new to Linux

Fri Nov 14 02:09:44 CST 2003

On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 14:29:15 -0600 "Brian Kelsay" <BLKELSAY at kcc.usda.gov>
writes:
> from: 
>
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/13/121205&mode=thread&tid=126&ti
d=152&tid=163&tid=185 
>  post#: 7466332 or 
> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=85746&cid=7466332
> To sum up:
> 
> AT&T: Sauron. They created The One Ring (Unix), tried to use it to 
> exert a hold over thousands of licensees, but lost it inadvertently 
> (to the public domain and the valiant Berkeley).

But Berkeley, according to this definition, are the DWARVES!  The 
dwarves weren't involved in the first great war against Sauron!

If we took it from a Tolkien purist viewpoint, then what you're saying is

that the valiant folks at *RedHat* and *IBM was what brought down 
AT&T, and that isn't true to the UNIX history at all!

Ahhh, you all are just totally ignorant of the classics!

> SCO: Gollum. They got a hold of the Ring, they're convinced it's 
> "My Preciousss..." and will make their lives wonderful, yet they 
> are essentially unable to do anything powerful with it. They are 
> also schizophrenic, having one happy Caldera personality that
> wants to be friends with Linux users and one evil The SCO 
> Group personality that wants to kill them all.

Novell (The Kings Of Gondor) think that Gollum's (SCO) claim 
is a load of meadow muffins, because while he might own all the 
coding rights, they own the original patents, having acquired them 
in a "hostile takeover" of AT&T (Sauron).  :)

> Torvalds: Wizard. RMS would fit here too- Perhaps Linus as 
> Gandalf and RMS as Radaghast the Brown- equally powerful, 
> but one concentrating on hobbits and the other on birdies.

Ironically, Bill Gates fits in here perfectly as Saruman, the "White 
Wizard" who took computing away from the folks in the white 
coats and gave it to the masses, spawning a Computing Order 
which encouraged individuals to take up computing for the 
Good Of The Masses.  Saruman used to be good, remember.

Then Bill Gates (Saruman) was enticed into joining the ranks of 
the powerful Monopolists (and AT&T (Sauron), was among 
those ranks).  He wasn't directly in league with AT&T, but he 
did steal a lot of power from AT&T (DOS incorporated a lot 
of UNIX stuff when users complained that their IBM PCs 
couldn't do everything that their UNIX shell accounts could).

Linus Torvalds (Gandalf) wouldn't have gotten into attempting 
to port UNIX to x86 architecture without the groundwork 
Bill Gates laid to make x86 architecture the most popular 
non-mainframe hardware around.

Then Linus Torvalds (Gandalf) left college (fell into a pit)  
while battling a giant BSD Demon (Balrog).  The Balrog was 
defeated and Linus Torvalds' OS rose to become the more 
popular OS.

And while GNUs can't fly, one rescued Linus Torvalds from 
Saruman's Tower.  :)

> Red Hat: Humans you aren't sure you can trust.
> 
> BSD: Dwarves that can kick anyone's ass but are more content 
> with chillin' in the mountains.
> 
> Ibm: Elves that you're pretty sure are on your side...
> 
> Mac OS: Hobbits. You think that you know them, that they're 
> "mostly harmless" cuddly and cute, and serves no real purpose; 
> but then, one day one goes off and steals from a dragon.
> 
> I humbly submit that this be called the XaoRoyMne Theory 
> of Unix Races. 

It needs a little work to be pure Tolkien.

________________________________________________________________
The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand!
Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER!
Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!
On Thu, 13 Nov 2003 17:39:22 -0800 
Rick Franklin <RAldenFranklin at sbcglobal.net> writes:

> A few questions from a "newbie".

Linux and peripheral software change so frequently that in some way, 
we're all "newbies".  

But none of us will admit that we are, and I never said that.  :)

> Question #1: What is a good source for a new user to 
> learn how to properly install rpm's?

Ouch.  I don't like RPMs and avoid them like the plague 
(Slackware's package manager is good enough for anyone!
ANYONE!  hahahahahaha!).  Having said that, find books 
on RedHat.  RedHat having invented the RPM package 
manager, they naturally have the most information on RPM.

A good place to go for computer books which are slightly 
outdated but still useful is MicroCenter at about 93rd & 
Metcalf (Kansas side).  They have a book section with a 
large subsection (five whole shelves) of "bargain books"
ranging from $1.99 to $5.99 in price (original prices 
between $19.99 to $60).  Now, probably the best RedHat 
book you'll find is for RedHat 7.1 but you'll get more 
reference material for learning RPMs without spending 
much money.

If you have a bigger disposable income than I do, buy 
something more current on the topic of the current RedHat
distros.  That kind of book you can get anywhere.

> #2: What is a good CD burning program? ... Kb3 and 
> cdbakeoven are not friendly to me, and I did not want to 
> just give up and flip back to Nero.

Well if Nero is what you want, you might want to try Arson.
I've never used it myself, but all the documentation suggests 
it works very similar to Nero.

If all you want to do is burn data CDs (Intel-only or PC/Mac 
hybrid) and burn audio CDs, installing GNOME and selecting 
"install cd-burning packages" will install a nice little program 
called gcombust.  I've been using it for years and gcombust 
does a decent data CD and audio CD.  All it does is provide 
a front-end to mkisofs (creates a ISO9660 CD ISO Image) 
and cdrecord (burns ISO images onto CDs), but it does it 
in a fairly straightforward fashion without confusing instructions, 
checkboxes, or buttons.

And if you really want to have total control, just use mkisofs 
and cdrecord from the command line interface.  Learn how 
you like it, and type it in the same way each time (or write 
your own shell script to automate the CD burns).  But that is 
probably something for later, as you are a beginner at Linux.

> and 3: Are these typical issues addressed in your meetings, 
> or are the meetings devoted to deeper subjects only?

Of the few meetings I've been able to attend, the subjects 
range from programming projects to cable colors.  If you 
ask a question, it will be answered.  There are no "newbie 
snobs" at these meetings (and if there are, they hide their 
true colors).

Now, they might make fun of your hardware, if its really 
old, but otherwise you're going to enjoy yourself and get 
questions answered.

________________________________________________________________
The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand!
Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER!
Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!
> From: "Matt G" <linux at bizniche.com>
>
> > Hey Guys:
> >
> > I've never been good at knowing how much hard drive 
> > a motherboard can handle.  I know there were limits on 
> > older motherboards, but not so many limits on newer ones.
> >
> > I just purchased a new 80gb hdd, and I know it'll go in 
> > my PIII box just fine (I has a PCI ata/100 controller card.)  
> > But, I'm not sure what'll fit in my old AMDK6 233 box.  
> > Currently, there is a 4gb, and a 15gb in there. I'd really like 
> > to put the 40gb in there that I'll take out of my PIII, but
> > I'm having trouble finding info on what will fit.
> >
> > I'm not sure the exactly make/modle of the motherboard in 
> > the K6 box. 
> > 
> > I'll investigate.  But if anyone knows any general rules on 
> > this stuff, I'd love to hear.

Linux tends to ignore hardware BIOS limits, but the consideration 
is at boot time.  I think that there's a 160GB limit on some of the 
older motherboards.

One trick I've done in the past, and I have an AMD K6 233 too 
that I've used this trick on, is to put a hard drive which does work, 
such as an old 1GB drive, into the system as /dev/hda (master 
device on primary IDE channel).  Then stick the /boot partition 
onto that drive.

Once you've made certain that your Linux box will get past boot 
time, you can stick just about any other hard drive into the system 
on any of the other IDE channel positions.  With the above 
trick, I managed to get a 40GB hard drive onto the same AMD 
K6 233, on which the old OS Windows 98 refused to accept 
anything bigger than the standard 8.4GB hard drive limit on older 
motherboards.

The configuration was, as I remember it: 

/dev/hda: 1GB.  /boot (50MB), /var (rest of the drive).
/dev/hdb: 40GB. /, /usr, /home
/dev/hdc: CDROM
/dev/hdd: CDROM

________________________________________________________________
The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand!
Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER!
Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today!