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The most notable places where RDF is presently used for real things (as opposed to "we'd like it to be used here vaporware") include:

• In the dmoz.org Open Directory RDF Dump
• The encoding of rpm2html used at rpmfind.net

The latter is exceedingly relevant, as it represents an encoding of metadata about Linux software packages in RDF form.

The most notable places where RDF is presently used for real things (as opposed to "we'd like it to be used here vaporware") include:

• In the dmoz.org Open Directory RDF Dump
• The encoding of rpm2html used at rpmfind.net

The latter is exceedingly relevant, as it represents an encoding of metadata about Linux software packages in RDF form.

It's not perfect but it's some of the way there. It also has autoupdate functionality in the latest versions.

------------------------------
[ from the rpmfind website ]

$ rpmfind -q --upgrade balsa
[search for approx 30 seconds ... 28.8 Kbps PPP connection]
Installing balsa will requires 9574 KBytes

### To Transfer:
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/freshmeat/libpng/libpng- 1.0.1-1.i386.rpm
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/redhat/redhat-5.0/i386/R edHat/RPMS/ImageMagick-3.9.1-1.i386.rpm
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/redhat-labs/gnome/suppor t/RPMS/giflib-3.0-2.i386.rpm
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/contrib/hurricane/i386/g iflib-3.0-4.i386.rpm
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/redhat/redhat-5.0/i386/R edHat/RPMS/libgr-progs-2.0.13-4.i386.rpm
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/redhat-labs/gnome/devel/ 1998052417/RPMS/imlib-1.4-1998052414.i386. rpm
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/redhat-labs/gnome/devel/ 1998052417/RPMS/glib-1.1.0-1998052414.i386 .rpm
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/redhat-labs/gnome/devel/ 1998052417/RPMS/gtk+-1.1.0-1998052414.i386 .rpm
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/redhat-labs/gnome/devel/ 1998052417/RPMS/gnome-libs-0.13-1998052414 .i386.rpm
ftp://rpmfind.net/linux/redhat-labs/gnome/devel/ 1998052417/RPMS/balsa-0.2.0-1998052416.i38 6.rpm
Do you want to download these files to /tmp [Y/n/a] ? : n
$

ask why a new version of a package was released?
see a list of changes between old and new versions?

Well, RPM does include a Changelog which should include why the package was released, and what changes were made. check the --changelog option.

tell the system to apply only security or high-priority fixes?

You can do this mostly by installing a distro, and then tracking a particular version of it. Redhat-6.2 has lots of updates, but all of them fall into your 'security/high-priority' category.

tell the system to automatically process all updates except those involving specified packages, which I want to approve on a case-by-case basis?

It's trivial to setup something like this where you mirror the appropriate dir on updates.redhat.com, then have a script which does an rpm -F foo.rpm on every rpm whose name isn't listed in 'no-auto-upgrade.txt'. However, given your original statement, it's not possible. You're saying that you want it to automatically everything, except it should psychically know what you want to pick and choose from. Ummm... no matter how you cut it, you'll at some point have to tell the system 'upgrade or no'.

tell the system never to upgrade packages that require upgrades of packages used by other software (eg, libraries)?

This is the default behavior of RPM. You have to use --nodeps to override it.

ask for packages that will help me convert GIF files to PNG?

You want natural language capability search built into your package manager? You've watched too much star trek. If however you did a quick search for RPMs that contained both 'GIF' and 'PNG' in their name on a site like rpmfind.net you'd find gif2png is readily available.

ask for only packages targeted at beginners?

I have no idea what use this is. Beginner is a very broad term. Is Enlightenment aimed at beginners? How about Windowmaker? The answer for both is a resounding maybe!, depending on the configuration. How about gcc, is that for beginners? After all, most computer barely-literates don't know how to use a compiler. And bind, that's definitely an advanced package right? unless of course you install a caching-nameserver rpm that helps the beginner have their own caching nameserver, then it's beginner. Or an obvious beginner package like grip, whcih isn't beginner at all, i mean, you have to know about mp3 encoders and cd rippers.

ask for only well-integrated, well-tested packages?

Use RedHat, they'll only give you these. If you stick to basics, unless you use Mandrake, you usually won't get anything that's not well-tested and integrated.

get reviews of a package?

Ah yes, all programs expand until they read mail. Or in your case, you're asking for the package manager to read newsgroups and mailing lists, so it'd be a newsreader too. Maybe we should just integrate this package manager of yours into emacs.

find out how to get started using a package?

The RPM format allows for certain files to be flagged as documentation and generally installs them in the path /usr/doc/$rpm_name. and man files in /usr/man. you can get a list of what it installed by doing rpm -qi package_name.

begin browsing the documentation for a package before approving a full installation?

again, you're asking the package manager to do things that just don't make sense. Why not read up on the software, then install it? Or just install it, and if it's no use to you, do an 'rpm -e'.

have some help in configuration updates?

These are called man pages, and documentation files. You read them and they help you. Or hell, if reading real documentation is too much work for you, then see if there's a HOWTO that you can peruse somewhere on the net.

Personally I use FreeBSD which has it's own unique set of strengths and weaknesses, and if you don't think anybody out there is thinking about this stuff, you should read this document which is a summary of the state of these things in FreeBSD, and some ideas on how to progress.

ask why a new version of a package was released?
see a list of changes between old and new versions?

Well, RPM does include a Changelog which should include why the package was released, and what changes were made. check the --changelog option.

tell the system to apply only security or high-priority fixes?

You can do this mostly by installing a distro, and then tracking a particular version of it. Redhat-6.2 has lots of updates, but all of them fall into your 'security/high-priority' category.

tell the system to automatically process all updates except those involving specified packages, which I want to approve on a case-by-case basis?

It's trivial to setup something like this where you mirror the appropriate dir on updates.redhat.com, then have a script which does an rpm -F foo.rpm on every rpm whose name isn't listed in 'no-auto-upgrade.txt'. However, given your original statement, it's not possible. You're saying that you want it to automatically everything, except it should psychically know what you want to pick and choose from. Ummm... no matter how you cut it, you'll at some point have to tell the system 'upgrade or no'.

tell the system never to upgrade packages that require upgrades of packages used by other software (eg, libraries)?

This is the default behavior of RPM. You have to use --nodeps to override it.

ask for packages that will help me convert GIF files to PNG?

You want natural language capability search built into your package manager? You've watched too much star trek. If however you did a quick search for RPMs that contained both 'GIF' and 'PNG' in their name on a site like rpmfind.net you'd find gif2png is readily available.

ask for only packages targeted at beginners?

I have no idea what use this is. Beginner is a very broad term. Is Enlightenment aimed at beginners? How about Windowmaker? The answer for both is a resounding maybe!, depending on the configuration. How about gcc, is that for beginners? After all, most computer barely-literates don't know how to use a compiler. And bind, that's definitely an advanced package right? unless of course you install a caching-nameserver rpm that helps the beginner have their own caching nameserver, then it's beginner. Or an obvious beginner package like grip, whcih isn't beginner at all, i mean, you have to know about mp3 encoders and cd rippers.

ask for only well-integrated, well-tested packages?

Use RedHat, they'll only give you these. If you stick to basics, unless you use Mandrake, you usually won't get anything that's not well-tested and integrated.

get reviews of a package?

Ah yes, all programs expand until they read mail. Or in your case, you're asking for the package manager to read newsgroups and mailing lists, so it'd be a newsreader too. Maybe we should just integrate this package manager of yours into emacs.

find out how to get started using a package?

The RPM format allows for certain files to be flagged as documentation and generally installs them in the path /usr/doc/$rpm_name. and man files in /usr/man. you can get a list of what it installed by doing rpm -qi package_name.

begin browsing the documentation for a package before approving a full installation?

again, you're asking the package manager to do things that just don't make sense. Why not read up on the software, then install it? Or just install it, and if it's no use to you, do an 'rpm -e'.

have some help in configuration updates?

These are called man pages, and documentation files. You read them and they help you. Or hell, if reading real documentation is too much work for you, then see if there's a HOWTO that you can peruse somewhere on the net.

Personally I use FreeBSD which has it's own unique set of strengths and weaknesses, and if you don't think anybody out there is thinking about this stuff, you should read this document which is a summary of the state of these things in FreeBSD, and some ideas on how to progress.

• First, if you go to a site like rpmfind.net, you'll find a zillion different versions of a given package, all with different numbering schemes. Besides the obvious duplication of effort, it is often not clear which one to use, especially if you want the "latest" RPM (or SRPM so you can build on an atypical architecture).
• Second, suppose you find a program that is not packaged already, and the authors don't want to package it themselves, so you want to package it as a service to yourself and the Linux community. There is no guarantee that 10 other people aren't doing the same thing; you don't have any chance to become the "official" RPM maintainer for the program. Moreover, users will have no way of knowing whether you can be trusted. Finally, there is no definitive place to post the finished package (see above).

One of the strongest points about Debian, I think, more than any minor technical distinction between .deb and .rpm, is their strong centralized packaging organization that solves the above problems. (Based on this, they can also make nicer tools e.g. for automated network-based updates.)

Now, if only Debian stabilizes their new release so I can install it on my PPC...

Try www.rpmfind.net or ftp.wesmo.com for LinuxPPC precompiled RPMs. Note that these should work fine with LinuxPPC 2000, YDL CS 1.2, and MkLinux R1, but not necessarily with SuSE. If you use Debian/PPC, you should be able to use alien to install them.

For other such questions, I suggest the new LinuxPPC.org site or the LinuxPPC mailing list archives.

cya

Ethelred
(who knows that he's risking an Offtopic mod but is begging and pleading for clemency)

---

---

I've found drakfont usefull for being able to grab all the TT fonts in windows without much hassle.

I downloaded gnucash out of curiosity, and tried to compile. The configure script bombed out with a "Can't find Swig" error. I was thinking, "what the fsck is SWIG?!" I didn't notice anything on the Gnucash pages about needing this - it's something they should include.

I then went looking on Google, and found it. I thought I'd post a link for anyone who gets this error and, like me, had never heard of Swig before.

Further digging on the Gnucash site helped me find out that you don't really need Swig, and they might be changing the configure script so that it doesn't bomb if you don't have it.

Anyhow, here is the link to Swig

Hmm, the 8.22-P5 bind can be found on rpmfind.net, if you want rpms... Made by redhat.

Whenever I need software, I go straight to rpmfind. I know I've gotten OpenSSH RPMs from there several times.

Gee, SILO has been able to boot past 1024 cylinders for ages now. It also doesn't have to be run on new kernel images, understands ext2 and iso9660 filesystems, and even has some simple functionaly like the ability to ls some directory to see what you want to boot. In addition to Linux it can also boot SunOS and Solaris, and has been ported to PowerPC for use on Apple's Open Firmware systems. Very nice. Of course, the catch is that you'll need a system with enough intelligence in its firmware to know what it is. The peecee BIOS is too braindead for something nice like this. Though the possibility might exist of writing a bootloader for peecees that included an OF emulator. But then, why bother; writing real-mode 16-bit x86 code isn't my idea of fun, and I doubt it's yours either.

I saw this article this morning and decided to try SuSE. I've installed a lot of

• RedHat since version 3.
• Prior to that I used Slackware but not recently enough to comment on.
• I've also tried FreeBSD several times (the last time was pretty good: the ports system is really cool, automated tarballs: rpm, source rpms, and rpmfind all rolled into one) and
• Debian very recently (clear, informative, step by step...and VERY tedious; do you want to install ftp? do you want to configure ftp? do you want to start ftp? do you want to change that configuration? do you want to move on now? did you think you'd be done by now? do you wish you were done now? do you want to slit your wrists now?).

So, getting SuSE downloaded too all day. (I had previously started once before, so I knew to go to sourceforge where they make life a lot simpler than at SuSE where they really want you to buy a disk).

I just completed the install, and I have to say, SuSE is a very nice system in comparison with RedHat. Uses RPM, BTW, so you won't have to throw away that knowledge and you can keep benefitting from rpmfind, but it also has "yast" which is like linuxconf, except it works! It also does a lot more, from hardware config, /etc config, X config (SaX is a better way to configure X, too), to package management. And, since they use the same yast during install and for later admin, it has that nice feel of "everything I learn is useful as reference later, and if I make the wrong choice now I'll know how to fix it"

Redhat should ditch linuxconf and adopt yast (and "ports" too, while they're at it). If you are new to linux, you should give SuSE a look, I think you'll find it easier to admin. If you already use RedHat, it's not so much better that it's worth switching to, but you should not fear trying it if you are curious because it will be a painless transition. The purple lizard on the desktop is kinda cute, too, though I wish they'da spelled it Geecko?

Jeesh, that's one of the FIRST things I ran on linux, must be 5 or 6 years ago already. Of course it's not as good as the modern one's ....:)

a) This is an MS Internet Explorer and Outlook Express problem. I use Netscape. Stuff doesn't get automatically executed, here.

b) This is a problem with users. I scan all .exe files I download, be it from Microsoft, the excellent Parsec project, the 3dfx site.
This after YEARS of running without a virus scanner, after which I found win32.cih on my system after accidentally running one file which I didn't scan (deleted itself, and didn't even show me a nude Britney Spears, damnit)

c) This is also a problem with users, though they *are* the problem of many other people, who work tech support (like me) or actually do the work.

It's fairly (sl)easy to change code on a page, then offer it as the original. That's why sites like Freshmeat and RPMfind.net are good. People trust that what they get there is the Real Deal, and not virus infested piece of garbage.

They are also the well-known sites, which means herding users into that direction will be that much easier. -- AC

Helixcode rpms are available on rpmfind both i386 and ppc packages are available here.
Hope this helps!

Helixcode rpms are available on rpmfind both i386 and ppc packages are available here.
Hope this helps!

I'd think it more valuable to, on a case-by-case basis, adopt libPropList. That provides the benefit of a relatively generic format, but, more importantly, with the merit that it comes with library calls to modify data, and to do so in a safe way.

I just got some new drives at work, and want to share the benchmark to enlighten the world about the ever important and exciting SCSI vs IDE holy war. Well.... maybe I just want to brag, so shoot me.

Here's the bonnie results for the system. The drives are two IBM ultrastar 18LZX drives, 18GB, 10k RPM, about $580. The controller is the onboard adaptec U2W on a supermicro P6DBU. They are setup with a raid0 partition using the new raid 0.9 code, with kernel 2.2.13ac2.

-------Sequential Output-------- ---Sequential Input-- --Random--
-Per Char- --Block--- -Rewrite-- -Per Char- --Block--- --Seeks---
__MB K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU /sec %CPU
1024 10695 99.6 60193 53.8 21373 42.9 11092 95.4 50926 29.6 508.3 3.8


60MB/sec output and 50MB/sec input. Touch that with your punny IDE drives. And remember, use a bonnie test size of at least twice your memory, eg. -s 1024 for a 512MB system, so you don't measure the linux disk cache instead of the drives.

rpmfind (see rpmfind.net) is a database/service that will find the files in the packages for you. It's quite snazzy.

You can use it via the web interface (above) or via the CLI tool.

...j

rpmfind (see rpmfind.net) is a database/service that will find the files in the packages for you. It's quite snazzy.

You can use it via the web interface (above) or via the CLI tool.

...j

However, I would like to call attention to a truly free (beer and speech) browser that has been available for Linux (as well Windows, Solaris and AIX). This is the W3 consortium's Amaya browser.

Some features (adapted from the w3 page):
1. Is a browser as well as editor
2. Amaya maintains a consistent internal document model adhering to the DTD.
3. Amaya is easily extended.
Several APIs and mechanisms are available to change and extend its functionality with the least modification to the source code. Amaya thus allows for easy customization by providing a means for extensions to access Amaya's internal procedures and functions.
4. Support of MathML protocol.

But best of all, it's released under the W3 Copyright which is fully compatible with the GPL

Why not give it a try?
Binary Distribution
Source Code
RPM distribution

Actually, OpenSSH and the original ssh are equally affected by US laws against exporting cryptography. The difference is that the OpenBSD people are not located in the US, so they don't need to worry about exporting ssh. If RedHat weren't a US company you could already download ssh RPMs from them without filling out any forms.

Of course, you can already find RPMs for ssh from other non-US sites. Try rpmfind.net.

Another password generator can be found here

It was installed with my RH6.0. Try using rpmfind --install chkfontpath. If you don't have rpmfind installed, go to RPM Find. This tool makes managing your RPM packages much easier. You'll also find a tarball there.

$rpmfind --latest RedHat

And that should update . . .hmm, maybe it is 'redhat', Oh, well, you can figure it out ;)

[I have trouble posting comments, retry]

This library is used in the gnome project for a number of program including gnumeric, gill, dia, libglade, etc.

It offers the following:

• SAX interface
• DOM tree building an manipulation
• Validation (but there is still problems sometimes)
• Released under LGPL and the W3C License
• nearly complete XPath implementation
• HTML parser included
• a minimal HTTP for remote DTD or external parsed entities fetching

Documentation and code can be found from the libxml home page

Considering keeping DTD around, I was thinking about that, I need a DTD cache with the URL and System ID association, this would be welcome.

I'm not an AC !

Daniel

Daniel.Veillard@w3.org

This library is used in the gnome project for a number of program including gnumeric, gill, dia, libglade, etc.

It offers the following:

• SAX interface
• DOM tree building an manipulation
• Validation (but there is still problems sometimes)
• Released under LGPL and the W3C License
• nearly complete XPath implementation
• HTML parser included
• a minimal HTTP for remote DTD or external parsed entities fetching

Documentation and code can be found from the libxml home page

Considering keeping DTD around, I was thinking about that, I need a DTD cache with the URL and System ID association, this would be welcome.

I'm not an AC !

Daniel

Daniel.Veillard@w3.org

They already had kde 1.1.2 packed as a lovely RPM at Rpmfind.net quite a few days before I could read the announcement of the Tarball release on /.

For Red-Hat : if they're suicidal enough to depart from Mandrake, they'll regret it sooner or later. The guys at Mandrake really do a hell of a job. Red Hat may decide to benefit from it (Open Source mind : Good Thing) or they just may close up and lock themselves into some ivory tower (MS mind ; Bad Thing).

Tell me : what would be the gain of consciously cutting compatibility with all the nifty things the Mandrakers are doing right now ?

Thomas Miconi
Karma Police - Please be calm, be quiet, be at ease, please don't try to escape...

They're package management system has lagged behind Red Hat's due to lack of developers for a while.

Has it? Is there a feature in RedHat's system allowing you to automatically update from a server? (I honestly want to know, I'm not trying to start a flameware here). That feature is one of the major reasons I use Debian.

I don't belive there is a need for this feahttpture to be rolled into the rpm codebase. autorpm is quite good at pulling updates from a distribution company web site automaticaly. It's quite good at keeping an rpm based system up to date from any number of mirrors ( handles mirror rotations and such).

With other utilities such as rpmfind and the very useful rpm database at rpmfind.net, an admin of an rpm based system has all the tools they need to manage the system.

OMNSHO, a system to act as a front end to all three would be an even better boon to the community.
--
James Michael Keller

only found two working servers: unix.hensa.ac.uk and ftp.okcforum.org

both are sloooowww. can't connect to ftp.redhat.com. personally, I'm waiting for MIT to snag it, so I can suck it down the VBNS. I'll post an update when we get a mirror operational down here at Rice.