is an
ideal candidate as a desktop distribution.
Unfortunately the menu of an installed Gnome
desktop does not appear in the KDE menu; only
individual applications can be found.
Perfect example of a workstation: Apart from
sshd no Internet servers whatsoever run after
the installation.
When Red Hat 7.1 is implemented on workstations,
a few annoying problems are to be expected. To
adapt the installation and to set up Internet access,
printer and a lot more besides, Red Hat attaches
crucial importance to linuxconf - but installs it
neither in the workstation nor the server
installation, although the icons are in the control

The standard SuSE

desktop running KDE 2-1.2

Mandrake Linux 8.0 Mandrake Linux 8.0 Caldera Open Linux Caldera Open Linux Progeny Debian 1.0
Power Pack Pro Suite Workstation 3.1 Server 3.1
complete for workstation, complete for workstation, useful for initial useful for initial incomplete
network separate network separate configuration configuration
Hard Drake Hard Drake Kxconfig Kxconfig Configlet for Gnome
Control Center
usable usable good good usable for a network card
yes / yes yes/yes very good very good with DHCP
yes, with icons yes, with icons yes, with icons yes, with icons yes, only on Gnome
desktop
yes yes no no no
yes yes KDE only not applicable Change possible, but no
integration of the Gnome
menus into the K menu
good good good good usable

good good good good poor

yes yes no no no
yes yes no no no
- - no no no

Alsa Alsa OSS OSS Alsa and OSS

++ ++ o o - +

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 23

 COVER FEATURE DISTRIBUTIONS ON TEST
[right]
SuSE running the Gnome 1.4 desktop
[below]
Red Hat screen colour correction is
easily handled in Gnome with lmlib
panel. The system is thus almost impossible to
administer; linuxconf must be installed by hand.
After installation the fixed width font in the
Gnome favoured by Red Hat is set to Courier in
eight-point font size and is therefore
almost unreadable.
A later package installation – at least in the case
of the inventor of the Red Hat Package Manager
(RPM) – does not bring any credit, because the only
way to proceed is manually. The user even has to
find out for themselves which one of the ten CDs
contains the library libSDL_mixer.1.0.so, in order to
be able to install Tuxracer.
There are no file lists in the distribution. Because
the search does not work in Gno-RPM, and K-
Package only forages for the package name
through one CD at a time, grepping all the CDs or
24 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
searching via rpmfind.net are the only things that
will help.
Mandrake 8.0 Power Pack
The individual configuration tools for system-
relevant settings have been combined into the
Mandrake Control Center. But this is not an all-
rounder – important network tools are lacking. It is
easy to use and intuitive for beginners and at many
points a wealth of English help texts is offered for
beginners and occasional users. Pros will prefer to
potter about on the terminal or call up the relevant
KDE or X tools direct.
For a major release, and in view of the newness
of individual components, Mandrake 8.0 displays
amazing stability, with only a few weaknesses in the
total configuration and detail co-ordination.
Caldera Open Linux 3.1
Workstation and Server
For KDE/Qt developers and also for many typical
office tasks, Caldera is a good choice because of its
packages. It’s a shame that for these very target
groups they have left out easy-on-the-eye anti-
aliasing of the fonts.
Nor should users be expected to configure a
great deal of the system themselves. The system
management tools integrated in the KDE control
centre certainly invite you to do so, but all too often
you stumble across nasty surprises. Just one
example: On a PC with ATI-Mach64 card we
changed the screen resolution, logged off and
restarted the X server – unsuccessfully! By changing

the run level we got stuck in a closed loop. The
cause was an empty string in the driver entry in the
/etc/X11/XF86Config-4. The only way out was to
edit the file manually.
The normal user doesn’t stand a chance with
problems like this. In network operation a
dcopserver, which was not running prevented this
as NIS-user under KDE. But with Caldera, anyone
for whom the aged version numbers doesn’t matter,
will get a comparatively cleanly configured Linux,
despite the occasional problems.
Caldera Open Linux 3.1:
Conclusion
Caldera Open Linux 3.1, like its predecessor, is aimed
at companies. You will not find the distribution on
retail sale. Workstation and server variants do not
glitter with opulent software packages and
innovations, but apart from a few bugs, they are
solidly built. The strength of Caldera has always lain
in network operations, in fact Open Linux, of all the
products tested, made the strongest showing.
Progeny 1.0
For advanced users, who have Gnome down as a
desktop environment and would like to familiarise
Anzeige
128 x185 mm
DISTRIBUTIONS ON TEST COVER FEATURE
themselves with Debian, Progeny Debian is ideally
suited as a desktop computer. Since the Progeny CD
images can be downloaded free at
http://archive.progeny.com/progeny/iso/, one or
two Debian users will definitely fall back on Progeny
for their new installations, because despite all the
inaccessibilities, the Progeny installer speeds up a
Debian installation enormously. Those migrating
from Windows might find the distribution a rather
frustrating first experience of Linux. Newbies would
be better starting off with other products.
KDE lovers must be easily satisfied. In the K-
menu there are no entries for the configuration
capplets accommodated in the Gnome control
centre, and not without reason – outside Gnome
they do not run at all, even when gnomecc is
started manually. Without Star Office, the only
choice for office tasks is Tex/ Latex,
Abiword/Gnumeric or KOffice. Games are
also rare.
On the other hand there is no shortage of Web
browsers (Netscape, Konqueror, Mozilla), even if
Mozilla could no longer be persuaded to run after
the online update. But anyone who does not
connect direct via Ethernet to the Net, will have
some work to do installing modem/ISDN/ADSL,
which sometimes fails without additional software
off the Net (warning, recursion). ■
1/2
12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 25
 COVER FEATURE DISTRIBUTIONS ON TEST
SERVER
COMPATIBILITY
Undoubtedly the most important domains of Linux at present lie in the
server field. But is it possible in this day and age to build a Web, mail or
Intranet server with any distribution, without headaches?
SuSE Linux 7.2
In the software pool of the SuSE Professional release
you will find everything necessary to construct
servers of all shapes and sizes. And less common
functions such as fax servers, virus protection for
email gateways and routers can also be realised. If
you use the distribution to construct servers, then a
lot depends, not so much on the equipment, but
more on the personal preferences of the
administrators, because non-SuSE users must first
get used to YaST, the central configuration file
rc.config and SuSEConfig.
On the other hand, server planners should keep
their hands off SuSE’s Personal Edition – unless
downloads are free. Apart from a mail server, the
trimmed-down distribution version provides next to
no applications for this purpose.
In the SuSE online update integrated in YaST2,
with SuSE 7.2 there’s also an option of updating
packages via the Net. This is possible automatically or
manually. Unfortunately this only takes part of the
Current server services can be
installed in Red Hat 7.1 simply with
their own configuration programs
[right]
SuSE making the editing
of rc files easy
[left]
Current server services can be
installed simply in Red Hat 7.1 with
their own configuration programs
26 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
load off the administrators, because the method using
YaST2 is not suitable for script-controlled updates.
Red Hat 7.1 Professional
What SuSE and other distributions include in the
package price, comes at a high tarrif from Red Hat.
After 90 days of free online updates for 10
computers via the Red Hat Network, this service
costs almost 20 dollars per computer per month –
for smaller and non-commercial server installations
a KO criterion. Nevertheless Red Hat Professional
provides a few interesting features especially for
server installations. So the server services can be
selected even during the installation. X11 is, unlike
workstations, only installed on request. For
nameservers, Apache and Wu-FTP there are
separate configuration tools, xinetd and the utilities
to be started are installed via linuxconf.
Mandrake 8.0 Power Pack/Pro
Suite Edition
Even if there aren’t any help texts available for all
subdomains, with Mandrake there are special
configuration tools to facilitate the initial
configuration of server services. So a tool for
configuring the Apache server can be called up
easily from the K menu under
Settings/Network/ Netconf.
It has a modular structure and offers a wide
variety of options, such as speed, which can be
optimised or the security settings configured for
HTTP-SSL. Furthermore, the K menu offers a menu
on NFS, in which only the directory permissions can
be defined. For more extensive settings Webmin
may be more suitable.
To install the FTP server, the administrator can
fall back on ftpconfig. This manages users and
groups, gives directory permissions or performs
security and protocol settings.
Anyone wanting to use Mandrake and set up an
individual Linux-based server, must keep well away
from a standard installation, because there the
installer makes use of the first hard disk found and
merely makes reference to the presence of
 DISTRIBUTIONS ON TEST COVER FEATURE

additional disks. Plus, the separate partitions usual The Apache

configuration tool
to servers for /tmp and /var are not provided, so that in the guise of
a would-be server administrator will have to Mandrake
perform the partitioning by hand. By default,
Mandrake 8 installs Samba and a LAMP system
(Apache, MySQL plus PHP) when you select the
server package grouping.
There is no difference in the two Mandrake
editions in terms of software, so that they are in
theory equally suitable for server use. But there are
differences when it comes to support. Where SuSE
in the Professional Edition offers only installation
support, and expressly excludes server support, the
latter is fully guaranteed in the Mandrake Pro Suite.
This means that system administrators who face
problems in the initial phase are not left to their
own devices and don’t have to fall back on support
for which they’re charged.

Caldera Open Linux Server 3.1

The OpenLinux server can be defined during
installation for its later purpose, for example as a
file, print or Web server.
During operational use, Webmin considerably
alleviates configuration and fine-tuning, but
inexperienced administrators can be seduced into a
lot of aimless clicking around.
Unfortunately the software which comes with it
is often not quite up to date, so Samba 2.2 would
certainly have been an advantage for
heterogeneous environments. Anyone who wants
to get to grips with OpenLinux mail or list servers
should already have knowledge of Sendmail and
Majordomo. Caldera does not come with any
alternative servers. On the other hand it is gratifying
to see ready-installed security tools like Tripwire.

Progeny Debian 1.0

Because of its smooth update mechanism and its
stability, Debian GNU/Linux is very popular as a
server operating system. Progeny can considerably
accelerate the initial installation here — provided the
administrator is fairly familiar with Debian or Linux
without distribution-specific configuration aids.
SuSE Linux 7.2: Conclusion
Progeny is highly suitable as a starting point for [right]
a small server, although administrators will have to Setting up the base Apache
configuration in Mandrake
install some hand tools later. For bigger servers you
would still fall back on the large store of Debian [left]
Old acquaintance in new clothes:
gnome-dpkg-config in Progeny

Despite all criticism, we can attest to the fact that the latest SuSE distribution beats the
other candidates in terms of compatibility and tidy structure. The fact that diverse design
decisions are a matter of taste is old hat and will continue to ensure that the distribution
will be the subject of controversial discussion among Linux connoisseurs.
Both the tasks of the distribution are clearly oriented towards target groups. Anyone who
only needs Linux for their desktop, can do very well without diverse servers and is best
served with the Personal Edition.
The Professional release on the other hand is aimed at experienced Linuxers and
administrators. The justifiable price differential for the Personal Edition may pain home
users, but with a few extra downloads even the latter can be built up into a server for
special purposes.

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 27

 COVER FEATURE DISTRIBUTIONS ON TEST

packages available on the Net and adjust them here
and there by hand.
System administrators who have to look after
computer pools will value the automatic installation
of several computers, based on a Progeny system.
Here it makes even less work to equip the desktops
with KDE, since in this case users will have to do
without the Progeny configuration tools anyway.
Spoilt for choice
With the diversification of the range of distributions
available the would-be administrator can’t rely on
current server software being an integral part of
every Linux distribution. Even in those distribution
variants intended more for the mass market the
accoutrements differ. Experienced administrators

Server suitability
- SuSE Linux 7.2 SuSE Linux 7.2 Red Hat Linux 7.1 Red Hat Linux 7.1
Personal Professional Deluxe Edition Professional Edition
Basic equipment with current servers
SecureShell OpenSSH 2.9 OpenSSH 2.9 OpenSSH 2.5.2 OpenSSH 2.5.2
Configuration during the installation? Yes Yes Yes Yes
Automatically started after installation? Yes Yes Yes Yes
Configuration front-end - - - -
Nameserver - bind 9.1.2 bind 9.1.0 bind 9.1.0
Configuration during the installation? - Not installed No No
Automatically started after installation? - - No No
Configuration front-end - - bindconf bindconf
Webserver Apache 1.3.19 Apache 1.3.19 Apache 1.3.19 Apache 1.3.19
Configuration during the installation? Not installed Not installed No No
Automatically started after installation? - - No No
Configuration front-end - - apacheconf apacheconf
Mailserver Sendmail 8.11.3 Sendmail 8.11.3 Sendmail 8.11.2 Sendmail 8.11.2
Configuration during the installation? No Yes Automatic Automatic
Automatically started after installation? No No Yes
Configuration front-end YaST2 YaST2 - -
FTP server - BSD-ftpd 0.3.2 wu-ftpd 2.6.1 wu-ftpd 2.6.1
Configuration during the installation? - No No No
Automatically started after installation? - No (inetd not started) No No
Configuration front-end - - linuxconf linuxconf
Database - MySQL 3.23.37, MySQL 3.23.36, MySQL 3.23.36,
PostgreSQL 7.0.3 PostgreSQL 7.0.3 PostgreSQL 7.0.3
Configuration during the installation? - Not installed Not installed Not installed
Automatically started after installation? - - - -
Configuration front-end - - - -
Dhcpd - dhcp 3.0rc4 dhcp 1.3.18pl18 dhcp 1.3.18pl18
Configuration during the installation? - Not installed Not installed Not installed
Automatically started after installation? - - - -
Configuration front-end - - - -
Samba - Samba 2.2.0 Samba 2.0.7 Samba 2.0.7
Configuration during the installation? - Not installed Automatic Automatic
Automatically started after installation? - - No No
Configuration front-end - - - -
Printserver Lprold 3.0.48 Lprold 3.0.48 LPRng 3.7.4 LPRng 3.7.4
Configuration during the installation? Yes Yes No No
Automatically started after installation? Yes Yes No No
Configuration front-end YaST2 YaST2 printer-config printer-config
Inetd inetd 1.2 inetd 1.2 xinetd 2.1.8.9pre14 xinetd 2.1.8.9pre14
Configuration during the installation? No No Yes Yes
Automatically started after installation? No No Yes Yes
Configuration front-end YaST2 YaST2 linuxconf linuxconf
Also automatically started, - nscd - -
fairly unusual servers
RunlevelConfigurator - - Control-Panel Control-Panel
Inittyp SysV SysV SysV SysV
Configuration of several network interf. YaST2 YaST2 Control panel Control panel
LVM support Yes Yes No No
Monitoring tools tcpdump, traceroute mrtg, tcpdump, traceroute etc. traceroute, tcpdump traceroute, tcpdump

28 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001

 DISTRIBUTIONS ON TEST COVER FEATURE

will find the small Mandrake release sufficient, but
not the SuSE Personal.
Newbies in the field of Linux system
administration will appreciate it when they can
make basic adjustments to current servers as in the
case of Red Hat and Mandrake in graphical
configuration tools. This is where Mandrake sets an
example, too, as in the Pro Suite, support for server
installations is explicitly included in the
package price.
Software updates by Cronjob continue to be the
domain of Debian and Co., but apart from that, the
decision for or against a distribution always
depends on the personal preferences of the system
administrator. For this reason the table does not
include any rating. ■

Mandrake Linux 8.0 Mandrake Linux 8.0 Caldera Open Linux Caldera Open Linux Progeny Debian 1.0
Power Pack Pro Suite Workstation 3.1 Server 3.1

OpenSSH 2.5.2 OpenSSH 2.5.2 OpenSSH 2.5.2 OpenSSH 2.5.2 OpenSSH 2.5.1
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Yes Yes Yes Yes No
- - - - -
bind 9.1.1 bind 9.1.1 bind 8.2.3 bind 8.2.3 bind 8.2.3
No No No No Incomplete
No No No No On request
linuxconf, netconf linuxconf, netconf No No -
Apache 1.3.19 Apache 1.3.19 Apache 1.3.19 Apache 1.3.19 Apache 1.3.9
Yes Yes No No Yes
Yes Yes No No Yes
linuxconf, netconf linuxconf, netconf webmin webmin -
Postfix 20010228 Postfix 20010228 Sendmail 8.11.1 Sendmail 8.11.1 Postfix 2000531
No No No No Yes (simple config.)
Yes Yes Yes No No Yes
linuxconf, netconf linuxconf, netconf - - Capplet in the Gnome-CC
ProFTPD 1.2.2 ProFTPD 1.2.2 - wu-ftpd BSD-ftpd 0.3.2
No No - - Yes
Yes Yes - - On request
linuxconf, netconf linuxconf, netconf - - Gnome-dpkg-reconf
MySQL 3.23.36 MySQL 3.23.36 MySQL 3.23 MySQL 3.23 -

No No No No -
Yes Yes No No -
linuxconf, netconf linuxconf, netconf kmysql, webmin kmysql, webmin -
dhcp 2.0 dhcp 2.0 - dhcp-server 3.0b2pl9 dhcpd 2.0pl5
No No - No No
Yes Yes - - No
linuxconf, netconf linuxconf, netconf - - -
Samba 2.0.7 Samba 2.0.7 Samba 2.08 Samba 2.08 Samba 2.0.7
No No No No No
No No No No No
linuxconf, netconf linuxconf, netconf webmin webmin gnosamba
CUPS 1.1.6 CUPS 1.1.6 CUPS 1.1.6 CUPS 1.1.6 LPRng 3.6.26
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
kups, kprint (Qt-cups) kups, kprint (Qt-cups) kups kups Capplet i. Gnome-CC
xinetd 2.1.8.9 xinetd 2.1.8.9 Netkit-inetd 0.17 Netkit-inetd 0.17 Netkit-inetd 0.10
Yes Yes No No Yes
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
linuxconf, netconf linuxconf, netconf webmin webmin -
Cups, qt-print, linuxconf, Cups, qt-print, linuxconf, calserver, slpd calserver, slpd ntpd
webmin, kuduzu webmin, kuduzu
Mandrake-CC Mandrake-CC - - -
SysV SysV SysV SysV SysV
linuxconf, netconf linuxconf, netconf K-Centre/kcmshell K-Centre/kcmshell -
Yes Yes No No No
traceroute etc. traceroute etc. traceroute, tcpdump traceroute, tcpdump traceroute

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 29

 COVER FEATURE DISTRIBUTIONS ON TEST

SECURITY
If you acquire a current Linux
distribution, you will rightly expect
it to have the latest software. We’ve
taken a look at the versions of a few
selected packages.

Security
- SuSE Linux 7.2 SuSE Linux 7.2 Red Hat Linux 7.1 Red Hat Linux 7.1
Personal Professional Deluxe Edition Professional Edition
Up-to-dateness
Auto-update? yes, automatic or manual yes, manual and automatic for a charge, choice of scope for a charge, choice of scope
selection selection
Base: Kernel 2.4.4 2.4.4 2.4.2 2.4.2

Base: Glibc 2.2.2 2.2.2 2.2.2 2.2.2

Base: X11 4.0.3 4.0.3 4.0.3 4.0.3
Base: KDE 2.1.1 2.1.1 2.1.1 2.1.1
Base: Gnome 1.4.0.1 1.4.0.1 1.2.4 1.2.4
Programming: gcc 2.95.3 2.95.3 2.96 2.96
Programming: lPer 5.6.0 5.6.0 5.6.0 5.6.0
Programming: Python 2.0 2.0 1.5.2 1.5.2
Programming: Java JDK 1.1.8 1.1.8v1 ? ?
Server: Apache 1.3.19 1.3.19 1.3.19 1.3.19
Server: WuFTP - 2.6.0 2.6.1 2.6.1
Server: Sendmail 8.11.3 8.11.3 8.11.2 8.11.2
Server: Samba - 2.2.0 2.0.7 2.0.7
Server: Bind - 9.1.2 9.1.0 9.1.0
Bug found / Advisory on
Man-S Heap Overflow No / 29.05. No / 29.05. No / 21.05. No / 21.05.
NEdit Temp File Creation -/- No / 19.04. No / 08.05. No / 08.05.
Samba TMP Symbolic Link - / - No / - yes / 14.05. yes / 14.05
Ntpd Buffer Overflow -/- No / 09.04. No / 08.04. No / 08.04.
Linux sysctl() Kernel Reading No / 17.05. No / 17.05. No / 16.04. No / 16.04.
Bind 8 Transaction Signatures Buffer Overflow -/- No / 31.01. No / 29.01.
Secure configuration
Security profiles 4 4 3 3
Firewall configuration Pre-configured Sample configuration Gui-Tool Gui-Tool
Unnecessary on pure client? No No rpc.statd rpc.statd
Security-Scanner No Saint, Nessus, Nmap none none
Intrusion Detection System No Snort, Tripwire, AIDE Tripwire Tripwire
IpSEC, VPN No FreeSWAN No No
Other special features? Crypro file system Crypro-FS, Amavis, Kerberos Kerberos Kerberos
Assessment ++ ++ + +

30 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001

 DISTRIBUTIONS ON TEST COVER FEATURE

The viability of programs is also closely linked with

their security. If a loophole is discovered, it must be
closed, and this usually happens by means of an
upgrade to a new version. Our test therefore also
includes six randomly selected security loopholes
that cropped up in recent months. We ask whether
the version in the distribution displays these
loopholes and whether the manufacturer has
published an advisory in this respect.
We also expect a secure configuration, in which
there is a choice of several security profiles, as well
as support for the configuration of a firewall and a
few security tools.

SuSE Linux 7.2 Personal
The ultimate security measure is to have no services
running and SuSE Linux 7.2 Personal achieves this
with aplomb; because no services are running it is
perfectly secure. It does come equipped with
Sendmail and Apache but these are switched off by
default. Otherwise the trimmed down version is on
a par with the Professional version.
SuSE Linux 7.2 Professional
The test SuSE Linux 7.2 Professional also passed our
checklist of current security loopholes with flying
Gnome only executes the Autorun
file from the CD on Red Hat after a
confirmation – but in Red Hat’s KDE
installation this prompt is missing
and thus opens a security loophole

Mandrake Linux 8.0 Mandrake Linux 8.0 Caldera Open Linux Caldera Open Linux Progeny Debian 1.0
Power Pack Pro Suite Workstation 3.1 Server 3.1

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes, but no choice

2.4.3 / 2.2.19 2.4.3 / 2.2.19 2.4.2-11 2.4.2-11 2.2.18 default, 2.4.2 can be
installed later
2.2.2 2.2.2 2.2.1 2.2.1 2.2.1
4.0.3 4.0.3 4.0.2 4.0.2 3.3.6/4.0.2
2.1.1 2.1.1 2.1 2.1 2.0
1.2 1.2 - - 1.2.4
2.96 2.96 2.95.2 2.95.2 2.95.2
5.6 5.6 5.6.0 5.6.0 5.005_03
2.0-9 2.0-9 1.5.2 1.5.2 1.5.2
1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3 -
1.3.19 1.3.19 1.3.19 1.3.19 1.3.9
2.6.1 2.6.1 - 2.6.1 Bsd-ftpd 0.3.2
8.11.3 8.11.3 8.11.1 8.11.1 postfix 2000531
2.0.7 2.0.7 2.0.8 2.0.8 2.0.7
9.1.1 9.1.1 - 8.2.3 8.2.3

No / - No / - yes / - yes / - No / -
yes / 25.04. yes / 25.04. yes / - yes / - - / 27.04.
yes / 21.05. yes / 21.05. No / 18.05. No / 18.05. yes / 09.05.
No / - No / - No / 06.04. No / 06.04. No / 09.04.
No / - No / - No / 03.04. No / 03.04. yes / 16.04.
No / 29.01. yes / 29.01. yes / 29.01. No / 29.01. No / 29.01.

6 6 No Server profiles No
Gui-Tool Gui-Tool Webmin Webmin No
No No No No No
- - none none none
Portsentry Portsentry none Tripwire, Portsentry none
FreeSWAN FreeSWAN No No No
- - supports Volution supports Volution -
++ ++ 0 0 +

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 31

 COVER FEATURE DISTRIBUTIONS ON TEST

Two simple security mechanisms are

provided by Mandrake for the
beginner: Three complete security
stages and a firewall which can be
configured via simple prompts

colours. The online update makes it easier to play in
security updates as soon as they appear. In SuSE’s
software fund, security-conscious users can also
find cryptographic solutions as well as monitoring
and security tools, while the network manual offers
an introduction to problems.
Red Hat 7.1 Professional
and Deluxe
Apart from the Samba version 2.0.7, all other
system utilities are sufficiently current, so only one
of our test loopholes actually exists. It is also very
easy to keep the system up to date using the online
update via the Red Hat Network, but at just under
20 dollars per month, this is very expensive. The
firewall configuration gave a positive impression
during the installation. Here the user can choose
between three profiles or manually open individual
utilities or ports.
Red Hat installs an auto-mounter for the local
X11 user. This monitors the CD or DVD drive and
mounts the media if they are in the drive when you
log in or if they are inserted later. After that,
autorun is searched for and prompted under
Gnome as to whether it is to be executed. Under
KDE there is no such prompt with Red Hat, and
autorun is executed with user rights.
This opens up a security loophole: The fact that
CD burners and self-burned CDs are so common
means a Trojan Horse or a worm could easily be
introduced. The user doesn’t even have the option
of checking a suspect CD safely. The problem can
be corrected by removing the entry for autorun
from the autostart group of KDE.
Mandrake 8.0 Power Pack/Pro
Suite Edition
In Mandrake the kernel is installed in version 2.4.3;

Progeny Debian 1.0: conclusion

Anyone who uses Debian will soon learn what goes on behind the scenes of a Linux system.
And Progeny does not change this much. Even if the installation routine, with the
appropriate hardware, ensures that one can achieve a working system considerably quicker
than with dpkg, one should not expect the comfort and looks of the graphical installers
from other distributors. On the other hand, when it comes to the updates for Debian
packages, apt-get is still unrivalled as a command line tool.
The new Progeny configuration tools embedded in the Gnome Control Center ensure that
even Debian newbies can soon deal with a range of standard configuration tasks, but here
again other distributors are ahead in many respects.
Since Progeny is a distribution tailored for the American market, installers should be
familiar with the American keyboard layout.

32 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001


but there is also the option of a kernel 2.2.19. The
main new functions and modules of the 2.4.4
kernel, though, are already integrated in Mandrake
in kernel 2.4.3.
Samba is only installed in version 2.0.7,
although for some time now a corrected version
2.0.9 together with the current 2.2.0 would have
been available. And there is also room for
improvement with the installed Apache version
1.3.19, as version 1.3.20 has come out.
Mandrake is a bit negligent in the fact that an
installed utility is basically activated automatically.
There is only a brief warning message and to
compliance with the security updates.
Caldera Open Linux 3.1
Workstation/Server
Of the six security bugs tested, three slipped into
the latest version of Caldera. By the time we closed
for press there had been no advisory from Caldera
on the ”Man -S Heap Overflow” for any of their
Linux versions.
But Caldera is using version man-1.5h1, which
has the aforementioned bug. The test command
then also leads to a segmentation fault:
$ man -S `perl -e ‘print ”:” x 100’` ls
Segmentation fault
It’s a similar picture with the ”NEdit Temporary File
Creation” – no advisory, but the shaky version
5.1.1. A little test shows how simple it is to exploit
the loophole. User A makes a symlink in /tmp
free space
maybe for an ad???
DISTRIBUTIONS ON TEST COVER FEATURE
named ~x, which points to /home/B/target. User B
then opens the file /tmp/x with nedit and changes a
large amount of text, without backing up the file.
Nedit now tries to create an incremental backup -
but unfortunately this lands in /home/B/target. The
old content of target is thereby overwritten.
Caldera delivers version 2.0.8 of Samba, but this
does not correct the ”Samba TMP file Symbolic Link”
bug. In this case there is in fact an advisory, but it did
not come out until after the Creation Date of the
RPM archive. We can only hope for an update soon.
Calling up lsof -i shows that Caldera is very
cautious with the services started. The only unusual
things are the slpd (SLP Service Agent) and the
calserver, part of the Cameleo package from
Caldera. The server variant is equipped with
additional security programs such as Tripwire.
Progeny Debian 1.0
Since Progeny is based on Debian 2.2, not all the
packages out of the box are quite dew-fresh. At
http://archive.progeny.com/progeny/updates/newto
n/ or at the nearest Debian mirror there are always
updated packages available (including for Gnome
1.4). Debian is also famous for providing security
updates extremely quickly. Anyone using the
graphical package manager front-end, only has the
option of updating all the packages at a
single stroke.
An update to the 2.4 kernel, also supplied, boils
down to manual work. Progeny supplies neither a
selection option during the installation, nor an
explicit introduction in the manual. ■
12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 33
 COVER FEATURE DISTRIBUTIONS ON TEST

SUPPORT AND
DOCUMENTATION
A competent and easy-to-contact
support department, together with
up-to-date and comprehensive
manuals is what makes a
distribution actually usable. We
evaluate each distro in terms of
accessibility.

SuSE Linux 7.2 Personal SuSE Linux 7.2 Professional

The Personal release of the SuSE distribution has no
superfluous information. The manuals are
harmonised according to target group and purpose.
Cryptic sysadmin jargon is only dished up to the
newbie in an easily digestible dose. With the 60-day
installation support that can be called on via fax,
telephone or email, any serious problems should be
dealt with easily.
This is practically the only distribution to come with
so much documentation, and refined for various
levels of knowledge. The manuals - from the ”Quick
Install Manual” (for visually oriented newbies) via
the task oriented ”The Programs” up to the
”Network Guide” (which is specialised and also of
interest to experts) - cover the entire spectrum.
The fact that the SuSE developers were involved

Support and Documentation

- SuSE Linux 7.2 SuSE Linux 7.2 Red Hat Linux 7.1 Red Hat Linux 7.1
Personal Professional Deluxe Edition Professional Edition
Electronic. help, content very good very good very good very good
Electronic. help, ease of use very good very good very good very good
Online help, database very good very good yes yes
Online help, FAQ yes yes yes yes
Telephone support, cost Long distance Long distance - no charge (0800/1825497)
Telephone support, 60 days 90 days - 90 days, max. 4 calls
free period
Manual yes yes yes yes
Manual, table of contents yes yes yes yes
Manual, index yes yes good good
Manual, keyword index yes yes good good
Online documentation, FAQ good good yes yes
Assessment ++ ++ - o

34 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001

 DISTRIBUTIONS ON TEST COVER FEATURE

in the documentation work shows that within the
company a high value is placed on the
documentation. And the online documentation, like
the support via the Web, is among the best the test
field has to offer.
Red Hat 7.1 Deluxe and
Professional Edition
Red Hat only offers support for the Deluxe variant
(around £71) over the Internet. Those buying the
more expensive Professional Edition get 90 days
installation support via a free 0800 telephone
number, but the support is limited to four telephone
enquiries. By way of comparison, SuSE offers
unlimited telephone support for all variants.
The manual for configuring the Professional
Edition also contains a few inaccuracies. Time and
again non-existent menus, or entries with
inconsistent names or which have not been
translated, are described.
Both manuals fail to make a good impression.
The topics dealt with are certainly clearly illustrated,
but there is a marked lack of substance. And it is the
system administrator who really wants more
information. The lack of a keyword index is
annoying. There is a great deal of room for
improvement in the documentation (both printed
and electronic).
Caldera Open Linux Workstation
and Server
Caldera sells its new Linux distributions for an extra
charge with 60 days installation support via email
and a telephone hotline. The documentation
available on the system could just about be called
adequate. Many Linux basics can be found in the
Developer Guide, the Administration Guide explains
the fundamentals of Webmin and the configuration
of various servers. Manual and online documentation
were not available at the time of going to press.

Linux-Mandrake 8.0 Power Pack Progeny Debian 1.0

and Pro Suite Edition
The only difference worth mentioning between
Power Pack and the Pro Suite Edition lies in terms of
support. While with the Power Pack, you have to
manage with 30 days telephone installation support
and 60 days Web support, with the Pro Suite you
get 60 days telephone support and 90 days Web
support, expressly including servers.
The email support from the service network is still at
the Beta stage - anyone who lets themselves in for
the Progeny adventure should know how to get out
of a jam in an emergency. Although the English
manual is among the better ones, as long as you are
interested in the command line, there is still the
problem that there is very little relevant online
documentation available. ■

Red Hat Linux 7.1: The conclusion

The American company is bringing a highly stable system into the shops, even the DRI
modules of the kernel are extraordinarily robust.
Seen like this, the Deluxe Edition is definitely worth considering, especially since the games
CD is good fun. But whether the overall performance of the Professional Edition justifies
the price of over £177 is something the customer must decide for themselves.

Mandrake Linux 8.0 Mandrake Linux 8.0 Caldera Open Linux Caldera Open Linux Progeny Debian 1.0
Power Pack Pro Suite Workstation 3.1 Server 3.1
yes yes - - nothing special
average average - - -
yes yes yes yes no
yes yes yes yes no
0700 number 0700 number not yet available not yet available overseas call
30 days 60 days 60 days 60 days 30 days for registered users

yes yes not yet available not yet available no

yes yes not yet available not yet available yes
no no not yet available not yet available yes
no no not yet available not yet available could be better
on website on website - - no
o o cannot be assessed cannot be assessed -

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 35

COMMUNITY REPORT
UKUUG Linux Developers Conference
AT THE
DEVELOPERS
CONFERENCE RICHARD IBBOTSON
Professor Sumner David McAllister, a director of Strategic Technologies,
with early photos
was the first of the speakers. He gave a talk on Linux
of the UK computer
industry Clusters in the XSP environment. That's big iron to
you and me. In spite suffering jet lag, McAllister
delivered a sound appraisal of the commercial uses
of clusters with XSP. He covered the increased
commercial use of the Internet and the greater
reliance of business on the Net. He advocated a new
approach to deal with this in the shape of integrated
hardware and software and networking.
Rob Gautier came along next to chat on brute
force clusters. His talk was about Grendel – a
Beowulf cluster used at the University of Wales by
the Bioinformatics Research Group. Most of the
work consists of large database searches. The
design and management of the cluster is fairly
labour intensive.
1 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
The UKUUG Developers
Conference was held at
UMIST in Manchester
this year. A great deal of
thought was put into
this year's venue and it
certainly paid off...
Nick Davis delivered a speech about commercial
applications, which IBM is very interested in
developing. Davis asserted that IBM are doing their
utmost to support GNU/Linux and educate their
own employees to work with free and open source
software – all of which thoroughly convinced the
Conference of IBM's commitment to Linux.
Davis believes that the open-source movement
is no longer driven by one company; it's now an
industry wide phenomenon, with big companies
ordering large Linux networks from IBM. Linux is
now a well-established part of the world of e-
commerce. IBM is presently investing a "complete
government budget" in Linux.
Bo Thorsen's talk about the porting of Linux to
64-bit systems might have been the highlight of the
whole three days. Bo works at the SuSE labs and so
 REPORT COMMUNITY

should be regarded as an authoritative voice. He Manchester. This was the kind of thing that would Chris Benson
taking questions
asked those present not to "underestimate what's easily make a complete TV series. It was quite an
going to happen with 64-bit Linux in the next five amazing talk – rewarded by deafening applause.
years". His excellent presentation was well received Continuing with the shock 'em dead approach
by the crowd. to Saturday morning, Werner Heuser gave us his
Andrea Arcangeli came along next and gave us first presentation of the day, which was about the
his stuff on vsyscalls. Andrea also works at the SuSE use of Linux on a laptop. There are quite a few
labs and his main thing is kernel developing. Having people out there who haven't discovered that Linux
made a conscious decision to port Linux over to the can be used on a desktop, so Werner's presentation
X86 64-bit architecture, the task in hand just now is drew a lot of interest from the crowd.
to get it to work. His talk also gave practical insight Luke Leighton got up next and gave us Samba:
into something that is a closed world for most of us. The Next Generation. Luke says he'd like to get KDE architecture
Keep your eyes on www.x86-64.org if you want to people interested in open source software and the by David Faure
know more.
Professor Frank Sumner explained how
computers were built and how British attempts to
join the technology race were hard to sustain in pre-
Internet times. In spite of that, a small team of
academics managed to do some amazing things
back in the 1950s and 60s. We were then taken
over to the Manchester Museum of Science and
Industry where The Baby, one of the original
computers, was demonstrated.
Friday finished with a trip to the Yang Sing
restaurant where pre-dinner drinks were followed
by a Chinese banquet – the highlight of the day!
On Saturday morning (when most of us were
still suffering from the previous night's
overindulgence) Professor David Aspinall delivered
the second part of the birth of computing in

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 2

 COMMUNITY REPORT
Reliable services with distributed computing environment. He'd like to get
Martin Hamilton
them really mad so that they go to their computer and
start coding right away. He thinks that open source
software is outdated when it comes to DCE and RPC.
The crowd in the lecture theatre looked as though
they actually agreed with him every bit of the way.
Chris Benson from Treepax covered DCE and
why Linux developers should know about it. He
gave us a brief history of DCE, the service that it
provides and the current availability on Linux. The
Open Software Foundation was founded in 1998 as
a balance to the UNIX International Consortium,
which was set up by Sun and AT&T. One of the
strong points of DCE is integration.
At this point the conference split between two
different buildings. Some of us went over to the
KDE talk by David Faure at Stafford House. Others
stayed behind in the Renold Building and listened to
Chris Benson talk about distributed
computing environment.
David Faure's presentation on KDE architecture
and development was well worth taking in. Even
some of the KDE developers we have spoken to like
to watch him in action. His explanation of how the
Useful URLs
Linux Virtual Server: http://www.lvsp.org/
Robert Gautier: http://www.ateb.co.uk/packages/farmer
Bo Thorsen: http://www.x86-64.org
Andrea Arcangeli, SuSE Labs: http://www.suse.com
David Faure: http://www.kde.org
Tom Rathbone: http://www.aceldama.com/~tomr/papers/2001/web-gimp/
■ the recent improvements made in the GNU/Linux
3 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
whole thing works and how developers collaborate
was easy to digest and even those of us who are not
developers understood.
At the same time, Martin Hamilton spoke about
Heartbeat and the JANET virtual server. He works as
a developer on the JANET Web cache service.
Martin discussed building scalable and reliable
Internet services. Universities don't have much
money and any attempt at producing a low cost
and reliable Internet service for staff and students is
to be welcomed. The Linux Virtual Server project
provides for these conditions and, combined with
Heartbeat, all of the usual problems to do with
traffic handling and load balancing can be
quickly eradicated.
Martin was followed by David Woodhouse,
who explained the journaling flash file system.
David works for Red Hat UK, where he is
responsible for kernel drivers for memory
technology devices. The journaling flash file system
is all about the work that Axis Coomunications have
come up with in the shape of JFSS. The talk was
about the limitations of flash technology and how
JFSS can be implemented to improve it.
A wander across the road again revealed that
Michael Meeks was giving a presentation on the
Gnome architecture and development – something
that most of us think he should do more of.
Christian Egli was also given a chance to explain
rapid application development with Gnome and
Python. For those of you who haven't yet seen
Michael give a public explanation of the way that
Gnome and bonobo components work should try
to be there for the next one. He's very good at
taking an extremely complex piece of technology
and explaining in a few simple words how all
of it works.
Next, Christian Egli chatted about using
Gnome. He created an application called gPizza for
the crowd in the room. If you have Glade or Anjunta
and Kdevelop it's very difficult to find other tools
that are just as flexible with the same range of
possibilities. gPizza worked first time without
a hitch.
Back over at the Renolds building, Andrea
Arcangeli of SuSE gave us an excellent talk on
NUMA. "What is NUMA?" I hear you say. Well, it's
a technology that opens a new class of
optimisations so that the full power of a machine
can be utilised. Andrea showed us the optimisations
that are available on wildfire alpha boxes. He also
showed us Zerocopy O_DIRECT. This is something
that does massive I/O stuff to storage devices in
the filesystem.
Steve Whitehouse came along from Sistina
software and gave us Zerocopy. Steve is the DecNet
kernel code maintainer and recently completed a
PhD on error-resilient image compression. He runs
his own consulting company – ChyGwyn Limited, as
well as the European Sistina office. Steve explained

kernel under the 2.4.x kernel releases.
Another trip to the Stafford building found Tom
Rathbone giving an explanation about fractal
generation using GIMP MathMap. MathMap is the
scientific end of image manipulation. The bit that
happens before photographers and commercial
artists get to use GIMP. It's a GIMP plugin that
allows a user to describe image transforms and
combinations. It's very fast and only requires a
reasonably good understanding of maths. It's also a
work in progress.
Luke Leighton turned up in good humour and
gave us his Pymmetry – Python Trust Metrics
presentation. As presented in Linux Magazine Issue 9.
Saturday closed with Werner Heuser displaying
GNU/Linux on PDAs. This pulled in quite a crowd at
the Renold building. The other presentations in the
Stafford building had finished and people preferred
to stay and watch Werner rather than go home.
This was followed by a friendly question and answer
session where everyone discussed the events of the
day and possible future events.
Sunday turned out to be a typical sleepy British
Sunday. The rail lines over the Pennines had been
removed for maintenance and this made things
even more sleepy. A few of us arrived by bus.
Randy Appleton started the day in the Renold
building with benchmarking the GNU/Linux kernel.
Three students and a professor spent a complete
term benchmarking nineteen different versions of
the Linux kernel from 2.01 to 2.4. The results show
that many functions did improve in speed. Randy
showed that some improvements were in fact a
step backwards and also that the total number of
lines of code has now tripled on an exponential
growth curve.
Next, Dave Jones from the SuSE Labs attempted
to break us out of our slumber by tuning the Linux
kernel with Powertweak. Powertweak is the first
performance-enhancing tool for GNU/Linux.
Back over in the Stafford building, Stephan
Ad wrong shape.
It should be THIS
shape
REPORT COMMUNITY
Richter started his talk about Zope – an open source
Web application server. There is a very steep
learning curve before a user can understand Zope
but the end results justify the initial confusion.
Stephan discussed Zope's ability to be scalable and
reliable at all times.
Tom Rathbone explained how to simplify
dynamic websites with mod_perl and GIMP. This
was one of the highlights of the three days for those
of us who like graphics rather than darkened rooms
and sober people. He described a template system
for mod_perl, which is part of the Apache
application that is used on most of the servers
around the world.
Richard Moore arrived in the Renold building in
a great rush explaining that he'd only just got back
from Boston where he had been for about an hour.
He gave his talk on dynamic probes for user and
kernel space. Dprobes, as he calls it, is a generic and
pervasive debugging system that can operate under
the most extreme conditions with minimal
system disruption.
He followed on with a talk about GKHI, which is
a generalised kernel hooks interface. This allows for
many enhancements that otherwise would not be
possible. Richard's presentation contained many
aspects of kernel design and use that most people
don't get to see at all.
Alex Perry gave us the Flight Gear flight
simulator. This was a kind of a cross between a top
class joystick game and a flight simulator for 747s or
commercial aircraft. A virtually real instrument
display closely mimics the real instruments that are
1/4 a
to be found on commercial aircraft. The question
and answer session at the end was fairly intense but
also witty and humorous. Alex kindly gave us a
demo of the flight simulator at the end of his talk.
After a general discussion about past and future
events we trooped off downstairs to lunch where a
large pile of sandwiches was consumed in just
a few minutes. ■
12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 4
ON TEST LINUX GAMES: ANDROMEDA9
Gaming for pocket money
ANDROMEDA9 FIONN BEHRENS
Andromeda9 is a free game of professional quality, programmed with OpenGL in Python.
Steer your spaceship to unknown worlds, alone or against other players on the Net.
Figure 1: A good
tutorial makes
up for the lack of
instructions
Installation consists of merely unpacking the
compressed archive. Unfortunately, at present the
game only runs on Intel-compatible processors. If
nothing happens when you first start it, or if strange
error messages pop up, it is often helpful to rename
the libSDL-1.1.so and instead, with the command ln
-s /usr/lib/libSDL.so ./libSDL-1.1.so (execute in the
Andromeda9 directory) use the SDL library which is
already in the system. More recent versions of the
libSDL should function too.
The game requires a functioning installation of
OpenGL, for example Mesa or GLX. This usually also
includes an accelerated graphics card. Otherwise
the demands of the game are fairly modest:
200MHz processor, 32MB RAM and 36MB space on
the hard drive. If you want to play against other
players on the Internet, a modem connection, ISDN
or similar is required.
Figure 2: Cool
menus thanks to
OpenGL:
Andromeda9 Prefs
40 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
After starting the game, you will be greeted
with a very nicely presented menu with neat
transparency effects. After finding a suitable
resolution (up to 1600x1200 is possible) in options
and an appropriate keyboard configuration or
joystick setting, the next thing to do is take a look at
the demo mode to see what it's all about.
Andromeda9 is in fact a mixture of Gravity Force,
Quake and Xpilot, using the concept of the first, the
playing modes of the second and the extras of the
third. Plus there are the pepped-up graphics, which
(though the game is basically played out in two
dimensions) come up with really vivid and three-
dimensional-looking ships, maps, extras and effects.
At the well made introductory level you can
learn everything of importance about the control of
the game, handling of extras, displayed data and a
great deal more besides. Depending on the playing
mode (there are the usual Deathmatch and CTF
variants as well as races available) you can work
your way, either co-operatively or every man for
himself, through the still rather small number of
maps with their very special little traps, teleports,
extras etc. There are filling stations at some point on
each level, which you can fly over in order to top up
the ever-scarce fuel. There are also repair stations to
fix any damage to the ship.
For orientation in the rugged maps you can
blend in a display of a small overview map in one
corner. A semi-transparent display box also gives
continuous information about current fuel reserves,
 LINUX GAMES: ANDROMEDA9 ON TEST

Figure 3:
Practice makes perfect

armaments and damage to the ship.
Since the game is squarely aimed at multiplayer
use, without an Internet connection very little will
happen at first. But if you're online, then even with
a slow 33k connection, there are next to no limits
on the fun you can have. Gruesome slaughters in
CTF mode and hair-raising racing round the,
sometimes extreme, tracks are pre-programmed.
Tip: there is a mode for home practice using a split
screen, so that a single computer is all you need to
have fun with Andromeda9.
At first you would scarcely notice the fact that
the game was actually programmed in Python, or
thrust and a weapon to destroy powerups is said to The author
be imminent. Additional settings for gravitation and Fionn Behrens is a student of
yet more new weapons are planned. There is also technical computer science. He
going to be an input screen for Net games with chat can be contacted on the Net as
option, plus drones (robots), against which you can Fionn at IRCnet.
practise whenever there are no human opponents
available or if you don't yet feel ready for the big,
wide world. Last but not least, many parts of the
game are also going to be completely revised in
terms of graphics – so we can look forward to a
game that will definitely be worth its
15MB download. ■

Figure 4: Preview of the next version of Andromeda9: Revised graphics,

multiplayer ranking and cool new weapons

only by some characteristic file names. But it does

go to show that good games can be written even in Conclusion: Nothing new, but still very good! The graphics look simply top class.
a relatively "high-level" language - nowadays there Technically, the game is impeccable, simple to understand without being
is no longer the need to master machine code to undemanding -- and all free! The hard-core XPilot-gamer will shudder and turn
program a good game. Plus, it's an impressive away, but for the occasional Net gamer this game is certainly worth downloading
demonstration of the power of this language, and can bring you many hours of fun with your friends.
which is looked down on by "real c0derZ".
The sounds are good; the game can, Rating:
commendably, also cope with the enlightened Long-term gaming fun: 75%
sound daemon - so no problem with the Gnome Graphics: 85%
desktop. Anyone who wants to can copy their own Sound: 80%
favourite songs in mp3 format into a sub-directory Control: 85%
of the game - these will be played during the run Multiplayer: 90%
time of Andromeda9. Originality: 25%
The programmers are currently working all out Complexity: 40%
on a new version, which was not ready before we Overall rating: 85%
went to press. The new features are to include a The new version of the game was not ready by the time we went to press, but
global classification system that stores the scores of should be available for download in the near future from the Andromeda9 website
the individual pilots in an Internet Highscore List. -- www.andromeda9.com. ■
The space ships will be able to brake using reverse

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 41

ON TEST TRANSMETA CRUSOE

Transmeta Crusoe TM5600 in detail

MESSAGE IN
A BOTTLE FROM
TRANSMETA MIRKO DÖLLE

The Crusoe TM5600 (with 633 MHz) has 128KB

first-level cache, 512KB second-level cache and can
split off a variable translation cache from the main
memory of the computer. For the test we had
exclusive use of the Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook P with
the TM5600. Unlike the usual Intel-compatible
CPUs, the Crusoe is trimmed for minimum
consumption instead of maximum performance.

Internal
The Crusoe contains noticeably fewer functional
units than other x86 processors. Like the Mobile
Pentium III it has two integers, one floating point,
one memory and one unit step. ISSE and MMX units
only come with Intel.
Today's x86 processors use out of order
execution. The x86 command sequence specified by
the program is first broken down by the decoder
and translation unit into RISC-type micro-ops and
distributed by the dispatch unit over the functional
units. The sequence is determined by the available
CPU resources, not by the program. The dispatch
unit tries to use the CPU to full capacity. The results
In January 2000 then have to be re-sorted by the in order retire unit.
Transmeta presented the The aforementioned units are mostly realised by
hardware and, with only a few exceptions, by
Crusoe, a processor with software (jump prediction, optimisation, re-sorting).
a revolutionary mixture Transmeta has the cut back heavily on the
functionality of the control units or done away with
of hardware and them altogether and so manages with considerably
software. We tested the fewer transistors.
The Crusoe processor itself is not x86-
first 633MHz version compatible, but is a VLIW kernel with 64 or 128 bit
of the TM5600 in Europe. commands. The decoder and dispatch unit
responsible for the division of tasks is just a simple
bit-distributor, which splits up the arriving
command and writes it in parallel in the function
units. There is no optimisation or re-sorting.

42 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001


Software/ hardware mix
To run x86 programs on the Crusoe, there has to be
a translation into the VLIW command set of the
Crusoe. This is done by the code-morphing
software, which Linus Torvalds was heavily involved
in developing. This is loaded from the flash, which
can be updated, into one part of the translation
cache. In addition to translation, the software is
responsible for the optimisation of the code up to
the out of order execution, packs the result in bite-
size chunks into VLI words and saves it in the
translation cache.
The concept is similar to the FX32 expansion of
Digital for Windows NT and Linux, which allows the
execution of x86 programs on Alpha CPUs and
saves the translation result created during the run
time in a shadow file on the hard drive.
It takes a lot longer to translate the commands
with the code morphing software than in the
Decoder-Unit of the Pentium III. But unlike an
almost purely hardware solution, considerably
larger algorithms can be used. If the same
command block comes up again for execution, the
VLIW commands are supplied straight from the
translation cache, without being retranslated.
Midori Linux
The Transmeta Crusoe is suitable as an
extremely energy-economical processor
especially for mobile PCs. Its main
application is in the domain of notebooks,
which need a high-performance x86-
compatible CPU using as little energy as
possible. What matters is that the operating
system exploits the energy-saving abilities
of the hardware.
Linux doesn't offer stable support for
ACPI power management yet. And Linux
systems are comparatively large – with a
graphical user interface and browser they
come to over 128MB.
Lean and mean
Transmeta has taken this problem on board
and is presenting Midori Linux, which has
optimal slimness and support for power
management. Transmeta does not supply any
complete binary packages, so the distribution
in the version to which we had access (version
1.0.0-beta2), consists of a tar archive with
Web-based configuration front end.
The Midori program packages are tarballs
equipped with additional information with
the ending mlz. After configuration the
whole system is compiled using Cross-
Compiler and then written as a hard disk
TRANSMETA CRUSOE ON TEST
The Crusoe TM5600 can be seen on the right with
the south bridge and ATI graphics chips to the left
One for all
The encapsulation of the entire hardware by code
morphing software opens up some completely new
possibilities. So the VLIW kernel of the processor
image including partitioning onto a block
device. Red Hat 6.2 is suitable for the
compilation, while the help scripts failed on
more recent Red Hat and SuSE releases.
You should allow a few
hours and sufficient space
on the hard disk for the
first compilation because
by the time you finish,
sources, objects and
binary packets will take up
a good 1.6GB.
Midori in practice
We were unable to get
Midori to run completely on
the Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook P,
as XFree86 4.0.1 simply could not
come to terms with the unusual
display. The kernel on the other
hand ran stably with ACPI. An
application test was thus not
possible, as there are no console tools.
Midori is at present intended only for
developers of mobile PCs; it is not a user-
distribution. But due to the working power
management and small size it is noticeably
more suitable for portable applications than
standard systems.
12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 43
ON TEST TRANSMETA CRUSOE
can be changed at will at any time, as happened
with TM3200 and TM5400. Bugfixes or
fundamental function changes are no problem. The
x86 upwards-compatibility is retained, only the code
morphing software has to be adapted.
Emulation of other CPU architectures is also
possible, so there is a Java version of the code-
morphing software. This is interesting for the
development of new processors. It is possible to
test the command set or develop software on
very powerful, Crusoe-based development
systems long before the first
processor prototype.
So Transmeta has built a Crusoe with
Clawhammer emulation for AMD, which is already
in use. And the emulation of completely different
architectures such as Power-PC or RISC is also
possible, although their performance is limited by
the VLIW hardware.
Transmeta has achieved additional energy
savings with the Longrun power management. So
the code morphing software dynamically adjusts the
kernel voltage and the clock frequency can be
reduced smoothly to 300MHz. This makes the
Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook P
with Crusoe TM5600
READY FOR
THE ISLAND MIRKO DÖLLE
The Transmeta Crusoe
boosts the Fujitsu-
Siemens Lifebook P to a
phenomenal battery life
of well over six hours.
Linux Magazine has
tested the new sub-
notebook, which comes
out in October.
44 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
Crusoe markedly different from Intel's Speed Step,
which has only three stages.
By integrating the north bridge into the CPU the
Crusoe TM5600 can separate off part of the main
memory as translation cache and saves space on the
PCB.
High integration
An additional advantage is that of the integration of
the north bridge into the Crusoe, which is also
trimmed for minimal power consumption. In all the
Crusoe consumes, at a kernel voltage of 1.4V, a
maximum of 2.9W including north bridge, a Mobile
Pentium III comes in at a minimum of 5W plus 2 to
3W for the north bridge.
At the same time, the Crusoe – with the same
structural size (18 millimetres) – is about a quarter
smaller than Intel's Mobile Pentium III. As more
chips fit onto one wafer, production gets cheaper.
One other plus point is the space saved, so now
essentially only three chips are now needed for a
complete PC. ■
The Lifebook P stands out because of its unusual
hardware. The Transmeta Crusoe TM5600 has
633MHz and just a 10.1-inch display with
1280x600 pixels at 140 dpi – which is more than
many inkjet printers can get onto paper. The pre-
series model tested will be available in this format
from October in all major electronics stores, but the
price has not yet been fixed.
Of the 128MB RAM, 16MB is set aside for the
translation cache of the Crusoe, and an expansion
with standard SO-DIMMs is not possible. On the
15GB hard drive, it is planned to pre-install
Windows Me, but delivery with Linux is currently
floundering due to the lack of support for the
modem and the control buttons for the DVD player
built in below the display.
 TRANSMETA CRUSOE ON TEST

Run-time giant with multimedia Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook P

Category Subnotebook
The Lifebook P is intended as a mini-multimedia Processor Transmeta Crusoe TM5600
machine, combining MP3, CD and DVD player in Memory [MB], (slot/free) 128 (1/0)
one and also offering the functionality of a standard Hard disk [GB] 15
PC. With a battery life of six hours, sixteen minutes DVD-ROM 8x/internal
and sixteen seconds, even on long holiday trips it is Drives open sideways yes
more than equipped to keep the peace among your Ports: PS/2 / serial / parallel / line -/-/-/+
offspring in the back seat with the latest Disney film. USB / Irda / TV +/-/+
The difference between the Lifebook P and the Docking Port / ext. drives -/-
Fujitsu-Siemens Loox T is the 100MHz faster CPU. Display: Type / Size [inch] TFT / 10,1
The large battery tested here, which is only Angle of installation [degrees] 180
available as an extra, stores 39-watt hours of Colour/ brightness ratio even no
energy. With the little 19 Wh battery there is still Keyboard: key lift / pressure point good / detectable
over three hours run time. The design is somewhat Offset cursor block no
unusual, but the silver surface does look finer and Cursor functions without function key no
more robust. Loudspeaker covered when writing no
Mouse: Type / buttons Trackpoint / 3
Problems adapting Battery: Type / Voltage [V] / Capacity [mAh] Li-Io / 10.8 / 3600 (1800)
Battery life [h:min] 6:16 (3:03)
The Linux installation of Red Hat 7.1 and SuSE 7.1 Pre-installed operating system Windows Me
and 7.2 is not unproblematic. With the X11 Graphics card ATI 3D Rage Mobility P/M
installation the standard modes refuse to work, so Memory [MByte] 4
some manual labour is necessary. The Trident driver Modem chip (addressable) Nitsuko Type 0002
for the sound card did not work – a patched Alsa Sound chip (addressable) Acer Type 5451 (+)
package is necessary to make it go. Cardbus chipset TI PCI 1410
At a weight of just 1.8kg and a battery capacity Cardbus slots 1x Type II
of over six hours, the Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook P is a TV output / connection SVGA
faithful companion. Never before has a notebook in Power off / sleep usable +/+
the Pentium class been so frugal in terms of energy Usable on text console / under X11 +/-
without major compromises in performance. The Width / Depth / Height [cm] (Weight [kg]) 26.5 / 18.3 / 3.5 (1.8)
purely passively cooled CPU also makes the device Noise level [db(A)]: below measurement limit
of particular interest to those of you plagued by Temperature [°C]: underside / keyboard 43 / 36
noise. The display with the extreme high dot density Temperature [°C]: card slot 44
does, however, require good eyesight – or a Market launch October 2001
good optician. ■

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 45

 FEATURE IOMEGA
Access to Zip and
Jaz Media Made Easy
IOMEGA
TOOLS HANS-GEORG ESSER
Iomega's Zip drives have
become a popular storage medium, not least because of the
low cost of a 100MB diskette. We take a look at running this
handy hardware under Linux.
After the Zip drive came the Jaz drive with 1GB of
storage, later a 2GB variant and then a new version
of the Zip drive, which can handle, alongside the
old Zip data media, 250MB media too. Common to
all Iomega media is the fact that the write-
protection is done by the software, hence special
tools are needed to set and to remove the write
protection. There is also the option of setting a
password, without which write access or any access
to the medium can be blocked.
Lomega
One representative of the Iomega tools clones is
Lomega. This program offers all the functions
SCSI preferred necessary and combines them under a single, easy
Many of the tools interface. But be warned, lomega has the SetUID
described here prefer to bits set, so is always executed with root rights, even
work with the SCSI when you start it as normal user. The advantage is
drives. ATAPI and that you always have access to the device files, but
parallel port drives can, the drawback is that you have to trust the program.
in some cases, be As usual, Lomega has to be compiled before
persuaded to co-operate use. The program is not especially demanding,
– reference is made to when it comes to existing libraries, so no major
this in each case. problems should arise here. Unpack the archive
lomega-0.2.tar.gz. In /usr/local/src, switch to the
48 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
new sub-directory Lomega-0.2 and there execute
the classic three-step of ./configure, make and
make install. After that the program should be
found and started under /usr/local/bin/lomega.
On first starting, lomega scans the SCSI bus and
displays the Zip and Jaz drives found. A sample
output is
Welcome hgesser, starting scan...
IOMEGA ZIP 100
The seven buttons have the following functions:
• Info outputs the current status of the drive and
any medium that has been inserted
• Mount mounts the medium in the mount point
which, depending on the type of device, is either
/mnt/zip or /mnt/jaz. These mount points can,
however, be altered in the configuration file
/etc/lomega.conf
• Unmount cancels this
• Eject ejects the medium
• Lock provides the medium with a write or
read/write protection, whereby a password can
be issued – this is needed to cancel this
protection again later on (Figure 2)
• Un-Lock cancels this
• Back-Up backs up a marked directory on Zip. This
directory must first also be selected in the tab,
also named Back-Up, under which a file manager
is hidden
Figure 1: Lomega is the most powerful tool in the
comparison

As support for parallel port drives Lomega offers the
two options File/modprobe/ppa and
File/modprobe/imm. imm is a driver for the "Iomega
MatchMaker parallel port SCSI host adapter",
which is used in the Zip Plus drive; ppa supports the
normal parallel Zip drive. ATAPI drives are only
supported if the IDE-SCSI-Emulation in the kernel
has been activated. The requisite kernel module is
called ide-scsi.o.
gtkZip
One alternative to Lomega is gtkZip. The program
has a modern design. Unfortunately it refused to
work on our test machines.
jaZip
jaZip is not dissimilar to Lomega, and on closer
inspection one notes in Lomega's credits the
reference, "Portions of code by: Jarrod A. Smith".
This is the author of jaZip. So it's no wonder that
the functions of jaZip are similar. But jaZip cannot
create a read protection, which is why we have
devoted more time to Lomega.
Incidentally, the following behaviour of jaZip
was somewhat problematic: A Zip medium was
already mounted in /mnt/zip when jaZip was
started. After a click on the unmount button jaZip
then wrote "Unmounting and removing /mnt/zip" -
not very nice, since the directory later had to be
made again by hand. Before starting jaZip, you
should take a look in its configuration file
/etc/jaziptab, which has a similar structure to fstab.
The sources would not compile on a current
SuSE system; but we were able to install an RPM
package, which was found at
ftp://ftp.rpmfind.net/linux/contrib/libc6/i386/jaZip-
0.22-4.i386.rpm, without any problem.
ziptool
Back to the command line. Everything you can do
by a mouse click can also be performed in the
console and thereby be built into its own shell
scripts. The useful tool ziptool supports all special
functions of the Zip and Jaz drives.
Firstly, ziptool has to be compiled, if you are not
installing any binary packet – in this case this goes
very quickly. Simply unpack, as root, the ziptool-
1.3.tar.gz package, change to the new directory
and there call up make. Another make install copies
binaries and man pages to /usr/local. A look at the
man page of ziptool (which can also be addressed
by symbolic link as jaztool) gives away the general
syntax ziptool -Option Device. At this point, you
should always specify as device the device file
belonging to the Zip drive, not that of a data
partition, thus /dev/sdd and not /dev/sdd4.
There now follows a list of the possible ziptool
commands. For greater ease of reading the device
IOMEGA FEATURE
/dev/sdd is always specified, which is to be replaced
by the correct name.
• ziptool -e /dev/sdd: eject; eject medium. This only
works if the Zip is not mounted – otherwise the
error message "Device is mounted" appears
• ziptool -s /dev/sdd: status; states the protection
status of the Zip medium (thus read or write-
protected, with or without password)
• ziptool -ro /dev/sdd: read-only; the medium is
write-protected. It must not be mounted for this.
This protection can be cancelled by any user, since
no password has been issued
• ziptool -rp /dev/sdd: read-only, password; as with
"-ro", but a password is requested, without
which the protection cannot be cancelled:
[esser@dual ~]$ ziptool -rp /dev/sda
Password: test
ziptool: medium is password write-protected.
If you forget your password, you will have to format Figure 2: Lomega sets a read/
write protection with
the medium in order to be able to write on it again.
password for the Zip medium
• ziptool -rw /dev/sdd: read-write. This command
makes the medium generally accessible again.
Any write protection is cancelled. If a password
has been used for protection, it must be entered
here, otherwise the barrier will not be raised. Figure 3: gtkZip's chic design
means it is compact and
• ziptool -ud /dev/sdd: unlock door; mounting a Zip
utilises desktop space well
medium normally causes it to be locked into the
drive. Pressing the Eject button will not work until
the file system is released with umount. This
allows the lock to be released without
unmounting first – if that's what you want
• ziptool -ld /dev/sdd: lock door – cancels the
unlock, locking the drive again
• ziptool -m /dev/sdd mountpoint: mount – mounts
the medium. In principle this is nothing but Figure 4: jaZip is
mount /dev/sda4 mountpoint, but can be similar to Lomega
executed by any user, as ziptool always runs with
root rights
• ziptool -u /dev/sdd: unmount – removes the file
system from the file tree again
As already mentioned in the listing, ziptool is
executed with administrator rights, for which it has
set the SetUID bit:
[esser@kira iomega]$ ls -al `which ziptool`
-rwsr-xr-x 1 root root 9708 Jun 1 16:10 /U
usr/local/bin/ziptool
This means that with the aid of ziptool, any user can
directly access all device files, even if these would
not allow the user themselves access.
GUI or bash#
As usual, it is purely a matter of taste as to whether
tasks are processed on the command line or in the
graphical window – in the case of the Iomega tools,
though, it is interesting that Lomega is the only tool
which can also set up a read protection. This makes
it preferable to ziptool. ■
12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 49
 FEATURE AD FILTERS
Ad filters for your browser
BANISHING
Intelligent proxies
are handy things to BANNERS
have – they filter ARMIN AND ALEXANDER ROEHRL, STEFAN SCHMIEDL
out banners, help to
protect your privacy Banner advertising on the Internet is not nearly as
successful as marketing strategists had once hoped.
and let you surf That is why banners keep growing and are placed in
faster. We introduce increasingly intrusive positions – even right in the
middle of the page. Although most portal pages like
six blocking proxies Yahoo limit the initial image size to 30K, four more
for Linux. files of up to 50K can be loaded subsequently. All
together, that's a whopping 230K.
Filtering proxies stem this unwanted stream of
data which, after all, users pay for with connection
charges. Under Linux, you can get standalone
solutions as well as extensions for Squid – every
Linux user's favourite proxy.
Proxies and browsers
Blocking software works in the same way for all
browsers. The browser is instructed in the settings
not to send any request directly to the Net, but
rather to the proxy. If this is running on your own
machine, it is sufficient to specify localhost or the IP
address 127.0.0.1 and the proxy port. Blockers tend
to use different standard ports (see Table 1).
1 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
For security reasons, proxies should not be
accessible from outside. Programs like Nessus
Security Scanner indicate weak points in this
respect. Incorrect requests will slow a system
down considerably.
In Netscape and Mozilla, click on Edit (top left),
then Preferences, double-click Advanced, then
Proxies and Manual Proxy Configuration. For
Konqueror the settings can be found under
Settings, Configure Konqueror, Proxies. With Opera
the path is File, Preferences, Network to the
Proxy Server.
What is filtered?
In principle, anything that is sent from the browser
or returned from the Internet can be filtered.
Pornography and cookies, which people like to
block to protect their privacy, can be stopped, as
can advertising banners or animated images. Most
anti-ad proxies replace adverts with a transparent
image or broken image icon. The ad image is
deliberately not replaced with a 1x1 pixel
 AD FILTERS FEATURE

News.cnet.com page:
Left in Konqueror without
and right in Netscape
with Adzapper. For ten Cnet
articles the proportion
of advertising to content in
terms of data volume is
on average 60 to 40

transparent GIF, so as not to interfere with the Adzapper's simple Web user interface
layout of the Web page. http://adzapper/. It can even be used to create
zaplets very easily. Zaplets are small XML files that
What happens to HTTPS? define what constitutes an advertising nuisance.
They can apply to one domain or to a whole domain
Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTPS, RFC class.
2660) is a standard protocol for the encrypted Adzapper comes with a lot of demo zaplets for
transmission of sensitive data like credit card popular sites like Slashdot, CNN or Yahoo –
information. As soon as the browser sends sensitive fortunately mostly English language ones. Zaplets
data to, or receives it from, https://~Address, the can even include regular expressions in Perl syntax.
proxy could still filter the data, but it would not be A good introduction to this is provided by
able to recognise ad images, as these are now also python.org. To install, unzip adzapper-0.3.0.tar.gz
encrypted. Proxies therefore always transmit HTTPS and run the install or install-daemon script. The
requests unfiltered. program is started with adzapper or adzapperd
Naturally, it is possible to change the port as (daemon version).
required for all programs, either through the Here, as an example, theregister.co.uk zaplet:
configuration file or using a parameter. The port <?xml version="1.0"?>
should be set higher than 1024 if the proxy does not <zaplet>
run as root, although that's generally a bad idea. <version>0.9</version>
The filter tables provided should be treated with <host>theregister.co.uk</host>
caution, as there is no problem in teaching most <block_url type="regex">/media/(\d)*\.giU
programs to filter Flash animations for instance, f</block_url>
even if this cannot be done using the standard </zaplet>
setting. The crux is in the detail – for instance,
whether it is possible to treat cookies differently Table 1: Blocking Proxies
according to domain and page. Program Filters Port
Adzapper banners, popups, JavaScript, Java applets, cookies 51966
Adzapper Squid with Adzap banners, popups, cookies 3128
Muffin animations, Java applets and JavaScript, cookies, 51966
Of the tested proxies, we liked Adzapper (current referers, HTTP user agent headers, HTTP server headers
version 0.7) best, as it is simple to use and delivers Rabbit banners, background images, cookies 9666
good results. Unfortunately, it hung once in a while. Junkbuster banners, cookies, referers 5865
Perhaps this was because we were using version 2.0 Webwasher banners, popups, JavaScript, Java applets, cookies, referers 8080
of Python in the testing and Adzapper's author Guidescope banners, cookies, referers 8000
recommends 1.5.2. The picture is rounded off by

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 2

FEATURE AD FILTERS
If you want to filter out all GIF images ending in
The Register page: In ad.gif, use regular expressions: images/.*ad.gif.
Netscape without and in
Other examples of popular websites can be found
Konqueror with built-in
Adzapper. 52 percent of at www.zaplet.org.
the data volume on this The creation of the zaplet is simple. First, load
page consists of
advertising. The total theregister.co.uk page. The trained eye will
volume exceeds 60K
immediately recognise the ads. Select View Image in
the browser, confirm through Reload and go to
http://adzapper.
Adzapper now asks which parts of the file name
to block. In the case of theregister, this is
particularly easy, as the string media occurs in all ad
banner links.
Squid with Adzap
Squid is probably the best general proxy for Linux. It
is fast and robust, but not really suitable for use as
an ad filter. Squid is intended as a robust cache for
whole companies or the networked home and it
performs this task very well. However, it also has a
redirect option that can read request information
3 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
and then deliver it suitably changed. The entry
redirect_program /user/local/bin/squid_redirect
in the Squid configuration file (squid.conf) would
filter all URLs through squid_redirect, with
squid_redirect being, for example, a Perl script. We
will be using Adzap for this purpose.
If Squid hasn't been installed yet this is quickly
rectified using rpm -ih squid.rpm.
Adzap is available as a tar file. The file contains
the redirector, the images to be displayed instead of
the adverts, and a short wrapper script. After
unpacking it with
tarx -xvzf adzap-20010606.tar.gz;
the redirector can be copied to
/usr/local/bin/squid_redirect, for example, and made
executable with chmod +x. A relevant line needs to
be added to squid.conf and finally Squid has to
be restarted.
To adapt Adzap to UK Web pages, it is advisable
to use the wrapper script. It must then be entered as
a redirector in the Squid configuration. The path of
the actual Adzap program then has to be set
correctly in the wrapper script itself. The syntax is
more like the glob expressions of the Bourne Shell
than Perl-type regular expressions.
Muffin: Coffee and cookies
Muffin is a sophisticated Java program, currently
available in version 0.9.3a. After a bit of fine-tuning
Muffin works readily and quickly.
The package contains a number of useful
utilities: Secretary can complete Web forms with
pre-defined answers, dispensing with the need to
constantly enter your own email address. Painter
automatically changes the background colour of all
transmitted Web pages. Document Info shows
hidden information in the HTTP header of HTML
pages, for example, the change date or the actual
URL of the page.
The installation of Muffin is very simple.
Download the jar file and start it with java:
muffin-0.9.3a.jar (binary only; right click U
to download)
java -cp muffin-0.9.3a.jar:$CLASSPATH Muffin &
Rabbit
Rabbit is available in version 2.0.8 and is
distinguished by the fact that it compresses text and
images, which can be especially interesting on large
networks. Text is compressed by about 75 per cent
using gzip and images are converted to a lower
resolution with JPEG. Rabbit does this using Image
Magick's convert utility.
Warning: Five surfers can easily push an
800MHz machine to its limits with this.
Rabbit allows you to view pages in their original
 AD FILTERS FEATURE

form by putting noproxy in front of the server

address: http://noproxy.www.altavista.digital.com/.
Install Rabbit with

gunzip RabbIT2.tar.gz; tar -xvf RabbIT2.tar;

it is started with jr. As for all other proxies, a restart
is necessary after any change in the configuration.
In ./conf /rabbit.conf you can see what Rabbit
regards as superfluous and consequently ignores.

# A filter to remove advertising from pages.

[rabbit.filter.AdFilter]
# The list of evils. Comma separated.
adlinks=.fsh,yimg.com,/ad/,/ads/,/ads2/,/netU
adsrv.,/ad.,/ads.,/ads2.,.ad.,.ads.,/ads1.,
.ads1.,/adv/,/cadv/,/adserver.,/adlog.,.adbaU
nnercenter.,/nsads.,adclick.,/banner.,
..

The first entry, .fsh, ensures that no file is loaded

that has .fsh in its name. This should protect you
from any more Flash ad banners.

Junkbuster
Junkbuster (version 2.0.2) is a classic. There are even
providers who let their customers use Junkbuster
directly. The program has no GUI, but it is very
stable. A typical Junkbuster logfile looks like this:

www.altavista.com/
www.altavista.com/images/img_avsubtitle_000U
.gif crunch!
www.altavista.com/images/pix.gif crunch!
www.altavista.com/images/img_avlogo_000.gifU
crunch!
ad.uk.doubleclick.net/ad/.../sponsor-buttonU
/toptext/lefta;sz=1x1 crunch!
The addresses marked crunch! are blocked by
Junkbuster and are never accessed.
The heart of Junkbuster is the block file. The
entries determine directly which addresses are
called and which ones aren't. The sequence of
entries is optional, but they should be divided into
individual sections for the sake of clarity.
To start with, a ready-made block file will do,
but for our test there was a great need for
adaptation. We aimed for as few entries as possible
and as many entries as necessary. This is an example
blocking all image files from Altavista.com:
manufacturer emphasises that there is no intention Adzapper's very easy-to-use
configuration menu invites you to
of doing this.
declare war on ad banners
The user can extend the database with local
filters and is also able to pass identified ads to
Guidescope so that they can be included in the
database. Guidescope is planning to provide central
company databases for large commercial
customers.
During testing, the installation instructions on
the website turned out to be wrong. Guidescope
does work well for popular pages like Cnn.com.
Ironically, in its default setting it displays ad links
– which supposedly makes it easier to get to good
Web pages. This feature can be switched off.

# URLs:
altavista.com/.*\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png)
Guidescope
Guidescope is a semi-commercial product by former
Junkbuster developers. At the time of testing, the
price had not yet been set. Guidescope sends each
request to a central database, which returns a list of
images to be blocked. In theory, Guidescope can
record who is looking at which pages, but the
Webwasher
Webwasher (version 3.0) is free for non-commercial
use, a commercial license costs 29 Euro or $29 after
a 30-day test phase. Webwasher.com was founded
by Siemens in 1998.
The manufacturer asserts that server-based
Internet filters enable companies to provide their
staff with Internet access while still being able to
control which areas they can access. This is the only
effective way of preventing abuse and unproductive
use of the Internet, such as the occasional little

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 4

 FEATURE AD FILTERS

engines like Google.

Clearway proxy undesirable

In December 1998 Clearway Technologies were
planning to launch an ad-blocking proxy program,
but the outcry, particularly from many small website
operators making their living from advertising – the
manufacturer's customer base for their other
products – led to Clearway withdrawing the
product. The official explanation was that the
Internet is, above all, about democracy and free,
open websites, and that the idea of filtering was
not compatible with this.

game. Web filters protect productivity by making
life difficult for permanent surfers. According to a
study by the Meta Group, employees spend about
40 per cent of their time on the Internet on things
that are nothing to do with their work.
The documentation is insufficient for a
commercial product. However, with a bit of
patience it is possible to find solutions to problems
such as Webwasher under Wine using search
Conclusion
Of all the programs tested Webwasher is the best
solution for companies who need a filter version
that is always up to date. In addition, the Enterprise
edition offers the Dyna Blocator, a filtering
mechanism that is constantly updated by its own
search engine and also checks the content of
images. Apart from the standalone solution
Adzapper, Squid with filters like Adzap, is probably
the most stable and the fastest solution for home
use and company networks.
An overall evaluation is difficult, as a basic
knowledge of scripting languages is sufficient to
write your own filters quickly for any of these
programs. Unless you are planning to set up a proxy
gateway, speed is of no consequence either. ■

The authors
Armin Roehrl and Stefan
Schmiedl run the software forge
Approximity. Their main interests
are high load and high
availability systems.
Info
Cnet: http://news.cnet.com
Yahoo Fusion Marketing: http://fusion.yahoo.com/resource_center/adspecs/flash.html
Nessus Security Scanner: http://www.nessus.de
RFC 2660: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2660.txt
Adzapper: http://www.zaplet.org/adzapper/
Regular expressions: http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-re.html
Example Zaplets: http://www.zaplet.org/adzapper/updates.html
Squid: http://www.squid-cache.org
Adzap: http://www.zip.com.au/~cs/adzap
Muffin: http://muffin.doit.org/
Rabbit: http://www.nada.kth.se/projects/prup98/web_proxy/
Image Magick: http://www.imagemagick.org/
Junkbuster: http://internet.junkbuster.com/
ISP with Junkbuster: http://www.junkbusters.com/ht/en/ijbfaq.html#does
Guidescope: http://www.guidescope.com
Webwasher: http://www.webwasher.com/
Webwasher and Wine: http://www.miba.auc.dk/~bme/stuff/webwasher.html
Clearway Technologies stops ad blocker: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-336086.html

5 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001

 HISTORY
LINUX HISTORY
This month sees the anniversary of Linux.
It is 10 years old. It has come a long way since
its inception and the rate of development is
speeding up. Only a year ago Red Hat and
SuSE 7 launched – just two years ago
Mandrake 6.1 was launched. Here we take a
look at the history of Linux as told by Linus.
The full transcripts can be found on the Web
at www.li.org or in Linus' book, Just for Fun.
From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus
Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Gcc-1.40 and a posix-question
Message-ID:
<1991Jul3.100050.9886@klaava.Helsinki.FI
> feedback on things people like/dislike
Date: 3 Jul 91 10:00:50 GMT
Hello netlanders,
Due to a project I'm working on (in
minix), I'm interested in the posix
standard definition. Could somebody
please point me to a (preferably)
machine-readable format of the latest
posix rules? Ftp-sites would be nice.
Linus Torvalds
torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi
PS. Could someone please try to finger me
from overseas, as I've installed a
"changing .plan" (made by your's truly),
and I'm not certain it works from
outside? It should report a new .plan
every time.
Then, almost two months later, I actually
had something working: I made sources for
version 0.01 available on nic sometimes
around this time. 0.01 sources weren't
actually runnable: they were just a token
gesture to arl who had probably started to
despair about ever getting anything. This next
post must have been from just a couple of
weeks before that release.
From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus
Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
1 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
10 YEARS
Subject: What would you like to see most
in minix?
Summary: small poll for my new operating
system
Message-ID:
<1991Aug25.205708.9541@klaava.Helsinki.F
I>
Date: 25 Aug 91 20:57:08 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki
Hello everybody out there using minix -
I'm doing a (free) operating system (just
a hobby, won't be big and professional
like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This
has been brewing since april, and is
starting to get ready. I'd like any
in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat
(same physical layout of the file-system
(due to practical reasons) among other
things).
I've currently ported bash(1.08) and
gcc(1.40), and things seem to work. This
implies that I'll get something
practical within a few months, and I'd
like to know what features most people
would want. Any suggestions are welcome,
but I won't promise I'll implement them
:-)
Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)
PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code,
and it has a multi-threaded fs.
It is NOT protable (uses 386 task
switching etc), and it probably never
will support anything other than AT-
harddisks, as that's all I have :-(.
Judging from the post, 0.01 wasn't
actually out yet, but it was close. I'd guess the
first version went out in the middle of
September ‘91. I got some responses to this
(most by mail, which I haven't saved), and I
even got a few mails asking to be beta-testers
for Linux. After that just a few general
answers to quesions on the Net:
From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus
Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: What would you like to see
most in minix?
Summary: yes - it's nonportable
Message-ID:
<1991Aug26.110602.19446@klaava.Helsinki.
FI>
Date: 26 Aug 91 11:06:02 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki
In article
<1991Aug25.234450.22562@nntp.hut.fi>
jkp@cs.HUT.FI
(Jyrki Kuoppala) writes:
> [re: my post about my new OS]
>
>Tell us more! Does it need a MMU?
Yes, it needs a MMU (sorry everybody),
and it specifically needs a 386/486 MMU
(see later).
>
>PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code,
and it has a multi-threaded fs.
>>It is NOT protable (uses 386 task
switching etc)
>
>How much of it is in C? What
difficulties will there be in porting?
>Nobody will believe you about non-
portability ;-), and I for one would
>like to port it to my Amiga (Mach needs
a MMU and Minix is not free).
Simply, I'd say that porting is impossible.
It's mostly in C, but most people wouldn't call
what I write C. It uses every conceivable
feature of the 386 I could find, as it was also a
project to teach me about the 386. As already
mentioned, it uses a MMU, for both paging
(not to disk yet) and segmentation. It's the
segmentation that makes it really 386
dependent (every task has a 64Mb segment
for code & data - max 64 tasks in 4Gb.

The UK's premier provider of LiNUX IT solutions
Founded in 1998 iTS-LiNUX quickly
established itself in the expanding market.
iTS-LiNUX has become noted for its cost-
conscious, innovative and creative solutions,
acquiring clients such as Banks and other
financial institutions, The Economist Group,
Crewe Alexandra Football Club, utility
companies, manufacturing and engineering
companies, ISP's and Internet organisations
Local Government and Educational
establishments, e-commerce companies and
many many "bricks and mortar" SMEs.
When asked about their level of current
success, Matthew Clarke (Managing Director)
replied "Naturally part of our success is due to
the growth of the Linux market in the UK as a
whole, but as we've not, until recently, been
in a position to expand by acquisition, we
have had to focus our efforts on working
harder and producing better results for our
clients." he went on to say "We are fortunate
10 YEARS HISTORY
to have great staff at iTS-LiNUX people who
are prepared to put in the time and effort to
ensure that the job is done right, and if its
never been done before they will invent ways
to get the job done, in fact, according to
IBM's own engineers, our CTO Andy Roffe,
was the first person ever to get Lotus Notes
running on Linux, and they still aren't sure
how he did it."
iTS-LiNUX in association with IBM and
Trustix recently announced the Goldbox as
the total IT solution for SMEs
iTS-LiNUX have become the prime
distributor for the much admired Trustix range
of firewalls and secure server
management tools.
The future looks promising indeed for iTS-
LiNUX "We have made significant strides
over the past 12 months, and are now
looking to expand rapidly, taking on many
more clients, and much larger projects."
12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 2
 HISTORY 10 YEARS

Anybody who needs more than 64Mb/task -
tough cookies). It also uses every feature of
gcc I could find, specifically the __asm__
directive, so that I wouldn't need so much
assembly language objects.
Some of my "C"-files (specifically mm.c)
are almost as much assembler as C. It would
be "interesting" even to port it to another
compiler (though why anybody would want
to use anything other than gcc is a mystery).
Note: linux has in fact gotten more
portable with newer versions: there was a lot
more assembly in the early versions. It has in
fact been ported to other architectures by now.
In Jan 92 things had moved on with a

From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds) place in /pub/gnu.

Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Free minix-like kernel sources for 386-AT
Message-ID: <1991Oct5.054106.4647@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 5 Oct 91 05:41:06 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki
Do you pine for the nice days of minix-1.1, when men were men
and wrote their own device drivers? Are you without a nice
project and just dying to cut your teeth on a OS you can try to
modify for your needs? Are you finding it frustrating when
everything works on minix? No more all-nighters to get a nifty
program working? Then this post might be just for you :-)
As I mentioned a month(?) ago, I'm working on a free version of
a minix-lookalike for AT-386 computers. It has finally reached
the stage where it's even usable (though may not be depending
on what you want), and I am willing to put out the sources for
wider distribution. It is just version 0.02 (+1 (very small)
patch already), but I've successfully run bash/gcc/gnu-
make/gnu-sed/compress etc under it.
Sources for this pet project of mine can be found at
nic.funet.fi (128.214.6.100) in the directory /pub/OS/Linux.
The directory also contains some README-file and a couple of
binaries to work under linux (bash, update and gcc, what more
can you ask for :-). Full kernel source is provided, as no
minix code has been used. Library sources are only partially
free, so that cannot be distributed currently. The system is
able to compile "as-is" and has been known to work. Heh.
Sources to the binaries (bash and gcc) can be found at the same
ALERT! WARNING! NOTE! These sources still need minix-386 to be
compiled (and gcc-1.40, possibly 1.37.1, haven't tested), and
you need minix to set it up if you want to run it, so it is not
yet a standalone system for those of you without minix. I'm
working on it. You also need to be something of a hacker to set
it up (?), so for those hoping for an alternative to minix-386,
please ignore me. It is currently meant for hackers interested
in operating systems and 386's with access to minix.
The system needs an AT-compatible harddisk (IDE is fine) and
EGA/VGA. If you are still interested, please ftp the
README/RELNOTES, and/or mail me for additional info.
I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". Hurd
will be out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and
I've already got minix. This is a program for hackers by a
hacker. I've enjouyed doing it, and somebody might enjoy
looking at it and even modifying it for their own needs. It is
still small enough to understand, use and modify, and I'm
looking forward to any comments you might have.
I'm also interested in hearing from anybody who has written any
of the utilities/library functions for minix. If your efforts
are freely distributable (under copyright or even public
domain), I'd like to hear from you, so I can add them to the
system. I'm using Earl Chews estdio right now (thanks for a
nice and working system Earl), and similar works will be very
wellcome. Your (C)'s will of course be left intact. Drop me a
line if you are willing to let me use your code.
Linus
PS. to PHIL NELSON! I'm unable to get through to you, and keep
getting "forward error - strawberry unknown domain" or
something.

newsgroup alt.os.linux but a message from "Linux is Obsolete" started a flame war. with supporters for both sides eventually
Prof Andy Tanenbaum (AST) (wrote Minix) on The flame war got quite heated at times agreeing to disagree.

From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) do in the evening when I get bored writing books and there are
no major wars, revolutions, or senate hearings being televised
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix live on CNN. My real job is a professor and researcher in the
area of operating systems.
Subject: LINUX is obsolete
As a result of my occupation, I think I know a bit about where
Date: 29 Jan 92 12:12:50 GMT operating are going in the next decade or so. Two aspects stand
out:
Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, Vrije Universiteit,
Amsterdam 1. MICROKERNEL VS MONOLITHIC SYSTEM

I was in the U.S. for a couple of weeks, so I haven't commented
much on LINUX (not that I would have said much had I been
around), but for what it is worth, I have a couple of comments
now.
As most of you know, for me MINIX is a hobby, something that I
Most older operating systems are monolithic, that is, the whole
operating system is a single a.out file that runs in 'kernel
mode.' This binary contains the process management, memory
management, file system and the rest. Examples of such systems
are UNIX, MS-DOS, VMS, MVS, OS/360, MULTICS, and many more.

3 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001


First Started : October 1999
Distributions Used: Debian, FreeBSD
Specialist Area: Information Technology Management.
Current Perspective :
Wired 4 Life was established to actively
promote Open Source and GPL based
software. Realising that many businesses are
seeing increasing costs in software purchases
despite continuing reductions in the cost of
hardware. To compensate Wired 4 Life is
encouraging businesses to implement Open
Source and GPL applications, utilising shared
file services such as Samba, internal and
external E-mail through the many varieties of
mail applications and providing Internet
access and firewalls, using tools commonly
distributed with Linux and FreeBSD. Much of
Wired 4 Lifes' business arrives via referral or
word of mouth which is a testament to Wired
4 Lifes commitment to customer satisfaction.
10 YEARS
Future Predictions.
A business' core function should not be to
continually support costly software and
hardware upgrades required by commercially
driven products. In adopting Open Source
software and building on that philosophy, a
business can drive development of more
reliable applications whilst maintaining
control over their own internal processes.
Sharing the cost of software development
means new applications can be born and
common standards will be built upon which
no single entity can control. Open Source is
returning control to the consumer.
HISTORY
Growth Areas:
Many customers are realising that developing
intranet applications using Open Source
products allows costs of projects to be spread
out amongst the Open Source community.
Making the source „Open‰ means ensuring
that they are not railroaded into a technology
driven product.
12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 4
 HISTORY 10 YEARS

The alternative is a microkernel-based system, in which most of
the OS runs as separate processes, mostly outside the kernel.
They communicate by message passing. The kernel's job is to
handle the message passing, interrupt handling, low-level
process management, and possibly the I/O. Examples of this
design are the RC4000, Amoeba, Chorus, Mach, and the not-yet-
released Windows/NT.
While I could go into a long story here about the relative
merits of the two designs, suffice it to say that among the
people who actually design operating systems, the debate is
essentially over. Microkernels have won. The only real
argument for monolithic systems was performance, and there is
now enough evidence showing that microkernel systems can be
just as fast as monolithic systems (e.g., Rick Rashid has
published papers comparing Mach 3.0 to monolithic systems) that
it is now all over but the shoutin`.
became an 8008. Then it underwent plastic surgery and became
the 8080. It begat the 8086, which begat the 8088, which begat
the 80286, which begat the 80386, which begat the 80486, and so
on unto the N-th generation. In the meantime, RISC chips
happened, and some of them are running at over 100 MIPS.
Speeds of 200 MIPS and more are likely in the coming years.
These things are not going to suddenly vanish. What is going
to happen is that they will gradually take over from the 80x86
line. They will run old MS-DOS programs by interpreting the
80386 in software. (I even wrote my own IBM PC simulator in C,
which you can get by FTP from ftp.cs.vu.nl = 192.31.231.42 in
dir minix/simulator.) I think it is a gross error to design an
OS for any specific architecture, since that is not going to be
around all that long. MINIX was designed to be reasonably
portable, and has been ported from the Intel line to the 680x0
(Atari, Amiga, Macintosh), SPARC, and NS32016. LINUX is tied
fairly closely to the 80x86. Not the way to go.

MINIX is a microkernel-based system. The file system and
memory management are separate processes, running outside the
kernel. The I/O drivers are also separate processes (in the
kernel, but only because the brain-dead nature of the Intel
CPUs makes that difficult to do otherwise). LINUX is a
monolithic style system. This is a giant step back into the
1970s. That is like taking an existing, working C program and
rewriting it in BASIC. To me, writing a monolithic system in
1991 is a truly poor idea.
2. PORTABILITY
Once upon a time there was the 4004 CPU. When it grew up it
Don`t get me wrong, I am not unhappy with LINUX. It will get
all the people who want to turn MINIX in BSD UNIX off my back.
But in all honesty, I would suggest that people who want a
**MODERN** "free" OS look around for a microkernel-based,
portable OS, like maybe GNU or something like that.
Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)
P.S. Just as a random aside, Amoeba has a UNIX emulator
(running in user space), but it is far from complete. If there
are any people who would like to work on that, please let me
know. To run Amoeba you need a few 386s, one of which needs
16M, and all of which need the WD Ethernet card.#

From: dingbat@diku.dk (Niels Skov Olsen)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: 1.6.17 summary and why I
think AST is right.
Date: 10 Feb 92 17:33:39 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer
Science, U of Copenhagen
michael@gandalf.informatik.rwth-
aachen.de (Michael Haardt) writes:
>Stop flaming, MINIX and Linux are two
different systems with different
purposes.
>One is a teaching tool (and a good one I
think), the other is real UNIX for real
hackers.
Hear, hear! And now Linux articles in
alt.os.linux (or comp.os.misc if your
site don't receive alt.*) and Minix
articles here.
eoff (end of flame fest :-)
Niels
Professor Tanenbaum eventually released
MINIX as public domain with the source and
various versions exist supporting hardware
from Ataris to SPARC stations.
With hindsight it is easy to look at the
arguements of Microkernel and Monolithic
systems, but at the time it seemed to be a
major problem. AST jokingly awarded Linus
two F grades for poor design.
Releases happened fast with some just
weeks apart. New features and support was
growing. Finally in March 92 the version
number jumped from 0.12 to 0.95 as it was
almost a full release. It then took until 13/3/94
for 1.0 to hit the world. Version 2.0 hit in June
96 and 2.4 finally in January 2001. On the CD
you will find a copy of 0.01 just for fun.
The listing of kernel revisions is held at
http://www.memalpha.cx/Linux/Kernel/Maste
r.html
The beginnings of the GPL and the GNU
project go back further than 10 years to
January 1984 and the story of how Richard
Stallman developed the project after the IT
industry changed to proprietary software is a
very important one. It can be found at
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-
project.html
Although we always use the term Linux,
most of the time we are refering to
GNU/Linux as we are including other
components with the kernel.
So where does this leave us. Well after 10
years we have an OS that competes on the
world market (As I write MacDonalds have
announced 4000 stores are to change to
Linux). The OS runs on lots of differing
architecture using preemptive multitasking
supporting multi users. The IT industry is
starting to understand Open Source and the
desktop is becoming fun. In the next 10 years
your guess is probably better than mine. Will
the Internet be even more pervasive? Just
how fast can machines go? Problems ahead
do exist such as software patent law and
governmental control, but I still predict an
Open Source world will eventually dominate.

5 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001

 10 YEARS HISTORY

Celebrating 10 years
of Linux

Roger Whittaker
SuSE Linux Ltd

The old saying about how 'mighty oaks from

tiny acorns grow' was never more appropriate
than in the case of Linux. We have certainly
come a long way since that famous email
(August 25th 1991) which could be
considered the first announcement of Linux
and which began as follows.
Hello everybody out there using minix -
I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a
hobby, won't be big and professional like
gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been
brewing since april, and is starting to get
ready. I'd like any feedback on things people
like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it
somewhat (same physical layout of the file-
system (due to practical reasons) among other
things) [ ... ]
What began as 'just a hobby' has become
extremely big and very professional. There is
indeed much to celebrate: far too much to
mention here. But in particular this is a good
time to remember the phenomenal work
done in those earliest days by Linux Torvalds
as he slipped from computer to bed and back
hardly noticing whether it was day or night. It
is also a good time to celebrate the
extraordinary prescience and foresight of his
decision to make the code available under the
GPL which allowed the open-source
development model to work its magic.
Speaking personally, the excitement and
fascination of exploring Linux led me to make
a complete career change and join SuSE, the
oldest existing Linux company. SuSE began in
1992 and started distributing Linux in the
following year: originally a localised version of
Slackware for the German market, but very
soon a distribution in its own right with an
international presence.
Linux has changed the world of
computing: the power of the open source
method has ensured that. 'World
domination' has not arrived (yet), but no-one
in the industry whichever side they are on can
possibly ignore it.

Yes, there is indeed plenty to celebrate.

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 6

 HISTORY
Major developments in the last two years.
January, 1999
Samba 2.0 is released.
Kernel 2.2.0 is released
Blackdown's JDK 1.2
February, 1999
Brave Gnu World starts.
Kernel 2.2.1 released.
Lyx 1.0.0 is released.
Linux-Mandrake 5.3 is released.
KDE 1.1 is released.
Samba 2.0.2
SuSE 6.0 released.
Glibc 2.1 is released.
March, 1999
Gnome 1.0 is released.
Kernel 2.2.3 is released.
Debian 2.1 is released.
April, 1999
Caldera OpenLinux 2.2 is released.
SuSE 6.1 is released.
Python 1.5.2 is released.
KDE 1.1.1 beta is released.
Red Hat 6.0 is released.
May, 1999
Definite Linux 6.0 is released.
Tcl 8.1 is released.
KDE 1.1.1 is released.
Kernel 2.2.8 comes out, and 2.3.0.
Slackware 4.0 is released.
Corel's WordPerfect for Linux.
Linux-Mandrake 6.0 is released.
June, 1999
LinuxPPC 5.0 is released.
PostgreSQL v6.5 is released.
TurboLinux Workstation 3.6 is released.
Qt 2.0 is released.
Sun releases the JDK 1.2.2.
July, 1999
Midgard 1.1 is released.
Oracle releases Oracle8i for Linux.
IBM released DB2 for Linux.
August, 1999
Stable kernel 2.2.11 is released.
Definite Linux 6.1 is released.
Midgard 1.2 is released.
September, 1999
Zope 2.0 is released.
Bind 8.2 is released.
Caldera OpenLinux 2.3 is released.
GnuPG 1.0 is released.
Debian 2.1r3 is released.
Development kernel 2.3.18 is released.
KDE 1.1.2 is released.
Linux-Mandrake 6.1 is released.
October, 1999
Definite Linux 7.0 is released.
Red Hat Linux 6.1 is released.
IBM announces their JVM for the JDK 1.1.8.
7 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
10 YEARS
November, 1999
Slackware 7 is released.
Reiserfs with journaling is released.
Kondara MNU/Linux 1.0 is released.
Corel launches its Linux distribution.
SuSE 6.3 is announced.
Mozilla Milestone 11 is released.
Real-time Linux 2.0 is released.
December, 1999
Linux kernel 2.3.30 is released.
SuSE 6.3 starts shipping.
Zope 2.1.1 is released.
Bastille Linux 1.0.0 is released.
Development kernel 2.3.33 is released.
Debian 2.1r4 is released.
Storm Linux 2000 is released.
Mozilla M12 is released.
January, 2000
SGI make OpenGL open source license.
Mozilla M13 is released.
Linux-Mandrake 7.0 is released.
February, 2000
IBM's Journaled File System released as GPL.
OpenSSH 1.2.2 is released.
Hard Hat Linux 1.0 is released.
BlackCat Linux 1.0 is released.
TurboLinux 6.0 released.
March, 2000
Helix Gnome started.
XFree86 4.0 is released.
Trustix 1.0, is released.
Chinese Penguin64 is released.
Red Hat 6.2 is released.
FreeBSD 4.0 is released.
Perl v5.6.0 is released.
April, 2000
Corel Word Perfect Office 2000 released.
Gimp 1.1.20 is released.
Samba 2.0.7 is released.
Vine Linux 2.0 is released.
Plamo Linux 2.0 is released.
Applixware 5.0 is announced.
Mozilla M15 is released.
Qt 2.1 is released.
Netscape 6 preview release 1.
IBM introduces DB2 Universal Database V7.
Trustix Secure Linux 1.0 is released.
May, 2000
IBM announces that Linux for its
S/390 mainframe.
PostgreSQL 7.0 is released.
June, 2000
Slackware 7.1 is released.
MySQL now under the GPL.
Bastille Linux 1.1 is released.
BlueCat Linux release 2.0.
Linux-Mandrake 7.1 is released.
July, 2000
StarOffice is to be released under the GPL.
Red Hat release Source Navigator under GPL.
e-smith server 4.0 is released.
August, 2000
Debian 2.2 is released.
IBM release the Andrew Filesystem (AFS)
under the IBM Public License.
XEmacs/GTK is released.
LinuxPrinting.org, started.
Blue Cat Linux 3.0 is released.
SuSE 7.0 is released.
September, 2000
Qt library released under the GPL.
Python 1.6 and 2.0b1 are released.
RSA encryption algorithm made public domain.
SmoothWall released.
Red Hat 7 is released.
October, 2000
SAP release its database under the GPL.
The StarOffice source released.
Turbolinux Workstation Pro 6.1.
Python 2.0 is released.
KDE 2.0 is released.
Linux-Mandrake 7.2 is released.
November, 2000
Debian 2.2r1 is released.
Netscape 6 is released.
Red Hat 7 on the Alpha is released.
SuSE Linux 7.0 for the Alpha is released.
Trustix Secure Linux 1.2 is released.
December, 2000
Bruce Perens moves to HP.
Conectiva 6.0 is released.
Debian 2.2r2 is released.
OpenBSD 2.8 is released.
Mailman 2.0 is released.
The source to Solaris 8 is released.
NetBSD 1.5 is released.
Mozilla 0.6 is released.
January 2001
2.4.0 Kernel is released.
SuSE 7.1 is released.
February 2001
KDE 2.1 is out
March 2001
Progeny Debian RC1
April 2001
RedHat 7.1 released.
Mandrake 8.0 released.
May 2001
Eazel closes
June 2001
SuSE 7.2 released
Caldera OpenLinux Workstation 3.1
Caldera OpenLinux Server 3.1
July 2001
Dmitry Sklyarov is arrested.
 10 YEARS HISTORY

The Master of One,

The Jack of Many

"So, you've good uptime"?

"Yes. A number of our shared servers have been

running without reboot for over a year"

"Excellent. And logging, good bandwidth, free

support..?"

"Yes, and more."

"Sounds great. And ASP scripting? My site runs from

an Access Database."

"Erm..."

Hereafter, if the sales call is to a technically "agnostic"

hosting provider, it's a one-way trip to the clutches of its
NT department, where the notion of 300+ days of uptime
is as absurd as the eventual site defacement is inevitable.
Some providers, however, aren't willing to be the Jack of
all trades. The proprietorially-wedded customer is asked to
be "always right" elsewhere.

The Positive Internet Company (http://www.positive-

internet.com/), based in London, gives just this dogged
message to prospective customers, and the reactions
range from incredulity ("I thought Bill Gates invented the
Internet!") to interest ("There are genuine alternatives to
being a Microsoft serf?").

Positive's choice to use just GNU/Linux and associated

Free software in its hosting and dedicated service provision
has its basis in efficiency, flexibility and even morality:
"We install and run facilities managed servers for very
big household names. The notion of doing this without
compiling afresh from the source code is alien: almost a
dereliction of duty!" says Andrew Och, an engineer at the
Company. He continues: "From our shared hosting right
up to our renowned Enterprise Max dedicated server,
customers are delighted with the reliable flexibility on
offer in the Free software ecosystem. And we're delighted
that it lets us run rings around the competition!"

With PHP, Perl, MySQL, Python, Java servlets and JSP,

customers kick the ASP habit quickly, particularly with
Positive's enthusiastic support team on hand.

Och chuckles, "I sometimes hope Microsoft continue

their successful marketing, because it means we always
have the secret of a GNU/Linux based system up our
sleeve: digital magic to a jaded MS veteran". But, with
every passing Code Red incident, the trend towards
GNU/Linux is unstoppable; increasingly, when a
customer's Access/ASP question is replied in the negative,
the retort is "Thank heavens - where do I sign up?"
 KNOW HOW TCL/TK

Universal tool

A WIDE
CANVAS CARSTEN ZERBST

Canvas offers you a virtual canvas that allows

you to display objects such as lines, surfaces,
bitmaps and fonts. However, possibilities are not
limited to display. Objects can also be manipulated,
either in a pre-programmed process or interactively
by the user. Canvas can also export the finished
masterpiece as postscript. Due to its functional
range, it forms the basis of many drawing programs
(Impress for example).
The source text in Listing 1 demonstrates some
of the Canvas widget's features. As in the last
instalment of Tcl, we're dealing with the
representation and manipulation of type 1 fonts
(postscript fonts). The screenshot in Figure 1 is taken
from the detailed version of the program, which
draws an exclamation mark consisting of an upright
Tcl/Tk's universal tool bar (actually a polygon) and a spherical base.
for 2D graphics is the Canvas
widget. It can represent, Objects
manipulate and animate simple Firstly, two arrows are going to illustrate the
1000x1000 point design space of type 1 characters.
and complex graphic objects The coordinate axes are pointing upwards and to the
and enable mouse access. right. However, the Canvas widget uses its own
coordinate system that cannot be changed. In this, the
axes point downwards and to the right, as in X11. It is
Most user interfaces can be designed using the the programmer's job to create objects in Canvas with
usual GUI elements like buttons, entry fields and coordinates that have been converted – or can convert
labels. But some tasks go beyond the limits of these them using canvasName scale Element.
widgets. Whether you want to illustrate a factory's For the first two lines of Listing 1 the y
material flow, conjure up the romance of steam coordinate's sign is simply reversed. A negative
trains or just want to give your program an interface scaling factor along the y axis has the same effect
that is a bit out of the ordinary, look no further than for the remaining elements.
the Canvas widget. New Canvas objects are always created in the
same way. The syntax is canvasName create Type
Table 1: Attributes of Canvas Objects Coordinates Attributes. Table 1 contains a listing of
Tags List of tags important attributes.
-fill Colour colour of lines and surfaces If the commands from the listing are entered
-outline Colour colour of outlines one at a time (such as in Tkcon), not much of the
-width Width width of lines and outlines two lines is visible at first. The Canvas widget must
-dash Pattern line pattern, e.g. "-.." first be told which region to display. This is done
-stipple Pattern bitmap for shading, e.g. gray25 with the -scrollregion option. Considering the size
-arrow Where arrow point (none, first, last, both) and resolution of today's monitors, the display
-smooth Boolean splines instead of polygon could be smaller. This is achieved by simply scaling
down the arrows (in our example by a factor of 0.4).

1 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001

 TCL/TK KNOW HOW

Listing 1: Canvas widget with some objects

canvas .c -width 400 -height 500 -bg white \
-xscrollcommand [list .hscroll set] \
-yscrollcommand [list .vscroll set]
scrollbar .hscroll -orient horizontal -command [list .c xview]
scrollbar .vscroll -orient vertical -command [list .c yview]

grid .c .vscroll -sticky news

grid .hscroll -sticky ew
grid columnconfigure . 0 -weight 1
grid rowconfigure . 0 -weight 1

# Two lines with arrow points

.c create line -100 0 1100 0 -fill red -arrow last -tags coord
.c create line 0 400 0 -1100 -fill red -arrow last -tags coord
.c configure -scrollregion {-100 -1100 400 1100}

# Scaling
set scale 0.4
.c scale coord 0 0 $scale $scale
.c configure -scrollregion [.c bbox all]

Figure 1: The complete example draws an # Bar

exclamation mark with several check points and set item [.c create polygon 440 800 560 800 530 270 470 270 \
displays the current mouse position
-fill seagreen2 -outline seagreen4 -tags outl1 ]
.c scale $item 0 0 $scale -$scale

Manipulated objects # A node

.c create rectangle 430 790 450 810 -tags {node outl1} \
Each manipulation must specify which object it is -fill seagreen2 -outline seagreen4
referring to. This can be done in two ways: using IDs .c scale node 0 0 $scale -$scale
or tags (markings). Each object is assigned a unique ID
when it is created. This could be stored for later use, # A curve
but it's easier to use tags. Each object can contain one set item [.c create line 400 60 400 100 450 140 500 140 \
or more tags, by which it can be addressed instead of -smooth true -fill seagreen4 ]
by its ID. Two tags always exist – all for all objects and .c scale $item 0 0 $scale -$scale
current for the most recent object.
# Some text
After scaling down, the arrows should be
.c create text 100 -100 -text "Print with ^p"
completely visible. However, the scroll region still
has to be adapted to the new dimensions. Instead # Output of coordinates
of specifying the area directly as before, we will use proc coords {x y} {
the command bbox. It determines the region within set x [expr {[.c canvasx $x]/$::scale}]
Canvas that is occupied by objects. set y [expr {-[.c canvasy $y]/$::scale}]
We want to create an exclamation mark as a puts stdout "x: $x\ty: $y"
simple outline. The widget itself can deal with scaling }
and reflection in the y direction. Like the arrows bind .c <Motion> {coords %x %y}
before, the bar is scaled down as soon as it is created.
# Selection
A negative scaling factor along the y axis takes care of
proc deselect {} {
reflection. Scaling only ever applies to coordinates – .c itemconfigure outl1 -outline green4 -fill green2
line width or text size are not affected. In our example, .c bind outl1 <Button-1> select
one corner of the bar still contains a little square. }
proc select {} {
.c itemconfigure outl1 -fill firebrick1 -outline firebrick4
Spherical objects
.c bind outl1 <Button-1> deselect
After the bar, it's the turn of the base. It does not }
simply consist of a circle, but has a more complex .c bind outl1 <Button-1> select
shape formed of several curves. In order to be able
# Printing the visible region
to represent curves instead of straight lines, the
proc printing {} {
option -smooth true exists for lines and polygons. puts stderr "Print postscript canvas.ps"
The display uses splines, which smooth the set fd [open canvas.ps w]
transition between two consecutive line segments. puts $fd [.c postscript ]
To introduce a bend into a spline curve, the bending close $fd
point must be contained twice in the list of }
coordinates. Type 1 fonts use bezier curves, defined bind . <Control-p> printing

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 2

 KNOW HOW TCL/TK

Interactive objects
News from the Tcl world
Jeffrey Hobbes has published a new version of Tkcon, a tool for every Tcl To be able to select or move objects with the
developer. It would be unfair on Tkcon to describe it simply as a substitute mouse, they must first react to it. The command
for the normal Tcl command line interface. Tkcon offers the same usability canvasName bind TagOrID Event Command is used
when working with Tcl that you will be accustomed to from Tcsh or Bash. to instruct one or more Canvas objects to react to a
Tkcon automatically completes file names as well as Tcl commands and specified event. In our example, when you click on
variables. In addition, it has other features that you will be familiar with the bar, it changes colour.
from fully-fledged editors, such as syntax highlighting and display of Lastly, we want to output the whole thing as
bracket levels. You can browse through name spaces with ease, extensions postscript. Using canvasName postscript, this is no
installed in the system can be loaded at a mouse-click, and much more problem either. If no printing area is specified, the
besides. Tkcon makes working with Tcl even more fun. output only contains the visible Canvas region.
Otherwise, the required section has to be specified.
Tkcon as universal tool When using texts in Canvas, it is advisable to
Tkcon not only offers valuable support when trying out new things but also remember that there are often more fonts installed
helps with debugging. It is even ideally suited to writing applications, as it than the printer will recognise. Either limit yourself
can display individual variables or load improved source text at runtime. to the 35 standard fonts or embed the additional
The Tcl extension Snack is undergoing quite a bit of development. This is fonts in the postscript file at a later date.
nothing to do with fatty foods rich in carbohydrates, but rather with sound.
Language researchers at the Royal College of Stockholm have created a tool How many dimensions?
that can deal with many sound processing tasks. Snack can record and play
sounds, edit and distort them and carry out further processing. If you're The Canvas widget offers a lot of functionality for
planning on dissecting your MP3 files, you may as well do it with Snack. 2D graphics, either purely for display purposes, for
Wavesurfer (see Figure 2), a handy program for editing audio files, uses Snack. user interfaces or for creating graphics with a lot of
The way to your own MP3 player has never been as easy as with this extension. interactions. Help is also available. For instance,
Pstoedit can prepare many postscript files so that
Reading matter they can be represented with Canvas. Gnuplot can
If you'd like to see what others are getting up to with Tcl/Tk, we'd output its graphics directly in Canvas widget format.
recommend a look at the pages of the 2nd European Tcl/Tk User Meeting. If, however, you're thinking more in terms of 3D
There is a wide range of papers, the focus this year was on the use of Tcl on for graphics, Canvas won’t make you happy.
the Web. Even though not nearly as much fuss is made about Tcl as about Depending on your exact requirements, the
some of its alternatives, Tcl is working behind the scenes of AOLserver and OpenGL widget Togl may be better suited, or VTK
Vignette's Story server, both of which are hardly the smallest in their field. for processing and representing scientific data, or
Fringe areas such as the coupling of COBOL with Tcl are examined, along the game engine Nebula Device.
with the application of Tcl for game control or as a testing tool. After this rather picture-heavy instalment, the
next issue of Tcl will describe how to design a really
user-friendly Tcl/Tk application. ■

Figure 2: Wavesurfer
not only plays
and processes
audio files, but also
displays wave
forms graphically.
This picture shows
a WAV file
The author
Carsten Zerbst is a member of
staff at Hamburg-Harburg
Technical University. Apart from
researching service integration on
board ships, he investigates
Tcl in all its forms.
by two nodes and two check points. The example
for the first segment only uses four points.
Work with Canvas often requires the mouse
position. The location within the system of screen
coordinates is of less interest than the Canvas position.
The commands canvasx and canvasy convert the
position, taking the current scroll position into account,
but not scaling. The coords function divides the
coordinates by the scaling factor and then outputs the
converted coordinates on the command line.
Info
Tkcon: http://tkcon.sourceforge.net
Snack: http://www.speech.kth.se/snack/
2nd European Tcl/Tk User Meeting:
http://www.tu-harburg.de/skf/tcltk
AOLserver: http://aolserver.com
Wiggles: http://www.wiggles.com
Animated steam loco: http://mini.net/cgi-
bin/wikit/1329.html
Xtcc: http://www.tu-
harburg.de/skf/tcltk/papers2000/xtcc.pdf
Impress:
http://www.ntlug.org/~ccox/impress/index.html
Pstoedit:
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Networ
k/1958/pstoedit/
Togl: http://sourceforge.net/projects/togl/
VTK: http://www.kitware.com
Nebula Device: http://www.radonlabs.de
■

3 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001


Easy protection with
PASSWORD
POLICIES When I turn up at different
companies I look around a typical
office and it is easy to work out
login names. Passwords on a system
that you control however should be
more secure and not too obvious.
On your Linux system the passwords are stored in
the plain text file /etc/passwd
You can view this file with any text editor. A
typical line is
darth:x:500:100:Darth Maul:/home/darth:/bin/bash
This can be split up as follows:
darth - Login Name
x - Encrypted password
500 - UID (User IDentity number)
100 - GID (Group IDentity number)
Darth Maul - GCOS (Extra info about the user U
such as name etc,.)
/home/darth - Home Directory
/bin/bash - Shell used
As we can see the password is shown as an x
which indicates that we are using shadow
passwords. If we are not the password is a string
which has been encrypted with the DES (Digital
Encryption Standard).
The problem with just using DES is that the
/etc/passwd file is readable to everyone,
otherwise they would not be able to sign onto
the system. This means that they could in turn
read the encrypted string in a simple text editor.
By using a dictionary attack program such
as Crack
ftp://ftp.cert.dfn.de/pub/tools/password/Crack/,
which tries a word from its dictionary and
compares it with the encrypted string until
eventually it guesses correctly.
On the other hand, this is sometimes a good
way to recover passwords and really depends on
just how much security you need. Shadow
passwords are stored in /etc/shadow file which
only root has read permissions.
Signing on as root and looking at the file we
get a typical line as
darth:wfR0W8eSzI1Lo:11386:0:99999:7:0::
PASSWORDS KNOW HOW
JOHN SOUTHERN
Here we can see the encrypted password
is wfR0W8eSzI1Lo
The 11386 refers to the last time the
password was changed in the days
since 1/1/70
The 0 refers to the number of
days before the password may
be changed.
The 99999 is used for the
number of days before the
password must be changed.
7 shows the number of days
before a password change is forced
that the user will be warned. The
following 0 shows the time in days when
the account is disabled after the password
expires. Following this could be the number of days
until the account is disabled. A final field is a
reserved field.
Looking at the encrypted password: If we take
an eight-letter password, for example ABCDEFGH,
this is first encoded with a salt seed. The salt seed is
a two-character string giving 4096 combinations.
This is the first two characters of the password. The
lowest seven bits of each letter of the password is
then used to generate a 56-bit key for the DES
algorithm to run against. The generated 11 ASCII
character is added onto the seed to give the 13-
character encrypted password.
Simple dictionary attacks are now fairly quick
with some 500,000 words being contained in all
seed combinations and sorted in order. Compared
to the password this greatly aids the cracker.
To overcome this weakness, passwords should,
as we all know, be random letters and characters
and not make sensible words. The usual policies
about changing passwords often also apply. To
make the password a little more safe requires us to
use the MD5 encryption method, which is a little
stronger than DES.
Mind you, this is the usual case of do as
recommended and not as I do. As I write this I have
been roothacked.
Yet another re-install and this time I will use
Tripwire. Still, on the bright side I do have a new box
set distro somewhere... ■
12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 65
KNOW HOW INSTALLATION

Installing Open-Source
Software on Linux

RPM LOADING CHRIS BROWN

Everyone needs to update their
system with new programs from
time to time. Here, we show you
how to find and install applications
simply and painlessly.

guaranteed a working, useful system with a

When you install a Linux
distribution, the installation
software will ask you to specify
what pieces you want to include. Usually
it provides default selections such as a 'standard
workstation' install, and if you're new to Linux,
chances are you'll go with the default. You'll be
reasonable collection of tools. Sooner or later,
though, you're going to want to use something that
the default installation didn't include. Or you may
want a package that isn't part of your Linux
distribution at all. Or you might want to install a
more recent version of a package than the one
you're running now, perhaps because it fixes bugs
which are troubling you, or has new features you
need, or closes security holes which have been
discovered.
In this article we're going to learn how we can
obtain and install new software packages on Linux.
More often than not, finding the package in the
first place is the hardest part. So we'll look at ways
of searching for software, too.

Figure 1:Finding
RPMs.

66 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001


The sheer wealth of free software available for
Linux can be overwhelming - what one might call
an 'embarrassment of riches', to quote Abbe
D'Allainval. Well, actually, he said it in French, and
since he died in 1753 he most likely wasn't talking
about software. But the sense of the phrase is that
the more alternatives you have, the more difficult it
is to choose.
Distribution formats
Software packaged for Linux is available in a
number of formats. The two you'll most often
encounter (and the two we're going to look at) are
RPM packages, and a format rather quaintly known
as a 'tarball'. RPM packages usually provide
compiled binary code for a specific platform.
Tarballs usually provide source code that can be
compiled and run on different hardware
architectures and a variety of versions of Linux and
UNIX. There are other packages formats, which we
don't deal with here, such as the Gnu/Debian DEB
format.
What's RPM?
RPM stands for Red Hat Package Manager, but its
use is not restricted to Red Hat Linux. The SuSE and
Mandrake distributions, for example, also use it.
RPM defines a format for parcelling up an installable
piece of software. The parcel (a '.rpm' file) includes
the compiled binary code of the software itself,
scripts which do whatever needs to be done to
install the software, and information about other
software packages which this particular package
requires. One of the biggest advantages of using
INSTALLATION KNOW HOW
Figure 2: Check the
information before
you download
RPM is that it keeps a database of packages already
installed on your system, and if you want to install a
new package it will tell you if any of the pre-
requisite packages required by the new package
aren't present. Missing pre-requisites are the most
likely cause of failure when installing a new
package. Although RPM doesn't magically fix the
problem, it does at least give you a clear statement
of what's missing.
Installing an RPM
Let's take an example of locating and installing an
RPM package. Suppose I'm interested in migrating a
website, developed using active server pages, to my
Linux machine. I have heard that there's a tool
called asp2php that claims to translate asp code
into php which I can run in my Apache Web server.
I'd like to give it a try.
Looking locally
The first thing to figure out is, do I already have it?
That's not such a stupid question. There's an awful
lot of stuff on those CDs that came with my Linux
distribution I don't know about. I'm a great believer
in trying obvious things first, so I'll open a terminal
window and try to run it:
$ asp2php
bash: asp2php: command not found
$
Not a good start. That doesn't prove it's not
installed, but it does show that it's not in one of the
directories on my search path. We can do an
exhaustive search of the file system with the find
12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 67
 KNOW HOW
Figure 3: Using kpackage to
install
Figure 4:Showing the
dependencies needed
68 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
INSTALLATION
command. It's best to do this as root, otherwise
you'll get lots of messages about directories that
find doesn't have permission to look in. Try the
command:
# find / -name asp2php -print
# 0.75.11-1.i386.rpm
which says "search the whole file system, starting at
the root directory, for a file called asp2php, and if
you find it, print its name". This might take a
minute or two. In my case, it didn't find anything. I
just got a prompt back. This is the usual Linux/UNIX
philosophy - as Thumper said in a rare moment of
lucidity in the film 'Bambi': "If you can't say nutt'n
nice, don't say nutt'n at all".
If your system uses RPM for its package
management, you could have found this out a little
faster by using the rpm command to query the list
of installed packages:
$ rpm -q asp2php
package asp2php is not installed
$ stage, bash will complete the filename for you.
Of course, the fact that it isn't installed doesn't
necessarily mean that it isn't included in my Linux
distro. We need to take a look at the RPM files on
the distribution CDs. In the case of a Red Hat
distribution, for example, the RPMs live in a
directory called Red Hat/RPMS on each CD. So, with
one of the CDs mounted on /mnt/cdrom, for
example, I can look for the package with a
command such as:
$ ls /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS/asp2php*
In this way, I discovered that in the Red Hat 7.1
distribution CD2 contains two files:
asp2php-0.75.11-1.i386.rpm
asp2php-gtk-0.75.11-1.i386.rpm
These filenames, whilst admittedly messy, tell
you quite a bit: asp2php is the name of the
package. 0.75.11 is the version number. The '-1'
tells you that this is the first build of an RPM for that
package and version. The 'i386' means it's compiled
for the Intel architecture. (Remember, this RPM
contains compiled code so it's specific to the
processor architecture for which it was built. If you
were using a Sun sparcstation, for example, you'd
be looking for a name ending in '.sparc.rpm').
Installing the RPM
Now we've found the rpms, we can install both of
them with the command:
# rpm -i /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS/asp2php*
#
You have to do this as root because the installation
needs to copy the program into a system directory
(/usr/bin in this case) and update the RPM database.
If asp2php required any packages which weren't
present, it would have told you at this stage. For
example, if I had tried to install asp2php-gtk-
0.75.11-1.i386.rpm by itself, I would see this:
# rpm -i /mnt/cdrom/RedHat/RPMS/asp2php-gtk-U
error: failed dependencies:
asp2php = 0.75.11 needed by asp2php-gtk-0U
.75.11-1.i386.rpm
#
Typing these really long command lines and
filenames (and getting them right!) is a pain, even
for die-hard command line users like me. If you're
using bash as your shell, it's much easier if you turn
on filename completion. To generate the command
line just shown, what I actually typed was:
rpm -i /mnt/c <T>/Re <T>/R <T>/asp <T>-g<T>
where <T> means press the TAB key. At each
If you don't like working at the command line,
you can do all these things with graphical tools. For
example, clicking on the RPM file within the KDE
browser will bring up a kpackage install screen from
where the package can be installed simply by
clicking the Install button. See Figure 1.
Alternatively, kpackage can be started directly,
and pointed at the directory where the RPM files are
(click on Settings --> Location of uninstalled
packages), and used to browse, select, examine,
and install any package. See Figure 2.
Net gain
OK, what if we can't find the package we want
on our distribution CDs? A great place to start
searching for RPMs on the Internet is
http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM. Just type the package
name into the search box on that page (see Figure
3).
You'll get a listing of all known RPMs for the
package, with the most recent version numbers
listed first. The third line in this list is the same Red
Hat rpm we just installed off our local disk.
Look carefully at the filenames. The fifth line is
an entry for the same package compiled for the
Sparc architecure. Clicking on the filename link at
the start of the line will display basic information
about the package. See Figure 4. Clicking on the
.rpm file name at the end of the line will download
the rpm which can then be installed as
previously described.
KNOW HOW INSTALLATION

69 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001

KNOW HOW KOFFICE WORKSHOP

Koffice Workshop: Part 5

PRACTICAL
EXERCISES
WITH K TIM SCHÜRMANN

This, the final part of our KOffice

Workshop, is about the components
which have made the largest
advance in terms of range of functions.

As usual, in this last part,

all the functions of
KPresenter will be
explained with the aid of a
little example with which you
can join in. Noah Deer,
managing director of a reputable
car dealership, in the frame of a small
presentation, is going to cover what the
presentation is about and then introduce the firm to
the audience – a group of investors.
Let's get one thing out of the way right from
the start. At the moment, KPresenter cannot match
the range of functions offered by StarOffice
Impress. Nevertheless it is possible to conjure up Figure 1: The professional templates provided by
KPresenter
some pretty respectable presentations with the
KOffice components. At this point express reference
must once again be made to the fact that all you should always give some thought to structure
applications of the KOffice package, including and content. Thorough planning can eliminate the
KPresenter, are still in development. So you should need for later corrections.
not entrust important data to any of these In Noah Deer's case the presentation is to start
programs, and back up the documents you create off with a cover sheet, which includes the topic of
often during your work. the presentation. Then follows a slide on which the
firm is introduced (by means of bullet points).
Thinking things through In order to be able to take part in the
Workshop, you should now start KPresenter either
But before we really get going, as is always the via the KOffice desktop (see Part 1 of our Workshop
custom with presentations, the running order comes in issue 8) or via the KDE-2 start menu under Office
first. If you want to produce your own presentations, programs/KPresenter.

1 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001


Once KPresenter has been loaded, you have the
option of creating a new, blank presentation,
opening an existing one or generating a new
presentation from a template. If you decide on a
template, after a click on OK the first slide will be
created according to the content. Some of the
templates contain coloured backgrounds, while the
professional templates limit themselves to text
boxes. For Noah Deer's example, select the
professional template 1-column and click OK.
Buenos Dìas
KPresenter works – as do most presentation
programs – with dias or transparent sheets, but
refers to these as slides. These names stem from the
days when presentations were still cast on
transparent slides for a daylight projector or via a
slide projector onto a screen. This procedure can still
be found in the presentation programs of today.
The user can make several slides, on which words,
images or graphics can be arranged, as on an
ordinary slide. These slides can then be output via a
suitable printer onto transparent overhead slides or
presented directly via the program.
In addition to this, the computer-supported
presentation offers extra options which ordinary
slides do not. First you can cast your presentation
directly from the computer onto a screen provided
an appropriate projector is available. But that's not
all: Using the option of adding animations and
sounds within and between the individual slides,
this type of presentation turns a boring lecture into
a multimedia event.
As already mentioned, KPresenter refers to
transparent sheets as slides; we will also be using
this term here. In our example the first page should
now be exactly the same size as the screen, which
you can check and if necessary correct under
Extra/Page layout. If all you want to do with
KPresenter is prepare a slide show, it will make
sense if you insert the dimensions of the slide to be
used later. As a rule this corresponds to the A4
format (29,7 cm x 21 cm). But if on the other hand
your presentation is to be a projector presentation
direct from the computer, then leave the page size
at the default setting Screen. Changing between
the different page sizes later is possible at any time,
but in most cases it also leads to tiresome repairs to
the already existing pages.
Work area
In the main window of KPresenter you will find
several toolbars around the white working area. On
the top edge, in addition to the painting and
drawing tools, there are also arrow symbols, with
which you can scroll back and forth between the
various slides. The clipboard editing functions have
been shunted off, somewhat unusually, above the
colour palette, on the right edge. The picture is
KOFFICE WORKSHOP KNOW HOW
rounded off by the easy-to-view toolbar on the Figure 2: The KPresenter window
after opening the template
bottom edge of the screen, which accommodates
the text formatting functions, and the bar with the
tools on the left side.
The white working area, which takes up the
majority of the KPresenter window, is again split
into two. While in the middle (within the red
border) there is always a display of the page on
which you are currently working, on the left-hand
side there is a list of all the pages in your project.
The little box with a tick indicates that this page will
also be used later in the presentation. If you do not
wish to present a page listed there later, all you
need to do is deselect the relevant box here. This
way you can easily manage two different target
groups in a single project. Depending on the group
for which you are holding your presentation, simply
select or deselect the correct pages prior to the
presentation. And you can also add to annotation
pages, which serve only for your own notes.
Background
But now back to Noah Deer's example. On each
page a blue colour scheme and the logo of Mr.
Deer's firm will be displayed. On the lower edge of
every page the name of the holding company and
the date of the presentation will be shown.
To create a coloured background, select Workshop summary
Extra/Page background. For the colour scheme, on 1. Word processing with KWord
the first tab, click on the top coloured line in the left (1): A business letter
upper half of the window. From the colour palette 2. Word processing with KWord
that appears, use the sliders in the left upper half of (2): A newspaper
the window to select a blue tone. 3. Tables and diagrams with
Take care to ensure that in the longish, smaller KSpread and KChart
of the two colour palettes the black triangle does 4. Graphics and images with
not remain in the lowest position. This represents KIllustrator
the colour black there – your other settings in this 5. Presentations with
window will be ignored. In the box above the OK KPresenter
button, the colour you have just selected will be
12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 2
 KNOW HOW KOFFICE WORKSHOP

second tab sheet. First, make sure that in the top list
there centered is selected. Then click on Choose
Picture and in the window which opens, insert an
appropriate image of the firm on your hard drive.
After a click on OK it should be displayed in the
centre of the page.
To finish, click Apply, so that the background
thus created is also assigned to the current page in
the main window. If, later, you have several pages in
your project, you can assign this new background to
all the pages there using Apply globally. Now close
the window by using the button of the same name.
To complete the background, you should also
create a footer including the name of the presenter
and the date. To do this, select Edit/Header/Footer.
In the Footer tab, in the big input box, enter the
text "Abc Limited". Press the tabulator key twice
and enter the date of the fictional presentation.
Now make sure that the box Show footer is
selected, since otherwise the changes you have
made will not be visible on the slide. Then click on
[top] displayed. As soon as you have found the right the symbol for centring and assign all the entries
Figure 3: The background
colour, click OK. Now select Vertical gradient from you have made here via Page update. After closing
takes on some colour
the Plain list. This will create a vertical run pattern the window KPresenter should now return to the
starting with blue. Now click on the Unbalanced first page in the main window.
box and use the two slide controls to set a soft,
fairly discreet run. You should also take note of the Foreground
preview in the right side of the window.
To insert Noah Deer's logo, change to the Now your presentation is ready to be filled with life.
Double-click with the mouse on the upper frame on
[right] the page and enter "Trusted Used Car Sales" for the
Figure 4: The
first page. If the text appears too large or too small,
completed
background in the you can reduce or enlarge it using the symbols from
preview the bar on the lower edge of the screen. With the
centring symbol (also found there), you should
centre the text. All the commands in this toolbar
can also be found in the menu under Text.
When applying text formatting you should
[below]
Figure 5: A footer
always remember that the text or area to be altered
is quickly created must be selected first. To do this, you can either use
the mouse, or hold down the Shift key and then
select text using the arrow keys.
Now go to the lower, larger text box, enter
"Business Proposal 2002". Unfortunately the pre-
set layout in this text box does not have the ideal
structure for a front page. For this reason, the
layout of this one page should be amended
manually. To do this, click the mouse on a blank
area outside the page. Now select the lower, large
text box by clicking with the mouse on its edge. The
box should display two small black boxes on its
sides. All functions which you carry out henceforth
are applied to all the text within the selected frame.
As you can see, the text in this lower box is split
into a format set by default by KPresenter. To switch
off this automatic formatting, select from the menu
the item Text/Type/Normal Text. This will make the
bullet point before the text disappear. Now centre
the text, by clicking on the corresponding symbol
from the lower toolbar with the text formatting
functions. Since the frame is still much too big for

3 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001

 KOFFICE WORKSHOP KNOW HOW

the text, in the next step, this will be reduced. There

are two ways of doing this:
• Firstly, you can move the mouse onto one of the
small black dots, hold down the mouse button
and then bring the frame to the right size by
moving the mouse accordingly.
• A somewhat faster variant leads via Text/Extend
object to fit the contents: This automatically
adapts the size of the frame to the size of the
text.
In the last step, you should move the frame into the
centre of the page. To do this, move with the mouse
pointer over the frame, until it turns into a cross.
Now hold down the left mouse button and place
the frame roughly in the middle of the page. As you
will discover when you do this, the frame snaps into
certain intervals. The grid is responsible for this
behaviour, and you can adjust its step size under
Extra/Options; it makes it easier to arrange several
elements in parallel.
That's our front page completed. Next, the slide
with the general information on the company is to
be produced. To make the second page, you again
have two options:
Either create a completely new page using the
menu item Insert/Page, or simply copy the current
page, using Edit/Duplicate page.
We are selecting the second variant, since this is
the only way the painstakingly created background
will also be transferred onto the second slide.
After the copying procedure, KPresenter should
automatically display the newly-created page in the
working area. You can always tell from the marking
in the left-hand list which page you are currently
editing. With the light blue arrows on the top edge
of the screen, you can scroll back and forth
between the existing pages.

Fine-boned
In the upper text box with the heading enter the
text "Firm Background" and then enlarge the lower
text box until the frame displays roughly its original
size, before it was reduced. Then align the text
included in it on the left. The company history of
Noah Deer's employer should now be listed in the
form of a bulleted list. To do this, first change the
type of the text box to Unsorted list by selecting
from the menu the item Text/Type/Unsorted List. All
the indents are now preceded by a bullet point
when they are entered, in the form of a black spot.
To create a new bullet point, when entering the
text, simply press the enter key within the frame. If
you don't like the round bullet points used by
default, you can change these to anything you like
under Text/Settings.
Now enter a few points for Noah Deer's
example, as shown in Figure 7.
To make any point appear indented, mark these
and select from the menu Text/Increase depth. You
can also decrease the indent of any lines, by calling
up Text/Decrease depth. In this connection it should [top]
Figure 6: The completed front page
also be stressed that KPresenter is still at the
of our presentation
development stage. As proof of this, unfortunately
we still had a few problems in connection with [above]
Figure 7: A bulleted list explains the
bulleted lists. If KPresenter does not want to make company history
the bulleted list as you have originally set it, you
should completely delete the affected text frame
(mark, then select Edit/Delete) and make a
completely new frame. To do this, click in the upper
toolbar, under the menu bar on the symbol with the
big slanted T. The mouse pointer then turns into a
small cross. Now move to the point at which the
left upper corner of the text box is to be created,
hold down the left mouse button and drag the new
text frame up. In this way, you can add as many text
frames to your page as you like.
Noah Deer would like to make use of computer-
supported presentation during his talk and have each
item of the bulleted list just created "move in" from the
left at the press of a button. To do this, first select the
text frame with the bulleted list and then select

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 4

 KNOW HOW KOFFICE WORKSHOP

click on any blank space on your page.

Lights out
Before the presentation is started for a test run, you
can assign more cross-fades to the individual pages.
These cross fades specify the way in which the next
page is to be faded in during the presentation. For
each such procedure, change to the previous page.
In Noah Deer's example page 3 is to be opened
horizontally. Therefore, you should change to page
2 and call up Screen-presentations/Configure Page.
In the window which opens, select Open horizontal
and click on OK.
Figure 8: An effect is assigned to the bulleted list points Figure 9: Using these settings, slide Now you can start the finished presentation via
in the second slide three is faded in with Open horizontally Screen-presentation/Start or with a click on the big
green button in the toolbar. During the presentation
you get to the next respective page by pressing the
KPresenter: (almost) a little painting program [->] key. [Esc] ends the entire presentation and
To brighten up your presentations a bit, KPresenter offers a few paint returns you to KPresenter.
functions. These essentially correspond to those from KIllustrator (see We shall also end our five-part Workshop on
Workshop Part 4 in Linux Magazine Issue 11) and are also used in the same KOffice with Noah Deer's presentation. It was the
way. As you will soon see when you work with it, KPresenter can hold its aim of this Workshop to acquaint you with the
own alongside KIllustrator in terms of drawing functions. individual components of the package and to show
Unfortunately KPresenter spreads its drawing functions over several what a free office package can do. As we hope you
toolbars. To draw geometric objects such as triangles or circles, use the have realised, despite a few errors, even at this
symbols from the top toolbar, on the right next to the mouse pointer development stage a few tasks can be performed
symbol. Alternatively, the associated functions can also be selected via the well with a bit of practice. We are eagerly waiting to
menu under the item Tools. see how KOffice will develop in the future. ■
In the toolbar on the left edge, KPresenter stores the more complex
manipulation functions. With the symbols housed there, an object can be
rotated, moved up or down one hierarchy level, and you can combine
several objects into a group.

Info
Screen-presentations/Assign effects. Then, in KOffice homepage: http://koffice.kde.org
Appear set as "Effect (appearing)" "Come from the Homepage of the KDE project:
left" and as "Effect (object-specific)" "Paragraph http://www.kde.org
after paragraph". To assign this effect to the object, Information on KPresenter:
click on OK. http://koffice.kde.org/kpresenter/

Downward trend of a company ■

All Noah Deer's presentation needs now is a third

Problems
slide with the profit and loss figures. To do this, copy
the second slide via Edit/Duplicate page and on the Below are a few problems which
new slide change the heading into "2002 profit and occurred during the tests with the
loss figures". To make the data for Noah Deer's firm version of KPresenter we were sent:
visually appealing, you should use a chart. First • Page numbers could not be inserted
make a bit of room for the new object, by removing (Text/Insert page numbers)
the lower text frame with the bulleted list. Then • When editing bulleted lists there were
select the chart symbol (not to be confused with the frequently problems (see relevant
pie/arc/chord tool) and drag up a corresponding paragraph in article).
frame using the mouse. When you do this, proceed • Other KOffice objects, such as a
in the same way as you did for the text frame KSpread table or a KChart diagram
already mentioned. To alter the chart, double-click were inserted, but not displayed.
on the inserted frame. To use the chart editor, refer • The presentation was not executed
to Part 3 of the KOffice Workshop (Linux Magazine correctly or there were still serious
issue 10). For Noah Deer's example, simply enter a representational errors on the upper
few made-up figures, which show that his company edge.
is going downhill. To get back to KPresenter, simply

5 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001

 KNOW HOW GIMP WORKSHOP
Image processing with Gimp, part 5
PLUGGED IN
SIMON BUDIG
One large area which we have barely touched on
in this series is plugins. These are separate little
programs that take over special tasks and are
included in the Gimp menu.
Figure 1: This is
where plugins are
checked
When starting Gimp for the first time, the dialog
from Figure 1 is visible for a relatively long time. This
is when the search for new plugins takes place.
These are asked where they should be included in
the menu. The search results are stored in the file
~/.gimp-1.2/pluginrc – hence subsequent starts will
be noticeably quicker.
We had the idea initially of arranging all
submenus of <Image>/Filters and <Image>/Script-Fu
on the screen and making an impressive screenshot,
but then we changed our minds – there are just too
Figure 2: many. So for this part of the Workshop we’re faced
First make a few waves... with something of a dilemma:
74 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
Which plugins should we present?
You may already have been wondering how
wecreated the abstract pattern from the last part.
Basically, we used two Distorting plugins for this.
Open a new image (for example 500x500 pixel)
and select, in the centre of the image, a rectangular
area (in our example from (0, 220) to (500, 280)).
Fill in this area with black colour. With Select/None,
deselect this again. Now start the plugin
Filter/Distorts/Waves. With this plugin the image
becomes distorted as if one had thrown a stone into
the (liquid) surface of the image. Using the lower
slide control you can affect the waves – in the
preview you will then see what awaits you. In our
example we’ve taken the values 45, 40 and 20 for
the amplitude, phase and wavelength
respectively (Figure 2).
In the next step this image is distorted spirally.
The easiest way to do this is with Filter/Distort/Whirl
and Pinch (Figure 3). Make sure that white is set as
the background colour, otherwise strangely
coloured areas will appear at the edge (where, as it
were, something is being screwed out of
nothingness). We’ve rotated the image to the max
here (360 degrees). If you like, you can also use the
Pinch Amount slide control to contract or expand
the centre of the image.
So now we have something slightly similar to
what was used in the last part as an example. But
the edge does not look especially great. It looks a bit
frayed. Interestingly, a soft focus filter can help to
create a neater edge.
We came across the main soft focus filters last
time: /Filter/Soft focus/Gaussian blur. This plugin
comes in two variants, although their results are
 GIMP WORKSHOP KNOW HOW

only marginally different. Normally it makes very

little difference whether one uses IIR or RLE. The
soft focus tool can be used for various purposes. In
the last part we saw how to use it for light and
shadow effects. But it can also be used to create
neater anti-aliasing. Yes, that may sound daft, but
it works.
Draw the image blurred with a radius of about
10. This will necessarily mean losing details, but in
our special case, this is what we want. The little
indentations are meant to disappear. Incidentally, it
is standard practice for the radii in horizontal and
vertical directions to be linked to each other, which
means they always have the same value. If this is
not what you want, you must click on the little
button with the chain link.
Here comes the trick: Using the Values tool
already introduced in the second part,
(<Image>/Image/Colours/Levels) you can now
create a clean, sharp edge. We have achieved good
results with the source values 115, 1.0 and
145 (Figure 5).
Now we can simply copy the steps from the last good method for making certain colours Figure 3:
...and then stir
part. Duplicate the levels, let a soft focus run over transparent, but the effect is usually stronger than
the lower levels... er, hang on. We forgot the desired. Depending on the task, though, it’s worth
transparency. In fact, we really wanted to have the a try.
black motif against a transparent background.
No problem whatsoever – there are more Three-dimensional
plugins. In this case we are helped out by
Filter/Colors/Color to alpha. Agreeably enough, Not so long ago in Web design, buttons which
white is already set as the colour here, which is to appeared somewhat three-dimensional and
be converted into transparency. After a click on OK encouraged you to click on them were common.
we have the image in the form we need. Even if the current trend is towards flat design, it is
One more comment on the last plugin: Colour still good to know how to create such effects.
to alpha tries to make every pixel as transparent as Gimp offers the fairly flexible bumpmap plugin
possible, on the assumption that the colour set will for this type of effect, which you will find under
be placed in a level underneath. This is sometimes a FilterMap/Bump Map.

Graphics tablets

I will not go into the various types of graphics tablets at this point - for this, you should refer
to the article available at http://www.gtk.org/~otaylor/ximput/ .
Gimp obtains information via so-called Xinput devices (which also includes graphics tablets)
through the GTK+ library. This in turn receives its information direct from the X-Server. So in
order to be able to use Gimp with graphics tablets, the X-Server must be configured such
that the graphics tablets are recognised as Xinput devices. Typically, this happens via
/etc/X11/XF86Config, for which details can be found in the article mentioned above.
To support GTK+ one doesn’t have to do very much, since normally all the current packages
support Xinput devices as a matter of course. Formerly it might have been necessary to
compile GTK+ yourelf, since the support for XInput had to be explicitly selected (the
./configure switch is called —with-xinput).
To be able to make use of the expanded options within Gimp, you must now select, under The author
File/Dialogs/Input devices the Xinput devices, by setting each one (apart from SWITCH under The fact that so much can be
XFree 3.3.x) to the mode Screen. After a click on Save and Close you should now be able to written about bumpmap
paint in the image window with the paintbrush tool pressure-sensitively. surprised even Simon Budig
A quick word about troubleshooting, in case it doesn’t work. The command xinput list lists himself. In particular, when
all the input devices. If the X-Server has been correctly configured, one or more writing this article he
XextensionDevices should pop up here. If so and if No Input Devices appears within Gimp understood for the first time
when the above dialog is selected, GTK+ has not been compiled correctly. how the Waterlevel parameter
functions...

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 75

KNOW HOW GIMP WORKSHOP
The dialog can be seen in Figure 6.
Before we leap in, a quick bit of theory. The
bumpmap plugin is based on the idea that a
mountain range, seen from above, still displays
something of its structure, since the sun illuminates
the various slopes differently. The mountain range is
typically depicted within Gimp with an image in
shades of grey. The different heights by various
shads of grey. The valleys are black and the peaks
are white.
Let’s try it out. Create a new image with black
background and write a white text inside. With
[top] Filters/Blur/Gaussian blur you can ensure that our
Figure 4: Soft focus
for sharp edges
mountain range with raised letters at the edges gets
somewhat softer slopes. Now make a second image
[below]
Figure 5: The levels dialog
of the same size, but this time with a white
makes it sharp again background. Now start, by right-clicking in the
76 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
white image Filter/Map/Bumpmap.
First of all, select within the Parameter settings
under Bumpmap the image which shows our
mountain range. In the preview at the top left you
should see a three-dimensional effect, although you
may need to scroll up or down a bit (either using the
scrollbar or by clicking in the preview), until you find
the interesting area.
Using Azimuth and Elevation you can define the
direction from which our mountain range is to be
lit. Azimuth defines from which side the light source
shines onto the mountain range. If you pull on the
slider control, you will see how the light spots move
around the mountain range. Elevation defines from
what height above the horizon the light source
shines onto the mountain range. Play around with it
a little to get a feel for the parameters. After a click
on OK the effect will be included in the image.
The Depth parameter controls the maximum
height of the mountain range. The greater this is,
the steeper the slopes, so the illumination gains a
stronger contrast.
Now it gets lively
So far we have only found out about the basic
variants of the bumpmap effect. Obviously the
plugin cannot be used only on white images –
because then only grey shaded results would ever
come out. In Figure 7 we have applied the
bumpmap plugin to a coloured image. In the right
upper area you can see the grey-shaded map, at
lower left the effect it has on a coloured image. In
this case we have created the coloured pattern with
Filter/Render/Clouds/Plasma.
Let’s take a look at the parameters in the dialog
at top right (Figure 6). The Map Type states how the
grey shades are converted into height levels. In
Figure 8 you can see the three basic functions:
linear, spherical and sinusoidal. A short aid to
interpretation: If you have an even gradation of
colour on one edge from black to white, the various
functions convert this into a straight, quadrant-
shaped or sinusoidal slope. In the image you can see
how the various forms affect a small pyramid. Linear
produces a pointed cone, spherical a sort of drop of
mercury and sinusoidal a gentle hill, which tapers
out gently at the peak and at the bottom.
The bumpmap algorithm has the extremely
undesirable side effect that the image becomes
noticeably darker. If the rays of light strike it at an
angle, the area is not completely illuminated. In
order to reduce this effect, you can use the option
Top right the bumpmap, lower left the effect created
 GIMP WORKSHOP KNOW HOW

Compensate for darkening. The option Invert
bumpmap interprets the grey shade image in
exactly the opposite way — white for valleys, black
for the height features. In principle one could
achieve the same effect by rotating the light source
to the opposite side (± 180˚) – this button is
through the menu we promised last time, all we’ve
covered is a couple of distortion plugins and an
intensive discussion of the bumpmap plugin. We
promise, that next time we will be dealing with
more colourful matters. And we will restrain Figure 8: Image functions forming
ourselves when it comes to Gimpressionist – which the basis of the bumpmap plugin

a shortcut. has about ten times as many parameters as

If the bumpmap is smaller than the image to bumpmap – and keep strictly to the main points.
which it is applied, it can be repeated with the Gimp’s plugins are flexible -– but with a bit of
option Tile bumpmap and thus create an even creativity and combining one can achieve
surface structure. The parameters X/Y Offset considerably more. Have a go and see what
displace the bumpmap with respect to the image. happens when you combine different plugins with
With Ambient you can control the diffuse lighting. each other. If you stumble across any interesting
The higher this value, the brighter the side facing effects, don’t hesitate to email a brief description Figure 9: The effect of the
away from the light source appears. (sbudig@linux-user.de). ■ Waterlevel parameter
To clarify the parameter Waterlevel, we will
have to go back a bit to present one neat trick. The
bumpmap plugin can also evaluate transparency
information as height information. This means that
if a white spot goes transparent, a hill appears after
applying the effect. But if a black spot goes
transparent, a hollow appears. How strongly a hill
stands out or how deeply a hollow is indented is
defined by the waterlevel.
Take a look at Figure 9. On the left you can see
how spots in various shades of grey become
transparent against a green background. Next to
this you can see the images which are created when
you apply this bumpmap with the water heights 0,
64, 128, 192 and 256 to a white image. Bear in
mind that with a water height of 0 only hills, and
with a water height of 256, only hollows will be
produced (the light comes from top left).

Contours
The three different functions for affecting the shape
of the contour are all very nice, but sometimes you Figure 6: Lots of parameters for the bumpmap plugin
need more control. The bumpmap plugin alone
cannot do it, but it is very easy to foist various
contours onto the plugin. To do this, you can use
theImage/Colours/Curves dialog.
Start again with a blurred (radius approx. 10
pixels) white text against a black background. Now
open the curve dialog and model a contour, similar
to the one you can see in Figure 10.
Now create a new image of the same size. We
have created a plasma effect again, in order to
make something colourful. Then apply the
bumpmap plugin with the signature. The result
should look something like Figure 11.
Hmm, we have to admit it – from the foray

Figure 11: The result: A text with a fancy contour Figure 10: Using the curve tool to create a contour for bumpmap

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 77

 CASE STUDY LINUX IN SPACE

Linux on the International Space Station

BEAM ME
UP, TUX FRANK HAUBENSCHILD

The reliability of Linux means

its ideal for systems where
continuity counts – making it
the obvious choice for space
projects. We take a look at its
use on the International
Space Station.

The International Space Station (ISS) is about three
times the size of the space station Mir that crashed
into the Pacific a few months ago. With good
visibility it can be seen from Earth. This sort of high-
tech project depends on stability, reliability and
performance, so it's no surprise that the European
Space Agency (ESA) has chosen Linux for one of
its projects.
The Automatic Transfer Vehicle (ATV), realised
by ESA, is an unmanned space craft that supplies
the ISS with fuel and goods. To get the ATV's cargo
onto the ISS requires a docking manoeuvre between
the two spaceships. The difficulty lies in the
different speed of the two ships. The whole
rendezvous begins about 20 kilometres behind the
ISS. The ATV is initially faster; it follows the ISS,
reaches it and adjusts its speed. Docking with the
ISS must be accurate to the last millimetre. Then the
cargo can be unloaded.
Even though most of the docking operations
are automated in the unmanned ATV spaceship, the
ISS crew and the ground staff are able to intervene
in the manoeuvre. ESA has developed two Linux
programs for this purpose – RASCI and GOAS.
Remote control
RASCI stands for Remote ATV Control at the
International Space Station and runs on an IBM
Thinkpad. The ISS crew will use it to monitor the

78 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001

 LINUX IN SPACE CASE STUDY

docking manoeuvre. The application requires X- the Ariane-5 mission is not planned until February [left]
Trajectory and control
Window (X11R6) with Fvwm as window manager 2003 – so Tux has got a little bit of time left.
displays with RASCI
and is currently running on Slackware 3.0 with
kernel 2.0.30. Other Linux space projects [right]
The relevant telemetric data is stored on the GOAS gives control to
Linux file system. RASCI has a modular structure, Apart from the ATV project initiated by ESA the the ground crew

there is a telemetry handler, which receives the American space agency NASA is also looking into the
telemetric data from the ATV, processes and saves it use of Linux in space. The Flight Linux Project,
and, if necessary, transmits it to clients like the originating in an initiative by NASA engineer Pat
status monitors. Another module deals with error Stakem, is working on the Blue Cat-based
recognition during the docking manoeuvre. If an distribution Flight Linux. According to its initiator, it is
error occurs, the astronaut on the ISS is able to intended to maintain the course on board unmanned
terminate the docking manoeuvre completely, pass space ships and take over monitoring functions.
control to the ground crew or start evasion Another Linux project is the Linux-Equipped
manoeuvres if there is a danger of collision. Astronauts Project (LEAP), the aim of which is to
Future versions of RASCI are intended to also replace the Windows programs currently used by
provide the astronaut with video data of the the astronauts with Linux programs. However, at
manoeuvre, which will be displayed in real time, in the moment these lofty goals are still awaiting
addition to the telemetric data. realisation, there is a lack of support from officials at
NASA and ESA. ■
Ground crew
Linux controls
space rendezvous
The "Ground Operator Assistant System" (GOAS)
was originally developed for Sun Workstations
(Ultra-Sparc 5, 64MB RAM, 300MB HDD). The Linux
version is derived from this. Linux-GOAS requires at
least a 233MHz Pentium with 48MB RAM and uses
X11R6 and Open Look as window manager. The
GOAS GUI was developed in C++, the actual
application in ANSI C.
GOAS is capable of addressing several monitors
to provide as much status data as possible at one
glance. The software allows the ground crew to
intervene in the control of the docking manoeuvre
in any situation imaginable. For example, the ATV's
steering jets can be addressed directly to avoid a
Info
collision with the ISS. In contrast to RASCI, using ESA ATV project: http://www.estec.esa.nl/wawww/ESC/
GOAS, the ground crew can re-plan the entire NASA Flight Linux: http://flightlinux.gsfc.nasa.gov
docking manoeuvre – fully automated, semi- LEAP: http://www.cantrip.org/leap.html
automatic or manually. http://www.sheflug.co.uk/featuresoft.htm
Although individual modules of the ATV project Space station computers crash: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/2/18526.html
have been tested in several Shuttle missions (STS-80,
STS-84, STS-86), the first deployment of an ATV for ■

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 79

 BOOKS REVIEW
LINUX! I DIDN'T KNOW I
COULD DO THAT…
2ND EDITION
ALISON DAVIES
This completely revised and updated edition covers
many of the latest programs to use with Linux. It
covers aspects from text-based tools to the latest
KDE and Gnome tools in an easy-to-read format.
Difficult concepts are explained in a simple manner
such as using encryption or automating tasks.
Written by an ex-director of Caldera, the book is
based mainly on using Red Hat and admits that
many of the aspects it covers are automatically on
the latest editions of Red Hat and
other distributions.
It covers a lot of programs, many included on the
enclosed disc, and gives a good flavour of what is
available, such as Xmorph. There is an interesting
section on games, some of which I recognise from
earlier incarnations on pre-PC computers, and a nice
section on Video4Linux, how to install TV tuner cards.
There is a big section on Apache Web servers
and it also covers, more unusually, fax servers and
ESSENTIAL
LINUX FAST
At last – A UK English, step-by-step guide to using
Linux! Ian Chivers takes Red Hat and SuSE and
explains installation and use in a clear, easy-to-follow
fashion. Where there is a difference in the systems
he mentions this and there are plenty of screenshots
to illustrate the points he makes. He admits that
where he had problems with the hardware not being
supported that later developments may have
changed the situation and gives a Web address for
the most up-to-date information.
It is written in an academic style with bibliographies
after each section for further information. It covers
starting with a Windows machine and installing Linux –
he uses various versions of Red Hat and SuSE. It goes on
to setup networks and security. The second half of the
book deals with using UNIX commands and installing
additional programs including emulators for most
programming languages.
The book is aimed at people who are
knowledgeable about computers and
80 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
Voice Over IP. It concludes with the usual section on
creating an emergency disk.
The book is aimed at people who actually want
to do things with Linux and who may be stuck in a
Windows environment. It is a good book to dip into
with many one or two page information blocks. I
was impressed that the part on calculators included
reverse Polish notation and the programs included
on the disc should add interest to my system. ■
Info
Author: Nicholas D.Wells
Publisher: Sybex
Price: £16.99
ISBN 0-7821-2935-8
■
programming, but who are beginners when it
comes to Linux and would get a system up and
running in a day by following the instructions. A
good read through of the book should also allow an
informed choice of distribution and some idea of
the hardware that is supported.
A good, no nonsense book with just the right
amount of information to let you do the task of
getting a system running with the minimum of
effort. You can then get on with the rest of your job,
secure in the knowledge that Linux will run itself. ■
Info
Author: Ian Chivers
Publisher: Springer
Price: £15.95
ISBN 1-85233-408-8
■
 BEGINNERS KORNER

K-splitter: Made to

MEASURE STEFANIE TEUFEL

Who says there is no place for gossip a

Linux magazine? K-splitter broadcasts
news from the K-World and noses around
here and there behind the scenes.

SMS again Please do not choose the newest

version of Elza, 1.4.4, but its predecessor,
The sun is shining, the local 1.4.3, since according to the author of
pub beckons – all you need do KsmsAgent there have been some problems
now is finalise the with Version 1.4.4. Last of all, you need an
arrangements for the evening. account with www.lycos.co.uk/service/sms/.
And how do you do that Before you can start texting, you should
these days? Either by email make a couple of adjustments to Elza. To start
or SMS. KMail for email off, just check if the right path is specified to
may be familiar by now to perl in the file or the Perl script elza.pl. If not,
KDE enthusiasts, but amend the script as appropriate. Then turn
perhaps you have missed to the file elza.def. Here, decomment
out on the KsmsAgent, line 15
which allows you (via
use Win32::Process; use Win32;
http:// www.lycos.co.uk/
service/sms/) to send with a #. The same goes for the lines 50 to
short messages – free of 52:
charge – to your date for
#$DEF{'sslapp'} = "c:\\win-
Figure 1: Configure me the evening.
util\\stunnel.exe";
To get the SMS agents to beep on your
#$DEF{'sslcmd'} = "stunnel -c -d 127.0.0.1:SU
girlfriend or boyfriend's mobile, apart from the
SLLOCAL -r SSLHOST:SSLPORT -D 1";
current version of the program, which you can #$DEF{'sslconsole'} = 1; # Set to 1 to see tU
download any time from the homepage of the he console
author, Tobias Bayer, at http://www.tobias-
[below]
bayer.de/, you will also need Perl and Elza, which Now all you have to do is remove the comment
Figure 2: Not quite as big as the New
York telephone directory you can get from http://phiphi.hypermart.net/pub/ . symbols before the lines 56 and 57:

$DEF{'sslapp'} = "stunnel"; # This name willU

be passed to KILLALL
$DEF{'sslcmd'} = "/usr/sbin/stunnel -c -d 12U
7.0.0.1:$DEF{'ssllocal'} -r SSLHOST:SSLPORT U
-D 1";

That's it: You can now start KsmsAgent for real.

First, enter under Options/Preferences (Figure 1)
your username and the password at
www.lycos.co.uk/service/sms/. When it comes to
the path to Elza, remember to end the directory
specification with a /. Save, done. That's it
for configuration.
To send messages, you have two options: Either
enter the number of the recipient into the main
[above]
Figure 3: Send your message
window yourself, or you select their number from
while you travel the address book. If you frequently favour someone

82 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001

 KORNER BEGINNERS

with short messages via mobile, you should go to

the trouble of including their number in your
address book as this saves on typing.
You access the telephone book (Figure 2) via
Options/Addressbook. The entries must be made in
the case of the name in the form Surname Forename
or vice versa and in the case of mobile numbers with
pointed brackets (<telephone number>).
Add new numbers with the button Add, delete
them using Delete, and send a text message by
selecting the desired number and then clicking on
Choose. The program automatically enters the
number into Phone (Figure 3). All you need do then
is enter the text of your message in the box in the
main window and press the Send button – and with
that, your invitation to this evening's swift pint is on
its way.

Themes
Another facelift for the KDE-2.x desktop makes the
new Themes by Vadim Pessky possible. The author
has, unlike many other theme-builders, not settled
for simply pasting together a few background
images, but has gone to the trouble of fitting
individual window decorations in each theme for
buttons etc. The whole package can be found at
http://apps.kde.com/.
If you don't want to download all the themes
prettily packaged, you can also hunt down
individual items at the author's home page
http://kde2.newmail.ru/kde_themes.html.
These desktop beautifiers are installed in
seconds thanks to the theme manager, which has
been resurrected in the newer KDE versions. Open
the KDE control centre, select Appearance/Design
management, and the installation work can let rip:
Click on the Add button, select the new theme to
be installed, and you will instantly see an image like
the one in Figure 4.
When the postman rings at the
wrong time ...
For many Kmail users this may be due to the fact
that they are still using an old issue of KDE. Because
in the Kmail versions under 1.0.29.1 there is a date-
related bug, which can lead to your mail folder
suffering damage after 9 September 2001.
And users of versions 1.0.29.1 and 1.0.29.2 do
not get away completely unscathed. In this case, the
folders are not damaged, but data can be wrongly
shown. So update to KDE 2.1.1!
Tempo, tempo
For the near KDE future the developers wanted to
know precisely what users really want, and so they
went on the Internet and posed the question:
"What should be given highest priority in the
development of KDE 2.2?" Now the result is
confirmed and is no surprise to all those who have Figure 4: A whole new look
ever waited for long minutes for the start of one
KDE program or other – speed.
More than one quarter of the votes submitted
argued in favour of a faster KDE. Waldo Bastian
then wrote a report with the title Making C++ ready
for the desktop, in which he analyses the various
start phases of a C++ program and develops a few
proposals for optimisations. The complete article
can be found at http://www.suse.de/~bastian/
Export/linking.txt.
But Konqueror is still in the sights of users. Just
under 20 per cent wish for further improvement
with respect to CSS and JavaScript. Third place on
the wish list was occupied by expansion and
improvement of Koffice. ■
Themes: The famous/infamous Themes are something you must surely be
familiar with from the Windows world. These are background images that
harmonise icons, sound files etc, which a well-meaning person has composed
with more or less good taste.
CSS: Abbreviation for Cascading Style Sheet. Style sheets make it possible to lay
HTML pages out better. Frequently-used format settings (bold, italic etc.) and
fonts only have to be defined once for a specified text element. This also means
that the amount of data of an HTML page is usually reduced, since these settings
(once defined in the header or in a separate file) are only queried once in the
running text per code.
JavaScript: A simple scripting language, originally developed by Netscape,
which can be integrated into HTML. With JavaScript functions such as for
example cursive scripts, clocks or similar can be realised. Unlike Java this language
is neither software-independent nor equipped with the necessary security
mechanisms.
■

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 83

 BEGINNERS
MUSICAL
HANDICRAFTS
MP3: MP3 or MPEG 1 Layer 3 is
the best compression
algorithm for sound data.
Using this method, sample
data can be compressed by a
factor of up to 12,
without any loss
of quality.
Terminal emulation: The
main objective of a terminal
emulation is to serve as a sort
of substitute for virtual
terminals, under a graphical
user interface, between which
you can happily skip back and
forth under Linux by pressing
Alt and Fx. This console
substitute allows you to use
programs under X, which are
really intended for the
command line.
■ Figure 1: Split in two
1 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
KORNER
K-tools
STEFANIE TEUFEL
We present tools that have proven
to be especially useful when
working under KDE, or are just some
of the nicer things in life you
wouldn't want to do without.
MP3s are all very nice, but anyone who has not yet
treated themselves to the luxury of a portable MP3
player, will not get much joy out of the new summer
hits on their home hard drive, while they’re working
on a tan at the beach. So what could be more
obvious than moving the musical gems onto an
audio CD?
In the last Linux Magazine we offered you KonCD,
a powerful burn program for KDE. But if all you really
want to do is quickly capture a few pieces of music on
CD, k3b would serve you well. This quickly and simply
burns audio CDs consisting of wav or mp3 files. The
newest version of this turboburner can be
downloaded at any time from the homepage of the
author at http://k3b.sourceforge.net/.
After installation (which you deal with as usual
with the Linux three-step, ./configure, make, make
install), start the program either by a click on the start
menu, Applications/K3b or by entering a k3b & in a
terminal emulation of your choice. You will then be
Figure 2: All aboard?
confronted by a window, as shown in Figure 1.
k3b shows you a nice clear overview of your
directories in two windows. In fact, you could begin
burning at this point, but first you should check
whether all devices and programs which k3b uses
have been correctly identified. Normally the program
does this for you, but it's better to be safe than sorry if
you want a properly burnt CD.
For your inspection visit, open
Settings/Configure K3b, and take a look in the
window which will then appear (Figure 2) to see if
everything is all right. If not, quickly change the
settings, before setting off.
Off we go
In order to finally get down to business – after all,
the beach and the portable CD player are
beckoning – click in the menu bar on File/New
Project/New Audio Project and simply use drag and
drop to move the MP3 files which are to go onto
the CDs, from the directories on the left into the
right-hand window (Figure 3).
If you want to change the name of the file,
right-click on the MP3 file and in the pop-up menu,
select Properties. In the pop-up window which
appears, you can then make your changes. If you
have changed your mind, and the track is not to go
on the CD, correct this mistake by a click on remove
 KORNER BEGINNERS

in the pop-up menu at once.

As soon as you have compiled the data for the
audio CD to your liking, click to start the burning
process, on the CD icon in the menu bar or select
File/Burn. k3b opens a window (Figure 5), in which
you can specify details on the speed of your burner
or if the burn process should be simulated first. If
everything matches your settings, do a kick-start
with a click on Write and then calmly observe the
progress of your burn project (Figure 6).

Undercover
Once you have yourself a nice new audio CD, it
would be a crime not to put it into a cover of its
own. There are programs such as Kover (Figure 7) or
KCDLabel (Figure 8) which take care of this, and you
can find their latest versions on the cover CD.
Start Kover via the start menu, Figure 3: Decide what to burn in seconds using drag and drop
Multimedia/Kover or alternatively KCDLabel via the
start menu, Applications/KCDLabel. True to the
WYSIWYG motto What you see is what you get,
here you can enter titles and contents, select text
colour, size or font and if required, also include
photos. You can keep an eye on the result of your
masterly artistic achievement, large or small, at all
times in the preview window.
Kover’s strength is that it spits out your lovingly Figure 4: If anything else needs changing...
designed cover when it prints it out, neatly provided
with fold lines. Also, the newest version even comes
with an implemented CDDB autofilling function –
for both the CDDB database on the Web and for Figure 7: Kover even comes
with CDDB support
your local title database on the hard drive.
KCDLabel on the other hand offers one or two
additional graphical design options. Whether ring-
shaped text or the CD title in the form of a rainbow. In
the menu bar, open Character string/Insert curved line,
and start typing. Even round CD labels are no problem Figure 5: It's the speed that counts
for this program, thanks to File/Print Round Label.

My home ...
... is my happiness. If this saying applies to you, you
will not be moving away from your computer and
so won't be needing any audio CDs. To finish off,
we have a program (or rather, a front-end) for you, Figure 8: A CD label ready to print
with which you can comfortably tootle away your
MP3s on the computer.
Exactly the same as xmms-kde, which we
presented to you in the K-splitter column in Linux Figure 6: Progressive Figure 9: An applet rarely comes alone
Magazine issue 10, kmms is an xmms applet for the
control panel, with which you can control the easy-
to-use MP3 player at all times via the panel, without CDDB: Compact Disk DataBase is a CD title database on the Internet. This database
having to switch to the desktop. contains all information on any audio CD which has ever come onto the market. CDDBs
Start it after installation – simply right-click on are either held locally or are fetched from the Internet. In the case of an audio player,
the KDE panel and select Add/Miniprogram/Kmms, which supports the CDDB format, as soon as the CD is inserted it checks whether the CD
and delight in an applet as in Figure 9. For anyone is already known. If not, the CD player tries to connect to the Internet and to find the
who has already installed xmms-kde, the data there on a CDDB server. CDDB programs access the TOC (Table of Contents) of a CD,
functionality of the two applets is the same in which every CD includes.
principle. Try them both out to decide which one
suits you best. ■ ■

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 2

 NEWS GNOMOGRAM
News and Programs
to do with GNOME
GNOMOGRAM BJÖRN GANSLANDT
We present the pearls among the
Gnome tools here. This month's
topics include: All over for Eazel?,
Gnome Packaging Project,
Restructuring at Ximian,
Sikigami, Ximian Gnome 1.4 and
Sawfish commands in the panel.
All over for Eazel?
It looks as if the radical downsizing at Eazel did not
make it any more attractive to investors. Not even
the recently started fund-raising campaign via
Paypal has been able to rescue it – apparently there
was not a great deal of interest in Eazel T shirts for
$20. But if one bears in mind that in a single year,
Eazel has consumed some $11 million of risk
capital, it was a utopian dream right from the start
to think the firm could keep its head above water by
means of donations. According to as-yet
unconfirmed reports, by the time this issue comes
out the second half of the workforce will have been
sacked and Eazel will finally have gone bankrupt,
without the firm having been able to realise its
actual business model – namely the sale of services
– in any way. It remains to be seen whether Ximian
will manage this feat – because hype alone is no
longer enough to make money. This bankruptcy
does, however, also highlight one of the great
advantages of free software, namely that Eazel's
URLs graphical shell Nautilus can still continue
www.eazel.com development, even without the company. It
www.paypal.com emerged from the very first sackings that former
developer.gnome.org/projects/gpp/ employees were still working on Nautilus.
www.ximian.com
www.sikigami.com Gnome Packaging Project
sawmill.sourceforge.net/prog-
manual.html The Gnome Packaging Project (GPP) was established
in order in future to produce packages for all the big
■ Linux distributions and Unices, which are free from
86 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
any kind of expansions by distributors or companies
such as Ximian. There are also plans to compile
regular snapshots from the Gnome CVS, in order to
make life easier for Beta testers and compilers.
Restructuring at Ximian
Unlike Eazel, Ximian is acting much more
optimistically and has restructured its complete
management over a brief period. In the course of
this action co-founder Nat Friedman was made VP
of Product Management and handed over his old
post to Patrick David, former President of World-
wide Sales at The Learning Company. Jon Perr will
in future be in charge of Marketing, and Bijan Sabet
has been appointed new VP of Business
Development. Since so many vice presidents will
also want financing, Todd Miceli has been given the
post of CFO at Ximian.
Sikigami
At the instigation of the Japanese distributor of Red
Figure 1: Gnome for PDAs
Hat, the software forge AXE has developed a
version of Gnome adapted for PDAs. The first
screenshots of this interface, christened Sikigami
(Japanese for daemon) can be admired at
www.sikigami.com, the source code is available
after completing a Japanese form.
Ximian Gnome 1.4
Most Gnome users have had to be patient for a
long time, and some have even been threatening to
switch to KDE because of the delay. But at the end
of April, the day finally dawned when Ximian could
present its version of Gnome 1.4. From the
enormous onslaught on the FTP server one can
conclude that most users had in fact remained
faithful to Gnome; and praise was flooding in as
 GNOMOGRAM NEWS

soon as the mere announcement and a couple of

screenshots could be seen.
With the graphical Ximian installer, which can
be started as usual by the command "lynx -source
http://go-gnome.com/ | sh", all the necessary
packages for the respective distribution can be
downloaded and installed. Ximian has actually
made some very useful changes to Gnome 1.4,
aimed principally at newcomers. On first starting
Ximian Gnome, a configuration assistant named
Doorman (Figure 3) welcomes the user and helps
him to transfer his personal data to Ximian and to
change the most important settings to do with the
look and feel. Here the user can choose between
several suggestions for settings, such as the
background or the panel. To make it easier to use,
Ximian also comes with its own menu, which is
especially impressive because of its professional
icons. But one thing missing in the menus, just as
with all the other changes to Ximian, is the
translations, which – where they exist – are not
exactly up to the Gnome standard. This is due to the [top]
Figure 2: Ximian GNOME comes out
fact that Ximian kept all its new features a secret
with rounded corners
and the regular translators had no access.
Another facility for beginners is the file dialog, [middle]
Figure 3: Doorman leads the user
which has been extended by several buttons, which through the basic configuration
lead directly into the specified directories. To do this,
[below]
Ximian Gnome also creates a directory named Figure 4: When the documentation
~/Documents/, which roughly corresponds to the no longer helps, find some advice in
Monkeytalk Chat
\My files under Windows. The help menu has also
been expanded. Via Help/Chat an extremely
simplified X-Chat version named Monkeytalk
(Figure 4) starts, which leads into one of the Ximian
help channels. With a bit of luck there might even
be a Ximian employee there, who could help you
out with any problems.
Also in the menu panel, which is known
internally as the Foobar, Monkeytalk sits alongside a
Ximian FAQ, the Bugbuddy and the Gnome manual
in the help menu. Right next to them in the system
menu, Ximian has accommodated a little search
program and the package manager Red Carpet.
Anyone who cannot get anywhere with Red Carpet,
has at least the option under Debian of adding the
line "deb http://red-carpet.ximian.com/debian
stable main" (or woody) to "/etc/apt/sources.list"
and as usual of using apt-get. Lastly, Ximian has
rounded off the upper corners of the menu panel
and hidden a new Easter egg, which should be
located, after activating the menu panel, in a log file
in the home directory.
Overall, the update to Ximian Gnome 1.4 is with a starter on the panel. A new starter can be
certainly worthwhile. But anyone who has already found via a right-click on the panel under Panel/Add
installed the Debian (Woody or Sid) version of Gnome to panel/Starter. As command, you must specify
1.4, should be ready for a few problems if they update. "sawfish-client -c Lisp command", at which point
the basic Sawfish functions can be found with info
Sawfish commands in the panel sawfish. As we have already described in the last
Gnomogram, Sawfish can also be expanded by
Those not satisfied with starting Sawfish functions means of modules, which in turn come with their
via key combinations, thanks to the program own functions. These modules are found under
sawfish-client also have the option of linking these /usr/share/sawfish/VERSION/lisp. ■

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 87

 FAQ
MAKE IT
SNAPPY WITH
THAT SHELL
(Virtual) console: One of the
text screens between which
you can toggle under Linux
using the key combination Alt
plus function keys (usually [F1]
to [F6]). You can get from a
graphical user interface with
Ctrl+Alt, plus function keys
[F1] to [F6], to a text screen.
Shift key: The key which
makes any letter typed in into
a capital.
■ stopped again with Ctrl+D.
1 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
DR. LINUX
Dr. Linux
MARIANNE WACHHOLZ
Complicated organisms like Linux systems suffer
little complaints all of their own. Dr. Linux
observes the patients in Linux
newsgroups, issues prescriptions
and proposes alternative
healing methods.
Deja vu also holds script in the log file, so that, in the
reproduction, coloured listings are also
During longer sessions at a (text) console I would shown correctly.
like to read earlier inputs again – especially in cases
when a great deal of work has been done. How
can I do this?
Dr. Linux: If you cannot manage to scroll
through using [Shift+scroll up] and [Shift+scroll
down] you can make a session log using
user$ script Name_of_logfile
If you use the script command without
specifying a file, a log will automatically be
produced with the name typescript in the current
working directory.
Script runs in the background and can be
Many text consoles provide colour
representation which is controlled by Escape
Sequences (see the box of the same name). This Figure 1: Escape sequences for colours
 DR. LINUX FAQ

Begin by logging on to your home directory. To Welcome to SuSE Linux 7.1 (i386) - Kernel \rU Figure 2: Reproduce
a session in text
create the log file script requires you to have write (\l). mode with script
permission for the current directory. With
Debian comes across as more Spartan with
user$ cat filename_of_log
Debian GNU/\s 2.1 \n \l
the log can be reproduced from a command line. and Mandrake actually draws a complete penguin
In the case of longer logs there is the option of a with a whole heap of escape sequences:
sideways display with more instead of cat, or you
^[[40m^[[40m
can call up the log in an X-terminal program,
^[[2J^[[0;0H
which provides a scrollbar.
^[[0;1;30;44m ^[[40m ^[[44m ^[[40m
[...]
A personal welcome ^[[0m^[[255D

Can the log-in message, for example
Red Hat Linux release 7.0 (Guinness)
Kernel 2.2.16-22 on an i586
be individually configured?
Dr. Linux: The distributions issue messages
before the log-in whose content is stored in
/etc/issue. The Superuser can edit this file and
thereby change the output before the log-in.
If you open the file with an editor, you may
notice that this opening text consists not only of
text, but also of control characters. So in SuSE for
instance, you will find the following entry:
Linux Mandrake release 7.0 (Air)
Kernel 2.2.18 on an i686 / \l
With the control characters the case is as follows:
• \l creates in the output the number of the text
console (tty1, tty2, ...)
• \t gives the time in the format HH:MM:SS
• \m gives the processor type (such as i586)
• \r gives the kernel number
• \d inserts the date in the format 2001-06-13
• \n is the control character replaced by the
computer name
When you save the entry

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 2

 FAQ DR. LINUX

You will then see a ^[ in the file.

Welcome - this is kernel \r.
It is \t.
\l is ready to log in.
in your /etc/issue, the log in message looks
like this:
Welcome - this is kernel 2.2.18.
It is 20:40:22.
tty2 is ready to log in.
If you would like to experiment with colours in the
Mandrake welcome message, you can fall back on
the control characters described in Escape
Sequences. However, the Escape character wil no
longer be written as \033, but with Ctrl+V,
followed by pressing the [Esc] key.
^[[47m^[[31m Welcome - this is ^[[40m KernelU
\r.^[[0
It is \t.
\l is ready to log in.
ensures that Welcome - this is appears as red text
on a grey background. The kernel details are
output in red on black, and with Ctrl+V, [0 the
original colouration is reactivated.
If you would also like to alter the log-in
message which is shown to users who log onto
your computer via Telnet, then edit the file
/etc/issue.net in the same way.
Infotext after the log in

Escape Sequences
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) set itself
the task of standardising the terminal control characters.
This is put into practice with escape sequences, which are
mentioned several times in this article and which you will
find described in detail in the Bash Prompt HOWTO
(http://www.linux.com/howto/Bash-Prompt-HOWTO-
6.html).
Some of these control characters will already be familiar
to you. The well-known beep, which your system utters
from time to time, is also an escape sequence. When placed
on a command line, the key combination Ctrl+G makes your
computer beep (assuming your system is not configured as mute).
You can use this kind of character for colour control in a
way which is much more multimedia – for coloured outputs in
text mode or to make the Prompt appear in colour for
instance. The HOWTO offers a few examples that invite you
to try them out as ready-made scripts. Copied into a file and
made executable, you can view the colour scheme on your
command line. The following script from the HOWTO
demonstrates the potential colours (Figure 1):

#!/bin/bash echo -e "\033[47m\033[1;32m Light green \033[0m\

# 1;32m \
# This file outputs a range of colour codes \033[40m\033[1;32m Light green \033[0m"
# on the terminal. echo -e "\033[47m\033[33m Brown \033[0m\
# Each echo command prints out a foreground colour on 33m \
# a grey and black background and writes \033[40m\033[33m Brown \033[0m"
# the code for the foreground colour in the middle of the line. echo -e "\033[47m\033[1;33m Yellow \033[0m\
# This script has been tested with white, black and green 1;33m \
# terminal backgrounds (2 December 98). \033[40m\033[1;33m Yellow \033[0m"
# echo -e "\033[47m\033[34m Blue \033[0m\
echo "In light grey: In black:" 34m \
echo -e "\033[47m\033[1;37m white \033[0m\ \033[40m\033[34m Blue \033[0m"
1;37m \ echo -e "\033[47m\033[1;34m Light blue \033[0m\
\033[40m\033[1;37m white \033[0m" 1;34m \
echo -e "\033[47m\033[37m light grey \033[0m\ \033[40m\033[1;34m Light blue \033[0m"
37m \ echo -e "\033[47m\033[35m Purple \033[0m\
\033[40m\033[37m light grey \033[0m" 35m \
echo -e "\033[47m\033[1;30m Grey \033[0m\ \033[40m\033[35m Purple \033[0m"
1;30m \ echo -e "\033[47m\033[1;35m Pink \033[0m\
\033[40m\033[1;30m Grey \033[0m" 1;35m \
echo -e "\033[47m\033[30m Black \033[0m\ \033[40m\033[1;35m Pink \033[0m"
30m \ echo -e "\033[47m\033[36m Cyan \033[0m\
\033[40m\033[30m Black \033[0m" 36m \
echo -e "\033[47m\033[31m Red \033[0m\ \033[40m\033[36m Cyan \033[0m"
31m \ echo -e "\033[47m\033[1;36m Light cyan \033[0m\
\033[40m\033[31m Red \033[0m" 1;36m \
echo -e "\033[47m\033[1;31m Light red \033[0m\ \033[40m\033[1;36m Light cyan \033[0m"
1;31m \
\033[40m\033[1;31m Light red \033[0m" \033 in this case stands for the character created by
echo -e "\033[47m\033[32m Green \033[0m\ pressing the ESCape key, hence the name escape sequences.
32m \ The 33 in the octal numbering system corresponds to the
\033[40m\033[32m Green \033[0m" ASCII code for the escape character (27 decimal).

3 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001


After logging in, I get the following information
text on the text console of my system:
Last login: Sat Apr 28 14:35:54 on tty6
Where do I go to stop this?
Dr. Linux: If you don’t want to see this
information, you must act as Superuser. The
message of the last successful log-ins (all users) is
stored in /var/log/lastlog and output by the log in
shell after you log onto the system again. The
decision as to whether this data appears on the
screen is made in the file /etc/login.defs.
Open this file with the editor of your choice,
and in the line
LASTLOG_ENAB "yes"
change the entry "yes" to "no".
For Mandrake users there is bad news: In some
versions of this distribution, setting
LASTLOG_ENAB does not change anything in the
output of the "Last login" message.
Getting graphical?
I have specified a graphical log-in in my
installation. But I would prefer to log onto a text
console and start the graphical user interface with
startx. Which file do I enter this into?
Dr. Linux: UNIX systems can run in various
operating statuses, which are referred to as run
levels. In the file /etc/inittab you will find a
definition of the preconfigured run level of your
system. The numbering of the run level is not the
same in all the various distributions.
Common to all is the run level 0, which powers
down the system, and run level 6, which triggers a
reboot. Therefore it is not advisable to enter one of
these two as default run level, thus as the run level
which is automatically assumed on booting.
The other run levels in the SuSE-7.1
distribution look as follows:
• Run level 1 is the single-user mode, in which
root has the opportunity to rescue something
from a crashed system with only a little
functionality
• Run level 2 offers multi-user, but not network
functionality
• Run level 3 also allows several users to work on
the machine at the same time (multi-user) and
also provides network functionality (local mail,
logging in from remote machines, etc.)
• Run level 5 is preconfigured as an additional
multi-user operating mode with network and
graphical log-in
In the file /etc/inittab, apart from a definition of
the run level you will also find the default run
level. The watchword is initdefault:
id:5:initdefault:
The number in this line determines which run level
DR. LINUX FAQ
Prompt: The enter prompt (also called the standby character) signals the
readiness of a shell to execute a command. Since the prompt can be configured,
on some systems you will find one that displays the current directory, while other
computers, often in networks, also give the respective computer name. When it
comes to the purists among administrators, you might even find just individual
characters such as %, > or $.
Shell: A command interpreter. This program is started when logging onto the
system (log in shell) and accepts the commands entered by the user (interactive
shell). Shells usually have elements of programming language (variables, loops,
conditional queries etc.) built in, so that you can assemble and have executed
instructions for the shell programs or 'shell scripts'. In addition to the bash, which
is used by the overwhelming majority of Linux users, under Linux and other UNIX
operating systems you can choose from the following shells:
• The syntax of the csh or C-shell is similar to the C programming language
• The tcsh is an extended C-shell with the option of editing the command line.
• The sh or Bourne shell has no editable command line
• The ksh or Korn shell which is largely back-compatible with the Bourne shell
provides an editable command line
• The zsh (Z-shell) is the most recent of the listed shells and can also be edited.
Although it is in many respects similar to the ksh, it does have a few special
nuances and more extensive features
Shell variable: Many functions of the bash are controlled by variables, which in
turn exert an influence on the entire function of a system. The initial settings in
the files /etc/profile, /etc/profile.local, /etc/bashrc (depending on the distribution)
are read in first. Users have the option of individualising these settings by editing
the corresponding dot files in their home directory. The bash processes the
following files after a user logs in, in the respective home directory:
• .bash_profile
• .bash_login
• .profile
• if applicable, .bashrc
If one of the files is not available, the next will be searched for possible entries. If
you want to permanently set or change the value of a variable, write it in one of
these files. The command set will show you which variables are set in the system
on the output screen.
If the directory /sbin is not entered in the PATH variable, this directory will not
be searched, such programs must be started with the absolute or relative
pathname. If a program in the current directory, which is not in the search path,
is called up, this can be reached by placing ./ before the program name.
Absolute and relative pathname: An absolute pathname, often also called
the full pathname, begins with the root directory, symbolised by /. It usually
consists of /Directoryname/any_other_directories/filename. A relative pathname
begins in the current directory. /Directoryname is replaced by a dot (.), which
produces the command ./any_other_directories/filename. So the system can
distinguish (even with files of the same name) as to which file the command
applies.
■
your system starts at. In the case of a SuSE 7.1 the
number 5 has to be changed to 3, so that the
graphical user interface won’t be automatically
available when you next start the system. In the
case of other distributions you can simply read the
definitions in /etc/inittab attentively to find an
appropriate multi-user run level.
Program start by return
Why can some programs be started by entering
12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 4
FAQ DR. LINUX
Figure 3: Resetting their name on a command line and not others?
the graphics
There are various programs such as fdisk which I
card from the
alternative cannot simply start from the command line, even
mode though the program is located under /sbin/fdisk. Is
my system wrongly configured?
Dr. Linux: Assuming you do not wish to start
any program files whose execution is reserved for
root or a specific user and user group (such as
fetchnews), all programs can be started by
entering the full path name as command. Enter
the following:
user$ /sbin/fdisk
Your shell then searches, with the aid of the shell
variable PATH for the program.
This procedure, which appears fiddly, actually
makes complete sense. What lies behind it is the
basic idea of giving users more security against
access and/or damage.
A closer look clarifies this security mechanism.
The variable contains a series of directory paths
separated from each other by colons. This series is
worked through from the top down to the
directory path, in which the desired command
and/or program is found, while the rest is ignored.
An infiltrated program, which bears only the
name of an often-used command, but in the
background triggers something completely
different, is executed instead of the real program,
if it is found by the shell before the
actual command.
This is why it is safer only to search through
the proposed directory paths. If the current
working directory or even the temporary directory
jointly used by many were listed upfront in PATH,
evil-minded programs would only have to wait for
a command from the daily flood of email onto
standalone workstations or attacker programs in
the /tmp directory – especially in networks.
A careful administrator starts programs with the
absolute pathname, so as not to give an infiltrated
program the rights of the Superuser.
Using the command
user$ echo $PATH
5 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
you can take a look at which directories belong to
your program search path:
usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/bin:U
/usr/lib/java/:.
To briefly include a directory in the PATH variable
set the following command on the command line:
user$ export
PATH=$PATH:/directory/subdirectory
The effect of placing $PATH in front is that the
existing content of the path variables is retained.
This change of path has no effect on other
terminal windows opened.
If you would still like to include another
directory in the variable permanently, you can
achieve this by making a corresponding entry in
the ~/.bashrc or ~/.profile.
Clear sight, clear instructions
Sometimes, in text mode or in an XTerm I open a
program with cat. This fills the screen with
meaningless characters, and all characters entered
are shown scrambled. How can I repair it?
Dr. Linux: A program file listed in the heat of
the moment almost always results in illegible
character output, since the output of program files
usually includes control characters, which in turn
causes the graphics card to switch into
another mode.
You can usually stop the program with Ctrl+C
and get back a legible prompt. If the entry prompt
continues to be illegible, try using Ctrl+V and then
Ctrl+O (Figure 3). With Ctrl+V you tell your shell
that you are putting down a control character, for
which you will receive no acknowledgement from
the shell whatsoever. Ctrl+O is the control
character and normally appears in legible form as
^O on the command line. Then press Return
(Enter), which restores the legible information
Command not found and hopefully a
restored prompt.
If you really want to go the whole hog, you
should send the command
user$ reset
afterwards, which removes clutter from the
screen output.
In an emergency, you won't be able to put
your finger on the key combinations to reset the
the graphics card mode. A reset typed in blind
followed by Return (perhaps twice in succession)
might be all you need to do to restore
your screen. ■
FAQ DR. LINUX

6 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001

 SOFTWARE OUT OF THE BOX

NTOP

NET Out of the Box takes the pick of the

bunch of the thousands of utilities
available and suggests programs

VALUE
CHRISTIAN PERLE
that are indispensable or unduly
ignored. This month is devoted to
network monitor ntop.

The increasingly networked world of computers is Ntop can be compiled and installed with:
now marching into the living room. The second or
tar xzf libpcap-0.6.2.tar.gz
third machine is linked with the main home PC and
cd libpcap-0.6.2
happily swaps data via TCP/IP. If you want to keep
./configure —prefix=../libpcap
on top of your private computer farm and its
make
outward network connections, you will find ntop by make install
Luca Deri very handy. cd ..
tar xzf ntop-1.1-src.tgz
Top N cd ntop-1.1
./configure
To run the program, the ncurses library (including make
associated Development Packet) must be su (enter root password)
installed. You’ll also need libpcap. To compile the cp ntop /usr/local/bin
cp ntop.8 /usr/local/man/man8
libpcap you will need the packages flex and bison.
exit
Ntop can be obtained at www.ntop.org/ntop.html.

SUID or not SUID?

Figure 1:
ntop in the text terminal ntop has to run with root rights. You can obtain the
necessary rights with the su command (and root
password), before you start ntop, and give them up
TCP/IP: ”Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol”, the network protocol again after closing down the program with exit.
family of the Internet. Alternatively, you can issue (as root) with chmod
Protocol: A standardised language, with which programs understand each other. 4755 /usr/local/bin/ntop the SUID (”Set UserID on
library: files containing a collection of useful C functions for specific purposes. So execution”) right. So ntop - regardless which user
there are such things as libm, which provides mathematical functions, or the has started it - will always run with root rights.
libpcap, which can tap and examine network packets. Often, libraries are used by The first option is more secure, because then
several programs (shared). only users who know the root password are allowed
Development packet: When compiling source texts you will need the to monitor the Net. A better, more controlled
development packets for all the libraries used by the program. The header files assignment of root rights to users is offered by the
are an essential component (ending in .h), which specify the parameters of the program sudo.
functions included in the libraries.
Compile: A program in source text form from a higher programming language
cannot be executed by the operating system as it is. It is only by compiling
(translating) it with a Compiler that it is converted into a form which the
respective processor can execute.
Throughput: The throughput states how much data per unit of time (usually
measured in KBit/second or MBit/second) is passing via a network device.
Man page: The man pages (short for ”Manual pages”) are an online reference
manual for UNIX commands. These are called up with man command.
Port: A docking point for network connections. Ports are given numbers, and
many are assigned to a service via this number. For example FTP uses Port 21, SSH
Port 22, TALK Port 517, etc.
Home-directory: The personal home directory of a user. This is the first directory
after successfully logging on or with the command cd (without additional
parameters).

■ Figure 2: Statistics in the Web interface

94 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001

 OUT OF THE BOX SOFTWARE

If ntop is started in a terminal it behaves similar to
the UNIX classic top, except that ntop does not
display the processor capacity being used by various
processes, but the network traffic due to various
computers. In Figure 1 a large movement of data is
taking place, from sphere to camera. The current
throughput can be read off at top right. The
program started with ntop -i eth0, thus instructed
also to tap packets on the first Ethernet card.
In the text interface ntop responds to various
keys. The space bar fetches additional information
into the columns of the displayed table, such as
protocols like FTP, HTTP or DNS. Other functions can
be found on the Man page.
We shall now leave the text interface with the q
key and start the program again with ntop -i eth0 -
w 888. The terminal shows no output, but with a
frame-capable web browser you can connect to
Port 888 with the ntop service thus started. This is
done by entering http://localhost:888/ as the site
address. You must send a Ctrl+C into the terminal
with the ntop command, to shut down the service.
ntop makes more information available via the
Web interface. Figures 2 and 3 show just a small Figure 3: Overview of
individual computers
selection of the statistics on the distributions of
protocols in the total throughput, bandwidth
utilisation, network card manufacturer, network
connections currently running and much more. In
Table 1 all the links from the ntop main page and
their functions are described.
The Web interface can be blocked by a password.
To do this, the user must make a file in their home
directory called .ntop with a user name/password
pair. The content of this file could look something
like this:
# ntop password file
tux dryfish

Some information on network protocol

Basic Protocols UDP (”User Datagram Protocol”) is a connectionless

(R)ARP (”[Reverse] Address Resolution Protocol”) is used to
find the MAC address of a network card for an IP address.
This is the only way in a local network for IP packets to be
sent to the right computer. The MAC (”Media Access
Control”) address is an address determined by the hardware
of the network card.
IP (”Internet Protocol”) is a transport mechanism for various
protocols such as TCP and UDP. It sends packets on the basis
of their destination IP address. IP is not restricted to a local
network.
TCP (”Transmission Control Protocol”) is a connection-
oriented protocol, via which many service protocols such as
HTTP, SSH or NBios-IP run. Whilst, with IP, packets are merely
sent, TCP offers confirmation of receipt. In this case,
connection-oriented means that network connections must
be explicitly made and disconnected by special IP packets.
protocol, via which service protocols such as DNS run. UDP is
not suitable for the reliable transfer of large amounts of
data. ”Connectionless” means that within the protocol there
is no option for making sure that a packet has really arrived
at the receiver’s end.
A small selection of service protocols
HTTP (”Hypertext Transfer Protocol”) is the transfer protocol
used by the World Wide Web.
SSH (”Secure Shell”) is an encrypted protocol for logging on
to remote computers.
NBios-IP (”Netbios over IP”, also known as SMB (”Server
Message Block”)) is the protocol a Samba server uses for
Windows file release?
DNS (”Domain Name Service”) resolves computer names
such as www.linux-magazine.co.uk into IP addresses.

Table 1: Which link shows what?

No. Name Meaning
1. What’s ntop? General information about ntop.
2. Data Rcvd Summary of received data, broken down into data, allotted to IP or all protocols, together with throughput.
3. Data Sent Summary of data sent, broken down into IP, all protocols and throughput.
4. Multicast Stats Packets which are sent simultaneously to several computers.
5. Traffic Stats Information on packet sizes and distribution of protocols in the total throughput.
6. Thpt Stats The throughput for the last 60 minutes as bar graph
7. Hosts Info Information on computers, broken down by computer
8. R->L IP Traffic Network traffic from outside into the local network
9. L->R IP Traffic Network traffic from the local network to the outside
10. L<->L IP Traffic Network traffic within the local network
11. Active TCP Sessions Currently active TCP connections
12. IP Protocol Distribution Distribution of the protocols transported via IP
13. IP Protocol Usage Which protocols are used between which computers
14. IP Traffic Matrix How much was transferred and between which computers
15. Credits Thanks from the author
16. Man Page The manual page for ntop

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 95

 SOFTWARE DESKTOPIA

deskTOPia

CURSORITIS PATRICIA JUNG

Customising the cursor can add to the individuality of your desktop.

You don't have to settle for what XFree8 offers as standard,
provided you are a little bit creative

The cursor has a Cursors

[left]
Figure 1: decurs with cursor.bdf
file loaded
[right]
Figure 2: When editing,
masked glyphs are edited
different
appearance under
X11 depending on
what it is placed
over or what the
application is currently
doing. But the
fact that this
is nothing more than a font file
packed using gzip named cursor.pcf.gz,
seems to suggest that this could also be
swapped. But for what? Still at the Alpha stage, but
already thoroughly usable – at
http://www.hut.fi/u/pvsavola/decurs.html you can
download a cursor font editor program named
decurs. Provided the GTK library, the appropriate
devel package and the C++ wrappers GTK- (gtkmm
and gtkmm-devel or similar) are installed, all you
need to compile are a configure and make.
The executable program decurs from the directory
decurs-0.42.1-alpha/src is then copied as root to
/usr/local/bin. If the font file named cursor.bdf which
comes with the src directory is in the working
directory when you start, this is automatically
loaded, and already you will have come across an old
acquaintance – the X_cursor cross hairs (Figure 1).
If you would prefer to take a different font file as
the starting point, it is possible to select, using the
Load Font button from the fonts directory in the
decurs archive, a different one –
although at this point you
should bear in mind that you are actually grabbing a
cursor font. Anyone using a text font whose first
glyph is not specified by decurs with the name
X_cursor can carry on editing, but should refrain
from installing the result as a cursor font.

90 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001


The rest is simple: First, the entire font is masked
using Mask. This gives you a view of the various
cursors as they will appear on the desktop (Figure
2). Using the arrow keys, you can then move from
one glyph to the next, at the same time seeing
amazing cursors you won't usually come across,
since they are never used.
The primary candidates for change are those
cursors which you've already seen ranging free.
Once a victim is found, then you set a black pixel
with a right mouse click and a white one with a left
click. Pressing the left mouse button with the Shift
key held down deletes a pixel. It becomes
transparent and the turquoise background of the
character interface becomes visible.
The Invert button turns black pixels into white
ones and white into black. On the other hand if you
press Ctrl and left-click at the same time, you can
set the hot spot of the cursor. Where the red cross
hairs lie is the point at which the exact mouse focus
will appear later. Bundling it onto the wrong end of
an arrow means that the accuracy of the user
will suffer.
If you are interested in the exact dimensions
of the current glyph, a press on the B key will
help. This information can be found in the X-
Terminal window in which decurs has been
started (Figure 3).
Once the cursor font has been edited, it is
unmasked using UnMask, before being saved using
save font. Next, a little bit of manual labour is
required, because the .bdf file created must now be
made into a .pcf.gz. This is done using
the commands
bdftopcf -o cursor.pcf new_cursor_font.bdf
gzip cursor.pcf
Once root has made a backup copy of the
original cursor font in
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/cursor. pcf.gz or
similar, the newly-created cursor.pcf file is copied
into its place and X is restarted.
If the cursor with the new font is now
invisible (because you have saved an important
glyph in pieces), keep your cool. Kill off X with
Ctrl+Alt+ Backspace and recopy the old backed-
up cursor font file to its original position.
If, despite being edited, a cursor appears in
the old, familiar guise, you will unfortunately
have to settle for this. Many applications such as
gimp use their own cursors instead of those from
the
cursor font.
Root cursor
If this is all too fiddly, you can merely change the
cursor which appears when you move the mouse
over the space on the root window not
occupied by windows, toolbars or menus. A long-
established command line program named
DESKTOPIA SOFTWARE
Figure 3: Information on
the current glyph
xsetroot can be used for this purpose.
Someone has perhaps already made use of
this in the pre-KDE/GNOME era to make the screen
background totally black with xsetroot -solid black.
The option -cursor allows you to install an icon
as root cursor. But not just any: Firstly, it must be in
the form of a black and white X-bitmap (filename
ending .xbm), and also in two copies. So that the
cursor is not disfigured by an ugly screen edge, a
mask bitmap is produced, which delimits the
outlines of the cursor. The section of the bitmap
serving as cursor is made black for this (Figures 4
and 5).
To do this, simply paint the outlines of the
cursor image with a graphics program or, even [left]
better, an icon editor, in black, and save the mask Figure 4: Cursor image ...
under a different name (but it must be as an .xbm [right]
file). Anyone not wanting to design their own icon Figure 5: ... and mask
can make use of the xbm fund in their own
computer. A locate .xbm | less should provide an
ample selection. A
Glyph: Symbol of a font
xsetroot -cursor image.xbm mask.xbm
Root window: The bare
then comes up with a whole new cursor experience. screen background managed
If you find black on white too boring, you can turn by a window manager. If you
the black foreground colour red with -fg red and start X without a window
the white cursor background black with -bg black. manager or desktop
The program xcolors tells you which options are environment, the root window
available in the choice of colour. So a will show itself as a black and
white background. It is called
xsetroot -cursor image.xbm mask.xbm -fg Lemo U
a root window because it is
nChiffon1 -bg SeaGreen
the mother of all the windows
is useful if you're curious about the colours available which the window manager
on your computer. Using the picture bitmap shown can place thereon.
in Figure 4 and the mask bitmap of Figure 5, results
in a cursor featuring tiny light yellow computers ■
with nostalgic green monitors, which are best seen
against a black background.
Whilst browsing the cursor font with decurs
you may have found a glyph that you wish to use
deskTOPia
as root cursor. This is also possible under xsetroot.
Thus Only you can decide
how your Linux desktop
xsetroot -cursor_name bogosity
looks. With deskTOPia
makes the bogosity glyph in cursor.pcf.gz the we regularly take you
standard cursor. with us on a journey
Unfortunately, desktop environments like KDE into the land of window
prevent xsetroot effects. To make proper use of managers and desktop
xsetroot you'll need a standlone window manager environments,
like windowmaker. ■ presenting the useful
and the colourful.
12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 91
 SOFTWARE LINUX FOR KIDS

From tiny acorns grows

THE GNU
GENERATION
Having looked at
RICHARD SMEDLEY

individual kids'
packages in previous
issues, let's see
how to get everything
on your system at once.
We introduce the
Debian Jr project
and interview Ben
Armstrong, the
lead developer.

The proposed logos for

Debian Jr

98 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001

 LINUX FOR KIDS SOFTWARE

Commom Ground

Many people are drawn to GNU/Linux by the community support. The help and sharing of
knowledge make learning new ways of using a computer enjoyable.
Most Linux distributions are put together by commercial enterprises, or by small groups
of individuals. Debian is unique in being actively developed by a worldwide community of
over 500 developers acting in chaotic co-operation, on the agreed common ground of the
Debian Social Contract. This document supports the open development of a totally Free
Operating System, of the best possible quality.
It works extremely well, as Debian GNU/Linux provides a stable OS found on many
servers and a cutting edge unstable branch which graces the desktop of many a developer.
Yet the notorious installation aside, Debian is not too difficult a distribution for most users.
Debian Jr's wider aim is to make the distribution a better experience for users aged two-99.

The primary goal of the Debian Jr project is to make
Debian an OS our children want to run, initially
focussing on children aged two to eight. At this age
a child will have an older sibling or adult acting as
sysadmin (systems administrator) for them. It is at
their technically competent sysadmin that a large
part of the initial release is aimed, giving them a
starting point for a children's system. However, once
Debian 3.0 is released, and users start to provide
feedback on Debian Jr., much more can be done.
You can download the project now if you run a
Debian (or Progeny or Stormix) system by including
Woody (testing) in your /etc/apt/sources.list and
installing the junior packages. When Woody is
released you can simply select Debian Jr. in the
tasksel menu during installation.
Birth of a project
Linux Magazine How did the project get started?
You were surely aware that a GNU/Linux distribution
for two-99 year olds was a vast thing to take on –
were you feeling particularly bloody-minded, or did
you start with a thought "my children need such-
and-such" and then the project just happened?
Ben Armstrong Precisely. Nobody had any
grandiose plans. There was just this thought that
with no fewer than seven computers in the house
running Debian, and all of my children already using
them, we had already a start at using Debian as a
base and tailoring it to suit their needs.
I saw that we were relying on serendipity to
supply us with more packages suitable for the
children. Yet I knew there must be more out there
that could be packaged for Debian. Also, it was
plain to see that any integration issues that had
particularly to do with children were not going to
happen by accident. And finally, I realized it must
not be entirely obvious to a new Debian user which
packages would be good for the kids and which
would not. [left]
Two computers are
I asked some other Debian developers about it, better than one
and was encouraged by them to go and start
[right]
something. Up until that point I was thinking "we" Maria, aged nine, plays
should do this and "we" should do that and hadn't Rocks'N'Diamonds

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 99

 SOFTWARE LINUX FOR KIDS

really considered where I fitted into it. But it made
sense for me to make a commitment, so I kicked off
the discussion on the developer's mailing list. This
got some favourable responses and got people
thinking about what such a thing would look like.
Then it was just a matter of getting our own mailing
list and website set up and try to figure out where
to go next. And so the project was born.
Debian and children
LM What level of support have you had from
Debian developers for this project?
BA I have encountered plenty of Debian developers
(and not just those with children) who think this is a
great idea. We have received assistance from those
not working directly on Debian Jr whenever we
have needed it. I have been surprised to have some
of these people approaching me personally to ask
"How does this issue affect Debian Jr?" or "What
features should go here to make this package child-
friendly?" So I think the mere existence of the
project is helping Debian developers to consider
"...and what about the children?"
LM What about recognition from the wider Free
Software community?
BA If you look at our Web page, I list a number of
other, related projects. Members of several of these
keep in touch with me and continue to support and
encourage me. In particular, SEUL/edu is a great
help. They keep me inspired and help me to kick-
start the project whenever I let it stall out.
LM As a Debian developer you obviously choose to
follow the guidelines on Free Software. There are
proprietary children's apps that run on Linux that
could be included in non-free or contrib. What are
your feelings on the importance of kids' (and
everyone's) software being free?
BA Debian Jr is not actively making an effort to
package non-free software. Every Debian developer
is free, of course, to package anything that can be
placed in contrib or non-free, but I feel that to do so
myself would be dissipating my energies into stuff
that is off focus for the project. There is no reason
we should not be able to shape something entirely
out of free software that will appeal to children. I

Childproof is no education

One of the project's aims is to
balance childproofing with the goal
of allowing children to try things
(and yes, break things). Armstrong is
very much in favour of exploring and
learning by mistakes:
BA Well, if you're an adult looking
for the "Linux experience" you are
necessarily going to end up tweaking
configs and breaking things yourself.
It seems only natural to me to share
that with my children.
As preposterous as that concept
might seem to the uninitiated, I
really have found that those who
only know how to fix something by
removing it and re-installing it, or by
rebooting their system get far less
out of their system, and are far more
dependent on those with more
experience for technical help. With a
small amount of poking around and
exploring things on your own, even if
it means breaking it even worse than
when you started, there is an
opportunity for you to learn how
things work. Of course, you need to
find a community of helpful people
with more experience than yourself
to fall back on, but these days
you don't have to go far to find that. You
go as far as you can go on your own until
you are stuck. When you are truly stuck,
you tell your support group what you did
and hopefully you get answers that lead
you to the solution. The next time you're
faced with a similar problem, you are
better equipped to deal with it. That's
the dynamic I see in my LUG played out
over and over again. And the members
truly grow in this environment.
Thus children, who need to learn
about computers just as adults do,
should be given the same opportunity to
learn. Instead of shielding them from the
computer by hiding all the details inside
black boxes, we encourage the children
to look at the config files, read the
comments, and try different values. They
take great pleasure in constantly
tweaking their Web browser settings or
game settings to suit their mood or just
their curiosity. And yes, sometimes this
means they break things. Well, that's
great. If they tweak a config in a way
that the author didn't anticipate and it
causes a program to core dump, the
child, along with their observant and
helpful sysadmin will jump on this
opportunity and send a bug report in.
The end result is not only a learning
experience for the child, but also more
robust free software.
Or at least that's how I envision it.
Perhaps that further illuminates my
previous objection to making a tight
system for non-technical sysadmins. I'm a
technologist, and as such, I have slightly
different agendas than non-techs. I am
raising my children with geek values. I
am raising them to learn how to deal
with computers when they do the
unexpected, and to be comfortable with
that and know what to do, even if they
don't know how to fix it themselves.
I allow that not all people in the
world are geeks or see the value in
making things break and improving
them. They just want stuff to work,
period. When stuff breaks, it is
disorienting, irritating, frustrating, and
they don't see it as a learning
opportunity or software-improvement
opportunity at all. If that's where a user
is, maybe they should consider a different
operating system. Or maybe that user just
needs to enlist the help of a technical
friend who is there to help when things
break. If that friend is also willing and
has time to help when his children break
things, then maybe, just maybe, he will
get along fine with a Debian Jr system.

100 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001


Woody, Potato, Sid?
Many of you will have noticed that
Debian releases are named after
characters from the film Toy Story.
1.1 Buzz
1.2 Rex
1.3 Bo
2.0 Hamm
2.1 Slink
2.2 Potato
3.0 Woody
unstable Sid
This is because Bruce Perens (see
interview Linux Magazine 9), one of the
founders of Debian, worked at Pixar
Studios for 12 years. The unstable
(development) branch of Debian is now
permanently called Sid, after the boy
next door who destroyed toys.
don't need to re-hash all of the arguments for free
versus non-free here. I believe free software is just
as important for kids as it is for adults, and for much
the same reasons.
Children and technology
LM Where do you see this project in relation to
strictly formal education (schools) projects – such as
SEUL/edu, OSiE and FSF-edu?
BA Well, the foundation of any formal education is
necessarily in the home. True to the vision of "Let's
build something our kids will want to use." we are
more attuned to what appeals to children than what
appeals to educators. Not that the two are
necessarily opposed to each other. I would certainly
hope that our educators, too, are looking for things
that appeal to children. But by focusing on children
in the home, we are working with what we
know best.
LM Just how important are computers in children's
development and why?
BA I think as a geek parent I don't question this
nearly as much as I should. We take deliberate steps
to ensure our children's minds [are] provided with a
universe of books, arts, games, music, food, culture
and so forth to explore. And we also take steps to
remove things from their environment that we feel
impede progress in those areas.
How important are computers in children's
development? Well, we could live without them.
We could go to the extreme and be complete
Luddites, switching off the computers at home and
just leaving them for "real work". After all, we have
LINUX FOR KIDS SOFTWARE
turfed the TV. Isn't plopping our children in front of
a Web browser or a video game every bit as
much an impediment to their
development as TV? Doesn't it have
the same potential to become the
default entertainment around
the house, soaking up family
time and leading us
ultimately to a state of
technology-assisted
disconnection from
each other?
Sure, the potential to
end up this way is very
real. It is a struggle when
you're a geek and you
already devote great
swaths of your leisure time
to computers. It takes energy
and planning to give
computers their proper place in
the home, much in the same way
that families who have televisions
need to put effort into keeping the TV in
balance with other activities.
So, where does the computer really fit, after
taking these other things into consideration? I think
they can be powerful tools to think with. Limitless
entire universes of thought can be constructed and
explored with them. With guidance, a child's
computer can be a great tool for developing their
mind. It can be something more than an extremely
Starting Point
As we have mentioned, the project is at an early stage, waiting to build a
user base to provide feedback. The range two to eight years is quite
diverse, but initial concern is with building the framework. This helps to
narrow down the focus to three areas:
1. Identifying which packages work well with children: Much has been
done here, and you will find user comments on each on the projects
packaged page
2. Organizing packages in a way that makes sense to children and
sysadmins alike: More work needs to be done on ways of organizing the
material makes sense for which age ranges. "It will be when we tackle the
menu system that we shift the emphasis to the children. And then the fun
begins, because age differences are going to make a big difference to what
makes sense
3. Making it easy to install these packages: Meta packages are easy to
construct for Debian
BA We have deliberately avoided addressing the sub-problem of making
Debian painless for non-technical parents to introduce to their kids. Simply
put, to assume technical parents who are comfortable with administering a
UNIX system makes our job quite a bit easier, as that's who we are
ourselves. It's best to stick with what you know. But I envision Debian Jr
eventually finding its way into less-technical homes. When we get there,
we'll be interested in talking with that sub-group of users and trying to
address their needs the best we can.
12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 101
 SOFTWARE LINUX FOR KIDS

job to a manageable size, while still providing a very

Info usable one-point-oh.
Ben Armstrong manages to combine a range of geek interests (including running
a LUG, developing for Debian and helping with Xpilot) with a well-balanced F is for free
home and family life. I think it's something to do with the clean Canadian air.
Debian Jr's homepage: http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-jr LM Free Software is quite an abstract concept for
mailing list: http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/subscribe children to understand. My children understand
packages included: http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-jr/packaged that GNU/Linux is better because "you can share
Xpilot: http://packages.debian.org/stable/games/xpilot.html it." What has been your experience of discussing
http://www.xpilot.org the principles/morality of FS with kids and adults as
SEUL/edu: http://www.seul.org/edu well as the practical benefits?
For an honest assessment of the pros and cons of Debian:
http://www.debian.org/intro/why_debian BA I think it reduces to "Well, with Linux I can do
this, whereas with Windows I cannot." and
■ furnishing examples. This brings the abstract
arguments into familiar, concrete terms that
expensive TV replacement. Let televisions be children can see more readily. I find myself not
televisions and game consoles be game consoles. having to do this with my children anyway, because
We are building something that goes beyond an all they know in this household is Linux. I cannot
entertainment system for kids, addressing each of even remember the last time we booted to
the aspects of computers that we feel are important Windows to play a game. When it is time for
for our children's development. I'm not sure we computer turns (a familiar and highly sought-after
fully grok all of the possibilities yet. reward once chores or homework is done), it is just
assumed this means Linux computer turns. There's
Ready when it's ready just so much more now that they can use on Linux
that there is no need to supplement it with the
LM What's the timetable and are you ready for the (admittedly flashier in some cases, and certainly
Woody freeze? more polished both in the graphics and sound)
small collection of Windows games that remain in
BA Within Debian, we are fond of saying "It will be our possession.
released when it is finished". However, in Debian When it comes to reasoning with adults, I
Jr's case, being a small personal project within emphasize community first and then the source.
Debian, we don't have the clout to say "hold it, we Even if they don't get the source argument, they
still have this or that to put in". It is kind of like almost always comprehend the community side
being pregnant. You know that ultimately that baby of things. ■
will come out, but it is up to nature to decide when.
The longer she stays inside, the fatter Debian Jr will
continue to get. Where this analogy falls apart is, I
don't think Debian has ever been known to give
birth prematurely. So I remain hopeful that we have
time yet to put on a bit of extra fat.
The author But in more concrete terms, for Woody you
Richard Smedley juggles a job will see just a structure for a Debian Jr system.
in IT, magazine work, two This will be enough for the user to install and
eccentric children, cars (which use with their children. But we need that
are more interesting than user base before we can go much further. I
functional) and an overgrown don't like developing in a vacuum. We'll
garden. need to have users try this initial offering
and start talking to us about what to put
in there next. We'll have just a "baby
Debian Jr" in Woody. The following
release is where we'll see it mature.
For instance, we have deliberately left
out support for Gnome and KDE in this
release. Instead, we're focusing on the core,
by shaping a collection of packages that will
work on any system, whether you have Gnome,
KDE, or neither. By keeping the first release
"light" we don't devote a lot of energy into
building structures that we may later find ourselves
having to tear apart and rebuild. We also keep the

102 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001

SOFTWARE LINUX FOR KIDS

103 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001

 COMMUNITY GROUPS
Running a Linux User Group
COMMUNITY
SPIRIT COLIN MURPHY
Linux is a community effort – it
grew out of a single message that
Linus Torvalds posted to Usenet
10 years ago. That community effort
is still growing, through Usenet,
email, IRC, CVS and Linux User
The place to start Groups – or LUGs.
106 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
So, what is a Linux User Group?
A User Group is no more than a group of Linux
users with a similar mindset or reason to “hang
together”. Maybe they are interested in using
certain applications, so a group might form just to
discuss how to use and abuse KWord, or just
console each other after it crashes on them.
Developers with a passion for a particular
programming language can group together, maybe

so they can persuade themselves that their
language is the one true language, or again, maybe
to shelter as a group against those telling them that
their language is really the lowest of the low. Or,
which is more often the case, it can be a collection
of Linux users with a much wider, more general
interest in all things that make the OS what it is.
Groups like these can use Usenet, email, mailing
lists, Web pages and other resources to keep in
touch with group members. Quite often User
Groups will also have a location in common – which
makes them a local LUG, allowing users to meet
each other in person. When people talk of LUGs it is
usually the local variety they are thinking of.
These local LUGs vary in size and type. Some
may have as few as four or five regular members;
others may have 50 or more. Some might just meet
in a pub, going through members' problems or
solutions, other groups may put on talks and
demonstrations for their meetings. Some may want
to encourage and introduce new users to Linux,
some, though not many, may want to remain lofty
and technical. The reason for such a wide range of
LUGs is the way they develop, they can just spring
up when and where the need arises, just so long as
someone is there to plant the first seed.
Finding out about LUGs
As Linux is developing and growing, more and more
local LUGs are forming to offer help, friendly
support and camaraderie, so it is becoming more
likely that you will have a group near you already.
The Linux print magazines put great effort into
listing LUGs, but you should also check out what is
available by looking on the Web,
http://www.lug.org.uk/lugs/index.html will start
your search off, or ask in Usenet, in groups like
uk.comp.os.linux.
Starting a group
There is a long way to go before every town and
village can boast its own LUG, so there may not be a
group in your area, or the group which is in your
area just doesn't meet your needs. If you do find
yourself in this situation then maybe you should
consider starting your own. The only personal cost is
one of spare time, and, even then, not a lot of it as a
group can grow out of simply sending a few emails.
First of all you had better assess the need for the
group, the 'L' in LUG is for Linux, or possibly for
local, but definitely not for loner, so you will need to
make sure that the group you hope to start will be
fulfilling the needs of more people than just
yourself. You should advertise your needs somehow
and see if they are shared by anyone else. This could
mean posting an announcement in a free-to-
advertise type newspaper or magazine, putting
cards in supermarkets or flyers in your local
technical bookshop or computer shop, or sending
GROUPS COMMUNITY
letters to Linux magazine editors, as well as the
good Internet stalwarts like Usenet.
There is one very important resource that you
really should call upon: the local LUGs that already
exist. Even if you think of them as being remote,
those LUGs might be a long way away for you and
your new group might be nearer or convenient for
some of the members of the surrounding groups.
So send an email canvassing support or outlining
your proposition to the mailing lists of those groups,
or ask the group admins to post a link to a Web
page so you can gauge demand.
Do remember though that it's not a case of
competing with your neighbouring groups, but of
complementing them. You don't want to end up
being accused of poaching users from an area. You
should always try to avoid clashing with other
groups meetings – you will be surprised how many
members will want to go to both.
Once you have started to generate interest you
will need to set up some channels of
communication so that those in your fledgling
group can discuss issues and plan together for its
future. Mailing lists are ideal for this and the 'UK
Linux Users Groups' organisation will help you with
setting one of these up for free, as well as providing
other useful online resources like space for a Web
page link and Internet Relay Chat rooms. See their
Web page at http://www.lug.org.uk/ for more
information on how to do this. There you will find
lots of help, advice and support with setting up your
own LUG along with a mailing list specifically
for 'lugmasters'.
So, with any luck, you will have proved to
yourself that you are not alone, and at least
someone, but hopefully lots more users, share your A User Group in action
hopes for a group of their own. If you intend to all
meet in person you will need a venue. Often, the
first few meetings will be held some place neutral,
like a pub. This will allow you all to assess what type
of group you are and how you might develop. If you
are just a small group, you may find it suitable to
meet in each others' houses, assuming you don't
mind having the kids frightened and you don't mind
inviting people who are still strangers into your
home. Larger groups can present more of a problem
when finding somewhere to meet, church halls,
scout huts, libraries and schools might fit the bill,
but they usually want money and for the sake of
simplicity, it's far easier to stay away from charging
if at all possible. You could also try some of the local
computer companies. They might appreciate the
opportunity to tap into your group as a Linux
resource for themselves, offering you a venue for
free. The general rule of thumb is that you can't
afford to leave any stone unturned – opportunities
appear from the most unlikely of sources.
The community spirit of Linux can't be
overestimated, and there is no better place to see
that spirit than as part of a LUG. We suggest that
you make every effort to be part of it yourself. ■
12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 107
 COMMUNITY BRAVE GNU WORLD
The monthly GNU Column
BRAVE GNU
WORLD GEORG CF GREVE
Welcome to another Brave GNU World. This issue
covers a rather wide spectrum of applications that
most people would normally not know about.
GCompris
GCompris by Bruno Coudoin is a fresh addition to
the GNU Project in the Free Software and Education
sector. Children tend to learn a lot while playing
with their environment, which is why many
programs try to teach their lessons in game form.
Unfortunately these programs are usually
proprietary. Closing this gap for pedagogical
software is the goal of GCompris.
The program itself is based upon boards. Bruno
sees a board as a unit that introduces or exercises a
The latest GCompris board.
Land the paratrooper on the
moving boat
108 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
concept. The goal is not so much deep knowledge
but rather making training a fun process.
There are several programs that Bruno would
consider board based – but they all use different
libraries, have different user interfaces and their
development proceeds with wildly varying speeds.
These circumstances complicate finding and
using them.
To avoid this, GCompris has two essential parts:
the engine to create, modify and execute boards
and a collection of boards for different concepts.
The engine has been written in C using the
Gnome libraries and has a very simple user interface
that has been created especially for children. The
program is available in seven languages and is
already being used successfully in schools and
homes around the world. This means a lot to Bruno
and is also quite remarkable as the program is only
one year old.
He is not satisfied with the graphical side of
GCompris, but now Linuxgraphics will be handling
this part. If you are interested in participating in the
graphical area, they are the ones to contact.
The next programming task will be the creation
of a board-editor that can also be used by computer
illiterates. Right now boards are being written as C
plugins with XML as the data format, which is
asking a little too much of some teachers. Help
creating an easy-to-use board-editor is welcome.
But even if the board-editor is not ready, there
are several boards available. Among them are
 BRAVE GNU WORLD COMMUNITY

training for keyboard and mouse, reading the clock,
a puzzle with famous paintings and easy calculus.
To keep the program simple only the Gnome
canvas is used for implementation of the boards.
Extending this to other widget drawing areas is a
task for the future.
This French program is pronounced ”j’ai
compris,” which means, ”I have understood” and
was originally written by Bruno Coudoin for his own
children. And he would especially like to thank his
children for their patience because the program
evolves far too slowly for them.
FSFE– Free Software and
Education
Related to this, we would like to point out that the
Free Software Foundation Europe has made the
support of Free Software and Education one of its
declared goals at its general assembly this year.
This goal is pursued together with the
Organization for Free Software and Education and
Teaching (Ofset), which has recently become an
official associate organization of the FSF Europe.
In order to bring together all the different
initiatives, people and organizations that are active
in this area, a special mailing list has been created.
Several people have already joined and introduced
themselves. The next step will be to launch a
meeting of everyone involved.
Then we can discuss together which concrete
measures can effectively support Free Software and
Education. If you would like to join this process,
you’re very welcome.
implemented classes and functionalities. More
recent information about this can be found in the
documentation of the API on the CDK homepage.
Jmol was originally a
program for the simple
and easy 3D-visualization
of chemical structures as
an alternative to XMol. Functionality for editing
molecules, simple minimalisations based on force-
fields, molecular dynamics (microcanonical
ensemble) and langevin dynamics (canonical
ensemble) is planned.
Jmol is also based on Java and uses the SWING
toolkit for its graphical user interface. Just like the
CDK it is available under the GNU General Public
License. The big advantage of Java-based
applications is their high portability. Additionally,
Jmol can be used as an applet in Web pages and
is scriptable.
JMol showing the
caffeine molecule

Chemical Development Kit

[below]
A JChempaint drawing in SVG
In a way, this article is a format. Also displayed in Batik – a
follow up to the Jude free SVG viewer
feature of issue 10, which
introduced Jude via its use
in the Crystal Engineering Laboratory of Ciamician,
the chemical department of University of Bologna,
Italy. In this feature the chemical functionality has
not been discussed, and this is what we would like
to do now.
We will talk not only about the Chemical
Development Kit (CDK), but also about Jmol and
JChemPaint, whose maintainers Christoph
Steinbeck and Dan Gezelter launched the CDK
together with Egon Willighagen about half a
year ago.
The Chemical Development Kit (CDK) is a Java-
Library aimed at providing all the basic classes and
tools for chemical software under the GNU General
Public License. Its design is partially based on the
observations Egon Willighagen made with his
CompChem/CDK library that had some flaws in
the API.
The project itself is still in a rather early stage, so
it makes no sense to talk about already

12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 109

 COMMUNITY BRAVE GNU WORLD
JChemPaint is a 2D-based
editor for chemical
structures with the
intention to provide a 2D
extension for Jmol. It supports a lot of the standard
features of proprietary programs already and can
create output in bitmap, Postscript and Scalable
Vector Graphics (SVG) form.
Like the other two, JChemPaint is based on
Java, but it is licensed under the GNU Lesser
General Public License. It is as portable as Jmol and
can also be used as a website applet. The Chemical
Markup Language (CML) is being supported by
both programs. The long-term plan is to make both
Jmol and JChemPaint use the CDK; and ultimately
to unite the two.
These projects already provide chemists,
biologists and others working on the molecular level
an impressive array of features based on Free
Software. Even if a particular piece of functionality
is not supported, we would recommend people
help these projects along rather than invest in
proprietary software.
Although this may seem more complicated at
first, it does offer many advantages in the medium
and long term. New ideas can be followed through
subsequently without being stopped by the limits of
proprietary software. This is essentially a direct
result of the philosophy of Free Software being
based upon the scientific principle. Also only Free
Software can guarantee reproducible results.
The Alma interface for software
projects in various formats
110 LINUX MAGAZINE 12 · 2001
Scientific software should always be
Free Software.
Alma
Guillaume Desnoix is the author of Alma. Alma
stands for Atelier Logiciel de Modelisation er
d’Analyse, which means workshop for software
analysis and modeling.
Alma reads different sources (models, source
code) and helps the user design and modify the
object-oriented model, modify the structure and
code and create new output in the end.
This can be done in many formats. Alma
supports Java, Idl, XMI, C, C++, Fortran, Rose, MDL,
Class, JavaP, Taglip, JSP as input formats and the
output can be done in the form of source code,
documentation, diagrams or a natural language.
Alma offers easy capabilities to declare and
change classes. It is especially useful for developers
who seek to incorporate old code in a new project
or who wish to translate a project into a new
programming language. It can also be very useful
for ports or encapsulation.
According to Guillaume, the special advantage
of Alma is its real NxN mapping with a common
editable model. There are other projects to analyse,
translate or beautify source code, but these usually
only work unidirectionally between two languages.
But Alma is a very big project. Half of the
parsers and generators for the different languages

are still alpha-stage. This lets the specialized
programs mentioned above still do a better job in
their tasks, but their concept has
serious limitations.
Alma is written in Java 1.1 and can be used on
almost any computer. It can be used command line-
based or through a GUI. The console part can even
be compiled with GCJ or run on Kaffe.
Currently, there is about one release per
month, increasing the version number by 0.01.
Taken as a basis, this would mean that version 1.0
of the project would be ready in July 2006.
Interested developers should risk a look before
that, though.
Alma is published under version 2 of the GNU
General Public License, so it is free software.
Normally, a program is licensed under the GPL
version 2 or – at the users discretion – any later
version. Limiting the choice to version 2 is
something seen sometimes, so we’d like to say a
few words about it.
The argument for this step is usually that later
versions of the GPL are not yet known. Because of
this, it isn’t possible to know whether the later
versions will be good. This may seem logical, but in
the end it does create weaknesses.
In the event that a later version of the GPL is not
accepted by the author or the users, the program
can still be used under version 2 of the GPL, there is
no enforcement to use the later license.
But in the case that an update of the GPL is
necessary because the laws change and version 2
has legal problems, a restriction to version 2 will
leave the program without a valid license. If all
authors are reachable, this can be solved easily. But
very often authors disappear or lose track of a
project. So limiting the license to version 2 does not
offer any benefits and creates potential problems.
Another thing should also be said: The author
of Alma is very happy that so many people
apparently understand the difference between free
beer and free software. On his page you’ll find a
questionnaire and the possibility of purchasing the
program for $10.
There is no enforcing this payment, but the user
is asked to pay if he/she uses one of the many
automated installers for the different platforms. This
is one of the possible ways to sell GPL software in
harmony with the GPL and we can only hope this
will become more common with working
micropayment systems.
libgcrypt
Thanks to the work of Werner Koch, we now have
libgcrypt, a library of cryptographic functions under
the GNU General Public License. This library is part
of the GNU Privacy Guard (GPG) Project and can be
found on its homepage.
Other cryptographic libraries are either not free
or under GPL-incompatible licenses like OpenSSL.
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■
Since the majority of Free Software is under the
GNU General Public License, libgcrypt closes a very
important gap. Libgcrypt falls back on the very solid
base of the GnuPG project, so the cryptographic
routines are thoroughly tested already. Still, the
project has to be considered Alpha-Software
according to Werner, because the API has only been
finished very recently.
Despite this warning, libgcrypt can already be
used - and is. Nikos Mavroyanopoulos, who
supported Werner with the development of the
libgcrypt, is using it in the GNUTLS library that was
featured in issue 8.
The special strengths of the libgcrypt are the
extensible API for public key functions and the
access to the internal functions for big integers.
Also extension modules can be loaded dynamically.
The library can be used on UNIX-like systems
and W32 platforms. Plans for further development
are generating a stable release and improving some
of the internal implementations, also some high-
level functions to deal with OpenPGP data
structures are to be added. And of course GnuPG
will be ported to libgcrypt.
One thing Werner would like to see mentioned
is that usage of the libgcrypt requires a certain
awareness of cryptography. Just using a few
algorithms in a program will do no good if the
design isn’t structurally sound. Given the tendency
of some developers to put steel doors in cardboard
houses, this seems to be good advice.
Enough for now
That’s it for Brave GNU World for this month. As
usual I’d like to encourage you to comment. Ideas,
criticism and questions are very welcome. ■
12 · 2001 LINUX MAGAZINE 111