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Try looking in /usr/bin/X11 and /etc/X11 some time. Or try reading the XFree86 Font De-uglification HOWTO. I have never needed a Windows or MacOS font de-uglification howto, why do you think that is so?

Idiot.

Is that your signature? Are you completely illiterate? Like most of the Pavlovian responses to the comment, you ignored my remark: "but I am not only criticizing the looks here but also the lack of structure and meaningful information."

Where is the wiki or knowledgebase? Where's the discussion forum for news items? Where is the structure? (Hint: Putting lots of links in a list does not make a site structured.) Learn a little bit about usability and community building before you take your next verbal dump on Slashdot.

I went to the The Linux Documentation Project, got to the HOW-TOs, and grabbed the tar.gz file of all the HOW-TO pages (multiple archive formats and document formats available, NO, Word isn't one of them). Then I grabbed the same in mini-how-to. Found other things to do while I waited for the files to download via dialup. It links to the collected man pages in html, I may grab it, there seem to be man pages missing from my RH-8.0 installation.

I know your intention was good. But, wouldn't it be easier and cheaper to buy a PC and install Linux.

Wouldn't it be easier to buy a PC and run Windows?

Linux wouldn't be nearly as usable as it is (and there are plenty, myself included, who say it still has a way to go) without this kind of ad hoc HOWTO documentation / advice. Maybe you've never been to tldp.org but for those of us who have, we can certainly appreciate this kind of effort. There needs to be more of it.

Not only was the intention good, but the follow-through as well. This is useful information. It was to me anyway, and I use Linux most of the time. I also use OS X. Why? Because one of the things OS X does better than anything else is movie editing for non professionals (by that I mean something even my wife could use, which is not something I can say about Adobe Premiere), and you don't have to agree to have some big-brother-relinquish-all-privacy EULA to use it. Now that I'm committed to having an OS X box in my home, guess what? NFS and LDAP make user management on my home machines (OS X included) that much easier.

Linux was forged in the spirit of "because I can; I don't need another reason". There are some of us who remain enthusiasts: those who desire to know how something works, or (sometimes even better) how two things can work together just because. From the rest of us, thank you to goombah99 for posting this. And thank you to bdash for posting this. And thank you to all those of you who continue to post poorly- or not-at-all-documented features of every operating system. Thank you for keeping information free and putting it into the hands of as many people as possible. These are the true heros of freedom, because without the freedom of knowledge, all other freedoms wither.

No matter what anyone else here says...

That's rather disingenuous of you, actually, to basically assume that your thoughts on this subject should take precident before all others. In response, I would say that there are many more avenues for support in an OSS solution than would exist with a proprietary application.

1) groups.google.com is an infinitely valuable resource.

2) The Linux Documentation Project maintains a searchable list of man pages, HOWTOs and other documentation.

3) Just about every OSS application in existence maintains mailing lists for developers and users alike for you to be able to receive and provide support for that particular application.

4) There are many consulting companies and individuals out there that provide support on an as-needed basis should you be unable to find your answer elsewhere.

The fact remains, that with an OSS solution, many more people (including developers on the project) are likely to have a better understanding of the application that are willing and able to provide knowledgable support just because of its openness, if that's, indeed, what you want. You may not actually be able to use the phone, but instead, you can send an email to a group of people that are actually passionate about the application, instead of trying to get help from poeple who either don't care, can't understand the application as well as the designers, or who are there to get their $10/hour for a few hours before they go home to finish their homework. When my boss is breathing down my neck about a problem, I'd much rather let him know I'm discussing the issue with one of the guys that designed the application rather than a highschool kid that reads a script to meet his inbound call quota.

When I was starting out with UNIX, I purchased the bunny book (UNIX for the Impatient by Abrahams and Larson) and, later, when I was setting up my own Linux installation, I picked up Running Linux by Matt Welsh. I'm not even sure what edition Running Linux is up to, now. The first is definitely user-oriented, while the latter gets more into the nuts and bolts.

In retrospect, though, for really being effective with my Linux machine, I got more out of the how-tos archived by the Linux Documentation Project, man pages, and searches on google. A little mentoring from someone already comfortable with the Linux environment doesn't hurt either.

My article Why We Should All Test the New Linux Kernel gives some tips on how to get started building new kernels (although it emphasizes testing the development patches).

The #kernelnewbies IRC channel has a website at www.kernelnewbies.org that you will find helpful.

And finally there is of course The Linux Kernel HOWTO.

did you sign up to the mailing lists and ask them?
http://us2.samba.org/samba/archives.html

it looks like they've had a list for nt domains since 1998:
http://lists.samba.org/pipermail/samba-ntdo m/

i've never had a problem with samba, but i've also never tried to set it up as a pdc.

since you asked where the giant support base is here are some resources to get you started:

usenet is a great place to find answers to your questions:
http://groups.google.com

if you are trying to do something new, there are many different types of documentation available. these are collectively held at the linux documentation project

you might also want to check to see if your area has a linux users group. you can get more info about that here:

http://www.ssc.com:8080/glue/groups/
http://lug ww.counter.li.org/

if you are willing to pay for information then you can do that too. if you're using redhat, they offer support. if you purchase redhat you get a certain amount of free support, but i'm not sure how much that costs.

Have you considered Nocat or Auth. Gateway?
No complicated setup or client component required, just a browser or SSH. They don't do encryption so you'll need to use encrypted channels(ssl, ssh, etc..).

Check out this site, it should do what you want.

As far as installing Redhat dual boot I'm pretty sure you will have to reformat your drive. However there are tools that can shrink your partitions without destroying all the data. Partition Magic by powertech comes to mind, but there may be freeware utilites avaiable as well. Check out This HOWTO for a little more information. I would also encorage you to look around metalab and read as many of the docs avaiable for your paticular choice of linux/BSD before you attempt to install. Good luck if you decide to do it.

Justin

Oh my god!!!
A woman on slashdot!

Ok, I'll bite. Comments like this are probably what keeps a lot of women away from /. Follow the link , and think about it.

33Mhz, 32Mb and a 250mb HD for my debian web server.

I recently installed Debian on a similar but lower-memory system (8MB) as a web server (yes, I am going to add more memory soon). Aside from a memory-intensive stage where apt-get was merging some package data, it went smoothly but slowly.

The reason I mention this is that I've seen posts where people say they installed a small linux system on a computer with 4mb of memory "a while ago", and posts where someone has recently installed a small linux system on a computer with 16mb of memory or so, but no mention of really low-memory systems. So I figure that I should mention that a reasonably up-to-date distro (Debian) does install on 8mb, though it'll get ugly at one point if you don't have more like 16mb. Also, perhaps the 4mb Laptop How-To is worth mentioning at this point.

I saw a few posts about concerns over using FTP for sharing files. I completely agree with those people. FTP is far too in-secure. I would rather use scp or sftp. But we use a better solution. We have WebDAV server with https:// (secured http) and LDAP authentication. The user just copies the files to a WebDAV location, using WebFolders and send the URL in the email. I also developed a application to keep track of who is accessing files etc. All this using Apache - not a single cent to buy any file sharing application. For more info: http://www.webdav.org or http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Apache-WebDAV-LDAP-HOWTO / BTW all 3 major OSes (Linux, MacOS X, Windows) now support WebDAV natively

Mostly the same stuff, possibly?

I'm currently planning my second own-built PC, and I must echo the article's request for more (precise) electrical information from manufacturers. It is outrageous that the peak current at 12V drawn by a HDD, or the maximum current at 12V provided by a PSU, is missing from documents that call themselves 'technical specifications'.

This information is vital: it only takes a high-end PC with 3 modern HDDs (what you might use for RAID or for other multi-disk performance tricks to overload a 400W PSU. Not because it draws 400W during normal operation, but because on startup the disks draw too much current at 12V.

1) The author cited as fact that the age of the operating system is directly related to its security, without any kind of proof. This makes sense at first glance, but it ultimatly glosses over the fact that both OSes are in constant development. New features are added every day. This might make sense if, after developing the system, all the time after that was spent patching and debugging, but this isn't the case.

2) The author has no concept of service vs. system. Most vulnerabilites are in sevices, not at the kernel level. All Linux is just a kernel. Packages are added to make a usable Linux distro.

3) The author cites number of bugtraq entries as a way of gauging relative security, without considering the severity. Also, bugs, like those reported to Security Focus aren't the only vectors of compromise

4) Open source software, by virtue of being free, allows an administrator to install much more security software for his dollar. Firewalls, IDSes, advanced cryptographic file systems, HIDS, and virus scanners can all be downloaded for free.

Look at how the Linux Documentation Project handles SGML/XML files. There are ways of handling this a lot better.

• Don't make blank pages. If you aren't ready to write content for a node, don't create the node.
• Refactor a Wiki's organization like you would source code.
• Use a Wiki like a FAQ. When someone asks a question, add a node to the Wiki.

I would add the following:

3) Don't install a development environment (e.g. gcc, which is required for this worm to propogate) on a publically exposed web server!

Obviously, this won't work for people with only one box who want to run their personal web server off of it as well as do their dev work there, but for *real* servers this is a good practice. People who must have compilers on their web server are probably not using SSL, as you stated :-).

If you must use a compiler on your web server, FFS run the publically accessible service in a chroot jail!

Unless my data could somehow have priority over my neighbors.

It's called shaping

IOW, set up a capable router and configure it give priority to your traffic. Linux routers can do this, as in the HOWTO above, as can many other routers.

It would be fairly easy with squid and a url redirector and transparent http caching

Transparent squid proxy howto

The tricky bit would be ensuring that documents allready in a frameset aren't broken, but that could be done fairly simply with a perl script :-)

On the Video RAM Cache: Not every box has a sooper-dooper fast mega-card in it. I have boxes with old Cirrus Logic and Mach64 cards in 'em. And not every PC is equipped with AGP. Enabling this can yield a performance boost on some hardware, a little more detail here would help.

I'd be surprised if you ever saw a speedup for normal usage. Most VRAM writes are done via an acceleration engine/blitter that has no ability to use the L2 cache. And, for normal writes, good MTRRs will take care of the rest. So, they're correct: it's almost always wrong to use L2 to cache VRAM. Disable this option.

Note that this is not the same as caching the video driver in system RAM. Back in the DOS days, the entire video driver was contained on the card in slow ROM. This option would cause that ROM to be copied to the system memory, offering a big speedup. However, all modern OSes use their own video drivers (assuming XFree86 is part of the OS). Caching the ROM driver in RAM only wastes RAM. Disable this option too.

China has the technology to start up their own chip manufacturing plants.
There are plenty of open source cpu designs that can be incorporated into new processors.

If the major US players all employ DRM, you can bet your boots that another nation will start producing uncrippled chips and practically overnight become one of the worlds most popular cpu manufacturers.

A wonderful facility provided by LVM is 'snapshots'. This allows the administrator to create a new block device which is an exact copy of a logical volume, frozen at some point in time. Typically this would be used when some batch processing, a backup for instance, needs to be performed on the logical volume, but you don't want to halt a live system that is changing the data. When the snapshot device has been finished with the system administrator can just remove the device. This facility does require that the snapshot be made at a time when the data on the logical volume is in a consistent state, later sections of this document give some examples of this.

This is a project which tells you how to make a small diskless box, which I've stuck inside an old separates amplifier case which has its innards removed.

I've not yet worked out how to use the volume knob to turn sound up and down, but it's certainly a way to make a PC with the same form-factor as a HIFI separates system.

I imagine with a little tweaking and ingenuity you could get a nice graphics card, 2.5" HDD etc inside there.

Tim

Funny then, how I found this with just a couple of clicks from the main kernel.org page. I've seen a few other HCLs for Linux in the last few years, but overall I'd expect that for really new hardware you either have to have a good idea of how to get it to work already or find someone that does. Linux moves more quickly than most operating systems, and, as such, hardware compatibility is a moving target dependant on a large number of variables, including changes to the kernel and dedication of the hardware developers.

Sure. It's called tldp.org

That said, I'm curious about what people are using these super-fast processors for.

I agree; I don't see the point. I just upgraded to a Althon 2100+ from a Celeron 500 and the difference is minimal. Kernels compile in a flash, but other than that, no great improvements. Some lags is a few applications are gone, which is nice.

What I really want is a faster hard drive--the only real wait on my system is for large applications starting up as they come off the hard drive. Opening Openoffice takes about 10 seconds; closing it and opening again (from cache) takes maybe two.

I'm thinking about setting up my /usr partition as a two-disk RAID-0. The throughput should double (small test partition confirms). Sure the probability of failure doubles too, but my /usr is all backed up by my local Debian archive anyway. :-)

Disable (or strictly limit) the write cache (-> Relevant documentation). Use a journaling filesystem. The result will be at least as good as with using the FAT-filesystem and DOS. The journaling filesystem means that the filesystem *structure* will always be consistent. Disabling the diskcache will reduce the chance of inconsistent *data* to DOS levels. But in the end, the application has to have precautions against inconsistent data, much like a journaling filesystem protects against inconsistent filesystem structure.

You could always take a step back in time and use 10base-2. Yeah, coaxial cable sucks and you're limited to 10 Mbps.
Also, I have no idea if any embedded ethernet controllers support BNC connectors, but this would allow to you take one device out of the power consumption equation.

Starting references: here and here.

To avoid the necessity of Outlook, I'm using Pine to connect to an Exchange NT server. It works like a charm. See

http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/Pine-Exchange/index .html

for instructions on how to set this up.

What does it provide that the Vim HOWTO doesn't? This strikes me as useful as a 'Developers Guide to ctags'.

Loopback Encrypted filesystem howto.html been out for god knows how, if you want it 'desktop integrated' (god knows why), just do some fancy button of your preferred design to run the scripts..


and don't speak of window managers if you really speak about desktop environments or whatnot they're called(kde/gnome).

For this I would take a look at the MP3-Box HOWTO. It describes a setup for a networked mp3 player, with low noise and everything.

• Serial Console (including reset and boot BIOS access)
  • RealWeasel (or similar if there is one) for console in each machine. Needed on machines whose BIOS or OS does not support a serial console.
  • Without RealWeasel, you could use a serial-to-keyboard adapter for remote ASCII console input. Console output becomes a separate problem. (I see a Keyat unit also allows several adapters on a single RS-485 interface, so a single RS-485 link could service several servers)
  • For Linux use, see the Remote Serial Console HOWTO..but no method to reset.
  • Terminal server, to convert all those serial ports to TCP/IP; IP support was specified. (Linux Serial Console HOWTO above has terminal server info also)
  • Mouse support: Another serial port, with servers configured for serial mice. On management workstation, install a serial mouse specifically for remote use.
  • Make a program for your management station which lets you select a remote console. The program pops up an appropriate terminal window (unless it already is running) and connects the serial mouse to remote's serial mouse input port.
• Reset/power control.
  • RealWeasel offers reset control.
  • Reset could be wired to relays, which would require relays controlled through TCP/IP (could b done through terminal server serial or parallel ports).
  • Web cam and robot arm. Details left as an exercise for the reader.
• Graphical console remote access
  • X11 Windows System: The usual X11 network access.
  • MS-Windows: Choose favorite remote console solution.
  • VNC: Question asker specified not to use it.
  • Remote Control Review: Review of several remote control packages.
• As IP is being used, all this can be run through Ethernet or serial PPP links. Or USB, with serial ports for console/mouse and USB-Ethernet for X11 through USB network (Is there an Ethernet-to-USB_Host device, so a USB-through-Ethernet device driver could talk to a remote USB network?)
• Encryption to protect console data: Have to encrypt the terminal server's link. X11 could run through an SSH tunnel.

• CERN management fabric, Jan 2001
• VA cluster manager for Intel boards with EMP
• Serial-to-network proxy
• Serial console howto
• Assorted switching gear

I agree that the ChangeLogs have gotten a lot better than what Linus used to put out.

I think that one of the areas where Open Source is severely behind with regards to non-Open Source is in the area of documentation. There are a few notable exceptions, of course, like Perl and Apache, but often times the documentation is either lacking or severely out of date. Telling users to "read the source" or "use --help" just doesn't cut it. The Linux Documentation Project is a great step forward, but has lots of work to go.

Unfortunately, I don't see a huge change on the horizon. Writing documentation is "boring" and not as "exciting" as programming. Maybe somebody needs to sponsor a group of technical writers...

Anyway, Stockton's page had me occupied for a few good hours. It's quite a read. It has great stuff on it, like the base filedate for Windows "Last Modified" calculation, when 16-bit BSDs die, when NTFS fails, etc. LOTS of good dates there.

I even submitted my newly-discovered UNIAPI_TIME epoch value. It was much more exciting that submitting my transmeta-based Gateway/AOL Webpad's BogoMips value to the BogoMips mini-HOWTO.

-B

Exactly what isn't compliant with IPv6 in the current (2.4) kernel? I'm currently using stock unpatched 2.4 to run a web server over IPv6 quite happily. It's the applications that are lacking support. Hell, with radvd it's functioning as a full 6-to-4 router for my home network.

Here's a little info . Doesn't go into specifics. Follow the links and you end up here .

They key is the "my home network" part. The router for an autonomous system would probably require full support. I'm running RH7.3 (kernel v2.4.18) and i don't see kame dancing.

Bandwidth Limiting HOWTO might be of some assitance? Or not... either way. It just caught my eye on linuxdoc.

That reminds me about a story I heard about the Mail Transport Agent for an obsolete mainframe operating system that couldn't cope with mail messages containing a certain word followed by a space at the start of the line. Fortunately that sort of thing would never happen nowadays.

Uh well yeah. Here is how to do Linux, here is how to make a Solaris Jumpstart Server and here is how to run Mac as a diskless node. They all basically use the same methods via bootp... Couldn't even begin to tell you about windows support.

All you have to do is put in the resolutions that you want to try to run your monitor at and it will ask the monitor if it can do them. The first listed resolution is the default, it will do the max refresh that the monitor can do at that resolution.

For your reference.

1) He was right about this being an Alpha release - I'm a 1yr linux newb, and your best bet is to not attempt to install an alpha release. Go here first to see instructions on building/compiling the KDE source for the various versions.

2) Go here for a list of all the 'newbie' help files, and try out this guide if you don't know what the previous person meant by 'unpacking the tar.gz' files.

If you're a Network or System Administrator, you should KNOW you're not safe.

You SHOULD be testing your systems constantly.
You SHOULD be installing new patches.
You SHOULD be subscribed to CERT style mailings.

You SHOULD NOT think you are safe because you're small. Security though obscurity is the biggest false sense if security I've seen. Former employees, especially the guy you replaced are a pretty large threat.

For beginners out there, here are some places to start... (Some of these are OLD links, but still contain some useful information and yes, they're Linux oriented.):
Beginners Guide to Armoring Linux
Linux Security Guide
Nessus
Traditional HOWTO

Sadly, I haven't been able to find a 'So you are a Windows guy moving into Linux' tut yet

there is a whole lot of stuff like that at The Linux Documentation Project. Like this one, which might just be relavent.

Sadly, I haven't been able to find a 'So you are a Windows guy moving into Linux' tut yet

there is a whole lot of stuff like that at The Linux Documentation Project. Like this one, which might just be relavent.

> Anyone know how to get my linux box to work with my modem?

Here is a web page that will get you going: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/PPP-HOWTO/ . I found it on google by searching for "linux modem howto".

If I am in a hurry, I may simply answer the question by simply cutting and pasting the results I found and attributing them (after all, attribution is the difference between research and plagerizing:-), as follows:

Try this...

Linux PPP HOWTO
Linux PPP HOWTO. Corwin Light-Williams. Joshua Drake. Copyright 2000
by Commandprompt, Inc. Copyright 1997 by Robert Hart. This is a ...
www.tldp.org/HOWTO/PPP-HOWTO/ - 12k - Cached - Similar pages

-- searched for "linux modem howto" on www.google.com

In addition to not insulting the intelligence of the poster, it gently nudges them in the direction of finding their own solutions.

> Anyone know how to get my linux box to work with my modem?

Here is a web page that will get you going: http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/PPP-HOWTO/ . I found it on google by searching for "linux modem howto".

If I am in a hurry, I may simply answer the question by simply cutting and pasting the results I found and attributing them (after all, attribution is the difference between research and plagerizing:-), as follows:

Try this...

Linux PPP HOWTO
Linux PPP HOWTO. Corwin Light-Williams. Joshua Drake. Copyright 2000
by Commandprompt, Inc. Copyright 1997 by Robert Hart. This is a ...
www.tldp.org/HOWTO/PPP-HOWTO/ - 12k - Cached - Similar pages

-- searched for "linux modem howto" on www.google.com

In addition to not insulting the intelligence of the poster, it gently nudges them in the direction of finding their own solutions.

Bah. This is old news. Haven't these people ever heard of the Coffee HOWTO?

This could be interesting
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/mini/Coffee.html