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Linux News Issue 02
L i n u x N e w s
A summary of the goings-on of the Linux community
Issue #2, October 10 through 17, 1992
"Still going strong!"
**** Highlights in this issue
- Linux News available via mail
- SLS 0.98pl1 released, initial problems due to pressure to release early
- New version of H.J. Lu's Linux Base System adds zip, unzip, tput, file
- Mailing list for reporting on systems that work or don't work with Linux
- Program to run multiple sessions over a modem line available
- Linux in the limelight: a listing of magazines that mention Linux
**** Editorial
I had some doubts about the market demand for Linux News, and boy was
I wrong. To date I have received a couple of dozen encouraging mail
messages. Thanks. Because of this, I have committed myself to doing
Linux News for the foreseeable future (at least a few months).
However, don't take that commitment too seriously: Linux News is not
a high priority project for me, and if I do not have time to finish an
issue, I will postpone it. If possible, though, I will attempt to
publish an issue some time around every weekend. I am hoping to be
able to allocate some time each Saturday to put together a new issue,
but don't count on it. (If you don't see anything for a couple of
weeks, then ask, but preferably not before.)
I have created a new channel on the Linux-Activists mailing list. It
is called LINUXNEWS, and I will send each issue to this list as well
as post it to comp.os.linux. If you are not interested in searching
through the newsgroup for the article, you can join the mailing list
channel and get it via mail. In order to do this, send an empty mail
to
linux-activists-request@niksula.hut.fi
This will give you a help text for the mailing list (you do want this,
and you want to save it, in order to be able to get off the list). Then
send another mail with the following mail body to actually join the
Linux News channel:
X-Mn-Admin: join linuxnews
You should get a confirmation in reply.
I plan to start doing a TeX or LaTeX version of Linux News for people
who want nice hardcopies. There was at least one person requesting
that, and even offering to do the conversion himself (thanks for the
offer, and one LaTeXed version). The idea is that in places with
relatively high concentrations of Linux users (universities, computer
clubs, etc), it might be worth it to print out one nicely looking
version, make copies of that, and hand it out to interested parties.
This could even lure new users to Linux. (If you must know, the real
reason for doing a typeset version is an excuse to be able to play
around with TeX/LaTeX, something which I have wanted to do for a long
time, but haven't done, partly because of a lack of a real project.)
I considered doing a Texinfo version, and played around for with it
for a few hours, but Texinfo doesn't have enough versatility as a
typesetting language to give the look that I want (it is more directed
towards typesetting manuals, not newspapers), nor have I thought of a
good way to break up things for hypertext. So I will only do (La)TeX
and plain ascii versions. Unless there is much opposition, I will
post both to both the newsgroup and the mailing list.
The Finnish University Network had problems with news flow most of the
week (the central news machine for the network did evil things to its
hard disks). Because of this, I may have missed some announcements.
If you find that something is missing, drop me a note (this applies
always, of course). Also, if you want to be certain that I see an
announcement in the future, send it to me via mail, and include the
words "Linux News" in the subject.
**** Notices
Linux News is only a summary, if you want more information about a
given subject, please see the source that is referenced at the end of
each note (for Usenet articles, the reference is the Message-ID of the
article). I try to include all the relevant information, including
ftp sites and filenames, as given in the announcements (I probably
won't have the time or energy to check filenames, or to find pointers
to other ftp sites). If possible, I will try to indicate directories
with a trailing /, e.g. ``pub/linux/SLS/''.
I won't include announcements on mailing lists or testing releases,
only things that are meant to be used generally (I admit that the line
can be somewhat difficult to draw, since the whole system is
pre-release).
**** News section
October 10. H.J. Lu released a new version of the Linux Base System.
The new version includes zip 1.9p1, unzip 5.0, tput 1.0, and the file
command.
The Base System is a set of three Minix filesystem floppies that
contain many packages, all compiled with the latest compiler and
libraries. However, it is neither as complete as the MCC or SLS
distributions, nor as well documented, so it is not as suitable for
inexperienced people. On the other hand, if you want up to date
binaries, try it out.
LBS is intended to be used with H.J. Lu's bootable root disk, since
the former lacks the shared library images.
FTP: tsx-11.mit.edu:pub/linux/GCC/basedisk/
(Source: <1992Oct10.194038.4413@serval.net.wsu.edu>)
October 12. Eugenio Sanchez posted the charter for the CONFIGS
channel on the linux-activists mailing list. From the charter: ``This
channel will be devoted to send submissions of systems that have Linux
already running, AND those that, for any reason, can't get it to work
yet.''
The intention is to create a place where working and non-working
configurations can be listed. Mr. Sanchez will be collecting
configurations until November 30, when his account expires.
(Source: <6107@mtecv2.mty.itesm.mx>)
October 13. Peter Williams announced a recompiled metafont. The new
version has been compiled using the latest X11 libraries (version
2.1), and jump table shared libraries (version 4.1). The only binary
affected is virmf (the only one using X11).
FTP: archsci.arch.su.edu.au (129.78.66.1):
pub/linux/tex-etc/Jump.4.1.version/mf.X2.1.T.Z (the updated binary,
also included in the current texetc.bin.T.Z package, so you need to
get only that if you are getting the files for the first time).
(Source: <1992Oct13.015559.10299@ucc.su.OZ.AU>)
October 14. Jonathan Badger reported that his upload of Sail 5.2
(some kind of game) is now available on sunsite.unc.edu, and will
eventually be available on tsx-11.
Jonathan commented that ``people must really want games!'', and
said that porting BSD games isn't very difficult. Perhaps we can look
forward to a number of new game ports by other people in the future?
FTP: sunsite.unc.edu: /pub/Linux/games/sail.tar.Z
(Source: <badger.719103159@phylo>)
October 14. Nicolai Langfeldt announced his uploads of several
programs for X11. Ghostscript 2.5.2, a PostScript interpreter that
can output in a variety of formats, including X11 preview, xcolors, a
program for X11 to show colors on screen, xviewgl, a program to view
GL animation files, and xman-groff, a version of xman that uses groff
(the xman in the Xfree86-1.1 distribution uses nroff).
Nicolai said that all ports were trivial, so no sources or patches
were provided. The packages contain binaries, auxiliary files, and
any included documentation. The programs were compiled with gcc
2.2.2d7 for Xfree86-1.1, and use jump tables.
FTP: nic.funet.fi and tsx-11.mit.edu: gs252.tar.Z, xcolors.Z,
xviewgl.tar.Z, xman-groff.T.Z. (No directories given in announcement.)
(Source: <1992Oct14.085547.18773@ifi.uio.no>)
October 14. Michael O'Reilly said that his program for running
multiple sessions (including file transfer) over a modem line was up
for ftp. He claims it is more efficient than SLIP. His program
features compression and error correction (since his modem doesn't).
FTP: tartarus.uwa.edu.au: /pub/oreillym/term061.tar.Z
(Source: <1bhdgbINNfhp@tartarus.uwa.edu.au>)
October 15. The eagerly awaited update of SLS to version 0.98 came
this week. The first versions had problems with file permissions and
similar things, but things should have settled down now and the
current version should be fairly ok. The kernel is version 0.98pl1.
Peter MacDonald, who does the SLS release, reports that most of the
problems were due to doing a release too quickly, and that that was
because of to too many people putting pressure on him to release
quickly, and notes that patience is a major virtue for Linux users.
Hopefully people will be a bit more patient in the future, so that new
releases don't have to be followed by several fixes in a couple of
days.
If you have downloaded some of the earlier versions of 0.98, you
can update using the SLS update mechanism (see SLS documentation),
instead of getting everything again. [ There was a new fix announced
October 16. It fixes an installation problem with soft links. Get
the newest a4/zafixtaz or Perms.fix. ]
SLS is an easily installed Linux distribution package, with all of
the important (and much of the unimportant) software included in a
hopefully coherent whole. SLS and MCC (another similar package) are
the recommended starting places if you are new to Linux.
FTP: tsx-11.mit.edu:pub/linux/SLS/
(Source: <1992Oct15.140231.24734@athena.mit.edu>)
October 15. R. Ramesh announced his upload of a kermit binary to
tsx-11. This is version 5A(183), and is compiled with gcc 222d7 and
jump 4.1.
This is a beta version of kermit. The original source supports
Linux (makefile target linuxgcc2), so porting is not needed.
Ramesh also said that he had uploaded groff 1.05 and utila-1.0
compiled with gcc 2.2.2d7 and jump table 4.1, but that announcement
had disappeared. Further, he said that the faith_FSF stuff on tsx-11
should no longer be used, since they have been made obsolete newer
uploads.
FTP: tsx-11.mit.edu (filename not given in announcement),
watson.cc.columbia.edu: /kermit/sw/ck183.tar.Z (original source)
(Source: <1992Oct15.152945.10690@utdallas.edu>)
October 15 and 16. Peter Williams said that he had made a binaries of
version 5.495 of dvips (a TeX .dvi file to PostScript converter)
available.
He said that the compilation is straightforward, but that it
requires the standard Unix line editor ed, which is not very common on
Linux systems. He did point to a version available on tsx-11.
FTP: archsci.arch.su.edu.au (129.78.66.1):
pub/linux/tex-etc/Jump.4.1.version/dvips5495.T.Z (Linux binaries);
labrea.stanford.edu: pub/dvips5495.tar.Z, pub/dvips5493lib.tar.Z
(original sources); tsx-11.mit.edu: pub/linux/apps/ed.c (ed source for
Linux)
(Sources: <1992Oct15.234923.18691@ucc.su.OZ.AU>
<1992Oct16.023526.964@ucc.su.OZ.AU>)
**** Xref section
Linux has been mentioned and is expected to be mentioned in the near
future in various magazines. This is a summary of what has been
discussed on comp.os.linux and sent to me via mail. I have not been
able to verify most of the reports, since I do not have access to most
of these magazines (neither does Linus, btw; he probably doesn't mind
getting a copy, hint, hint). If you know of additional articles (or
books :-), send me a note.
iX, a small German magazine, had an article in issue ??? about Linux.
(This one I have seen.)
Computer Shopper, a US publication (I think), has an article in the
September issue that compares Unices for 386's and mentions Linux and
386BSD shortly.
SuperASCII, a Japanese magazine, has an article in VOL.3 #10 October
1992. This is a comparison of BSD, Mach, Linux, and others. Linux
gets 8 pages, including instructions on how to get and install it.
UnixWorld and Unix Review, two American magazines, mention Linux in
their October issues (only a line each or so, though).
Algorithm, a hobbyist magazine, devotes most of its MicroScope column
to Linux in the October-November issue. The column is written by
Claude Morin.
C'T, a German magazine, has an article on Linux in the November issue
(out October 15). The article is reported to be pretty positive. I
was told that it discusses Linux in general, history, development,
properties, hardware requirements, features, some of the available
software, and how to get it via FTP, but not installation, or newbie
advice. It also discusses the distributed development.
ComputerTotaal, probably a Dutch magazine, will have an article about
Linux in the December issue, by Hans Oey and Joost Helberg.
Source posts:
<1992Oct14.181622.16550@fwi.uva.nl>
<WIDMER.92Oct15172317@sas.zzz.pe.u-tokyo.ac.jp>
<1992Oct15.135102.20986@cs.ucla.edu>
<2950@nlsun1.oracle.nl>
<Bw6Gsn.9p1@ais.org>
<1992Oct16.031804.18362@julian.uwo.ca>
