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-- Dave

When you couple it with the new XRender extensions it makes lovely looking text. Also, some examples using Pango have surfaced with not only the text in reverse, but also the button arrangment. Picture here!"

Buttons are to the right of a list, not the left like we are used to. Similarly with a spin control even.

You can read more about Pango here including seeing a picture of

When you couple it with the new XRender extensions it makes lovely looking text. Also, some examples using Pango have surfaced with not only the text in reverse, but also the button arrangment. Picture here!"

Buttons are to the right of a list, not the left like we are used to. Similarly with a spin control even.

You can read more about Pango here including seeing a picture of

It was the RedHat "ramen" worm that made me switch. I switched to FreeBSD 4.0. Other than the hastle of copying over 3GB files, it went very smoothly. I think he's right about the speed. Remote sessions seem much faster now. OK enough advocacy already.

Linux is for EVERYBODY to do as they wish with. That is its power; its openness.
I personally use GUIs and IDEs to help me develop code because it makes navigating and manipulating my code a LOT easier.
Trying to figure out how a large open source program works is so much easier when you have software like Source Navigator to help you navigate the source QUICKLY. Try doing that with vi.
If Linux was owned by purists such as yourself then it would never have got past the "tiny hacker OS" stage that it was in when Torvalds first released the kernel.

According to the e-mail about the beta, you need a updated boot disk to install Fisher if you have a floppy and a zip drive. They say the install will fail if you have that combo. They give a like to the bootdisk image, but, however, it's incorrect. The correct links here. Fix this up Red Hat! You also better fix da CD too before ya go to 7.1!! :)

There is a free download version. You can only write GPL'ed programs with it because it links in code released under the GPL (whose viral nature means it can only be used with free (speech) software; the commercial version comes with a library licensed for both free (beer?) and non-free commercial software) ... I have no problem with that, I applaud Borland for coming up with an interesting way to support free software development while still maintaining some intellectual property.

This is an interesting combination of Perl's dual license (GPL and Artistic) and the approach Cygnus took. They ported gcc to Windows NT/2000 (it mostly also works on 95/98/ME), and included a GPL'ed C runtime library. (This, plus a bunch of ported GNU software, is Cygwin.) This "infects" your application, so it can only be used to develop free (speech) software. Cygnus also implemented an alternative C runtime library, which they licensed as non-free, commercial software ... which could be used to distribute other non-free commercial software.

(Or they used to. A quick search of the Red Hat's site seems to show they now only do this for embedded software.)

s/broken/great/

I don't think anyone who has actually tried one of the later gcc 2.96 releases (>= -69, the version from 7.0 updates) would call it broken.

If you have any actual issues with it, report them at bugzilla.
If you don't, don't call it broken.

It works - so does the version from 7.0 updates.
Simply run "up2date -l" or go ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/updates/

• With all the bugfixes we have now, 2.96 is more stable than 2.95.3. Almost all of the compiler "bugs" reported in the last couple of months were actually buggy code that older gccs accepted because they are not standards compliant.
• It's more standards compliant (maybe not in terms of what most others are shipping, but definitely in terms of ISO C99 and ISO C++98)
• The ABI issue is not as much of a deal as some people would want you to believe. It affects C++ only, and can be circumvented by linking libstdc++ statically or simply including the libstdc++ from Red Hat Linux and installing it if it isn't already there. This won't break anything - different soname, no conflicts
• The generated code quality is much better, especially optimizations
• ia64 is supported

From the announcement:
GCC 2.96-RH
The actual gcc RPM included is named gcc-2.96-71.src.rpm.
Redhat 7.0 shipped with gcc-2.96-54.[insert arch here].rpm, so it's still the same broken compiler.

Fisher, is it is *STILL BETA* is only available on a few mirrors, those of which are:
Indiana, USA:
http://csociety-ftp.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/redhat/beta /fisher
ftp://csociety-ftp.ecn.purdue.edu/pub/redhat/beta/ fisher

Minnesota, USA:
ftp://ftp.mn-linux.org/linux/redhat/beta/fisher

Buffalo, New York, USA:
ftp://ftp.cse.buffalo.edu/mirror/Linux/redhat/beta /fisher

Pennsylvania, USA:
http://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/linux/distributions /redhat/redhat/beta/fisher
ftp://carroll.cac.psu.edu/pub/linux/distributions/ redhat/redhat/beta/fisher
rsync://carroll.cac.psu.edu/redhat-beta/fisher

Anyone going to use Fisher should of course, goto Bugzilla.redhat.com and give plenty of bug reports and other issues while using this beta version of RedHat.

Is this the official official release? I'm hoping vendors are taking their time. I'm thinking a lot of people were waiting to get 2.4.x in a distro all to itself and I'd like to believe no corners have been cut. And uhmmm we are talking about redhat arent we?

Use ftp://updates.redhat.com for patches, then you don't have to fight with everyone grabbing ISO's.

Linux is the only thing out there that scales down well enough with enough features to run on embedded systems and that you do not have to pay for

No it's not. Linux There are several freely-available embedded OSes. One of them is eCos. Hell, another is FreeBSD. Et cetera, et cetera...

You really need to step outside of your FUD-lined linux cage every once and a while.

--
SecretAsianMan (54.5% Slashdot pure)

You must have meant Microsoft-Trek, The Next Generation.

they have it on their 6.2 Security Advisories page [now].

Here is a link directly to the Advisory.

echo $email | sed s/[A-Z]//g | rot13

they have it on their 6.2 Security Advisories page [now].

Here is a link directly to the Advisory.

echo $email | sed s/[A-Z]//g | rot13

Nothing on their website about this, but it is on their ftp server.

RedHat's Errata has no information about the bind upgrade.

Get the not yet announced RPMs of bind-8.2.3 at Red Hat's FTP-Server's Update-Section or the Mirrors. Goes back even to Red Hat Linux 5.2.

Get the not yet announced RPMs of bind-8.2.3 at Red Hat's FTP-Server's Update-Section or the Mirrors. Goes back even to Red Hat Linux 5.2.

Strangely enough, the article was making the point that copyrights and patents are actually not a part of the free-market system and are really a form of protectionism.

Of course, actually addressing those points would've prevented you from making this long hand-wringing rant complaining about what the end result of having a copyright and patent system are and wanting to go back to the 'good old days' so the cycle can start all over again.

I long ago decided that copyrights and patents are not strictly necessary. I had kinda felt that way, for awhile, but had many of the same qualms you did, and then I heard about Cygnus (now owned by RedHat), and I never had another.

Do you have any thoughts about why the shell concept has not caught on with other operating systems?

Probably because Mac OS and Windows are designed around an assumption that newbies are very afraid of a command line.

I'm thinking of NT and Win2K in particular, but it seems to be true in general.

Bash and Fileutils have been ported to DOS (you'll need at least bsh204b.zip, fil316.zip, and txt20b.zip to get a useful shell). So has a lot of other GNU software; start with DJGPP, the DOS port of GCC.

Install Red Hat Cygwin and you get Bash, GCC, and other things you may be used to on GNU/Linux, BSD, or UNIX systems.

I don't normally respond to illiterate flamebait, but in this case I'll make an exception:

> Everybody and there brother

I'll just pick this up before someone else does.

'There'!= 'their', the possessive pronoun Taco is looking for.

> has submitted what has to be the least interesting story in months. Microsoft's DNS server is down.

Ok fine. End of story. No need for irrelevant flamebait designed to get thousands of posts about how Windows/Linux sucks.

Let's address the news: MS' dns is down.

Ok wow. Have you been to uptime.netcraft.com? I think you'll find *all* servers go down, especially ones under the consistently heavy load of ddos, millions of hits a day, etc like MS. Redhat goes down, MS goes down, big wow. Every big site goes down more often than a presedential intern on heat. Ok. [It's just that people don't gloat when Linux companies go down, probably because they aren't successful like MS so people aren't jealous of their success.]

> I haven't visited their web site in months and I don't care in the slightest, but if I don't post this, I'm going to spend the next 48 hours deleting 2,000 submissions about it as zillions of people somehow think that this matters.

It does to the millions of daily visitors, yes.

> Yup. Its down. Ye haw. Do you people actually visit microsoft.com?

It's actually in the top 10 of most visited websites in the world. It has free software, updates, one of the best developers' sites anywhere, etc..

> I can't remember the last time I intentionally went to that site. There's just no need.

You might as well say you have no need to upgrade Slashcode when that gets holes in it. If you use Windows there is a need, because all software is insecure and Windows is no exception. It's no different with Linux. It's not just that either. Microsoft's website has a whole bunch of other interesting and free stuff there too. In fact, Microsoft's site became, in about 1997 (I remember reading) the largest website in the world, with several terabytes of content. So yes, there is a need.

If you actually took your blinkers off you might realize that - I don't just crap about Linux like you seem to about Windows. I haven't got an irrational fear/jealousy about Linux.

Hell I use linux. I install and maintain it as a web server. And I don't say that no-one needs to visit redhat.com, even though it's clearly not as good a site.

> (Well, I guess if you run windows you gotta get your service packs every few minutes ;)

Nice casual aside there, guaranteed to pick up a few hundred replies. Nice one. But it's not true.

There is *one* service pack for Windows 2000 since release.

Let's look at the Linux equivalent shall we?

Have you ever tried installing Redhat?

I have, and I spent 3 hours downloading things from http://updates.redhat.com and upgrading them.

This stuff about Windows needing service packs often is bull. Linux has far more service packs, because Microsft updates things all at once whereas with Linux you have to update individually.

Hell my grandmother could install a Windows service pack, but I can't see her upgrading bind when a security hole's found in that.

I don't mean to respond in such flameish terms, but I had no choice in this case. In one breath you say the story sucks, and then you throw in some highly childish and unprofessional insults against a site which represents a considerable portion of many people's lives.

We keep hearing from you how Slashdot is becoming the newspaper for the new millennium, how people are taking notice of it, and how it ranks alongside traditional media, but if you expect the kind of respect this implies, you are going to:

(a) learn how to spell. I'm not normally a spelling flamer (i.e. not for posters), but how can you expect people to take the site seriously when you can't even be bothered to read the post twice or put it through a spellchecker to find that 'its' is a possessive pronoun, whereas 'it's' is the contraction of 'it is' you where looking for.

(b) you're going to have to learn about journalistic standards. If you expect to be taken seriously, you can't write like that - you can't show such prejudice, and you can't show such a casual dismissal of America's biggest company.

You're not just a Perl hacker sitting around eating pizza and drinking Mountain Dew any more Rob - you're responsible for an important and valuable institution, and it's time you behaved like it.

If you want to know more about the Linux kernel, but are hard up for cash to buy a book on it, check these links out. They might help...

Concrete Architecture of the Linux Kernel
http://plg.uwaterloo.ca/~itbowman/CS746G/a2/

The Linux Kernel Hacker's Guide
http://khg.redhat.com/HyperNews/get/khg.html

The Linux Kernel
http://www.linuxdoc.org/LDP/tlk/tlk.html

Analysis of the Extfs Filesystem
Analysis of the Extfs Filesystem http://step.polymtl.ca/~ldd/ext2fs/ext2fs_toc.html


________

I was wondering which would be easiest: replacing the debian SysV-style init with a BSD-style init, or trying to build a homegrown slack/alpha distro. alpha-current will be on my test machine before the end of the day :-)

I do hope that Patrick and his team can keep slackware clear of the "release fever", so that we can trust their next/first release to be as stable as the slack reputation promises. If necessary, we'll just jump from 7.2 to 9.0 ;-)
It should be better than this anyhow ;-)

Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.

This is one of the things that I feel we should be doing.

Eh... this is not about where the headquarters are located, it's about exporting/selling in a market where the product potentially infringes on patents. Those two can be very different.

Anyone care to post a list of all the other Linux Distributors who do not let themselves be subjected to US IP Law?

All other distributions are subject to US IP law when selling/exporting products to the US. Where the product was developed or where the headquarters are is not important, it's where the product is exported/sold.

This is one of the best reasons why Redhat!=Linux and perhaps the one that will see RedHat either leave the US or simply crumble.

I don't understand your point. Main Red Hat headquarters are indeed in the US, but there are offices in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Japan. There are Red Hat developers all over the world.
Where the head office is doesn't have the big effect you seem to think, IMHO. When the export of SSH still was restricted, Red Hat Germany provided those SSH RPM packages on ftp to anyone outside the US wanting those, just like other distributions did.

Now just make sure you all visited petition.eurolinux.org

I've done so, and Red Hat is there =)

Eh... this is not about where the headquarters are located, it's about exporting/selling in a market where the product potentially infringes on patents. Those two can be very different.

Anyone care to post a list of all the other Linux Distributors who do not let themselves be subjected to US IP Law?

All other distributions are subject to US IP law when selling/exporting products to the US. Where the product was developed or where the headquarters are is not important, it's where the product is exported/sold.

This is one of the best reasons why Redhat!=Linux and perhaps the one that will see RedHat either leave the US or simply crumble.

I don't understand your point. Main Red Hat headquarters are indeed in the US, but there are offices in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Japan. There are Red Hat developers all over the world.
Where the head office is doesn't have the big effect you seem to think, IMHO. When the export of SSH still was restricted, Red Hat Germany provided those SSH RPM packages on ftp to anyone outside the US wanting those, just like other distributions did.

Now just make sure you all visited petition.eurolinux.org

I've done so, and Red Hat is there =)

Eh... this is not about where the headquarters are located, it's about exporting/selling in a market where the product potentially infringes on patents. Those two can be very different.

Anyone care to post a list of all the other Linux Distributors who do not let themselves be subjected to US IP Law?

All other distributions are subject to US IP law when selling/exporting products to the US. Where the product was developed or where the headquarters are is not important, it's where the product is exported/sold.

This is one of the best reasons why Redhat!=Linux and perhaps the one that will see RedHat either leave the US or simply crumble.

I don't understand your point. Main Red Hat headquarters are indeed in the US, but there are offices in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Japan. There are Red Hat developers all over the world.
Where the head office is doesn't have the big effect you seem to think, IMHO. When the export of SSH still was restricted, Red Hat Germany provided those SSH RPM packages on ftp to anyone outside the US wanting those, just like other distributions did.

Now just make sure you all visited petition.eurolinux.org

I've done so, and Red Hat is there =)

Eh... this is not about where the headquarters are located, it's about exporting/selling in a market where the product potentially infringes on patents. Those two can be very different.

Anyone care to post a list of all the other Linux Distributors who do not let themselves be subjected to US IP Law?

All other distributions are subject to US IP law when selling/exporting products to the US. Where the product was developed or where the headquarters are is not important, it's where the product is exported/sold.

This is one of the best reasons why Redhat!=Linux and perhaps the one that will see RedHat either leave the US or simply crumble.

I don't understand your point. Main Red Hat headquarters are indeed in the US, but there are offices in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Japan. There are Red Hat developers all over the world.
Where the head office is doesn't have the big effect you seem to think, IMHO. When the export of SSH still was restricted, Red Hat Germany provided those SSH RPM packages on ftp to anyone outside the US wanting those, just like other distributions did.

Now just make sure you all visited petition.eurolinux.org

I've done so, and Red Hat is there =)

That's an outright lie. Care to back it up with some proof?
The wu-ftpd vulnerability used by these worms is with wu-ftpd versions prior to 2.6.0, and this vulnerability affected every single Linux distribution that included wu-ftpd (most do). Guess what? The hole was discovered, and wu-ftpd 2.6.0 released, after Red Hat 6.2 had been released for some time. An updated wu-ftpd 2.6.0 package was issued as a security fix for Red Hat 6.2 by Red Hat shortly thereafter.

The LPRng problem was detected very shortly after Red Hat 7 was announced. A fix was released immediately.

That they have not been repaired and the packages update is as inexcusable as the assorted Microsoft vulnerabilities.

Please check your facts before spouting off such FUD and lies. Or maybe I just responded to a troll, posting at +2...

That's an outright lie. Care to back it up with some proof?
The wu-ftpd vulnerability used by these worms is with wu-ftpd versions prior to 2.6.0, and this vulnerability affected every single Linux distribution that included wu-ftpd (most do). Guess what? The hole was discovered, and wu-ftpd 2.6.0 released, after Red Hat 6.2 had been released for some time. An updated wu-ftpd 2.6.0 package was issued as a security fix for Red Hat 6.2 by Red Hat shortly thereafter.

The LPRng problem was detected very shortly after Red Hat 7 was announced. A fix was released immediately.

That they have not been repaired and the packages update is as inexcusable as the assorted Microsoft vulnerabilities.

Please check your facts before spouting off such FUD and lies. Or maybe I just responded to a troll, posting at +2...

Except that RH7 isn't effected by this, and they have a page for RH7 security patches that link to the appropriate RPMs, and one linking to this and other Bug fixes and package enhancements

Except that RH7 isn't effected by this, and they have a page for RH7 security patches that link to the appropriate RPMs, and one linking to this and other Bug fixes and package enhancements

RedHat claims that the wu-ftp bug (RHSA-2000-039-02) only effects RH5.2 and RH6.2

In his analysis he says RH7's vulnerability comes from LPRng, not wu-ftpd. A patched version of LPRng is offered as an update by Red Hat here.

Hopping through CERT and eventually into Red Hat I found this. Fixes only for RH5 and RH6 (RH7 didn't exist at the time). I can't get to RH's FTP to check the status for wu-ftpd in RH7 right now, but their list of security advisories for RH7 does not mention wu-ftpd.

Go to this link
and download mozilla-0.7-3 and psm and all your complaints are resolved. BTW do you have an example of a page that breaks JavaScript, as I haven't seen any since M17.

The GNU System is a POSIX layer. It can run on Linux (producing GNU/Linux aka the Linux OS), HURD (still in development), or Win32 (producing Red Hat Cygwin).
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?

Red Hat 7 has support for kernel 2.4.

right here.

Chris Blizzard rocks. He builds (almost) daily Mozilla rpms for Redhat 6 and 7. At the above link you will find:

• bare-bones mozilla rpms: no commercial netscape crap, no debugging crap, no mail/news, only 6.3 MB
• mozilla-mail rpms, if you want it
• mozilla-psm rpms, so you can go to secure sites.
• mozilla-devel rpms, if you need it

From the Compatibility Information:

For Red Hat Linux 7, you must install the Standard C++ libraries for Red Hat 6.x compatibility. Get the package from the Red Hat 7 installation CD or download it from Red Hat. (Bug 59012)

--

That sounds like a strange way to solve things - I doubt that egcs 1.1.2 will compile a lot of C++ successfully, for example. A better solution might be to just update gcc in RH7 to gcc-2.96-69.

Distros update their versions for lots of different reasons, often because a number of new user programs are available, a new XFree86 version is available that is needed for new video cards, or sometimes for purely marketing reasons, as when Slackware jumped from 4.0 to 7.0 in order to reach marketing parity with Red Hat - Slackware generally used a conservative numbering scheme, but Red Hat advanced the numbers rapidly, even though all the distros are based on the same stuff, but lots of people gave the Slackware folks the message they didn't want software they perceived as out of date.

So no, it's fine to use the 2.4.0 kernel with Mandrake 7.1. The version of the kernel bears no explicit relation to the version of the distribution.

By the way, if you wonder where most of the rest of the programs on your distro come from, you have the fine folks at The Free Software Foundation to thank. Richard Stallman takes pains to point out the system is more properly called "GNU/Linux", because what Linus developed was a kernel that the already-existing GNU programs could run on.

Michael D. Crawford
GoingWare Inc

Spookily, one of my co-workers -- a classic Linux zealot -- takes a rather similar attitude. After tiring of his constant trolling about Windoze security holes etc (there are lots, true, but NT!=95, and M$ do now release advisories and patches ... there is of course room for improvement though ;) -- I did some quiet looking around at his setup. He's locked his machine down fairly well - tcpwrappers, turned off unwanted stuff from inetd.conf et al. But according to Red Hat there are 53 post-release vulnerabilites he hasn't bothered to apply, including GPG and Sendmail stuff, several remote root vulnerabilities etc. And this machine is on a permanent net connection (public IP), as well as being his daily workstation. He'd believed his own press about Linux being infinitely secure compared to Windows... of course, nothing is secure if you don't keep up with Bugtraq and apply patches when they come out, as well as configuring the thing for security when you first set it up.
--
If the good lord had meant me to live in Los Angeles

I'm working in such an environment myself, Linux server (actually a NetApp filer hosts our repository now, but pserver still runs on the Linux box for NT clients) and NT, Linux and Solaris clients. As a startup, we could not afford a pricey, commercial VCS, and with what we do, CVS was a perfect fit (yes, I have used a number of different, "pricey" systems before). We are a fabless semiconductor firm, so we often have large, textual files (as well as small). CVS works very well for us, and is easy to administer once you get familiar with it. There is no issues with NT and UNIX clients, CVS handles them all of them from the server side, assuming you run CVS in pserver client/server mode (from at least for the NT clients).

Your sole documentation for CVS (other than the occassional Google search) will probably only need to be the Cederdqvist CVS Manual (here in HTML). If you aren't too familiar with CVS yet, you'll want to play around with a test repository while reading this manual for a month. Trust me, that is what I did the first time around.

In a nutshell, here are my recommendations for a CVS setup, with large files and a both NT and UNIX clients:

1. Use a UNIX server, for both repository and pserver (client/server, runs on port 2401 by default, setup in /etc/inetd.conf) daemon (recommend both be on the same system, although there are exceptions to this rule). The UNIX CVS server is just so much more flexible, although our SV office uses CVS on NT (but they are NT-only on the client side). Since most Linux distros come with the latest CVS software, stick with Linux for your server (the CVS server/repository should always have the same or later version than any client).
2. If performance is important, make sure your server has a lot of memory if you run pserver (again, client/server daemon on server's port 2401). When you do, the server needs 1.2-1.5x the memory of the largest file checked in, otherwise, thrasing will occur as you swap pages to/from memory. Again, I _highly_recommend_ you run pserver for access from NT clients.
3. On the UNIX side of things, you don't have to use pserver. You can directly access the repository via NFS mounts. This is slower, but, for large files, you do not run into the thrasing issue on the server. In a nutshell, pserver puts all the burden (incl. memory usage) of the diff/commit on the server, whereas clients that access the repository directly do all the work. Even though you run pserver (for your NT clients), you can still access the repository directly on UNIX clients.
4. Do *NOT* checkout via NT to the same directory as via UNIX. E.g., if /home = \\server\home, do not try to checkout to /home via UNIX and then commit via NT from \\server\home, or vice-versa. The reason for this is that while the repository is OS-independent, the checked out working directories have OS-specific details (e.g., drive letters when checked out via NT, which the UNIX cvs client won't understand -- plus LF/CR issues where NT gets the later automatically added). Either adopt one of two philosophies (or both, depending on your user):
   • If you need to have working files accessable in the same place from both NT and UNIX (e.g., /home and \\server\home), then do all your cvs actions from the _UNIX_ side. The only issue you'll run into is any LF/CR that a Windows application would expect (since only LF will be used for line breaks since the working directory created/modified by UNIX). Since most of my Windows development tools don't mind LF-only breaks, I didn't have any problems with this.
   • The other philosophy involves a strict separation of working directories from NT and UNIX. Note, both clients still access the same, central repository and the same info. But when working, check out files via NT to a NT-only area and files via UNIX to a UNIX (possibly NT-also) area. This is what we also do with some people: Check out via NT to their local hard drive (which cuts down on network usage when they work), committing at the end of the day (for backup purposes), with other files being checked out to UNIX on the file server (and then accessable via both UNIX and, limited, NT over NFS/SMB shares -- which doesn't need to be committed at the end of the day since it gets backed up on the file server itself).
   • The use of each will depend on your workflow, possibly a per-user thing.
5. Be cautious about what you modify the CVS respository directly, but don't be shy to do it occassionally when you absolutely need to. This is what I love about CVS over other VC systems, a very understandable repository setup. Don't do it unless you cannot get a cvs client command to do what you want, don't do it reguarly and manually log anything you do to the repository for future reference. After a year and a half at my job, I have probably gone into the repository about 2-3 dozen times and haven't had any issues yet. Again, I haven't had such good luck with commercial systems and direct repository modification (when required).
6. Even if you are using a UNIX-only checkout environment, you can always use the nice, visual WinCVS client on the Windows side (provided you have a Samba share) to look at working file status (e.g., modified, current, etc...), but don't use to checkin/out UNIX working directories. If you are checking out via NT, then WinCVS will be a natural client choice. Just configure it for pserver, port 2401 and you'll be cooking.
   [ Note, there is a TkCVS client for UNIX, but it is _way_outta_date_. So don't use it except for possibly looking a work file status as well. In the case of both WinCVS and TkCVS, there is a _lot_ to be said about sticking with the CLI CVS client when checking in/out files -- I don't trust the GUIs to be flexible enough with anything but "browsing" the working files, but that's me. ]
7. Don't forget to set some basic variables in all your user scripts (or in a global script called at login), e.g.:
   • CVSUMASK 007 -- just like a regular umask, only for cvs checkouts
   • CVSREAD 1 -- set if you want to force users to do a "cvs edit" before editing a file (great for keeping track of concurrent edits/development), unset (or don't set) if you don't.
   • CVS_SERVER server and CVS_PASSFILE $HOME/private/.cvspass -- if you use pserver (client/server) access (or unset/don't set if you don't).
   • CVSROOT /home/cmroot/cvsroot or CVSROOT :pserver:$USER@server:/home/cmroot/cvsroot -- the former for direct repository access by client, the later to use pserver.
8. Also get some basic aliases down for your UNIX clients, e.g.:
   • alias cvs '/usr/local/bin/cvs -d /home/cmroot/cvsroot' -- accesses CVS repository /home/cdroot/cvsroot directory
   • alias cvs '/usr/local/bin/cvs -d :pserver:$USER@server:/home/cmroot/cvsroot' -- accesses CVS respository on SERVER at /home/cmroot/cvsroot via pserver (client/server)
   • alias noncvs "cvs -n -q update -I '! CVS' -r HEAD" -- List all non-current or unknown files in working directory from repository (I use this all the time)
   • alias noncvsi "cvs -n -q update -r HEAD -- same as previous, except apply ignored file list (which are listed in file $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/cvsignore -- which you'll want to checkout and modify for your site).
9. Do *NOT* make your server public. CVS is NOT a secure server, unless you use something like Kerberos client/server (instead of pserver, on a different port, I've never done this), or pserver with SSH as the remove shell. If you are going to run a publicly accessable CVS server, you'll want to run in at least pserver mode using SSH or, in the worst case, pserver with different usernames/passwords directly in the CVS admin files (rather than using the default of the local UNIX accounts). I highly recommend _against_ running a server that is both internally and externally accessable. If you need to, setup two separate servers, with two separate CVS repositories and run a cronjob to update the external server on a regular basis. Better yet, get familiar with "cvs export" on automating the export of files from the CVS repository (withOUT working CVS info) to archives, external servers, etc...
10. Lastly, if you have not adopted Cygnus' Cygwin GNU environment as standard on your NT desktops, do it now. No need to pay others for UNIX tools on NT, Cygwin is all you need. Do it even if you don't use GCC, and do all your development via Visual Studio, etc... There are just too many good UNIX CLI tools to ignore in there and you'll wish you'd had them. A CVS client is included (or you can use WinCVS').

[ Side note: If your setup and workflow is anything like mine (e.g., either NT or dual-boot NT/Linux on desktop, Solaris workstations in a lab), and an X-Server for NT is too expensive, you'll probably want to investiage Virtual Network Computing (VNC). VNC on a UNIX server (as compared to just using it as a simple pcAnywhere type setup on Windows servers, as most people do), is powerful. It is how we have ~10 different engineers running full GUIs on a single Solaris or Linux workstation, each with their own X-session (:1, :2, etc...). Then you simply connect from the Windows client and tada, a full X-session -- that even stays up when NT crashes! Or can be "shared" by Microsoft NetMeeting. Just thought I'd mention VNC since you probably have the same situation/setup I do. ]

-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

I am a linux fan, but have you ever read dot-truth.com? There are links to magazines that tell about the problems of Sun computers. It took forever for them to get ECC ready, while it's been on Intel's for years.

Uh-oh. Looks like we have a State 7 Linux User on our case.

Sparc is a lousy processor. 400 megahertz? And software support and development problems are also bad.

Cycle speed isn't everything, sport. Sparc processors are designed for high amounts of processing, higher than Intel. If Sun doesn't come out with a better-bigger-greater-faster CPU every two weeks, that doesn't mean they're falling behind; The latest UltraSPARC-2 and UltraSPARC-3 chips are EXTREMELY beefy processors, I'd rather be using one of those than this pentium 3 any day of the week (if cost wasnt an issue). Sun's software and hardware support is phenominal, by the way, if you've purchased a contract. I'll admit, I work for sun as an SSE, so take from this what you will... but usually you can't get a Compaq or Dell technician to your house because your PC won't deliver an email.

Solaris is so stripped down and has an inferior program for each part of it. Commercial X, csh, plain old vi, etc. are standard and it does not have standard Linux tools like Gimp. I would rather have a server which is similar to the workstation. My whole school is Sun, it's Northern Arizona University, and they have the slowest network!

*sigh* Do you honestly think that someone wants GIMP on a production Oracle/Informix database server? vim? and yes, it has csh. What's wrong with csh? If you want another shell, obviously you havent looked. Solaris comes with everything from ksh to bash. You can change it in /etc/passwd with plain old vi too. Since most of these high-end servers aren't sitting next to someone's desk with a nice pretty 21" flat-panel LCD, why would you want something like vim? I don't recall WYSE terminals displaying syntax color-coding very well. Besides, even if you did want something like that, the Solaris package is available for download. I suppose you're going to complain about the lack of RPM, too.

[some content removed] Sun computers are expensive, unreliable, slow, of a bad design, and are falling more behind each day. 500 MHz? A whole bunch of CPU's in one box? Scale out, not up.

Expensive, yes. But look at the market. Sun is not shooting for a demographic of a 13 year old kid who wants a nice computer to run this nifty program that the neighbor put on his computer called Linux. They're aiming to put out number-crunching, I/O passing monsters used for serving up lots and lots of data. The solution to being able to handle this amount of processes is not to make a single CPU be bigger, its to spread the processes out. Unreliable? if these were unreliable, why have people been buying Sun machines since the early 80's? I'll give you a hint: it's not because they suck.

Each person who ties their company into Sun is tying themselves in to ridiculously expensive proprietary technology. Amazon is now on Linux.

Amazon is on linux? Where did you get that idea?

For selling, hosting static pages, sharing information, databases, etc, Linux or Windows 2000 rules!

Thats great for a mom-and-pop ISP who needs an inexpensive solution to get themselves started and to have a good deal of room to grow with. Go to work for a company like AT&T for a few years and see the kind of data they push through their datacenters, and I'd dare you to say that again without laughing. ;)

Die, Commercial Unix!!!!!!!!

No comment.

--
Dave Brooks (db@amorphous.org)
http://www.amorphous.org

I had to upgrade to ppp-2.4.0 (from Rawhide, I think I got it) before my modem would work at all, and there still seems to be a problem (with easy but annoying workaround) with Red Hat's ppp-watch setup. Oh, well, I'm only stuck on a modem for another couple weeks.

Of course, if you've upgraded to Red Hat 7 (like I have), you've got 50 other updates you'll want to download, so don't feel too special.

See, I haven't contributed anything to the Linux community at all

If you feel guilty, you could

• Write software for the GNU/Linux system.
• Write documentation for the GNU/Linux system, especially if you speak human languages other than American.
• Buy a boxed GNU/Linux distribution. This funds development of the GNU/Linux system.
• Donate to Free Software Foundation. This funds development of GNU, the POSIX layer that runs on Linux (and on HURD). You can even specify FSF on your United Way "specific request."
• Buy a computer from VA Linux Systems or Penguin Computing. This supports hardware manufacturers who are not in bed with Microsoft <cough>winmodems</cough>.